Hagen von Tronje

Leonard Nimoy narrates my adventures.

Updated with part two of the Minmus challenge. If you thought the north pole weirdness was out there, wait until you see what horrors wait at the south pole. Minmus is a much stranger place than I imagined; it looks like a cute snowball but it's got some spooks. I'll keep update albums in the OP; if anyone is kind enough to read my narratives, the least I can do is keep everything in one place instead of distributed throughout several pages of the thread. I've also now got a working prototype amphibious kit for the rover! It's in final testing stages, and I hope to make my next Elcano challenge...Kerbin itself! A perfect testbed right in my own backyard and one that many find surprisingly difficult to fully circumnavigate, it should prove entertaining and a good challenge for my rover's real capabilities. I have to confess I haven't explored all of Kerbin's biomes so this will be a nice trip for me too.

It's great because it combines exploration of the unknown with an amazing tinkerer's toolbox and good physics. I don't know about you, but I love making things. It feels great to conceptualize a problem you want to solve, build something from your own ingenuity, and see it function. I enjoy testing it out, working out the bugs, and then watching it all hum. KSP even takes the frustration out of failure since nothing is truly lost, so even your failures are simply an opportunity to build a better craft. PS - Munar surfaces vary in elevation just like on Kerbin and every other body. I might suggest Mk1 Illuminator lights aimed down on your early attempts even if you land dayside (you should always land dayside your first time). You'll see the ground lit up when you're still some distance from the ground and know to cut the rest of your descent momentum.

Similar questions: "How much money is too much money?" "How much fun is too much fun?" Answer to all three: Whenever it's becoming a problem for you.

From all available evidence, the space program is the prime goal of all kerbalkind, so setting their calendar to Year 1, Day 1 to mark the first day of their space program isn't any more implausible than kerbals themselves are. I don't really see how you could get a straight answer to this. Year number is arbitrary, it's 2015 to us but it's 1436 to some people. Both represent the same "real time" year, they're just two different calendars. If you mean what equivalent technology do they have, that was answered: nonsensical. They have space pod technology before bolted on ladder rungs. A welded pipe frame chair represents scientific progress to a race that already has what must be powered armor suits given their incredible tolerance for heat and impact. None of it makes sense bud, they're little green men. Which is great. To me, kerbals are the ideal proxy spacefarers. They aren't tied up to any particular human culture, they don't have any irrelevant history gumming up the purity of their science, they have nothing but peaceful intentions and a wonder for the universe. In short, they are the embodiment of "what if it didn't matter who we were in the quest for knowledge?"

Not just class but parts. A Stayputnik has full SAS and maneuver nodes. It's actually a little silly since it makes a number of probe core differences meaningless in anything but career, and I don't think there's even a toggle for it.

Thanks, that clears things right up. Wow, I kinda like the sound of brakes 10x more effective, but implementing them after just starting an Elcano challenge might be a little cheaty.

I keep hearing this but I'm still not clear on it. When I apply brakes on my rovers, they do indeed come to a stop, and do so faster than merely holding reverse, and in a time frame that I consider not completely unreasonable for a rover (though not what you'd expect out of a car). Are they supposed to be better than that or did I win some kind of no-bug lottery or what?

Capi's tips are good advice. For low gravity bodies, downforce is a major concern because traction will be very low. You can counter this by either building a very heavy rover, which has some obvious drawbacks, or by mounting downthrusters, which can be low-thrust engines or RCS nozzles pointed UP, to push your rover into the ground and compensate for lack of gravity. This is extra nice when turning or changing gradient since those are the easiest times to flip. Also don't neglect to tweak your wheels! It's very easy to overlook that you can and should adjust which wheels have steering and motor; a nice setup that feels natural is rear wheel drive/front wheel steering. This also saves on electrical consumption since only wheels with motor on drain batteries. And for driving, my biggest tip is to watch it going over the tops of hills so you don't go flying, and not get carried away speeding downhill. Just in general, the biggest mistake you can make with rovers is impatience; you can speed up to x2 or x4 on flats and easy terrain with impunity, so take your time when making maneuvers.

