Eve biome hopping plane

[John Sheppard]

Hi this is my first post. Appologies if it's in the wrong section as i wasn't sure if it should be in the questions sections or here as it's kind of both a challenge (as nobody seemed to have done anything like it) and a request for guidance/advice

Ok so i was searching for hours how to get all biomes data from EVE and haven't found any help that doesn't involve mods or veeeeeeryyyy long (real life) hours of driving on the surface

What i need is a plane that will have a pilot , engineer and a scientist (for resetting the sc-9001 and goo) ,be able to cruise long distances in eve's atmosphere, have atleast 4 of each of the science instruments (except the mobile proccessing lab) , mining equipment to refuel and take off again to fly to another biome , repeat. It has to be stock if possible without any exploit (i consider stock propeller engine almost kinda an exploit so didn't want to use that) so rockets i guess 

It will be delivered to eve by a normal rocket and dropped with 10m heatshields . Uppon completion of the mission (sampling most or all biomes) it will call-in a (probe) lander rocket from orbit that will pick up the 3 crew and all collected data and lauch for orbit and then home , leaving the plane back on the surface for future expeditions.

I've tried and failed misserably at this task as i was able to get 3000-4000 delta-v out of my planes which covered a very small distance before needing to stop for a day (or more) to refuel. The distances were so small in fact i would get there faster with a rover that didn't need to stop and refuel . Something like Matt Lowne's mobile duna base looks like a good idea but it will take a loooooong time to travel somewhere as i can't seem to be able to drive anything at reasonable speeds with more than 2x warp without crashing , that's why the need for the plane

Ok so this is my lattest attempt .. as you can see it's insanely oversized barely able to fly on Kerbin , not so bad on Eve but very small distance like i mentioned and even tho it's 3x the fuel of my last attempt it barely goes any further while needing much longer to refuel

Screenshots : 

http://prntscr.com/lkh18j           ,             https://prnt.sc/lkh26e

Science bay : http://prntscr.com/lkh2xk

Mining Module : http://prntscr.com/lkh35m

[vyznev]

Honestly, doing this in stock KSP (without stock propeller hacks) is kind of unnecessarily difficult, simply because the stock game lacks any engines that would be suitable for the conditions on Eve. Eve's atmosphere is so thick that flying in it is almost like swimming through water, and the ideal propulsion method for it would be what ships (and low-speed aircraft) use on Earth: propellers. But there are no real propeller engines in stock KSP, unless you build them yourself. To add insult to injury, there are also no jet engines that work on Eve (which might be reasonable, depending on what Eve's atmosphere actually consists of) and no rocket engines with nozzles properly optimized for the pressures on Eve's surface (which is not).

Of course, as a challenge, making a plane that can fly around on Eve using only stock parts is just as sensible as, say, making an SSTO spaceplane using only SRBs. It's fun precisely because it's hard. But if you want to do it in a real game without making it deliberately hard for yourself, I'd recommend installing one (or more) of the various mods that provide engines more suitable for the job (such as Eve Optimized Engines or Explodium Breathing Engines or Firespitter).

(Or, if it helps your sense of realism, you could consider using stock props but powering them with fuel cells instead of the usual RTGs. It's quite doable, and at least means that your engines will still be consuming some fuel and oxidizer.)

Edited November 20, 2018 by vyznev

[jinnantonix]

This subject is discussed at length here:  

 

I ended up finding the best solution was a LOX jet with ISRU, it had a range of about 80km.  I was able to visit all Eve surface biomes, and collect nearly all of the science available in the Eve/Gilly system, but it took a lot of game time to make the 90 hops for the half circumnavigation of Eve.  Here is the mission log:  

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by jinnantonix

[John Sheppard]

23 hours ago, vyznev said:

Honestly, doing this in stock KSP (without stock propeller hacks) is kind of unnecessarily difficult, simply because the stock game lacks any engines that would be suitable for the conditions on Eve. Eve's atmosphere is so thick that flying in it is almost like swimming through water, and the ideal propulsion method for it would be what ships (and low-speed aircraft) use on Earth: propellers. But there are no real propeller engines in stock KSP, unless you build them yourself. To add insult to injury, there are also no jet engines that work on Eve (which might be reasonable, depending on what Eve's atmosphere actually consists of) and no rocket engines with nozzles properly optimized for the pressures on Eve's surface (which is not).

Of course, as a challenge, making a plane that can fly around on Eve using only stock parts is just as sensible as, say, making an SSTO spaceplane using only SRBs. It's fun precisely because it's hard. But if you want to do it in a real game without making it deliberately hard for yourself, I'd recommend installing one (or more) of the various mods that provide engines more suitable for the job (such as Eve Optimized Engines or Explodium Breathing Engines or Firespitter).

(Or, if it helps your sense of realism, you could consider using stock props but powering them with fuel cells instead of the usual RTGs. It's quite doable, and at least means that your engines will still be consuming some fuel and oxidizer.)

Hmm Eve Optimized Engines i could live with i guess since it's the stock engines with a lower expansion nozzle. The Humans are very good at optimizing their engines to work on their over-sized planet both low and high altitude so i guess it's time our scientists took a page out of their books

About fuel cells i tested it but it seems that i can power the drill and converter with them indefintely and still make more fuel than i use which seems a bit off  

adf

@jinnantonix . Your plane looks really nice much better than my oversized (but still no better) one . How were you able to know its range coz i couldn't see a way to determine mine and from what i see in your video you are covering a similar distance maybe slightly more than my MK3 version 

I don't suppose there is any way to double the range of that is there? like i said making it bigger doesn't seem to help coz you end up adding more everything not just tanks which also means more gravity and drag

Would it work any better if you make something with high TWR to get high fast say 20km then reduce thrust to 20-50% and fly there or the fuel to increase your altitude would mitigate any gains from the lower drag at that altitude?

 

EDIT : Just tried to Install Eve Optimized Engines but it doesn't seem to work . I installed it in the usual way by dumping the contents into game data folder . My other mods (engineer redux, window transfer and , waypoint manager work fine) i guess optimized engines hasn't been updated in a while so doesn't work with current version. too bad

Edited November 21, 2018 by John Sheppard