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king of nowhere

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Everything posted by king of nowhere

  1. I got 140 m/s with a half-assed design i scrambled together in a short time as part of a larger mission. Very basic plane, but it flew thousands of kilometers. Can't post links from mobile, but it's linked in my signature, the Bolt/Nail mission, Eve chapter. That kind of performance is easy to get if one does not overengineer the plane - you appear to have a small rotor on a relatively big plane, which limits performance. Getting faster is harder. I know @Lt_Duckweed as a great expert of planes, if 229 is his best attemp, it's probably close enough to the upper theoretical limit
  2. I'm asking about unique personal achievements: things that you have done and that probably nobody else has done. i'm not talking of things to boast. great achievements, low mass, low parts, most landings. there are other places for those. i'm talking of doing something so bizarre that after doing it, you muse "you know, I must be the very first person to do this exact thing" let's try a couple examples. here i was driving a rover on Tal. plenty of people have the outer planets mod. thousands will have landed on tal, and many of them will have used a rover for the task. nothing worth noting here. i did bring a rover to tal to circumnavigate it. nobody else circumnavigated tal with a rover - at least, nobody else wrote in the challenge subforum about it - but that's the kind of big achievements and this thread is not for those kind of things. i was planting a flag, and since tal has low gravity stopping a rover is annoying, so i sent a kerbal out while the rover was still moving, to plant the flag and rejoin the rover by jetpack. but I mishandled the maneuver and ended up with the rover running over bill. and i wondered, hey, what are the odds that someone else went all the way to this remote moon to have one of his own astronauts run down by a car? it must be a world first! I sent a rover to circumnavigate tylo. many other people have done it. i made a detour to reach the cave complex, and while there I climbed it, pushed the rover to the top. not very original. a lot of people must have landed near the cave complex, and surely somebody else already tested their rover mountaineering capacity by climbing to the top. but it just turns out that my rover has a cupola installed on a rotating servo on top - because i figured activating it and looking all around could help break the monotony of the long trip. well, what are the chances that someone did this already? surely others brought a rover on top of the cave complex. most likely someone else thought of putting a rotating cupola on top of a rover, though that's a weird enough idea. but using a rover with a rotating cupola on top to get a panoramic view from the top of tylo's cave is probably something unique. i'm curious to see other bizzarre dealings
  3. it's not screen brightness, it's game brightness turning it up is useful for seeing by night. and for taking screenshots by night that can be seen
  4. i suggest you increase background light in the options, most of those screenshots are just a black screen
  5. i suppose you mean your most memorable kerbal death? well, i built a memorial for val during a caveman career
  6. I do take this chance to ask a question that has been bugging me since i started this challenge the first time, almost four years ago: why the science contest is named after jeb? shouldn't it be bob's level?
  7. rules are explicit about them. only recovered science counts, not transmitted, and surface experiments are transmitted science. that, and the science lab. that makes sense, too. the amount of science that could be recovered that way is potentially infinite, i think.
  8. have you tried sticking them not on the docking port itself, but on the fuel tanks above it?
  9. Part 6: Need for Speed: Tylo Flying Christmas Tree 2 drops Tamarromobile on Tylo. It's a completely different experience than it was with Dancing Porcupine, with sustained speeds between 150 to 200 km/h. As Tylo is big, this piece of report only covers the first half. The second half of the circumnavigation is still underway. Two pictures to get a clear view of the western emisphere of Tylo. Flags are 90 km apart Meaning that between flags 10 and 11, as well as 15 to 16, I crossed 90 km in 28 minutes. It gives an average speed of 193 km/s (53.5 m/s, close to the maximum of the wheels at 58 m/s), but the time includes planting a flag. 6.1) I thought docking issues would be a thing of the past 6.2) Beautiful desolation 6.3) Mountains ahoy! 7.4) Bonus: Back to El camino de muerte
  10. there are times when the game does not make struts across docking ports. not sure when it happens; i know it's a bug of some editions. so, no matter how much you autostrut, it won't strut the payload to the rest of the rocket. which also explains why, before you add the rocket, the payload is fine. you can check it out, somewhere in the alt-f12 menu there is a "show autostrut" function. easy fix: add a normal strut. it's just 50 kg. you'll remove it later with eva construction.
