Rare Kerbin Biome Collection (Landed at Water, Splashed Down at Mountains...)

[Duke Leto]

If you're like me, obsessive and detail oriented, and you have the [x] Science! mod, you might be wondering if it's actually possible to collect science results while landed in Kerbin's water or splashed down in the deserts. 

The answer is yes for Vanilla KSP as of 1.4.5.  You can "land" in the water by getting a craft to the ocean floor out beyond the limit of the shore biomes, and there are lakes or rivers for each of the major biomes that you can splash down in, and I'm going to list the coordinates for the latter below.  For an added challenge, in addition to getting the raw science by running and recovering the standard experiments, you can run the experiments, transport them back to KSP by any means of transport you like, and instead of recovering the experiments, launch them into orbit where they can be processed in a mobile sci lab for more sweet science.  (Or converted to reputation or funds via strategy, since science from the Mun or Minmus yields more science points for the same effort.)

Getting landed in water is just a matter of getting a craft to the ocean floor by making a submarine or a craft that's too heavy to float.  Ore tanks full of ore do the job nicely, and you can adjust the amount of ore a craft has at launch to greater than zero the same way you can adjust the fuel, oxidizer or mp in a tank.  You can also map the "jettison tank contents" action to an action group to dump the ore and regain buoyancy and return your sub to the surface.  Note air breathing jet engines can get oxygen from underwater... somehow...

I used a modified version of kantokris' Mini Submarine Mk 3.  I replaced the claw at the front of the craft with a materials bay studded with experiments, and added some detachable landing gear as a launching frame.  I'm not sure kantokris knew you could just start with full tanks of of ore, so you can possibly dispense with the drills and ISRU as well.

https://kerbalx.com/kandokris/Mini-Submarine-Mk-3

For added Kerbalness, if you can find a way to make your submarine a yellow one...

As noted above, splashing down in land biomes is just a matter of finding a lake or river that isn't a water or shore biome.  I find a supersonic science "dive bomber" works well here.  Create a custom waypoint with the Waypoint Manager mod using the coordinates below and fly towards your target.  Decelerate down to subsonic speeds and drop into the lower atmosphere once you get near your target, then kill the engines and go into a dive straight towards your target body of water.  Once you're under the 1000 m limit (ALL lakes and rivers are at a 0m altitude), deploy a buttload of chutes and fall gently down for a nice splash down.  Stall to get to a safe velocity before doing so if you need to.  (Doing the same with landing gear is handy for soft landings with planes is rough terrain as well, FYI.)  In two cases, there are several biomes available in the same body of water a short distance away from each other.  You can also deploy landing gear in the water and use some low power jet thrust to get your plane up safely onto the shoreline, but make sure you aim for a gentle slope before trying this.  If your plane has a probe for flight control and only one seat, you'll have to choose whether you want to send a scientist (cleans experiments for more than one result), or an engineer (repacks chutes for multiple landings).

Below are the coordinates for each biome's splash down location, thanks to the chaps in this thread for helping me find them.  Note that you can customize MechJeb's surface info window to add the surface biome your craft is in or over.  If you have the ScanSat mod and want to try and find some locations yourself, look for locations with the target biome that have an altitude of less than 0m.

Shores: You really should be able to work this out for yourself...

Grasslands: 3°56'45" S 83°40'53" W

Easily reached by going S/SE along the coast from KSC.

Deserts: 2°25'7" S 87°34'5" W

Near the west coast of the KSC continent opposite KSC, over the southern edge of the mountain range.

Highlands: 47°21'13" N 140°3'52" W

This and the nearby mountains are probably the only splash down locations for their respective biomes.  This is in the river system on the large area of grasslands and highlands north of Baikanur and the great desert.  Splash down in the river near the target coordinates and cozy up to the cliffside on the western edge.

Mountains: 47°28'17" N 140°4'24" W

Just north of the above highlands splash down point in the same river.  Cozy up the west edge of the cliff again.

Badlands: 17°50'27" S 30°19'23" E 

This is probably the nearest Badlands lake to KSC, but it's a bit of a pain to taxi back out of owing to the steep banks, if that's what you want to do.

Tundra: 70°39'59" N 100°56'43" W

Mostly a straight flight north from KSC, this is a very big lake that's easily visible from orbit.

Ice Caps: 70°59'32" N 99°5'21" W

In the exact same lake as the Tundra biome above, easily reached by splashed down taxiing.

Northern Ice Shelf: 70°59'33" N 99°2'14" W

As you get close enough to the near vertical ice cap wall on the eastern edge of the lake, you transition from splashed down in the ice caps to splashed down in the northern ice shelf.  This is arguably buggy, and you can get this splashed down biome "fairly" by splashing down in the ocean just south of the edge of the ice shelf and then taxiing up to the vertical shelf.

Southern Ice Shelf: 74°39'43" S 57°31'9" W

Pretty much head south from KSC over the sea, and splash down near this point in front of the southern ice shelf.  There are other places in a more direct line from KSC where the ice shelf biome juts out into the sea, but this one is conveniently located near a beach if you want to get your craft back up onto land.

Have fun exploring, FOR SCIENCE!

Edited May 24, 2020 by Duke Leto
Missing Coordinate

[bewing]

Note that it is not necessary to go to the seafloor to get landed in water. Ice is a form of water, and there is usually meltwater on the surface of ice, IRL. If you look back at the earliest biome maps, it was always intended that there be "water" biomes on top of various ice sheets. So all you have to do is fly to some ice sheet, land near the edge, and drive around looking for a water biome.

[Duke Leto]

I think most people are going to find driving a weighted jet rover downhill from the runway into the ocean and on down into the vasty deep LESS of a pain in the ass than flying to the poles and poking around looking for water on top of them, but whatever floats your boat, metaphorically speaking.

If someone finds such a location and wants to post the coordinates, good on 'em.

[TanoPrime]

Northernmost lake near the ocean has a tiny Water biome which extends over the ice shelf.
It provides all the "Landed at Water" science experiments.

[Kerbal2023]

What do I do with these coordinates? How do I find these places? Somebody said use Kerbnet, but that can as far as I can tell just tell you the coordinates of where you're flying over.