CommNet Dish Inspection Challenge

[Klapaucius]

The Kerbal Space Program has allocated funds to repair and upgrade of the KSP CommNet System. Your mission is to travel to and inspect each of the CommNet dishes and report back your findings.  Some of the dishes are remote and access is difficult; you will be rewarded pay bonuses accordingly.  You may do as many or few as you like, but your bonus pay in  Funds will increase with every completed task.

 

 

 

Simply:

1. Do a visual fly-by inspection of each of the seven dishes (excluding KSC).  Take a screenshot.  Bonus kudos for gnarly close fly-bys.

2. Take a selfie standing at the base of any dish. Take a screenshot.

3. Return to KSC.

LEADERBOARD (scores will be added to as more missions are completed)

@NHunter:  -Mission 100% completed 25,700 (-20% at request of @NHunter because of mod capabilities=20,560)

@Death Engineering:  Mission 100% completed  25,700 in bonuses to you and your crew.  

@Azimech: 7700 (Baikerbanur, Crater Rim, North Station fly by and landings)

@Klapaucius: 1500-- North Station (fly by=1000), Woomerang (fly-by=500)  (1500--not official until all crew return to KSC).

 

 

Rules:

1. You must initially depart from KSC and you must complete your mission at KSC and report back.

2.  If you choose, you may land at Woomerang or the Dessert Airfield and then use those as bases of operations. (In other words, you can relaunch with a fully fuelled aircraft).  You may land anywhere else at any time, but you can only refuel at the official airfields and launch sites.  Since this is simply a way of getting around the fact that stock KSP does not accommodate refueling, you may not respawn a different vehicle.  If you want another vehicle, you first have to bring it from the KSC.  (Note that Baikerbanur is not a refueling stop).

3. To keep things even, players who do not have the DLC may still use the Dessert Airfield location as a staging area and may hyperedit there once they have landed at the location.  Also, if your plane is too large to safely spawn on the Woomerang rocket pad and roll onto the grass, you may hyperedit to just nearby.  The Dessert Airfield is located at -144.04 longitude, -6.57 latitude (144 degrees 2' 24"W lon, 6 degrees 34' 12" S lat). Anywhere within a 2 km radius is fine for non DLC folks.

4. You may do individual missions or visit several dishes on one flight.  It’s up to you.

5. You must have enough fuel to depart and return to one of the designated airfields.

6. All Kerbals and gear must return safely to KSC for the mission to count.  Pay bonuses are only considered tentative until all crew from that particular mission are back with their craft at the KSC.

7. You may land your aircraft at some distance from the dish and walk up to it.   You do not need to be standing on the dish itself (we'll save that for the next challenge) just next to it.

8. You may transport and use rovers (or even use rovers only if you wish).

9. You may use VTOL, autogyros, props, helicopters, chutes, thrust reverse and any trick in the book to land in tricky locations that does not involve altering physics.

10. No mod restrictions except for obvious physics altering mods.  If in doubt, ask.

11. Parachute inspections are allowed, but due to the limited amount of kit you can take with you, will only yield 50% of the selfie bonus. Remember the Kerbal still needs to return safely to KSC (as does the aircraft s/he jumped from).

12. You may not leave any Kerbals, gear or craft behind.

13. It is up to you if you want to use quicksaves or not. This is supposed to be a fun challenge, so there is no point in torturing folks with massive do overs. Just be up front about it when you post your attempt.  However, feel free to impose whatever restrictions on yourself you feel are in keeping with your particular KSP skill level.

14. Screenshots (or video) should be taken of both fly-bys and on the ground. Bonus kudos for the most nail-biting fly-by shot or video.

15. This challenge is somewhat reliant on the honor system. Be honest and fair.

16. There is no time limit on this. Feel free to do as much or as little at one time as you like. You can do a mass single mission or you can do a series of smaller missions.  I'll update the leaderboard regularly.

