JAFO

It's available on CurseForge, here. Or you can check out all the available files here.

Well, my reasons for trying to cut down on the litter was more to do with your remark about what a mess the site would look like, than performance issues. Performance at the moment is fine. Which is to say my usual 1:3 time ratio for when I'm on the ground. So far my only problem is whenever I'm in the process of trying to pick up the RTG, my game keeps going black, except for the GUI, then crashes. The last couple of seconds of the log are loaded with hundreds of entries like this: and this: I'm wondering if it's something to do with the damping settings on the rover wheels.. at the time I was attempting to manoeuvre into alignment with the RTG docking port. From some googling around, it turns out both the above errors are relatively common in KSP at the moment. From what I can see, it can happen even in a stock install. It doesn't appear to have been tracked down, so far. The best guess I've seen on the cause so far seems to be this: The only mods installed are StockBugFixModules, KerbPaint and ModuleManager. Think I'll see what happens with all mods removed.

Fair enough.. but I was looking for justifications to reduce the litter around the site as much as possible.

I had MechJeb and Engineer For All! installed from some earlier testing.. it seems to have somehow messed things up. Now it's been removed, the RCS is operating correctly again.

RCS was off.. in fact, I couldn't turn it on. You could possibly even reduce that to seven cargo modules. 1 mission for the DAV, 2 for the rovers, 4 for the weather stations.. that could account for 7 of the 14 missions. I very much doubt that anything can make rover driving more interesting.. That's a good idea.. hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the tip!

Darn things fire every time I turn the rover though.. I don't see the monoprop lasting for the entire journey at that rate. I'm about to experiment with having the rear wheels on the trailer turn as well, to see if the turn rate can be improved, hopefully reducing monoprop usage a little. That mod already exists.. Actually, it said 14 missions, one of which would be the DAV, and probably two more for the rovers. There were also 4 weather stations, which presumably were each a separate probe. The book specifically mentions presupply probe #9, which contained 13 packages of Hab canvas. Re the arrangement of the Ares 3 site, the book states that there are four weather stations, each located 1km from the Hab, in four directions, presumably N,S,E,W. The book mentions that the DAV is located downhill from the Hab. (Don't know how easy that will be to set up.. I understand the Hab is presently sited at the lowest point in the crater.) That was a nice touch to see the DDV laying on its' side, as per the story, too! I think the Hab ought to be rotated around some, though. At present the solar panels are roughly on the southern side of the Hab. The Ares 3 site is well south of the equator, meaning Kerbol transits the sky to the north. So I'd imagine the solar panels would logically be located on the northern side of the Hab, to avoid the Hab shadow falling on the panels, and maximising exposure as Kerbol transits from east to west. I was about to test the RTG pickup, got halfway there before running low on charge, so I stopped, deployed the panels to charge, and went to make a coffee while I waited. Came back to find batteries fully charged, but the Kracken had eaten the universe.. I'm just now about to re-launch and resume testing the RTG and Pathfinder trip.

Believe me, those of us with low-end computers would appreciate the part-welded version.. when I took the Ares V to orbit, every in-game second took 7 seconds of real time.. usually launches use about 3 seconds! - - - Updated - - - Downloading now..

Sounds like your RCS isn't balanced correctly to the CoM. Try using the RCS Build Aid. It still works fine with 1.0.4.

In that case, you could perhaps consider extending the cargo bay, and sending both rovers in the one launch.. Mind you, you won't be able to get 160 tons extra to orbit.. don't forget, all that unused fuel would normally get dumped when the boosters burn out in the lower atmosphere. It doesn't ride all the way to orbit. Although if you add a couple of fuel lines to parallel stage things, and retain sufficient fuel atop the boosters to feed the main engines until booster burn-out, you might get a significant increase in payload limit.

Great idea.. and long overdue. I'd love to see this implemented. I totally agree with, and would love to see Gaarst's suggestion implemented, too.

That Hermes is looking good! The Ares V is an impressive piece of engineering, too. One thing though.. given that the 10 Rockomax X200-32's on top of the boosters are purely cosmetic (since they don't have fuel lines attached), 160 tons of unnecessary mass can be removed by emptying them before re-saving the file. It then gets to orbit quite a bit more efficiently, leaving a bigger reserve for tweaking the orbit as required, to boot.

It seems my box.com account has reached its 10GB monthly bandwidth limit. If anyone is unable to download from the link, PM me with an email address, and I'll get a copy to you ASAP. Normal service should resume on the 1st of the month. My apologies for the hassle.

