General tips for a quick biome hopper?

[Cunjo Carl]

Hi! I'm putting together a biome hopper for some flat parts of Minmus. The little red path shown below has five flat spots I'd like to land on and take data with a Kerbal; the only twist is I'm hoping to do it as fast as possible (in real time). Any general advice for making maneuverable landers or quick rovers that don't mind a bit of beating? I'd love to be more specific, but I'm fairly new to biome hopping and really don't know what I don't know.

 

 

At this point I have ~1400 science, most of which is still unspent and flexible. An example of the tech I could have is above... so... tier 1 engines, the 1.25m control wheels and medium legs/gear are all a given, and if needed I could have any 1 of vernors, the command chair or large landing gear.

Thanks in advance!

[FancyMouse]

Make sure you can take surface sample and have science jr. These are the major source of science income and you don't want to hop Minmus without these.

Use two pods/containers. The second copy of surface sample/science jr is almost worth the same as a full copy of temperature scan, worth it.

I usually do at least 5 biomes, depending on fuel. As long as I guarantee that I'm landed with 500m/s fuel on board, I know I will be able to return home. If I have extra fuel, I'll hop.

Remember transmit or take/store crew report.

Better choose a place where 3 biomes meet together (biome cheat/KerbNet/ScanSat/whatever). That way, you'll spend minimal fuel to hop.

Rocket design - nothing too different. Just pack more fuel and make sure lander is ok for some slight slopes (slope biome on Minmus is quite steep at some places)

[AeroGav]

The most efficient solution is to use aircraft landing gears and drive over the surface, that uses practically no fuel because there is no air drag and minimal friction.   Other than on the flats however, you got to keep your speed way down so this isn't the option if "real time" is an issue.

Rocket biome hopping takes a lot of delta V, so the lander needs to be absolutely minimalist.   Command chair and experiment storage module  and leave the pod, heatshield in orbit?   I'd even be tempted to leave off the science jr for that reason, it's a relatively heavy science instrument.  If you bring it, take only one and a scientist who can reset.  You'll want some way to get the benefits of a pilot though - second chair for jeb, probe core or comms for remote assist.

The trouble is, if you visit 5 or more biomes it practically wins the game for you - you'll complete most the tech tree in this one mission.   So yeah, these days i make one or two landings only and don't futz with time consuming rovers or in orbit rendezvous for minmus.  Gvies me a reason to actually go  to Duna

[bewing]

As far as I'm concerned, it's impossible to drive a rover fast on minmus unless you are going in a straight line on the flats. The transitions between flats and lowlands tend to be moderately sharp. The transition between lowlands and slopes (at the tops of the mesas) is knife sharp. If you drive over that mesa edge at more than 3 m/s, you're going to flip your rover.

And then there's braking. It doesn't work on Minmus. You slide for 2 km while you are trying to stop at your destination.

So, a hopper is going to be faster and more reliable, I say. Maybe a command seat plus a mini-science container or two for your experiments.

 

[Aegolius13]

As far as a hopper - you're going to want a Scientist in order to reset the goo and Science Jr. You could bring a whole gaggle of goo canisters instead of a Sciensts, but that's a hassle, and it's not really practical to do this with the Science Jr.  If you have a Scientist for the surface samples, and have a good comm network or are playing with CommNet off, you could use a probe core to control the lander, which will be the lightest option.  But otherwise you'll probably want a Pilot.  You could put the Pilot inside a landing can, and a Scientist riding a command chair up to operate the experiments (heck, I want to try that myself now). You could also do 2 cans, or the 2-person can, but that's heavier.  

As mentioned above, a science container will let you double up on experiment results, and it also speeds the process by collecting everything with one click or hotkey.  

As far the rest of your design, Minmus is very forgiving as far as TWR so you can probably go with a lot of fuel and a small engine like the Spark.  It works very nicely with the micro landing struts.  For fuel, I just built a Minmus lander with 3 of the 100 tanks, which gets almost 2,000 delta-v.  But if you want to biome hop like crazy, the flat 800 tank is a nice choice.  It holds a lot, makes for a nice wide base, and is easy to refill.  

For "maneuverability," as long as your lander is not huge, the command pod you use should provide plenty of reaction wheel torque.  Fortunately, with Minmus' low gravity, you don't need to make a lot of split-second turns anyway.  

If you're OK with docking without RCS, leaving off monopropellant and thrusters is a good way to save weight.  

