Source
r/KerbalAcademy•
Musfuut

Testing Landers and Rovers

Question

I've been struggling the past few days trying to design a good rover for the mun. I know there are tutorials and guides for making them but I really wanted a sense of homegrownness and getting things right myself. It has however presented a problem, the amount of time it takes to launch a new design to the mun to test it.

So I was wondering what methods do others use for testing rovers and landers, other than long flight after long flight? Are there any mods that might help?

Thanks for any input!

Posted Aug 14, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

515
aaraujo666•

HyperEdit. Allows you to take a ship straight from the Launchpad to an orbit. Then it allows u to land the ship as well.

4
MusfuutOP•

I have HyperEdit and have used it to get ships into orbit but how do I land them?

2
aaraujo666•

there's an option "Land Ship" in Hyperedit

Your say Lat&Long and Altitude, like 50m, it hacks gravity, so your ship descends real slow, giving you enough time to turn it right side up...

2
MusfuutOP•

Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for. I mistook it for the same option in MechJeb, that it was literally going to land my ship for me and it has no wings lol. Thanks for setting that straight.

1
aaraujo666•

Yup. I write a lot of tutorials and I like to illustrate them with screenshots from the game, so HyperEdit is my best friend!

Check them out at http://www.mykspcareer.com

2
ozymandias2•

I test my rover landers by launching north out of KSC, and dropping the landing module off on the north pole... If I can land my rover safely, or even close to safely on kerbin, mun should be trivial...

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
hab136•

Rovers that work great on Kerbin sometimes won't work so well in low-gravity (Mun, Minimus).

2
MusfuutOP•

As u/hab136 just beat me to. The problem I have been having is I've been building rovers that drive on Kerbin rock solid. As soon as I get them all the way to the Mun they flip out fly out of control become impossible to control even at 5m/s

I thought weight was the issue, and center of mass. So my latest rover I put all the weight in the bottom. Best rover ever (on Kerbin), used u/aaraujo666's advice concerning HyperEdit and got it to the Mun... it lasted exactly 40 seconds before it was torn into three pieces.

Starting to think it is not the height of the mass as much as it is where that mass is from front to back. I'll keep at it though.

1
aaraujo666•

Don't forget!!!!

When trying to drive a rover, use "Docking Mode". This turns off torque generation by the capsule/probe and will avoid a lot of flips from that.

But if you hit a bump or come off the lip of that crater too fast, we all know what happens!! :)

3
znode•

Remember to turn off the torque wheels in your robotic controller part. They all come with a small amount of torque, and can flip the rover (besides wasting electricity). Right click on the probe part/robotic controller thing, and turn the Reaction Wheels off.

If you use high-traction wheels on a low-grav planet, the traction is VERY high. If you brake they would love to flip forwards, and if you accelerate fast they wheelie. The key here is to set up Action Groups so that only two wheels work at a time: when driving forward, turn off the back two wheels; when braking/slowing down, turn off the front two wheels. This is much less of a problem with low-traction wheels, but then they'd rather listen to the smallest slopes rather than to your controls.

1
TinyPirate•

Awesome tips! I just dot drive terribly fast. Or I attach RCS and a roll cage =) - also, slap some plates on the outside and you prevent a lot of damage!

1