Scarecrow71

I will not exceed 10.5 m/s on Minmus; I've flipped 8ver and exploded too many times doing so already. I may try the physics warp to see if I can get through this a bit faster, though.

And I made it to the North Pole today. Man is this slow. Like, painfully slow. At this rate it will take me ~1 more week to get back to my starting location at Vision II.

While not the admin of this challenge, I'd say that using mods on other saves to get information you wouldn't have in the Cavemen Challenge, while not explicitly banned, would be against the spirit of the challenge itself. But I'm neither @JAFO or @Mr. Peabody; one of them would have to allow or nix that.

Still traversing Minmus via rover. According to the surface scans, I'm averaging the following surface ore concentrations: 14.5 % in the Lowlands (with a noticeable high of 14.93%) 10% in the Midlands (I'm seeing 9.9% - 10.1% consistently) 2.8% in the Highlands 2.3 % on the North Pole In fact, a shot from the North Pole: So, where is this red-suited fat elf everyone keeps talking about?

I'm still on 1.8, if it's any consolation. The mods I use work flawlessly, and the version is about as stable as you can get.

Scientific Corporatocracy

Really? Wow, thanks! I actually spent 3 hours building and testing it to make sure I could get the rover in it, and that parts weren't clipped, and that it wouldn't collapse in on itself. I've also got a ladder on the front of it so Bob can climb back up there, and it is attached via a docking port so I can decouple and get out of there quickly. The only down side, which I have to work on, is that the rover can't attach to the bay again; it has to stay on Minmus. But thank you for the compliment!

Well, then, lucky me on my first shot! And darned lucky that I marked that spot with a flag!

Why must I go to the poles?

And here we go with the start of my entry into the Elcano Challenge. Hitting up Minmus first; I posted my progress through today in the "What Did You Do In KSP Today" thread, which I have linked here. I'll be adding posts here as I get more progress.

Today I built, launched, and landed my very first ever rover in KSP. The reason is that, after having deployed one of those monster surface scanners and found where the ore is on Minmus, I want to now roam around and use the portable surface scanner to find the best concentrations of ore. I was really hoping to find a decent concentration next to Prophecy I, but alas, it is not to be. Anyhow, some screen shots! First, the rocket I used on the launchpad, and then in LKO: You might notice in that LKO shot there that the payload "bay" I created for this rover is open to the rest of the universe. I wanted to go for one of those panels that opened by robotics and all...but KSP has secrets it refuses to tell me on how to use that yet. So, open-sided (except for the back, which is a solid panel). Trust me when I say it works. As I was sitting there in orbit awaiting the transfer to Minmus, I decided that, if I'm gonna land this puppy and roam around, I'm gonna go hit the Elcano Challenge too. So, for a point of reference, here are the existing sites I already have on this body: A couple of flags, and my very first outpost Prophecy I. I tried to land close to Prophecy I so I had a definitive start and end point. You'll notice in that second shot that I've got a lander sitting ON TOP of the cargo bay. That's quickly becoming my favorite way of getting stuff to Minmus (and, potentially, other bodies). It has enough dV left in it that I can safely get Bob home once he's done with his vacation up there. Anyhow, I started driving directly north, in the direction of the north pole. As soon as I got off the flats, I did a surface scan. 14.8% concentration of ore! That may or may not be a lot; I've never done this before, so to me, hitting 14% on the first scan means I'm doing something right! I kept driving north, and I nearly ran right into an Olivine Formation. Too bad I didn't have one of those scan arm things on the rover. Kept driving north, but the sun's getting really low, big guy. Took a shot of my progress, but I have to shut the rover down until the sun comes up tomorrow; I don't want to be driving at night and not have any power for my brakes. That's it for today. I'm hoping that tomorrow I can at least get to the site of Oracle V on the other side of Minmus.

Quicksave early; quicksave often. Can't tell you how many times I've flipped this thing already today. And most of the time, it seems there is no reason other than I'm exceeding 0 m/s.

I didn't even know there was a parking brake. I have never done the rover thing before, so I had no idea that this was a thing. And once I did that...blamo! It stopped moving. Still have to maneuver a bit if you're on an incline, but this is the answer. And now that I have a rover on Minmus, I shall be attempting the Elcano challenge! I know - haven't finished the other 2 challenges I started. Sue me!

