Esme

I launched my first three-crew ship (in this game, a Science one) into a Minmus flyby orbit. The plan was that at the appropriate moment, Jeb would detach the lander, which included months of supplies (using TAC Life-support), and start exploring whilst another launch would deliver a small permanent base and one or two more crew. Everything went well right up to the point where the mountain loomed over the horizon with Jeb committed to land and insufficient thrust to avoid the mountain. Unfortunately, Jeb didn't die on impact, but his ship was wrecked and the bulk of his supplies destryed. Three days later, Jeb expired. RIP. :-(

WildLynx, the same could be said of conventional bell-nozzle engines in KSP - there's a mess of turbopumps and whatnot shifting fuel around and turning the thing on and off on demand, but that's hidden from view inside the ship. So the model is fine, for a plug-nozzle engine, bearing in mind that it's essentially an inside-out bell nozzle. In practice, if we're talking about toroidal plug-nozzle engines, the ring part consists of multiple small engines arranged in a ring, which can be independently throttled or turned on and off (or turned on and off in groups), to enable steering. I've tried seeing if I can achieve something akin to a Pegasus/Ithacus design ( see http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/pegvtovl.htm ) by placing a lot of small thruster around the base of a big orange tank (and even adding another small one dead centre underneath), but unsurprisingly the limitations of the physics engine don't quite give the desired result :-} I'd also add that despite my annoyance over what I see as incorrect nomenclature of the plug-nozzle engine currently in KSP, I DO realise that that's down to me being a bit OCD about it aided and abetted by my enthusiasm for Pegasus-type SSTOs. Even if Squad did absolutely nothing further about aerospike/plug nozzle engines in the game, I'd still be a very happy bunny with regard to KSP, it is SUCH an excellent game. This just happens to be my 'one thing' I'd like to see better/improved, and let's face it, SQUAD aren't ever going to be able to make everybody perfectly happy, are they? :-} - - - Updated - - - @NthanKell - nope, an aerospike is a variation on a plug-nozzle that does away with most of teh plug in favour of a stream of gas to get the same effect as the plug aerodynamically, hence the term aerospike. @Sal_vager - pardon me, m'dear, but reading that post in the other thread about nosecones simply brought to mind my irritation about aerospikes in KSP (which Iron Crown has kindly pointed out to me is to be improved upon), so I started this thread. If this wasn't the right thing to do to bring the matter up, please let me know what is, I'm all for doing things properly. And I wasn't meaning to have a go at you personally! :-) (sorry if HTML tags are showing, but I'm having problems with text formatting here again. Wish I could remember how I got over it last time..)

From the thread about removing the nose-cone on Mk1 and Mk 2 cockpits Originally Posted by sal_vager The current Mk1 and Mk2 inline cockpits, the Aerospike, the Mammoth, they all have this build restriction of having to be the end of a vessel, if you want to use these parts you have to take that into consideration... (end quote) Sal_vager, KSP does NOT have an aerospike engine. What it has is a plug-nozzle engine (ie: has a physical long, pointy bit in the middle). A selection of aerospike engines is something I'd love to see in KSP. For those that aren't aware of the difference, the aerospike engine takes the idea of the plug-nozzle engine, but replaces the physical cone with a much-truncated one and instead uses exhaust gases from turbopumps or suchlike released in the centre to provide the same effect. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine and http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/a...erospike.shtml Given that the actual length of such engines is much the same as conventional bell-nozzle engines, there's no reason outside of gameplay considerations that either toroidal plug-nozzle or aerospike engines shouldn't allow attachment of a decoupler so that they can be used on second/third stages etc. Now, personally, I would like to see aerospike (NOT plug-nozzle, please!) engines at all 3 standard sizes, and I don't mind if, for game considerations there are some limitations on aerospike engines, like making them non-steerable, or non-stackable or even both. Fell free to put them high up teh tech-tree too, if you must. But just get rid of that awful plug-nozzle thing, please! Put another way, the cone I want to get shot of is at the other end of the ship!

Hmmn.. backup ascent vehicle in an orbit 50km higher? That sounds doable by jetpack. Not easy, mind, but maybe doable.

I MIGHT be interested. I haven't had a lot of time for KSP just recently, though hope to play more soon. But years back, I was involved in flight sims, and loved flying long flights, mostly by dead reckoning.

