Elcano Challenge: All Planets/Moons Complete

[Claw]

Elcano Challenge: A Phoenix Reborn

All Planets and Moons Complete!

"Our task is laid out before us and it is simple. At least...it is simple to understand, but maybe not simple in execution. So it is with eager trepidation that we begin work on a new effort."

So when I first started this mission report, it was only for a circumnavigation of Kerbin. It started out as a possible land circumnav, but ended up as a sea-based circumnav (with some roving in the middle). Some of that design process is included below, with links to the specific posts about it.

After Kerbin, I decided to continue on. Up to this point, I've hesitated in posting about my further exploits. I do read some of the mission reports, but I'm not a big poster in here. However, I thought I would go ahead and continue to post some of my travels and engineering work to get there. I don't know if this will be of interest to anyone, but here you go...

So, with that being said, I have no idea how many of these I might do. So far, I'm up to four bodies circumnavigated (with only two posted in this thread at the moment). I'll try to keep this index up to date.

There's always a strange push and pull with how much “story line to interject into these mission reports. I am sort of on the fence of this for my own mission report. I started writing these posts with a bit of flare from the perspective of pilots, engineers, and scientists while progressing. When I did so, I found that it sort of mirrors my own internal dialogue as I progress through this challenge. It turned into a strange pull of wanting to drive something fast, solve problems in a neat way, and do something useful with it all.

Constraints for this mission are per the circumnavigation challenge rules. Also, I'm using the same crew for all of these, so that means that I have to retrieve them and send them on the next adventure.

So read on, my friends, and hopefully you will find something useful and/or entertaining within this thread.

 

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Sea-Based Equatorial Circumnavigation of Kerbin - Complete

• Initial Work (This Post)
• Boat Design
• Early Field Trials
• Refuel Challenges
• Sea Trials and Launch Day
• Travel Day 2 & 3 (and minor refuel stop)
• Travel Day 4
• Travel Day 5 & 6
• Travel Day 7 & 8

Equatorial Circumnavigation of Minmus - Complete

• Minmus Launch Through Completion

Sea-Based Equitorial Circumnavigation of Laythe - Complete

• Laythe Mission Report

Equatorial Circumnavigation of Mun - Complete

• Munar Start
• Munar Completion

Duna System - Complete

• Duna Mission Design & Launch
• Ike Mission Report - Polar
• Duna Mission Report - Polar

Polar Circumnavigation of Dres - Complete

• Dres Transition
• Dres Mission Report

Jool System: Combined Elcano and Jool-5 Challenge - Complete

• Initial Analysis
• Boat Redesign
• Mothership Failure
• Mothership Redesign and Shakedown
• Mission Start (Launch to Laythe Orbit)
• Pol - Equatorial
• Bop - Equatorial
• Vall - Polar
• Laythe - Polar
• Tylo - Equatorial
• Return Home

Equatorial Circumnavigation of Eeloo - Complete

• Equatorial circumnavigation of Eeloo

Polar Circumnavigation of Moho - Complete

• Polar circumnavigation of Moho

Eve System - Complete

• Payload Design
• Gilly - Polar
• Eve - Polar

 

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---

 

“Crew safety is paramount. It is far too easy to become complacent with lives in pursuit of glory. There will be sacrifices...but we will not make them idly, and they will not be in vain."

 

The director laid out the foundation for the next major program: Circumnavigation. The seeds for such an effort were laid nearly a year ago when Wilsey took Bartger on a polar rescue trip by jeep. The young pilot and medical officer drove twelve hours to reach a crash site deep in the arctic tundra. Their persistence showed what we are truly capable of, should we put our patience and minds to it.

The pilots remember Wilsey's story well: a newly minted pilot who went out of his way to rescue a friend. The engineers salivated at the thought of conquering a new project, and the scientists were skeptical, waiting for the glory hogs to once again absorb the entire spotlight. The pilots were excited, each of them vying for a coveted spot on the roster. Nobody knew how long this project would take, or how to get to the finish line...but they all quickly went to work devising a route to circumnavigate the globe. In the meantime, the engineers wasted no time digging out Wilsey's famed jeep to see what improvements needed to be made.