Yeah, I don't get it either. Every other post is "Woe is me, KSP is buggy, KSP2 is delayed again, blah blah blah". What gives? I, personally, am in a great place mentally, even though things aren't the greatest. I prefer to see the world as awesome and with a boatload of potential. I just don't get it.

It's the holidays, and unlike last year, people are traveling and doing stuff outside their homes.

Banned for the spoiler in your signature.

Watching people throw rocks sparks an idea. Faction Alpha tears strips of cloth from their clothing, fashioning the first slings to hurl rocks with!

I'm creating a rover that I plan to deploy on Minmus and go exploring and such. While testing this thing on the launchpad/runway, I take Jeb out of the command seat and put him on the ground; I want to test height and make sure he can get back in so I'm not stuck with a useless rover on Minmus. Unfortunately, as soon as he gets out of the command seat, he leaps off the end of the rover...and this pushes the rover backwards. And it won't stop. I've tried setting Traction Control and Brakes to both maximum and minimum values on the wheels, and I've tried various combinations of Friction Control/Spring-Damper/Traction Control to get this thing to stay still, but it won't. When Jeb is in the seat and I hit the brakes, it stops and doesn't move. The wheels are balanced and aligned, and the surface of both the runway and launchpad are flat. I've tried using various other parts as a braking mechanism, all with limited or minor success. Is this some bug that I'm not aware of? How do you get a rover or other wheeled vehicle to stay put? You can see that this is a pretty basic rover designed for gathering science. Any help here would be awesome!

I highly recommend using MJ. At a minimum you need the Tracking Station and Mission Control at level 2, and you'll need Advanced Flight Control unlocked (which it sounds like you do). To create a maneuver to go to another planet, you simply: Switch to Map view Click on the planet/body you want to transfer to and select "Set Target" Open MechJeb and select the "Maneuver Planner" option In the window that opens, select "Advanced Transfer to Planet"; this should be in the top drop down. In the second drop down, select "Limited Time", and then change that to "Porkchop Selection". I have found that unless you do this, the planner won't calculate appropriately. Click "Create Node". Assuming you did everything right, the node will get created and it will tell you: How long to node execution How much dV is required How long the burn is Fast forward until you are within a comfortable-enough time for you (I generally fast-forward until I'm within 2 hours of node execution) Click Execute Node And that's just maneuver planning. I use MJ for all kinds of stuff, such as: Ascent to Orbit (with a nice gravity turn) Landing Return from a Moon Transfer to another planet And that's not even barely the tip of the mod iceberg.

Granted. You instantly fall asleep, and would be kept in a dream-like state for the next 100 years...except that you still age and therefore die of old age while in your sleep. I wish I was a bluetooth radio.

Banned for tasting Minmus.

My issue on Caveman is not funds, but rather science. I'm nearly out of places to get Science at on Kerbin and around the SOI (apart from attempting to land, which is a challenge in Caveman). I can continuously grind those "test this part at this location" contracts, but that is slow going.

In my career game, I wanted to build a rover and send it to Minmus so it could start exploring and find the best place(s) to drill for and mine ore. I was hoping to be able to find some place close enough to Prophecy I (the current outpost on Minmus in the Flats), but after multiple attempts at building a rover I realized I did not have the right parts/pieces to put this together. Specifically, I was missing the Composites node in R&D, which would give me plenty of structural pieces with which to build a decent rover. I tried to build one using the Grip Pads, which semi-worked...but I couldn't attach them to the inside of any cargo bays in a way that made the rover useful. And so, the engineers at the Las Kerbas Space Center decided we needed to find a way to gain some science to unlock new technologies. After spending a few hours of wading through the endless piles of paperwork that astrophysicists end up creating, they came across a contract sent to them by the World's First Record Keeping Society to send a rocket to Eve, do a fly-by, and come home. This was just the motivation they needed to put on their thinking caps and get to cracking. After several frantic meetings and joint sessions, they presented VISION I to the world: Vision I spent just over a year in space in LKO before setting off for Eve. Bob took a great photo for his vacation album once he was about an hour out: Bob wanted to get a shot while near Eve, but the flash on his camera wasn't working properly, and being on the darkened side of the planet it just wouldn't take. He also failed to get a shot of the capsule once it got back to Kerbin, primarily because he doesn't think about stuff like that. (READ: I took the screenshot and then promptly copied something else before I could post it to Imgur cuz, well, I'm an idiot.) I walked away from this mission with 1046 science, which allowed me to unlock Composites (and a couple of other nodes). I now have the pieces to start building a decent rover, which I will do next!