  11. Part 5: The new last flight of the Phoenix Phoenix flies low in Jool's atmosphere. Phoenix flying amid green clouds 5.1) Lowering orbit 5.2) Inside Jool 5.3) Getting out of Jool 5.4) Return to Pol Science recap
  12. slate, wal: modded (kerbalism, near futute electric) ovok hale polta priax tal: stock whirligig world: i had a few mods, but the only one that actually affected the rover is simple fuel switch
  13. why modded? pol is a stock moon, and i didn't use any mod in that game
  14. As part of my latest Jool 5, I run a circumnavigation of Pol for once, it's a stock moon. P.S. I see Didd hasn't been added to the scoreboard yet
  15. Part 4: Pretty little world Leaping Mantis circumnavigates Pol, gathering all available science in the process. I wanted to call this chapter "Pol is dead", but I thought it would be very confusing for those who would not get the reference. It took 73 days for the circumnavigation, but only because I stopped to do other tasks. From Pol 13 it was straightforward. Every flag is spaced 10-12 km Science recap In space high you can run 10 science experiments: EVA report, EVA experiment, crew report, goo observation, materials study, temperature scan, atmospheric pressure, gravity scan, infrared telescope, magnetometer boom. Except for the gravity scan, all are global. So you can run high space experiments equal to 9+1*biome. In space low the situation is sligtly different; you can't use the infrared telescope, but EVA report also can be done in multiple biomes. So the numer of experiments is 7+2*biomes. I am collecting all space science in Flying Christmas Tree 2. It's easier to keep track of which experiments I may be missing if I divide the reports. On the ground you also have 10 experiments (seismic scan and surface sample are available, but you lose magnetometer boom and infrared telescope), and all except EVA experiments are biome-specific. So you get 1+9*biome. Plus surface features. On Pol there are 4 biomes and 1 surface feature, so there are 38 reports available and collected so far.
  16. Part 3: The road to Jool Flying Christmas Tree 2 goes first to refuel on Minmus, then on Jool. It ditches Garibarge along the way, before landing and refueling on Pol. Arrival at Jool 3.1) Refueling on Minmus 3.2) To Jool 3.3) Garibarge lands on Laythe
  17. i'm having some visual bugs on tylo those darker shadows keep flickering on an off, the effect is very annoying when trying to drive a rover - though ultimately non critical. it has nothing to do with my rover or lights; i changed vehicle, went on a flag that has nothing else in physical radius, and still there is the same visual bug. any suggestion on how to fix?
  18. but its effectiveness gets reduced with speed. a more likely culprit, though, may be electricity. i haven't paid much attention since it wasn't my focus, but some science experiments require a lot of electricity, and they run slower withiout. i am pretty sure, in any case, the sentinel telescope still requires many years to collect its science in the first place.