[paulprogart]

8 minutes ago, bewing said:

As far as I'm concerned, it's impossible to drive a rover fast on minmus unless you are going in a straight line on the flats. The transitions between flats and lowlands tend to be moderately sharp. The transition between lowlands and slopes (at the tops of the mesas) is knife sharp. If you drive over that mesa edge at more than 3 m/s, you're going to flip your rover.

I'm no rover expert but I have done a lot of driving on Minmus.  My rover (more like a big trash can on wheels actually) had a big reaction wheel bound to a toggle group... so going over a cliff, I'd activate the wheel and SAS so I could line it up with terrain, almost like a plane.  After landing, I'd wait for it to stabilize, then turn that off.

In Minmus' gravity there's tonnes of time to react.  I've saved some pretty spectacular flips.  Got good enough where I could fly over edges at 10 m/s or more and routinely stick the running landing, though I only tended to do that when I was goofing around and didn't mind F9'ing.    Rarely had to though.  (But on the Mun, much different story...)

Even did a route not unlike the one shown, though I wasn't trying to collect science all the way down... just at the flats.  Collecting on the way would make it trickier.

 

8 minutes ago, bewing said:

And then there's braking. It doesn't work on Minmus. You slide for 2 km while you are trying to stop at your destination.

Pulse the brakes and apply reverse motors at the same time for faster stopping.  Though that still only works up to a point... e.g. going 20 m/s down the slope shown it's not going to do much.  In the flats it'll work fine though.

 

8 minutes ago, bewing said:

So, a hopper is going to be faster and more reliable, I say. Maybe a command seat plus a mini-science container or two for your experiments.

Not arguing with this, I'm just saying that one can actually do quite a lot with a land vehicle on Minmus.

[bewing]

11 minutes ago, paulprogart said:

Not arguing with this, I'm just saying that one can actually do quite a lot with a land vehicle on Minmus.

Oh, I totally agree. That's always my first mission (usually before I've orbited Kerbin the first time). I send a silly looking rover to minmus and spend 4 or 5 hours visiting every biome there. But I'm very very careful about managing my speed. And even then, I've had to catch my rover a couple of times when I hit something wrong and it tries to flip and crash.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2017 by bewing

[Cunjo Carl]

@FancyMouse The 500m/s is a good value to know. I've always been eyeballing it by the fueltank gauge, but if I put KER back on that should give me a much better feel. Also, good call about doubling up on Sci Jr & surface samples for a bit of extra science! If the mission runs a bit short I'll be sure to use that.
 

@AeroGav I've also been tinkering with landing gear rovers and finding ~30m/s to be about tops on bumpy ground. I'll keep tinkering, but it's nice to know that's not unusual. Ohhhh... so scientists can reset science Jr.s! Somehow I always forget this, thanks for mentioning it! Given I'm intending to hit 5 biomes, it may well be worth bringing a scientist along, which is an interesting thought. Also, you hit the nail on the head about having this mission win the game for me. It'll hopefully be able to get all that tasty tier2 tech in a single shot for a silly mission I've got going.
  You bring up a good point about biome hopping taking a long time though. If it winds up taking too long, I can defer some science gathering to my next launch, which should probably be Moho.

Thank you both for the answers- it's given me some good stuff to mull over.

Edit: Haha! I hit send and 4 more answers popped up. Boy, I write slow. It's unfortunately bed time for me, but I look forward to reading your answers tomorrow, @bewing, @Aegolius13 and @paulprogart.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Cunjo Carl

[AeroGav]

yeah landing gears are more robust than rover wheels.   I made a very kerbal career spaceplane (jettisonable jet engines) with mk1 inline cockpit , and a terrier, and it was a tandem wing design because stock aero right?  One pair of wings right at the front of the fuselage, one pair right at the back, and landing gears on each wing tip.  So now we have an airplane that is also a 4 wheeled car, with a long wheelbase, wide track and low to the ground.   

you can either land on top of a mountain, and dab the brakes as you roll down to the flats - you'll collect 4 or 5 biomes for no fuel, then can do a v efficient horizontal takoff from the flats - or land on the flats, and dab the throttle as you climb a mountain.

@bewing

Minmus wheel friction improved in last update, but rovers are still terrible, always have been and probably always will be

[bewing]

@AeroGav -- if you look at his tech tree, you'll notice a distinct lack of plane parts.

 

Edited March 24, 2017 by bewing

[Foxster]

Something like this can go stupid-miles-per-hour on Minmus...

Adjust the angle of the ion engine more vertically for additional stability or more horizontal for speed. 

