Banzai! A Circumnavigation of Kerbin (Elcano Challenge)

[Squiggsy]

The old Banzai! became too dangerous to drive over the rough terrain I was coming across, a new one is on the way but my god it is a pain to fly

added Karbonite to my modlist although it's not being used for the Banzai! itself

you might have noticed that it is a bit wider and lower, I spread the pontoons out a bit more to give it a lower center of mass and a wider stance so it hopefully won't flip again.

also I did end up taking your suggestion Starwhip and addeda few ait intakes, it was sitting so low in the water once I had moved the pontoons so it needed to be done, removed some parts to ballance out the part gain (some struts and the airbrakes) and also added some more reaction wheels to help me keep heading at sea

EDIT: hahahahahahah well that was close

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EDIT again: just reached the badlands and took my favorite surface sample!

Edited June 1, 2015 by Squiggsy

[Squiggsy]

The Sparrowhawk has identified a problem....

The whole of the Southern Ice Caps is surrounded by a 32-35m high vertical icy cliff face.

Can anyone guess how I'm going to work around this?

I'll give you a clue, it has something to do with KIS and KAS and a lot of ground pylons...

it's time to build a winch...

[Geschosskopf]

The whole of the Southern Ice Caps is surrounded by a 32-35m high vertical icy cliff face.

Can anyone guess how I'm going to work around this?

I'll give you a clue, it has something to do with KIS and KAS and a lot of ground pylons...

it's time to build a winch...

It might be easier and less prone to Kraken attacks to use KIS to attach some Sepratrons along the sides pointing up and some chuts on top. Then drive full speed off the cliff, firing the Seps just as you go over the brink, lob yourself up a ways, and pop the chutes

[Squiggsy]

It might be easier and less prone to Kraken attacks to use KIS to attach some Sepratrons along the sides pointing up and some chuts on top. Then drive full speed off the cliff, firing the Seps just as you go over the brink, lob yourself up a ways, and pop the chutes

that is a great idea for the way down! but I'm talking about the way up, the only other way up requires a detour that would just take too long, it would be stupendous, and this sounds more entertaining so I'm going to test the idea, see if it's at all viable, and if it is then go ahead with it, if not then i'll just go for the detour

[Mister Dilsby]

Oh, you have to at least try descending with the ship unmodified ship. And post pictures of it exploding Drive it off, nose up, go full throttle and descend tail-first, then level out and land on the wheels.

[Squiggsy]

Oh, you have to at least try descending with the ship unmodified ship. And post pictures of it exploding Drive it off, nose up, go full throttle and descend tail-first, then level out and land on the wheels.

hahaa oh go on then since you asked I will that won't be until tomorrow though, to be honest I think the thing has a TWR of more than 1 so I might even be able to do some crazy propulsive landing in the sea! that would be incredible

EDIT: everything is set up for the crane now!

Going to use the crane to get them up, then attach the winches that Hermes is next to to it and pull it over onto land, then release it and drive off

(hopefully anyway, I'd put a bet on this not happening but the odds would be so poor there'd be no point)

edit again: hahaha all's going well

at least I got it up the top right? right???

I need to work on this a bit more I think before I can get this to work, but it WILL WORK and i think its the most awesome thing i've done on KSP

Edited June 2, 2015 by Squiggsy

[Geschosskopf]

I need to work on this a bit more I think before I can get this to work, but it WILL WORK and i think its the most awesome thing i've done on KSP

Yeah, the problem is you need both vertical and, once you get above the rim, horizontal movement, plus horizontal space on the top of the ice for the Banzai to land in once you move it horizontally. This means a rather long arm hanging out over the rim, meaning the main body of the crane needs a sufficient counterweight. You could try mounting the vertical winch on an Infernal Robotics gantry slider but I don't really recommend that because the winch is kinda sorta a docking port and those don't play well with IR parts. So you might need to put the winch on a small rover that it itself built around a track in the arm of the crane. Once you get Banzai high enough, you drive this small rover along the arm. This small rover would need its own probe core and power, and probably would need to be attached to the crane via a separator to start with.

