[Elcano Challenge] Voyage of the Silverfish: Silverfish IV

[Starwhip]

New update, new craft! The challenge begins again. The brand new CRN-10 Silverfish has begun it's journey around the poles of Kerbin in a mostly land-based journey.

The Elcano Challenge is a circumnavigation of Kerbin by land and sea. Though it is a long challenge, it is by no means boring. There are some incredible sights to see, and your craft must be able to take quite a beating as it travels around the globe. The progress begins below!

Edited November 30, 2015 by Starwhip

[Geschosskopf]

82m/s straight into a tree? Ouch

Good luck with this.

[Endersmens]

You're so lucky to actually have trees.

[Starwhip]

Look! I can see the northern mount-

Dammit.

Looks like I'll need to figure out how to transport one of these things after all.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Starwhip

[Starwhip]

The new craft has been named. CRN-10 "Silverfish".

The dropship has begun the final approach.

Cut the engines!

Parachutes are good.

Floating down.

Touchdown!

Starting to kneel down.

Freedom!

Bill meets up with Jeb and they smile for the magic camera.

The Northern Mountains. Tomorrow's goal.

[Starwhip]

Man, if there is one thing this challenge is good for, it's the views.

To the Northern Mountains we go!

Getting pretty close.

Oooh, a rock!

Found the eastern shoreline.

Kerbin's a big place, man.

To the sea!

Wow.

...

Is that an island?

It was.

Well... We didn't call it "Cliff Island" for nothing. This is a predicament. No reverse gear on the Silverfish.

Down we go, then!

Pulling up on the mainland again.

- - - Updated - - -

The Silverfish is now much farther than the Dawn Racer ever got. The key is to survive, because at this range, new rover shipments will be difficult.

Sun is close to setting.

It's getting really dark. Time to turn on the headlight.

Look at the walls of this place! Definitely calling it the Valley of Giants.

Silverfish, you never disappoint.

Edited July 23, 2015 by Starwhip
Holy crap that was a typo. XD

[Starwhip]

Whoah. These are crazy trees. Must be getting cold.

Hold up, KSC. What is that?

A tree?

Whoah.

[Starwhip]

Starting Transmission

KSC. Come in KS[static]... eb Kerman here. Silverf[static]... earing arctic circle. Universe unstable, repeat, uni[static]....

Image Transmission Initiated

Game has started crashing a lot lately.

[Overland]

Goodluck Elcano Warrior

by the way.. nothing glows horribly on your silverfish craft?

[Starwhip]

Goodluck Elcano Warrior

by the way.. nothing glows horribly on your silverfish craft?

No, not really. I've yet to run into the heating Kraken in my game. :/

EDIT:

Gosh darn it, the game is still crashing. It's definitely the safe file.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Starwhip

[Starwhip]

The lag... where'd it go? I don't care! Push onwards!

This mountain is very pretty.

Hmm. This is- OH GOD! Cliff!

Survived without a scrape. Incredibly lucky or very skilled? Perhaps a bit of both?

[Starwhip]

It's so close. If I pan the third-person camera up, I can see the pole.

All this time. It's nearly here. I'm almost 1/4 of the way done.

I'm ready

This is the moment.

Jeb plants the flag.

Pulling on to the ice.

Probably the last trees for hundreds of kilometers.

Uh oh. NO! Not now! I'm so close!

Nice try, you bugger of a hill.

[Starwhip]

I started the original mission in Version 0.90.0, August 20th.

This was the craft I began with.

Ugly and flimsy, but I loved the old thing. Then 1.0 hit...

CRN-05. It could fly, swim, and boy could it run. Unfortunately, it had a fatal flaw...

Ran out of fuel. And so the Dawn Racer was born.

This sucker was FAST.

And I tried. I honestly did. But it always ended with the craft glitching through the terrain and exploding.

We had our fun moments, though.

And so there was a hiatus.

Then there was 1.0.4. A fresh start.

Silverfish was built and launched and is still going strong.

And so, the pole has at last been reached.

Jeb plants the victorious flag.

And he looks out to the sun. Here, at 90'0'0', the sun simply moves about the horizon, never sinking or rising.

Moving again. Quite fast on this smooth terrain.

There's some trees here. Haven't seen those in a while.

And a lonely island in a sea of ice.

Some cliffs to catch the setting sun.

As the silverfish rounds the final bend.

Jeb stands on the Edge of Glory, the last stretch before Silverfish is officially across the globe.

Across the ice. This is a place I've never seen before.

[Starwhip]

Well, the second Silverfish crashed a while back. Jeb survived, thankfully.
See, the challenge lets you replace your rover if and when you crash. Now, the problem is.... the rover is WAY over here:

[spoiler=The Crash Site][img]http://i.imgur.com/j0Hygez.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/uPohqLU.png[/img][/spoiler]

A couple of attempts to send in a new rover failed.

[spoiler=Well, this sucks...][img]http://i.imgur.com/HA3HZwL.png[/img][/spoiler]

And then I manged it.

[spoiler=The Successful Attempt][img]http://i.imgur.com/iHdN1Ea.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZoQgjMV.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/I8vbbCj.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/zjbETtz.png[/img][/spoiler]

But I forgot a few things. The ladder was in the wrong place, for example. The headlight was misplaced. And the medium gear? Bad option. :(
So, once again, I send another rover. More like the original one again, except with a few fuel tanks swapped out for structural tanks to add buoyancy.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/aNm5XZg.png[/img]

And so the challenge continues.

[Starwhip]

[spoiler=Silverfish has Landed.]
[I]Silverfish IV[/I] approaches [I]III[/I], which was ill-equipped for travelling.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/VNTMcOw.png[/img]


Successfully touching down, the carrier kneels to release the rover.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/QDDF72y.png[/img]


Pop go the big wings.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/fBmzcZo.png[/img]


Inbound on [I]Silverfish III.[/I]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/i97oPPq.png[/img]
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Crew swap]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/7VFczE1.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/RrucKwE.png[/img]
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Running Shots]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/NZABtKu.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/hQ7t43D.png[/img]
[/spoiler]

This time... It will be finished. Four's my lucky number...

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Qpme0vs.png[/img]