Rover Place - Share Your Rovers and Rover Journeys Here

[problemecium]

There's no option for Kerbin, and this isn't (just) a troll comment. I have actually put rovers in planes or on skycranes and landed them places on Kerbin.

...screenie of my latest rover(s) coming later when I have AC power and can run my laptop at full throttle.

Edited January 9, 2015 by parameciumkid

[Russoft]

I've done Mun and Minmus rovering a tiny bit (plus Kerbin), and I think I sent one to Duna once..but aside from the uh, "direct" fun factor of driving around, I find that their practical usage for in-game goals is kinda...lacking?

Agreed. I don't know how rovers can be made more useful, but I hope they find a way. The only time I made practical use of a rover, I collected science from two biomes in addition to the one I landed in (Mun). The time it took to collect that science made it rather a waste of time. I could've built 3 landers and landed them in those individual biomes instead. I'm hoping that I find more use for rovers in 0.9 but I'm not optimistic.

[Uncle Mort]

I find rovers are good for doing seismic surveys on the Mun and Minmus.

[SofusRud]

I landed this one on Duna back in .25

Drove it to my other lander, about 24km

Then returned it orbit

docked it to the mothership and returned to Kerbin

[aeroeng14]

Here's a rover contract mission I did on Kerbin. Really proud of landing it on the mountainous western continent with only a 'chute. I transversed that slope on the way down with 30+ min of zig-zagging.

[Van Disaster]

Sometime last year there was a completely open challenge to get from KSC to the old KSC in a ground vehicle as fast as possible - that was rather fun.

Trip album - https://flic.kr/s/aHsjKw77kb

This was an Eeloo mission in 0.22 - I spent much time trying to break the rover on Mun, and got to the point of just breaking tyres by the end.

Not done much recently, few utility vehicles & airdroppable RT relays, but they're pretty dull.

[Renegrade]

Agreed. I don't know how rovers can be made more useful, but I hope they find a way. The only time I made practical use of a rover, I collected science from two biomes in addition to the one I landed in (Mun). The time it took to collect that science made it rather a waste of time. I could've built 3 landers and landed them in those individual biomes instead. I'm hoping that I find more use for rovers in 0.9 but I'm not optimistic.

Unfortunately I haven't found much use in Beta than Ever myself..at least not any that can't be done better with airplanes or short rocket hops etc. :C

Sometime last year there was a completely open challenge to get from KSC to the old KSC in a ground vehicle as fast as possible - that was rather fun.

Are those wings on the first rover for downforce? Like in an F-1 car?

[alacrity]

To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee...

That's not a rover...

This is a ROVER...

Alacrity

[DSKY]

I know boosts might be nice with rovers, but fuel tanks just add weight and make things hard! why?!

My Landmaster only uses tanks for the descent pods.. The center section of the rover is actually a cargo bay. Tanks can be useful on rovers if they have engines for "hopping", or to add ballast to for traction and stability in a low-gravity environment. They can also be simply structural, with no fuel loaded. A "refueling truck" would need a tank to service other vehicles.

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I have to say, that's a neat looking rover.

Thanks Renegrade! I agree, there aren't many practical uses. I did get some use out of this ugly little guy (the rover, not the Kerbal!):

I winched it down the side of a mountain to try to get as close as possible to, uh, "something" hidden below the surface. Driving, it will handle about a 45 degree slope, traveling sideways. After completing the mission, I managed to drive it down to a plateau big enough to land a helicopter on, which I used to carry it out of the mountains. I haven't hauled it all the way back to KSP yet - I may build a cargo plane to retrieve it and then put it on display in front of the administration building. It would be nice to have a "museum" building to store historic vehicles in!

Edited January 10, 2015 by DSKY

[Van Disaster]

Are those wings on the first rover for downforce? Like in an F-1 car?

That was the intention, although after some testing using enough wing to keep it completely stuck to the ground a) turned it into an aircraft when the nose got too high, broke things on bumps, c) caused a crazy amount of drag and d) sank it in the water section. In the end I settled for "keeping it generally attached to the ground" and making sure it didn't lawn-dart when it caught air. The land sections were entirely heart-in-mouth wondering if the next thump was going to break something off, but once I'd stiffened some parts & made others more flexible nothing fell off which I didn't actually want to fall off.

[Renegrade]

That was the intention, although after some testing using enough wing to keep it completely stuck to the ground a) turned it into an aircraft when the nose got too high, broke things on bumps, c) caused a crazy amount of drag and d) sank it in the water section. In the end I settled for "keeping it generally attached to the ground" and making sure it didn't lawn-dart when it caught air. The land sections were entirely heart-in-mouth wondering if the next thump was going to break something off, but once I'd stiffened some parts & made others more flexible nothing fell off which I didn't actually want to fall off.

Ah okay. I was wondering if that sort of concept did work, and it sounds like it does--but with massive caveats. I've made some high speed rovers to collect science around Kerbin, and to also rapidly park kerbals I want to keep outside of the active area for KSC, but I generally kept them to 60m/sec or less (depending on terrain).

(the high speed rovers were replaced with low-speed/high lift planes that could land slowly enough to land on rough terrain..and then I stopped collecting Kerbin science entirely as it's rather low income compared to .. well, anything else )

[Van Disaster]

To be fair what made it work is those nearly unbreakable TT wheels - aerodynamics are from FAR but I don't think that would make *that* much difference to a rover. I ended up using pWings to attach the wheels, which were luckily strong enough to handle bumps and just flexible enough to cope with hard landings ( and helped with a little downforce ). Also tons and tons of B9 compressed air RCS to cushion shocks and help keep everything going in the right direction.