Well, I live in hope of one day playing Career mode and not getting so bored with it that I never get as far as the Mun. But that's just me (a confirmed Science mode KSP'er) :-}

Good heavens, that's a meaty PC you have (at least compared to mine it is)! Personally, I don't find unmodded KSP crashy at all. I use 64 bit Linux Mint on a PC with 6GB of RAM, AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core Processor (4420.11 bogomips) and an Nvidia graphics card with 256MB of video RAM and a 540Mhz GPU. It's a refurbed PC, old kit. Oh, I use Xfce as my desktop, in case that matters. With mods, it depends very much on the individual mods and sometimes the combination of mods you use that causes crashes. For instance, I;ve used Firespitter before without problems, but when I tried using it alongside MKS and visual enhancement mods, it seemed to be Firespitter that was causing crashiness (the others simply slowed things down). I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Firespitter, mind, just that in combination with the other mods I was using then my PC wasn;t a happy bunny :-( Your mileage may vary. Good luck!

So far I've used timewarp fairly normally, but I do have in mind one day doing an interplanetary mission in real time, ie: get the thing launched and on its way, and then just keep KSP running continuously. Maybe create a ships log and if I have a working telescope mod take some astro-shots along the way. Then when at the far end, land, and because nothing at all (generally) happens without human supervision, I'd probably save the game when I needed to sleep/work/whatever, and then whenit came time for teh return trip again leave KSP running in real time. It's the sense of accomplishment thing that appeals to me about doing things that way. Mind you, I do have a second PC that can handle playing KSP 0.9 or earlier, so I wouldn;t necessarily be berfect of KSP fun whilst my interplanetary mission was cruising between planets :-}

Very nice work, Pandora's kitten! And good luck with beationg the depression. From personal experience, it CAN be beaten. I hope that happens sooner rather than later for you!

Definitely worth the asking price. There are many games with far less replay value that cost more out there - and as earlier posters have said, the range of mods for KSP are so diverse that you can easily change it into a dramatically different game. I've paid for KSP twice - once on Steam, and then, because I got fed up of having to delve through the Steam directories when applying mods, I bought a second copy direct from SQUAD. Easily the best value for money game I've ever purchased bar none.

That's very interesting - I tried to get the hang of Orbiter about a year before I came across KSP, and failed utterly. I recall thinking to myself that I wished there was something still with realistic physics, but esaier to actually get going with, and then a year later, I stumbled upon KSP 0.23. Harvester, if you read this - thank you! - I do intend to give Orbiter another go one day, but for now I've got my hands full just trying to get Kerbals to Duna. And there's so many fun things to do in KSP and so little time for games in my life... :-}

As per my suitably edited first post, I'm having to halt here as my savefile has become corrupted and I didn't have a backup. I'll be trying again in a few weeks to a few months time, and meanwhile will look at improving the rover and seeing if a few bugs I experienced can be addressed. Thanks to all who read this far and offered support and advice! Esme

Kindly mind your manners, EladV. I was making a perfectly good point, not whining; if you cannot make a response without resorting to childish insult, then you might wish to reconsider whether you should make your post at all. If SQUAD's devs think that leaking snippets in other places first won't annoy those on what are supposed to be the KSP offical forums - and thus, implicitly, the official channel for the release of news of the game - particularly when they have been told many times that it's annoying, then criticism is what they should expect. I do recognise that with things changing so rapidly on the internet these days, that conceptions of what is acceptable netiquette may be rather fluid and even be wildly different from one individual to another, but it's a mystery to me why SQUAD don't seem to realise why this sort of thing irritates, having had it explained, clearly, so often. And the reason that I feel impelled to speak on this subject again is because the lack of a stable 64-bit Windows build has clearly been a source of some disappointment to our friends here that run Windows (I use Linux, personally) (and I'm quite as critical of those who seem impervious to SQUAD's perfectly reasonable explanations that the problem is with Unity, not KSP, incidentally.). Clearly anything that even hints at a stable 64 bit Windows build is going to attract a lot of attention and raise hopes, and cause much discussion here. MUCH better to make a proper disclosure here rather that 'tease' elsewhere for something that important to so many.

Then he should have more sense, quite frankly. And I'm not whining; I'm making a perfectly good point; kindly mind your manners Eladv.

SQUAD; much as I love KSP, it's a damned poor show if you don't post news about games development on the KSP Forum first. It's what anyone buying from SQUAD sees first, and it's the only source of news people who, for whatever reason don't use social media will see. It doesn't help matters when you appear to deliberately 'miss the point' when you eventually bother to respond to comments on the matter here, either. I repeat - there's nothing stopping you from posting here AND on other sites as well - so why do you persist in doing this annoying practice of announcing things in other places and not bothering to mention them here at the same time?

