purpleivan

I don't know the different between the two really, other than they're giving lift in different mediums. I've got not special insight into it, but I know what you mean about small tweaks making huge differences. The "Kitchen Sink" boat I made a few days ago (the one with the rover, 2 jets and the minisub) would lose 1about 15% of its top speed if I filled three fairly small fuel tanks at the rear (less than 5% of the fuel capacity). I could only put it down to the boat being very slightly more level in the water without the fuel, so had less drag. But the difference wasn't visible at all... only showed up in the speed of the thing.

No boats allowed... or, oh no not again. Leg 35 started like all the others, with a cry for help in the form of fuel. Dean was happy to oblige, so headed East along the coast to bring the liquid goodness. On the way he swept over some of the islands that Coastal Cruiser had motored past the day before. "Now where's that boat... ah over there, funny place to stop". "Jeb... you need some help". Fortunately reloading the game had somehow made the boat drift very slightly from its previously saved position, so it was no longer beached. Jeb manouvered the boat around to come ashore in an easier place for the Goose to give it the Juice. There was enough fuel for a complete fill up... ... with close to 800 left in the tanker for the trip to Fuel Depot 2. So what issue afflicted this leg of the trip... well in the pic below, that patchwork of lakes and sand is clearly not navigable by boat. But on the map it looks like there was a passage through here. So starting from the coastline in the bottom right, they've got to sail all the way around this peninsula, rather than cutting through what looked like water, towards the top right. Oh well... nice day for it I suppose. Having rounded the tip of the peninsula and travelled a little down the other side, the boat is already down to half a tank of fuel. What's this... a sneaky bit of coastline that's trying to hide away. So in they went to have a look. Some pretty shallow water on the way in, but nothing to worry about. Ok, so that's that done... time to get back out to sea. So back they went across the shallows. So... with almost 2/3 of the leg's fuel used, they're finally the other side of what was thought to be a waterway. It must have cost them about half of the leg's fuel to not be able to make their way through it. Finally the day's events were about to come to an end. Jeb stats to look for a decent landing site for the Goose and this looks like one, so he heads into the cover. But the crew can now sit out in the evening sun and think about the trip South into the the southern hemisphere.

Just read this from the Wikipedia article about Chlorine trifluoride. "It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. " and then... "...it have been reported to ignite sand, asbestos, and other highly fire-retardant materials. It will also ignite the ashes of materials that have already been burned in oxygen."

I now have this image of a cat sitting on one, riding it around, as if it's some kind of wheeled throne. Kind of like the videos, but more pompous looking.

In the Kerbin Sorta Circumnavigation more things happened. The Coastal Cruiser met up with their friend from above MIRF for a fuel top up. A new fuel depot was launched from Woomerang, providing the trip's first supply point in the southern hemisphere. Dean headed out to the boat for yet another refill... after another meeting with it, he'll head on to the new tanker base at the fuel depot. Meanwhile on the boat, Bill got all arty and with his picture taking at sunset.

