The Elkano challenge (all versions accepted!)

[HarrySeaward]

 

1 hour ago, Magzimum said:

Don't try to drive. Embrace that low gravity and realize that you will spend more time above the surface than on it. Install enough reaction wheels. You will spend more time flying than driving, so you make sure that the nose is pointed in the right way with reaction wheels, not with the (front) wheels.

I managed to get around Minmus at roughly 30 m/s on average (post is near the top of this thread). Dres was way harder, because of the rough terrain.

Good call.

My first through was that flying/floating sort of went against the definition of a driving circumnavigation.  But I guess that constant contact with the ground is impossible so it seems that the definition is just having propulsion from the wheels.

 

The sea path around Kerbin is pretty clear.  Any tips for a sea path around Eve?  Just follow the coast? Is the Eve trip only supposed to be land-based? polar?

Edited January 9, 2017 by HarrySeaward

[rkarmark]

2 hours ago, HarrySeaward said:

 

Good call.

My first through was that flying/floating sort of went against the definition of a driving circumnavigation.  But I guess that constant contact with the ground is impossible so it seems that the definition is just having propulsion from the wheels.

As long as you dont fly really long i dont care plus you risk braking your rover

[Magzimum]

3 hours ago, HarrySeaward said:

 

Good call.

My first through was that flying/floating sort of went against the definition of a driving circumnavigation.  But I guess that constant contact with the ground is impossible so it seems that the definition is just having propulsion from the wheels.

If you only use wheels to propel the vehicle forward, it's a ground-based circumnavigation. The only reason you lose contact with the ground is because of the ground itself.

Also, see the rules of the challenge, #3: Stay on the ground or on/below the surface of any water present. (BRIEF jumps over dunes and such permitted.)

Having said that, my longest jump on Minmus was probably longer than the first flight of the Wright brothers, and they called it flying!

 

On 7-1-2017 at 6:21 PM, rkarmark said:

Edit: @mazimum semes like dres dont exist on the learderboard may take some time to make it

On 18-11-2016 at 5:04 PM, rkarmark said:

(i totaly didn´t copy the whole challenge)

Exactly. If you had, Dres would be on the board. Dres was on the leaderboard in the previous challenge. Glad you answered your own question already before you even asked it!

In the meantime I took the badge from the previous challenge, and photoshopped the Minmus and Dres badges together into one...

Edited January 9, 2017 by Magzimum
more comments

[seanth]

3 hours ago, HarrySeaward said:

Yeah...so...driving on Minmus is friggin' hard.

 

 

Wow. Good luck.  These missions have really given me an appreciation for how large these bodies are.

Are you doing some sort solar powered system?  Paddle wheel?

Nope. Liquid Fuel. I took a break from things over the winter holidays/breaks, but I'm working on on new craft

 

[HarrySeaward]

2 minutes ago, seanth said:

Nope. Liquid Fuel. I took a break from things over the winter holidays/breaks, but I'm working on on new craft

 

So, on my longest stretch around Laythe, I did it at 7.5m/s which used 0.02units/second of liquid fuel.  I worked a long time on creating an efficient design and strategy, and this was the best I came up with.  If you maintained these figures (and my math is correct), to travel a distance equal to the equatorial circumference of Kerbin at 4x physics warp, it would take nearly 3 (Earth) months and would require 10,000 units of liquid fuel. 

Of course, efficiency would vary and your sea path would be different than a true equatorial path, but these numbers are daunting.  Do you have an ace up your sleeve?

[seanth]

8 minutes ago, HarrySeaward said:

So, on my longest stretch around Laythe, I did it at 7.5m/s which used 0.02units/second of liquid fuel.  I worked a long time on creating an efficient design and strategy, and this was the best I came up with.  If you maintained these figures (and my math is correct), to travel a distance equal to the equatorial circumference of Kerbin at 4x physics warp, it would take nearly 3 (Earth) months and would require 10,000 units of liquid fuel. 

Of course, efficiency would vary and your sea path would be different than a true equatorial path, but these numbers are daunting.  Do you have an ace up your sleeve?

From what I have read, the density of the water on Laythe seems to be different than on Kerbin, so that will make a lot of difference. But, what you say is true: the great thing about water travel is that you can move heavy things very efficiently as long as you are not in a hurry.

