totm may 2023 Elcano IV: Circumnavigate all the things!

[damerell]

Set off for Ike. I expected to have a tangle with the Laythe transfer windows, but Ike is really close to Duna and the whole business of taking off and getting over there could be easily accomplished in time. I did wonder if Duna's atmosphere would be a nuisance on takeoff, but I didn't try to get too fancy with ascent profile and up I went without trouble.

I really needed a landing spot with Uranite if possible - the limiting factor on me producing Orion pulse units is not metallic ore, but uranium - and did a bit more work on the kOS landing script and with careful consideration of the ScanSAT map came down somewhere reasonable. The trouble with a good landing script on an airless world is, of course, you spend more of the descent thinking "oh kerb, light the engines, there's no time!".

I'm even down in the daylight, so I could just set off, but I think the rover speed control script needs more work.

(This is not entirely a joke about avoiding the actual roving; a problem on low-g worlds is braking when only your front wheels are touching the ground, which does tend to flip you. The script could detect if the rear wheels are off the ground and if so turn off the brakes no matter what.)

Edited September 16, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

More Laythe problems: the Laythe jet balances out but the Laytheboat is just too unbalanced for the long transfer burn. Still, I've got time in hand since the Queen Agaster will have to visit Dres before it gets anywhere near Jool so can terminate, redesign, take the next transfer window in 72 days.

It struck me that if the problem is that the jet is a heavy winged object that wants to hang off one side of its rocket, and the Laytheboat is a similar-weight wing-shaped object that wants to hang off one side of its rocket, sending them off separately was entirely pointless, and so this monstrosity was born:

A kOS script written for the Laytheboat balances everything out; it doesn't touch LFO tanks, and the jet is slightly heavier than the boat and full of LF where the boat's pontoons are empty LF tanks, so it can do its job right from launch.

After dropping the boosters and the first main stage we have this even more absurd contraption:

Seriously, it's like a plane with the world's most ridiculous undercarriage.

Eventually the nose and central engine will pop off when dry, leaving the two Laythe vehicles docked to the giant RCS tank which also has those four quad-LVNs and tanks on booms. This will also make for a bit of excitement when we get to Laythe since we'll have to lower Pe to dip into atmosphere, cut the Laytheboat loose, raise Pe again, see where the Laytheboat comes down (having an approximate idea of how much longitude it covers so it drops somewhere near land), and then lower Pe again to try and drop the jet somewhere nearby, making sure to get all the LF where it's needed after each part of the operation.

 

Meanwhile, Ike, which started by... both ladders exploding unexpectedly when kerbals boarded:

What the kerb? I'm planning to ditch this rover here since I have a replacement coming to Dres, but I guess I won't be dropping flags on Ike. I could suit-RCS out in Ike's gravity, but I'm lazy.

140 degrees West:

150 degrees West:

160 degrees West. Not much to write about these; the terrain is easy and Ike is small.

180 degrees West (what happened to 170? I don't know):

And a shot of the rover, where I also have strange stuff going on with one of the crew portraits. Perhaps this rover is cursed and it's just as well I'm leaving it behind.

 

[damerell]

170 East:

160 East:

A strangely pointy mountain:

More ugly Z-fighting at 150E:

140E:

Easy roving this time, but not much to write about it.

[damerell]

130 East. These mountains would rapidly become quite unpleasant terrain.

At 120 East I am mostly done with them, but this slope down got pretty unpleasant.

The topographical map looks very odd here (top right monitor).

Easier full-speed roving here, even as we get into the Western Mountain Ridge, but it's getting dark - we are outroving the dawn.

I stopped here having done a full 90 degrees longitude and wondering if I should rove into the night or shut down. I discovered if you extract from a Hangar a rover with a Scansat BTDT running, you need to turn the BTDT off and on again - hence the rather short BTDT track on the map here, but at least that'll provide a bit more documentation of the expedition.

Edited October 3, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

To 40 and 30 East:

A little jump at 20E, getting alarming as it gets darker, but the terrain had been easy and I'd kept going:

I'd seen one more glimpse of Duna on a big jump before this, but this is the first time I hit F1 - I was distracted the last time by it being too big a jump, which bottomed out the suspension and destroyed the ventral KIS locker. (Don't put them on the bottom of your rover.)

Duna rises, or possibly we rove under it:

Duna from the top-deck seats in the cab, which do exist!