Top speed was about 165m/s, which is nothing compared to even a basic aircraft.

[StrandedonEarth]

My Tylo Rescue Rover undergoing testing on Kerbin. It did a 100km drive on Tylo after dropping the tankage to rescue a stranded crewman. Several quickloads were required as it got skittish over 25m/s

[Liowen]

One that I built some time ago colorfully called "The Rove Boat" was actually pretty fast, well at least on water it was fast. It could reach nearly 100m/s on the water but only a fraction of that on land, and climbing mountains was a real pain as it needed the jet engine to give it power. I may see if I still have the old craft file and see about taking it out again, I would still like to see this go to Laythe some day as well, I think it would do very well there....Mmmm ideas!

[Commander Zoom]

Tre Kerman and I have driven this rover to both poles of Duna and various other points of interest, including the Face. Right now I'm in the middle of a proper, roughly equatorial circumnaviation, west to east (most of my roving so far has either been west, north, or south of the landing site, so the east is terra incognita).

[Liowen]

Well I could not find my Rove Boat file anywhere, so I decided to make a new version.

This one can be configured to haul people, payload, or just tons of fuel to where ever with just a few part changes. It is also MUCH faster on water than the original!

It is stable on the ground up to about 40m/s, any higher and it pulls hard to the left....not sure why yet but as long as I keep it under 40m/s all is well. It can ever jump off of hills LOL.

[Tw1]

These two, which I explored Rocky, airless planets with in 0.18 and 0.19.

The main one had drop tanks set up to change the COM from driving suited to flying suited. I was quite proud of the design.

Duna Explore-o-pod, long term mission. Equator to icecap, then back in time for rescue.

Laythepod, a recent amphibious design.

Ye Old mega munar load lifter:

A smaller version of this was once used to relocate sections of a Mun base some 10km.

Cube KAS Climber, fastest climber of the VAB in a challenge.

This thing, an old fave, versions of which have seen use since roverwheels first came out. I now need to redesign it probably, because of the massive new Mk3 parts.

Stealth Rover!*Batman theme plays*

Kethane truck thingies, which have varied slighly over time:

The Mantis Shrimp climbing rover. I still haven't done that Mohole mission.

Mega Wacklifter, used to flip an awkward load and tow it into orbit.

Used in the Kerbin Cup competition.

And lastly, the Evepod.

It's like a high gravity, rough terrain motorhome. Also, quite capable in the water.

Misspelt word deliberate.

There's a taste of my rover menagerie.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Tw1

[Van Disaster]

Hm, seems I have a bunch of old rovers...

This thing might actually be quite useful now - I think the antennae were a sort of rollcage.

Not so sure about this:

Mun towtruck using what appears to be Buran arms

Looking a little like infecting Duna. I think a new version came out shortly after that & I restarted, so I don't think those little guys ever went too far.

Minmus crane & EPL tanker.

[Nitrous Oxide]

My first unmanned Munar rover, Juno 1:

And yeah, I didn't really test it much before flinging it at the Mun, but I refined my design for Juno 2:

[Vrana]

My first moonbase was a city made of rovers.

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Followed by a rover Duna base....

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And a smaller one on Minmus...

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And here is a more recent model...

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And this one is probably still my favorite...

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Edited January 11, 2015 by Vrana

[LordFerret]

My Mun and Minmus rover...

[Archgeek]

Behold! The magnificently stupid Puddle Jumper Mk1 EX!

Weighing in at just under 1.3 tonnes wet it used an ion engine to hover at .99 TWR on the Mun, hopping over craters and catching sweet air off ramps.

With RCS thrusters and spaceplane wheels capable of over 63m/s on Kerbin, a single z100 battery pack somehow good for 8 second hops in darkness, it proved too big for a cargo hold and had to have its second probe core that actually faces prograde be selected and given control before it could even be used. I might address this in the Mk2 EX if there is one.

Unadvisedly, I clamped it upside-down on top of the Kerbal-X to send it to the Mun for field testing, resulting in...questionable maneuvers to get it down to the surface. The tests were fairly successful, though:

Significantly damaged, it could still take off from the lunar surface, and probably had the delta-v to return to Kerbin.

Even severely damaged, it proved itself surprisingly capable.

My piloting, however, left a bit to be desired. Regardless, it sure was a lot of fun to crash.

[Renegrade]

Significantly damaged, it could still take off from the lunar surface, and probably had the delta-v to return to Kerbin.

If it was still about 1.3t, yes, it would have about 1,900 delta-v at the time of that screenshot. Less mass (damage, fuel consumption) would increase that figure too...

I wonder if ion-powered spaceplane wheeled lunar take-offs are the new high efficiency/low TWR way of launching.. the wheels cancelling out gravity drag until orbital speed is attained.

Not sure there's enough spots on the Mun that are smooth enough for that type of shenanigan though

(Although.. given that line of thought, a Munar launch rail wouldn't have to worry about atmospheric drag and gaining altitude, and wouldn't have to be as fast as a Kerbin or Earth launch system...)

[JDCollie]

My long range science rover. Combined with the rover autopilot from mechjeb and a bit of waypoint making, this rover could go very very far in relative automated safety. It runs off of Karbonite, so it doesn't require sunlight to function either, and has a drill to match giving it nearly limitless range.

[Steambirds]

My first moonbase was a city made of rovers.

-snip-

Followed by a rover Duna base....

http://imgur.com/a/nXJj0

And a smaller one on Minmus...

-snip

And here is a more recent model...

-snip-

And this one is probably still my favorite...

-snip-

What mod are those tracks from?