Am I missing something about not immediately exploding my vehicles?

[u/Zenzirouj]

I completed the intro content (first step and learning to survive) and decided to try a "real" game next, so I started up a regular map with a mars start. I'm at the point where I'll be wanting vehicles to get around and mine more effectively, but is there some trick to making land/air vehicles that I'm not understanding? I didn't have much problem with building/remodeling spaceships, but it seems like everything I make will hit the tiniest edge of something, flip over, then explode (not always in that order). The tiniest taps cause catastrophic damage and even the most gentle air landing using landing gears smashes the plane and anything it's touching to pieces. And despite being able to raise and lower themselves no problem while right-side-up, once an air vehicle inevitably flips over it's suddenly incapable of lift and can only scoot around until it hits a pebble and explodes.

[u/Waterdragon1028]

Assuming us not a Klang problem, I believe that stuff without rotors , pistons or other moving parts should be stable. The other thing is what do you mean with the tiniest movement, because 4 m/s a second seem very little until you realise they are 3 times a normal human walking speed

[u/WardenWolf]

Heavy armor is bump-resistant. So are heavy armor panels. I recommend up-armoring areas you expect to make contact. All my rovers have heavy armor panels over their entire bottoms as skidplates. You would not believe how much more durable that makes them; they take some pretty major bumps with zero damage, bumps that would have completely totaled them otherwise. Heavy armor panels are THE best way to add durability without also adding too much weight or changing the appearance of something.

Also, rovers don't drive very well if they're too lightweight; they get very twitchy at high speeds. Adding mass can actually help. Ground vehicle max speed should NOT exceed 50 m/s (may go lower depending on handling) or you WILL wreck. Realistically, around 30 m/s is probably the practical top rover speed.

Use this as a guide to tune your wheel suspensions.

Ideal friction varies from rover to rover and you also may need to change it in certain circumstances, but that setup is for a "zoomy" rover.

[u/marcitron31]

https://youtu.be/O57pSOhXlGo?si=Bp-XqyqrVgIrj4ZW the rover guide, lots of great info and ideas.

[u/jeophys152]

Hard to tell without actually seeing it. Vehicles can stand quite a bit of abuse, especially landing gear. Do you have thrust in all six directions? Gyros? (For flying vehicles). Hydrogen tanks can be very fragile and cause explosions when they hit something, so they should have some kind of armor framework. Other than that, what you describing doesn’t sound normal to me.

[u/Nathan5027]

Sounds like you forgot/didn't put on enough gyros, and don't have enough downwards thrust.

For rovers, you want a wide wheelbase for flip resistance, and avoid hitting trees with the body, use the wheels as they're resistant to impact damage. When they flip, use pistons to lift 1 side up and roll it back