Space Engineers - Building Tips for Large Grid Rovers 

Remember people. As in real life - Before starting off on your mining Venture, Do the proper vehicle walk around, check the tire pressure and make sure you don't have parts hanging off that could start grass fires.

I like how his Rover lands and makes a giant crater casually

If you put wheels too close to each other, especially with a high steering angle, they can actually touch and fight each other. Same if the wheels touch parts of the hull. This causes you to waste power and reduces your wheel's efficiency. Remember, a huge vehicle isn't gonna turn on a dime. There are always trade-offs, and if you fight them rather than work around them, you'll have problems.

Pro tip for aligning the connector on the bottom, and you can do this with flying vehicles, too, is to create an auto docking sequence using GPS and a remote set to auto-pilot. What you do is you get the vehicle lined up to where it can connect, then create a new GPS marker from current location. Now, backup the vehicle in a straight line to where it's clear of obstacles. Create another GPS from current location. Now, back up once more, about one length of the vehicle, and create one final GPS. Be sure to have labeled them, I'd suggest "Dock End," "Dock Approach," and "Dock Start." In your remote, you'll setup the waypoints in sequence of "Dock Start," "Dock Approach," and "Dock End." There are tutorials online explaining how to use remotes, so I suggest you watch those if you don't already know. Be sure to restrict top speed to a safe speed. Once setup, as you near your base, you can enable the auto-pilot, and the rover will guide itself in along the GPS route, and end directly inline with the connector of your base. If using a flying ship, you only need two waypoints, the one on the connector, and one directly above the connector a few meters up. You can also use this system for security drones, automated parking and take-off, and even shipping routes you may frequent. Another thing I do for all my small vehicles is setup two timer blocks that finalize docking or startup launch. The docking timer block shuts down all auxiliary systems like antenna, ore detector, O2/H2 gennys, thrusters, lights, gyros, etc., then it tells the connector to lock, and finally, it sets the batteries to recharge and O2 and H2 tanks to stockpile. It is key that batteries be switched AFTER connecting, or the connector won't have power to connect. The startup timer block does the same thing but in reverse sequence, setting batteries to auto, taking O2 and H2 off of stockpile, thruster ignition, gyros come back on, etc., finally ending in forcing the connector to unlock. It saves a lot of time and power, prevents gyros from fighting the ship or rover you dock with, prevents the thrusters from wasting fuel/energy and burning holes into the ship, etc. There are a lot of quality of life things in this game, and all of the ones I just mentioned above don't require scripts, either, great if you play on a server that doesn't allow scripts (not sure why anyone would do that, but some do, I suppose). They're definitely advanced features, but not horribly difficult to learn. They take some time and practice to setup, but the convenience you get in the long run is just as desirable as setting up your building toolbar the same way between games. Annoying to setup, but worth it.

For the jack stability I put a landing gear on the bottom of mine that way you can lock to the surface on uneven ground

One thing I discovered that comes under the DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME category is I had a rover about that size and had a connector on the top rear. Really convenient. until one day - just before logging off - I had put too much Down force on it with the connector. This apparently Compressed the Suspension. Upon logging back in there was a huge explody sound and My Rover was just gone. Couldn't find it. and about a minute later my base also exploded. I reloaded that world to try to figure out what went wrong (i thought I was under attack that I failed to didn't notice the first time). The exact same thing happened as soon as I logged in. By about the 4th reload I accidentally looked straight up, and at about 1500 meters I found My truck just finishing its arc as It started back down to land on my base like a 50,000 pound bomb. Ever since then I have fitted Connectors on the sides of the vehicle and Totally avoid compressing the suspension.