You're welcome! Looks good..

Lookin' good! What kind of speed can it comfortably handle?

Oh man.. when Jeb was quietly coasting to a halt, then got taken out by one of his own engines, I totally lost it! That was frickin' awesome!

I thought I spotted one in there.. checked the COM and decided that maybe I was mistaken.Thinking back on it, the COM was a bit lower than might be expected..

Hmm.. that's interesting.. cuz he demonstrates one working on Eeloo.

If you're willing to "cheat" a little, you might give this some thought.. How to make an unflippable rover:

You might be surprised.. From my reading around the forums, most KSP players are enthusiastic about rovers only until they try to go more than a few kilometres in one. After that, they generally prefer flying. Even an hour with your finger on 'w' is a long time. I really take my hat off to the guys who do the marathon charity rover driving events. For the record, the book gives the Mars rover's top speed as 25km/h.. which is a blistering 6.94m/s. 20m/s is 72km/h, which explains why it's so easy to have URD events when rovering. Hammering along across bumpy surfaces on low-g worlds is a recipe for disaster. I wonder if rovers can be set to have upper speed limits? I've never tried that.. will have to experiment. Another thought.. good thing Watney was an engineer.. because Mark Kerman will need to be an engineer, to deal with all the blown tyres along the way.

Probably the best way to do things then, may be to first of all determine what the maximum amount of drive-time (for each leg) you're willing to accept is, and use that range to determine the locations for Hab and Pathfinder. It will probably mean giving up on visiting the anomaly that resembles the Curiosity-Cam , but that's only visible to players using high terrain detail anyway.. for instance, I won't be able to see it with my laptop's feeble graphics powers.

Yeah, that crater looks like a good candidate. Smack dead-centre, perhaps? (it might be "small", but it's still 25km across!) - - - Updated - - - I'd suggest using the lowest point in that crater, perhaps.. which is at -15.4468 : -34.9365 Elevation at that spot is 750m.

On the subject of Pathfinder, what's the plan for that? Without some mods such as KAS/KIS, it's going to be pretty difficult to put any parts of Pathfinder, or even just Sojourner, into the rover for return to Hab. So I assume the journey is essentially symbolic?

You're most welcome. It's a very worthwhile project. And it's also a nice change being involved in a project with a fellow Aussie.. timezone differences negated. Looking very good indeed. On the subject of the solar farm, I noticed that the download link for the solar farm actually goes to the Ares Duna Ascent Vehicle instead. Also, your OP links to a now no-longer-available summary and analysis of Weir's The Martian, not the actual book itself. Reviews suggest it was of little actual value anyway. Perhaps use this link instead? Since the story starts with all assets in-situ, why not dispense with the SAS in the hab and just plunk it down in place with Hyperedit? Ditto for Pathfinder, etc..- - - Updated - - - Suppose we move Hab 90km closer to Pathfinder? That would make a round trip of 180km to fetch Pathfinder, then 340km to the D.A.V., giving a total of 520km. (I messed up with my original total of 710km.. it should, of course, have been 610km )

Yup.. and on the revised map, Hab is in the middle, with Pathfinder and the D.A.V. in opposite directions, so, 360km round trip to fetch Pathfinder, then on to the D.A.V. giving a grand total of 710km of rovering to be done.. I did a little experimenting this evening with MechJeb's rover autopilot and a waypoint set to the Pathfinder site. 20m/s on autopilot is not a good idea. Crashed and burned within minutes after getting too much air when topping a ridge at 18m/s. So it's likely to need manual control all the way, or require setting a lower top speed on the autopilot, say, 10m/s or so. Mind you, I shouldn't have been so impatient to start testing. I started before dawn, and didn't see the ridge coming.. should have warped time forward until after sun-up, so I could see better. Also, the rover's headlights aren't up to night-driving, I might swap 'em out for the brighter ones.

I've checked out the hab now, in-game.. looks very good.. one minor point, according to the book, the hab has 3 airlocks spaced (I think) at 120° intervals around it.. just mentioning since you're still wanting to tweak it. I've now also added the scale from Cyriak's map to the maps.. so it's possible to estimate distances.Hab to Pathfinder is about 180km each way Hab to D.A.V. is about 250km From a purely personal perspective, I'd like to see the second rover-trailer (with panels) get towed, as per the story.. your call, of course.(Oh yeah.. I'm loving the rover's chassis and bash-plate! Very creative use of parts, there!)