Developing Duna (pic heavy) - ^_^ with Part 11 ^_^

[Deddly]

Seems like you got the character perfectly there, Jumpster

[r_rolo1]

I just shudder on the thought of how the game will react if you try to get one of the twins out of EVA, given that the game think there is only one, but on two EVAs. So Aldner would be in EVA and not in EVA. So, Schrodinger Kerbal, anyone ?

[Brotoro]

Developing Duna - Part 4

Space Station Stuff

This episode will mainly concern the testing of vehicles on Duna. But first, a couple of the tugs in Duna orbit needed to be docked to Duna Space Station. During the Laythe mission, it was generally Thompbles who took care of the thankless tasks of remotely piloting ships in orbit...and so it shall be on the Duna mission as well.

The BANT D1 Tug that had carried the Base, a Fuel Fido, and a Fuel Station to Duna, had only its rack of four Small Science Lander probes left attached. It also had a lot of propellant remaining, and that would be added to the stores at Duna Space Station. A relatively small burn put the BANT into an elliptical phasing orbit. After a seven orbits of waiting, tiny burn at periapsis and apoapsis targeted the intercept with Duna Station, and a final burn matched velocity with the Station to complete the rendezvous.

At Duna Space Station, the BANT D1 was backed in to dock with one of the Senior docking ports in the lower tier of ports. The rear Kerbodyne S3-7200 Tank of the BANT would become part of the Space Station after the Tug later returns to Kerbin, increasing the fuel storage capacity of the station and extending the docking port further from the Station axis.

Note: I generally don't go in for mods with lots of parts, but I do like several mods that add or improve some visual or user interface features. One of these is the Lazor Docking Cam mod. This makes docking more fun (none of that constant shifting around of your viewpoint to make sure everything is lined up). Plus I can't imagine my kerbals being able to do a lot of the remote piloting of ships that I have them do without having some cameras onboard to help them see what they are doing. I hope SQUAD adds small external cameras and docking port cameras to the list of KSP features in the future.

The other tug that had completed its payload delivery mission was the SP Tug A double tug that had delivered the two DunaDog aircraft. Three of its Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tanks were still full (as well as the nacelle tanks), and that propellant would be added to the Space Station as well.

Eventually, another S3-7200 Tank will be added to complete the symmetry of the Station (the other BANT tugs are in polar orbit, so they won't be added to the equatorially-orbiting Space Station). But for now, SP Tug A was docked to the remaining open port on the tier of Senior docking ports.

Below: Today's work on the Space Station is finished.

Surface Stuff

Thompbles: "Kurt, while the geologists are doing their initial digging in the dirt around the Base area, I want you and Nelemy to prepare all of the rovers and planes for their test missions. Top off their tanks and verify that all systems are working."

Nelemy: "Dude, I'll check out the Fuel Station first!"

Kurt: "OK."

Thompbles: "Also check the parachute systems on Duna Lander 1. Aldner said that there wasn't an immediate response from the parachute deployment action while we were landing, and he had to use the alternate staging deployment method...but that's not going to work again when we need to hop that Lander."

Kurt: "Probably a software glitch. I'll check its SFS file settings against those in Lander 2."

Below we see Nelemy driving one of the Duna Fido rovers over to check out the Fuel Station. Unlike on Laythe, on Duna the kerbals can use their rocket packs to move between vehicles. The rocket packs struggle in Duna's gravity compared to low gravity moons, so they aren't going to be great for flying long distances, but they'll get the job done for short hops. This meant that various vehicles, such as the Fuel Station, could be designed without extra ladder parts.

Nelemy re-packed the Fuel Station's parachutes for neatness (it's not planned to hop it later), but his main interest in checking over the Fuel Station was to visit the Goo. All of the Fuel Stations are equipped with a Goo Canister to monitor Duna surface conditions, and this canister had been opened automatically upon landing.

Nelemy: "Hey, little Goo-Dude! Are you enjoying your new home on Duna? Huh...Hey, Nelemy calling Hellou. Come in Hellou-dude."

Hellou: "What's up, Nelemy?"

Nelemy: "The Goo looks like it's blushing. Do you think it's embarrassed about being on Duna?"

Hellou: "No, Nelemy...that's probably just the very fine dust. It blows around easily and gets on everything. What is the Goo doing?"

Nelemy: "Just pulsing a little. I think its happy. The GooCam is working, so I'll have it send its report back to KSC."

Meanwhile, Kurt was driving the Fuel Fido over to the DunaDog planes. The Fuel Fido handles and corners well with its grippy wheels, but you do have to be careful when stopping because it has more of a tendency to tip than the Laythe rovers with their longer wheel base. You just have to remember to slow down with reverse throttle before braking to a halt.

It is my contention that the Claw units contain refueling hoses that Kurt can string to nearby vehicles to facilitate refueling. But the in-game mechanic is just to dock the Claw to some handy surface and transfer fuel. For the DunaDogs, the easiest place to grab with the Claw is any of the four ion engines on the back. This had all been tested in the "Duna Yard" back at KSC, of course...you don't want to find out something like this isn't going to work AFTER you get your ships to their destination.

I really do wish SQUAD would just give us hoses for surface refueling. Even if they don't want to add some fancy graphics and game mechanics for kerbals to connect up hose (although I hope they do), they could add a feature that allows fuel transfer between any nearby ships with the standard right-click-on-the-tanks method.

The relatively new feature that allows you to right-click to select many tanks at once so that fuel can be transferred out of one and into all of the others simultaneously is certainly handy. Below, Kurt is transferring Xenon from the Fuel Fido (which has four Xenon tanks on its underside) to the port row of six Xenon tanks on the DunaDog. The DunaDog had used very little Xenon during landing, so this went quickly. Afterwards, Kurt topped off the DunaDog's starboard Xenon tanks, and topped off the main FL-T800 Fuel Tank of the plane (to replace the propellant used during retro fire and landing).

Kurt next undocked and moved the Fuel Fido over to DunaDog 2 to similarly top off its tanks.

After DunaDog 1 was fueled up, Aldner did some short-range taxiing tests to check out the rover capabilities of the plane. An important limitation became apparent when the plane's batteries rapidly depleted: You must be very careful about Ike eclipsing the sun! As seen from Duna, Ike is about five degrees wide (ten times the size of our Moon as seen from Earth), so eclipses last a fairly long time, during which your solar panels are useless. When roving, eclipses just mean you have to stop and wait a while...but if a DunaDog is in flight and relying on its ion engines to stay aloft, an eclipse could be fatal (depending on what terrain is below). So DunaDog missions will need to be carefully planned with the location of Ike in mind.

Polar Pilot

Aldner: "Thompbles says we can do a DunaDog test mission now. I'll flip you for the honor of doing the first mission, Hawk."

Emilynn: "Fair enough, Buzz. Did you bring a coin to Duna?"

Aldner: "Umm...no. But it's traditional to have Kurt pick a random number. Closest guess wins...and the loser can drive Hellou on her rover expedition to the north."

Hellou: "Hey, I'm right here! How rude."

Aldner: "I mean...the winner flies the plane...and the second-place winner gets the honor of escorting our dear geologist north."

Kurt: "OK. I'm thinking of a number from one to three million. Hawk gets to guess first."

Emilynn: "I'll take 1,500,000."

Aldner: "I'll have...1,499,999."

Kurt: "The number was 1,479,940. Aldner wins."

Emilynn: "Have a good flight, Buzz. And I get Chickadee all to myself. It'll be just like the good ol' days on Vall."

Kurt: "Have you picked a name for your plane yet?"

Aldner: "I'm naming it 'Aragorn'."

Hellou: "Ah...a DunaDog named after a Dúnadan. Only you would think of that. I'm happy you still remember things from the book I loaned you during the Laythe mission."

Below, Aldner took off the next morning while the sun was high in the sky, but while there was still plenty of time before Ike would eclipse the sun. Alas, no jet engines on oxygen-less Duna, so the takeoff run was powered by the rear 48-7S rocket engine (which is toggled on/off via action group 1).

The takeoff seemed very slow, with the tri-plane lifting at less than 35 m/s but rising very slowly. This was partly because of all the lag around the Base area, but mostly because the terrain slopes upward as you head north from Duna Base.

Aldner: "Gear up. Climbing slowly."

Thompbles: "Roger, Aldner. Have a safe flight."

Aldner: "Thanks, Friendly Flight Controller. One thousand meters on the altimeter...I'm firing the ion engines. All four are hot and looking good."

Thompbles: "Roger. Remember to keep the sunlight angle on your wings in mind at all times."

Aldner: "Yes, Mother Hen. Fifteen hundred meters. Rocket engine off. The silence sure is weird. Looks like I used about 10 percent of the rocket fuel for the takeoff. Climbing slower now."