Day 3. Up before dawn, and we set off slowly with the sun only halfway above the horizon, having found that with the sun that low, we're not gathering enough power from the solar panels to make up running losses, even stationery. We're on the flank of a large broad ridge running down from the Kergids to the sea, so we're tipped over between 10 and 20 degrees to one side, and nose high 5-10 degrees as well. Val thinks we should be able to make the crest of the ridge on the three-quarters power that we've got, then we can stop and recharge. Well, it was a near-run thing, but we found a flattish spot short of the top of the ridge just as the battery low warning lights came on. Whilst we're stopped, I think I'll have another look at that ladder on Vals cab. Maybe with direct sunlight on it, I'll be able to see what was stopping the replacement one from attaching. Problem - it's not working, even with both panels up, we're still burning more charge than we're making. We have to get off this slope, and fast. I tell Val to take us onto a bearing of 90 or 95 degrees dead slow, no more than 7kph, and retract one of the solar panels so that if anything happens we don't lose both of them. Rate of charge loss is slowing, slowing - break even! I tell Val to keep that heading and stay at 3kph or less. I risk the second steerable solar array, and once it deploys, the charge indicators start heading upwards slowly but visibly. It'll take a long while at this rate before we get even one quarter full charge. I call a halt. The navball looks like we're on a nice stable patch, just a little slope sideways, and the sun is higher. As we stop, I watch the charge levels start to climb faster. Yes! our crawl east along the ridge got us out of the immediate danger of running out of charge, and away from the steeper part of the ridge. Once we're up to full charge, we'll turn due north directly up the slope to the top of th ridge and see what awaits us on the other side. I idly watch bunnies frollicking in the sun for a while before deciding to watch a film until we're fully charged. We're off again, and climbing the ridge! At the top, we slow down and check the terrain ahead from sattelite imagery. I tell Val to turn to 20 degrees and carry on at best speed. West of us, the mountains look like a massive wall, kilometres distant, and I know that's only a samll outlying massif from the main body. The main body of the mountains must be awesomely big! Now I can see that the mountains further north are topped with snow! They look rather more jagged than their southern siblings. We're charging northwards as fast as we can, to try to make up time lost whilst we had to crawl east along the ridge. We raced across a plain at just under a kilometre altitude for some time, then slowly descended to about 700m. At first the decline was quite rapid, and our speed crept up to something over 90kph for a while, before things flattened out and we resumed our steady 50kph. When we halted to recharge, we decided to start crawling forward, once the panels were deployed, to gain a little extra distance whilst charging. With the sun now overhead, recharging is happening rapidly. A thought strikes me - what will happen once we're up in polar regions, with the sun so low in the sky all of the time? I discuss with Val how we'll have to be careful to check the recharge rates as we get further and further north. It might be that we won't be able to reach the actual poles, but if not, we're determined to get as close as we sensibly can. We'll see. Damn! We hit a bump, and started sliding down a steepish slope sideways. I immediately hit the switch to retract our solar panels, but one of them shredded anyway. I'll have to replace it when next we stop to recharge. For now, we're going to push ahead at best spoeed for as long as we can, even though we only managed to get up to about 90% charge. Well, we halted about 54km from yesterday's second marker, and 58 from the first. Val deployed the portside ladder and I claimed up onto the roof, climbed over the cargo box, then down onto the roof of my cab. The broken panel array box came out easily enough, but the new one took a couple of tries to get it locked into place before I could screw it down. I then went to have another attempt to replace the ladder to Vals cab. Yet again I was defeated by a combination of the slight slope and the poor lighting, Val's cab being in shadow. My helmet lights weren't any help - too harsh, and I need side lighting, if anything. Val says she's fine with staying in the cab for now. Maybe if we manage to stop somewhere perfectly flat this side of the arctic, we'll turn the rover into the sun, so I can have a better go at the job. Val and I decide that there's to be no more moving with the panels up at all unless we have no other choice, as was the situation first thing this morning. Otherwise we risk running out of spare deployable panels before we're halfway through our mission. Whilst we could press on with just the static panels, recharging would take much longer, and could cause us to run out of supplies. We decide to celebrate overcoming the days problems with lasagna and a bottle of grape juice, with Kustav Holst's Planets Suite for a little light background music. We watch as a large flock of small birds swirls around, then later a v-shaped formation of birds, probably geese, flew overhead. I wonder where they're going? As I settle down to sleep later, a shooting star crosses the sky above. I make a wish - no more breakages for a few days, please! Middle of the night, and we're woken by a thunderstorm. We both count seconds as we see the flashes of light and estimate how far away they were when we hear the thunder. Val starts snoring again within a few minutes, so I cut the intercom and carrying on watching nature's own light show until I too fall asleep again.