If you look at the ship designs I have in the threads, I track fuel usage and distance traveled by my hydrofoil deigns. My average speeds are around 50-70m/s. When I am finally able to circumnavigate without refueling, the data makes it look like I'll need about 70,000L of liquid fuel and will take about two Kerbin days. Definitely check out the links at 

if you are interested in more performance stats and figures

[HarrySeaward]

15 minutes ago, seanth said:

From what I have read, the density of the water on Laythe seems to be different than on Kerbin, so that will make a lot of difference. But, what you say is true: the great thing about water travel is that you can move heavy things very efficiently as long as you are not in a hurry.

If you look at the ship designs I have in the threads, I track fuel usage and distance traveled by my hydrofoil deigns. My average speeds are around 50-70m/s. When I am finally able to circumnavigate without refueling, the data makes it look like I'll need about 70,000L of liquid fuel and will take about two Kerbin days. Definitely check out the links at 

if you are interested in more performance stats and figures

Well, good luck.  I'm interested to see the results.

[MitchS]

I'm no Elcano competitor, but I think you guys are really impressive and come into your threads for inspiration every once in a while. I've been branching into rovers for science gathering lately, and I'm floored by your surmounting of one aspect of this challenge--quicksaving. I have to do it every kilometer or so for my sanity, because I tend to break something about every two. And for every quicksave, you have to arrest surface velocity, so it eats SO much transit time--especially on, say, Minmus, where surface gravity really limits braking ability.

I noticed in your challenge rules you mention that quicksaves aren't recommended because they can kraken your rover. HOW on earth do you manage any significant amount of rover travel without judicious use of f5/f9? Am I missing something?

[rkarmark]

24 minutes ago, MitchS said:

I'm no Elcano competitor, but I think you guys are really impressive and come into your threads for inspiration every once in a while. I've been branching into rovers for science gathering lately, and I'm floored by your surmounting of one aspect of this challenge--quicksaving. I have to do it every kilometer or so for my sanity, because I tend to break something about every two. And for every quicksave, you have to arrest surface velocity, so it eats SO much transit time--especially on, say, Minmus, where surface gravity really limits braking ability.

I noticed in your challenge rules you mention that quicksaves aren't recommended because they can kraken your rover. HOW on earth do you manage any significant amount of rover travel without judicious use of f5/f9? Am I missing something?

Well the op is pretty old and i just copyed it so that must have been from the old days where ksp were not as stabel but i still cant recomend many quicksaves

[MitchS]

How often do you guys F5? How often do you F9?

[damerell]

6 hours ago, MitchS said:

How often do you guys F5? How often do you F9?

I quicksave routinely. On long runs I have an alarm set to go every ten minutes.

I quickload only in the event of hitting a KSP bug (crash, horrible terrain seam, etc). Driving errors are not (in my view; this is not a challenge rule) allowed to be quickloaded away.

[MitchS]

Every 10 minutes... I don't know if I've ever had ten minutes of healthy roving on Minmus or the Mun. Can someone direct me to a good thread about roving technique so I can stop hijacking the Elcano thread?

[damerell]

I hardly think it's hijacking. I don't think the key is roving technique, but design - a low wide rover is hard to roll and stable on most surfaces, and you can then use reaction wheels (and MechJeb's Rover Stability Control) to keep on an even keel.

[nascarlaser1]

On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 11:24 AM, MitchS said:

Every 10 minutes... I don't know if I've ever had ten minutes of healthy roving on Minmus or the Mun. Can someone direct me to a good thread about roving technique so I can stop hijacking the Elcano thread?

 

23 hours ago, damerell said:

I hardly think it's hijacking. I don't think the key is roving technique, but design - a low wide rover is hard to roll and stable on most surfaces, and you can then use reaction wheels (and MechJeb's Rover Stability Control) to keep on an even keel.

Also include some RCS. It'll let you keep your rover pinned to the ground on moons like minimus, which help with bouncing/jumping off of hills and crashing.

[damerell]

I have to say, I never bothered with that on Minmus. I _did_ fit a nose engine, which helped with one or two of the "drove off a really colossal cliff in the dark" issues.