[Urses]

My Way for Minmus (Light wight moons) is a pure Monoprop design around a ScinceJr and Container. 2 Commandseats and the vesel is weeled. A ring of 5 way RCS around at CoM hight and 1 x 1way at the top for RadialIn (mostly toggled on 1) all Other Science, Bateries, Solar, Communikation on Science Junior. RCS is mostly used for Landing and go Orbit again. And if I get to much Speed toggle Brakes, Motor for reverse and RCS on RadialIn or Fly and Land on RCS. This concept circumnavigates at around 35m/s(on weels) or faster if you fly. The only thing to bother is to hold CoM down (no racing Pyramids) and build in width not up or long.

You can be faster at the ground too but this feeds Mono.

Funny Kabooms 

Urses

Ps: if Somebody can suggest Improvement ideas i will be thankfull. And i like racing Rovers

[Warzouz]

Sorry I can't see the picture at work. I usually do the "Minmus biome stripping" with one flight. The lander is my regular 3000m/s. Hopping with a ship is easier than travelling with a rover.

Invest on science to get all experiments. Usually I do a bootstrap lander (a quick and dirty ship which I dump later on) : The science I collect on my first strip allow me to unlock all experiments, so I do it one more time with a full fledged lander. By then I can strip Mun too. But my 3000m/ lander can only do 3 landing sites before rejoining the (mostly) polar orbital space station / fuel tank.

Here is my lander (on Dres)

Edited March 24, 2017 by Warzouz

[WanderingKid]

To answer the general question, which has been answered well and often already, rovers are the most efficient yet slowest, and a rocket bouncer needs to be minimal to get things done cheaply.  Then again, even in Hard career, cheaply isn't my biggest priority, it's efficiency for the Funds spent, both in my personal time as well as game time.  So, here's my approach:

By the time I go to Minmus I've usually strip mined the science off Mun, personally, so my tech tree is typically a little more advanced than yours.  That takes some refuelers and a biome-hopper there as well.  However, this little bounce-a-bout will grab all, if not most, of the biomes off Minmus with little concerns.  A single refueler and you can hit everything comfortably.  It carries a little over 2,000 d/v on itself.  It's a two seater for pilot+scientist.

 

It costs ~51k to put up in hard career, and launches with over 7,000 d/v.  Here's my current launcher for it:

 

 

Now, for refueling, you'll want something relatively cheap.  This is a 4 ton fuel payload refueler I've been using lately.  Aerospace designs would of course reduce the price of this, but I don't want to spend 15-20 minutes putting it up.  It's 22k of completely disposable craft meant to get to anything in orbit in Kerbin SOI and deliver some fuel for small ships.

 

One of the bigger things I've found when going for an efficient biome hopper on Minmus is not just what lander you bring though, but your flight plan.  You'll want to conserve d/v for your hops as much as possible.  A trip between flats is nearly as expensive as getting all the way to orbital speed for a rocket hopper.  Because of that, you want to minimize the bounces.

My typical way of doing that is the following flight plan, starting in the Greater Flats:

 

So I land in the Greater Flats near equatorial, then proceed to bounce up the hill to the east.  The closer I get to the edge of the flats, the cheaper my lowlands pickup will be.  Then I head up the hill, and grab midlands/highlands right next to each other.  This is a lot easier with KER telling me what Biome I'm over.  Finally, going up that hill there's a saddle between two regions of highland I can brake in and grab slopes without wandering down the side of a cliff as well.

From there, it's simply a bounce to the Lesser flats, up to the poles (and then over), over to the Great flats, and finally to an easy to hit sections of the flats.  There is a tiny sliver of flats between the Saddle and the Lesser Flats, but it's annoying to hit and it's far enough out that you're only saving a bit of d/v to go there, land, and take off again for an annoying target.

EDIT: One thing not mentioned is where to spend your science.  Get the seismic accelerometer (bottom line on the tree).  It's the last generic science gathering part you're going to get before you get to tier 3 science and is worth it for the additional science points for minimal component.

Edited March 24, 2017 by WanderingKid
spoilers and me just don't get along

[Kryxal]

11 hours ago, Foxster said:

Something like this can go stupid-miles-per-hour on Minmus...

Adjust the angle of the ion engine more vertically for additional stability or more horizontal for speed. 

Prepare for ... LUDICROUS SPEED!

[Spricigo]

 

Since your main concern its how much real time it takes I'd say to get all scientific instruments you can unlock and a scientist and strap it to a big enough fuel tank with a big enough engine. Add a strong reaction wheel and probecore with SAS for convenience. @Warzouz example even have some luxuries  I would not bother to add

 

I actually would use a rover since I'm using this mod:

But using a rover without it just takes too long to my taste.