 

---

The Elcano Challenge dictates that the vessel be manned. However, I've learned from past experiences (namely Wilsey and Bartger's adventure) that terrestrial vehicles are finicky things, especially if you want to do any time warp. In my previous challenge, I probably could have finished the challenge faster had I simply done the challenge instead of spending time on creating a vehicle that could withstand up to 4x warp. However, I wanted to ensure the best chances for crew survival. So herein lies the engineer piece; it's one more problem to solve.

The scientists, sadly, are being a bit left out in this sandbox game. Quite frankly, I didn't feel like unlocking tech tree parts or dealing with monetary concerns just to get up to the point of executing this challenge. (I find it far too annoying how deep rover parts are in the tech tree, but that's just me.)

So, to get on with it... Here is the old rover, aptly named "Jeep." It isn't spectacular, but it's fairly capable and robust. Unfortunately, I figured out that a lot of the parts are now obsolete. I had used the small control surfaces to provide downforce when driving (to improve wheel grip) and used probe cores to provide torque. The torque was just enough to flip the vehicle back onto its wheels after a crash. Alas, these parts no longer work quite the same way.

The good news is that there is now a smaller torque wheel and it provides a descent amount of torque. So here is my first round redesign: The modified Jeep, which under v1.0, costs over 100k (yikes) mainly due to the four RTGs.

 

 

 

After “testing" the jeep for a while (by which I mean playing around), I finally realized that at some point it's going to need to go into the water. Not surprisingly, it sank up to the windows.

 

 

 

So I tried to modify it for some aquatic work, but after trying several different parts I realize that I have limited (or no) experience building a boat, let alone an amphibious rover. I hear intakes work well for floating, except they don't hold the rover up very high in the water and they don't really withstand being bumped into the ground much (which a rover likes to do).

Also, it quickly becomes clear that actual movement on the water is going to require something other than a rover wheel. The rover is definitely too small to carry enough fuel for any appreciable water crossing, and the pilots planning the route discovered there's a lot of water to cross.

I have what I think is a really strong rover, but no idea how to get it across the water. (The challenge says no separately boating a rover across.) So I pretty much finish up this session feeling a bit dejected.

[Xannari Ferrows]

I'll have to do this myself sometime, maybe tonight even. I've never built a boat, though, so that'll be fun.

[zekes]

Back before the new aero model, I had a rotating fan turbine that provided unlimited thrust (it ran on electricity).

Even made a sub with it - it could "theoretically" travel all around kerbin.

It's just not possible with jets.

[Geschosskopf]

Best of luck, Claw . There are several ways to make boats both stock and with mods but all of them are rather large, and that complicates moving them on land.

[Starwhip]

Hey Claw, good luck! The Elcano Challenge is a hard one, stick with it.

I've gotta restart, Jeb died due to the hill-crest-joint-breaker bug.

[zekes]

I'll keep tinkering, but ATM my nuclear motor is not working AT ALL. Thanks, new Flight model.

EDIT: I've subscribed to this under my ZS folder, I'll keep trying, I actually want this award now...

EDIT EDIT: Hey hey, we're back in business!

Edited July 1, 2015 by zekes

[Windspren]

Back before the new aero model, I had a rotating fan turbine that provided unlimited thrust (it ran on electricity).

Even made a sub with it - it could "theoretically" travel all around kerbin.

http://i.imgur.com/ACPb6bO.jpg

It's just not possible with jets.

There's no way you can go all the way around Kerbin by water.

[zekes]

There's no way you can go all the way around Kerbin by water.

True. There's a small part you have to drive over. It's only about 30 KM.

[zekes]

Well, here's the boat that might be able to make it....