Tip for you as well: The inability to properly accelerate when turning actually stems from design and forces the faulty desing experiences, it all comes down to placement of wheels. Generally, there can be only 1-2 places where rover really "turns" and only 1 axis, around which it rotates during turning. In traditional car it is "turning" on the front wheels and it rotates on the back wheels. Say, if you have 2 pairs of wheels on back, they wont cause much drag if they are close together, if they are too spaced out, they need some steering added to it to follow turning curve to prevent drag being made. Your rover suffers from it in 2 middle sets of wheels. Since in SE they way wheels turn is calculated based on center of mass, I would turn off steering on second set from the front and third should turn but with decreased steering angle. This would probably make rover turn more with its bum, but well, it would turn faster. Optionally, you can leave the third set out or just decrease its friction value, making it purely weight-bearing or a decoration.

Helpful tip from the future. Make sure you put grip pads on the bottom of pistons. Keeps you from sliding and tipping on sloped ground.

In terms of lining up connectors in a base, a fairly consistent way i found is to line it up once then change the colour of the blocks under the wheels (if you have no platform make one). Can even have a line of blocks in a 3rd colour as a guide to line it up better.

A couple trucks I've used... In order to reduce weight and increase interior space, I use catwalks as walls.it even works for the exterior walls, if you don't mind a sheet metal skin. To keep attached ships from being dropped because I pressed P, placing the connectors on either advanced rotors or pistons places the connectors on subgrids, where the P key won't disconnect them.

I love the build it's really well though out and gave me some good ideas for my own

The jacking pistons are genious! That is some excellent advice. Thankyou!

For multi wheeled vehicles you need to decrease the steering angle the closer to the center of rotation a set of wheels are. For example an 8x8 with evenly spaced wheels would have the front and rear set of wheels at say 24 degrees of turning to lock, while the center two sets of wheels only turn maybe 18 degrees till they hit lock. If it was an evenly spaced 10x10 then the center most set of wheels should have steering turned off. For odd wheel spacing like 4 in the front and 6 in the rear you will have to toy with the settings to figure out what works best for your design. But you can look at large multi wheeled military vehicles to get an idea of how their steering works. You can also only have say the front two sets of wheels steer on a 8x8 like the Stryker 8x8 AFV.

These video’s are a real help

My friend is the "rover guy" on our clan. He will have a field day learning a few tricks from your video.

thanks mate this helped me a lot when designing my own large rover for a survival series in space engineers that i want to do so thank you.

I've just found your channel. Great quality content, Keep up the good work.

Thats a very good video, thank you for these tips, that I am always forgetting while projecting on my own... I can see it is almost a 2 years old video, but I would like to point out 2 solutions of issues that you mentioned in your video: #1 - issues with move while the wheels are turned. Basically it is issue caused by too high traction - where tires are holding its position, instead of being dragged on sides (we need the differential propulsion to avoid this) ...or less traction. #2 - using [P] button does disconnecting other parked vehicles from connectors. That one might be updated now, but I can see an option in the connector blocks that allow to disable/exclude it from "parking use". Much handy when we make it right way.

Appreciate the help keep up the good work!

Advanced tip: Isolate your front pair of wheels, and turn OFF brakes for them. This will dramatically reduce the tendency to lean forward too hard when slamming the brakes. On worlds where ingame scripts are allowed, the DAS program is particularly helpful for rovers, big and small. It primarily works as electronic stability & traction control software, managing the strength and steering angles of your wheels for optimal performance at whatever speed you're moving (wheel steering is tuned to match proper turning circles, and steering angles lower at higher speeds to prevent oversteering rollovers). DAS also features a speed limiter, cruise control, partial self-driving autopilot that follows recorded paths or moves to GPS locations (and remembers your home base and gives distance & bearing), odometer, jump-jet control, terrain sensing for automatic wheel alignment with the ground, shock dampener strengthener when falling, automatic wheel replacement, and other features. All features can be tuned, or disabled with simple boolean settings in the program, and the program can be controlled by running commands on the programmable block via the cockpit toolbar. Also, the P key is no longer to be dreaded or feared, as connectors can now be individually set to ignore the parking signal. It's a good idea to simply switch ALL connectors on the entire grid to ignore the P key, and then manually set up hotbar controls for connectors (especially important for stations where support craft may be docked!). It's also a good idea to try to design your support ships to have a landing gear that also locks when parking, just to guarantee the grid never escapes from a little thing like connectors switching state.