Around here I'd thought, no, it's just getting stupidly dark, so I shut down for a few hours while Kerbol returned.

Almost the first thing that happened when roving in the light was a huge prang, knocking off a chunk of the rollcage, both the MTS headlights (still, I plan to finish before sunset), and a solar panel. I found on Kerbin I seemed to be a worse driver when I could see where I was going, and the same thing has happened on Ike. Odd.

I'd skirt this huge elevated area on the left to rove along flatter ground.

Here the terrain flattens out again:

Here I am allegedly in the Central Mountain Range, but it's not very mountainous:

Finally I've turned towards the Hangarmoth, whose target marker is now on the HUD.

80 West, and then "not far" at 90W, alhough looking back I still have 30 degrees longitude to cover.


 

Edited October 4, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

100W:

110W:

120W, but somewhere here the game slowed to a crawl (about 50% realtime), resulting in an agonising slog to the Hangarmoth.

First sight of the Hangarmoth.

And we're back.

 

Ike took a while for so small a world.

[damerell]

The cursed rover had a last gasp of cursedness when, as engineer Arald was roving it away from the Hangarmoth after having docked and undocked it to recover its supplies, it spontaneously flew into several pieces. Kind of moot since we're about to blast it with two nuclear devices, but Arald was still a bit taken aback.

(What really happened is I'd put the suspension all the way down in an effort to jiggle it into the Hangar's vehicle acceptance zone and then the batteries bottomed out on the landing legs, but it sure came as a surprise).

Liftoff was uneventful:

The QA in sight: took us a few days to get here because we had left it in a very high orbit around Duna:

And docked - a very undramatic docking thanks, I hope, to me getting better at it and not just blind luck. With the transfer window a year and a half away, I hope the kerbals will enjoy looking at Duna - and I have more to do (including getting the Dres rover delivery into orbit, which isn't vital but I would certainly like to steal its leftover MP and LFO) before the window.

 

[18Watt]

On 9/22/2022 at 10:01 PM, damerell said:

180 degrees West (what happened to 170? I don't know):

Ever been driving on the highway, and realize you’re about 5 miles past the exit you wanted to get off at?  Yeah, me neither.. 

[damerell]

8 hours ago, 18Watt said:

Ever been driving on the highway, and realize you’re about 5 miles past the exit you wanted to get off at?  Yeah, me neither.. 

IRL I have not been in a motor car for 15 years, and I've never had a driving licence, so... not as such, no.

In vexing news the Dres rover delivery lacks, even remotely, the dV to stop at Dres. I have one rover on the Hangarmoth, and more rovers coming to Jool, so perhaps I am not yet in unavoidable trouble; but I think I must reconsider matters.

[damerell]

Another thing I've learned is to think about the conversion rates - I want big refined metal tanks, not metallic ore, and big enriched uranium tanks. I suspect by the time I'm done here I'll know everything about a thing I'll never do in KSP again.

[damerell]

The Eeloo rover delivery mission just doesn't exist. One thing (maybe fixed later) I dislike about Kerbal Alarm Clock is deleting a vessel doesn't delete the alarms for its maneuvers, so you think it still exists. I bet NASA doesn't just lose probes down the back of the sofa. I launched a replacement.

The Laythe vehicles, having dropped the big tank and engine, settle in for a long LV-N burn to Jool.

The Hangarmoth embarks on a short and probably extremely noisy burn to Dres.

A big Hangar full of Jool probes circularising.

The probes out. They lack a RemoteTech connection - this is because (at least with the 1.9 mod versions I am using) there is no way I can find to launch a vessel from a Hangar with an antenna active, to run a kOS script immediately, to have a Smart Part trigger (which would then toggle an action group to activate an antenna), etc. I am going to shamelessly edit the save file to turn the antennae on, since this just seems like a bug.

The first of the Jool rover delivery vehicles has circularised around Jool, a welcome development. I have only one rover with me now so it is good to know there is at least one more waiting - and some more LFO and MP to loot.

Edited October 14, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

Another session full of pushing probes around (and discovering the Jool probes have no battery, which apparently means the electrical equipment on them can't run off the RTG; a fresh set launched), but now almost all probe work is done. Here we are circularising at Dres; I presume to some degree the belly of the Hangarmoth must also be coated in steel and ablative oil.

