Chemp

Update: From 80°N around the pole and south to 63°N. However hard I tried, there was just no way to get the craft out of the water and on the landmass. A shame, since I had planned to visit the north pole and test the boat's ability to speed on land - the flat terrain around the pole would have been perfect. In any case, my worries about not having enough fuel were unfounded, since I reached the next refuelling point with the tanks almost half full.

Believe me, I tried! I also tried to connect with one of the claws to somehow swing on the ice - to no avail. Hence: There is no denying it, the design of the boat makes it impossible to get on the pole. Simulations invariably lead to harmlessly bouncing off the shore or a fireworks show. In the end, the two decide to round the barrier. There's no time to lose, however one cannot help but wondering if they've ever heard of Schettino... Once on the opposite side, Jeb plants a flag while Bill checks the engines and they continue south. Soon, Bill announces that the M4435 picked up an island and just a few minutes later, they see it appearing over the horizon. Even though the ore concentration is very low and fuel levels are still well over 40%, the KSC insists on refuelling - for safety reasons. However, Bill and Jeb are convinced that Gene and his crew just need some sleep. In any case, they lose more than two Kerbin standard days to fill the tanks, but at least Kerbol is up now and progress is good.

A very compact design, congrats! Pitch oscillations are usually the limiting factors with hydroplanes in my experience, since it's almost impossible to lign up COT and COM perfectly, even less so as fuel gets consumed. At which speed does it lift out of the water?

A very nice way to tell the story. I love the whole "please the Ram" approach on hardware limitations. Having been limited to play KSP in an old laptop myself, I definitely see where you're coming from. And who says that every story has to feature huge behemoths? I'm looking forward to the next chapter!

I'd say you're both right, you're just talking about different things if I understood you correctly: You use a map to plot your path in advance and use it to see obstacles like mountain ranges beforehand. I did something similar, using @Cyriak's outstanding maps (here). You're talking about these bloody 40cm I'm unable to climb. And I also agree with you, that was impossible to forsee unless I had visited Laythe beforehand (which I haven't) or sent a score of craft to scout ahead on the planned path which, as you pointed out, just isn't practical.

Big update on my mission report: link I hit my first unsurmountable obstacle and guess what: It's about 40cm high! There's no way I'm going back to the drawing board, so I'll carry on and hope for the best. My major worry is that the second version of said hurdle is about 180° away... Please cross your fingers and wish me luck.

A quick test shows that the craft has fared well. Jeb sets course to the nearby island, where he and Bob will wait until the second scansat arrives. No point in aimlessly searching for higher ore concentrations. Far too many days later, the scansat makes its burn into a polar orbit. Some quick soil analyses by Bob reveal the best spot for mining, the rest is routine. Less than an hour later, they head back to the shore and plant a flag to conmemorate their first landing on Laythe. Now everything is set to begin their adventure: the circumnavigation of Laythe. Soon, the Narrow Band Scanner (NBS) reveals a landmass to the north. They steer clear of the island and head for a sandbank in order to plant a flag, marking their progress around the satellite. Their next stop is a few degrees further north. It is the last landmass before reaching the north pole, so Jeb and Bob decide to refuel even though the fuel gauge is still is well over the 50% mark. The shore is very steep, but the strong engines have no trouble getting the craft further inland, where ore concentrations are much higher. The mining itself takes the best part of the next day, so as they back down towards the ocean, Kerbol has already set. As they continue north, Jool peeks over the horizon. Unfortunately, the thick cloud layers spoil the view. Bob is the first to see any sign of the north pole. The NBS shows a bright green strip of land, but even at this distance, the pole remains invisible to the naked eye. The whole polar region seems to be an extremely flat expanse of land. The scientists back at the KSC assumed it to be water ice, a theory that is disproven by the NBS as soon as Bob has analyzed the data from the surface scanning module: The pole has the highest ore concentration yet encountered on Laythe. However mining it proves to be impossible: although the steep hills of the south were no match for the boat's jet engines, it is unable to climb the small vertical ledge of about 40cm that provides no ground for the wheels the lift the body out of the water. It seems that the only possible course of action is to go around the pole and hope to have enough fuel to make landfall before the tanks run dry.

That's a beautiful solution you've come up with, congrats! Most would have called it a day and flown in a replacement vehicle. Is that crane made of IR parts or does it come with the Maritime pack?

Thank you! I hope that she's up to it. It is water indeed, from the top of my head (I'm not on my PC) about 90% of the planet's surface is covered by it. It's my first visit to that moon and the Joolian system in general and it's quite a sight actually. If you get around to do some interplanetary travels, I warmly recommend Laythe. For me, engineering the mission was a real challenge and the reward is superb!

To me, that contraption looks like a guillotine. Oh well, I guess king Jeb is dead...

My latest Elcano attempt is well underway. This time, it's around the moon I wanted to visit since my first circumnavigation: Laythe. This is the craft I'm using: The craft itself is fully stock. The other mods I use are: EVE - pretty pics KIS/KAS - take that helmet off! Kerbal Engineer - no way I'm guesstimating the Δ-V KJR - the only way (for me) to get the craft into orbit Here's the link to the mission report: So much water! Skipping around Laythe I try to keep it clean by placing the images inside spoilers. Please let me know if there are any issues like loading times or screenshots not displaying correctly.

