Originally Posted by
Alec Turner
(Source)
Lots of practice is definitely a thing when it comes to SRV driving.
One thing you can do which is a great little practice exercise ... get yourself stationary on some level ground on a nice low-g world (this one will probably do) then boost straight up (using almost all of your boost capacitor). At the top of your jump start rolling the SRV. As you start to descend, and once you've nearly spun all the way around, counter the roll in the opposite direction. The objective is to do a single barrel roll and to then land perfectly level again, feathering with a bit more boost at the last minute to gently touch all 6 (8 actually) wheels simultaneously back down on the ground. Then try the same thing with a forwards (or backwards) somersault using your pitch controls. Once you've mastered that you can try turning faster to squeeze in 2 spins before touching back down.
As to travelling at speed, a couple of tips to remember.
1) After flying the ship (especially with a HOTAS) use of yaw becomes 2nd nature. Alas the SRV has no yaw control. You must unlearn what you have learned! If you find yourself travelling somewhat sideways after a bad landing (or even backwards when you get really good) then in order to re-align your SRV with its direction of travel you have to: pitch down, roll a bit, pitch up & roll back to level. Try it now with your hand (point your flat hand forwards, tip it down, rotate it right, tip it back up and roll it level - see?). It's a REALLY tricky little manoeuvre to master but absolutely essential for fast SRV travel.
2) Travelling along the ground at speed the SRV has a very nasty tendency to suddenly go into a spin. To avoid this keep ground contact to a minimum. Once you get much above 30-40m/s your (brief) touchdowns (which should then bounce you back into the air - don't make them too gentle, you can bounce pretty hard) need to be precise. You need to be level (with the ground you're about to hit) and facing the direction of travel. Don't be tempted to land on the back wheels, you could be excused for thinking it might work but it won't end well.
3) Look ahead and choose your landing spots. Use boost (or lack thereof) to control your descent and hit them. On rough terrain pick a nice mound (don't know if you've ever skied moguls but you're aiming to bounce across the smooth tops of these, possibly just slightly before each peak).
If you watch videos from people like Tannik they make it look almost too easy. Here's me (from "Kick The Alien") ...
You can see that when I land without being perfectly straight and level it goes badly wrong. For example, at 55s my front right wheel touches first and I then have to wrestle the controls like a madman to correct my orientation (with lots of amateurish over-correction!) and at 1:21 I land back wheels first (WRONG!). But at 50s I basically hit just about right and it goes tolerably well.
As for changing your direction of travel ... you can make VERY gentle corrections using steering control when travelling along the ground but otherwise you need to tilt onto your side while moving through the air and use boost to push yourself back into the right direction.
It's all very challenging (possibly THE most challenging thing in the whole damn game) but also enormous fun (possibly THE most fun thing in the whole damn game).