All very cool, but there are probably better ways to get up the cliff.

1. Attach some SRBs to the sides of Banzai and some chutes on top. Remove all but a few drops of Banzai's fuel. Fire the SRBs to get high enough, then the jets to get past the rim, then the chutes. Might even attach the SRBs at a slight angle so they get both the altitude and the horizontal distance without having to use the jets.

2. Built a split tower with a horizontal arm running through between the legs. The tower needs to be at least as tall as Banzai is long, and the arm needs to be about 25% longer than Banzai. There's a winch at each end of the arm. Position the tower so 1 winch is about even with the edge of the cliff. This winch hauls Banzai up the cliff with gravity holding Banzai's wheels firmly against the face of the cliff due to the angle of the winch cable. As Banzai gets to the top, its front end will lean in over the edge of the cliff. Stop hoisting when more than 1/2 of Banzai's length is above the edge. Then attach the 2nd winch and release the 1st. The 2nd winch pulls Banzai horizontally, getting the rest of it over the edge and all up on the top of the ice.

3. Build a big ramp out of structural panels. Fly this out there hanging beneath a ginormous VTOL and nail it to the face of the cliff.

[Mister Dilsby]

I need to work on this a bit more I think before I can get this to work, but it WILL WORK and i think its the most awesome thing i've done on KSP

It is indeed truly awesome! When I posted before I guess I was confused, I thought you needed to go down not up--this is even more epic! You can do it! Be careful those RTGs don't melt through the ice...

[Squiggsy]

Meh I managed it!

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I used two towers off to the side, one by the cliff one further back, once the banzai! had been pulled up by the crane I attached it to the winch by the cliff edge and pulled it over that way, then attached the winch further back to a point further up the banzai! and used that to pull it over the edge and onto land, using the cliff edge as a sorta pivot to get it angled right.

all worked really well in the end! we are back on our way

I didn't want to do SRB's even though I considered it because I kinda felt like it was breaking the rules of the challenge a bit to propulse myself upwards with a rocket, felt too much like flying, but the structural panels is a good idea, i could have just loaded them up in containers and built it on site so it would have been easier to transport, in fact I might do that to get down on the other side so thanks for that suggestion!

[Geschosskopf]

I didn't want to do SRB's even though I considered it because I kinda felt like it was breaking the rules of the challenge a bit to propulse myself upwards with a rocket, felt too much like flying, but the structural panels is a good idea, i could have just loaded them up in containers and built it on site so it would have been easier to transport, in fact I might do that to get down on the other side so thanks for that suggestion!

Good job on getting up and over .

Sure, you could build the ramp on-site, but it would be more Kerbal to airlift it as 1 complete unit .

[Starwhip]

KAS and KIS must be really nice. If I lose an engine I basically need to send a new ship.

An update to my own entry may come today. We'll be heading to a monolith in the northwestern mountains...

[Squiggsy]

Good job on getting up and over .

Sure, you could build the ramp on-site, but it would be more Kerbal to airlift it as 1 complete unit .

hahaha you are right of course, I Just can't help feeling keeping that ballanced attached to a plane is going to be near enough impossible, it'll have to be 45m long to get a 45 degree angle slope, might still test out trying to air lift one, i'll post pics when I do

Edit: well here's what I'm trying at the moment it's horrendous but it kinda works

- - - Updated - - -

KAS and KIS must be really nice. If I lose an engine I basically need to send a new ship.

An update to my own entry may come today. We'll be heading to a monolith in the northwestern mountains...

it can be a headache, but yes it is so useful for a journey like this.

the problem with it is that it seems the more items you attach/remove from a craft the more it builds up physics lag. while I'm focused on the Banzai! after i've messed around with KIS time moves much slower than beforehand. sometimes even if all I've done is remove stuff.

ohh looking forward to the entry! I considered taking a detour over to those mountains but I decided to go down the mountain pass with the river in the bottom (it's in the opposite direction to the monolith)

Ishould be doing a relatively big update of my story today too since I haven't done one for the last couple of days and LOTS has happened

EDIT: just drove past the South Pole and all my wheels exploded and the thing flipped out madly, it seems the Kraken operates at the poles...