Top speed 5 m/s on water, 10 m/s on land.

[Claw]

Wow, there's more interest in this mission report than I expected.

I've never built a boat, though, so that'll be fun.

I never built one that did much, other than float and drive around at very slow speed. I have done a challenge to run a rover 1/4 of the way around the planet. So I wasn't overly excited about strictly doing that again, so I thought the boat approach would be an interesting angle.

Back before the new aero model, I had a rotating fan turbine that provided unlimited thrust (it ran on electricity).

Dude, that's a nice sub!

Best of luck, Claw . There are several ways to make boats both stock and with mods but all of them are rather large, and that complicates moving them on land.

Thanks! I agree, which is part of why I worked so hard to keep the size down. Although it looks rather utilitarian, heh.

I've gotta restart, Jeb died due to the hill-crest-joint-breaker bug.

Aww, that stinks.

I'm actually a bit further along than what the mission report shows. I was hesitant to post it at all, but I will start catching it up.

Well, here's the boat that might be able to make it....

Awesome! Good luck!

Next installment coming in shortly (once I assemble it).

Cheers,

~Claw

[Claw]

“The sea, perhaps more than the land, is unforgiving of errors.â€Â

---

I’ve only build a couple boats in the past as more of a proof of concept, and I’ve built a few submarines. So I decided to roll up my sleeves and start learning how to build a boat that might be capable of doing something (like circumnavigation). Turns out, this post is a compilation of a few nights’ work and explosions.

I really wasn’t sure what to put in this post, since there wasn’t much “mission progress†to be had. It’s mostly been me fumbling my way through boats. Wilsey’s rover still provides ample examples of how to build a strong vehicle and is used as an inspiration for starting. I learned that boats are finicky. I needed to keep as many parts as possible up out of the water. Anything dragging in the water (especially big parts) increases the drag quite a lot. Rather than explaining everything I found on the way, here’s a set of selected pictures and a summary.

I must confess, my first avenue of approach was actually to build a rover that could float. Quite frankly, that turned out to be a big failure.The background in this picture turns out to be significant because it's about as far as I got with the rovers that could boat (due to frustration). The reason is because they drag so many parts in the water that they just can't get any appreciable speed. Rovers simply can't get pontoons low enough in the water to push the main parts above the splash zone.

As you can see below, I tried a couple different types of pylons, but ended up sticking with the Modular Girder XL because they had fairly low water drag but were stiff and stout enough to stand up to the splashdown impacts. They are also strong enough to deal with roving over land. I also stuck with the scoop intake for the same reasons. It’s the only one with a high enough impact speed necessary for both water and land excursions.

All in all, I really wish that the wing parts were a bit stouter, since the wings make pretty good looking boat pieces. Unfortunately, they seem to not stand up to much splash damage in 1.0. I don’t know how much is my lack of boat building experience vs. recent aerodynamic change. If you look back in 0.90, seems like wing sections could handle a lot more speed. I couldn’t seem to get much past 30 m/s before parts started ripping off.

I may come back to testing wing parts, but for now I’m happy with the successes I’ve had...at least for this challenge.

Here's a promising one that I made, which I ultimately threw out as a contender for reasons which will likely be explained in the next post. It did, however, attain speeds over 90 m/s. (I nicknamed it "Lizard")

Cheers,

~Claw

[damerell]

Have you tried ferram's Better Buoyancy mod? It makes the angle of an impact with the water matter, so a seaplane can touch down without disintegrating.

[Claw]

Have you tried ferram's Better Buoyancy mod?

I have not. I respect ferram's work, but I'm doing this challenge all stock. Not even my own add-ons are installed at the moment.

Cheers,

~Claw

[zekes]

I have not. I respect ferram's work, but I'm doing this challenge all stock. Not even my own add-ons are installed at the moment.