And down on Dres - at sunrise, good timing, and in a spot with at least some Ore, MetallicOre, and uranium ore. Almost perfectly sunrise - the "mast" is in sunlight but not the main hull. This crew have only done Gilly so far, so I'm sure they are eager to rove around somewhere they can have their wheels on the ground.

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

Finally off on Dres. With the Scansat BTDT once again able to track our progress, and with a rover I can dismount from to plant flags without the ladders exploding, I think I can cut down on the sheer tide of screenshots just to document progress.

I was clearly lucky in my choice of landing spot because by 102W flat terrain had been largely replaced by awkward ridges. One or two spins, but the anti-roll beam and Rover Stability Control are doing a good job keeping us right way up. Here's a flag at 120W.

I was clearly roving into the sunset (and can move faster than the circa 25 m/s it moves at on Dres), so shut down for a day to set off once dawn had caught up. I overshot this a bit and it's now pretty dark a lot of the time, but I'll gradually get back under Kerbol. 150W:

[damerell]

Little to write about these, but I am plugging on. I'm glad to have the BTDT track again.

 

[damerell]

It's been a while. I don't have a fractured scaphoid (but not in the way you don't have a fractured scaphoid), I've been on holiday, and finally after 2 1/2 years I have COVID-19 (sigh), but here are screenshots of more progress.

The big yellow cross is about where I think the East end of the Dres canyon is. Next time I'll have a look at the ScanSAT zoomed-in map and try and confirm my navigation.

I'm afraid the way it is quite hard to do anything means I am dispensing with flags, especially given the fine track the BTDT is laying.

Edited November 8, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

I've made the unwelcome discovery that while you can get a rover into the Dres canyon, it's another matter to rove along it

At 30 degrees East, coming up on the canyon - there's a valley to the West of me on the top-right map which becomes it.

Easy terrain in the canyon at first:

In the canyon. I'd get to perhaps 16 degrees east, but the canyon bottom was simply becoming a V in the rock, and when I came to a steep up incline I had no way to climb it and no way to maneuver to (say) "tack" across in the way you can with a hill too steep to climb normally.

I extricated myself with some difficulty, backed up the canyon a long way, and escaped to the North. I'd lost enough time that it was dark, so I shut down here and waited for dawn.

Outside the canyon, to 0 degrees West:

And 30 degrees West:

Another push tomorrow should see me back at the Hangarmoth at last.

Edited November 10, 2022 by damerell

[damerell]

After that it was easy going, to 60W:

To just past 90W and the welcome sight of the Hangarmoth:

And home! I'm leaving this rover behind - two replacements have come to Jool, and I knocked the headlights off this one. (Next time, put them inside the rollcage, me).

Taken off, docked, and awaiting the transit maneuver.

[damerell]

With a year to go until the next maneuver, it seems like time for something completely different: a crack at a sea circumnavigation of Kerbin. I don't think it is practical to beat the times of the somewhat magic propellor-driven vehicles, but I think a respectable time might be done with a jet-powered vehicle, and as a bonus, it could be a rather more robust affair, like the Kerbian Sea Monster:

Obviously this is not actually a ground effect vehicle both because I'd need mods and because that would rather defeat the point of a surface circumnavigation. It represents a bit of experimentation to find the approximate sweet spot in adding more engines and body sections. It has enough endurance to make it halfway around - I think - so has a companion in the form of a giant aircraft full of fuel.

This is built around a Sea Monster body since it's got the right amount of juice and should be the right height to dock to. Unfortunately I forgot to switch FAR on before designing it, but when it wouldn't fly with FAR I tried the old strategy of sticking a bit of dihedral on the wings and hoping, and up it went... only slightly aided in getting off the ground by the two wing-mounted boosters.

This is a test flight, but this shot of it not crashing into a mountain seemed worth capturing:

And here it is landed at the East end of the land bridge. That's closer to halfway around, but this then presents a problem - do I sail West, hoping to get as much sun as possible but having to cross the land bridge full of fuel with the attendant strain on the landing gear, or do I sail East, enduring more nighttime travel but crossing the land bridge more or less dry?

Additionally I hope to improve my time by careful selection of waypoints and using kOS to indicate a great circle route between them.