17. Keep to the spirit of the challenge. I cannot think of every loophole. Don’t go looking for them.

 

Bonuses in funds (maximum possible is 25,700):

 

	Fly-By	Selfie at Base
Nye Island	1000	500
Harvester Massif	1000	500
Mesa South	1500	7000
Crater Rim	900	4000
Baikerbanur	700	100
Woomerang*	500	6000
North Station	1000	1000

* NOTE: If you have the mod Modular Flight Integrator installed, the Woomerang dish will not be visible. It is a bug.  You may also have issues at Baikerbanur.

 

The Comnet dish locations are as follows:

	Longitude Decimal	Latitude Decimal	Longitude Degrees	Latitude Degrees
Nye Island	108.54980	5.35963	108° 32' 59.28'' E	5° 21' 34.668'' N
Harvester Massif	33.7409	-11.95136	33° 44' 4.896'' S	11° 57' 27'' S
Mesa South	-25.87014	-59.58902	25° 52' 12.504'' W	59° 35' 20'' S
Crater Rim	-172.10936	9.45021	172° 6' 33.696'' W	9° 27' 0.756'' N
Baikerbanur	-146.50172	20.68111	146° 30' 6.192'' W	20° 40' 51.996'' N
Woomerang	137.03078	44.71933	137° 1' 50.808'' E	44° 43' 9.588'' N
North Station	-90.07795	63.09517	90° 4' 40.62'' W	63° 5' 42.612'' N

If you don't already have it, I really recommend installing the Waypoint Manager mod.  It makes the navigation so much easier.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2019 by Klapaucius

[Kerbalstar]

Looks like a nice challenge! I might try this with the latest micro-challenge! I tried to do something like this once, never finished...

[Death Engineering]

This is awesome.. great idea!  TBH I didn't even know there were these dishes out there so grats on teaching an old space dog something new. 

So now the question is supersonic VTOL? Atmosphere hopping rover? Long-distance fuel miser without refueling?

"Minions, to the underground laboratory!"

 

4 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

Keep to the spirit of the challenge. I cannot think of every loophole. Don’t go looking for them.

This needs to be in every challenge.. stealing your wording for any future challenges I post. 

 

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

This sounds like a very nice challenge! I will try it with my KS-111 and the upcoming KS-111LR. I might also use the KS-110/ 110P/ 110E.

Edited December 26, 2018 by Bottle Rocketeer 500

[spacehead3]

Sounds like a fun opportunity to explore some more of Kerbin. I think I'm going to see if I can get my F-35 VTOL working well enough to land in these spots.

[Klapaucius]

13 hours ago, Kerbalstar said:

Looks like a nice challenge! I might try this with the latest micro-challenge! I tried to do something like this once, never finished...

Feel free to adapt anything you like. Or send some of the newbies over here. The challenge is in multiple parts, some quite easy, some much more challenging, so one can pick and choose.

[GDJ]

I'm in.

[Klapaucius]

I thought I would get in some preliminaries before bed, so we got project manager Valentina along with Jebediah and Bob in K.R.A.S.S.H. Industries Gertrude survey craft.  The original plan had been to inspect North Station and then head onto Baikerbanur and finally the Dessert Airfield. However, this was the first long-range test of this craft, and it did not have quite enough fuel. So plans were changed mid mission, and the crew headed onwards to Woomerang after North Station with a brief flyover of the Woomerang dish.  So far, a 1500 bonus for the team!

Probably a rover just to save a long walk or an angled landing.

Valentina is thinking a rover may be the solution here as well, though it will be a long drive. Either way, it is a tough one.  A landing would be quicker, but it is pretty sketchy.

 

Not long after, Bill took off in Gladys (a handy K.R.A.S.S.H. Industries airliner that they had fueled up in the hangar) with a load of staff heading to the Dessert Airfield. The plan was for a big junket to Baikerbanur tomorrow. Alas, after an easy and quick flight and an acceptable landing, Bill forgot that Gladys is not the most tight turning of aircraft, hung her up on the control tower, and knocked off a control surface in the process. Not having reverse thrust, he tried to get out and push, but KSP code thwarted him ans he walked right through the landing gear.  (I was really bummed about this, but I think I can justify respawning the ship since it is at an airfield and can be repaired. But I'll have to cancel the junket and make alternative plans. Meanwhile, the crew can spend the next few days having a barbecue.)

