Possible SRV Enhacement

[MAUXUS]

Give the SRV two traveling modes: Land Mode (which is the current one, where the SRV uses the wheels to travel along the planet surface) and Levita Mode, where the wheels turn 90 degrees inward and turn into additional thrusters. When selecting Levita mode, while the wheels are transitioning to the 90 degrees inward position, a small amount of simultaneous thrust raises the SRV a few feet above the ground. When the wheels lock in their new position, continuous thrust allows your SRV to fly slightly above the surface of the planet (few feet), just high enough so that small bumps in the surface are not felt when traveling forward (especially helpful for people in VR and people complaining of motion sickness while in SRV). When it's time to collect materials, you can switch back to land mode temporarily, lower your cargo hatch, collect the mats and get back to Levita Mode. In Levita Mode, the SRV could have similar flying characteristics as the Skimmers, for example.

EDIT: dang, I messed up the title of course

 

[SushiCW]

It's an interesting idea!

I'd also love to see an SRV variant besides the scarab, one of which could maybe be literally a skimmer. Slower and weaker than the SRV, but still with decent firepower and a lot more lateral mobility (not to mention being small-rock-proof).

 

[NW3]

Right. There have also been requests for a hovercraft SRV variant. Any of these options would be an improvement.

 

[[VR] CMDR TYRTHEMIS]

YES! a hover SRV would be awesome. maybe it consumes fuel at a much greater rate. Or maybe the SRV can hover unless it gets its 2 tons of cargo limit.

 

[Ca$hback]

The force required to lift the SRV would be a constant drain on the distributor. It would last longer than it does conventionally but you wouldn't be able to hover indefinitely.
Better to have a different SRV altogether as the current model with the jump jets is meant to be what you're talking about, penalties and all. You want a smoother, less energy consuming ride than it has to be smaller and less capable, not to mention how/whether it would work in high gravity.

 

[Daynen]

Having more than one SRV is something that's got to be on Fdev's radar; there are so many possibilities for SRV customization, tuning and part swaps it's ludicrous. It's a vastly underutilized gameplay feature, especially considering it's supposed to be one of the main selling points of Horizons. I would very much like to see different suspensions for those rocky planets, slower SRV's with better armor, hauler SRV's for digging for rocks, etc etc. We have plenty of ships, but we definitely would benefit from more rovers and/or more outfitting for the one we have.