Cheers,

~Claw

might i suggest using refueling pads to make the trip easier? I have some ships that I tried sea-based docking, it worked out pretty well (I did a good 500Km trip with the ship as well). Might be easy to prepare a path with floating rocket reserves and just boat from point to point.

[Geschosskopf]

might i suggest using refueling pads to make the trip easier? I have some ships that I tried sea-based docking, it worked out pretty well (I did a good 500Km trip with the ship as well). Might be easy to prepare a path with floating rocket reserves and just boat from point to point.

A Klaw (not to be confused with this Claw) might be easier to dock with both objects bobbing in the waves. Just be sure to include some method for the boat to reverse away from the floating fuel tank, though. I've learned from bad experience that things can go badly wrong docking at sea if the 2 objects become entangled .

[zekes]

A Klaw (not to be confused with this Claw) might be easier to dock with both objects bobbing in the waves. Just be sure to include some method for the boat to reverse away from the floating fuel tank, though. I've learned from bad experience that things can go badly wrong docking at sea if the 2 objects become entangled .

I've managed to dock with them before, it worked reliably. Sadly, the ship that was capable of this is now pretty broken in the new version. It used to do 45 m/s and had a range of 400km, but now with the added drag it does only 15 m/s and range is limited to 62 km (according to fuel usage).

Hydrofoil might be able to increase speed as well.

[andrew123]

I had some success in the past with trimaran and tri-hull designs for speed and stability, but the new KSP update makes the jet engines ridiculously inefficient for ocean vessels.

If you want long range, hydrofoil is your best bet.

[Claw]

“The pilots, with their enthusiasm to strap on nearly anything, stand balanced on an edge between heroic bravery and utter insanity.â€Â

So today’s events include figuring out how much fuel is needed to actually accomplish this circumnavigation by sea. Now that I have some rough idea of how much the craft will weigh and how fast it will go, I need to figure out what the fuel consumption is to determine if refueling will be required.

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Mission Profile:

- Launch the Calamari and sail to the peninsula tip due east of KSC.

I’ve left the vessel fully fueled. I figured that the efficiency will only get better as it burns fuel (since it’s getting lighter), so I will try to get an idea of fuel consumption at worst case. This is only a rough guess anyway, and I probably won’t do any real cruise fuel consumption testing to determine the optimum throttle setting. I suppose, ultimately, this initial testing will determine if cruise testing will even be worth the time.

Runway departure and initial entry into the water were uneventful. The fuel is full, so that number is easy to remember (2880). I do, however, forget to record the initial water entry coordinates (which I’ll need for later calculations). So I have to repeat this step later and grab the coordinates.

Throttling up full results in a max speed of 83 m/s. This seems a bit low considering I was up at 90 m/s on previous runs. I’m not sure if it’s something I’m doing different today, if the craft is that much heavier, or if I’ve done something to the configuration. However, since we’ve already launched on the mission, I go with it and see how things pan out. (Sorry for the dark pics, launching at daytime ended the mission at night...)

End results: LF remaining ~2380. So, ~500 units of LF used and ~36 degrees of longitude crossed. Not very precise, but gives me something to work with. That’s roughly 10% of the way around the planet if I could travel in a straight line (360 degrees) with 500 units. So I need 5000 units total without any deviation. Eh...

Other things I found out on the long run: The nose likes to wander left, especially under warp. Si I need to use the “Hold Prograde†to keep the ship from drifting. Also, the thing doesn’t like to steer much, at all, when roving around on dry land. From this, I conclude that I likely need some more control authority on the craft (either torque or a tail), and I’ll need to see if I can fiddle with the wheels more.

Ugh...So now I have a choice to make, and I’m indecisive as it is:

1) Increase fuel capacity – Which I think is probably a bad idea, since it’ll really increase the size/weight of the craft, and would likely cause a major redesign.

2) Set up fuel depots along the way – Possible and workable. Although that requires building new platforms and testing compatibility.

3) Airdrop/Spacedrop fuel as required – Also possible and offers a bit more flexibility than setting up fixed fuel depots.

