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Completed

EVA load carrying....

Ryan Gill 7 years ago updated by Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago 6

Relating to the tricky to deal with encumbrance issues....

When dealing with carrying a bunch of gear across the Mars-scape, it would stand that the following would be useful for moving loads.

A constructed/improvised travois (structural tubing and space tape):

Image 55




Or the Para-cassion... which was an ammo carrier with wheels that could be attached and connected to an airdropped container.  This would work well for the existing supply crates allowing the player to extend a draw bar and attach 2 wheels for moving loaded crates around.

Image 57

Here's what was used apparently on Apollo 14.

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These would be ideal for some of the supply drop items that are spread around and would mean that a player could extend his carrying capacity over long distances.

Obviously it would be a pain to maneuver over rocky steep ground and ledges but far easier if the terrain was shallow grades and martian regolith. 

+1

That's some serious research! Yeah, it would definitely make it more plausible.

Under review

That's definitely an interesting idea. I might be able to look into something like that when I start working on the vehicles update. Thanks for the suggestion.

This would be a great way to carry a lot of stuff before we are able to make a vehicle to do it for us.

Also, remember with the apolo misions, most of these tools are light weight and folded up, so maybe they are dropped to the surface in a folded state and you need to help unfold them. maybe the break if done improperly or slightly damaged and need repair to fully unfold? the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was cool, and folded up awesome aswell. with a local transmitter that required the lunar lander for earth coms (maybe you need to stay in radio contact with a hub or radio tower for nav?

just look at the folding part of my comment tho, maybe a travois can be made from aluminium tubing and tape, maybe its foldable to carry with you when not in use?

Some of the supply drops are already in a crate. So expending SOME of the weight/∆V budget on a T-handle and a pair of wheels would be highly preferred by the folks doing mars exploration/surveying/survival. Apollo had a very limited ∆V budget and they had a cart or a rover as part of their kit. 

The travois would be more improvised as it's going to be a 'drag' to drag that long distances. It's still better than carrying. It would also possibly need some repairs after dragging it around for several days. 

Completed

I have no additional plans to add a smaller EVA equipment transport, but with the addition of driveable rovers you can now transport quite a lot of extra equipment in the storage bay of the rover.