Through the Central Mountains (Stock Ike Elcana)

[Mr. Peabody]

This is the chronicle of my stock Ike Elcana polar circumnavigation attempt. A picture is worth a thousand words so without further due let's begin.

(Fellow Cavemen, don't worry this is only a diversion from my caveman attempt in which I am making significant progress)

On the launch pad.

Lift off!

Circularization

Duna transfer burn

Duna capture burn, LF booster separation.

Arrival at Ike

Ike landing

Landed on Ike, in the dark, on the side of a steep mountain...

Flag planting shortly after rover separation. (using the rover's onboard RCS thrusters)

All aboard

6.2 uneventful kilometers driven through Ike's central mountain range on the first day.

[Mr. Peabody]

Installment #2.

A driver's perspective.

Cliffs are cool. We are definitely in the mountains. The opposite side of Ike will be much flatter.

Nearly through Ike's central mountain range. Total distance driven: 42 kilometers taking it slow over extremely rugged terrain.

[Kerbalstar]

Very cool!

[Geschosskopf]

Good luck!  Ike's a creepy place to drive on even in daylight.

[Mr. Peabody]

Thanks for the interest everyone! @Geschosskopf, you're right about that. Everything is as black a charcoal which can make it difficult to see impending doom, especially on the dark side. You do get a great view of the big, red, friendly planet though.

[Geschosskopf]

7 minutes ago, The Dunatian said:

Everything is as black a charcoal which can make it difficult to see impending doom,

The plus side is, Ike's "relatively" smooth compared to Mun, so you're not THAT likely to drive off a fatal cliff.  But OTOH, Ike is covered with moderate slopes that you really don't notice due to the overall charcoal color scheme even on the sunny side.  So if you're paying all your attention to where you're going instead of how fast you're getting there, you can easily come a-cropper, as I know to my loss.

[Mr. Peabody]

Descending a steep slope.

Drove another 40 kilometers, which seems to be the perfect distance to space waypoints.

I didn't run across very many interesting terrain features, but when I do I will always try to screenshot them.

[Mr. Peabody]

Here we go again. 

The rover experiencing a strange but harmless glitch. It seems to fix itself after a short while.

The glitch went away shortly after this screenshot was taken. This was an extremely steep valley, coming almost to a point at the bottom.

A mountain that stood out from the surrounding terrain. We won't be climbing that one.

Drove another 45 kilometers. Still in Ike's Central Mountains biome. I'm looking forward to reaching the anomalous north pole and the half-way point. Maybe in another 2 or 3 waypoints.

[Mr. Peabody]

Since I'll be driving all the way around Ike on this rover, I figured it should have a proper name. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the Endurance rover.

Actually I got the idea for the name from Earnest Shackleton's family motto: By enduring we conquer. Fitting I think.

View from above.

Another driving beauty shot.

We finally made it out of Ike's central mountains biome! Here we are driving through the midlands.

Total progress up till now. We really have come quite a way.

 

[Mr. Peabody]

I'm currently sick with the flu so I had a sick day today. Here's what I did:

Cresting a steep ridge that was visible from orbit. It ran for many kilometers east to west.

Roving through flatter terrain.

Duna lined up nearly perfectly behind us as we approach the north pole crater.

Total progress for today. Nearly into the north pole crater biome! I wonder if any elves live here... 

Also, a big shout-out to all of you who are patient enough to keep checking back despite my boring commentary. Thanks mates! Your comments are appreciated.

[Wallygator]

This is all pretty darn good feces!!!

keep up the good effort!!!

[Clipperride]

Looking good for a circumnavigation, just keep on trucking!

It seems that ~40km is near the maximum distance you can keep focused while driving over challenging ground.  It's the same distance I choose when I was on my own Munar Marathon, a year or so ago.

Hope you keep up with the Mission Reports.

Map from Munar Marathon (most flags are 40km apart)

Spoiler

 

[Clipperride]

Have you visited the Pole before?  I ask as, on the Mun at least, the terrain (is that the right word when talking about the Mun?) got brutal!  I think it's due to the way the game wraps the surface around celestial bodies.  Slopes over 45° become more about avoiding collisions rather than actual driving!

Looking forward to the next installment and hope you're feeling better too.