It floats, believe it or not. All it requires are pontoons and a prop to make it an airboat, and those are currently in development. I mentioned in my personal rules that I will allow equipping the amphibious kit on worlds with oceans so long as they are part and parcel of the vehicle and not a removable boat (I may allow moving parts, still working out the least ridiculous way to accomplish this), but dragging them around every dry moon would be silly even for a completist.

Orbit-to-orbit can be really small for a probe. Nukes and ions will both give you beautifully compact results though with long burns even on small probes. If you don't have nukes and ions unlocked and are in middle tech tiers, then a basic build of Mainsail lifter + Skipper midstage/ejector + Poodle final stage should get you pretty reasonable results even if it's on the big side. Though if you do all that, why not send a small pod with it and get the crew/EVA reports, reset the science bay, double collect, and come home with a real haul? It wouldn't be much more massive, and maybe less massive than sending more than one science bay. This lets you get science on moon gravity assists too as a great bonus.

You should be fine unless it's mandatory that you attach RCS before closing orbit. Just get there, enter orbit, wait for the probe to catch up. It should only be as far behind as the delay of its launch. I'm having a hard time imagining how it would be physically possible to catch up mid-transfer without infinite fuel.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130281-Elcano-Challenge-As-Long-as-it-Takes?p=2112348#post2112348 Mission description, parameters, and first phase of Minmus run posted. Updates will go there, I'll post here only when I complete something significant.

