RocketPilot573

The Mun is nice...

My "thumbs" folder is already over 1.3 mb...

So... Is there literally no atmosphere at the pole or is it just a bug with intakes?

Part 3 [spoiler=] Next up is a 400 km stretch to the eastern Mun arch! Getting out of the Monolith crater a bit slow... The fuel is starting to burn down, at this rate the refueling will be required somewhere around 200 km from the finish (rover has no backup solar panels). Going into a very flat basin, for once no craters in the way! Bill, what did I tell you about driving too fast. I mean really... You're probably going to die. Yet Bill and the rover somehow survives a +10g impact, I expected a quickload. At 100 km from the arch a marker appears in front of the rover, ah, that's a flag that I planted at the arch a while back... Which happens to be a very good thing since it's getting dark. Err, those headlights really suck. I have a bad feeling about this. Surprise! Random wrinkle in the terrain. I can't see. Finally! Just a few km to go, smooth sailing ahead. Wh- Where did the ground go? Annnnd quickload! That's what I get for not installing flood lights. Finally... Here... Still following that marker! Err sorry. Ran it over... Shutting down the fuel cell for the night. Flying up the arch! I don't even. Progress report! An entire one third of the way around the Mun!!!

I second this, they DO work, but the braking power is hardly noticeable (and YES, the toque is set to max). My rovers take longer to stop than a freight train.

This is gonna be fun... Top speed 1200 m/s at sea level.

Part 2 is up... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121720-Circumnavigation-of-the-Mun?p=1948974#post1948974

Part 2 [spoiler=] -Somewhere on the Mun- At this point Bill is cruising along at 40 m/s, with warp x2. Making great time! The rover is strong enough to survive running over a bumpy part of the terrain. Woa! On my phone one second and the next the rover is flying off a cliff! Apparently texting while driving is a bad thing... I blame Bill. Coming out of the crater... Backflip time! Approaching a rather large ditch. Yes, Bill, you have to go down there. Alright, just go VERY, VERY slowly... No- NO! Smashing onto the ground at 20 m/s, do the brakes work? *brake grinding noises, rover speeds up* Apparently not! Thought I said in the last chapter that we wouldn't go this fast. Oh hey, new biome! There's nearly no ore in this place... The rover sustaining critical damages to the wheels, and tumbling wildly while I try to keep it from exploding. All the while Bill flooring the brakes. Several kilometer later the rover finally comes to a stop, allowing Bill to fix the wheels. Why are we in this crater again? Ah yes... The first stop on this grand journey! The anomaly appears to be a Monolith very similar to the one at KSC, but some dust from previous impacts seems to have buried it. Progress! To Be Continued...

Stuff loads at 2.3 Km and unloads at 2.5 m, it's always been that way.

"BRIEF jumps over dunes and such permitted" This may need a quickload.

Test it yourself, my ground ships always unload at 2.5 km.

For anyone wondering, range in atmospheric flight is 22.5 km, anywhere else it is still 2.5k (I have no idea why some people are saying 7 k).

Aerodynamics is a huge part of rocket design, do we complain about how much fuel we need to reach space? No... Try paying attention to aerodynamics when building a rocket, just like you do with planes (I'm not saying the rocket has to look like a plane).

Link already in post... But here it is again. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121720-Circumnavigation-of-the-Mun?p=1946925#post1946925

I have begun my Mun attempt!