Witch way now... or, not another sequel. After the 14985Kn alarm clock woke him, Dean had some flying to do. The plan was to send him to the Coastal Cruiser, then on to a later stopping point to do the same again, before heading for the new Fuel Depot. It was quite a long journey, with the vast majority of it over open sea. Out here Dean had nothing to keep him company. Except the clouds of course. With about 1/4 of the fuel on the Goose consumed by the light there, Dean was finally in sight of the boat. Once down and hooked up to the boat, more fuelling fun ensued... not forgetting that little tank at the front. Dean watched as the freshly fuelled Coastal Cruiser headed out into the blue. As it's headed (very) roughly in the direction of Fuel Depot 2, he'll meet up with them again soon for a top up, then South to his new base. Some nice sandy beaches in this part of the world. So Bob... care to take a crack at a name for this unusual feature. "Well, obvious isn't it" Not really. "Witch's Hat Mountain" But didn't you call something else the same thing. "No, that was Wicked Witch Mountain, totally different thing". So leaving Witch's Hat Mountain in the rear view mirror, the boat sped on. eventually coming across one of those annoying little "gotta divert into it for a peak" bays, so all the coastline has been seen from the boat. Ok... we've peaked, now can we get on with the trip. Nice try there lake, but you've cleary not joined to the sea, so we'll just keep moving on. Down to half tanks. There are a number of fairly large coastal islands in this neck of the wood. Jeb thinks about pulling over for a save break, but knows that Bob will only pester him to go play with the rover, and this cruise needs to get motoring. Beyond the back of a large bay lay some mountains, one of which was particularly spikey and probably impossible for Bill to climb. So car to give it a name Bob. "Sure, I'd call it Witch's Hat 2... The Witchening". Bill headed out on deck as the boat plowed on Eastward, to get a nice arty shot of the rear of the boat at sunset. Something for him to add to his next "Dear Bill" article for the Kerbin Gazette. Jeb wanted to get the most out of the fuel they had onboard, so he heads into the darkness, looking for a good place to stop. He guides the boat towards a shallow headland that he thinks will make a good spot to meet a Goose at. However there is a large area of shallow water and that bottom suddenly comes up at him, making him more than a little worried. He swings the boat around to avoid a sliver of rock that's sticks slightly above the water line. But the boat gets grounded at the end of that sliver. It's not a catastophe, as they're pointing towards slightly deeper water, but it was a bit of a moment when the boat just suddenly stopped. So this is where they will be spending the night, and in the morning they'll use a light boat and jet power to free themselves for a meeting with Dean and the Goose.

There in 30 minutes or you money back... or, heading South and setting up camp. It's was again time for the faithful old fuel depot to get back into the game. After it's sterling service in the northern reaches of Kerbin, it was needed once more, this time in the southern hemisphere. Woomerang was chosen as the launch site as the targetted landing site was much closer to it was to the KSC. Liftoff was uneventful, although Dean, asleep in his Juice Goose, did wake up a little panicked when this thing took off beside him. With the ascent phase complete, the engines were shut down for the coast to the SSE Almost looks like the same picture, but now the blunt end is pointing SSE and the engines have roared to life once again for a braking burn. With the boosters detached the fuel depot glides down towards the surface. Chute deployment this time went without a hitch (looking at you MIRF), but for some stange reason, the trees seem to have been frightened by this visitor from the sky. Really frightened. But they needn't have worried, there was no fiery end to the descent. Fuel Depot 2 had landing and was open for business, even if the trees were still hiding on the horizon. But a scene reload persuaded the local fauna to come back, a little something extra for future screenshots.

Leaving the Lake of Sorrow... or, so long and thanks for nothing. With the boat now needing fuel, but a long way from Woomerang, help from above was called upon. De-orbiting was straightforward, as was the descent to parachute deployment altitude, but at that point things went a little pear shaped. For some reason staging just didn't work... I was mashing the Space bar, but nothing was happening. So I tried to do it manually, which led to deployment of one parachite, then immediately cutting it as I franticly tried to deployed the others. The resulting debacle was an F9 requiring impact with the sea. Thankfully on the 2nd attempt staging worked fine. Kersploosh... one fat tub of fuel in the drink. With news that their orbital gas station had arrived, the boat headed out on thr 8km journey to meet it. Well thar she blows... but in this part of the world whale harpoons you. Jeb jumped out on deck to check that everything was hooked up properly, then went back inside to get the Coastal Cruiser slurping the juice down. With full tanks once more, the crew headed off on their journey around the Lake of Sorrow. Here's a better picture of the "lake". On the right are the two fairly narrow passages through which access to it from the sea is made. As they sped towards the South end of the body of water, there was land. On the other nothing as far as the eye can sea. Finally the South end of the "lake" came into view, so it was time to swing the boat around and head back towards the passage to the open sea. After a while the inner most of the passages came into sight. Then a few minutes later the second. At this point the Coastal Cruiser, which hadn't quite made it to the open sea, was 100km from the MIRF at the far end of the "lake". Break out the bubbly... it's celebration time. The boat is finally back out on the sea, albeit with only 1/3 fuel left in the tanks. As the speed East along the coast, the Mun rises above the waves. Travelling East means that for the first time on this voyage, the sun is setting behind the boat. Time to find a good spot to stop overnight. That little cove to the right of the small islands should do. Bob gets a bit blinded by the glare from the setting sun, so he pulls a hat over his face and gets a little shut eye. A couple of minutes later and the Coastal Cruiser is moored and empty of fuel once again. But it looks like things are going to have to move around the board when it comes to fuel supply. Woomerang is now so far that a Juice Goose could probably only refuel the boat once before having to head back to base. So in the next post, it'll be time once more, to bring rocket power back into the equation.

