18Watt

Also, when the ports begin to attract each other I recommend turning off SAS and RCS. If your ships are not aligned perfectly then SAS can overpower the docking force, and the vessels could take a very long time to align themselves- if they ever do. In your screenshot, SAS and RCS are both active while the vessel is trying to dock. I recommend turning those off. As others have mentioned, it’s hard to tell from your screenshot if the ports are installed correctly or upside down.

Your boat has some impressive speed! Are you going westbound? Having never used RSS Earth, I'm curious if you are able to cross at Panama and Suez. Not sure how well RSS replicates those sea routes. Just taking a wild guess, I assume you need to do some short land drives at Panama, and maybe Suez as well. As you know, you'll be the first to complete an Elcano on RSS Earth, good luck!

@Socraticat, congratulations on your Gilly circumnavigation! I (finally) added you to the leaderboards. Just for reference, I used a pogo-stick on Gilly, using a hydraulic cylinder from the BG pack. I was able to reach speeds in excess of 7 m/s, which I was pretty happy with. Not really sure, but I suspect that speeds in the 10-15 m/s range would have been somewhat manageable. The 7 m/s speeds were just the limit of what the stock (BG) hydraulic cylinder was capable of propelling me to.

I find it extremely helpful to mount the gear to the fuselage, never mount to wings. If you need your gear to be wider for stability, you can use the offset tool to spread them out. Doing that you get the best of both worlds- game still thinks the gear is attached to the fuselage, and you still get the stability benefits of wider gear.

Those are all fantastic screenshots! Thank you @Dakota!

Posts in this thread are starting to go off topic, with some finger-pointing. Please stay on topic.

I consider myself a fairly experienced KSP1 player, and I had a great deal of confusion over the new orbital symbology in KSP2. In particular, the blue radiating 'ripples' which indicate SOI entry and exit. Having no information, I just guessed. I guessed that the ripples moving inward indicated SOI entry (moving INto the SOI..), and the ripples radiating outward indicated SOI exit (going OUT of the SOI..). I guessed wrong, and after a fair amount of playing time those symbols still confuse me. I agree there is a lot of room for improvement with the orbital symbols.

@damerell, I ran across this while browsing the forum today. Immediately thought of you, possibly planting targets around RSS Earth. It sounds like you have a different plan now anyway, but thought I'd pass it on just in case..

No, all support missions need to be flown, including placing flags or other targets. Due to the size of RSS Earth, it makes more sense to fly the support missions (flag planting) from the launch site nearest the target location. You aren’t allowed to F12 the flags into position, but you can fly those support missions from any valid launch site. Hypothetically, I suspect there are mods which allow the construction and launch of vessels from other celestial bodies, or off-surface bases. For the Elcano challenge, that’s not allowed, everything needs to be launched from Kerbin (or Earth..)

Supply missions may be flown from any useable launch location on Kerbin (or RSS Earth...) I believe you are referring to this rule: The main mission and all support missions must be launched from the launchpad or runway and delivered to the destination body. Part of the journey is getting the crew/ship there. (i.e. No HyperEditing or save file editing the vehicle into position. Any combination of launching, refueling, docking, or ISRU is permitted. The intention of that rule is to specify that all components of the mission need to be flown from Kerbin (Usually KSC, but does not have to be KSC. In other words, you aren't allowed to Hyper-Edit or F12 any part of your mission into position. Say you have a rover on Eeloo, and discover that you need to deliver some replacement parts or extra fuel. That support mission needs to be flown from launch all the way to Eeloo, just like your main mission vessel. I agree that the rule is somewhat vague or ambiguous. Anyway, you are allowed to launch the main mission or any support missions from any valid launch site on Kerbin or RSS Earth.