Two minutes into the flight, Aldner was passing through 2,900 meters, still climbing slowly. The plane was tooling along at a non-hair-raising speed of under 88 m/s. Because things were moving slowly, most of the flying was done a 2X physical time warp. It was also handy to click on one of the solar panels to monitor the sun exposure. Thus far the photovoltaics were providing all the power needed by the ion engines at full throttle.

Hellou: "Chickadee calling Aragorn. Aldner, you remembered to turn on all the science instruments, right?"

Aldner: "Yes, Assistant Mother Hen. All scanners running. Thirty-five hundred meters."

The main reason for the existence of the DunaDog planes can be seen on the underside of the Aragorn. There are four generic science instruments on the plane's belly, which represent a High-Resolution Surface Camera, a Multi-Spectral Imaging Scanner, a Cosmic Ray Induced X-ray Emission Spectrometer, and a High-Sensitivity VanAllen Detector. While the BirdDog rover/planes were the primary exploration craft on Laythe, the DunaDog rover/planes are primarily for gathering swaths of low altitude data in support of the Duna Fido surface rovers.

The parachute mast of the DunaDog also has science instruments mounted on it, including an Infrared Spectral Analyzer, two different Catalytic Detectors, and the excitingly-named Particulate Accumulator With Laser Zap Analysis Probe.

Aldner: "I'm at four thousand on the altimeter, but that large lumpy red thing below me is still trying to get close. I wonder if it wants to be friends with me?"

Thompbles: "I'd advise against that, Aldner."

Aldner: "Yeah. I'm passing to the west of a big lump...I should clear the shoulder ridge. Still climbing at about 10 meters per second on the ions."

A minute later...

Aldner: "Uh oh. No you don't."

Thompbles: "Problem?"

Aldner: "The vast lumpy red thing was getting too frisky. I had to use a burst of rocket power to climb faster to get away from it. That single rocket engine seemed kind of anemic during takeoff, but it sure is sporty relative to the ions."

By the time Aldner got to 5000 meters (at about 6 degrees North latitude), he was safely above most of the surrounding terrain, even if only by a few hundred meters as he passed over ridges. At this point he leveled off and started experimenting with finding an optimal cruising altitude and speed for the DunaDog. About 5300 meters with a pitch angle of 20 degrees seemed to work well with the four ion engines at full throttle, giving a cruising speed of around 165 m/s.

Aldner continued experimenting with the cruising altitude for a long time. He got the plane cruising along as high as 6300 meters, but that required angles of attack near 40 degrees, without a lot of increase in horizontal speed.

Aldner: "Oh, hey! Ice!"

Thompbles: "Your wings are icing up?"

Aldner: "No, Oh Amusing One...I can see the ice cap on the north horizon. I'm currently at 35 degrees north latitude. I think I'll go have a look at it."

Thompbles: "Copy that. Remember to watch your sun exposure."

Aldner: "Sure thing. It's at 90 percent now."

Thompbles: "Yes...but it's the sun angle when you are RETURNING that is the concern. You are clear to go as far north as 60 degrees latitude...but the engineers back at KSC advise against going further north than that."

Aldner: "White and lumpy. Not at all like the smooth ice cap on Laythe. Forty-four point three North. Still over sixty-one percent Xenon remaining."

At about 45 degrees north latitude, Aldner passed over the boundary of the polar cap and continued North.

Aldner: "I thought the all-red landscape was getting kind of boring, but this all-white terrain gets a bit dull after a while, too. Forty-nine north...Xenon at fifty-seven percent."

About 38 minutes after takeoff, Aldner was approaching is target distance (the planets in KSP really are pretty small).

Aldner: "Xenon down to 50%. Shutting down the ion engines. Ooops...went a little below half there...but the plane will be lighter on the way back, so that shouldn't be a problem."

Thompbles: "What's your location?"

Aldner: "A little short of 58 degrees. I really wanted to get to sixty North. I'll do a little burn with the rocket motor."

Thompbles: "You don't have to go all the way to sixty."

Aldner: "Ah, but if I can make a 120-degree round trip, it will mean the DunaDog can do an around-Duna trip in three legs."

Thompbles: "True."

Aldner: "OK...looks like I didn't need the extra boost. I'm going to easily glide past sixty North now. I'll land to get some surface samples for Hellou and Kelby."

Aldner pitched up hard to lose speed. When the speed dropped to 110 m/s (at an altitude of about 1.4 km above a relatively smooth patch of ice) he deployed the parachutes (action group 5).

The belly engine was activated (action group 2) and it was used to further decrease the forward speed. The Aragorn touched down at 5 m/s just north of 62 degrees North latitude.

Aldner: "Landed safely, no problems. Belly engine deactivated. Liquid propellant now at eighty percent. I'll get out and have a look around."

Thompbles: "Remember to re-pack your parachutes."

Aldner: "Yes, Mom. First thing on the list."

Out on the ice, Aldner did a walk-around to see that his plane was OK. It wasn't a particularly memorable location, so he decided to not plant a flag.

Hellou: "Hellou calling the Aragon."

Aldner: "Hi, Hellou. I've only been gone a little while, and you missed me so much you had to call. How sweet!"

Hellou: "Right. I'd like you to get two core samples. Also dig a small trench and take pictures. Get plenty of surface samples."

Aldner: "I miss you too. But I'm not staying here long...I have a deadline with the sun. Anyway, I'm already digging the little trench. Huh...the ice is nice and white on top, but it's kind of pink underneath."

After about 30 minutes of sampling, Aldner got back into the Aragorn to prepare for his return trip.

Aldner: "All right. I have the plane turned around. It handles well enough in rover mode on the ice. Time for a quick snack and then I'll be heading back."

Thompbles: "Roger."

Hellou: "Have you got all the surface samples taken care of?"

Aldner: "Yes, Ma'am. The ice cores are in the insulated holders under the wings, the surface samples are in the little freezer, and two chunks of ice are in my cold drink."

Hellou: "You're drinking the polar ice? We haven't tested it yet."

Aldner: "Yeah...I'm testing it now. If there's any bugs that are going to kill us here on Duna, it's best to find out now. Besides...having a drink that doesn't contain recycled pee is nice. Hmmm. Duna tastes good. OK...heading back now."

For takeoff, Aldner used both the rear rocket engine and the belly engine to shorten the takeoff roll (also because he was at 2900 meters of elevation). The plane pitches up pretty quickly after takeoff with the belly engine on.

At 100 meters over the ice, Aldner switched on the ion engines (with the rear rocket engine still burning) to see how they would do. With the plane facing south, pitched up to climb, the sun exposure on the solar cells was weak (about 10% at 10 degrees, and 5% at 25 degrees), so the batteries were rapidly draining with the ions at full thrust.

Aldner: "The ions are drinking the batteries fast. I'm using the rocket engine to gain altitude."

Thompbles: "Watch out...asymmetrical 'flameouts' of the ion engines can cause the plane to yaw."

Aldner: "Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, but I'm too busy here to use long words like asymmetrical."

At 4500 meters, with over 1600 meters of air below him, Aldner switched off the rocket engine and leveled off to see what he could do with just the ion engines.

Aldner: "I'm flying on just the ions now. Pitch at 10 degrees. Sun exposure 33 percent. But that's still draining the batteries. I'm throttling back to two thirds."

Thompbles: "Copy that. Keep me informed when you have the time. We have a good link through the polar comsat."

Aldner: "Hmmm. If I cut back to half throttle and pitch down a little for a slow descent, I can get the batteries to charge. If I get too low, I'll use some of that precious charge to goose the ions."

Things were a bit tense there for a while, but it got easier and easier as the plane flew further south. By the time Aldner was approaching the edge of the ice sheet, he was able to set the throttle of the ion engines up to 100% with a sun exposure of over 50%.

Once he was back into sunnier climes, Aldner was able to do some more cruise testing, and found that the now-lighter DunaDog could cruise along at over 200 m/s at around 6000 meters. With the Duna Base set as the target, it was easy to guide the plane toward that marker...but he was basically paralleling his previous path back south.

About 24 km out from base, cruising along at 208 m/s at 5200 meters, Aldner cut back the ions to half power to begin his descent. As he approached the Base area, the sun was past noon, but still a long distance away from its eclipse by Ike, so there would be no problems with that.

About two kilometers out, at an altitude of 1500 meters, Aldner toggled the ion engines off. There was still over 11% of the Xenon remaining.

Aldner: "Tower, this is Aragorn requesting a flyby."

Thompbles: "Negative, Aragorn, the pattern is full. But you're going to anyway, aren't you?"

Aldner: "Well, it's hard to buzz the tower when you're gliding. Passing over at 200 meters."

Aldner overflew the Base, then circled around in a glide to head in from the west. This required a little burst from the rocket motor, but he got the plane lined up to pass just south of the surface vehicles, gliding over at 72 m/s at 220 meters altitude...then deployed the chutes, which immediately opened fully.

Rear engine off...Belly engine activated...and with judicious burts of the belly rocket, Aldner touched down at 4 m/s.