[damerell]

I had a bit of time this weekend so started the sea voyage. The ScanSAT maps of Kerbin look odd because I sent up a high resolution scanner in KSP 1.0.4 when I was circumnavigating around Kerbin; the save and the ScanSAT data lasted to 1.9, but the satellite itself - its job not quite finished - did not, presumably because one of its parts went away. I've set up a new satellite to fill in the gaps, but I still will meet a few on this trip.

At the "start line", a waypoint out in the water near the KSC, about to undock from the extra tank to let me start the exercise with full fuel.

The Kerbian Sea Monster at full power. I usually circumnavigate in-IVA, but the Jeb's-eye view from the cockpit is much the same (ie, the sea; akin to the way I discovered IRL some years ago that what you can see from the deck of a ferry going up the Baltic Sea is the Baltic Sea, so bring a book) only much louder. If I redesigned this I'd put the bridge at the front, away from the engines.

The ScanSAT zoom display here helps me to shave this headland as close as is reasonably safe. Less impressively, just before now I had briefly become worried about an enormous grey object appearing on the horizon - nowhere close to land, nothing should be out here - until I realised it was the Mun.

In one of the missing chunks of the ScanSAT map. Kerbol has risen over the land bridge, but I am more worried about it setting before I cross.

This screenshot is just here for documentation. It's dark, and I am 2 hours into the mission, and I am about to clear the island to the northeast.

Sunrise. Ideally I would have arrived at the land bridge at sunrise, but I think I have time in hand.

My first sight of land, already some way down the estuary which I am negotiating using the ScanSAT zoom map.

I stopped on land going into the series of lakes; it is late here, and I am not trying to beat the speed record.

My main worries now are crossing the land bridge - I have the lakes plotted out, and the KSM can run on land but it is pretty alarming - and whether or not a full load of fuel taken on at the eastern end will be enough to bring me home.

[damerell]

At a lake on the land bridge.

Avoiding falling into another enormous hole. However, it is getting dark and since I'm not trying to set a speed record, I would shut down for the night.

I would like to tell you docking these two craft together was easy. Other ridiculous lies are also available. The combination of them being on the same landing gear but with radically different masses and having basically no way to steer them but engine thrust reversers made bringing the ports into contact very awkward.

And afloat again with full tanks, which - I hope - will get me home. Since the MET timer dates from undocking, not only am I not going for a speed record, I won't even know how long this trip took.

[18Watt]

On 11/12/2022 at 7:53 PM, damerell said:

I don't think it is practical to beat the times of the somewhat magic propellor-driven vehicles, but I think a respectable time might be done with a jet-powered vehicle, and as a bonus, it could be a rather more robust affair, like the Kerbian Sea Monster:

The propellers are indeed capable of speeds which can only be described as 'magic'.  When I finished speed runs using the 'magic' propellers, I did not feel a sense of accomplishment- I felt like I had cheated the game.  I would describe the possibilities using electric propellers as 'OP' (overpowered), and unrealistic.  Yes, they were fun, but did not give me the same sense of accomplishment completing an Elcano run using more realistic methods.

On 11/12/2022 at 7:53 PM, damerell said:

...a problem - do I sail West, hoping to get as much sun as possible but having to cross the land bridge full of fuel with the attendant strain on the landing gear, or do I sail East, enduring more nighttime travel but crossing the land bridge more or less dry?

You are overthinking this!  Which is exactly the Kerbal way!!  Or at least for odd-ball Elcano players.  You are not alone, I have agonized over the best direction to go, especially for Kerbin or Laythe.  For most of us, it shouldn't make any difference how long a circumnavigation takes, because Elcano runs are NOT about speed, but rather about seeing the hardships of a circumnavigation.  However, for players who use Life Support mods (I think you use some?), the time spent doing a circumnavigation does make a difference.  Anyway, for your crew on Kerbin, they can always just open their helmets if they run out of oxygen.  Just want to remind you, Elcano's are not about being the fastest.  When we read your mission reports, we are not concerned about how fast you are going.  On the contrary, I'm secretly hoping your rovers go slow, because that means there will be more excellent mission reports to read!

On 11/20/2022 at 6:15 PM, damerell said:

The Kerbian Sea Monster at full power

That was a majestic screenshot!  I'm picturing a bunch of crewmembers standing on the engines, roasting hot-dogs in the jet-blast.

On 11/20/2022 at 6:15 PM, damerell said:

I stopped on land going into the series of lakes; it is late here, and I am not trying to beat the speed record.