I'll get to this discussion towards the end of this post.. It's on there now! And thank you sincerely for reminding me! I sometimes get busy with work, and forget to do things I need to. Ok, back to the autopilot question. In my opinion, autopilots are not valid for Elcano runs. That becomes a different sort of challenge than this challenge is intended. However, targeting is absolutely allowed. Feel free to use any of the 'stock' SAS modes available- Pro/Retro, Normal/Anti-Normal, Radial In/Out, Target Lock. In fact, if you want to get really creative, you can build a functional autopilot with a probe-core mounted on a servo, and 'steer' the rover/boat by locking on to various stock SAS modes. Here's a link to a challenge I participated in a year or so ago: The challenge was to build a rover which could drive from KSC to the North Pole, without any manual control after departing KSC. Oh, and you could only use Stock + BG + MH parts, no autopilots. We managed to make some rovers which could be navigated to the North Pole using only servos and KAL controllers for 'steering'. All turns were time-based. There was a lot of trial-and-error.. Again, my logic is yes it is much easier to do Elcanos with an autopilot, they can be set up (not that you would do this) so you can walk away from your computer, come back in 12 hours, and the run is complete. The Elcano has always discouraged autopilot use, from day 1. However, using the stock SAS targeting modes is absolutely allowed. If you are targeting waypoints or flags, you will need to manually go fly a mission to drop your 'targets' out there- all support missions also have to be flown from KSC too, 'editing' support missions into position is not allowed. Using 'targets' in KSP1 is probably the best way to go. In (stock) KSP1 there is no SAS mode which can target relative to 'north' or any other compass heading. If you are near the equator (say within 30 degrees of it), then referencing the Normal/Anti-Normal vectors provides a fairly good North reference. However, as you get closer to the poles, Normal/Anti-Normal no longer points North/South, it begins to have a vertical component, and becomes nearly completely useless beyond about 70 degrees N or S. One interesting feature in KSP2 is that when your frame of reference is 'Surface' mode (as opposed to 'Orbital'), the Normal/Anti-Normal SAS modes switch, and now lock on to North/South! I really hope that 'feature' stays in the game as they make changes to KSP2, it is a very useful feature. I should mention that the prohibition of autopilot use makes circumnavigating RSS Earth wildly impractical. However, I do feel that using an autopilot is beyond the intention of this challenge. Which leads me to my final point- Circumnavigating using autopilots is a different challenge than Elcano, in my opinion. And I think it would be a great challenge! So: Target-following IS allowed, or using other SAS modes. Auto-throttle or any sort of automatic speed control is not allowed. If you use propellers, they are extremely effective at maintaining a specific speed- the more propeller blades you have the more stable your speed will be, even when going up or down slight inclines. Using jet engines will cause your speed to vary a little as you burn off fuel and become lighter, but I suspect that with the size of vessel you'd need for RSS Earth your speed would not vary much over the course of say an hour.

@damerell and @king of nowhere, one of my frustrations with KSP2 has been the lack of ability to re-map rover controls. I personally like to re-map rover controls so they do not overlap the SAS controls (Pitch, Roll, Yaw). There are a lot of valid solutions for dealing with 'rovering' on low-gravity CBs. But using powered wheels can be quite frustrating (in my opinion). You both have come up with innovative and useful solutions to the problem!

Some fanfare is in order! @damerell has joined a very short list. Actually, several very short lists! @damerell has completed Elcano runs on every stock celestial body in KSP. @damerell is one of only 6 players to achieve Grand Master status. There are only 7 Master Navigators (Kerbin and Eve), and only 9 Master Mariners (Laythe and Kerbin by sea). @damerell is on both those lists as well. Note the start date on the journey in the Mission Reports thread from @damerell- started in 2016. This challenge is not a short one! Oh, one last thing- @damerell's Mission Reports thread (linked above) was recently selected as Thread of the Month on the KSP Forums! Congratulations!

Oh yeah, forgot to say, "Congratulations on getting Thread of the Month!" And no, I am not responsible for choosing those- @adsii1970 does the Threads of the Month all by himself. While we're on that subject- Adsii always needs users to make thread nominations every month, which you can do by 'reporting' the thread. Just make a note in the 'report' that it's a nomination. And no, don't nominate the Elcano, definitely not eligible due to the goofball running it is a moderator.. Oh, that is sad and happy at the same time. Congratulations @damerell!!! Welcome to a very elite club!

Expanding on @The Aziz, practicing my arrivals to Jool to take advantage of gravity assists was perhaps the biggest 'AHA!!' moment in KSP, for me. With a few m/s DV enroute to Jool, you can end up with circularization at Jool for almost zero DV. With some careful planning, you can end up with an orbit which will give you an encounter with any of Jool's moons, again for next to zero DV. That is awesome! Kerbals never seem to get bored on long journeys. However, lithobraking at Vall may not be the wisest move.. Oh, I dearly hope that gets corrected soon. For me, it's almost the whole point of playing KSP.. Jool offers some spectacular screenshot opportunities. That one is awesome! Always better to be lucky than good! Loved it!

In addition to what @Scarecrow71 said, I'll add a few points: You can choose to only rescue the Kerbal, and leave the pod he was in orbiting Kerbin. However, you will have a penalty for not completing all of the contract requirements. You will still get credit for recovering the Kerbal safely, but not the capsule. As @Scarecrow71 already said, the Claw is the best (possibly only) way to recover the capsule. Docking ports won't work.