4) Design a craft that can self-refuel – I’ve not done much with resources, and they are heavy, and power hungry, and require satellites, and, and, and...

5) Scrap the whole darn idea and go back to a rover – Sadly, this option is more appealing than it was.

Long story short, I elect to procrastinate on the decision and go back to see if I can figure out why the Calamari is coming up almost 10% short on top speed. Turns out, I had more floats on the landing gear than in previous designs, and removing one from each gear put the top speed back up around 90 m/s.

So that spurred me into trying fewer intakes on the floats, since it was a while since I had messed with them. After a couple iterations (removing too many), I found that I could remove one additional intake from the rear gear which helped with a couple things. I reached a new top speed (95 m/s), and the ship itself was in trim at full speed (by which I mean the ship is now level, instead of digging in nose first).

Procrastination & Success! Who can argue with that?

Edited July 14, 2015 by Claw
clarity

[Claw]

“Initial setbacks in the program have been categorized by engineers as wildly successful. The pilots just want to get in there and get their hands dirty.â€Â

The director had reservations...but insistence from engineers, fueled by recent success, had tipped the balance in favor of circumnavigation by sea. There were still many hurdles to surmount, though the engineers were as giddy as school children at the thought of more puzzles to solve.

Scientists, unimpressed by the fervor surrounding the program, have so far been reluctant to participate in this exercise of vanity. They cite the insistence of circumnavigation by sea as further evidence that the whole affair is simply, in the director’s words, a “pursuit of glory†rather than any real endeavor of knowledge.

The pilots were simply high-fiving each other at having set a new marine speed record for the Calamari.

---

After the previous fuel and maneuverability trials, I figure that even if I try to conserve fuel by traveling slower, it’s unlikely that the ship in its current form will make a full circumnavigation without refueling. After thinking about it, I decided to try and build a ship that is capable of self-refuel (option 4 in the last post). There are a couple reasons for this:

• Novelty - I haven’t actually used ISRU for anything useful beyond playing around with it.
  
• Lazy - I didn’t feel like building a bunch of refueling infrastructure around the planet.
  
• Convenient - The vessel is already big enough to accommodate the size of the ISRU parts.

I don’t know if building an ISRU roving boat is actually going to be easier than building independent refueling infrastructure, but just like the idea of building a boat, novelty became a big factor in the decision.

I’ve already got a reasonable catamaran design that I’m happy with, so I’m somewhat loath to start slapping on batteries, solar panels, drills, and all the other junk that comes with ISRU. Also, the parts aren’t particularly aerodynamic, which means the vessel is going to take a performance hit (and I’m not excited about that). But I figure I’ll give it a shot anyway.

So, first step…How much is all this extra stuff going to weigh, and how am I going to arrange it? Etc, etc... With all these components, I was wracking my brain to think of a way to attach this stuff. The ISRU converter is too large for Mk2 cargo bays, and the Mk3 cargo bay is larger than I’d like for this project. I was going to skip over all this bellyaching, except that what I thought was a brilliant idea turned out to be an utter (and somewhat funny) failure.

I decided to try and make my own 2.5m cargo bay out of a stack of service modules. Below, you can see a stack of four of them which includes all the necessary parts for ISRU.

Upon loading physics, the engineers discovered that the universe doesn’t like too many pieces of matter occupying the same space at the same time. So all the atoms go on separate vacations...

After a few variations, it’s back to the drawing board to come up with a new idea. After fiddling around and doing some more conversion testing, I realized that I can actually save some space by making the design rely more on ISRU than what I was initially trying. Rather than trying to store as much LF onboard as possible, I realized that (for this mission) it’s more efficient to leave the resources in Ore form.