  19. @JacobJHC after starting my newest jool5, I realized I made a small violation of rule 4: after sending my ship to minmus for refueling, I realized I forgot to include thermal radiators. rather than reloading and losing all progress, I sent a small ship to minmus with the required parts and stuck them with eva construction. I also swapped out a lander, but in this case it was purely nonfunctional beautification, since the new lander was a perfect copy of the old one save for the addition of 50odd lightstrips. that also on minmus orbit Please tell me I'm fine and don't need to reload all the way to LKO
  20. It's light, but it takes up a lot of space. You try docking Phoenix to a ship with a bunch of other vehicles. Same goes for the rovers. They are not incredibly huge, but they all have wheels stuck on long trusses for stability, and that take up lots of space. Basically, every vehicle I'm carrying around has a very large base for wheels, or large wings. Most are also long. And let's not even talk about Garibarge. Part 2: Launching Flying Christmas Tree 2 With all the landers in place, Flying Christmas Tree 2 may be the most majestic ship I ever launched. Or the most silly. Probably both. 2.1) Launching Flying Christmas Tree 2 with Tamarromobile 2.2) Launching Not Albatross 2.3 Launching Garibarge 2.4) Launching Phoenix 2.5) Launching Leaping Mantis, and refueling
  21. Three years ago, I run a Jool 5 with the objective of collecting all possible science. While the mission scored the record in the category, it felt incomplete in many regards. I regret many things I could have done, but didn't. I failed to collect all possible science. Most pivotal to that are two discoveries I made recently: the first is, if you are on sea, but standing on top of a vehicle, you can collect science as "landed". "Landed" science and "splashed down" science are different, which means I could have collected "landed" science for a bunch of water-only Laythe biomes. And second, I discovered that with some experimets you can collect them more times (up to 4) and get some extra science. Second, while I was there collecting science from every biome, I did drive rovers halfway around both Vall and Tylo. I could have completed circumnavigations, but I didn't. Well, this time I want to be thorough. And I want to do it with style. Or I want to do a few wild and silly things because they amuse me. The boundary between "style" and "wild silly thing that amuse me" is hard to define. Part 1: Proof that I'm getting old, aka mission design In most missions, I start with a mothership, then I build the landers, then I found some ways to adapt the landers and mothership to each other. Not in this case. This time I'll bring more oversized vehicles than in any other mission. So I'll first design the vehicles, and then I'll try to sort out what kind of mothership I need for them. I need the following capabilities: - a rover for all moons - landing and taking off from Tylo - a plane for Laythe, capable of taking off from water - an aircraft carrier for the Laythe plane, so that the plane can collect "landed" science on water biomes. - something to reach the inner atmosphere of Jool and return. And just like an old geezer living of past memories, I'm going to recycle a lot of old designs for this mission. Because I liked them and I'd like to use them again. After this sneak peek, aren't you curious to see what the rest of the ship looks like? 1.1) Leaping Mantis small rover 1.2) Tamarromobile Tylo rover 1.3) Phoenix Jool plane 1.4) Absolutely Not An Albatross, Laythe seaplane (Not Albatross for short) 1.5) Garibarge, Laythe aircraft carrier (sort of) 1.6) Flying Christmas Tree 2
  22. As far as I'm aware, this is the first grand tour of the whole Kaywell-Limnel-Gememma system. I saw someone else trying, but failing. I suppose I should warn there are spoilers inside, as every celestial body is landed on, often enough it's driven on with a rover or flown on with a plane, and described in detail. A really great experience, despite all my complaints about the crazy amount of gravity assists I needed in the end to pull off the Ammenon landing and back in a fully reusable fashion.
  23. Wow, so few people post in the grand tour challenge... Well, it's not exactly qualified because it's not stock but a modded planetary pack; but given that the planetary pack in question had 44 bodies with a surface, a couple of them bigger than Eve, and a bunch of other challenges, I figured it was worth posting here. As far as I'm aware, the first successful circumnavigation of the whirligig world planetary pack
  24. Part 12: Bring them back It was very difficult to go to Ammenon, it is also difficult to return. Boundless has completed all the landings, now it will bring the crew back to Mesbin (after a refueling stop on Oshan). I didn't envision a vehicle to land the crew, so I had to improvise one with what I had. Mission is completed successfully. All nine crewmember home safely. Yes, that's home. In this mod, kerbals live on Mesbin, which has no atmosphere. I swear, this is not any of a dozen other unremarkably grey celestial bodies 12.1) Seeing red (Lowel flybys) 12.2) Seeing blue (from Mandrake/Rutherford to Tyepolbynar and Valyr) 12.3) Seeing red, blue, and a bit of white and brown too (Oshan, refueling, and Kerbmun) 12.4) Parachutes? where we're going, we won't be able to use parachutes I already recommended this mod several times, but it's worth repeating: this is a great planetary pack. And now, once more, I need to find another challenge.
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