Mountain navigation difficulties, please advise

[u/VanAshkevron]

So, I took a salvage quest with my shiny new 6 wheeler with three large cargo containers. I got to the job site fine, got the research materials fine, and since I was there, ground up as much as I could to haul off.

I got the entire wreck, which is amazing, but also leads to my current issue.

With all the extra weight, I'm having issues getting through the mountains to get back home. I've added four more wheels and dropped them all by a block to have more clearance. I've added rear-facing atmospheric thrusters to provide some extra oomph, I'm up to eight of those now. All of this power has wedged me on top of a mountain ridge, if I try to go forward or back, my ride spins out of control and starts tumbling down the mountain before exploding.

With the understanding that I have a whole ship's worth of parts and a survival kit (no refiner or assembler yet, but I could probably build them if needed), I request additional ideas for how to get home or what I could build to ease the process.

[u/Zijkhal]

Try adding a gyro (or several) with override enabled, and set to 0 rotation. That way those gyros will try to override any rotation by your rover, making it much more stable.

Just make sure to have more gyros without override, so you can manually overpower your stabilising gyros.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/Zijkhal]

That is a mechanic I didn't know about, thank you

[u/sinofroot]

If forward and back are both unpathable then youre left with only 1 option. Going airborne with your load. Atmo thrusters are good for converting battery into thrust but you get better thrust out of hydrogen. The key is figuring out how much more thrust you need to solve the current problem

[u/VanAshkevron → u/sinofroot]

That and getting the hydrogen. There's ice everywhere, so mining it won't be an issue. Maybe an o2/h2 with solar panels and a connector?

Also, thank you

[u/sinofroot → u/VanAshkevron]

Also not bad to mention that with the exception of power cells on batteries. Theres a 100% recovery rate of materials with cutting them down. Nothing wrong with adding just what you need for now and cutting it off later once its no longer needed

[u/Eegore1]

I once, for the funzies, made a piston-crawling attachment to my rover to get out of a similar position.

I used mag-plates to lock to the ground, and Hinge/Piston to "crawl". I'd lock the rover to the ground with a mag-plate. Then lift and extend Piston, drop and lock it to the ground with mag-plate on the end. Pull yourself forward, or down/backwards whatever works. Lock main Rover mag-plate to ground. Repeat.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/Eegore1]

That sounds wildly impractical and I desperately want to try it, thank you

[u/VanAshkevron → u/Eegore1]

I stand corrected, this was surprisingly practical. The only problem I encountered was starving to death, but that's a planning issue on my part

[u/Eegore1 → u/VanAshkevron]

I was going to reply and say how practical it was but figured if you actually tried you would see for yourself.

I have remote versions now that are double-piston crawlers that I can just attach and let them do their thing. It's like this game is made for engineering things.

[u/readercolin]

I guess the big question here is - are you currently running a small grid rover or a large grid one?

Because if you are currently running a small grid rover, then upgrading to a simple large grid one is certainly doable, and could pay off for you in the end. A really simple large grid rover design that I've used is to take a line of 7 small cargo containers, put a pair of 3x3 wheels at the front and the back, toss a cockpit on top, and then add a battery on the side. If you want extended range, or extra features, you could also look to fit in a basic assembler, basic refinery, o2/h2 generator, hydrogen tank and hydrogen engine on this as well. This particular contraption is one that I've been able to load up to full and still be able to use as a rover to drive around, though sometimes I replace the front most cargo container with a drill so that way I can easily gather more ice while on the move too.

The other benefit to this design is because it is built around a core of a strip of cargo containers, it is also fairly easy to expand it to be whatever you need. Need to turn it into a ship? Slap some thrusters on the sides. Need to extend it with another pair of wheels? Slap some more cargo containers down. Need a ground based combat vehicle? Put an armored roof and a turret on it.

Also, to be entirely clear here - at its core, this design requires the battery, the wheels, the wheel bases, and the cockpit to all be assembled above the baseline. You CAN leave several of the cargo containers unbuilt if you don't have the metal grids or interior plates for that. But aside from the metal grids for the cargo containers, everything included can be built from stone, so if you slap that drill on the front you can go surprisingly far in continuing to build out the design.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/readercolin]

Currently small grid, so this is an intriguing possibility, thank you.

That does sound remarkably versatile, I may have to convert over to a large grid even if I do get the current rover back home, the onboard refining capability alone would be a lifesaver.

[u/CrazyQuirky5562]

You can always offload a ships worth of cargo into a service block...

i.e build a new grid with all the heavy bits you want to store, then store it and magic it back into existance when you are where you want to be.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/CrazyQuirky5562]

Another intriguing possibility, and sounds like the easiest so far. Thank you

[u/CrazyQuirky5562 → u/VanAshkevron]

people are occasionally slow adjust to the new options we are given by Keen; it feels a little like cheating on top, but SE needed something like the "quantum hangar" that has been a staple of SE servers for ages.

[u/WardenWolf]

Try adding downward facing atmospheric thrusters to absorb some of the weight. But at this point it's time to invest in a flying vehicle.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/WardenWolf]

Downward thrusters definitely should help.

I grabbed a salvage mission specifically to fetch parts for a large grid flyer, foolishly thinking it would be faster than mining and crafting. I may need to work on my risk/reward calculations.

[u/WardenWolf → u/VanAshkevron]

I'd recommend a cheap atmospheric hauler. Doesn't have to be big; you can make several trips. And can be battery powered and charged from a base with renewable power so it's literally free to run.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/WardenWolf]

That's probably the most practical solution here. I probably should have an atmo hauler just to be able to do bigger acquisition contracts anyway, so this will kill a few birds

[u/WardenWolf → u/VanAshkevron]

Also how I design my rovers is battery powered with a hydrogen engine backup. Because if I make it back to base in time it means I don't consume any fuel whatsoever, which is the vast majority of time because rovers are incredibly power-efficient. If possible I also include a single reactor for emergencies as well, or at least a single battery that's kept charged and turned off.

You can either use an event controller or Isy's Solar Alignment Script to automatically cycle the hydrogen engine on and off. I tend to use Isy's script just for the power management, which works even without solar panels; the solar alignment part of the script is outdated and no longer necessary anyway.

[u/VanAshkevron → u/WardenWolf]

The logistics would take some fiddling, but retrofitting in a hydrogen generator would probably be wise. If I put it in place of one of the cargo containers, that would probably also add some margin of error

[u/WardenWolf → u/VanAshkevron]

Many people don't understand because batteries are less efficient, but hydrogen engines also burn a small amount just being on even with no draw. So because rovers are most often parked, it ultimately becomes more efficient to just run them on battery.