14:35 "Artificial Horizon" ;) Nice rover.

helpful tips cheers! just started a no atmos thruster game to force me to use rovers haha

if you do the camera diagonally it helps a lot

Looks nice, I'll take one.

I found making a low slung frame out of blast door blocks works best. They have a smaller hit box than other blocks, don't deform like armor blocks, are really quite heavy to get the center of gravity low, but most importantly they're incredibly tough!

For mine it was heavily armored (utility/cargo carrier) so i had jacks as well as relief/taxi wheels that extended just enough to lift the chassis up off its suspension so it wasn't weighed down, the wheels still had enough traction to drive but it also kept the wheels from shifting too much so I could steady it into its dock at my base

It's beautiful. I aspire to make one like it in survival mode, one day.

Nice looking rover, I like it!

That's beautiful!

That rover is a modified version of a rover that is in the title screen make by Xocliw a space engineers dev. the rover: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1460398681

@14:34 in fighter jets they call it a "ladder". At least in USA in the 90s

my problem with rovers is that clang always wins. whether it randomly explodes, shoots in to space, develops Parkinson's/tremors, decides to develop an immune system that thinks the small grid util ships are viruses or any other number of things. no matter what in the end i lose. as much as i want to play the game legit these things force me to "cheat".

It's a nice vehicle. I'd have liked to see more of the interior.

Magnetic pilates in the bottum of the pistons help a lot

I actually have one of these in my survival world and I'm currently adding a suspension script to it.

This looks perfect for a rover. Have you considered dropping a cam with a piston to get a better view when connecting it up?

Made one about a month ago with articulated pitch from the back and front carriage, works like a dream.

The best solution I've found is to make 4x4 wheel block on each corner. Attach a rotor and a hinge above the centre point of the 4 wheels and extend a straight line of blocks from the centre going up. Create a box around this pole and fill the well with plane landing gear as dampeners on 4 sides of the blocks. Now you have 4x4 wheel truck that can follow the terrain to quite extreme angles. You need the swcs wheel script to control wheels through rotors but the outcome is you have a rover that goes anywhere and is virtually impossible to tip over 😂.

Love that rover, is it in the work shop? I want a walk through. Lol

I typically add outrigger wheels about a block above the base wheels with a cargo/sorter style ballast system for balance.

For rover, you put half block heavy armor on top for more protection. Because it's so heavy, only cover the most important thing in your rover: the cargo, battery/reactor, weapons welder. The thing is, enemy ships that's come from the sky have less firepower, because they're not having enough space for placing more guns due to having more thruster combating gravity. Except, you're really outclassed, or bombarded.

a good way to add repair options to a large grid rover is to have two nanobot build and repair systems(modded block) set to fly mode as this will not only keep the wheels at 100% but as long as the grid has the needed stuff any other damage will also be fixed pretty fast well at least thats what people on my server do as we have that mod

My god this is pretty!

How you make letters on blocks? This design give a strong Mass Effect vibes :)

5:15 I laughed involuntarily. Why would anyone want to jump somewhere with such a big rover? :D But I love your inputs. Thank you! I've lost two of my rovers to an invisible force. I love that SE has bugs. They push me to better designs every time.

You should try the DAS script for your rover bud, its a great script for any wheel based vehicle, large or small grid

Love it! Is it on the steam workshop? If so link please!

I never got a damaged wheel, but I get lots of damage to corner lights above the the height of the wheels and I can't figure it out why. Skipped a bit through the video, but do you cover how to protect internals when the rover's bottom accidentally hits the ground?

