The Elcano Challenge: Ground-Based Circumnavigation (Continued)

[Thalamask]

2 hours ago, MDZhB said:

I don't want to spam this thread though, should I go ahead and start a new one in mission reports?

That's what most of us do, MDZhB. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your mission!

[damerell]

10 hours ago, MDZhB said:

I don't want to spam this thread though, should I go ahead and start a new one in mission reports?

That is normal practice. Some of us will follow it and kibitz wildly. :-)

[MDZhB]

7 hours ago, Thalamask said:

That's what most of us do, MDZhB. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your mission!

 

2 minutes ago, damerell said:

That is normal practice. Some of us will follow it and kibitz wildly. :-)

As suggested and requested: Elcano Challenge: MDZhB Style

[Maverick_aus]

10 hours ago, MDZhB said:

It handles jumps beautifully. It's made of some pretty hard parts, 80m/s impact tolerance. So far I've only lost three of 16 panels (all in one jump, it was just a little bit too high), but it still drives perfectly.

I don't want to spam this thread though, should I go ahead and start a new one in mission reports?

Sounds promising, mate. 80m/s - that's a pretty hard impact tolerance.

As others have said, go ahead. I'm only part way through mine, but enjoying it immensely, especially the social aspect of being able to discuss throughts and experiences on here. If you do decide to start your own report thread, you may like to post an update here when you add content so that people see it, if they are following this thread but not yours. 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Maverick_aus

[The_Rocketeer]

10 hours ago, MDZhB said:

It handles jumps beautifully. It's made of some pretty hard parts, 80m/s impact tolerance. So far I've only lost three of 16 panels (all in one jump, it was just a little bit too high), but it still drives perfectly.

@MDZhB, I see you've set out almost due-North: I strongly recommend an off-arctic route as the terrain around the Munar North Pole is unspeakably mountainous (far too weak a term for it in reality) - it will almost certainly kill your craft and leave it trapped at the bottom of a sinkhole. If you've not seen it before I suggest that at the very least you pay a visit in another craft and take the time to look around a bit. I've visited the north pole several times and almost every time lost my surface rover shortly after very carefully setting out.

That said, the South Pole I've only seen from extreme low orbit (sub 5000m) - never actually landed there - but it looks much less rugged. If you skirt the Munar arctic circle, I don't think you'll have serious problems in the antarctic, but again it might be worth sending a probe mission to take a peak.

[Claw]

On 8/3/2016 at 4:16 PM, MDZhB said:

I didn't see anything in the rules against it, but would it "break the spirit of this challenge" if I were to use this?:

Yep, that's totally fine. So long as (as was mentioned above) there's a kerbal hiding in there somewhere. Might want to pack him an airsickness bag.

 

It would certainly be a new, novel design!

[Chemp]

My latest Elcano attempt is well underway. This time, it's around the moon I wanted to visit since my first circumnavigation: Laythe.
This is the craft I'm using:

The craft itself is fully stock. The other mods I use are:

• EVE - pretty pics
• KIS/KAS - take that helmet off!
• Kerbal Engineer - no way I'm guesstimating the Δ-V
• KJR - the only way (for me) to get the craft into orbit

Here's the link to the mission report: So much water! Skipping around Laythe
I try to keep it clean by placing the images inside spoilers. Please let me know if there are any issues like loading times or screenshots not displaying correctly.

[Lego8_bit]

i might give this challenge a good go since im no stranger when it comes to ground vehicles >:P heck ive made somthing like this 

 

 

 

Ill build and post my vehicle and specs when i start

Edited August 9, 2016 by Lego8_bit

[Martian Emigrant]

Hey all.

Vallina and Nedbur Just finished crossing the Western continent. They are now sitting on the first In-Between Island. Nearly out of fuel.

Nedbur is nervous because he knows the roster and who will be making the drop. But Vallina is super confident.

They are now 1/3 of a globe away. Nedbur can't wait for them to be past halfway. He has been rationing his snacks and Vallina has eaten more than half of hers. Good thing they have separate cockpits.

The last of the continent is kinda OK. But the last little bit is full of craters that are hard on wheels. Had to do more than one F9.....

http://imgur.com/a/00K73#2egEdJT

 

 

 

[Martian Emigrant]

Well there was a night flight to deliver fuel to Vallina and Nedbur.

Success. The good part is at 1:15.

The flight was conducted by 2 scientist.

All my pilots are on Duna. They went on the MCT. The Many Colonist Transporter.

They did well. They used Mechjeb. First time for all of us.

But managed to destroy all the engines clean off the aircraft.

They walked away.

Nedbur supervised the fuelling by having fun. Have you ever realized that there is water in their helmet?

http://imgur.com/a/A7bC0

BTW Nedbur wasn't very happy for a short while.

Vallina and him made a bet on the fuel delivery. He lost half is snacks.