Takeoff, orbit and refuelling runs: Escape burn, intercept and deorbit: Splashdown:

To my shame I must admit that I didn't even think about that possibility, I was too singleminded trying to create a stable boat. I guess I constantly oscillate between very fast and very slow.

A nice and sturdy-looking rover. I wish you the best of luck. How are you going to mark your trail? Since you're using command chairs, you only have 2 flags at your disposal. Or did that change recently?

It's very nice to see how your project takes shape. Especially navigation is going to be a huge challenge, but that's your whole point, right? I hope EC generation is high enough with a single fuel cell. I've always had reservations about using them for a rover, mainly because I have my doubts if the conversion is efficient enough to make long trips feasible. I'm looking forward to you proving me wrong.

The past weeks have seen a big spike of Elcano attempts. Many of them have a beautiful and witty narrative, something that's really not my strong suit. So why post yet another one? Simply because this particular circumnavigation is a long standing project of mine, and because I'd like to share my passion. Since Imgur and the KSP forums don't get along at the moment, I'll post my images in spoilers and add a link here and there to keep loading times reasonable. Nine months ago, I circumnavigated Kerbin by boat. It was my first attempt at the Elcano Callenge, and the views of Kerbin that this journey offered me got me hooked. But also from an engineering point of view, I learned a lot about hydrofoils, so I started to make plans about a circumnavigation of Laythe. Of course, it never ocurred to me that it would take this long. One of the most important lessons from my first attempt is, that having too many lifting is a surefire way to have your craft flipping when low on fuel. I suspected that my pontoons were part of the problem, so my subsequent designs tried to avoid them: While the left one was quite satisfactory in terms of speed and stability, it simply didn't have the range to make it all around Laythe. The right one had IRSU capability, but at a top speed of about 85 m/s it was a bit on the slow side. The final design can refuel itself, is very stable up to 110 m/s (although it can go considerably faster), all while being quite manoeuvrable on land as well as at sea. 110 m/s may look like a lot, but considering that conventional boats easily achive 30 m/s, at 4x physics warp they are faster than this design since time acceleration is a no-go for hydrofoils. Still, I prefer this approach because speeding along, barely touching the surface is something strangely pleasing in itself. Besides, why choose the easy route when there's a complicated way to do it? Here's the craft on a low-fuel test run on Kerbin: Now the big day has come - on top of a launcher, the Speedboat IV sits on the pad: The launch vehicle is capable of SSTO. This avoids the hassle of assembly in orbit, although it forces me to refuel before sending it off on its journey. Coming up next: From liftoff to splashdown Edit: Craft Link: https://kerbalx.com/Chemp/Speedboat-IV

I'd like to submit my entry: I was using a rover powered by 5 RTGs. The design was inspired by @Cupcake...'s beautiful rover featured here. Imgur album Start time: 01:40 Finish: 05:26 Time: 3:46 / 226 seconds I had a lot of fun, thanks for proposing this challenge. For me, it was proof that even in 1.1.3, you can get wheels to work provided you're willing to invest some time in the design and the tweakable settings.

A very solid idea indeed, that would be something new. Just don't forget to add a command pod somewhere so that your vehicle is kerballed (rule #2). On a side note: A little teaser of my own personal agenda:

Great! Here's the link to my non-stop circumnaviagtion by air with the Flying Board V: Bill pedals around Kerbin Sustainable altitude: 27000m Speed record on level flight: 305m/s Total time: 4 hours, 38 minutes (minus a minute or so for Bill to climb the tower at the abandoned airfield) Distance travelled: 6,693,116 meters; I have to put a question mark behind that, since Kerbins circumference is 3770km. For possible explanations please refer to the original post. And the link to the first and the last post of my ground based circimnavigation on a polar route, this time with Bob. No numbers here, I just thought I'd share I never really managed to leave Kerbin by pure Kerbal power, I'd love to see the designs you guys come up with to make this possible. Go green, drive and fly by Kerbal power!

You mean @Geschosskopf's challenge back in January? That's what got me hooked on kerbal-powered vehicles. I really hope they never fix that glitch! Which brings me to my question: do you accept pre-1.1 runs? I made my circumnavigation in 1.0.5 and I'd be happy to submit it as my entry.

That was a great insight in the design process. I've had similar observations when I built my hydrofoil (link in signature) and had the same problem that when I got too low on fuel, the craft had a tendency to become airborne, flip and become reacquainted with the water in a most unfriendly fashion. Right now, I'm working on a boat for the Laythe circumnavigation, so my new approach is to limit lifting surfaces to the minimum. That has severely impacted speed and 100m/s is currently my limit as well but I'm still trying new approaches.

I love the way this looks, especially the cockpit placement. How do you deal with the asymmetric thrust? Did you angle the engines, or do you let the control surfaces handle the offset?

The problem of our heroes might just solve itself if the Kerbulans keep backstabbing each other... Gotta love those two! Although I didn't know that they had access to medical devices. That reference just made my day!

Very nice job! I'd never have guessed that there was a Hitchhiker container behind that slanted MK3 tank until I read your post. I think that it's a cargo bay indeed, you can just barely see the hinges above the side pod.

Arrrgh, a whole mean looking fleet of Kerbulans, certainly up to no good. May I ask how you got the big one into orbit? I've always struggled to attach lifters to that MK3 endpiece, since those tree engines leave no room for a decoupler.