If it were me, I'd simply continue with whichever version of KSP that you're already using. Assuming you have the disk space to do so, you can just copy the lot into another folder and carry on running that whilst upgrading your original install of KSP. I have multiple instances of KSP 0.23 (with different mods added) , one of KSP 0.9 and multiple of KSP 1.04 (one for the Elcano challenge, one for my Science game which has different mods, and one in which I test mods on my systemm before using them elsewhere), and still revisit one of the games in 0.23 now and then where I had a nice little base set up on Minmus. Having put so many hours into getting it together, no way was I going to abaindon it. It's likely to be the first game in which I get a manned ship to Duna, I suspect.

Jao, your distro, whatever it is will have something called a software manager or package manager; use that to search for the file you want to install and install it from there. You do NOT need to try compiling things for yourself these days unless it's an arcane piece of software that hasn't made it into most repositories (and joystick stuff is in the reporitories of all major distros these days). If you're used to the Windows paradigm of 'search for it on teh net then download it' you need to forget that and instead search for it in your package manager - it has access to known safe copies of software, will check for any supporting files needed, and automatically install them along with the file you actually need. MUCH less hassle than havingto compile things. In fact, in a dozen years of using Linux, I've only had to compile software once, and that was about 10 years ago. Which distro are you using, our of curiosity?

Thank you very much, Slam! Although I've ended up working with computers for most of my working life, I've never had cause to do anything remotely like this before - this is the first time I've ever put pictures online, and the first time that I've tried posting pictures to a forum, and I've been finding it a bit of a frustrating experience thus far. I just could not work out how to get the pictures from Imgur to display the way that you've kindly described, and it seemed that if I didn't include HTML code amidst the text, it would display unformatted, but if I did include HTML code, it magically wouldn't need it and would display the HTML tags. Grrr! (chuckle). I'll learn, although I confess there's been a couple of times I almost gave into the grumpy old biddy side of my nature telling me to give it up as a bad job. Trying to work out Imgur and the forums has been more effort than doing the Elcano challenge itself so far, so I'm really glad for your help in explaining how to do it properly!

Over the next few days, the rover was rebuilt and mofifed based on lessons learnt in our first attempt. No equipment was hung off the cargo box, as this obstructed access to its contents somewhat, and had prevented us from detaching the box when we were trying to right the rover. The small panel solar panels were re-arranged a little to allow for twin steerable panel arrays to be mounted near the crew cabs, and the top midhsips array replaced by two single flat panels. Room was found to boost battery capacity by about 10 per cent and I decided I'd store a spare toolkit in my cab, as well as the set stored in the cargo box. --------- SECOND ATTEMPT Day 1. Off we go again, this time starting not long after dawn.. Our first target is the marker we left at the end of day 1. Val drives more conservatively and takes a slightly longer route, plus she makes more use of the gyro-stabilisation system, so we reach our first goal well before midday with batteries down to aout 25%. After a halt to recharge the batteries, we press on. https://imgur.com/1vLtbTw Val's driving more conservatively, yet somehow managing to make excellent progress We're now on a route east of our original one, and taking a longer route through the sink holes and craters around here but staying to broader flatter areas and so able to travel faster. The weather stayed fine for us all day, and we ended the day level with where we got to at the end of our second day on our first attempt, but 3.8km further east. However, the ladder to Vals cab got torn off when the nose unexpectedly grounded. I'll fix it in the morning. https://imgur.com/peZnoFz ------------------------ Day 2. Val wakes me with a call over the intercom, then pulls away before I have a chance to replace the ladder. I ask her if she remembered to stow the solar panels - the rover slows right down. Wups she says. A talented pilot she may be, but by the Kraken, she's a ditz when it comes to the hardware! Panels stowed, we pick up speed. More conservative but rapid driving gets us out of the limestone hills and sinkholes and onto a high plain. I log a few readings from the scientific instruments, then return to my book. We make a brief halt at midday to recharge, then continue NE to ENE at flank speed, and make just over 60km by the end of the day. https://imgur.com/J3wq12D Blue Mountain has gone from a distant giant poking over the horizon ahead made blue by atmospheric haze to a somewhat closer giant rising from the plain to our left (my right, but I'm facing backwards, remember). Blue Mountaion looks flat-topped from some angles, and it looks to me as if there might be a drivable route up the eastern side. Maybe another time - for now we're trying to get around the east side of the Northern Kirgids, then it's north to the Pole! https://imgur.com/CvGpvA https://imgur.com/BwdHSBT I attempted to replace the ladder to Val's cab, but was all fingers and thumbs, and nicked myself with the drill from no result. Val decided to see how far we could push on before sunset. We took it careully, Val using lights where appropriate, and we made another 6km! https://imgur.com/a4rbEwr