I have a 6x6 APC and I have a "4x4" shortcut giving power to all wheels but for power saving purposes I run the rear 4 wheels as primary drive wheels and only the front 2 turn but I have a button panel outside the cockpit that when pressed allows all to turn in case I need extra turning ability or if a front wheel is broken it acts as a limp you ass home function

You mention the steering angle, but you don't clarify much. I've experimented a lot with angles, and what I've found out is that the closer the wheels are to the center of the vehicle, the smaller the steering angle should be. Wheels which are right at the center point should not steer.

Please tell me this rover is on the workshop. Looks awesome!

How do we get these types of things to other planets

I just built a giant rover, about the same length and width of yours and I'm having so many issues with it currently. I wanted it to be a le to be a mobile base so I got 2 connections on top 4 in a dual hanger style setup but I can't for the life of me figure put what settings the wheels need to be. I got a stream from last night where my group was trying to use it but idk what else to do... maybe drop the weight down with interior blocks

Hello there Whittaker

I like the design, and the hints for CM/CG are neat. I'm wondering what you think of using concrete to drag the weight lower? Especially for internal structures, leaving heavy armor blocks for the exterior? Also, why Ion thrusters for the hill boost? Doesn't that limit you to airless?

HOW! did you get the frame high enough off the ground to even build it, that is the problem i am running into.. i am having to mine around the wheels so i can set it up right. ITS ANNOYING.

Very good tips, shame I'm too uncreative to utilize them.

I tried to use this rover and found that even empty is does not have the wheel power to negotiate even the smallest inclines. I maxed the power and friction and it still can not move up the smallest hills.

Are you able to install this on the workshop? If it is please just do it.

I just started building my first large grid rover, can't get it to move an inch. Not sure why. The game recognizes it as a ship, the wheels move (and in the right directions) when I mess with the propulsion override, but otherwise I just have no drive. Not sure if I just need more batteries or what?

You can use the pistons upside down in a cave god knows hours you got there but they will work, if you put mag plates under them and when going about normal driving just turn the mag plates off for when you need them

Looks kind of top heavy. I would never use thrusters. In my book if you need thrusters then you've just got too much foo-foo.

This is a sudden random thought I was thinking while watching this video does anybody know if you can use a gravity generator as a way to Anchor through a Rover to the planet itself the two gravity's fighting to hold each other together?

is this in the seam workshop? because i want this rover

I spent last 4 h designing a rover to be really stable and have a good ground clearance and only thing I didn’t do was add any armor to save on weight because i was going to use the rover for heavy transport and im talking about 50+ mil tons atleast on paper it could do that and its more than capable and if its not i can easily add thrusters but what happened i was slowly traveling to my destination (7m/s or less) and i was clearing a hill and when i got on top my whole front end exploded for literally no reason so i decided to call it a day and i will make a transport ship tomorrow and i will fly the rover back to the base for repairs or probably even salvage it and make a transport ship

Let's have a massive rover demolition video where you find the most outrageous locations to jump, drop, and totally destroy your massive rover...add some massive engines for speed and jump it off the side of the great mountain on mars...now that's entertainment!

4:30 gyros help appease Lord Clang.

Hello great tips and great channel I tried to download it but nothing happend.

A weapon to surpass metal gear

On Xbox?

I hate building large grid stuff unless its a drill Rig. my brain will just shut itself off after placing one block.

if only i had watched this before building that ugly whatever i have in my frontyard now...

r u australian?

Cause I ain’t building that that’s gonna take like three years😂

Golden rule of rover operation. Never operate a rover on Earth. Earth has a lot of hidden geometry traps that will cause your rover to glitch through the surface and it will plummet to the center of the world. All other worlds are fine for rovers.

it looks like a good car put extra blocks. now she is terrible

Watch me not follow a single of those tips while complaining that my rovers are always shit

Hear me out........create a ship that can transfer this rover from planet to planet

Uhhhm

debate

You put your cargo on the bottom? Noted 🪓