To run ISRU, I need either two large solar panels or two large fuel cells. I ran a few tests and confirmed that the ore->LFO->EC exchange process is enough to produce net gain, without regard to the ore extraction rate. To offset ore concentration concerns, engineers decide to include both the solar panels and the fuel cells, since the weight is fairly insignificant compared to the total craft. That will allow the craft convert ore day or night. More importantly, if some Oxy is stored onboard to run the fuel cells, the vessel can convert Ore to LF while sailing. (Woohoo!)

The end result? Here is the testing vessel for next time:

[Geschosskopf]

I'm enjoying reading of your research. However, I'm curious as to why you launched the thing like a rocket. IIRC, a requirement of the challenge is to plant a flag at the start point, which you can't do in the water. Also, why are you making LFO? Surely only the fuel cells need Ox, not the engine.

Anyway, one thing I've noticed over several games is that the Shores biome tends to have about the highest ore concentration on Kerbin. Ore seems to accumulate at both the highest and lowest elevations on a given planet and the Shores are the lowest on Kerbin. This is very handy for boats. And the surface scanner doesn't need a prior pass with the survey scanner in orbit (but verify this before relying on it).

[Claw]

I'm enjoying reading of your research. However, I'm curious as to why you launched the thing like a rocket.

I'm not sure quite what you mean "launched the thing like a rocket." I did not launch it like a rocket. It was sent to the runway from the SPH, and I drove it down to the water on wheels. I see that in one of the pictures I posted, it's very dark. Perhaps that looks like I've launched it upward, but it's really skimming along the water. I don't think the BJE is capable of lifting 20+ tons straight up at sea level.

IIRC, a requirement of the challenge is to plant a flag at the start point, which you can't do in the water.

Flags aren't strictly required. Fengist's rules state that they can be used as proof of the path taken, or provide the proof via screenshots. Given how the design will lack a cockpit/pod (will use command chairs), I have ruled out flags because I would only be able to bring two. So...screenshots it is!

...I challenge you to circumnavigate an orbital body, be it moon or planet, solely by ground and/or water.

The rules are simple:

...You may do as I did and mark your path via flags. Or you may provide ample proof via screen shots.

Also, why are you making LFO? Surely only the fuel cells need Ox, not the engine.

You are indeed correct, in the config I'm working toward, only fuel cells need Ox. I see my post might be misleading. The ship will be generating nearly pure LF and maybe a little Ox if required to run the fuel cells for night time operations. My testing was to ensure that running the engines and fuel cells did not deplete LFO production faster than it was needed. Ox depletion turns out to be no problem at all. Also, LF production is much higher than BJE consumption, so no problems there either. Electrical Charge is actually my bigger concern.

Also, thanks very much for the tips about ore concentration. As it turns out in my next post, I went ahead and launched a probe to scan the planet so I can see the ore distribution (and I'm not excited about it...). I think you are correct in that the surface scanner doesn't need an orbital scan, but the narrow band scanner does.

I'm glad you're enjoying the research. I was going to include more, but I've been trying to keep the post lengths down.

Cheers,

~Claw

[Geschosskopf]

I'm not sure quite what you mean "launched the thing like a rocket." I did not launch it like a rocket.

You said "launch and initial splashdown" went OK. This phrase carries certain connotations to rocket-minded folks .

Also, thanks very much for the tips about ore concentration. As it turns out in my next post, I went ahead and launched a probe to scan the planet so I can see the ore distribution (and I'm not excited about it...). I think you are correct in that the surface scanner doesn't need an orbital scan, but the narrow band scanner does.

Well, if in your game the Shores are indeed one of the best biomes on Kerbin, you'll have something like 7% there on average. That might not sound like much but I've prospected most planets and moons in several games and that's actually pretty good. In fact, it's about as good as it gets anywhere that's reasonably accessible.

The Survey Scanner does NOT show you where the Ore is, nor does it show anything remotely related to actual Ore concentrations. Ore is based on biomes and all the Survey Scanner shows you is general regions the size of Texas where most of the surface area is composed of 1 or more of the better biomes. The idea is, you then land the NBS and/or ground scanner in the "hot" regions you see on the map to learn which biomes have the best stuff and how much they actually have. Then you find instances of those biomes in places more convenient to your operations.