Apologies for the delay with updates - it's merely due to Real Life stealing time from my KSP-related activities :-} There will be further updates shortly - I'm actually posting a few in-game days behind where I've actually reached, so that I can keep updates coming for a while even if I don't have time to play for a wee while... Also, I'm minded to add a bit of a background story into Katrid's tale of the expedition, as in places the terrain is rather monotonous for long periods, and, well, my little 2-person rover isn't photogenic enough to sustain too many pictures of her against a grassy plain. :-} Watch this space. Thanks for the kind words, Overland. Frankly, I'm not too concerned with comments, they come or not as they do. I wouldn't be attempting this if I wasn't enjoying the challenge, and if anyone else enjoys reading about it, all well and good; if not, well (shrugs) it's not the end of the world, no? Should be another update within 24 hours. Esme

Day 2 We set off just before dawn, Val taking it slow at first, as she didn't want to use the headlights to conserve power. Slowly the sky above turned a gorgeous deep royal blue trimmed around the edges with lighter shades and fading to white at the horizon and utterly cloudless except for a small group of clouds huddling around the sun as if for warmth. We made a little under 8km over undulating terrain before having to stop to recharge. I climbed onto the roof and tried to detach the steearable solar panel pack with the electric drill, but all that happened as that smoke started to pour out of the drill. Well, that's not a very good start! Now I'm reduced to purely manual tools if we have any problems, and we're less than a day out from KSC! Ah well, press on. Clouds started to gather overhead whilst we recharged the batteries, but we moved off again still in bright sunshine. I noted that we'd left the area of high ore concentration near KSC, but having little else to do, and the plains outside holding little of interest, I sat back and read a book as the Southern Kergids started to fall behind us west of our track. Val reports that over the terrain of the coastal plateau, a speed of 30kph keeps the power drain and the power gain from the solar panels are just about equal, so we'll stick to that for now. We're now past Beren head, at the north side of Conch Bay, it's a little short of midday, and there's a lightning storm out over the bay by the looks of it. We've made 16km so far today. Val decides to pick the speed up a bit then drops back to about 20kph when power levels get low. I can just make out the tops of the southern Kergids, wreathed once again in lightning flashes behind and to the right as I look out of my rear-facing cabin, Other than that, we're on a gently undulating plain about half a kilometre above sea level, squashed between a green sea of grass and the wide blue sky above, scurrying north-eastwards as fast as we can. I feel small and insignificant out here. This is scary, Val took us into the Amberton Bowl at speed, and then found that she couldn't keep the speed down. We're now bouncing down the south side of the bowl at about 140kph. I keep a close eye on the suspension, tire and engine monitors. The engines are a little hot, but not dangerously so. To my surprise, both the tires and suspension seem to be coping with the pounding admirably. Made it! We tore across the bottom of the bowl at over 100kph then slowed to about 50kph as we climbed the more gently sloping north side. Phew! Now we're amongst the Kilvern hills, prettily dotted with flower meadows in sheltered dips. Midday, and we've covered 40km. Woah! What was THAT? I heard what sounded like a small explosion. Val doesn't know what it was either, but we seem to be roilling along OK. We slow to a halt to check the vehicle out. We both checked our instruments, did a walk around the outside then Val held a torch whilst I checked the underside. Nothing. No solar panels missing. What on earth went bang? We deploy the steerable solar panel whilst we eat lunch, then pack it down and set off at about 20kph to let the batteries continue charging slowly whilst we carry on. Afternoon, and the top of Blue Mountain has peeked above the horizon ahead of us! It is obscured again as we go over the ridge and make our way across a wide shallow valley, but it's a good sign that we're right on our planned course. Our batteries are getting low on charge, so we stop to recharge and take a break. We've made almost 50km so far today, and are hoping to make another ten before sunset. Early evening - we're skirting the edge of Molon Crater along the ridge that runs along the eastern side of both Molon and Teryn Craters. I'm a bit nervous about this - the slopes either side are steep, and I'm not sure we'd survive a slip down either side. Calamity!. the ridge wasn't as continuous as it looked, and Val tried to slam on the brakes as the nose went over the lip of a steep little valley within the ridge. Too late. The vehicle shot down the incline, then bounced hard with a great bang as it hit the rise of the facing slope up to the north side of the ridge, and tumbled. I don't know how many times we rolled, but we quickly came to a stop, still in the saddle in the ridge, but almost upside down. Only the storage container on the top prevented us from being entirely upside down. The gyros won't right her, and I think it's the weight of the storage container that's stopping it, as the early prototypes of this vehicle were capable of self-righting, but hadn't the container on top. https://imgur.com/dWFUhHs The sun is getting low in the sky. What to do? The winches! We fired one of the anchors, to ensure the vehicle doesn't slide or roll down the slope. I then hauled a base unit, solar panel, light and battery up to the nearby local peak 250 metres above us, but the panel was dead and I dropped the light trying to affix it, breaking it. This after I'd firmly affixed the battery to the base. Ah well, at least the base unit is white and will stand out to anyone searching for us. I returned to the rover shaking from effort. Val had tried again to roll the rover over, but still no luck. Unfortunately, she forgot to turn the gyros off when she finished,so the batteries were run down. So she flipped the gyros off, and I took the remaining small solar panel and slapped it on the underside of the rover, which was facing toward sunset. Valentina made camp sheltered between the slope and the bulk of the rover and the container, in the green glow of the emergency lights near the drivers cab. In the morning we'll see if we can detach the storage box. We chatted a while before I fell asleep, battered, bruised and exhausted from the events of the day. I wonder if we'll be able to sort things out and get going without help from base was my last thought. Day 3. We managed to get the rover upright, but it broke away and ran down the slope across the valley and partly up the far side, bouncing all the way. It came to a halt a kilometre and a half away, and I trudged over to see what state it was in. Sadly, it was too damaged for us to continue, We called for pickup. and were flown home within a few hours. (apologies for the lack of pictures today, but I mislaid all bar that one).