[Wanderfound]

Something like this is what you're after:

 

Batteries, science instruments and probe core (so you can crew it with a scientist and reset the experiments) in the service bay. Spin before decoupling the drop tanks to give them some radial momentum.

For Minmus you could afford to lose 3/4 of the engines; this one is built for Moho.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Wanderfound

[Cunjo Carl]

Thank you everyone for the great answers!

@bewing It's a good point about the sharpness of the terrain. I'd also been finding that by the time my rovers pick up any real speed (50m/s) they might as well be hoppers for the amount of flying they do! Knowing that's not just me is very helpful. I'm actually not too worried about braking, because I have no qualms with using chemical rockets to slow down. A bit wasteful in normal situations, but it works well in this context.

@Aegolius13 I just gave it a shot, and the scientists can't reset experiments directly from an armchair. However, if they're within reach of the experiment it's quite convenient to pop them out, reset it, and pop them back in. Unfortunately, quick turns are what I'll be all about because the twist on this mission is to get it done as fast as possible, but I like the idea of a smaller (spark sized) hopper. Despite the low gravity allowing for larger craft, I think your spark-sized design could handle much more quickly and precisely for its lower mass.... I'll definitely tinker with that.

@paulprogart Hah! Trash can with SAS describes so many of my ships. Fortunately, on this route, all 5 of the biomes occur on broad flat spaces, even the 'slopes' biome. Could be a glitch, but I'm not complaining. That'll make it (comparatively) easy to stop at the designated sites regardless of rover/lander type. Pulsing the breaks makes you slow down faster?? This will be very useful on some of my other craft!

@AeroGav I'd also been noticing that landing gear roved better (sturdier) than traditional rover wheels. Nice to know it's not just me having trouble with the little rover wheels.

@Foxster The techs a bit beyond me, but I really like the idea of putting the primary rocket engines in such a way to apply additional downwards force. I've been applying the extra down force with separate smaller engines (sparks) or RCS blocks, but applying it directly with the main engine should make the setup a lot simpler! Because I gotta go fast, I'll be keeping the acceleration on pretty steady for much of the trip in any case.

@Urses If racing rovers sound amusing, there's a few good races going on in the challenge board, including one on Kerbin, and one on the Mun. I've got a silly quick ion rover for the Mun race, but I'm still trying to make a monoprop-only design surpass it . So far I can only get the monoprop design to 50m/s reliable, so it's still a long ways off! Back to the topic though, it's an interesting idea to use only 5 way monoprop blocks for propulsion... If you could make your craft light enough (as yours is) it would certainly be maneuverable! 'Build in width rather than length'... that makes so much sense now that you mention it. I'll give it a shot!

@Warzouz That's uncanny- your lander is the spitting image of mine if you were to cram a few more sci.jr.s on.  A terrier on a rockomax pancake works way too well for how silly it looks! For this mission in particular I'll need to push my landing speed up a bit higher than is convenient for the design as is. It's a great craft to build from though!

@WanderingKid Sweet setup! Hardmode career is hard - I can't imagine playing without quicksave now I've been spoiled . Unfortunately, I won't have time for docking/refueling because I'm trying to do the mission as fast as possible. Looks super efficient though! I guess I like anything with enough kickbacks on it. It sounds like we have a pretty similar route on Minmus, and I agree KER would be lovely! The seismic accelerator is a good call to check out. I was originally planning on skipping it because I'd need to spend 300 science to get it, and would only get 500 science from it out of the mission (5 biomes). The payoff is kinda thin for my particular case, but science is science! Thanks for the pictures by the way, it made your answer really clear.

@Kryxal May the Schwartz be with you!

@Spricigo I used to run the mission exactly to how you described: Get science Jr.s and go straight to Minmus! But the new career mission setup sadly requires I head to the Mun first. So I might as well take advantage of my extra science on Minmus. Ooh, mods are tempting sometimes, but it's stock only for me! And no engine will ever be big enough .

@Wanderfound I love the spin-to-seperate tanks vertically attached to eachother. They should save on aerodrag during launch, while still providing an asparagus-like design efficiency. I also am keen on the small, low moment-of-inertia form factor. Since I'm aiming to go quick-as-possible on 5 landings, I'll probably need a surprisingly high TWR, despite it being on Minmus. Designs like this have become so much nicer since the advent of rigid joints, it's a cool style!