Greetings all, This thread will document my attempt at a probably ill-advised Elcano Challenge: everything. As many celestial bodies as I can handle until I can't take any more. I will record not only my progress, but my slowly slipping sanity as I drive around the Kerbol system. Why do something so obviously crazy? Because I'm crazy of course, and also because planetary exploration really appeals to me, both as a pursuit itself and as an impetus for engineering and mission design. It turns out I just love rovers, making them, driving them, pulling crazy stunts in them, and whenever possible, proving that rovers are not just practical, they're a lot of fun. Most of my rovers are mod craft; some are mostly stock but carry some utility mods (some even unnecessarily, because I overbuild like you wouldn't believe!), while some barely have a stock part in them. Sometimes the route demands mods and sometimes I just want to try out the new toys. But hey, see for yourself what I've put together: My vehicle catalog will feature all the vehicles I drive on circumnavigations, and include details on design, intended function, actual performance, and mods used. I don't clip parts (at least not egregiously) and I've done my best to make everything visible, including toolbox contents where applicable. Current Status: Eve circumnavigation in progress! Travelogues: Minmus: Final thoughts on Minmus: Minmus is, surprisingly enough, a very practical place for a rover, much moreso than the Mun. Minmus has a number of excellent landing sites where you can land on perfectly level terrain and be within easy driving distance of one of the named flats (Greater, Great, Lesser), nearby regular Flats, Slopes, Lowlands, and Midlands, giving you access to five biomes if you have a rover capable of hauling science equipment to them. Further, Minmus's gravity is low enough that a single lander with either reasonable fuel reserves or refueling access (whether ISRU or delivery/pickup of fuel) could easily hop between the named flats and then to the Pole/Highland areas, which are found close together and provide relatively easy terrain to drive on. This could allow a single lander access to all nine biomes within a couple hour mission, and a rover is easily the most practical way of approaching this, in my opinion. Would also be that much simpler to leave the rover behind when you go home, as you can save dV on the mass of the rover and all science instruments. A much smaller rover than mine using only stock parts could easily deliver science instruments, and could even carry a real pod to store science and get crew reports. My fuel was more than I needed for a full circumnavigation, local driving between nearby biomes could be facilitated by very small fuel tanks for downthrusters. Those are necessary, by the way. My rover has a mass of over 10t when full and it still wanted to fly at the drop of a hat, though it was perfectly fine when going straight most of the time. Smaller rovers would require downthrusters all the more, but I only used 30% max thrust on both my engines and rarely more than half throttle at that, and I found that very adequate. Minmus is also a fun place to drive. The highlands are really quite high, and most of the terrain is very easy. Flats and Midlands can typically be driven at x4 physics warp, and even when driving carefully, x2 actually proved fine, even while turning, surprisingly enough. And oh yeah, the poles are really weird. Fun to see, just make a safe quicksave beforehand. Kerbin: Final thoughts on Kerbin: Well, it was a very long journey this time. Minmus did not prepare me for that. Would I recommend it to a friend? Yeah, maybe. Unlike Minmus, there's almost no practical application to a rover on Kerbin. Kerbin data is much easier to gain with an airplane. But Kerbin is an underappreciated beauty of a planet, with some really impressively steep mountains, broad seas, and bizarre terrain aplenty. It's also got what must be some of the most challenging terrain anywhere; seriously, what's going to be harder than driving right up a vertical wall, out of the water no less? Or maybe Minmus is just a pushover and I've underestimated the depth of an Elcano challenge. But if there's one thing I do, it's learn from my mistakes. And let's be clear - a blind drive carrying useless equipment around a planet the size of Kerbin is a mistake. I'm glad I proved the strength of my engineering in this rover design, but I also think that experiment has served its purpose. I have decided to use different rovers for different planets in the future, not merely to optimize designs further and test new ideas, but also because I'm frankly tired of driving this one. I've put some 80 hours in on it, let's drive something new. I will also be employing some scouting in the future. A mission is already underway for Duna, and this time we're taking SCANSat and what I hope will be a Dunatian bushplane for low altitude scouting. We passed right by so many anomalies on Kerbin that I'm embarassed, and I literally landed within throwing distance of the only anomaly on Minmus without realizing it, with my very first installment! How foolish! I won't make that mistake again, either. I hope you enjoyed this road trip with me, and thanks to everyone for their support! I'm not done yet, not by a long shot. Duna will have a very nice base of operations, and with the changes I've introduced, entries should have both more brevity and better scenery. Stay tuned! Duna: Final thoughts on Duna: Duna looks nice. Not a lot of variety, but what it does have is sufficiently Martian, especially with enhanced visual effects. So is a rover good here? Well, it certainly operates well here, the terrain presents zero challenge to a rover anywhere but the poles, really. There are also sites where you can collect five biomes in a few minutes, and a rover is, as always, a very easy way to do that without having to move your lander four times. Adventurers may find themselves longing for an Olympus Mons or really any kind of Martian analogue; there are some mountains with considerable local prominence, but they aren't the highest on the planet - the highest point is in a fairly ordinary looking highlands near a valley that looks impressive on the map but is really just a zone of lowlands in between zones of highlands. The lowlands aren't exactly Planitia, either - not that one flat plain is more boring than another, but my plane certainly wishes there were some flatter areas rather than just gentler dunes. But I did take something away from this: I'm taking a vacation from polar routes for a while. I like weird terrain, I like rough terrain, what I don't like is minefields of unnatural terrain that makes my skin crawl. Okay, I kinda like it. But I think I'd like a nice, tropical cruise around a pleasant equatorial route, free of any spires of impending death looming over me. I'm thinking somewhere warm, with exotic beaches? What's that? Eve, you say? Eve is huge, hard, and dangerous, like a bull on steroids but with a lot more gravity. I'm also thinking I'm going to take a pleasure craft on this next expedition. I've got Eve science for the most part, I've had a functioning (if stranded) base there for quite some time, and I think the poor "colonists" could use something more fun than being driven into a polar abyss. See you next time, and as always, thanks for reading! Eve:

I like this challenge on multiple levels, not just the adventure but the opportunity to put a rover build to the ultimate test. So I'm going to do this on as many celestial bodies as I can stand until I puke, and I'm going to do it all with the same basic rover build, using KIS/KAS but no other gamechanging mods, and with all science equipment (including materials bay) in tow. I'll even throw in Kerbin and Laythe and maybe a sea route on Eve if I can get some portable pontoons working. Since I'm using KIS/KAS, my intention is to treat it like a "survivor" offroad marathon, with infrequent or no refueling, but with the ability to use winches, and possibly make field repairs by reconfiguring the vehicle to compensate for broken parts, and with the mission objective of science collection (I'm also using a single-part mod for a radial science-storage compartment to facilitate this) from every biome I visit. I've already run Minmus from the equator to the pole, I will post a thread in mission reports with details on my plans and the first leg of Minmus, probably later today.

