How would you rescue these stranded tourists?

[dire]

So, there are 3 tourists and Valentina on the surface of the moon. They made it down OK, but instead of using -half- their fuel to get down, they used -all- of it. How would you get them back to Kerbal for the contract completion?

And yes, that is a tourist vehicle with insufficient delta-V for a moon landing, grappled by -another- tourist vehicle that landed safely and is now stranded.

Edited July 6, 2016 by dire
Got another pic that isn't in shadow

[Netherman555]

Well that craft itself is never going to get off the surface.  And tourists can't EVA I think... so... this is a problem.

If you have enough resources and time to do this, I would launch a large craft up onto the mun and then try to grab them? It's very difficult but if you can actually grab both of those ships then you'll just need to get back.  If required, get it into a munar orbit and then refuel it for the return journey.

Probably they're all dead but it's worth a shot.

EDIT: I feel really stupid, I just realized you can try to use a Klaw to refuel the ship (if that works anyway).  But my way's more fun in my opinion

Edited July 6, 2016 by Netherman555
Forgot something

[dire]

Why, what's wrong with the craft as-is? If I managed to refuel it, it should definitely be able to go SOMEWHERE. I managed to land it with two rovers attached, it just took more fuel than I thought it would.

And the notion of just grabbing the ship and completing the mission that way is the reason this current ship has a crooked nose.

Tourists can't EVA but they -can- transfer modules within a ship. This ship also dropped two rovers (they're 3 km away doing a science mission), each with both a crew cabin and an AI, so one viable option would be to transfer the tourists to a better ship using the rovers.

Edited July 6, 2016 by dire
rovers are worth mention.

[Geschosskopf]

If the tourits' ship isn't too damanged to fly, land a fuel rover with the Klaw next to it, engage the Klaw, and refuel the tourist ship.  If the tourist ship is broken, then your only hope is to tow the tourist module back home using another ship with the Klaw.

OR, you could hit ALT=F12, go to the contract tab, and make that contract completed

 

[bewing]

Do your rovers have klaws? If they don't, then the tourists can't board the rovers.

But I agree with you, the current ship can certainly get back to Kerbin if you just refuel it. So that is your best answer, I think. You need a rover with a klaw or two, a terrier engine, and one small rockomax tank of LFO. In fact, that's basically the rover that I use for dispensing fuel from my mining operation.

Great job finding a flat landing spot! Congrats on that. They are rare on the Mun, and if your rocket was on its side, this would be a lot harder.

This is a pic of my ISRU rover for Minmus -- but you don't need the converter part. I will say that if you put a rover like this on the Mun (somewhere fairly flat), it will remain very useful for your whole game.

 

 

Edited July 6, 2016 by bewing

[Reactordrone]

Depending on how much RCS propellant you have left in that, you might have enough delta-v to get back into Munar orbit where a rendezvous and return with a claw equipped vehicle might be easier.

[dire]

I was intending the RCS fuel for final deorbiting maneuvers over Kerbin (and keeping the pods from flipping and then blowing up, which has been a problem)., and docking with the previous pod. I also used it for a little extra thrust in landing. Even assuming the cans were full, they presumably wouldn't have more delta-v than the liquid/oxidizer and engine on the other craft (especially considering i'd also need to haul the other craft).

My rovers should definitely be up to the job of moving fuel, although it might become a little tedious because their tankage is tiny.

 

I just landed a refueling tanker and I'm moving these two over to haul it about a kilometer to the Munbus. I think I'm just going to abandon their science mission; I cannot for the life of me find area XPC-N Alpha, even though I know for sure it is within 2 Km of this screencap. They are literally right on top of it and the navball navigate isn't working with the rovers. So I am going to miss out on like 5 points of science :\

 

Bewing I like your refueling rover. It looks like it would be very slow and heavy but more stable than my rovers because the wheel base is wider (these guys tend to flip and roll very easily at speeds more than about 8 m/s).

 

Edit: And the refuel run continues apace. A snail's pace, as each rover only holds about 72 liquid fuel units and for some reason those tiny cans take a crazy long time to fill. However, I can easily dump 500 or so units of fuel from the refuel pod into the stranded tour bus and be on my way home. And yes, the refuel pod is missing its lander engine. It wasn't a hard landing, it was the rover shenanigans getting it to stand upright so they could carry it after it found a small patch of especially not-flat terrain. Also, it turned out those landing legs were -just- too short to stabilize a Poodle.

 

 

In the future I am definitely adding a second claw to all of my rovers. Thank you for that excellent idea!

Edited July 6, 2016 by dire

[bewing]

3 hours ago, dire said:

My rovers should definitely be up to the job of moving fuel, although it might become a little tedious because their tankage is tiny.

Recovering from a disaster is supposed to be tedious. That's how you learn not to do it again.  But there is some gratification in knowing that you overcame it. And some new knowledge on creative ways to cope.

3 hours ago, dire said:

I just landed a refueling tanker and I'm moving these two over to haul it about a kilometer to the Munbus. I think I'm just going to abandon their science mission; I cannot for the life of me find area XPC-N Alpha, even though I know for sure it is within 2 Km of this screencap. They are literally right on top of it and the navball navigate isn't working with the rovers. So I am going to miss out on like 5 points of science :\

Well, I think you may have underestimated that contract, too. That contract is what I call a "treasure hunt". If you had found XPC-N Alpha, it would have said "XPC-N Alpha was not the source of the anomalies. Proceed on to location XPC-N Beta." Which would have been several more kilometers away, and over a cliff or two. There is always a Beta, Gamma, and Delta site. Sometimes more. So that 5 points of science may be much more distant than you think.

3 hours ago, dire said:

Bewing I like your refueling rover. It looks like it would be very slow and heavy but more stable than my rovers because the wheel base is wider (these guys tend to flip and roll very easily at speeds more than about 8 m/s).

It is only meant to drive a few hundred meters between a drill and a ship to refuel. Yes, it is quite heavy when it is full. I try hard to keep the speed below 6 m/s -- the Mun is a dangerous place for rovers. But the one little terrier engine can land it and then send it back into orbit for a couple hundred units of fuel.

3 hours ago, dire said:

Edit: And the refuel run continues apace. A snail's pace, as each rover only holds about 72 liquid fuel units and for some reason those tiny cans take a crazy long time to fill.

Any size of tank takes the same amount of time to fill. 3000 units, or 72 units -- same time.

3 hours ago, dire said:

However, I can easily dump 500 or so units of fuel from the refuel pod into the stranded tour bus and be on my way home.

Yay! Yup, that should do it easily. The refuel pod certainly doesn't need any of it anymore .... 

3 hours ago, dire said:

And yes, the refuel pod is missing its lander engine. It wasn't a hard landing, it was the rover shenanigans getting it to stand upright so they could carry it after it found a small patch of especially not-flat terrain. Also, it turned out those landing legs were -just- too short to stabilize a Poodle.

Yeah, isn't that always the way it goes.  Well done with the whole operation, though. Success is sweet, eh?

 

[tater]

You can land a larger rover and use claw-magic to refuel the ships in question. Alternately, land a rover that can seat all the stranded kerbals, and use claw-magic to transfer them to the rover, then claw the rover to a better ship, and fly them home in that.