Aldner: "Down safe. Wheels stop. Less than fifty meters from Lander 2. That was one-hundred and twenty-four degrees of travel, ladies and gents, with eleven point five percent of my Xenon and fifty-four percent of my LFO remaining. Celebration at the main Base module."

Thompbles: "Roger. Good work, Aldner. But get your plane refueled and buttoned up before thinking about a party."

Aldner: "Aye, aye, Cap'n. I'll get out a re-pack the chutes first."

...And this is where one of the strangest bugs I've ever encountered in KSP happened. When I pressed the EVA button to get Aldner out of the cockpit, there were suddenly TWO kerbals, both flying off, tumbling through the air toward the south from the DunaDog. They bounced and skidded to a halt on the ground with the furthest on about 50 meters from the plane. When I clicked on them...they were BOTH labeled as Aldner Kerman.

I did a quicksave...but when I tried to switch to the Space Center, that didn't work and the game hung up. I have often had weird things happen just before KSP was about to crash due to memory leaks filling up the space available to the program (things like having ships mysteriously crash and report that they had hit faraway objects...or textures going seriously wonky), but this is the weirdest one. When I restarted the game, there were still two Aldners. Some people suggested that I keep both Aldners as a fortuitous bounty from the Kraken to make up for all the negative bugs that have happened over the years... But I revert from bad bug occurrences, so it would not be fair to keep my new Aldner. I will have a little fun with him before I throw him back, however.

Back to the story...

Aldner got up and dusted off the red dirt.

Aldner: "Yo, Thompbles. Something strange just happened. As I was getting out of the plane, I suddenly got knocked off into the air..."

*** Nothing but static on the radio ***

Aldner: "Aldner calling Thompbles. Can you read me?"

*** Still nothing but static on the radio ***

Aldner: "Aldner calling anybody. Can anybody hear me. I think my receiver may be broken."

*** Still just static ***

At this point, Aldner noticed the other kerbal to the north of him, so he started walking that direction. He muted the radio channel, since there appeared to be something wrong with his radio...but he knew that when got closer to the other kerbal, the short-range IR comm system would automatically kick in...assuming that wasn't also broken.

Aldner: "Hey, the strangest thing just happened to me. When I was getting out of the cockpit, I suddenly..."

Aldner stopped when he realized that the other kerbal was not one of his crew mates. He approached more slowly, looking over the stranger carefully.

Aldner: "OK, buddy. Who the hell are you and why are you wearing my spare suit?"

Other Aldner: "I am a solid projection created in your likeness when you came in contact with the Duna Moving Equatorial Marker's surface trigger. I am not wearing your suit; it is just that this projection looks identical to you to facilitate communications. You have nine questions left."

Aldner: "Is this some kind of joke? And what do you mean I have nine questions left?"

Other Aldner: "This is no joke. I am a projection generated by the Duna Moving Equatorial Marker. Like all the other markers, I am here to give you clues to locating the planet of the Creators. But the Creators did not intend to make this quest easy, because they want only a persistent and intelligent race to find their planet...so, as with the other markers here on Duna and elsewhere, there are limits to the information I can relate...and in my case I am limited in the number of responses I can give. You have seven questions left."

Aldner: "Ohhhhkay. This is above my pay grade, and my radio is broken. I'm going to need you to come with me to that Base vehicle over there."

Other Aldner: "There will not be time. The energy required to maintain this solid projection is substantial, and the Marker will soon move out of range. You have less than ten minutes remaining to question me. Also, sorry about the radio interference; that is a side effect of the solid image generation field."

Aldner: "Damn. OK...who are these 'creators' you're talking about?"

Other Aldner: "The Creators are the race of beings that created your race. They inhabited this system long ago, but one of their experiments in mass teleportation went awry. The failure sterilized all intelligent lifeforms in the system and ripped their planet from its orbit. As one of their final acts, they seeded your planet with lifeforms that they hoped would evolve into intelligent creatures to carry on with their work. So they left clues for you to find their planet and acquire their advanced technologies. You have six questions left."

Aldner: "OK. Where is the creators' planet?"

Other Aldner: "There are some questions I can not answer, and that is one of them. But the clues to the location of the Creators' planet can be found at the other anomalies on Duna and elsewhere..."

Aldner: "Wait...so I wasted a question just because you refuse to answer it?"

Other Aldner: "No. Questions that I am not allowed to answer do not count against your total. But the question about the asking of questions does count. You have five questions remaining."

Aldner: "Ah. OK...Where are the other Duna markers located?"

Other Aldner: "I can not give you their exact locations, but I can tell you that they emit intermittent pulses at pi gigahertz. You can locate them that way. You have four questions remaining."

Aldner: "OK...Now we're getting somewhere."

Below, the two Aldners were join by a third kerbal, whose approach was unnoticed until he got into IR comm range.

Nelemy: "Dude! Thompbles says your radio isn't working, so we're supposed to find out what's going on. But it looks like Kurt got here fir...Dude! That's not Kurt! That's another Aldner! Dude! Why are there TWO Aldners??"

Other Aldner: "I am a projection generated by the Duna Moving Equatorial Marker. I was generated when Aldner came in contact with the surface trigger beam. I am here to answer questions about the location of the Creators' planet. You have three questions left."

Aldner: "No! Stop! Don't answer any questions that guy asks you!"

Other Aldner: "I must answer any question asked by anyone, as long as I am not prohibited from answering that particular question."

Nelemy: "Dude...quit being mean. Why can't I ask questions?"

Other Aldner: "You are allowed to ask questions until the question limit is reached or until this projection can no longer be maintained. You have two questions left."

Aldner: "Nelemy...Look...just don't ask any questions. Just don't say anything. I'm not being mean here. This guy is some sort of alien projection, and he'll answer questions about the location of the home planet of a super powerful alien race that has advanced technology that we can go get."

Nelemy: "Wow, really? Even advanced snack technology?"

Other Aldner: "Yes, really. And, yes, the Creators had the technology to make a wide variety of very tasty and nutritious snacks in vast quantities. Those were you final two questions."

Aldner: "No, wait...!"

Other Aldner: "I may be able to appear again in the future if trigger conditions are met, but this session has ended."

And the Other Aldner vanished with an audible *pop*.

Aldner: "Arrrrgghh."

Nelemy: "Um...Dude. Am I in trouble?"

Aldner: "You're gonna be when you have to explain to Thompbles what happened just now."

Nelemy: "But...Dude. I was confused. I panicked. I...I guess I should have stunned both of you to be sure."

Aldner: "Stun us with what? Now you're just blithering. Come on...I still have to safe the systems on the Aragorn."

Aldner: "Nelemy...why are you walking that way. Is your leg hurt?"

Nelemy: "Um...No, Dude. But you have to walk like this so as not to attract the sandworms."

Aldner: "OK...I think you're a little frazzled. You just go over to the Base and tell Thompbles what happened. I'll be over as soon as I get the Aragorn buttoned up."

Below, after Aldner re-packed the DunaDog's chutes, he tried getting in and out of the cockpit again several times to see if anything strange would happen. Nothing weird happend. But when he got back into the cockpit, the radio was blaring in there with messages from Thompbles for Aldner to turn his suit radio back on and get his butt over to the base module to explain what Nelemy was blabbering about.

Back at the Base, there were many questions and explanations and disbelief (until they checked Aldner's and Nelemy's suit cam recordings). Then there were protracted discussions with KSC. Then there was a gag order placed by the KSC on saying anything about this to the press. Then there were more meetings and contingency plans explained. Oh what a bother while I'm just trying to peacefully explore Duna. But enough said about this event for now. I don't want to be violating any gag orders.

Return to the Routine

After a couple days' delay, it was back to the routine work for the crew. Duna wasn't going to explore itself, you know.

Aldner got back to the his DunaDog and raised the nose gear to put in in rover mode, then drove it over by the Fuel Station. Kurt then drove over with the Fuel Fido. The normal procedure would be for the Fuel Fido to dock to the Fuel Station to load up on propellants, then undock and move over to dock with the DunaDog to transfer the propellant to the plane. But the Fuel Fido has only four Xenon tanks, so this would require several iterations. The boys wanted to try out an alternate plan.

First, Kurt docked the Fuel Fido to the DunaDog, which was aligned with its rear end toward the Fuel Station. Then Kurt dragged the DunaDog along with the Fuel Fido as he docked to the Fuel Station. Voilà! One big happy ship for easy transfer of propellants.

Below, we see where I tried to use the same technique of transferring Xenon from one tank on the Fuel Station to many tanks at once on the DunaDog...but while this technique worked well when the tanks each need only a little Xenon, it turned out to be easier to select individual recipient tanks when they need lots of Xenon.

After all the tanks of the Aragorn were full, Kurt undocked from the Fuel Station and backed off. Then he undocked from the Aragorn and drove away. No planets were destroyed by annoying Claw bugs -- just remember to NEVER dock your active vehicle to the Claw of an inactive vehicle (or world-shattering KA-BOOMs can occur, as I found out on Laythe).