Confirmed on Minmus. I went to 0'/0' at the north pole, and actually fiddled around to get on the exact spot. Driving over it caused camera spin out, but that happens in orbit too. But getting out and stepping on exactly the point causes this: Well, that looks wacky. Like you I tried planting a flag here. Doing it while in this whacked out state causes what you described, the kerbal is not just immobile but unresponsive to anything (but not dead), menus don't work, nothing works. I also killed the task and reloaded a quicksave; planting the flag one second off the exact pole caused no problems. So long as you don't plant a flag while you're tripping out, it seems you can just walk away from it and suffer no ill effects, though I don't know that I want to tempt it repeatedly. I gave the site a name I thought appropriate...

That does sound cool. I don't use MechJeb but I'd be interested in a mod that used GPS/comm relay networks to enable autopilot trajectories, say between two bodies that have GPS and comm networks in contact. That would feel sufficiently "earned it" enough to me and it would be fun setting up a network that lets you partly automate transfers. Throw in a few more tasks like a suborbital survey to allow landing autopilot. Autopilot is plenty realistic but I'd rather it be something you have to build, not just claim the keys to the kingdom, you know? Basically remote tech + limited mechjeb + some new surveying parts to enable it sounds fun.

I built something almost identical to this, but with lander legs. I tried a variety of engine configurations, and at one point had something that performed unimpressively but managably on Kerbin. I figured turn down the thrust and you have a Munar jumper, why send rovers when you can take this? Apparently despite being a pancake, the atmosphere was key to stabilizing it, because even with RCS it spun wildly and was nearly impossible to control on the Mun, although it was so light it could survive hilariously hard landings. I also found it rather hard to keep it balanced given that most of its mass was fuel, and it drained that pretty fast.

I guess what I'm asking is, why are you going on the assumption that I don't know this? Random worlds would be procedurally generated. The worlds already existing are procedurally generated. I didn't say anything about it one way or the other, because it plainly isn't the right term for what I was describing. You can see procedural generation already at play simply by flying far enough to see a patch of trees... What I referred to was randomization. On a simple scale, of dates and/or orbital characteristics, on a larger scale, maybe of planetary traits, like ore distribution, atmospheric density, even sidereal period, etc. Maybe I'm misreading this and you meant it as a friendly DYK, but it comes across like a correction to a mistake I didn't make. Indeed, it felt like you read the thread, saw inconsistent use of terminology, and forgot that one person didn't write the whole thing.

You're not the only one! I definitely went this way the first time going anywhere, just so I could experience that wonder of landing on a planet I've never seen before.

Are you aware that you quoted three different people, and two of those three used only one term or the other? Speaking only for myself, I specifically avoided "procedurally generated" because I imagine it would be much simpler to randomize which actual date per orbital positions "Year 1 Day 1" represents. That would prevent you from consulting a launch dates table and circumventing the entire discovery system being discussed, as you'd have to at least do enough to figure out what time you're actually running on. But I actually think most of this is better suited to a mod than anything. Most new players aren't going to volunteer to go in blind and revoke their ability to refer to a "cheat sheet" and most vets will probably want something more hardcore than what I imagine stock would go for (like actually randomizing planets).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble Referencing spaceships, it typically means stuff attached all over the outside of the hull, especially if it looks like it must be functional but really isn't.

Probably worth pointing out that unless some randomization is thrown in at the same time, this is only going to affect new players, and only those who decline to look up the information online. A "Kerbal Astronomy Program" sounds like a lot of fun, especially if you start with low resolution from land telescopes, then improve information from missions and orbital telescopes, but it would only be interesting after the first time if it involved some randomization, especially of orbits but maybe even of the celestial bodies themselves, and that sounds like a helluva lot of work to implement.

Wow. Mad props to you, that's taking a build to the next level.

Is the fan an assembly or modded part? In either case, where can I get it?