king of nowhere

Part 11: Memory lane is not over yet WORK IN PROGRESS Leaping Mantis ends the circumnavigation of Vall, passing - sometimes by design, sometimes by chance - more landmarks encountered in previous Vall missions. 11.1) Return to the Great Wall range 11.2) The name of a mountain 11.3) Return to Rover Crasher peak What's this? I specifically said I wouldn't be visiting any other feature I visited previously. I said it would require too much of a detour. The thing is, Rover Crasher peak was 90° away from my path. The green monolith also spawned 90° away from my path. I connected those two pieces of information, and decided to check. Indeed, the monolith had spawned a stone's throw from Rover Crasher peak (more like 60 km, but still very close on a planetary scale). And the last biome, northeastern basin, can be reached just going down from the peak, in the same direction I need to go to reach the first flag. I previously decided to not steer away from my course for the peak or the monolith, but if both are close, I may as well take two birds with a stone. The stone in question being a 200 km diversion. Science recap

I finished my current run. I set to improve my previous record, I ended up pulverizing it. I had no idea there was so much science I missed before. Now I really think I got all of it. There may be a few dozen science points left from the multiple grabbing of the same experiment; I got 4 copies for each, which is enough for over 99.5% recovery, but grabbing a fifth copy should still earn a few fractions of point. But no more than that. I still have to update the report thread, I plan on doing it tomorrow, the day after at the latest. But @JacobJHC generally takes some time to review, I may as well post now.

I completed the new Jool 5 science record. I got all experiments from all biomes, in quadruple copy because some experiments will give extra science if collected more than once. quintuple copy for infrared spectroscopy, because it's the one where multiple copies are worth more. And because I had a convenient place to store them, while only carrying 4 containers in all my landers. For Laythe, I took both landed and splashed down science (it's 2 different sets of science reports) for 8 biomes. I landed the exploration plane on an aircraft carrier to trick the game into giving the landed condition for all water biomes. Only now I think a submarine could have achieved the same, and it would have been a lot easier to fly than an aircraft carrier. that thing was a huge aerodinamic problem to launch and a huge center of mass problem from the moment I docked it to the mothership to the moment I dropped it on Laythe. I circumnavigated all moons. I visited all anomalies. I forgot a reentry vehicle. Fortunately, the only lander I did not discard, the plane I used for Laythe, is capable of ssto on kerbin; so I can land it, drop the pilot, send the plane back to orbit, dock with the mothership, refuel, get another crewmember, carry it to the ground, go orbit again... repeat for 9 crewmembers. so, technically it's not finished. I could also just launch a capsule, the rules allow it, but it's less nice. I also have to finish writing the report. A few more days. However, this is a momentous moment for me. After four years and many thousands of hours, I find myself without any ongoing project for this game. I've done everything. At least, everything I was interested in doing. 3 grand tours of the stock system with kerbalism; once including the outer planets mod. A grand tour of the real solar system, one of the whirligig world mod. More jool 5 than I can recall, always with some additional condition. A nanodiamond caveman. at least 18 planets circumnavigated with a rover, many of those planets from mods. I visited all anomalies (ok, i didn't bother with all of them on the mun and kerbin). found 21 green monoliths. Now, whenever I think of something about this game, I've either done it already, or i'm not interested. I'll probably stop playing ksp, after all this time. Maybe i'll get ksp2 eventually. As a science nerd, this game struck me in all the right places. Only the civilization saga has left a similar mark on me. Likely, even 10 years from now, even if I never pick it up again, I will still name ksp as one of my favourite games. Or maybe I will I find some other long term challenge to waste my time tackle after all.

