Tricky14

A little past halfway point I spoke of, close to the ocean.

Had my first go at this this evening. Reached the halfway point 25 minutes behind schedule, which I figure I can get down to 10 with further route optimizations. The thing is that beyond that, the 'final' waypoint at the edge of the ice sheet is already visible on my gimbal. It feels close. I crashed a bunch of times around the middle, mountainous area of the map, so a single run won't happen until I get more used to driving there. However, the rover drrives better at high speeds than I had hoped. Particularly downhill around 60-80 ms it is surprisingly self-stabilizing. I feel like I can do it. It will be tight for sure, but I'm already noticing I'm gaining on the sunset. I'll try the 'straight' run from the half-way point to the ice sheet tomorrow. I'm a little worried about a mountain range that casts pretty long shadows near the end, so if it doesn't work out I'll continue with Pds314's suggestion to take more of a north-westward approach, starting about 30 km north from where I am now, the point where the ocean gets closest to my route. It's only from there, a little over 1/2 the entire way that I can start heading west. I hope it is enough.

^if the above craft seems like it uses maybe too many solar panels, that's likely due to Kerbalism which changes some things. I intend to use that mod at a later point to add resource management to different challenges.

This is the craft I've been working on for the past week and a half. It's fairly resistant against accidental spin, tends to recover from it provided it's moving fast enough. Top speed is about 57 m/s, weight is about 2.4 tons, mostly due to the ridiculous wing setup I have currently to stretch the wheel base. Different, less aerodynamic configurations actually bring the weight down to around a ton and a half.

I may be wrong, but I think that only works for the very large wheels? Not sure how easily they break in this current version, but I used to have to go out and repair them all the time even without the steering exploit. I should have made a pod racer. I'll take your very calculated word for it. Plotting out that route is going to be hell though. Need more time to investigate. Well here's the thing about that. I already use lifting surfaces to extend the wheel base, make it stable to drive at high speeds. If I add a propellor as well, I've basically build a plane, defeating the point of the exercise. I did that once, pre 1.2. Gigantic rover. It's perfectly doable, but it takes away some of the challenge. Neat. I did this pre 1.2, but they kept breaking. Fuel cells quickly become the better option because fuel at least loses mass. Tried this a while back, was fairly easy because weight limitation wasn't really a problem. I could basically add as much fuel, fuel cells and rover wheels as I wanted. I'm actually starting with completely empty batteries. The first trickle of energy being absorbed from the rising sun is the moment the race begins. With solar panels set up the right way, it doesn't actually take that long for it to pick up speed. Just gotta be careful with the first few hills, as wel as the shadows they cast. I find that the 'oberth effect' also helps. When you're between two hills, accelerate only at the bottom when craft is going at its fastest. Air resistance puts an upper speed limit to how useful this is though. It does works great at the start. Someone will tell me this is not how the Oberth effect works, or that I'm using the wrong term. This is fine.

Oh sure, it's not like I'll stop using keyboard and mouse. I just want to drive rovers a little better. I might consider that. It's been 20 odd years since I last held a joystick, but if I can find no other way to make this work I might try one out again.

I didn't know it was possible to turn a wheel on more than one.

I was thinking of buying a small steering wheel peripheral device. I don't play many racing games, but I could get good use out of the analogue input it provides (vs the binary twitch input of a keyboard) while driving rovers. So my question is, how well does KSP support that and do people here have experience using such devices in KSP?

"Why not?"

I really should have a better look at Tweakscale then. At the very least.

Oh, is it that simple?

Thank you! I will start out with KewtSAT.

I was wondering if there are any mods that add 'tiny' scale versions of the structural fuselage and possibly also the various couplers and adapters. A tiny service bay would be the bee's knees, but I don't want to push my luck. * I am aware that Tweakscale exists, but I'm not quite so sure how compatible that is with other mods. FAR, notably.

Actually, it's working again. I ran the game with some serious mod conflicts for a while without realizing it. Fixed all that now, MAF is fine.

The primary KSP question is never why. It's why not. I have reached the north pole in a few (quite) different vehicles already, including solar. But I've never managed to do so in one solar day, so I just want to challenge myself. What better reason is there? The speed required **may** be sufficient if I can get enough of an advantage on the decreasingly slower moving/setting sun as I travel north. The advantage is constantly increasing and eventually reaches infinity. I've done some test drives up to about one hour this weekend (without plotting an optimal course) and I was able to make sufficient progress toward my intended half-way marker at 1.5 hours. I think I have a fair shot at this. Will definitely record and publish the final attempt it if I manage it.

You must be new here.

That's what the weekends are for.

That's the whole gimmick. As you aproach the north pole, the available time approaches infinity. You should gain increasingly more time, much more than one hour if you can progress fast enough. What I *should* probably do is create a little plane that flies stable at about 57 m/s and see if I can reach the north pole with that before sundown... something for next weekend maybe.

I've been tinkering on ever faster, stabler rovers for a while and I am starting to wonder if I can do it. Starting at the KSC from the very crack of dawn (on empty batteries), the further north I get, the longer it takes for the sun to set. The start is slow, but it picks up quickly. If I can just hit a sweet spot, can I 'follow' the sun all the way to the North pole? Average speed on flat terrain is about 57 m/s (FAR installed). Presume a straight route up to the north, I found a path that doesn't veer far from it.

I did not know you could do that. I'm not sure if I can do enough with that to fly, but I'll certainly give it a fair shot. Thanks. I hadn't heard of that, I'll check it out. Thank you.

I'm really no good at flying without this. Stock controlls are too jittery and joysticks aren't my jive. Is there any other mod I can use for mouse controlled flight?

Ok, ignore all of my previous posts. I just messed up my mods for a WHILE without realizing. All is working as intended now.

Sorry, I've already removed it. It's a cool mod, but I never intended to install it it, I just assumed it was part of Kerbalism. I'm reinstalling things now to see where it went wrong. Yeah it seems to be the old version. Again, NO idea how I got hold of this. User error.

I'm not. I'm presently not even sure how Universal Storage got onto my computer. Folks at the Kerbalism thread are claiming US isn't part of Kerbalism. I have like 3 mods installed, so it must have been an accidental click in CKAN.

Huh, how did that get in here then.. Yup it's on CKAN. I didn't notice it earlier because Kerbalism already uses oxygen and hydrogen as fuels for fuelcells. I have to see what else was installed by accident. I uninstalled Universal Storage, but fuel cells still require the H2 and O resource. Didn't Kerbalism use to have those in fuel containers? I seem to remember it did.