Wheel power is weak and power consumption (2kW) is a joke

I mean, our current Semi Trucks only haul a couple tons, not 4000.

'A couple tons'

I think you mean 20-30 tons, with a maximum total weight of 40 tons- that's for an 18 wheeler which has 2 powered axles with 8 wheels ( 10 wheels in total ).

If you want to be more realistic though, then Quarry-trucks carry 300-450 tons ( the largest versions ). So yeah, if someone builds a large-grid truck with the largest 5x5 wheels, and has atleast 4 wheels, they should easily be able to haul 350 tons.

Please do some fact-checking ( which took me one minute, literally ) before making false statements in future, thankyou.

The largest truck in the world: http://www.belaz.by/en/catalog/products/dumptrucks/7571/75710/

Size: 20,6m x 9,75m x 8,17m

Wheel radius: 2m (4 wheels)

It can carry 450 tons of payload.

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My truck:

Size: 42,5m x 17,5m x 17,5m

Wheel radius: 3,75m (8 wheels) (this is even not the largest wheel)

As we all can see, size in Space Engineers is much larger than real world. And considering that it's near future, it's normal to have much larger trucks. Comparing to its size 4000 tons of mass is not as high as it seems. Real world trucks of this size would haul more than 4000 tons of payload. Also, I added only 1 large cargo container full of ore. If I fill the cargo with ingots, it will be 11500 tons instead of 4000.

That truck you linked says it can carry 450 megatons of payload. Huh. Big trucks.

<sigh> no, that value is 450 metric tons. Still a big truck though.

Right you are. I just took the first google result for mt.

They seem somewhat skewed, when comparing small grid capabilities to large grid.

Example:

Small Grid:

8x 3x3 wheels, can easily climb steep grades with 9 full Medium Cargo Containers and 5 full Drills. No issues.

Large Grid

6x 5x5 wheels

Can't even go up moderate grades with only 1 Large Cargo Container at 3/4 capacity. Have 3 total Large Containers, the rest of the vehicle is bare bones. Just a minimal frame to support the Cargo and attach the wheels to.

They're not even fully welded! Just the simple 1-iron placement Armor blocks.

Barely will move on fairly level ground (at .9g), slight hills cause it to wheeze and cry and slow down to a stop. Moderate grade, I can get a little way if I get a fairly good rolling start, but quickly am rolling backwards.

This is at full power, full traction.

Really ruined the attempt to play Survival on a planet. It's hard enough to obtain the ore - flying ships can't carry any realistic hauls of ore. By the time to scrape off a little of the surface area, it's overloaded. And that's perhaps 1m depth of drilling. (Please don't suggest I should play "destructive mining"...)

So, it's left to wheeled vehicles. The Small Grid just can't go deep, it's mainly limited to surface scraping. Unless you try to drive into the side of a mountain, but then it's a total crapshoot if you're going to hit any 'useful' ore.

So, it seems it's limited to Large Grid with Piston drilling (Somewhat like an Oil drilling platform). Other than this, I've yet to find any realistic mobile platform to move about and target specific ores.

There's mod to fix this issue:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2604680582

I just built this rover to realize that putting 2 large cargo containers on it was not the best idea. I mean, by looking at it, it feels natural for a vehicle of its size to be able to carry some heavy load, but the game design do not match what we expect it to be. When empty it weights just 167t and it accelerates pretty fast. Once you laod it with 2 containers full of iron ore it adds 1140t times two so its total weight now is 2450t. On flat surface it accelerates slowly 1m/s. But the biggest problem is to navigate over some hills, it can barly go over smallest ones.

So yeah, I think power should be greatly increaced to balance things out, otherwise, rovers are just useless to transport large amount of goods, which is pity, it defends all the purpose of building them in survival.