Hotaru

So that's it: mission accomplished. Shannon Kerman and the Mark II rover Michael Palin completed a circumnavigation of the Mun in seven days and fourteen stages, revisiting the sites of every previous Munar landing and collecting 2662.2 points' worth of scientific data along the way. Shannon, the science data, and the valuable equipment recovered from Auk XII and Palin returned safely to Kerbin on the SSTO Starlet Beatrix a few days later. As no plans were made to recover Palin itself, the rover, powered down and stripped of its science equipment, remains where Shannon left it on the midland plains of the Munar far side. Good grief, that was boring! But oddly satisfying. It's a good thing I did it during summer break and was able to blast through the trip in a few long days. If I'd had to squeeze it in around classes or work over the course of weeks, I don't think I'd have had the patience. I was surprised how easy it turned out to be with MechJeb driving, I've never had much luck with the rover autopilot before but it worked very smoothly on this expedition. The key was the stability control, I could probably have handled throttle and steering manually (if I'd had the patience, which I didn't by a long shot!) but having the rover automatically keep itself oriented during its frequent hops and jumps was fantastic. It even managed a full 360 at least once, but always righted itself in the end. All I had to do was keep it clear of craters. I doubt I'll be doing another land circumnavigation any time soon (having said that, watch me start one tomorrow), but in the end, I'm glad I did it once.

This can definitely happen, I just got a contract to retrieve a Kerbal and his pod from Ike orbit. Much to my annoyance, in fact, as I haven't been to Ike yet. Or Duna. Or anywhere besides Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, and solar orbit. What's the fun in exploration if somebody else has been there first?

Cool, thanks!

Circumnavigation complete. Palin finally arrives back at Base 0, the starting point of the circumnavigation. The landing craft from Barbicane Station is already waiting to pick up Shannon, along with the science data and hardware from Palin. Shannon gets out of the cockpit for the last time. Palin has completed a trip of about 1400 kilometers in roughly [edit] seven (Kerbin) days' time, collected an enormous amount of scientific data, and successfully demonstrated the capabilities of the Mark II air-portable rover (this last making the engineers at KSC especially happy). Now, its task accomplished, it will be stripped of useful equipment and left on the Munar surface along with the two flags marking the start and end points of its journey. All that remains now is for Shannon and the science data to be returned safely to Kerbin; the landing craft will take them to Barbicane Station in Munar orbit, where the SSTO Starlet Beatrix is waiting to take them home. Edit: Thanks! I have never had any trouble with the ruggedized wheels, on this trip I only had one burst tire (well, two but on the same incident) and that was when I basically drove the thing off a cliff. Apart from that they held up extremely well.

Interesting idea, I will definitely at least have a go! Suggestion: either disallow MechJeb or have a separate category for it. MJ makes it fairly easy to use autopilot and auto-staging to control a rocket using the mouse only, whereas steering and staging without WASD and the space bar would be one of the main problems without MJ.

Palin continues from Base 9 through increasingly rugged terrain around the East Farside Crater. Shannon plants the flag at Base 10 on the rim of the "Death Star Trench" canyon. The descent into the crater is completed without trouble, and Shannon establishes Base 11 at the old landing site. Palin climbs out of the crater and heads for the next and last objective, another 140 kilometers away: the crash site of Auk XII, an old lander that tipped over due to an autopilot error (some idiot put "02" instead of "20" into the Altitude field of the Ascent Guidance computer, causing the ship--which was already above 2,000 meters elevation--to topple over instead of blasting off). Stopping to recharge on the way, Shannon establishes Base 12. Finally, Palin arrives at the Auk XII site and Shannon plants the flag at Base 13. Shannon strips the wreckage of any recoverable equipment, including some science instruments and batteries; anything too big to fit in the cockpit is bolted to the outside of Palin for the final 100-kilometer stage of the circumnavigation.

I have the same problem. Until recently (when I finally ran out of scientists for my research stations and had to hire a couple new ones) I had an all-rescuee space program going, besides the original four. At first I was sending up individual capsules for them, later I started using four-seater SSTOs to get several at once from LKO. I've even bolted some retro-rockets and chutes on and retrieved a couple of their old capsules. Eventually, though, the rescue contracts settled down a bit, to the point where now I generally only seem to have one going at any given time. Haven't gotten one yet from anywhere besides Kerbin, Mun, or Minmus orbit though. Kind of looking forward to my first interplanetary rescue mission. Just as long as whatever space agencies are putting them up there doesn't beat me to Duna. That would be annoying.