The next job Kurt performed was docking to Duna Fido 2, which Adly had named "Dune Buggy," to fill up its tanks. The four FL-T100 tanks of that rover were partially depleted from the retro and landing burns. Adly and Kelby were going to test out the Fido by making a long trip to the east...and just in case they needed to hop the rover back to Base, they wanted to be sure it had full tanks.

Kurt: "There you go, boys! All gassed up. Did you need me to clean your windshield?"

Adly: "No, that's fine, Kurt. But I'll certainly recommend your service station to all my friend visiting Duna. We're off!"

Kelby: "See you in a week or two, Kurt."

Adly and Kelby headed off to the east, with Kelby the geologist riding on top in the "Granny Klampett chair" where he could get a better view of the surrounding terrain.

The terrain to the east was a continuation of Kelby Planitia, the relatively flat basin where Kelby first landed on Duna long ago, and where the current mission set up their main Duna Base. So the terrain was pretty gentle for the initial test of the Duna Fido rover. It soon became apparent that the rover could safely zip along this rolling terrain at 30 m/s, and (happily for me) could easily tolerate 3X physical time warp. The way parts of the rover jerked around relative to each other when the rover hit bumps at high warp was somewhat disconcerting (which is why I decided not to cruise along at 4X), but it seemed to tolerate the warp much better than I remember my older versions of the rover doing (they used to sag quite a bit at high time warps). I suspect that this may be the result of the stronger joints we have nowadays in KSP.

While Adly and Kelby were headed east, Emilynn and Hellou were driving on an expedition to the north into the Shield Wall Mountains, which Hellou had named. She was also the one who named their Duna Fido 1 rover "Jessica."

Emilynn: "Why 'Jessica'? Not that I mind...it's a pretty name."

Hellou: "I named it after Jessica Atreides, a Bene Gesserit from the Duna book."

Emilynn: "So her last name isn't Kerman?"

Hellou: "No. In science fiction stories, they often use alien naming systems where not everybody has the last name Kerman."

Emilynn: "You sure read some weird stuff, girl. All strapped in back there?"

Hellou: "Yes. But please drive carefully."

Emilynn: "Sure thing, Chickadee. I've got precious cargo on board."

The drive into the highlands was more challenging that the drive across the lowlands. The wheels on the Duna Fidos have less traction than the grippier ruggedized wheels, but that also makes it less prone to try to flip during braking. All the fuel onboard and the shorter wheelbase does make the Duna Fidos more susceptible to tipping than my previous Fidos, so it requires more care to drive (always slow down before braking). Because of the lower friction of the wheels, it's necessary to toggle the SAS off during turns (by holding down the "F" key)...but that also makes it more liable to tip, so don't turn rapidly when moving fast.

The Jessica could tolerate 2X physical time warp on the rougher terrain (and 3X in flatter areas), but high time warps will make the rover slide downhill. This 'skating' effect at time warp speeds does make the rover less susceptible to tipping when brakes are applied.

The rising terrain did limit the rover's speed to around 10 m/s, and steep slopes required attacking them at an angle with a switchback maneuver (where a grippy wheel rover would be able to drive directly upslope).

NOTE: I'm using my same Rules For Driving Rovers on my Duna mission as it did on my Laythe mission. That is to say, I expect that my kerbals are going to drive along at a safe speed, taking several days to do a drive I perform in an hour or so at high time warp and hair-raising speeds...Because I get bored driving slow at 1X, even with my trusty audiobooks to entertain me. So I will push the limits of safe driving into the insane driving regime. If I make it through a leg of the journey without incident, all is good. If I wipe out during a leg of the journey, I have to repeat it...preferably at a safe speed, because if I wipe out again when trying to be careful, it's an official occurrence in the game.

Also note that the Fido design includes a single-kerbal lander cabin that represents a space where the kerbals can stretch out one at a time and get some more comfortable sleep or wash their hair or whatever...all to make long rover expeditions less grueling.

Nothing hair-raising happend on the drive north...mostly because the rising terrain limited the speed of the rover. Below, we see the Jessica passing a nice hill.

Beyond the hill, our heroines found a moderately level area at about 4100 meters elevation, 5.33 degrees north of the equator.

Emilynn: "We've arrived at that level area you wanted, Chickadee."

Hellou: "Thanks, Emi. Jessica rover calling Duna Base. Hellou calling Thompbles."

Kurt: "Thompbles is busy right now. Can I help you ladies?"

Hellou: "Yes, please. We found a nice area at 5 degrees 21 minutes North, 42 degrees 10 minutes East. I'd like you to send down a Science Lander."

Kurt: "Sure thing. I'll have to check the Station position, but I think I can deliver that for you in 45 minutes."

Kurt remotely separated one of the Science Lander Probes from the Space Station and set it to land at the coordinates specified by Hellou. The Lander has more than enough delta-V to shift its orbital plane for a landing in the highlands near the Jessica rover.

The Science Lander has two ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tanks and one Rockomax 48-7S engine. The plane shift and retro burn was nominal, and the the probe dropped into the highlands (the target site indicated by the yellow arrow in the image below).

Most of the work slowing down the probe and lowering it straight down was handled by the parachutes, so only a little thrusting was need for a gentle landing.

The Science Lander touched down 2.4 kilometers north of the Jessica, and Emilynn quickly covered that distance in the rover.

The Map View below shows the location of the Fido 1 rover and the Science Lander (north of the Base in Kelby Planitia), and the Fido 2 rover with Adly and Kelby currently off to the east of the Base.

Hellou gathered SCIENCE from the Lander's bevy of instruments (being sure to say hello to the Goo as she had promised Nelemy she would).

Emilynn: "There's still plenty of fuel left in the Lander. We can have it hopped down to the midlands so we can grab some more science from it on our way back. I'll go re-pack its parachutes."

Hellou: "Sounds great, Emi. Oh! Here's a beautiful rock!"

Emilynn: "Oh? This one has a different shade of red?"

Hellou: "No, no. All of these rocks aren't red. Come look. The rocks all look red because they are covered in this very fine iron oxide dust...but look what happens when I brush that off."

Emilynn: "It's green!"

Hellou: "Indeed. Those are some fantastic olivine crystals. Now where did you come from, my beauty?"

The next day, Emilynn and Hellou were ready to continue their journey. But before leaving, Emilynn wanted to watch the Lander take off for its hop south.

Emilynn: "Jessica rover calling Duna Base. Are you ready to hop that Lander?"

Kurt: "Roger, Hawk. Ready when you give me the all clear."

Emilynn: "OK, Jaymack. I have my Chickadee safely in her nest. Boost away."

Kurt: "Roger. Launching now."

The fuel tanks on the Lander probe were over two thirds full, so it was easy to lob it south and tweak its trajectory to land in the relatively narrow band of midlands biome north of the Base. Things got unexpectedly exciting after the probe gentle touched down on a slope, and started to roll end over end down hill. But the rolling was pretty gentle, and didn't seem to damage the Lander. After half a dozen rolls, some judicious use of the reaction wheels brought the probe to a stop on its legs. Good enough.

Emilynn and Hellou took the Jessica a bit further north along the ground track of Aldner's DunaDog flight, but it wasn't long before the rover test was declared a success, and our heroines headed back south.

In fact, this is when the drive got more exciting (happily so for Emilynn...less so for our fretful Hellou). Going downhill, the Fido can easily reach speeds over 40 m/s if you aren't careful, and the steeper slopes require both reverse throttle and brakes applied to keep the speed in check. The rover 'caught some air' several times on the drive downslope, much to Emilynn's delight (she enjoys an exciting ride). This actually went quite well at 2X time warp.

On their way south, they stopped off at the repositioned Science Lander (where the second Goo canister had been exposed), and picked up more SCIENCE.

Then our heroines made the rest of the trip downhill out of the Shield Wall Mountains to Duna Base, where the boys welcomed them home with the best party ever thrown on Duna.

Kelby and Adly missed the party because they were still roving east of the Base. Kelby had tried to find the location of his original landing on Duna, but couldn't seem to find any spot that looked as flat as he remembered his landing site was. They also ordered a Science Lander for delivery to a spot ahead of them so they could gather wonderful lowland biome SCIENCE.

Adly: "Looks like the Science probe came down 23.2 kilometers east of us. Let's go get it."

Kelby: "OK. I'll ride on top again."

Adly: "Sounds good."

Kelby: "I'm getting some lousy reception of the football playoffs on my pad up here."

Adly: "Hmm...none of the comsats is currently in optimal position...let me extend the high gain. That'll help."

Kelby: "It's a shame when you can't get decent game coverage on an alien world. The engineers need to plan better for these important contingencies."

Luckily, the boys arrived at the Science Lander at halftime, so they were able to get in some quick science gathering before the second half.