PS. I just installed Waypoint Manager. I can't believe it took me this long. What a great mod!

Edited December 30, 2018 by Klapaucius

[NHunter]

Challenge accepted!

Meet the creatively-named 'Observer' plane. Not the prettiest thing on Kerbin, but, whatever...

Departing from KSC:

Mesa South [transit time from KSC: 35 minutes]

...Damn, landing on that cliff was a challenge all of its own.
Now heading for the Harvester Massif

---------------------------

For the sake of being honest with how big of an achievement completing this challenge would by my plane (OPT parts), if you decide to include me into the leaderboard at all, please use a 0.2 modifier to my score.

Edited December 29, 2018 by NHunter

[RealKerbal3x]

Hmm, interesting. This will certainly give me a reason to explore Kerbin more! I think I'll have a go.

[NHunter]

Harvester Massif [transit time from Mesa South: 25minutes] (also, why a flyby worth more than land-and-photo here?)

Nye Island [transit time from Harvester Massif: 40 minutes]:

[Kerbalstar]

On 12/26/2018 at 12:25 PM, Klapaucius said:

Feel free to adapt anything you like. Or send some of the newbies over here. The challenge is in multiple parts, some quite easy, some much more challenging, so one can pick and choose.

Which one would you say is the hardest, and which one is the easiest? I might adapt something, now that you suggest it... (What I originally meant was to do this with the one where you build a stock helicopter. I couldn’t even get a pre-built one of the ground(although I’m sure I could if I read the instructions...  ), so that idea didn’t pan out, but I still look foward to doing this challenge!) Very nice challenge @Klapaucius!

[Klapaucius]

3 hours ago, NHunter said:

Harvester Massif [transit time from Mesa South: 25minutes] (also, why a flyby worth more than land-and-photo here?)

It is a bit arbitrary (like govt. departments ) but Harvester Massif is reasonably forgiving territory to land on. The biggest issue is getting there and back with enough fuel since it is quite far from the KSC. So I gave the further locations higher bonuses.  I also upped Mesa South simply due to altitude.

By the way, nice landing on Mesa South!  I landed on it once last year after I had just completed my first decent aircraft. It took me tons of tries.  I don't know if I would do better now, but STOL landings still make me nervous.  Don''t forget to take fly-by selfies as well (marketing loves these).  All pay bonuses are only official upon return to KSC, so take an image of that (if you forgot this time and already went back to KSC, that is fine).

Question, sorry for asking, but what are OPT parts?  And I am not sure what you want with the .2?

2 hours ago, Kerbalstar said:

Which one would you say is the hardest, and which one is the easiest? I might adapt something, now that you suggest it... (What I originally meant was to do this with the one where you build a stock helicopter. I couldn’t even get a pre-built one of the ground(although I’m sure I could if I read the instructions...  ), so that idea didn’t pan out, but I still look foward to doing this challenge!) Very nice challenge @Klapaucius!

The easiest is Baikerbanur. For beginners, you could simply do a navigate and land challenge there.  Otherwise, the difficulty is (as best I could) reflected in the bonuses on the chart. Higher paying fly-by's are farther from airports and require more fuel to go and return, requiring more efficient designs.  As for landing, the same is true--bonus reflects difficulty. Woomerang might be actually be more of a challenge to land on than Mesa South, but you could conceivably do a big rover mission. Mesa South is fly-in only.

Edited December 29, 2018 by Klapaucius

[NHunter]

39 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Question, sorry for asking, but what are OPT parts?  And I am not sure what you want with the .2?

I meant this:

And, well, those part are quite a bit more powerful than stock ones. Hence, the modifier to my score.

39 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

It is a bit arbitrary (like govt. departments ) but Harvester Massif is reasonably forgiving territory to land on. The biggest issue is getting there and back with enough fuel since it is quite far from the KSC. So I gave the further locations higher bonuses.

