The Dunatian, Playable Save File (Like a Scenario)

[CommanderSpock]

I'm actually rebuilding it from scratch, looking at the one reference picture I could find from the movie, of watney under the landing stage of the mav, and it was very large. My command pod is now 3.75m across, and it will go down to about 4.2m for the landing stage.

[selfish_meme]

Well, it probably won't be necessary for you to mess with the Hab.. I've done it for you. I've had a fun and productive day learning about part welding and its' limitations. I wasn't able to do some of what I wanted, but made good progress overall.

The Duna Descent Vehicle, I reduced to the way it appears on Duna, since it doesn't need the fairing etc.. I turned the whole thing into a single part, down from the original 23 parts.

The Comms Tower you already know about.. a reduction of 34 parts.

The Hab gave me some trouble.. I was hoping to be able to lose another 20 or so parts by welding the underlying frame and the frame of the Solar Array, but even with the 'special' parts stripped off, those bits just would not weld correctly.. the part .cfg files were full of NaN, and they wouldn't display. However, I was able to turn the entire interior of the Hab into a single part, and rebuild the rest of the Hab around it, so that it looks and functions exactly the same as before, but instead of being 132 parts, its' now just 73 parts!

All told, those three items result in a combined reduction of 115 parts.

The part-reduced craft can be downloaded here.

I would have done the debris from the Ares 3 Duna Ascent Vehicle as well, but I'm having some trouble getting the welded parts re-attached to the core ship, so they can be dumped on the ground realistically.. if I can get that sorted out, it will result in another 40-45 less parts onsite.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes.. See the OP on page 1 for all the things that have been done so far.

Well, that's a bit outside the scope of this project..

For some reason I can't download the welded craft zip file? but i am on safari on OS X will try linux later

[JAFO]

For some reason I can't download the welded craft zip file? but i am on safari on OS X will try linux later

Damn.. looks like my box.com bandwidth hasn't reset yet.. sorry about that. Here, use this link instead.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zrtg1vu36kom7h1/Part%20Reduction%20Project.zip?dl=0

[selfish_meme]

I'm actually rebuilding it from scratch, looking at the one reference picture I could find from the movie, of watney under the landing stage of the mav, and it was very large. My command pod is now 3.75m across, and it will go down to about 4.2m for the landing stage.

Do you mind if I pinch your refueler core and attach it to my MAV, I have it down to 129 parts and 43 tons. So it's easily landable and launchable and hopefully low enough parts that the Kraken won't come when we drive 160 parts worth of rovers next to it.

[CommanderSpock]

It'll be a bit small, but go ahead.

[selfish_meme]

Well remember the crewman are Kerbal sized, not human sized

[CommanderSpock]

I know. We'll just have to see how it goes. I can't work on it for a few hours.

[selfish_meme]

You can land it, and refuel it, and it has a bottom entry. 130 parts, 60t, 4300m/s dV in the ascent stage, parachutes and thrusters for landing, uploading it. I hate the big ass rockomax decouplers but I was having seperation issues when staging the chutes, I have that fixed now and will go back to the svelte stack seperators.

Edited October 6, 2015 by selfish_meme

[Yukon0009]

[selfish_meme]

very nice, but theres 6 crew not 3?

[lukethecoder64]

How's This?

Will do final (640x480) render overnight.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

When I see the martian (soon!) I will give a shot at making a MAV replica.

[selfish_meme]

How's This?

http://i.imgur.com/YmI8xcc.png

Will do final (640x480) render overnight.

Hehe thats pretty funny

[selfish_meme]

Had some ideas on reducing the rover partcount, it only handles slightly worse, but is is much more rugged. 44 parts down from 88. Hopefully will offset the higher partcount on the MAV. It's becoming like a used car lot up there. Ares 3 Used Vehicles and Radio Towers.

I changed the lights afterwards to just one set of the brighter ones protected in the frame.

[Majorjim!]

Had some ideas on reducing the rover partcount, it only handles slightly worse, but is is much more rugged. 44 parts down from 88. Hopefully will offset the higher partcount on the MAV. It's becoming like a used car lot up there. Ares 3 Used Vehicles and Radio Towers.

http://i.imgur.com/AxtJ61K.png

I changed the lights afterwards to just one set of the brighter ones protected in the frame.

The new one looks great!! Much closer to the film version. Good job!

[selfish_meme]

I should get some robot sheep and cows

[JAFO]

After a couple of days boning up on Orbital Mechanics, becoming familiar with the terminology involved, getting to grips with the more arcane aspects of PreciseNode, with the assistance of Red Iron Crown's incredibly helpful Precomputed Low-TWR Interplanetary Transfer Burns, this individual, who until now has never even successfully completed a Duna mission, actually managed to send Hermes on a close-approach, free-return-trajectory flyby of Duna before returning to Kerbin!

While the Hermes itself did not perform entirely up to spec, the various tools I mentioned in an earlier post proved their worth, and the flyby itself went well, so it looks like things are go for doing a proper flyby, rather than having Hermes just sitting in orbit around Duna.

A full report has been sent to selfish_meme, and a slightly modified Hermes will undertake another flyby mission tomorrow.

[selfish_meme]

After a couple of days boning up on Orbital Mechanics, becoming familiar with the terminology involved, getting to grips with the more arcane aspects of PreciseNode, with the assistance of Red Iron Crown's incredibly helpful Precomputed Low-TWR Interplanetary Transfer Burns, this individual, who until now has never even successfully completed a Duna mission, actually managed to send Hermes on a close-approach, free-return-trajectory flyby of Duna before returning to Kerbin!

While the Hermes itself did not perform entirely up to spec, the various tools I mentioned in an earlier post proved their worth, and the flyby itself went well, so it looks like things are go for doing a proper flyby, rather than having Hermes just sitting in orbit around Duna.

A full report has been sent to selfish_meme, and a slightly modified Hermes will undertake another flyby mission tomorrow.

You rock, I am setting up another save file, with new craft, going to try some welding too. Make sure you note the steps to reproduce the flyby so we can set it up in new savefiles.

[JAFO]

Make sure you note the steps to reproduce the flyby so we can set it up in new savefiles.

How about, once I have it set up correctly, I send you the persistence file? You could then paste in the Hermes crew you want to use instead of Jeb, Bill and Bob, and use it as the template for making new savefiles.

[CommanderSpock]

I rebuilt the rover to be almost 2x smaller:

[JAFO]

going to try some welding too

So long as you are careful to observe the limitations (mostly, if you weld more than one of the same 'type' of any 'action' item, they won't work correctly), it works really well.. such as in the DDV wreckage and the Hab interior I sent you.

Edited October 8, 2015 by JAFO

[Majorjim!]

I rebuilt the rover to be almost 2x smaller:

http://i.imgur.com/ALF5GIR.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/55quBaQ.png

Nicely done! How many parts is it?

[CommanderSpock]

90. It shows the parts and mass in the KER box at the bottom of the image in the SPH.

[selfish_meme]

How about, once I have it set up correctly, I send you the persistence file? You could then paste in the Hermes crew you want to use instead of Jeb, Bill and Bob, and use it as the template for making new savefiles.

I think you will have to make the crew and then put them on the Hermes before you send it up. I'd rather not edit the save file by hand it can cause issues.

[JAFO]

I think you will have to make the crew and then put them on the Hermes before you send it up. I'd rather not edit the save file by hand it can cause issues.

Will do.