Edited June 2, 2015 by Squiggsy

[Squiggsy]

SO NEARLY THERE

That thing I'm targeting right there? That is my start flag outside the astronauts complex! WE'RE COMING HOMEEEE

EDIT: WE'VE MADE IT! 16 Days and 70 flag plantings ago this wonderful crew set off in the Banzai! to make Kerbal history (in their timeline at least) and now they return, victorious!

I'll update the OP at somepoint soon with the final stretch of the voyage, including showing the polar base and the way they got down into the water at the other side of the ice caps.

It has been an incredible journey, I saw the most amazing things and encountered situations I never thought I would in KSC, it really made me think on my feet and get inventive, which I think is just so perfectly in line with the spirit of this game.

thanks to all who supported my journey and especially to Fengist for setting up the challenge!!

alllll the flags (the big gap is the huge stretch of water between the KSC and the South Pole)

Edited June 3, 2015 by Squiggsy

[Mister Dilsby]

Congrats, well done Squiggsy!

[Hotaru]

Nice going! I was seriously impressed by the business of the winch at the glacier edge, I probably would not have thought to try that. (I mean, I'd try it NOW, having seen you do it, but wouldn't have previously.) Also that you built a machine that goes 177 m/sec on the water in KSP without shaking itself to bits. And I thought my 25 m/sec Mun rover was fast.

So how many Banzai!s did you go through, in the end? I seem to recall at least two replacements. (Surprised autocorrect let me get away with "Banzai!s." Also surprised that autocorrect autocorrects "autocorrect.")

[Geschosskopf]

EDIT: WE'VE MADE IT! 16 Days and 70 flag plantings ago this wonderful crew set off in the Banzai! to make Kerbal history (in their timeline at least) and now they return, victorious!

Outstanding, Squiggsy! Congratulations to all hands involved in this epic journey, whether aboard Banzai or supporting efforts. Quite some fancy engineering along the way. Bravo!

[Squiggsy]

Nice going! I was seriously impressed by the business of the winch at the glacier edge, I probably would not have thought to try that. (I mean, I'd try it NOW, having seen you do it, but wouldn't have previously.) Also that you built a machine that goes 177 m/sec on the water in KSP without shaking itself to bits. And I thought my 25 m/sec Mun rover was fast.

So how many Banzai!s did you go through, in the end? I seem to recall at least two replacements. (Surprised autocorrect let me get away with "Banzai!s." Also surprised that autocorrect autocorrects "autocorrect.")

thank you! the crane was definitely the most entertaining part of the voyage

oh and it's not actually going 177m/s thats on target mode which gives orbital speed when you are heading right for the target on the surface, it actually goes 35m/s (it does 120m/s on the ice caps though!)

yes I had two replacements, the MkIII made it to the finish line though!

Outstanding, Squiggsy! Congratulations to all hands involved in this epic journey, whether aboard Banzai or supporting efforts. Quite some fancy engineering along the way. Bravo!

thank you! yeah the task would never have been accomplished without the support crew, most noteably Zely and Hermes, they honestly did so much work for the mission in the end I just kept picking them for new tasks

[Fengist]

Loved the crane Squigs... the mother of invention at work.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Fengist

[Squiggsy]

Loved the crane Squigs... the mother of invention at work.

hehe thanks, was probably my favorite build I've ever done in this game.

I really need to write up the final bit of the journey but I have started a new game and its getting intense I'm having to go through hundreds of old and awesome parts packs and refresh the configs on the parts I like to work in 1.0.2 and it has taken up my entire day today mostly just doing Chaka Monkey and AIES!

I will try and tear myself away to get writing later on this evening though