That's it for this episode. Next time I think we'll be doing some long distance hopping and setting up for some more distant explorations.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Brotoro

[Scotius]

Fun fact: Astronauts onboard the International Space Station claim that recycled pee coming out of their life support system tastes better than supposedly "clean" water from their home faucets. Yay for space technology

As for second "Aldner" - i'm kinda sad we won't be reading hilarious stories about their interactions with the rest of the crew. But i understand your reasoning and motives - Kraken is a fickle beast. 'Tis better to avoid all dealings with him, when the fate of entire mission is at stake.

[Yukon0009]

Oh yeah, new part! And question, did you terminate the second Aldner? Or did you hyperedit him home for further studies?

[r_rolo1]

So no Schrodinger Kerbal But anyway, that was a nice throwback to Nova's scenario and a hilarious handling of the evil twin situation

[Tangle]

Now all we need to do is send a small aircraft to Duna that will attempt to continually re-activate the projection...

[Cydonian Monk]

Hmm.... LotR mixed with Dune... a plane named Aragon.... The Aragornithopter simply must become a thing. Too bad the air on Duna is so thin - I could see an ornithopter working in the magic Kerbin soup, just not on Duna.

I wonder if the ice on Duna is water ice or carbon-dioxide ice?

[Brotoro]

The minimum temperature for Duna listed in the Kerbal Celestials wiki is -50.24 degrees C. That is not cold enough for solid Carbon Dioxide (especially at Duna's lower atmospheric pressure).

[Tangle]

The minimum temperature for Duna listed in the Kerbal Celestials wiki is -50.24 degrees C. That is not cold enough for solid Carbon Dioxide (especially at Duna's lower atmospheric pressure).

Duna is easier to terraform than Mars confirmed?!?!?!?!

[Cydonian Monk]

The minimum temperature for Duna listed in the Kerbal Celestials wiki is -50.24 degrees C. That is not cold enough for solid Carbon Dioxide (especially at Duna's lower atmospheric pressure).

Good point. Even with the insane densities of the planetary bodies in the Kerbol system, that shouldn't affect the behaviour of molecular CO2/H2O. I sense a market for a new line of exotic bottled waters.....

[jfull]

Duna is easier to terraform than Mars confirmed?!?!?!?!

Its certainly a bit warmer

I've also heard that its atmosphere is actually not so thin that human (or kerbal) blood would start boiling like it would on Mars

[macdjord]

Its certainly a bit warmer

I've also heard that its atmosphere is actually not so thin that human (or kerbal) blood would start boiling like it would on Mars

Blood will not boil inside you even in hard vacuum; your veins provide enough pressure to keep it liquid. Outside you body, it would boil on Duna.

[Brotoro]

The Kerbal Celestials wiki lists the atmospheric pressure of Duna as 20.265 kPa. I assume that's at sea level, and the closest you can get to sea level on the current Duna is a couple hundred meters, so it will be somewhat less than that for the lowest elevations on Duna and considerably less than that on the highest elevations (scale height is 3000 meters).

According to the data at the Engineering ToolBox, the boiling point of water at 20.69 kPa is 60.8°C (141°F). At 13.79 kPa the boiling point is 52.2°C (126°F)...so you should be able to have liquid water existing over much of Duna's surface were it not for the temperatures being below freezing.

As low as 6.9 kPa, the boiling point is 38.7°C (102°F), so your blood shouldn't want to boil unless you have a high fever.

Lesson for today: Duna is certainly not Mars.

[Tangle]

Essentially all you need for a nicer Duna is to melt its liquid water icecaps and begin exchanging its carbon dioxide for oxide and ground-based carbon.

[Brotoro]

To terraform Duna, you just need to warm it up and thicken up its atmosphere. Orbiting mirrors to increase the sunlight hitting the planet and a layer of carbon soot on the polar caps would be a good start. Once the polar caps start to melt and you get more water vapor in the air, the power greenhouse effect of the water vapor should help temperatures a lot. Get some large scale photosynthesis going and you'll slowly increase the oxygen level. But if you want to end up with a breathable atmosphere (breathable by humans, anyway) you'll need a source of Nitrogen to bulk up the atmosphere as you decrease the CO₂ levels to something non-poisonous. I don't know what levels of CO₂ kerbals can tolerate.

[Kieve]

To terraform Duna, you just need to warm it up and thicken up its atmosphere. Orbiting mirrors to increase the sunlight hitting the planet and a layer of carbon soot on the polar caps would be a good start. Once the polar caps start to melt and you get more water vapor in the air, the power greenhouse effect of the water vapor should help temperatures a lot. Get some large scale photosynthesis going and you'll slowly increase the oxygen level. But if you want to end up with a breathable atmosphere (breathable by humans, anyway) you'll need a source of Nitrogen to bulk up the atmosphere as you decrease the CO₂ levels to something non-poisonous. I don't know what levels of CO₂ kerbals can tolerate.

Stop inspiring me. I have enough stupidly ambitious projects on my plate already.

[Deddly]

Great work as always, Brotoro, with some interesting geology thrown in too. You're good at keeping it interesting.

I hope you won't mind me mentioning that your jumping rovers pictures often show the long ladder sticking into the soil - it can make it seem like the rover is balancing on the ladder in a very comical fashion, which I don't believe is your intent

Bravo on writing the double Aldner into the story!

[Brotoro]

Oooo...I'll get a new light-green bar with one more point of reputation.

-----------------

EDIT: And over the top I go!

Thank you to everyone for the Reputation. It encourages me to keep writing these adventures.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Brotoro

[Commander Zoom]

I just gave you another, for your resolution of the Aldner question. I'm also seriously digging the concept and design of those Science Landers, now that I see them in action.

[Brotoro]

Thanks. But be cleverer than me and remember to set up an action group for your Science Lander parachutes. I forgot to do that with mine, so I had to manually right-click-to-deploy their parachutes during the second hop (which wasn't too bad because there are only two chutes). I'll have Kurt upload a software patch to the SFS files in the Landers for the ones I use in the future.

[2001kraft]

Here have some rep. You keep writing stories that keep me up all night.

[FlyingPete]

The 'Aldner Duplication Anomaly' made me think of this

These are probably applicable to a lot of missions in KSP

[Brotoro]

Developing Duna - Part 5

Expanding Exploration

At the end of episode 4, Adly and Kelby were exploring to the East in Dune Buggy, and they had just arrived at the landing site of Lander Probe 2 to gather its SCIENCE and say hello to the Goo. But that Probe still had most of its propellant remaining (it required about one quarter of its fuel to de-orbit and land), so while Kelby dug around in the dirt getting samples, Adly repacked the parachutes of the Probe so it could be hopped downrange.

Adly: "Dune Buggy to Duna Base. The Lander Probe is repacked and ready to hop. Kelby would like it sent to the midlands area straight east of us, if it can go that far."

Thompbles: "I'll see what I can do for you."

In the real world, of course, NASA would insist that their astronauts move back to a very safe distance before launching a rocket...but kerbals like an up-close view of the fun:

Below, the Map view (with biomes visible) shows that the hop almost went too long...but the landing point moved back a bit due to aerodynamic drag.

Ooops...I forgot to add an action group to the lander probes for deploying the parachutes, so I had to do that with right-clicks.

A little fuel was held in reserve for the final braking under the parachutes, and the probe landed safely. But did it drop into the Midlands, or overshoot into the Lowlands? Well...oddly enough, when the second Goo canister was activated, it reported that the probe was in the HIGHLANDS biome...that can't be right. The Midlands should be next to the Lowlands.

Adly and Kelby started the 27.1 km drive to the lander probe's new location. But when they drove up onto a small mountain in their path, they went from Lowland biome (the blue) directly into Highland biome (the cyan area on the map). So something is definitely wrong here.

When the Dune Buggy drove into the green area on the map, the program reported that they were in the Midlands biome. When Hellou and Emilynn explored to the north of Duna Base, the green Midlands came first, and then the cyan Highlands. So it appears that somebody has mislabeled the biomes in the area Adly and Kelby were exploring. SQUAD, you might want to fix this.

The guys reached the lander probe for the second time without incident (they were also reporting the location as Highlands when it should be Midlands), and gathered more SCIENCE from it.

Continuing eastward, the drop in elevation allowed the rover to get up to speeds near 40 m/s, allowing it to catch some air as it went over bumps...but nothing the rover couldn't handle. When they reached the next Lowland area that stretched on for hundreds of kilometers ahead, Kelby named it Adly Planitia after his fellow explorer.

I'm sure the guys stopped often so that Kelby could explore the surface in detail.

Adly: "So, are you finding anything interesting in the big stretch of sand dunes you named after me?"

Kelby: "It's a lot like what we found back at the Duna Base area. Under the sand is mudstone and sandstone. These planitia are dried up seabeds."

Adly: "Any fish fossils?"