Your name gets on the leaderboard in the exact same place regardless of the time.  There are no points in Elcano runs for speed, only for completion.

On 11/20/2022 at 6:15 PM, damerell said:

the KSM can run on land but it is pretty alarming

Yes, driving a boat across land is quite nerve-wracking!  In KSP2 they really should make Kerbin be circumnavigation-able without having to cross a land-bridge!

On 11/23/2022 at 2:46 PM, damerell said:

I would like to tell you docking these two craft together was easy.

Amen.

I'm looking forward to the second half of your journey!  I am very much enjoying your mission logs @damerell!

[damerell]

I don't think I was overthinking the West-East thing - it would be valuable both to have daylight for as much as possible of the trip, and to cross the land bridge with as little weight on the wheels as possible, and these two goals conflicted so I had to decide which I valued more - I picked the latter since I could always stop overnight if (as happened) it got dark somewhere particularly awkward.

USI Life Support gives you a week "out of the box", so it wasn't a factor on this trip, short of serious problems involving waiting for repairs or refuelling.

At sea again - and discovering to my delight that at some point between the equatorial trip in 1.0.4 and now, the ScanSAT BTDT started painting the sea, so my entire trail is visible. (It is a little confusing since it meets the equatorial trail which heads West from the KSC).

Half an hour later. Somehow one of the endcaps at the stern, and another at the bow, had been destroyed, which made the ship less inclined to go in a straight line without intervention.

A nasty squeeze coming up; little light and some of the area has not had a high-res altimetry scan.

Made it through without hitting anything.

Up the coast without difficulty...

... except that when I laid out the waypoints I clearly did not account for this headland. (18Watt: I should say that in accordance with the challenge rules, kOS recommends a course to the next waypoint, but I steer it, and MechJeb is involved only to suppress roll because if a jet engine dips into the ocean the consequences are unfortunate.)

I got around it without hitting it, which doesn't seem like it should be hard but the KSM steers like a cow.

This island was too small to see when plotting a route and turned up, inconveniently, pretty well dead ahead.

Here I became worried about the fuel supply so downthrottled by about a third. Of course, the nature of aero drag meant that reduced speed by less than a third, extending my range.

South tip of the KSC's continent.

Close enough to go full speed, and with the tanks nearly empty the full speed is impressive.

At the end, having just run over the waypoint where I dropped the stern tank and set off.

Jeb, however, was kind enough to park the KSM back outside the SPH.

I plan to do my Laythe circumnavigation with Scatterer waves, so it will be slower, but more interesting.

Edited November 25, 2022 by damerell

[18Watt]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:57 AM, damerell said:

if a jet engine dips into the ocean the consequences are unfortunate.

Yep.  Try not to do that!

On 11/25/2022 at 10:57 AM, damerell said:

Here I became worried about the fuel supply so downthrottled by about a third. Of course, the nature of aero drag meant that reduced speed by less than a third, extending my range.

I've found that consistently true for turbojet-powered boats as well.  Reducing speed increases range.  Sometimes a 10% reduction in speed can give me a 50% increase in range.  That's not much of a factor with propellers in daylight, but those are OP and a bit unrealistic in my opinion.  The jet engines are (again, in my humble opinion..) much more realistic, and force you to make decisions regarding speed and efficiency.

On 11/25/2022 at 10:57 AM, damerell said:

Close enough to go full speed, and with the tanks nearly empty the full speed is impressive.

200+ m/s is indeed impressive!

On 11/25/2022 at 10:57 AM, damerell said:

I plan to do my Laythe circumnavigation with Scatterer waves, so it will be slower, but more interesting.

Your Kerbin log was (as always) fantastic!  I'm looking forward to your Laythe adventure too!

 

[damerell]

I had a bit of a break, but I'm back in KSP again. The second batch of Jool scan satellites is up, and this time the design isn't a mess. The picture here is of one of them en route to a moon, and all five of them are successfully in place and scanning away. I also designed a Mk VIII rover and set it off to Eeloo. Next is the long wait for the Hangarmoth to arrive at Jool.

[damerell]

A certain amount of confusion with planned manoeuvers - it is just as well Orion affords me a bit more spare delta-V than I might otherwise have - but the tiny green dot in the centre here is my first sight of Jool from a kerballed vessel.

My life support supplies are holding up much better than I planned for. Can't complain, but I'm not sure what went wrong in the pre-mission calculations.