Don't you need to fly there anyway to land at Harvester Massif? But, yeah, it was the easier of landing I've had so far. Definitely easier than Mesa one - thankfully didn't need to reload, but it did take me 2 attempts to stop there properly (I ended up "landing" against the cliff side and then taxing to the flatter area where I could put the plane on breaks in order to disembark)

Edited December 29, 2018 by NHunter

[Klapaucius]

5 minutes ago, NHunter said:

Don't you need to fly there anyway to land at Harvester Massif? But, yeah, it was the easier of landing I've had so far. Definitely easier than Mesa one - thankfully didn't need to reload, but it did take me 2 attempts to stop there properly (I ended up "landing" against the cliff side and then taxing to the flatter area where I could put the plane on breaks in order to disembark)

The idea was that just getting there was the hardest part, so you don't get much more for landing. And the bonuses are added together. So, in the case of Harvester Massif, you get 1000 for getting there and an additional 500 if you put your plane down and get your Kerbal next to the dish, for a total bonus of 1500.

[NHunter]

28 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

The idea was that just getting there was the hardest part, so you don't get much more for landing. And the bonuses are added together. So, in the case of Harvester Massif, you get 1000 for getting there and an additional 500 if you put your plane down and get your Kerbal next to the dish, for a total bonus of 1500.

Ah, you add them. (well, in retrospect, that should've been obvious... silly me)

-----------------

Anyway... [Nye Island to Woomerang: transit time: 30 minutes]

I believe, the Woomerang Ground Station should be somewhere around here... Someone stole it!!!

Crater Rim [transit time from Woomerang: 30 minutes]

Edited December 29, 2018 by NHunter

[NHunter]

And here we go...

Baikerbanur [transit time from Crater Rim: 12 minutes]:

This abandoned space center is spooky. I had to reload a quicksave a few times here because I kept flying into invisible obstacles. And then there is no visible antenna dish, yet the ground station is fully functional. Planted a flag to prove that I went there.

North Station [transit time from Baikerbanur: 30 minutes]:

And, finally, back to KSC, home sweet home.

Mission accomplished!

credits earned: 
Mesa South Ground Station: 1400
Harvester Massif Ground Station: 100
Nye Island Ground Station: 100
Woomerang Ground Station: 1200
Crater Rim Ground Station: 800
Baikerbanur Space Center: 20
North  Ground Station: 200
Total: 3820

 

P.S. Bob expresses his dissatisfaction with being forced to go on a mission for measly 240 credits/hour 

P.P.S. I meant I earn only 20% of credits - NOT 20% less credits - for using my set of mods

Edited December 30, 2018 by NHunter

[Klapaucius]

9 minutes ago, NHunter said:

And here we go...

Baikerbanur [transit time from Crater Rim: 12 minutes]:

This abandoned space center is spooky. I had to reload a quicksave a few times here because I kept flying into invisible obstacles. And then there is no visible antenna dish, yet the ground station is fully functional. Planted a flag to prove that I went there.

North Station [transit time from Baikerbanur: 30 minutes]:

And, finally, back to KSC, home sweet home.

Mission accomplished!

credits earned: 
Mesa South Ground Station: 1400
Harvester Massif Ground Station: 100
Nye Island Ground Station: 100
Woomerang Ground Station: 1200
Crater Rim Ground Station: 800
Baikerbanur Space Center: 20
North  Ground Station: 200
Total: 3820

Crikey, you really penalized yourself!  I think you earned a few more bucks than that, especially for doing it one go.  But either way, thanks so much for being the first eager contestant. There will be a part 2 to this down the line.

 

PS. I see you have Modular Flight Integrator installed, since there is no dish at Baikerbanur either. (I forgot it affected that location as well.)  I first discovered the mod conflict with a really weird situation where I would suddenly explode while descending to Baikerbanur. It was as though there was an invisible box surrounding the area. Curiously, if I was on the ground and taxied at under 6 mp/s I could pass through (with a small fireball), but anything faster resulted in total destruction.  Oh, and the building was partially levitated.  It stopped that with one of the updates, but the dish still vanishes.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Klapaucius

[Kerbalstar]

6 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

 

The easiest is Baikerbanur. For beginners, you could simply do a navigate and land challenge there.  Otherwise, the difficulty is (as best I could) reflected in the bonuses on the chart. Higher paying fly-by's are farther from airports and require more fuel to go and return, requiring more efficient designs.  As for landing, the same is true--bonus reflects difficulty. Woomerang might be actually be more of a challenge to land on than Mesa South, but you could conceivably do a big rover mission. Mesa South is fly-in only.