Sounds like a fun plane to take a seaplane to points arond Kerbin. I actually started with the plant to have an electricly propelled boat. However with the engine designs I found and mods I added, the speed was so low that it would have been more painful than all the refuelling. It's not something I'd used before, so possibly I made a mistake somewhere and I bailed on the idea too early.

Now you've got me thinking... I'll have to take a closer look at the map. When I made my rough route layout for my map images, I didn't think that almost-lake was connected to the sea, as you can see from one of my earlier leg images (ringed in red). The bit to watch out for in "17-25 legs"... is that the water in the bottom left of the image that juts up North from the East/West coastline, with a couple of bigish islands in it's entrance? Hoping it's that, as it's something I know is coming.

More boat entertainment for me today, that started before 5am (on vacation this week and my sleep is broken). One tanker plane gives what it can spare to another tanker plane... Then that tanker plane flies to the boat and fills it with fuel. The boat then heads South until reaching the narrow entrance to a huge bay, that it's now exploring. Then the boat puts ashore just after sunset to wait for... more fuel. It's a never ending cycle.

Part D'oh!.. or, who put that there. Getting fuel to the Coastal cruiser in the exciting 2nd part of today's feature was a little more complicated than usual. Although Staemy had enough onboard to get the boat and fill it up, she would have been unable to get back to Woomerang, as the route to it was pretty much a straight line away from base. So Tanford, who was still parked on a beach further North, headed out to meet their fellow pilot, to top up Staemy's Goose, with what they could spare. Another beach landing ahead. Not the smoothest landing, but the Goose is down. After transfering about 700 units of fuel to Staemy's plane, Tanford has 808 units to get back to base with... not a bad state to be in, with Woomerang only a shortish flight away. Staemy thanks Tanford for the top up and hits the afterburners. After the flight South, Staemy met up with the Coastal Cruiser and filled up their tanks. She still had a little over 1400 units left for the long trip back North to Woomerang. With a full belly, the Coastal Cruiser heads out once more. Jeb braves the shallows to buzz through the gap between a large island and the mainland. At around the 1/2 tanks level, the crew arrive at something they've not encountered before. It's the entrance to a huge "almost lake", which unfortnately is attached by a narrow inlet to the open sea. This means that they have to venture into it, as it forms part of the mainland coast. That would normally just be a minor inconvenience, but this thing is huge. Jeb guided the boat through the first of two narrows that have to be passed through to enter the "almost lake" (can't believe it's not lake... wish it was a lake). A couple of minutes later it's time to pass through the inner narrow, that gives the final access to the large body of water beyond. Finally they make through to the large expanse of water. "Who nicked the coastline" Jeb asks. It's still there... just a long, long way away. Not the clearest image (damm you clouds), but this is a big area of water to explore. This picture is looking inland from above the open sea, towards the back of the thing. So Bob, you fancy giving this place a name. "How about the Lake of Sorrow". How come? "Cos' we're sorry it's not a lake". The sun is getting low and so is the fuel level. Jeb's going to have to start thinking about where to bring the boat in. Any time now Jeb... It's lights on time and Jeb's still ploughing on, wanting to make as much use of the remaining light as possible. Finally he brings the boat to a stop on the shore of a small cove. With Woomerang now quite some distance North and no planes with spare fuel nearby, it might be time for a visit from MIRF.

