Elcano Challenge - Circumnavigation no refueling... maybe.

[zhollett]

This is the place holder for my mission report.

Its a circumnavigation attempt around Kerbin with a small twist, I want to do it without refuelling.

I can if I need to, I'll fly some in... but I want to try and do it without it.

Also, I have turned off my electric wheel propulsion, so no help there, (unless i need reverse for some reason)

I think the largest problems will come at the water crossings, its dreadfully slow on the water. (i will be going roughly the same route as Slam_Jones seen here -> Thx to Mr.Jones

Its 100% stock except for KER for something else to look at on the journey.

Anyways, I'm beginning it tonight so here's a couple starter images.

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Edit: Well, this is going swimmingly... 36km (30 minutes MET) into the journey and I lost my nose cone and tail cone and a flat tire. Purely aesthetic but probably a bad omen.

Edited April 14, 2015 by zhollett

[Overland]

nice design.. if your using a control pad or something other than keyboard.. invert the steering of the rear most wheels.. usually 2 at the back

the loco will be able to turn the train in a tighter radius.. doing so you'll be able to recover from rollovers and instability easier than with just front wheels.. it manages to turn the loco around on its axis.. kind of like a rudder on a plane..

If you plan to go light engine at any time though reset it back to normal.. KSPs automatic steering un-reverses inverted steering once you uncouple the locomotive on her own.. the rear wheels will then be steering the same direction as the front ones.. hence crab

works great on the train though.. I wish you the very best of luck and looking forward to seeing any screenshots or movies..

its really nice to see more trains in KSP.. if only we had stable multiplayer.. a convoy of land trains would be a sight to see

KSP definately isnt kind to ground vehicles though as fengist noted in the OP of the challenge:)

Godspeed comrade train driver

Edited April 14, 2015 by Overland
Tired after work.. first few edits didnt make much sense... :(

[Slam_Jones]

-snip-

I think the largest problems will come at the water crossings, its dreadfully slow on the water. (i will be going roughly the same route as Slam_Jones seen here -> Thx to Mr.Jones

-snip-

Glad I could be of some inspiration

+rep for you, and good luck!

[zhollett]

54 minutes MET: So, after a good nights sleep, and a day of work, I am at 54 minutes into this trip and still 42km outside of the KSP home base. Those mountains are a Pain in the Buttox!!! I thought I'd be a bit of a scamp and snake my way thru them but I woefully under estimated exactly what that would entail.

BTW, updated the Album...

Notes: 1, its bendy

Notes: 2, wheels need repairing because its heavy

Notes: 3, caution over cliffs, its a doozie!

- - - Updated - - -

nice design.. if your using a control pad or something other than keyboard.. invert the steering of the rear most wheels.. usually 2 at the back

the loco will be able to turn the train in a tighter radius.. doing so you'll be able to recover from rollovers and instability easier than with just front wheels.. it manages to turn the loco around on its axis.. kind of like a rudder on a plane..

If you plan to go light engine at any time though reset it back to normal.. KSPs automatic steering un-reverses inverted steering once you uncouple the locomotive on her own.. the rear wheels will then be steering the same direction as the front ones.. hence crab

works great on the train though.. I wish you the very best of luck and looking forward to seeing any screenshots or movies..

its really nice to see more trains in KSP.. if only we had stable multiplayer.. a convoy of land trains would be a sight to see

KSP definately isnt kind to ground vehicles though as fengist noted in the OP of the challenge:)

Godspeed comrade train driver

Thanks for the great tips

Ill keep posting as the journey continues... hopefully I can learn from my test drives... which were not promising

[Overland]

Awww those mountains evil dark wrinkles on the surface of kerbin.. The nemesis of the kerbal land train... Any chance of any video?

im using a java based video recorder I found on sourceforge for my recordings.. it does pump out around 1gb file size.. but things like VLC will convert them to youtube SD format and reduce to around 150mb or so for a good 10+ minutes..

Pictures are great.. ive got thousands of the very same subject.. but when your driving a train on kerbin.. pictures dont quite relay the difficulties you face, for better or worse along with the just plain funny bits that you dont seem to get with any other form of vehicle ..

eg.. a train coming to the top of one of them mountains.. but the crest is just too sharp.. the locomotive lands on the razors edge of a cliff.. cutting the locomotive in 2 with much swearing from us drivers.. I never managed to record that.. as im past the stage of mountain exploration..

for a new driver like yourself.. these moments are gold to capture.. I dare say you'll enjoy watching your own videos once the dust settles as other people would..

I use Krut for windows

http://krut.sourceforge.net

my systems an old server running KSP on 2gb of ram with some default assets cut.. old dual core2duo.. it doesnt cause that much more lag with it running.. quite simple to use.. set the screensize.. alt tab.. hit record.. do what you want too.. then hit stop when ready.. the command window will show the progress of the saving..

eg.. I recorded this as with all of my videos with it.. then used VLC to stream it to a file in youtube SD format. came in around 70mb

I'll purposely choose the most bland video as not to draw attention away from your own work just an example

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I hope im not intruding on your thread though.. from a personal view its just great to see the torch of kerbal land trains being carried by another and im all too happy to give you my support in what ive learnt and what I use to document my journey..

can I ask too, how do you embed the imgur albums like that?

Edited April 15, 2015 by Overland

[zhollett]

... can I ask too, how do you embed the imgur albums like that?

1. Get the URL of your album (example: http://imgur.com/a/FSNag#0)

2. Copy the name of the album after the last slash, and before the #0

3. Put that in imgur tags like this [noparse]

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[/noparse]

4. Success!

[zhollett]

2:04 MET:

I'm finally past the mountains. Man what a pain!

Unfortunately I went more east than north-east.

I have to recover from that and fear it may put a damper in my plans. Will post more as the situation develops.

Note: I'm still not at the first water crossing (crosses fingers it goes well)

[Slam_Jones]

2:04 MET:

I'm finally past the mountains. Man what a pain!

Unfortunately I went more east than north-east.

I have to recover from that and fear it may put a damper in my plans. Will post more as the situation develops.

Note: I'm still not at the first water crossing (crosses fingers it goes well)

Those mountains can be pretty treacherous! Even with the small vehicle I used, it was tricky, so I imagine navigating a train through them is a bit of a task!

Good luck

[zhollett]

MET 4:05,

Finally made it to the first water crossing.

Unfortunately, my oh-so-limber-land-train (lol) is a water slug (2.5m/s).

I have 16h of burn time at 1/4 throttle, I suspect I might not have enough fuel to make it the full circumnavigation on the fuel I brought, because its so durn slow in the water.

Oh well, hopefully it runs out over water, then I can do a water landing refueling

That's it for this update, catch you later.