The NBS shows nothing at all until you do the orbital survey, even if you have already used SCANsat to map actual ore distributions from space instead of doing the crude survey. But once you do that, the NBS will report fixed averages of Ore across the whole expanse of each biome. To see the true values in the ground and thus spot local hotspots, you need to use the ground scanner and have it scan each biome. Thus, on the ground, it's best to have both the ground scanner and the NBS and have their displays both open at once. That way, you can use the NBS to spot local hotspots in the distance and the ground scanner will tell you when you get there (because the NBS map is a snapshot that doesn't change as your ship moves).

Also, because Ore is defined by biome and also tends to concentrate in the biomes at the highest and lowest elevations (plus the poles), the hotspots withiin a biome also go by elevation. So if on a given planet, the Highlands and Lowlands have the most Ore and the Midlands have just a trace, then within the Highlands the hotspots will be at the highest elevations and in the Lowlands the hotspots will be in the lowest elevations. (I wrote a tutorial on all this---see my sig).

But anyway, assuming the Shores are about as good as it gets on Kerbin, you've got it made. Just pull up barely onto the beach, which is the lowest elevation ASL in the biome, and drill. There might be slightly better spots up and down the coast if you bother to look, but that might take you out of your way, given that when you're going by boat, you want to just hit the headlands. You'll actually have more trouble finding beaches with low enough slopes to land on in the general area you want to stop in. The one thing to be careful of is that some spots of very low ground, like small sandbars, are actually treated as the ocean biome, not Shores, and the ocean biome is hardcoded to have zero Ore.

[Claw]

You said "launch and initial splashdown" went OK.

Ahh, yeah. I meant "I clicked on Launch and it didn't explode..." and "it splashed when it entered the ocean." And I see what you are saying, from the rocketing point of view.

And again, thanks for the tips!

Cheers,

~Claw

[Claw]

 

 

"The pilots rejoice at the thought of fully integrated land and sea trials."

 

Here's a shortlist of testing and sea trials. I've cut this part short for reasons which will be explained in the second half of this post (Day 1).

Mission Objectives:

 

• Water Maneuverability - Two large torque rings are deemed sufficient for maneuverability and control.
• Land Maneuverability - Land maneuverability testing was successful enough with the small gear bay, although the “invert steering" options and brakes required some tweaking.
• Water Survivability - The ship, quite frankly, isn't going to survive a water crash at full speed. In this prototype form, the crew won't survive either. Despite being strapped inside a service bay, water physics is such that they will be exposed to the full force of the water in the event of a crash. This is something I'll just have to accept for this type of design.
• Land Survivability - Land survivability for the crew is fairly reasonable even for high-ish speed crashes. The other parts and the service bay act as a bit of a crumple zone for the command seats. This is good, because I anticipate the most dangerous part of the mission will be crossing the land bridge with this vessel.
• Quicksave / Quickload Integrity - Checks out good to go, although the wheels sometimes stick below ground level. Retract/extend tricks coupled with engine power seems to get them back out.
• ISRU Deployment - The service bay isn't quite big enough for the drill to deploy without bumping into things. However, it doesn't seem to cause any real damage, so careful deployment seems acceptable here.
• ISRU Conversion Underway - Nothing specific to note here, except that the single Basic Turbo Jet isn't capable of providing all power needs. 4k battery seems enough to compensate for this, augmented by fuel cells.

 

That’s about it really. Overall I'm pretty happy with the prototype and what I've learned from it. I think this gives me a pretty solid foundation to work with. Quite frankly, there aren't any pictures for this part that are all that exciting. So...On to Launch Day!

 

---

---

 

 

Travel Day 1 - Launch

 

The engineers, aggravated by the decisions of management, elect to throw aesthetics aside and press forward with the program. The scientists finally realize the folly of their lack of participation; complicating and quite possibly dooming the mission.