Double Feature... or, what happens when you get up stupidly early. With Bob recovering from his fever dream and claiming that he doesn't need to climb that mountain, as it feels like he's already done it, more fuel is called in. This time it's Staemy's turn to take to the skies. Then to fly over some mountains. There's her target, just a few kilometers away, so time to make a turn. She swung the Goose round in a long turn and brought it in along the beach, over the Coastal Cruiser. Once refuelled it was time to say goodbye (for now) to Staemy and head out to deeper waters. Jeb (who if Val's think's has been hogging the pilot seat) guides the boat down the coast and past the end of the mountain chain. It was evening when they set off, so it's not long before they have to think about where to park overnight. Still more than half fuel onboard, so plenty more boating tomorrow. Jeb brings the boat in at a rather different angle than normal and hopes he hasn't grounded it. But he's not going to worry about that until morning. So time to crank up the margarita machine and get out the board games. Another sunny morning for the crew, as they head out again on leg 31. The terrain on this leg has been pretty tame compared with the mountains that they left behind, but this one feature stood out. So what are you gonna call it Bob? "The bookend" he suggests. Hmmm... well, I kind see it. This stretch of the coast even looks boring from this altitude. Not much to see here, even inland. Fuel's getting low, so time to put in and wait for a Goose delivery. Jeb takes it easy coming in to shore, as he doesn't want the boat parked on a steep slope like last night. The margaritas kept sliding off the table. Well that's it for this nail biting leg... so much drama and excitement. In the next leg, the brave crew of the Coastal Cruiser get fuel, drive boat, go somewhere.

That would be a no. I didn't think about the fact that although it had 3x the range, it also needs 3x the fuel, so no real benefit in terms of time. Plus having the distraction of planes and a minisub (in addition to the rover) would make the trip take even longer. So I built the thing, did a bunch of testing and tweaking, brought it out to the location of the Coastal Cruiser, took a bunch of pics... then scraped it.

I built an improved boat for the Kerbin Sorta Circumnavigation as a possible replacement of the one I'd been using to sail around the entire mainland coast on Kerbin. It had various advantages over the original, with 4x battery capacity for the rover it carries, as well as a couple of mini jet planes for some aerial fun and game. It also had a minisub hidden inside. It's main practical advantage was almost 3x fuel capacity, so in theory a more practical vehicle for my trip. However once I made the thing and moved it to where the original boat was moored, I realised that my fleet of tanker planes and de-orbit-able fuel stores were too small to supply the thing. I didn't fancy redesigning my whole resupply structure, plus having planes and a minisub to play with on the journey would have made the trip take even longer. So it was consigned to a cheesy fever dream of one of the crew.

Things took a turn for the wierd in the K.S.C. With mini-planes... ... and a minisub. Plus the not so wierd with a trip to the top of a mountain by Bob.