Kelby: "No...but, there is an outcrop of what looks like shale over here. Drive the rover over this way so I can use the lab module's core sampler."

Heading ever further east, Kelby analyzed his rock samples in the lab/hab cabin while Adly drove (but at a more sedate pace that you see me driving the rover along in the GIF below)...

Kelby: "Well, we have hit the jackpot."

Adly: "There's gold in them thar hills?"

Kelby: "No. Better. That ice from the bottom of the last core sample...it's kethane clathrate."

Adly: "Tasty?"

Kelby: "No, but it's one-stop shopping for your rocket propellant needs. You can release the simple hydrokarbon that's trapped in the ice crystal structure by melting the ice, and liquify the it for use as a propellant. And then you can electrolyze the water to get LOX. And the Hydrogen can be used to make even more kethane using a process invented by Sabatier Kerman."

Adly: "Very nice. I do get all the mineral rights for this basin because you named it after me...right?"

When I last drove over this area of Duna using the unmanned Fido KED rover to circumnavigate Duna (back when we first got rover wheels in version 0.19), the terrain here was perfectly flat...and I could let the rover drive along unattended by placing a weight to constantly press down the "i" key (I remap the rover controls to the i,j,k,l keys). After the makeover Duna received, this area is now rolling sand dunes...but I could still let the rover drive along unattended (this time with the help of MechJeb's Rover Autopilot to maintain the speed) without worrying that it would go too fast and wipe out. So, rather than send Adly and Kelby back to base, I decided to send them all the way across Adly Planitia to see how the far edge looked (previously it was an impressively steep wall).

Over in the eastern part of Adly Planitia (see map below), the boys camped out for a couple days to watch Ike set and rise. Ike is tidally locked to Duna (and vice versa), but because of its slightly elliptical orbit, Ike shifts back and forth about 8 degrees during the Duna day. In the image below, you can see the sun coming out from behind Ike just before sunset...and then during the night, Ike dipped below the horizon...and then Ike rose back into the sky after dawn.

The steep incline that used to mark the eastern edge of Adly Planitia is long gone. Now the terrain just gradually gets hillier as you head eastward up out of the Lowlands. At least the transition from Lowlands to Midlands to Highlands happens in the correct order here. Unexpected note: If you have the display of biomes turned on in Map view, then Ike shows up in Duna's sky all covered in colorful biome colors (so I had to keep turning off biome display when I wanted to take a regular picture with Ike in the sky).

Driving up into the Midlands allowed our heros to see Ike again (it had slipped below the horizon from the lower elevations at the eastern edge of Adly Planitia). Also, the bumpier terrain made it easier to catch some air when driving fast (but the increasing slope made it harder to drive fast).

Eventually, the terrain got even steeper as the Fido rover transitioned into the Highlands. The slope was steep enough to slow the Fido down to a crawl...but not so steep that it was necessary to drive back and forth in a switchback path. A rover equipped with the grippier wheels would zoom right up the slope, of course.

Adly: "Dune Buggy calling Duna Base."

Thompbles: "This is Duna Base. How goes your uphill climb?"

Adly: "We're doing fine. Kelby has some different kinds of rocks to look at, apparently. He's going on and on about 'igneous this' and 'plutonic that'. He's happy as a clam."

Thompbles: "Glad to hear it. Are you going to start driving back?"

Adly: "Well, that's why I'm calling. Rather than driving back along that same route, how about we bump up the schedule for setting up the East base? I'm sure Kelby will be happy to mess around in these highlands while you drop in the ships, and then we can hop to there from here."

Thompbles: "Sounds fine to me. I'll get working on delivering your equipment right away...but it's going to take a few days waiting for the orbit alignments."

The map view below (switching between regular and biome view) shows the location of the Fido rover in the highlands.

East base will be an exploration outpost set up in Fido Canyon, named for the landing spot of the unmanned Fido KED rover that long ago circumnavigated Duna. Setting up the base involved sending in a Lander (so the guys have somewhere more comfortable to live than the Fido rover), and a Fuel Station and Fuel Fido (to re-fuel ships). Those assets were sitting up in polar orbit (so that they could be dropped anywhere on Duna).

The first step was to separate the Duna Fido 3 rover from the BANT 6 ship. This rover would be left in polar orbit so it can be sent down to the surface as needed in the future. Removing the rover freed up the Duna Lander 3 vehicle, which was separated and moved away from the BANT under remote control.

Then there was the wait until the landing site moved under the Lander's polar orbit. This would be a lot less boring if SQUAD would allow faster time warps in lower orbits. As is, I switched to one of the comsats and ran time forward, then switched back to the Lander as the landing site was nearing its orbital plane. Then came the retro fire, entry (no flames), and parachute assisted landing. Sorry...the alignment of the orbits required landings shortly before sunset, so the pictures aren't as good as one might like.

The Lander touched down about 850 meters from the old Fido KED and its lander. OK...comfy living facilities were in place!

The next asset came from the BANT 4 & 5 ship, which is in a higher polar orbit. The idea was that the higher polar orbit (with its lower orbital velocity) would require a smaller plane shift burn to put the payload on target...but it also means that the orbital period is longer, so the chances are lower that you'll get a close alignment as the target site passes below the orbit (since the ship may not be close to the retro fire position when the base is passing under its orbit). But the alignments weren't bad. Below, we see the Fuel Station 2 separating from the double-BANT.

After waiting for the orbital plane to align with the target site, the four Rockomax 24-77 engines performed the retro burn and small plane shift needed to target the Fuel Station in to the site (you can see that the trajectory is leading the site so that Duna's rotation will carry the site under the trajectory just as the ship lands).

For the first time in all my Duna aerocapturing, aerobraking, and entry maneuvers for this mission, we get to see entry flames as the Fuel Station falls in from its higher orbit. The eight parachutes and the four 24-77 engines landed the heavy tank onto the surface of Duna. The Fuel Station landed a little over a kilometer from Lander 3.

The next asset dropped was Fuel Fido 2 to work in conjunction with the Fuel Station. Below we see the Fuel Fido separating from the double-BANT. (If you forgot what 'BANT' stands for, it's "Big Advanced Nuclear Tug"...just so you don't have to go back and look.) Then there was another wait for the landing site to align with the orbit. Each of these landings had to be made a day apart because only one ship could be taken care of during each landing window. The place where the landing site passes under the orbit on the other side of the planet is in darkness, so I didn't want to use that location...because the 'automatic landing radar' that determines when to fire the landing rockets consists of my eyeballs watching the screen, and most of these payloads don't have landing lights (to save on part count), so landing in darkness is contraindicated.

The little FL-T100 tank on top of the Fuel Fido is there as a spacer in the payload stack...but the vehicle was sent down with that tank full so that after retro burn, the fuel from the FL-T100 tank could be moved to replace some of the fuel used for the retro burn. Then the small tank was jettisoned (to smash onto the surface).

The six parachutes and two Rockomax 48-7S engines on the Fuel Fido set the vehicle down 528 meters from the Fuel Station, a little over a kilometer from Lander 3, and about 1.5 kilometers from the old Fido KED. OK! The infrastructure for Fido Canyon base was in place and ready for the exploration crew.

It was time to hop the Dune Buggy rover over to Fido Canyon. When fully fueled, the Duna Fido rovers can hop 11 degrees around Duna using half their fuel (counting the little extra it takes to soft-land under the parachutes). So, a Duna Fido could hop 11 degrees from base, and later hop 11 degrees back to base, and be refueled. But a fully-fueled Duna Fido can also reach Duna orbit...so if you want to use over half the fuel, it can be hopped to ANY point on Duna from any starting point. And if you have fuel for the rover waiting at the new landing site, the rover can later hop elsewhere. Part of reason for setting up the outpost bases is to position fuel reserves around Duna for making hops.

The hop from the Highlands east of Aldy Planitia to the Fido Canyon base required 68.6% of the Dune Buggy's fuel. The hop trajectory (shown below) took about 13 minutes from boost to landing.

Below, the Dune Buggy heading in toward Fido Canyon. The landing used parachutes and the rover's two 48-7S engines. The boys look a tad worried there, but that's just because they were coming in about 5 km short. But, hey, it's a rover; it can drive the rest of the way.

Adly repacked the Dune Buggy's parachutes, and then they headed over to the other vehicles, with Kelby riding on top to get a better view of the terrain.

Kelby: "Do you want to go directly to the Lander?"

Adly: "The old Fido KED is on the way...let's stop a check that out first."

Kelby: "Sounds good."

Adly: "Hey, the old rover looks like it's in pretty good shape. I thought it would be buried in dust."

Kelby: "Apparently the winds are occasionally strong enough to blow the dust off of it. I'll fly over and check out the rover and its lander."

Kelby: "This old lander still has lots of fuel on board. Jeb's Junkyard makes some really great tanks. Ah...and almost a full RCS tank."

Adly: "I have no need for the monopropellant, but remind me to drive the Fuel Fido over later and steal the fuel."