Your screenshot omits a lot of useful information, like numbers from the top and bottom of screen. It's hard to make suggestions when there is information omitted from the screenshot. If you are using the orbital planner, your entry at Duna is probably not ideal, you may be entering Duna's SOI with more velocity than you could be with a better transfer. Your screenshot does show your Duna PE at over 500 km. Your entry burn will be more efficient if your PE is as low as possible. Duna's atmosphere only extends up to 50 km, and even below that the atmosphere is pretty thin. Perhaps try shooting for an arrival PE of 60-90 km. Do that burn to adjust your PE about 90 degrees prior to reaching Duna's SOI- doing that correction far away from Duna will make it more efficient. Use the Maneuver Planner for that so you aren't just guessing and burning in random directions until you find what works.

Yep, this sounds like a good idea. The problem is that it's controllable in flight. Not just the attitude, but also the trajectory. So it's possible to do more extreme jumps, because you have the ability to soften the impact when you land. This is why it's not allowed to use RCS thrust to control your attitude during jumps- the RCS can also be used to alter your trajectory enough to soften landings. With SAS / Reaction Wheels you can control your attitude, but not your flight path. @damerell has it correct- for a 'rover' which is capable of powered flight, you should really ensure that the propellers are not producing any thrust while you are airborne. Outside of a KOS script (I have no idea how to do that) the easiest way I can think of is to hit the brakes ('B' button). That'll stop the rotors, which produce almost no drag when stopped. For short jumps, perhaps 100 m or less, I wouldn't mess with that though. But if you're zooming off a large jump, and expect to go 0.5 km or more, probably need to stop the thrust while airborne. For clarification, aero surfaces are allowed, including wings. I rule that way because there aren't really any structures in KSP which aren't aero surfaces. Almost every part in KSP will produce lift if you get it going fast enough. You're just not allowed to produce thrust of any sort while airborne. That becomes really important on low-gravity CBs like Minmus, Gilly, Bop, Pol. With one or two RCS thrusters you could jump halfway around those bodies, and be able to control your vertical speed for a safe landing. Sorry if the rules are getting vague. Once again, aero surfaces are allowed, but the intention is no powered flight of any sort.

Yeah, that's good advice. No matter how many times I get burned by that, it's something I still do.

Yeah, I noticed how far back your thread dates! I will also say that there are many ways to complete the challenge. You are doing it one of the hardest ways I can think of. Welcome to the looney-bin @RoninFrog! I like to describe my own ships and rovers thusly: She may not be pretty, but she sure is ugly. If it works, that's the important part, right? I'm going to rule that is just fine (allowed). In (much) earlier versions of KSP that wasn't an issue. Then again, in those versions they didn't have the lawn-chair seats either. Anyway, that's fine. I'd like to suggest an alternative, which I have found to be easier. If there is a probe-core on the rover, you can access Kerb-Net, and drop an infinite amount of Kerb-Net markers. The really small probe-core works just fine for this, as long as you have a connection to KSC. Holy smokes! I go to work for one day and y'all have so much for me to look at! Which is awesome! I'll get ya added for Priax soon! Hoping some other players start doing some Elcanos on mod planets too! Indeed. Yes, I also enjoy CBs with an atmosphere! Gotta rule no on that one. Yeah, let me think of something. Perhaps adding another category for all the OPM planets. That will maybe get me off my butt to start making some badges for mod planets. I'll say it again: I go to work for one single day, and y'all have all kinds of stuff I missed. Way to go! @RoninFrog, just for clarification, is your game 100% stock? I don't see any obvious mods in your screenshots.

Row 28, Seat A.

Two leaderboards updated! Added to Laythe, as well as the Master Mariner leaderboard. Congratulations!

Moved to KSP1 Mod Releases at author's request.

Yeah. The land is just sand. I do enjoy beaches in real life, but the whole planet is 99% water and 1% beaches. I do not disagree with you. Well, just remember, you get the highly coveted Master Mariner badge on completion of Laythe! I actually enjoyed the challenge of Laythe, but I was using a specialized vessel for Laythe, which made it a little less painful. The list of Grand Master Navigators is way too short, and you're so close! I think you just have Eeloo left?

Welcome to the KSP Forums @Jafex! Also, it is very helpful when you find a solution to a problem that works, that you report it. Which you did! Thank you!