I have seen a fully reusable grand tour that managed a purely rocket ascent from eve. it did so by landing on a 6.5 km tall mountain on the equator. from there, it was possible to orbit. so, 12 km will also give some payload capacity.

circumnavigation of Bop in the same thread i also circumnavigated laythe, but I already had a previous elcano there, it's redundant to post another one

why not? i ran a full grand tour of it, radiations were no more of a problem than in previous runs. less of a problem, actually, because i had more experience dealing with them. the only real bother way, i could not land a crew in the inner moons of saturn because of too many radiations. but few people use kerbalism to send a crew on saturn anyway. you may refer to the fact that travel times are longer while radiation exposure is the same, but if properly handled, radiation can be virtually nullified for most situation. so if the mission is longer it doesn't really matter

i played with rss and kerbalism without changing anything. of course, going to orbit is going to be exceedingly difficult with stock parts, but that's not a kerbalism problem

first of all, the thread title does not match the question. orbits refers to moving in space, ascent would be more appropriate for atmosphere. it seems your rocket has stability problems. unfortunately, you do not give us enough information. pictures would be good. maybe your rocket isn't as aerodinamically stable as you think. or maybe you are turning it too hard. why would it be a problem especially for going to mun? how is that rocket different from others? this may shed light on the problem

Oh, right. I forgot to mention in the Elcano thread I did Bop, in chapter 9. I also did Laythe, but I already had a circumnavigation there, I don't see the point of making another claim. I'll be busy at work for the next couple of weeks, so i expect Vall to take more. Shall I post the Bop notification in the Elcano thread for the sake of linking?

Part 10: A trip through memory lane Leaping Mantis goes to Vall. This first part covers from the equator to the south pole to Vallhenge. Some of that road I already covered four years ago in one of my first challenges. I got a bit nostalgic about it, hence the chapter title. Standing above the southern pole terrain glitch 10.1) Need for Speed: Vall 10.2) Return to Kraken Maw Peak 10.3) Return to Shadar Logoth Trail and Vallhenge

i never had any problem tranfering oxygen, or any other resource, between parts. i never worried about consumption priority, so i can't say about that. you really should be able to transfer it between tanks like fuel or any other resource. if you can't, it could be a bug

kerbalism does not change the rocket mechanics nor the planetary mechanics. your ships are going to be heavier due to life support necessities - a lot heavier if you plan longer missions - but the deltaV required is always the same, roughly 3400 m7s for LKO. the image you posted clearly refers to some planetary pack, which has absolutely nothing to do with kerbalism. i do believe you may have the wrong mod here.

Part 9: Rough yet smooth Leaping Mantis circumnavigates Bop, taking care to check both the kraken and the monolith. Because of the position of the monolith, my circumnavigation was a bit lopsides, crossing the north pole but only making it to 60° south. The path is still two semicircumferences, though 9.1) Pre-Bop 9.2) Proper Bop

A good point. However, having a different number of experiments in different cores would be confusing. By taking 4 copies of unnecessary experiments, I ensure that each core has the same number of experiments. So if I accidentally only took 3 experiments in a biome, I would notice immediately. I am also keeping strict track of which experiments I run in a datasheet, but I was doing that the previous time too, and I still missed one. Having four copies is a further guarantee of thoroughness. They also include the Jool atmosphere reports, taken from Phoenix. The science recap at the end of every chapter has the complete count. Well, once things start exploding, I reload. It doesn't really matter how much is salvageable afterwards. EDIT: moving the answers to @damerell here I was just going faster. I could have limited speed to 40 m/s, and it would have been very safe (except hitting the occasional surface feature) but it would also have been boring. It is a slight modification of the suicide burn. The very efficient landing, used by those that go for low mass records, is to lower orbit to the level of the highest mountain on the equator, then brake while pointing upwards so that the vertical speed is always 0, and time it all so that when they stop they are right on top of the highest mountain. this way minimizes gravity drag. However, timing it all so perfectly is impossible for a human. my variation is a human-friendly compromise that's only slightly less efficient. Misfortune? It was nice, I regret not going more straight north after Gagarin crater and skipping the main patch of mountains. Difficult terrain keeps things interesting, so long as the rover is capable to handle it.

Part 8: Garibarge against mountains, 2-2 draw Flying Christmas Tree finishes taking space science (almost) and brings Not Albatross to explore Laythe. The route taken around Laythe; the image is centered on Crescent bay 8.1) For ease of mind 8.2) Meeting Garibarge 8.3) We will not cease from Laythe exploration. How many times did I use that quote into a chapter title anyway? 8.5) Not Albatross moves on 8.5) We're flying high into the sky 8.6) Northward! 8.7) Treasure Crater Island 8.8) Back to orbit Science recap