Ore Travelling Circus 02: Episode 17 -- FOOL-1 Prospecting

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 17: FOOL-1 Prospecting

After waiting a few hours for Kerbol to catch up, the Boffins took stock of the island FOOL-1 had landed on in the local predawn twilight. All in all, it wasn't too bad a place. It turned out they'd actually landed in the Sagan Sea biome which of course had no Ore, but there was plenty just up the reasonably gentle slope, so they flew FOOL-1 up there to test is practicability for air traffic. And it worked.

This pic is looking SSE. The equator runs just between the overnight stop and the beach, where all is nice and flat, a good LZ for heavy SSTOs. From there to the dunes where FOOL-1 landed isn't all that far and has reasonably tolerable slopes for fuel trucks. In fact, the Dunes area around FOOL-1 is amenable to light aircraft for planetside use. And the Dunes had a touch over 5% Ore in the area just west of FOOL-1's position. There not being anything better on the equator, the Boffins decided this would have to do, and changed the name of the place to Spaceport Island. FOOL-1 then headed NW across Spaceport Island's Dune biome and noticed the Ore reached about 6% at the far NW corner, but that wasn't as conveniently arranged as the SE corner so probably wasn't worth the extra trouble.

FOOL-1's mission now became looking for good places to put outlying bases. These also needed decent Ore and reasonably flat ground but could be located anywhere so long as they were close enough together to allow planes to make the trip on a tank of gas. So FOOL-1 began by heading NNW to the next islands.

Nearly all the visible land on these islands, some of which was nearly 1000m ASL, was classified as the barren Sagan Sea biome and the rest was Shore with very little or Ore. Which was too bad because there was a lot of flat ground there. So the Boffins named this Useless Island and kept going. Some very low sandbar soon appeared ahead but were listed totally as Sagan Sea, so the Boffins named them the Seabed Islands and turned WNW to the large crater rim island.

During this leg of the trip, the Boffins were frustrated that FOOL-1 was barely making 90m/s instead of well over 100m/s as it had previously. You can see the reason in the pic above--the airbrakes were open. However, that's very hard to see when the camera is behind and above the plane so for a long time the Boffins thought they just must have been having fever dreams previously (a nasty flu is going around KSC). Thus, the Boffins didn't notice this for a while and that certainly wasted some fuel. But at least the slower speed to the west delayed catching up with the sun for a while.

Anyway, eventually FOOL-1 neared the next island which, because of its shape, the Boffins named Ring Island.

Finally landing to save progress (and discovering the airbrake problem), FOOL-1 flew up the eastern side of Ring Island. It had a patch of Dunes in the SE corner that had as much as 6.8% Ore at the north end.

Continuing northwards, FOOL-1 came to a high, flat saddle between peaks and decided to land there. This looked like a very good place for a base. Even the Shore biome of the saddle had 4% Ore and was perfectly suitable as an LZ.

The Boffins were tempted to check out the west side of Ring Island but decided that would leave them with too little fuel to reach the North Pole, which was where they really wanted FOOL-1 to end up. Besides, they doubted they could find a better spot for a colony on the other side anyway. Amongst the charms of Ring Island is that it's a great natural harbor. FOOL-1 checked out the entrance as it left Ring Island heading north. The view caused the Boffins who had worked on the VACUOUS Elcano project to start thinking in terms of a repeat.

FOOL-1 was now heading NNW again, towards a small, roundish, domed island on the horizon, just a lump of sand. Once again, however, most of it proved to be Sagan Sea and only the highest points were shore, with little in the way of Ore. Having already used the name "Useless Island", the Boffins had run out of imagination so called this place Lump Island.

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After this, FOOL-1 turned NW towards what the map showed as 1 long island but which, upon arrival, turned out to be a chain of several slender segments, like they had all originally been 1 thing. This is why the Boffins christened this the Tapeworm Archipelago and proved to be about as useful. Again, mostly counted as ocean and with only small amounts of Ore on steep-sided Shore ridges.

The Boffins decided to land on the low, smooth, flat south tip of North Tapeworm to save progress and wait again for Kerbol to catch up with FOOL-1. During the wait, the Scientists, who had been trying hard to see the monitors over and around the Boffins' shoulders, got all excited by the appearance of Vall and Tylo near each other in the sky.