But the fuel was more than just fuel. So everyone is happy again.

 

Edited August 10, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Lego8_bit]

Meet my land cruiser aka DART

 

THIS IS A  MODDED ENTRY Using A stock chassis but with b9 areospace for the cockpit areo brakes, intakes, and engine cowling along with b9 adjustable wings for steering (forgot the actual name to it but its close XD)

top speed so far....

On land max speed: 135 m/s

on water max speed: 42.2 m/s

max fuel cap: 800 L of fuel

current status: Running  on less than half fuel and about to make my first fuel run

Edited August 10, 2016 by Lego8_bit

[Lego8_bit]

 

*UPDATE* jeb here just ran out of fuel and managed to stop a catastrophic flipping catastrophe when hitting a sharp bump going down hill full bore all he managed was to lose was a fin in the rear for steering left and right about a 50% decrease in response time and is currently waiting for fuel 

 

 

That's all the damage the dart took after its tumble down the hill the rest of the way XD tough little speeder regardless of the damage it took. im gonna drive it until it cant drive no more in style >:) 

 

Ill be posting a full mission log and current status on the missions post from here on in and will only post here when i made some major headway which you can find here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/145698-mission-log-earth-circumvention-challenge/

 

Edited August 10, 2016 by Lego8_bit

[Maverick_aus]

6 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Well there was a night flight to deliver fuel to Vallina and Nedbur....

Success. The good part is at 1:15....

http://imgur.com/a/A7bC0...

Good work. Very entertaining watching you go.  Couple of queries:
-Is the dish functional?
-That plane is hilarious. Why so many engines?
-Very high flag-planting frequency - why is that?

And I love this shot:

Spoiler

 

On 8/7/2016 at 6:48 AM, Chemp said:

My latest Elcano attempt is well underway. This time, it's around the moon I wanted to visit since my first circumnavigation: Laythe.
This is the craft I'm using:

The craft itself is fully stock. The other mods I use are:

• EVE - pretty pics
• KIS/KAS - take that helmet off!
• Kerbal Engineer - no way I'm guesstimating the Δ-V
• KJR - the only way (for me) to get the craft into orbit

Here's the link to the mission report: So much water! Skipping around Laythe
I try to keep it clean by placing the images inside spoilers. Please let me know if there are any issues like loading times or screenshots not displaying correctly.

That is a mean design, @Chemp. 

[damerell]

6 hours ago, Lego8_bit said:

Meet my land cruiser aka DART

Your images seem to have been lost.

[Martian Emigrant]

7 hours ago, Maverick_aus said:

Good work. Very entertaining watching you go.  Couple of queries:
-Is the dish functional?
-That plane is hilarious. Why so many engines?
-Very high flag-planting frequency - why is that?

And I love this shot:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Thank you. Too kind.

-The dish serve no real purposes. Horror Vacui mostly.

The craft used to want to fly (Flip over) over land and drag over water.

So I added a control surface in the front. Downward force on land upward on water.

The dish is coupled with it, through group-action, as a visual reminder of which way it's pushing.

-The plane is high drag (And very Kerbal) I think the game consider the separations in front and back of the drop tank to be flat walls.

The early version had more and more engines. This one looks quite nice I think. Hard to rotate and land though with the lower 2 engines.

I tried clipping them all in and that was good visually and operationally but the craft had a tendency to....suddenly explode.

-I started with even more but got bored. I thought (Now) that every 40km or so was good enough.

To show that I am really driving the distance. Show progress, steadfastness.

Plus it's a reason to do an F5 and not re-drive the last 40 clicks (Or more) after a RUD.

 

The coming drive makes me think of Asia. It will be long and hard me think.

With nothing to see (And report) but km after km. I might do F5s and skip a few flags. Maybe plant them when Nedbur comes out to fix tires. Or something like that.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Lego8_bit]

2 hours ago, damerell said:

Your images seem to have been lost.

no not really if i have to i can use imjur however im using gyzo atm

[Chemp]

Big update on my mission report: link

I hit my first unsurmountable obstacle and guess what: It's about 40cm high! There's no way I'm going back to the drawing board, so I'll carry on and hope for the best. My major worry is that the second version of said hurdle is about 180° away...
Please cross your fingers and wish me luck.

[damerell]

2 hours ago, Lego8_bit said:

no not really if i have to i can use imjur however im using gyzo atm

Looking further I see the issue is at my end; PrivacyBadger blocks gyazo because it's overly stalky. This'll affect other people who run browser plugins to protect their privacy, of course.

[Martian Emigrant]

Hello Fellow Kerbalist.

My two nut-job are now firmly on the Eastern continent.
There is a long peninsula on it's east shore (I call it the Tail-end).. They chose to cut through the ocean and are on the mainland.

http://imgur.com/a/QvDkx

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Almost half a world away.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

An ocean crossing means a fuel drop. So the stork left. Daytime this time as we are ½ a globe away.