Good to see you back in action, Overland! I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to speed, I generally don't deliberately do over 15m/s - which, bearing in mind that 1m/s = 3.6kph is 54kph. I'll very occasionally push it up to 18m/s, but more often take the speed down to 8m/s (just under 30kph) when I'm being particularly cautious. Because my framerates are pretty slow, I will also use up to 3x time accelleration, which comes close to bringing it up to 'normal' speed, so I don't feel that that's cheating, really. I have to say the sounds you've given your train are very atmospheric. My all-electric rover could do with some noise. I wish I'd downloaded the fun pack for KIS now, so that my crew had a guitar and radio on board! :-} Anyway, good luck, I look forward to reading about your further adventures! Esme

Some very interesting information in this thread, thank you people! For myself, I'd like to see inside Noctis Labrinthus, Coprates or the edge of of the inside of Hellas close-up, although I can understand why the latter mightn't be so interesting to geologists at this point. it should be a tad safer landing there due to slightly thicker air, though. Another place I'd like to see investigated is one of the polar chasmae. However, that lake site shown by the OP looked very interesting too! Others have mentioned the possibilities of aerial recconaisance. That'd be nice, but I suspect for now ground based rovers will give a better scientific return for the effort. It's a shame teh atmosphere is so thin, as I;d love to see a ground rover supplemeneted by one or simple two balloon probes with, say, something like a pressure sensor, GPS, camera with at least a couple of filters -a spectroscope would be ideal, not sure how small they can make those nowadays. but even if it was just pressure sensor, GPS and camera (which can be done in something the size of a Raspberry Pi), it'd be interesting to see where the winds took it. I would imagine the power supply would be the major problem, bearing in mind that its mass has to be lofted as well as that of whatever instruments are used, in a very thing atmosphere.

Apologies for any formatting problems with the above., and for the images being on links rather than displaying directly on the forum. This is the first time I've ever posted pictures on the internet, and so I'm not (yet) familiar with doing so. Any advice with how to get the pictures to appear as pictures instead of just links to Imgur pages displaying the pics welcomed. I should add that anyone who looked at this thread prior to this post from me will have seen a third image link showing a rover at dusk, which I have now removed. This is because I got this thread going late at night whilst very tired, and got my pictures mixed up - the image was of a different marque of the same rover, distinguishable by having two steerable solar panels rather than one. Unfortunately, on careful checking, I find I have no pictures of Val and Katrids first evening halt.