The pilots, as you can imagine, are excited to get the show on the road. The ship is an ugly beast of a prototype, but at this point they don't much care. They get to fly! Er...boat!

 

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This mission report overall is lagging behind a bit (due to real life events). Up until now, I've been working with KSP 1.0.2, but starting for the mission I have upgraded to KSP 1.0.4. Changes with 1.0.4 mean that the basic jet engine (BJE) now produces less thrust and has half the ISP that it did in 1.0.2. While this isn't much of a problem for planes (which received some drag changes), it had quite an impact on the prototype Calamari.

The thrust change has resulted in a lost in top speed of about 20%, and the ISP change doubles the fuel requirement. These two changes will increase the estimated 2 to 3 refueling stops to 5 or more. This is kind of a pain in the back side, considering that ~95% of the trip was going to be on the water. I did some quick math (without mapping the exact distances) and I think 5 stops will be the absolute minimum. With the additional overhead associated with starting, stopping, modifying the route, getting on/off land, etc..., I expect it’ll be upwards of 7.

I have to admit, partly out of frustration with recent changes plus other external pressures have pushed me into starting the mission. It did strike me as sort of funny how self-inflicted pressures in a video game can reflect the reality of politics and management.

So I’ve made a few changes to the ship design:

• Reduced the Fuel Cells from 2 to 1
• Moved the external command seats out of their own service bay into the utility service bay
• Replaced the fuel tank with a conical fuel tank at the back
• Increased the LOX

 

This was done to reduce some of the skin friction (and hopefully increase speed). I had to remove a fuel cell to make space for the crew seats, and I increased the starting LOX so that I don’t have to generate as much while underway.

In either case, here it is. I’ve named this ship “Cockroach,†given how it looks with the solar panels deployed. “Waterbug†was another good recommendation by a friend, though the ship had already been christened. There are seven pictures, but I shrunk them down a bit. So hopefully that's not too much bandwidth.

 

 

Day 1 itself is fairly uneventful. I’ve launched the ship and made a run for the first little peninsula due east of KSC as my first stop, hoping to make it by nightfall but fell a little short.

Of note, I am now painfully aware of the difficulties I’ve introduced with untested design changes. If you look at that list above again, the end result is that the CoM is too far aft while Ore is burning out. The resulting problem is the rear pylons are digging into the water too far when under warp, which causes them to wake and send the boat out of control. So right off the bat, I’m limited to 2x warp until I get up to top speed, then 3x warp.

It’s also clear now that I didn’t really need the increase the onboard Ox to support the mission, and removing the extra service bay didn’t give that much of an increase in speed...unfortunately. All in all, it got going and I suppose that counts for something.

Cheers,

~Claw

Edited December 3, 2015 by Claw

[Claw]

Now that I'm back home, I was reading through the thread and realized I missed all these. I didn't mean to ignore then, so my apologies if I was rude.

might i suggest using refueling pads to make the trip easier?

I did consider this. I've done similar before (not on this scale), but ended up going with a self refueling option.

A Klaw (not to be confused with this Claw) might be easier to dock with both objects bobbing in the waves.

I think if I were to go with a "refuel at sea" option, this would be the way I'd go. And yes, good tip on making sure to have a reverse option, which my current ship doesn't...

I've managed to dock with them before, it worked reliably. Sadly, the ship that was capable of this is now pretty broken in the new version.

I wouldn't say my ship is broken, but it certainly needs more fuel and time than it did.

I had some success in the past with trimaran and tri-hull designs for speed and stability, but the new KSP update makes the jet engines ridiculously inefficient for ocean vessels.

If you want long range, hydrofoil is your best bet.

I guess I'm ending up with some sort of quadmaran-ish type design. I was going to "pretty it up" a bit, but after other events, I decided to just get going! heh

Cheers,

~Claw