Oh, yeah. Don't rove at dark. The KSP lights are rubbish and your solars aren't working anyway. (NB I ignored this rule completely, but I still think it's a good idea...)

[HarrySeaward]

Minmus and Mun in 1 trip.

The mun is so much larger than I had previously thought.  I ended up driving my rover backwards for the mun trip because the liquid fueled engine worked great as an emergency brake, even though that left me with the land I'd covered more well lighted than the land in front of me. 

The trip was feeling quite tedious when I met the canyons and was rejuvenated.  Having completed this relatively long land circuit has made me realize that the point of this whole thing is to become more intimately acquainted with these bodies.  I had been on the mun dozens of times and never been in the canyons.

http://imgur.com/a/DEmiv

I used my Intro to Photoshop skills to make this. Enjoy. 

Edited January 14, 2017 by HarrySeaward

[damerell]

2 hours ago, HarrySeaward said:

Minmus and Mun in one trip.

Well done! Tho' your launch vehicle seems to be from a 0.2x "we don't believe in aerodynamics" era. :-)

Mun is a good size, I think. Big enough to feel like a solid achievement, but not quite so much slog as Kerbin.

[HarrySeaward]

On 1/9/2017 at 0:27 PM, MitchS said:

How often do you guys F5? How often do you F9?

The strategy I figured out is to F5 when you are midair on a long jump.

Warnings!: 

1) Make sure it is a jump you can land. Tips below.

2) Stop and do a traditional "ESC" -> "Save Game" every once in a while because if you F5 too low to the ground the reload will be an instant-splosion. 

 

Jumping (landing (successfully)) tips:

1. RCS is critical. Spread it out on your rover. Heavy on bow and stern, heavy on sides...so heavy all around. This also means lots of monopro on board. You'll need to turn it on and off a lot so you can control the wheels when you're safely on the ground to avoid wasting the monopro.

2. Long-ish body, wide too, but longer than wide. You prefer to roll 60° right or left, go up on the wheels and save it with Q or E rather than rolling forward with a crunchy tumbling.

3. Wheels to the corners. Try to make it so that the wheels are the first thing that contact the oncoming incline.

4. Set SAS to prograde (unless you decide your rover works better in reverse after you arrive-it happens to the best of us). This lets the RCS do its thing well, especially during the bounce.

5. Try to land on a downhill with your front wheels landing slightly before the rears.  If you have the SAS on prograde, you may need to lift the nose up a little right before you touch.  Be ready with Q and E to keep the rubber side down.

 

Hopefully this helps. 

Edited January 14, 2017 by HarrySeaward

[damerell]

And (as most of us know well, but not obvious to a rookie) bind the rover movement commands separately to rotation. By default they're both on WASD which is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

[danielboro]

i recomend adding

 

it dos auto saves as well

you can use alt(mod)-F5 instead of ESC and then save

Edited January 15, 2017 by danielboro

[CranialRectosis]

On 1/10/2017 at 9:24 AM, MitchS said:

Every 10 minutes... I don't know if I've ever had ten minutes of healthy roving on Minmus or the Mun. Can someone direct me to a good thread about roving technique so I can stop hijacking the Elcano thread?

Check out the Dakar 2017 challenge. I have learned so much about building rovers in a month and what a fun way to do it.

[rkarmark]

1 hour ago, CranialRectosis said:

Check out the Dakar 2017 challenge. I have learned so much about building rovers in a month and what a fun way to do it.

Yup really good way to learn how to build and drive rovers i got about 1000000000000000000000000000% better at roving

[Mr. Peabody]

One of the things I really like to do in KSP is build boats and ships. One of these days I'm going to launch one to Laythe and do that challenge.

[seanth]

2 hours ago, The Dunatian said:

One of the things I really like to do in KSP is build boats and ships. One of these days I'm going to launch one to Laythe and do that challenge.

Come and play!

 

[Sharpy]

There we go. Gilly Circumnavigation complete.

 

A small rover powered by a nuclear reactor and resistojet engine which was used for Gilly arrival, and then moved to push-down position to keep the rover from orbiting Sorry for holes in the marker track, but the thread contains a plenty of pics with KER window with latitude and longitude visible, so there should be no doubt