Thanks again everyone for your help!

[Wanderfound]

2 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

They should save on aerodrag during launch

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by Wanderfound

[Warzouz]

6 minutes ago, Cunjo Carl said:

That's uncanny- your lander is the spitting image of mine if you were to cram a few more sci.jr.s on.  A terrier on a rockomax pancake works way too well for how silly it looks! For this mission in particular I'll need to push my landing speed up a bit higher than is convenient for the design as is. It's a great craft to build from though!

In 0.9, I used to have staged landers. They where more complex and no reusable. I found that the easy way to explore is to use SSTO landers and a space station in orbit. Then building the simplest vehicle is quite straight forward. This one can land anywhere except on Tylo (it can land but not return), Laythe and Eve.

Well I did test a landing on Eve with this lander (without heat shield and chutes). That was surprisingly a success.

In my design process, I usually do a simple design and then improve details. My ships don't usually "look cool" but are quite detailed. For example this is my classic space station / mothership. I spend hours in 1.0 to design and rate that.

 

[bewing]

1 hour ago, Cunjo Carl said:

all 5 of the biomes occur on broad flat spaces, even the 'slopes' biome

It's a little bit of a glitch, but when the Minmus biomes were generated, the "slopes" were set at the boundaries of midlands/lowlands -- and they are always on the midlands side, which is always flat.

If the biomes get regenerated somday (which may be quite a while, considering how much work it was!), then the slopes may get moved to the more slopey parts. For now, this is where they are, and this is probably where they will stay.

 

[Urses]

@Cunjo Carl

Because Everybody showed his vehicle here is my little Beast "Grazer MK1"

Spoiler

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890861152

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=890861409

I hope i did it right <.< and you can see them...

Funny Kabooms

Urses

Edited March 25, 2017 by Urses

[Cunjo Carl]

There were many wonderful answers, all of which I'll use, but I'd like to mark this question answered and @Urses' advice for monoprop rcs (or in my case vernor) propulsion and 'wide not long or tall' really got my landers landing quick!

Here it is! The mk1.

I haven't quite optimized it for physwarpx3 landing, but x2 is fine and it handles well flying at x3. The legs have all had their dampers turned up and springs turned way down, which has helped increase the landing speed while preventing bounce-off or roll from leftover horizontal velocity. There are banks of vernors on the bottom as well for upward propulsion, so the whole thing can be controlled by linear translation, which has made an unbelievable improvement in landing time.

I really liked the scientist suggestion, but in the end I was finding it harder to bring (and use) a scientist than to just bring the extra science gear! I may change my mind with a bit more practice, but given I have no limits on launch weight I'll just be inefficient for now. The landing "Pontoons" decouple once spent to help alleviate the extra weight.

To keep the engine from ramming into the ground when landing at high physwarp, I put it on the top, which means we're flying home backwards! It's too bad twitches are just out of reach....

I'm happy, this is gonna work great, and there's still plenty of room to improve on it, too!

Edited March 25, 2017 by Cunjo Carl
fixed typo: dampers turned up.

[Urses]

@Cunjo Carl

Really a unic design i Love it! It comes like "Hands up! And give me all your Science!"

Very Kerbal!

Hmm, an idea. Switch one of the reaction wheels(Really 4?XD) with a probecore and you can use SAS everytime? 

E: Name sugestion

Spoiler

"Science Robber MK you give me all your Science" 

Sorry, i couldn't withstand the urge to comment this beauty.

Funny Kabooms 

Urses

Edited March 25, 2017 by Urses
Name suggestion

[Cunjo Carl]

26 minutes ago, Urses said:

@Cunjo Carl

Really a unic design i Love it! It comes like "Hands up! And give me all your Science!"

Very Kerbal!

Hmm, an idea. Switch one of the reaction wheels(Really 4?XD) with a probecore and you can use SAS everytime? 

E: Name sugestion

  Reveal hidden contents

"Science Robber MK you give me all your Science" 

Sorry, i couldn't withstand the urge to comment this beauty.

Funny Kabooms 

Urses

I hearby dub this craft "Science Robber"! May she serve well for queen and country.

4 reaction wheels feels way overkill, huh. Unfortunately with all the vernors pushing this thing around, the SAS will let the yaw (roll on the navball) wander all over over unless it has an equivalent silly amount of reaction wheel to counterbalance it. I'm sure there's a more elegant solution, but in the meantime those kerbals get 200kg of highspeed discs spinning right over their head. Silly as it looks!

Thanks again for the help!