[Mr. Peabody]

41 minutes ago, Clipperride said:

Have you visited the Pole before?  I ask as, on the Mun at least, the terrain (is that the right word when talking about the Mun?) got brutal!  I think it's due to the way the game wraps the surface around celestial bodies.  Slopes over 45° become more about avoiding collisions rather than actual driving!

Looking forward to the next installment and hope you're feeling better too.

No, I actually haven't so it should be quite the adventure! I have come across some fairly steep slopes all of which I was able to handle so far.  My strategy is to just slow down when driving through extremely rough terrain. Better late than never.

[Clipperride]

Are you allowing yourself quick saves?  If so, I hope you are doing them regularly?  It's heart breaking to wreck the vehicle and find the last save was 10km back.

We await further news.....

[Mr. Peabody]

4 hours ago, Clipperride said:

Are you allowing yourself quick saves?  If so, I hope you are doing them regularly?  It's heart breaking to wreck the vehicle and find the last save was 10km back.

We await further news.....

Yes, I am quick-saving though I try to use quick saves sparingly. So far I haven't had to revert though.

[Mr. Peabody]

Today's drive started with a bit of a scare. The rover started a death-spin at 15 m/s for no apparent reason.

Fortunately the onboard emergency RCS system came to the rescue.

Jeb looks way to happy after that potentially disastrous event.

The shadow zone near the pole was darker than the inside of a tar pit, forcing me to take it extremely slow driving "blind" in the dark.

This was the lowest point on Ike that I've reached so far. It is probably one of the lowest areas on the moon.

Here we are at the "polar peak!" The "polar peak" is a extremely steep hill coming directly to a point exactly on the pole.

Beauty shot at the north pole; or is it?

According to kerbnet and the EVA report we are at the south pole. This however, cannot be true since I have been driving north, a direction clearly marked on the navigation ball and because Ike has no north pole biome, only a polar lowlands biome at the north pole, which I passed earlier in my drive. Have I discovered some kind of strange glitch?

Progress for today. We drove a bit further than usual because I wanted to reach the north pole today. I'm happy that I decided to do a polar circumnavigation, the poles are an adventure just by themselves! 

 

 

 

[roboslacker]

13 hours ago, The Dunatian said:

According to kerbnet and the EVA report we are at the south pole.

The mystery deepens...

[Geschosskopf]

16 hours ago, The Dunatian said:

According to kerbnet and the EVA report we are at the south pole. This however, cannot be true since I have been driving north

Well, other than this being another common biome-naming error, there is also this theory....

Long ago there was the Magic Boulder anomaly in a polar orbit around Ike.  Then it mysteriously disappeared.  Some believe it crashed into Ike and resulted in the various problems noted there.  The impact might have physically flipped Ike 180^ so the old south pole is now on the north end.  Or it could be that the general weirdness and overall destructive nature of the Magic Boulder infected Ike and scrambled everything.

[Mr. Peabody]

Day 32:

It's a good thing Jeb is the anti-social type. Otherwise he might try to brag that he hasn't crashed even once since beginning his circumnavigation 32 days ago.

The space center directors seemed a little happier than they should have been when Jeb was mysteriously assigned to the mission despite the fact that he had no training in rover-driving and can't fix a flat tire. Their decision seems to have paid off as launch accidents have decreased 65% since the chief destroyer pilot has been away. This has however, resulted in an increased rate of unemployment among the individuals whose occupation deals with the removal of debri and repainting of air traffic control towers.

Hulk beauty shot.

We are now officially out of the polar region and into Ike's western mountains biome. Go west young kerbal!

A small and relatively boring bit of air-time. You can't blame me though. Most big air-time is not a good thing and as a result I'm too focused on driving to remember to take a screenshot. I have to show you some air-time though. 

Ever wondered how Jeb avoids boredom on his road-trip? Here he is listening to an audio drama on the radio. (Joking aside, I really do listen to audio dramatizations to chase away boredom.)

Progress for today. We drove about 50 kilometers through Ike's western mountain range.

[Mr. Peabody]

Well guys I have some bad news. For some reason my entire game was deleted. I'm not sure how it happened. Don't discuss details here. but...

I refuse to allow this setback to stop me. I'll be back. And this time I'll bring a reaction wheel for the rover...