Spoiler

 

 

The drop went well. Flying West to East this time. Not the best choice fuel wise as they are closer the other way. Sorry no sound again. I thought I was using the recorder badly but it turned out to be flawed and I changed it.

EDIT: I am adding a music track right now. Might take a while.

The good bit is at 1:55.

Fromin and Kergard flew to low for too long and couldn't make it back to the center.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Quote

Kergard Kerbal: Good thing we were almost out of fuel!

No Kerbald were armed in this landing. They are now being debriefed at home.

Vallina and Nedbur have restarted their trek.

The terrain is very hilly, steep with sharp changes in pitch. You can see it well at the end of the vid.

The ship is full fuel and therefore heavy.

I busted 10 (Out of 12) tires on the back side.

It took me the better part of the afternoon to fix the tires.

The wheels kept blowing as one wheel cannot take the weight. That is why there are so many wheels to start with. The last previous save was before the refuelling mission. Not keen to redo that.

 

Eventually using the jet engines I was able to drag the ship onto a ridge and inflate the tires one by one in order of lesser stress to higher stress. Disabling the brakes on the broken wheels help to remove some stress when they are blown back up.

So....I now have to idle the fuel away (Takes time). Go very slowly (Takes time) to avoid blowing too many wheels at one time. Fix them ALL as I go (Takes time). Make it to water and burn fuel going to a nicer part of the continent (That takes time too).

My refuelling is dependent of doing it in water (Buoyancy). There are no large body of water for a long while. I do use the engines all the time to help climb those pesky inclinations.

So.

I have to use one or all of those strategies. Maybe rethink how I fuel my craft (Over land and not too full).

This is work. I feel like I actually drive the miles. I might take a break. My interest have drifted to Boats, VTOL and STOL.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[Kerbinchaser]

On July 29, 2016 at 5:33 PM, The_Rocketeer said:

Preview time: I have a vehicle... well, I have a rover. I haven't figured out how to make it float yet, but just for the screenshots I'm damn-well going to.

I present: the Lamb Drover Guardian





p.s. what's happened to the imgur button on the post editor? Now there's just this weird 'page' button??

Wowie. Nice design. Do you have a craft file?

[Alchemist]

I made this... speedboat? hydroplane? ekranoplan? Elcanoplan!

Cruise speed ~55 m/s (limited by pitch oscillations)

Current status - reached the island east-northeast of KSC (141 km from KSC shores).
Fuel spent ~ 320 LF + 270 Ore (converted on the fly) == 860 LF

Total fuel capacity: 4500 LF + 300 Ore == 5100 LF
Estimated glide range ~ 835 km ~ 0.22 Kerbin circumference

And now to top off the fuel

Next step - east across the ocean! Now that I'm sure about the range.

I'm planning on moving on the water as much as possible. There's a place where there's no water route, so I'll have to drive over land a bit, but as you can see, it's not a problem for this vehicle.

[Chemp]

2 hours ago, Alchemist said:

I made this... speedboat? hydroplane? ekranoplan? Elcanoplan!

A very compact design, congrats! Pitch oscillations are usually the limiting factors with hydroplanes in my experience, since it's almost impossible to lign up COT and COM perfectly, even less so as fuel gets consumed.
At which speed does it lift out of the water?

[Alchemist]

Actually, I haven't tried really flying it yet. It's likely possible (at least if I unlock controls on hydrofoils and turn them into proper control surfaces), but the lifting area is not too big for such mass. Well, it's supposed to be hydrofoil or at best ekranoplan (if that effect even was simulated), not a full flier.  As for trying to lift off the water, there may be a huge problem since the craft has a tendency to just get nose in the water and turn upside down at higher speeds. Should have placed the engine somewhere lower - the vessel starts behaving even worse as the fuel drains.

In other news: reached the cape across the sea, looked at the night sky, looked at over half the fuel in the tanks, decided not to wait for the morning to mine, put a flag and moved further east to the next cape on the route. One ocean crossed, three to go.

Update: another point done. But there's land all the way ahead. Taking course northeast for the best crossing point. And here's the report thread:

 

Edited August 14, 2016 by Alchemist

[MDZhB]

Here's the latest update on my endeavors: Here!

Due to various delays, I haven't really started until recently

[Martian Emigrant]

Just a quick update.

The Vanea headed straight to the sea. A little steep but nothing a vehicle with 22 wheel brake and thrust reverser cant handle.

Half the fuel was burned bypassing the mountains. The ship jumped over one last one and is now on the continent. Long wavy steppes here. Lighter ship flater terrain. The going goes fast.

They are now past halfway.

I took a picture looking West at sundown then one looking East from the KSC.

Wow. You know it's true but seeing it is amazing.

So they are doing well again.

Imgur mixed the pictures....As usual.

http://imgur.com/a/RWGoV