Kelby: "Our rover looks kind of stubby compared the old KED. I'll check out the KED next."

Adly: "Yeah, the longer wheel base would be nice. I guess that was more important when they had to be sure the rover was stable enough to make it all the way around Duna and back to its starting point."

Kelby: "Hey...there's something in the cockpit. Ah...it's a big bag of stuff strapped into the pilot's seat. I guess it was to represent the weight of a kerbal. Let me get it unbuckled. Ah, ha! Snacks and survival gear."

Adly: "Bring it on over."

Kelby: "OK. The KED's readouts are all green...I'll drive it over to the Lander and see how it performs."

Several minutes later, the boys had both of the rovers over by the Duna Lander 3, and they were able to move in, stretch out, and party away on ancient discontinued snack items.

The next day, Kelby wanted to dig around in the dirt, but Adly convinced him drive over to the Fuel Fido first so that Adly could check it out. All systems on the Fuel Fido were fine, so Adly used it to refuel the Dune Buggy.

Then, while Kelby took the Dune Buggy to go hunting for interesting rocks, Adly drove the Fuel Fido over to the the Fuel Station to fill up the Fuel Fido's tanks. Then he drove the Fuel Fido over to Lander 3 to top off the Lander's tanks.

After that, Adly drove the Fuel Fido over to the old Fido KED lander and grabbed its remaining fuel and oxidizer. Waste not, want not.

Later, back at Lander 3:

Adly: "Did you have fun poking the rocks?"

Kelby: "Yes. The center part of this valley is full of sediments, but there appear to be some very interesting outcrops of rock up on hillsides, possibly even some karbonate rocks."

Adly: "These karbonate rocks are good, are they?"

Kelby: "Well, one theory for why Duna has such a thin atmosphere is because of karbonate rock formation back when the planet still had liquid water. So finding a lot of those rocks could verify that theory. But I don't want to go blindly looking around on the hillsides...so I'd like to call in one of the DunaDogs to make some scanning flights."

Adly: "OK. I'll get Thompbles on the horn and requisition one of the birds."

Back at Duna Base, everybody was getting into the spirit of the 'Early Deployment' of the exploration outposts. Partly this was due to the possibility of more exciting terrain to explore (the Duna Base site was chosen to be a safe equatorial location...but it's rather geologically unexciting). But partly it was because the only pulses at pi gigahertz that had been picked up from possible alien artifacts were coming from the hemisphere to the West of Duna Base. The pulses were weak, and only picked up about once a day by the low polar orbit ships...so it was going to take a while to get a good fix on any of them.

Emilynn said she'd prefer to be the DunaDog pilot for the soon-to-be-set-up West base, so it was Aldner who was sent East to Fido Canyon. He got ready to leave the next morning.

Aldner: "Hey there, Little Buddy. I'm off to seek my fortune in the mysterious East."

Nelemy: "Um...Dude. How do I know you are really you?"

Aldner: "What?"

Nelemy: "How do I know you aren't some kind of alien projection trying to trick me?"

Aldner: "Well...I don't keep telling you how many questions you have left each time you ask a silly question."

Nelemy: "Oh! Right! That's smart thinking, Dude."

Aldner: "That's why I get paid the big bucks. Well, gotta go. You take care of everyone around here while I'm gone."

Nelemy: "Oh, I will. Say hi to the Fido Canyon Goo for me, Dude."

The thing about flying an ion-powered plane is you have to always keep in mind the sun's position in the sky. And if you want to make a LONG flight, you have to consider where the sun will be during the whole flight. This is especially true if you are flying East, against the direction of the sun's motion in the sky, since this will shorten the amount of daylight available to you.

Duna Base, for reasons of lowland flatness and cosmic significance, is located at 42 degrees East longitude. Fido Canyon base is located 111 degrees east of there at 153°E longitude. So Aldner would need to takeoff when the sun was fairly low in the east from Duna Base, and hopefully land before the sun gets too low in the west from Fido Canyon. Aldner's flight north showed that the DunaDog will operate, if somewhat touch-and-go, with the sun 28 degrees above the horizon ahead of the plane. So he decided to take off from main base with the sun up 30 degrees above the east horizon:

The initial climb out from Duna Base put the solar panels of the Aragorn at zero sun exposure, so Aldner made that climb on rocket power alone (no ion engines) until he passed 6,300 meters, two minutes into the flight. Then he switched over to ion power and pitched down.

Aldner: "The four ion engines are good...but they're sucking down the battery charge too fast, even at 43% sun exposure. I'm cutting back to half throttle."

Emilynn: "Roger, Buzz. Keep talking...I'm taking notes for my flight."

Aldner: "Hmm...If the battery charge drops too fast, I can pitch down a little to get enough sun exposure to stop that...but then I'm losing altitude. Pitch up to decrease the drop...but then the battery charge drops. OK...looks like I can keep things fairly steady at around forty-six thousand...no...I'm still slowly losing altitude."

Emilynn: "Remember, you have a few bumps in the terrain out in front of you at thirty-two hundred meters."

Aldner: "Yeah. But I have a lock on lander probe 2 to show me where those are."

Emilynn: "Hellou wants you to verify that the scanners are all on and functioning."

Aldner: "They are. Doesn't she trust her software hack that automatically turns them on whenever the DunaDog is airborne?"

* 10 minutes into the flight *

Aldner: "I'm getting a better sun angle, so it's easier to keep a charge on the batteries. I'm bumping the throttle up to two-thirds."

* 20 minutes into the flight *

Aldner: "This is better. I'm at full throttle, and I can still keep climbing...if I pitch down occasionally to charge the batteries."

* 28 minutes into the flight *

Aldner: "OK! Home free. Full throttle, and I can keep the batteries fully charged even when climbing slowly. Looks like the excitement is over now. Maybe I should take a nap."

Emilynn: "I can fly your plane remotely if you need some shut eye."

Aldner: "Thanks, Hawk...but we better not. I don't want Thompbles docking my flight pay for slacking off."

So the flight settled down into the tedious stretch. Below we can see Aldner at about the halfway point, with comfortably over half of his Xenon left (and 70% of his LFO), so there weren't any worries about making it to his target. You might be a bit concerned that the sun will be pretty low in the west when he gets over to Fido Canyon...but remember that the sun will be behind him, giving excellent sun exposure on the top of his wings when the plane is in its normal pitched-up attitude...so no wories.

Aldner: "I've passed out of Adly Planitia and I'm over the highlands. The ground is a lot closer and more interesting here."

Aldner: "The ground is getting a bit TOO interesting up ahead. What's the highest elevations along my path again?"

Thompbles: "Assuming you're on course, there should be a crater rim with elevations of 6.6 kilometers."

Aldner: "Ah, yes. I think I'll use some rocket boost here."

Aldner: "Hey, that is some impressive terrain. Nice crater wall. Ooops...I think I overdid the boost a bit. Rocket engine off."

Thompbles: "How is your LFO level?"

Aldner: "At sixty-six percent. I'm heading up through a cloud bank. Yeah, I goosed her a bit much...I'm over nine thousand meters altitude. But it looks like the plane isn't going to be able to cruise at this altitude...dropping back down again."

When Aldner approached Fido Valley, he had to climb again (more gradually, just using the ion engines) to above 6,500 meters to clear the western wall of the valley. The sunlight angle on the valley floor was fairly low, but the sun exposure on the solar cells was still excellent (since the top of the wings were angled toward the sun), so the batteries were staying fully charged.

Aldner: "This is Aragorn Airlines flight zero zero two calling Fido Canyon tower. Requesting clearence for landing on runway zero nine."

Adly: "Hey there, Aldner. We haven't actually constructed the runway yet, but you have permission to land...as long as it's not on top of us."

Aldner: "Roger, Fido Canyon tower. I'll see what I can manage."

Aldner cut the ion engines 19 km from the outpost (you'll notice that the throttle setting is still at 100% -- the ion engines were just toggled off). After passing over the Lander, the Aragorn was still at 4,600 meters (having only recently cleared the wall of the valley), so Aldner pitched up and toggled on the belly engine. When the speed dropped to 100 m/s, he deployed the chutes (which were reefed at that altitude), and descended.

Aldner: "Annnnd... touchdown! Just to make you guys feel safe, I landed thirteen kilometers away. Yeah...I meant to do that. Let's see... Flight time: One hour and five minutes. Thirty-one percent of my Xenon remaining, and fifty-seven percent of my LFO."

Adly: "Not bad. Drive on over and we'll sell you some fuel."

Aldner put the Aragorn into rover mode and drove over to the other ships. Then before doing anything else, he repacked the DunaDog's parachutes.

Adly docked the Fuel Fido to the rear of the Aragorn, and then dragged it over to the Fuel Station so that the Xenon and Liquid Fuel/Oxidizer tanks could be filled up. Then they returned to the Lander and had a party in honor of the new Fido Canyon base, treating Aldner to some suspiciously old snacks.