Hey everyone! I was going to test this new rover I made before I mass produce it and send it to all the planets, but then I saw the Elcano Challenge. After not very much thought it was decided that circumnavigating the Mun is the most efficient way to test drive it. This mission will probably take a while... Let's get started! Part 1 -KSC- A 400,000 fund rocket takes flight! One booster is missing due to budget constraints (this is my career mode). Dumping the booster... Confetti Stage sep! The core stage will return to KSC later, flowed by the upper stage. -Somewhere in LKO- In the giant orbital spaceship hangarâ„¢, a nuclear tug is dispatched, along with a small crewed lander. -Later- The two ships rendezvous, followed by me messing around docking things together, transferring fuel around, etc. The nuclear tug boosts the rover with it's skycrane to a Mun encounter. Next up the crew lander/ship flys off to Minmus. Wait why Minmus?! Ah yes, you see, this mission requires a skilled Kerbal to drive the rover, but unfortunately KSC is all out of Kerbals... One which is already in space must be chosen. After careful examination and much discussion, it was decided that Bill Kerman was to accompany the rover, for he has elaborate training in the Art of Repairing Wheelsâ„¢. Bill's current assignment is to drive a fuel tanker, delivering massive amounts of LF from the minmus refinery to LKO. At present he is enroute to Minmus, but not if I can help it! That looks about right... ._. -Over the Mun- -Minmus Orbit- I mange to catch up to Bill just as he was about to deorbit to the base, now I need to convince him to participate in this new mission. Ok Bill is on board, back to the Mun! Bill suddenly notices that the ship has 300 m/s delta-v left... uh... -Later, back in Mun orbit- Hey Bill, you're a bit short on fuel, in fact you have none left! Just bail out, I'll reclaim this ship later. Now that wasn't so hard was it? Don't mind the radiation... it will be fine. Landed... Now decouple the skycrane! The crane is very low on fuel and has to limp back to the nuclear tug in orbit. This crane (if refueled) can land anywhere on the Mun, where the rover may then redock to either refuel for just leave the Mun. So now a look at the rover. I don't have any special name for it yet, but I will decide on something soon. This rover was designed for all airless (including Duna) bodys, and as I said before this is the test run. I am aiming for convenience (speed) and reliability (I get grumpy if I have to quickload every 2 minutes). It consists of 6 rover wheels, which alone can speed the rover up to around ~25 m/s. There are 2 Ion thrusters for turbo boost, which can be used for accelerating the rover up to very high speeds and/or for getting up a steep hill. All of this is powered by one of those fancy new solar cell parts. For speeds over 60 m/s (which probably wont happen on this trip) and high impact resistance 4 aircraft rated landing gears are on board (also 1.0 made rover wheel's brakes almost nonexistent, so this rover cannot stop without the stronger landing gear brakes). The start... And the end... The rover is also equipped with the ore sensor thingy. This handy piece of equipment spits out the current Biome the rover is in, the coordinates, and the ore concentration. I have left Mechjeb off the rover to make this more hands on. Jumping is very common... In my opinion, the Mun is by far the hardest place to rove, because it has those nasty (but neat looking) procedural craters. It can be very disastrous (for obvious reasons) to drive off of a 50 to 1000 meter cliff wall (everything gets kinda smeared all over the surface like a swatted fly). I ended up spending a half hour just figuring out the safest way to drive. I settled on speeding up to 20 m/s using the rover wheels (to save fuel) and then boosting the vehicle up to 30-40 m/s with the Ions (and deploying the landing gears). Due to low gravity and very little wheel friction, once up to speed the rover does not stop, and thus needs no further ion/wheel power. That means I may not even have to refuel! And this is what I meant by those "nasty craters." Normally when driving a rover you can just drive in a mostly straight direction for hundreds of kilometers, but doing that here means certain death... The course must be carefully plotted to drive around these craters. The course depicted in this image is only about 50 kilometers. Progress so far. (displayed path may not be accurate, that is just what I vaguely remember) To Be Continued...

I'm going to be attempting this on the Mun, without Mechjeb!

Truck.

I delivered an asteroid to R&D.

You can transfer them... Just click on the hatch and use crew transfer (I've done it myself multiple times).

This is my setup. Remember that a high level engineer will speed up the drills! Also having 22 drills , 4 ore converters, and 30+ "Gigantor" solar panels helps. There is a fuel tanker for delivering mostly liquid fuel and some oxidizer to LKO. Once I realized that aforementioned tanker has literally no RCS storage I made a Monoprop tanker. I noticed that many people seem to be flying their drills up to orbit and converting it at a space station... However solar panels and drills tend to be very heavy, so isn't that wasting profit?

NOT cheating! This is literally the only way my career gets money... Literally... All other contracts are either dumb or not profitable. Sure, this may be cheating on "easy" mode, but once you turn the sliders down there is no other way of getting a profit.

Jeb: Sitting in space station in LKO Bill: Driving a fuel tanker that transports fuel form Minmus refinery to LKO Bob: In charge of a giant orbital spaceship hangar Val: Stowed away on a launch without permission... Has not returned since.

You need so little fuel I don't even consider the delta-v requirement for my missions there. I believe 35 m/s is for both landing and taking off btw. So surface to orbit would be about 18 m/s.