You have made it past the Main Menu and the Mission Selection menu. Awesome! You are now in the Garage, the build area for all rovers. It will look something like this:

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Note those colorful outlines and the blue coordinate markers at the Core. You won't have them in the Garage, but you do have this guide to fall back on.

Starting at the top left you have four actions:

• Build– this function is automatically activated when selecting a material or a part.
  
• Select – lets you click-drag a selection box to highlight several things at once. Alternatively, any one part can be selected by simply clicking it. Shift-click to select a few parts.
  
• Move – this function will do what it says by click-hold-drag-ing either the entire rover, or any part that is not attached to the Core (that cuboid in the middle). Alt is the keyboard shortcut for this action.
  
• Split/join - this button allows for separating a beam into two. It is helpful for shortening the beam without having to delete and replace the whole thing, for example. Simply select the tool and draw a line across a thing you need split. The Join function does the opposite: when two or more beam pieces are selected and the button is pressed those pieces become continuous. Very useful function to not only clean up unneeded joint nodes, but to also stiffen up the frame because a single beam is solid unlike the same one made up of several sections. Both functions work well with Mirror, so several things can be split/joined at the same time.

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Unlike others, this world only allows building in one plane, one 2D space, at a time. To select your work plane simply rotate the camera by click-hold-drag-ing with the Middle Mouse Button (MMB). Scroll the Mouse Wheel to zoom in and out. Click-hold-drag with the Right Mouse Button (RMB) to pan, or move the camera from side to side. You can change the work plane at any time, the mesh overlay will show you where you are. Holding Spacebar shows the mesh across the entire build area, locking it in place.

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Below that there are materials and parts. Simply select a material and click-drag it from where to where you need it on the rover. For parts, Click-hold-drag them, one at a time, from the menu to where they need to be. More are added with every update, so keep an eye for them!

• Beam – the basic building material of any rover. Can only be placed horizontally, vertically, or at 45°.
  
• Link – good for bracing a structure. Unlike a beam it can be placed at pretty much any angle.
  
• Axle – anything connected to it will free-spin on it.
  
• Spring – boing! Can be placed at any angle between beams, just like a link. Useful for suspension systems. Piston – can be extended or shortened as needed. Can be placed at any angle between beams.
  
• Wheel – a general purpose rolling thing that lets a rover move around. Needs to be placed on a
  beam to work. Deleting wheel's key bind allows it to free spin.
  
• Hinge – an alternative to axles for tight spaces.
  
• Slider – moves from side to side on a beam. Can be used for steering systems, among other
  things. Can be unpowered for free-moving linear support.
  
• Rotator – can either act like a motor by continuously spinning, or be a servo by limiting it's turning angle. Has to be placed on a beam.
  
• Cannon – shoots a water balloon. Watch out for recoil!
  
• Weight – a small heavy part useful for balancing or stabilising rovers.
  
• Lamp – makes you day a little bit brighter.
  
• Solar panel – keeps the rover charged up and ready for missions. Make sure you have enough of them since every part uses power while moving.
  
• Magnet – will stick to a special cube with dots on it's sides. Can be turned on and off.

Lower still, and outlined in yellow here is the Edit menu. From there you can

• Undo – cancels last action.
  
• Redo – undoes the undo for when it's accidentally pressed more than needed.
  
• Clear all – deletes everything leaving only the Core.
  
• Mirror – turns on symmetry for a selected axis. Default is X, basically left-right.

And lastly at the bottom left there are some buttons that only pop up when a part is selected:

• Delete – removes selected things.
  
• Options – change settings of individual part. You can also Double-click on a placed part to open it's Options. Shift-click to select, then shift-double-click on one of those parts to open settings for the the entire group.
  
• Flip – rotates selected parts. Same can be done with the Mouse Wheel while placing parts.

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At the top in the middle of the screen there is the keystroke editor. It allows for changing controls of everything on the rover at once without having to select anything, unlike with Options. In addition it allows to set something to toggle (press button to turn on, press again to turn off) or to turn something on permanently. Click-drag an action below the menu to delete it.

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And finally at the top right there are the menu buttons:

• Tutorial – a quick reminder of how to build rovers.
  
• Save – stores the rover for later use.
  
• Menu – for going back to the main menu.
  
• Last mission – brings the rover directly into the last attempted mission.
  
• Test drive- lets the rover to be driven around the garage to test it's functions.

This might seem like a but too much at first, though after a while it becomes intuitive. Be on the lookout for alternative solution for different missions and Happy Roving!

1. Build volume in the garage is 40x40x40 squares, 20 in each direction from the Core's center.
   
   
2. One square of the build grid is 25 centimeters. One square on the ground in Sandbox is one meter.
   
   
3. Use mouse wheel while placing bearings to allign/rotate them to make desired part movable. The part will highlight as movable. Mouse wheel can also be used for rotating motors and flipping wheels around.
   
   
4. Conventional steering (like a car or a forklift), articulating steering (like a big loader), and skid steering (like a tank), or a combination of them, are viable direction control methods.
   
   
5. Wheels need four free square ahead and behind the axle, making them eight long, and are four wide.
   
   
6. It is possible to build a usable rover with only two wheels in either Segway or Motorbike configuration.
   
   
7. Axles and links can be set at any angle, not just at 45 or 90 degrees.
   
   
8. If longer part is needed, create it diagonally. For every 10 horizontal or vertical squares a diagonal part 'gains' about 4 squares in length, I.E. will be about 14 squares long.
   
   
9. After selecting multiple components, double-click on any one of them while holding Shift. That will open up the Options menu for the entire group. Click anywhere off that menu to close it.

1. Pistons can act as suspension. They act more like pneumatics instead of hydraulics and do have some give under heavy loads.
   
   
2. Since joints are not perfectly rigid and have rebound they can act as suspension. They can break if over-bent, so do be careful.
   
   
3. Making a rover wider makes turning easier, while making the rover longer adds stability. This is especially true for a skid-steer type machines.
   
   
4. Motors can be used as wheels. No tires required. HOWEVER since they do not have collision with other parts they won't propel this rover to climb onto another rover. Motors 'phase' through until the rover lays on it's frame.
   
   
5. Weights can be used as tiny wheels. They require an axle that's made from a beam with a bearing.
   
   
6. More parts and bigger rovers are not always better. Materials add weight so in some cases it's more beneficial to make the rover as small as possible.
   
   
7. There is no air in Rover Builder, and therefore no air resistance.
   
   
8. Any moving or spinning part has inertia. This can be used for orienting the rover in the air, and ultimately for direction control.
   
   
9. Plate can be intersected by Springs and Pistons, but nothing else.
   
   
10. Component weights, approximate:
    
    1 Core = 70 Steel
    1 Wheel = 11 Steel
    1 Wheel = 1 Motor = 1 Steering (Slider) = 1 Rocket
    1 Axle = 1.2 Steel
    1 Steel = 20 Plate
    1 Steel = 3.75 Link
    
    Springs, pistons, and bearings are weightless.
    
    One unit of steel, link, and so on is one horisontal or vertical square long. Multiply linear weight by 1.4 for diagonal (45*) structures. For example, 1 Core = 50 diagonal Steel. Joints between components are presumed weightless. One unit of Plate is 1x1 square, in other words a 10x10 Plate is 100 square units and weighs 5 Steel.