Below: A picture of the Fido Canyon base the next day when the lighting was better.

That worked out well. So it was time to do it again...only out West. With some differences. Step one: Drop in Fuel Station 3 from the polar-orbiting double-BANT.

Again, the target location was a canyon (for the easy access to interesting terrain) with a low elevation (to make landing easier) at about 60°W longitude. This puts it 102 degrees of longitude away from the main Duna Base. Hellou chose the name for the site: Barsoom Canyon.

The landing had to be made late in the day at the landing site, but at least this gave a nice view of Ike low over the eastern horizon.

Every Fuel Station needs a handy Fuel Fido, so that was dropped in from polar orbit the next evening. Again, the small FL-T100 tank on the top of the rover was mainly there as a spacer in the payload stack, but after retro burn the fuel from that tank was transferred to the rover's tanks, and then the small tank was jettisoned and allowed to to head in for a crash landing.

The Fuel Fido touched down 882 meters from the Fuel Station.

But now for something a little different. Hopping the Duna Lander 2 hab/lab and the Duna Fido rover Jessica over to Barsoom Canyon would require most of the fuel available in the Barsoom Valley Fuel Station to refuel them. This would be a waste of the limited fuel assets on the surface, considering that there are much larger supplies of fuel available...in orbit! So the hopping of those vehicles were made via Duna Space Station.

Nelemy Kerman was assigned the job of moving the Jessica to Barsoom Canyon. The Jessica had its fuel tanks topped off earlier, since it will require a full fuel load to make it up to the station (with a safety margin). Nelemy flew over to the rover, got inside, checked the systems, and boosted for SPAAAAAAAAACE!

The Jessica made it to orbit with 12% of its fuel remaining...plenty to do a rendezvous with the Station.

Docking with the Space Station was routine. The rover only has a Junior docking port, so Nelemy docked it to a Junior port on one of the BANTs. There are also Junior docking ports on the large tanks that the BANTs will leave behind when they depart from the Station...but the Junior port out on the end of the BANT was handiest here. Refueling the Jessica's two FL-T200 and four FL-T100 tanks was a drop in the bucket compared to the fuel reserves available on the Station.

It was Kurt's job to pilot the Duna Lander 2 up to the Space Station with Hellou onboard. The tanks of this Lander had NOT been topped off on the surface. The Duna Landers have plenty of fuel to deorbit and land on the surface of Duna, and then re-boost back to orbit with a big safety margin. Topping off its tanks would have meant just carrying extra fuel back up into space (and wasting fuel in the process of lifting it).

Kurt: "You all strapped in down there, Hellou?"

Hellou: "Yes, Kurt. Let's go visit exciting places!"

Kurt: "Well, first we have to go visit Nelemy up at the Space Station...but then we'll go to new places."

Rendezvous and docking with the Space Station went as planned. They would be spending a few days on the Station while Kurt made some modifications to the radio hardware so that it could be better used to track down transmissions at pi gigahertz.

Nelemy: "Hey, Dudes! Welcome to the Space Station."

Hellou: "Hi, Nelemy. What have you been doing up here?"

Nelemy: "Checking through the snack inventory. Why don't we have any proper yellow mush onboard? It's all kind of greenish-yellow this mission. I like the nice yellow stuff we had on Laythe."

Hellou: "Oh...I think they had to add some supplements to it for health reasons."

The Lander made it to the Station with its tanks over 27% full. Kurt took care of refueling the Lander. (I know that the Lander is a bit overkill in its capacity, but when I designed it I wanted it to have a good chance of still working after the threatened version 1.0 engine nerfings.)

When it came time to return to Duna, the landings were able to be made in full daylight and close together (since the Station is in an equatorial orbit). Below, Nelemy separated the Jessica rover and landed it at Barsoom Canyon, pretty close to the Fuel Station there.

On the next orbit, Kurt and Hellou separated Duna Lander 2 from the Space Station and landed it at Barsoom Canyon.

Below: Kurt's view out of the Lander window after touchdown.

After landing, Kurt climbed out to repack the parachutes of the Lander. You can also see how much fuel was used for retro fire and landing (less than 8% of the total amount of LFO on board). Kurt also reminded Nelemy to repack the parachutes on his rover.

The final member of the Barsoom Canyon exploration team was Emilynn Kerman. She would fly out in her DunaDog, which she named Amelia after Amelia Kerman, one of the first female aviators.

Flying west from Duna Base has a complicating factor that Aldner's flight east did not: Ike. It is necessary to wait until AFTER the daily solar eclipse before starting out (because a solar eclipse happening when your ion-powered plane is in the air is a BAD thing)...but if you wait too long, you'll have illumination problems. So Emilynn was sitting in her plane, ready to go as soon as the sun came out from behind Ike.

Below, Emilynn taking off on rocket power, heading west.

At 4,700 meters, she switched from rocket power to the ion engines, then started leveling off. The batteries were draining a bit fast, so she used another 10-second burst of rocket power to help the plane stay level at 5,300 meters. The sun angle must have been better for this flight than for Aldner's, because Emilynn didn't need to reduce the throttle on the ion engines at any point.

Most of Emilynn's flight west was over lowlands and midlands with a maximum elevation of 3,600 meters. After passing over the midlands, the view of a canyon running down from the northeast into the lowlands was interesting.

Emilynn: "Amelia calling Barsoom Base. I'm approaching the highlands that border the north side of your canyon."

Hellou: "Be careful, Emi. Some of that terrain is at six-point-three kilometers."

Emilynn: "Roger, Chickadee. I've been gaining altitude slowly to be sure I don't try to fly through the really hard stuff, but I'll get low enough to get a good look at it. The scanners are all running."

Hellou: "Thank you."

Emilynn: "There's a peak off to my left, but hills ahead have a more gentle rise. My navicomp has a lock on your Lander's longwave beacon."

Emilynn: "OK, I'm passing over the highest part of the ridge. Radar altimeter reads two hundred thirty. Hmmm...Looks like a lot of red stuff...big surprise. Hopefully the recordings will tell you more than that. I should be landing in ten minutes."

Kurt: "Roger, Hawk. We'll roll out the red carpet for you."

Emilynn: "Thankie, Jaymack. Not that I'll be able to see it."

Emilynn passed over into the Barsoom Valley and cut the ion engines 28 kilometers away from the base. There were some higher mountains to the north that looked interesting, but there wasn't a lot of time for sightseeing just then: She needed to lose altitude. Aldner had a long west-to-east shot when landing at Fido Canyon, but Emilynn could not afford to overshoot by as far as he did because Barsoom Canyon is narrower and runs northwest-southeast.

At an altitude of just under 1,500 meters AGL, still about 1.8 km from the base site, Emilynn deployed the parachutes.

Emilynn overshot the base by 5 km and touched down on a moderate slope. The DunaDog started rolling backwards, but she used a short blast from the rear rocket engine to stop its motion and applied the brakes.

Emilynn: "The Amelia has landed safely, boys and girls. Flight time fifty-six minutes. Xenon remaining...a little under thirty-four percent. Liquid fuel remaining...over sixty-four percent. I think it might be more efficient to use up more liquid fuel early on so that the ions are more efficient pushing a lighter plane."

Kurt: "Yes...but then you'd be really sad if you came across some big mountains in front of you and didn't have the fuel to spare to boost over them."

Emilynn: "True. I've got her in rover mode and I'm heading over to you. Say, you have a nice view of Ike from here."

Kurt: "We knew you were coming, so we put up decorations."

Ten minutes later, Emilynn rolled the Amelia into camp.

Emilynn: "Nice digs you've got here. Where's the Fuel Fido? Amelia is a might thirsty."

Kurt: "We left it over where it landed so you'd have fewer targets to hit, just in case you decided to drop in for a pinpoint landing. I'm remotely driving it over here now. But we can wait to fuel up your plane until tomorrow...Nelemy has your welcome party all ready."

Emilynn: "Well, that's great...since I'm a might thirsty myself."

So while the kerbals are having the biggest party ever thrown in Barsoom Canyon, let's have a look at their location on the map view below. The Barsoom Base ship icons are the only icons visible on this side of Duna. All of the others (the main Duna Base, with Thompbles left minding the store alone for now), the Fido Canyon base (147° away if you continue west...I wonder if a DunaDog could fly that far?), and the ancient FidoPup RCS rover.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Brotoro

[macdjord]

@Brotoro: The incorrect biome readout is probably because you were right on the edge of two biomes. If I understand correctly, the biome map you're looking at there doesn't just label the biomes, it defines them: when the game needs to determine what biome you are in, it looks at that map (or rather the .gif from which that map is generated), finds your current coordinates, and checks what colour that point is. However, the .gif has a finite resolution; if you're right at the boundary between two biomes, the game ends up picking up both adjacent pixels and averaging them, and sometimes the average colour ends up being neither of the two biomes in question.