So why can't it be both? Me, I've got two saves right now. One is a career save, I play very seriously, have lost no Kerbals so far. Other is a sandbox save, I mess around, blow stuff up, have lost about fifty Kerbals so far. They're both fun, the exploration game and the disaster simulator. I don't see why they're mutually exclusive. The disaster simulator attitude doesn't stop you exploring any more than your exploring stops me blowing stuff up in my sandbox save. Personally, that dual nature is one of the things I love about this game. When I get burned out on the stress of career, I can indulge in some sandbox silliness; when I get bored with explosions, career is there to give me some structure. I'd lose interest and move on to other games much quicker if I couldn't do both those things. (Not to imply that you can't have a silly career or a serious sandbox, by the way. That's just the way I happen to do it.) I also don't see what's wrong with having a "lemons to lemonade" attitude towards glitches. I absolutely agree that they should be fixed (especially the crashes and memory leaks, those need to be fixed yesterday), but as long as we're stuck with them, what's the harm in having fun with them? (Just as long as it's made clear that we do want them fixed in the end, of course: we don't want to give the devs the idea they should leave bugs in a finished game just because they're funny.)

Nice going! I was seriously impressed by the business of the winch at the glacier edge, I probably would not have thought to try that. (I mean, I'd try it NOW, having seen you do it, but wouldn't have previously.) Also that you built a machine that goes 177 m/sec on the water in KSP without shaking itself to bits. And I thought my 25 m/sec Mun rover was fast. So how many Banzai!s did you go through, in the end? I seem to recall at least two replacements. (Surprised autocorrect let me get away with "Banzai!s." Also surprised that autocorrect autocorrects "autocorrect.")

Depends on the bug, and my mood at the time. Some of them are infuriating, some kind of amusing, most neutral. I'd like to see them all fixed in the end, of course, but in the meantime I'm giving some serious thought to playing a career save where I try to incorporate them into the Kerbal universe, rather than F5/F9'ing every time something glitchy happens. Krakens kind of remind me of the ubiquitous "space-time anomalies" in Star Trek, or the "chrono-synlastic infundibula" from Sirens of Titan.

I think some of the autogen female names are actually kind of pretty, in a Kerbal sort of way. Wenrine, Elitrice, Natarina, Erithis, Julina. Don't know if I'd ever use them for an actual human child. Maybe as a middle name? I have a boring first name and interesting middle name in real life, and I kind of like it. Might reuse some of them for characters in other video games, though. And of course there are some normal names in there (I'm currently driving around the Mun with a Shannon Kerman), where you could get away with a double reference to the Kerbal and the actual person they were named for, and still have an utterly normal-sounding name.

An old mod called NEBULA Decals. Version on Curse is for 0.25 but works fine in 1.0 (might need some edits to its config files, I can't remember). PS. Funny the way video games distort our sense of time: a mod from six months ago seems "old."

Great to see this challenge resurrected! Looking at the list of allowed/disallowed mods, a couple questions: KW, SpaceY, and Near Future Solar all have parts significantly more powerful than stock (5 meter rockets/tanks and bigger SRBs for KW and SpaceY, big/efficient solar panels for NF), should these really be allowed? Conversely, what do Tantares and FASA have that's overpowered compared to stock, or is there some other reason for disallowing them? Also, what's the word on the Corvus and K2 2-Kerbal pods, Home Grown Rocketry, Modular Rocket Systems, Procedural Parts? First two seem harmless, HGR probably harmless too, not sure about MRS, PP I ask about purely because it isn't specifically mentioned. Last, and this is entirely my opinion--I personally disagree with keeping ISRU in a separate category in a 1.0 version of Jool-5. This made sense back when you needed a mod to do it but now that it's a stock capability I think disallowing it is against the spirit of the challenge (which I see as "stock and stock-like capabilities only"). Not a huge deal, just my feeling. PS. Just noticed OP asks for links to mods in question; added them.

Rescued Deti Kerman from high Munar orbit. Must remember to put some illumination on these SSTOs during their next refit.

Reports getting briefer and less frequent because--let's face it--this is turning out to be a kind of boring trip! Mission half-done, Shannon admires the view at Eumon's Pitfall, where Base 6 is established. Survey completed, Palin continues westward. Kerbin slowly recedes below the horizon. Finally, during the seventh stage, something interesting happens! Going over a particularly large hill, Palin lands harder than usual and blows both its rear tires. Fortunately MechJeb manages to keep the rover upright as it bounces to a stop, and none of the delicate science equipment is damaged. That was exciting! Shannon repairs the wheels and Palin continues on its way, establishing Base 7... ...Base 8... ...and Base 9. The next stop is another old landing site in the East Farside Crater, at this point about 150 kilometers distant. All this time, the SSTO Starlet Beatrix--carrying the refueling hardware--has been doing a complicated rendezvous dance in high Munar orbit to rescue a stranded Kerbal. At this point, with Palin nearly three-quarters of the way through the trip and making good headway on solar power, it seems pointless to waste fuel sending the surface shuttle down so near the end of the trip, so the refueling landing is canceled. Beatrix will wait at Barbicane Station in Munar orbit to take Shannon home once the circumnavigation is complete.