Once it was reasonably light again, FOOL-1 continued NW along the spine of North Tapeworm. This island had considerably less Sagan Sea than South Tapeworm and rather more Shore, but not much Ore and the terrain was quite lumpy. Not a good spot for a base.

At this point, FOOL-1 turned north to reach a nearby peninsula of the North Pole. During this leg, Jool became visible on the horizon and FOOL-1 passed over several sandbars so low they didn't even register on the NBS display.

Finally, FOOL-1 reached the coast of the North Pole and landed there at about latitude 82^N. It was about local noon but Kerbol was barely over the southern horizon. The polar terrain was absolutely flat and had lots of Ore, all good news. FOOL-1 had landed on a spot with 7% and the NBS showed up to 9% eastwards along the coast.

Part of the ultimate plan for Laythe is to establish fuel outposts at both poles, which would be available to just about anything flying in the respective hemispheres. From the Boffins' POV, these aren't planned to be colonies, just pitstops, but the threat of being stationed there as punishment would help keep pressganged Kerbals in line at the real colonies. The Scientists, however, thought it would be glorious to have polar science bases and were already volunteering to work at them. So the final design of what will finally be up here is still in flux. However, these will certainly be established prior to any colonies in more hospitable areas.

Still, whatever gets bullt up here might as well have the best Ore, so FOOL-1 folllowed the coast east and finally settled down on a spot with 9.2%, the highest revealed by the NBS.

So FOOL-1 shut down to await the eventual arrival of machinery that could refuel it. It still had about 4 hours flying time left in the tanks but there seemed no point in going further, and she was doing an excellent job of marking the landing spot for the eventual refueling/science station. The Scientists were in love with the view from this stark, desolate place, however, and kept bugging the Boffins to take screenshots for them showing Jool, Vall, and Tylo all in the sky, so they could use them for wallpaper.

So here's what FOOL-1 accomplished on its 1st tank of gas. In longitude, it got nearly 1/2way around Laythe and nearly 1/4 in latitude, even wasting fuel with the airbrakes open. The Boffins therefore hope that if they can remember not to make the same mistake again, FOOL-2 should go even further.

Tune in next time for the adventures of FOOL-2.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

Well the FOOL-1 is certainly no fool, great suvey and a nice wallpaper as well. I have got to get to Laythe one of these days. Have been playing a long time, but my crewed missions always go Mun/Minmus, then Duna, then Eve, then save-breaking update

[Geschosskopf]

Well the FOOL-1 is certainly no fool, great suvey and a nice wallpaper as well. I have got to get to Laythe one of these days. Have been playing a long time, but my crewed missions always go Mun/Minmus, then Duna, then Eve, then save-breaking update

Well, thankee. The FOOLs were about the 1st things I designed in 1.0.2, before I really knew what I was doing. I gave them an overabundance of intakes for their Basic Jets because 1) I wasn't totally over the habit of airhogging yet, and 2) I didn't want them to flame out in the thinner air of Laythe. Well, certainly no problems there, but it could be done better. I am rather fond of the tandem delta wing, though. All that wing area has been quite useful for landing slowly on semi-rough terrain, especially in the dark. A FOOL can maintain flight at about 30m/s on Laythe, even at about 2500m ASL, touch down with the brakes locked, and stop in about twice its own length. And it can take off again in about 4x its own length. The FOOL is also totally stable at 4x physical warp, useful for long ocean crossings.

My dealings with Laythe are similar to yours. I have several times just barely gotten invasion fleets there before all went down the drain due to an update. I get everything all set up---all the moons mapped and scanned for resources, Vall fuel infrastructure and Laythe station in place, and just barely get a few things down to the surface (with lots more en route) when WHAM! I believe the most I've accomplished actually on the ground at Laythe is landing a simple base housing unit and doing a touch-and-go with a science seaplane SSTO that then immediately headed for home. Even this save was overtaken by the 1.0.4 update before anything but the SPOOL lander had touched down, and is just soldiering on in a separate 1.0.2 install. It's all very frustrating.

Once of these days I'll probably copy this over to whatever the current version is then and see if it will work. But I'm not going to do anything of substance in 1.0.4. It's broken in serious ways and is doomed to be replaced shortly.