Perchance to... or, go easy on the cheese Bob. The day started like any other, with the early morning sun spilling across the bay. Then Bob saw something on the horizon... some that was rapidly getting closer. As the object drew closer, he had to rub his eyes, as it was almost like looking in a mirror. A boat very similar to their very own Coastal Cruiser was headed towards them. It was indeed very similar, but somehow... better, and Bob was excited to find out what this new arrival was. The mystery boat came to a halt a few metres from the one on which Bob stood. The roar of its jet engines drew the attention of the rest of the crew, who all headed out to the deck to take a look. Suddenly an old friend appeared at the cockpit hatch. It was Andin Kerman, who had been one of the pilots to fly out from the KSC to refuel them, in the early weeks of their voyage. Andin jumped into the water and swam towards the waiting crew. After a brief chat Andin returned to the new boat, which had the offical name of the LRC (Long Range Cruiser), but was known by the team who had worked on it as the K.S.S Kitchen Sink. She brought the vessel alongside their boat and they quickly leapt across, eager to see what was onboard this shiny new craft. Bob headed to the stern, where a rover very much like his own, but with one major addition, in the form of a 1000 unit battery, sat ready to be driven. Val also headed to the rear of the vessel, having spied a pair of mini jets attached either side of the rover. With everyone aboard this intriguing new craft, Andin turned it around and parked it at the shoreline. Then she made her way to the rover to join Bob who was waiting in the cab. The pair headed for the mountains and suddenly they were in the foothills. Even with the 1300 units of electical power, the rover needed to charge on a steep slope a couple of time, leaving Bob and Andin sliding down as the power went up. But soon there were up in the white stuff. Bob was sure that they couldn't have made it up here in the rover on the Coastal Cruiser... this would surely make a wonderful replacement. Soon they were at the top... almost 5.5km. Not a record, but a fine feat in this new piece of kit. Before heading down, Bob and Andin took a moment to check out the view. Then the headed for the edge. Bob would normally be more careful and find a less perilous route down, but for some reason he just drove straight off the top of the mountain. Fortunately this new rover was equiped with parachutes, that slowed their descent to 30m/s. So what might have been a nightmare of exploding rover parts, was instead a leisurely drive to the foothills below. It seemed like no time and the pair were back where the two boats were moored. Now it was time for Val to get just what she wanted for this trip. A tiny plane for her to buzz around in and get a little stunt flying done. Suddenly it was Andin's turn to have some fun. She gunned the boat's engines and headed a few kilometres out to sea, before coming to a halt in deeper water. She made her way to the a suprise in the belly of the shiny boat... a minisub. Bob could have sworn than Andin couldn't swim and had a morbid fear of water, but she said this is what she did for fun. She took the sub down into the murky depths... down, down, down she went, until she was almost a kilometer below the boat up on the surface. Finally she reached the bottom and sped around, just above the ocean floor. After whizzing around the bottom for a while, she headed back to the surface, and in seemingly no time she had the underside of the boat in sight. She overdid her speed of arrival at the surface and leapt from the water like some great fish, before slapping back onto it with a big splash. Andin brought the minisub back to Kitchen Sink, cruising along on the surface, before diving under the rear of the boat and docking in the cargo bay. Suddenly there was a jolt... Bob sprang up from the deck, the morning sun on his face. His stomach felt rather uncomfortable and his mouth tasted like he'd been chewing for hours on a mouldy old sock. He straigtened up and got to his feet, blinking in the strong sun. The sound of waves lapping against the shore gave him a clue he wasn't out at sea, and that boat, with its collection of fancy toys, was nowhere to be seen. He sighed... there was no denying it, it looked like last night's gorgonzola eating competition had probably been a bad idea.

if I did this again (what am I talking about... not a chance) I'd go all out and equip the boat with a submersible and a mini plane, as well as a rover. Actually if no-one else does it, I might make the thing just to see how ridiculous it is. If I do make it, it has to be called the K.S.S Kitchen Sink.

This one was made a while ago (2015... the wild days of aerodynamics, what aerodynamics) and weighs in at a svelt 5025 tons, and is probably the heaviest launcher I've made. It was made for a shortest time to Eve challenge Made it there in 9 days 2 hours. Suffice to say Jeb was pretty satisfied.

Is that an impact (judging by the numbers)... 149m altitude and 134m/s vertical, or is that just communication issues.

It was a bit wierd to see it was accelerating.

Got a feeling I'll be adding some ksp hardware to it at some point

Descending. Just wish the ocasional interference that sounds like someone sucking the end of a milkshake would stop... keeps making me laugh.

I've got the terrain altitude readout from KER in the "with HUD" images, but the text is a bit small for the size limit for images. This one has the boat at 913.1mm Motoring along at 81.1m Deep stuff here off the desert coast at 639.7m

I knew the landing was coming up in the next few days, but didn't realise today was the day, until I checked Ars Technica when I got home. Dinner and a moon landing... what could be better.