The trip remains uneventful through the fourth and fifth stages of this weird interplanetary Paris-Dakar, each stage roughly brining Palin roughly 100 kilometers closer to the Eumon's Pitfall survey site (and the approximate halfway mark of the circumnavigation) before it has to stop and recharge its batteries. The engineers at KSC are pleased with how well Palin's autopilot handles the terrain. Shannon establishes Base 4. View from the cockpit during the fifth stage. Shannon at Base 5. At this point about 60 kilometers remains to Eumon's Pitfall, although the terrain appears slightly rougher ahead.

So far zero in career mode, which I'm actually kind of proud of. Admittedly I'm playing very cautiously (nearly finished the tech tree and still not even been to Duna) and without any of the potentially Kerbal-killing "hardcore" mods like TAC LS and DangIt. Last time I checked sandbox mode the casualty figure there was about fifty. In addition to some more mundane failed SSTO attempts and questionable stunt flying, this thing turned out to be a pretty effective Kerbal killer:

Sounds like TextureReplacer does pretty much what you want. The different texture packs available have a variety of hair colors and skin tones. Most of the existing packs are only work for male Kerbals in 1.0, but if you look through the last few pages of that thread you'll find a couple of options for 1.0 females as well. Don't know about eye color, though. That would definitely be cool but I don't think I've seen it done.

Palin's next specific destination is a survey site called Eumon's Pitfall, some 370 kilometers from Base 2, but as the refueling hardware has not yet arrived from Kerbin, it will take several stages to get there on solar power alone. Underway again. If you look very close you can see the Mun arch on the horizon on the left. The stage of about 90 kilometers was uneventful. Stopped to recharge Palin's batteries, Shannon gets out to establish Base 3. At this point Palin has covered about 300 kilometers, roughly a quarter of the way around the Mun.

Took a break from my Munar circumnavigation to get a survey contract done at Minmus.

The goal for the second stage is the site of the first landing on the Mun, some 205 kilometers distant in the East Crater. This will be a much longer stage than the first, including a tricky descent into the crater, but after the successful first stage, Shannon and mission control are confident. Shannon boards the rover. Underway again at 90 km/h. A few minutes into the stage and Kerbin appears over the horizon. It moves steadily higher as Palin proceeds westwards; by the end of the stage it will be high in the sky. With 62 kilometers remaining Palin runs out of fuel and Shannon switches over to battery power. Approaching the rim of East Crater, she reduces speed to 30 km/h. Palin completes the 2,000-meter descent without trouble and continues across the crater floor. After a stop to recharge the batteries on solar power, Shannon and Palin arrive at the destination with no further trouble. Shannon establishes Base 2. Because Palin's endurance on solar power alone is only about an hour, the next stages will be shorter pending the arrival of refueling hardware on the next SSTO from Kerbin.

First things first: now that the rover is safely on the surface, Shannon decides it deserves a better name than "Mark II Rover." Since Phileas Fogg is already taken for a plane under construction back at KSC, we'll call this one the Michael Palin. Shannon and the rover at Base 0. A brief test drive revealed some issues which were corrected. Palin is now front-wheel-drive, to stop it doing wheelies every time it starts, and the front brakes have been disabled, to stop it flipping every time it stops. The objective for the first day's run will be a base established by a previous landing, some 70km distant. Underway at 40 km/h. The second marker in the distance is an old landing site and the remains of a tipped-over lander; that will be the last stop when Shannon and Palin come back this way. Hopefully. Speed increased to 90 km/h and making decent time. Autopilot behaves very well, has no trouble keeping the rover stable through course changes and (for lack of a better word) airtime. First run complete, Shannon establishes Base 1. Future reference: rover missions should use a different flag than preceding lander missions, to avoid confusion. 70 km down, trying not to think too hard about how much more to go. Still, successful first outing with no serious issues to report.

Sorry if I put that over the edge about the pending list, I debated whether or not to enter seeing as so many other people were having a go. Hope it's not too much trouble, and thanks for setting up the contest! Personally I reload for glitches. Once in a while I reload due to abject stupidity/carelessness, sometimes it's more fun to just go with it. I take those case-by-case. If the failure is due to a genuine design flaw or piloting mistake I go with it, even if I lose some Kerbals. In this case (partly since the contest is named after Elcano, not Magellan) I feel like the goal is to finish with at least one of the same Kerbals you started with, so if Shannon Kerman dies I'd have to start over from scratch. That said, I think I might start a career save someday where I follow a strict "ironman" rule, even including glitches. One of my favorite books is "The Sirens of Titan" by Vonnegut, and it has something called "Chrono-Synclastic Infundibula" that remind me a lot of our Krakens... I like the idea of trying to actually integrate glitches into the KSP continuity and dealing with them, rather than just F5/F9'ing whenever a Kraken attacks. Maybe after 1.0.3 is out.

Thanks! The drawings come from the Kronal Vessel Viewer mod.