2

Thanks!

[Klapaucius]

26 minutes ago, Kerbalstar said:

Thanks!

Just note (in case you did not see the small note I added above) if anyone has Modular Flight Integrator installed both the Woomerang and Baikerbanur radar dishes will disappear, though the rest of Baikerbanur will still be there.  After Baikerbanur, the easiest landings are probably Nye Island and Harvester Massif.  You can also land easily at the base of North Station and either take a long walk up, or--as I did the first time I ever visited there--land at the base and taxi your way up the hill 

The other three are very challenging landings.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Klapaucius

[Kerbalstar]

2 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Just note (in case you did not see the small note I added above) if anyone has Modular Flight Integrator installed both the Woomerang and Baikerbanur radar dishes will disappear, though the rest of Baikerbanur will still be there.  After Baikerbanur, the easiest landings are probably Nye Island and Harvester Massif.  You can also land easily at the base of North Station and either take a long walk up, or--as I did the first time I ever visited there--land at the base and taxi your way up the hill 

The other three are very challenging landings.

Thanks!

[TheFlyingKerman]

I sent out my fast recon plane just to see what I am up to... I am playing 1.3.1 so no Woomerang and no refueling stop.

Spoiler

North Station One

Baikerbanur(landed)

Crater Rim

Nye Island (landed)

Havester Massif

Mesa South

 

I'll see how to land on them...

 

[Klapaucius]

2 hours ago, TheFlyingKerman said:

I sent out my fast recon plane just to see what I am up to... I am playing 1.3.1 so no Woomerang and no refueling stop.

 

Awesome!  Feel free to use hyperedit for the Woomerang base if you want to use it as a refueling stop.

[Death Engineering]

Dish Inspection - Sortie One

This stock-parts aircraft is inspired by the Avro Arrow and features a similar two-crew cockpit design as the Arrow along with very high maneuverability but no where near the Arrow's top speed (over Mach 2), barely having the ability to break Mach 1 with afterburners on. It is, however, capable of insanely short take-off and landings and has very long range. This plane also has chutes to allow nearly zero length landings.

  Avro Arrow

 

DE-AB2 ("Death Engineering Afterburner x 2")

On this first sortie from KSC, the crew of Jeb as pilot and Bill handling the engineering work headed to North Station. This was a tricky landing and took a couple tries to get it right and was very thankful for bringing the chutes along! Leaving North Station was more like a launch, using the afterburners to leap off the high cliff adjacent to the dish.

North Station Inspection

After completing their inspection of North Station, the crew flew over the pole and set down at the Woomerang location for refueling and dish inspection. Once the tanks were topped off, the crew flew out to Nye Island then back to Woomerang for more fuel.

Woomerang Refueling

Since this was a relatively short flight, the crew lit up the afterburners to reduce flight time a bit, but the KSP J-404 "Panther" has no where near the thrust that the Arrow's Orenda Iroquois engines could provide. 

Nye Island Flyby

The next leg of the mission was to head from Woomerang to Crater Rim then Baikerbanur for inspections before setting off back to KSC on the longest continuous leg at 766km. This flight departed Woomerang at night in order to time the inspections during the day.

Crater Rim Inspection

As this is an earlier version of KSP (1.4.4), there is not the ability to select the alternate sites as places to take off from so refueling was done with save-editing. In this mission, flybys and flags adjacent to dish/inspections for: North Station, Woomerang, Nye Island, Crater Rim, and Baikerbanur earning 15,700 funds.

Baikerbanur Inspection

Full mission image album. The next sortie from KSC will involve even longer flights so the plane will be equipped with a fixed external tank, but might be a couple of days before that happens. Thanks to @Klapaucius for this interesting and unique challenge!

[Klapaucius]

Nice @Death Engineering. That was a pretty gnarly flyby of Crater Rim. Did you intend to get that close? 

 

I'll get the leaderboard updated soon. I've turned my own into a bit of an excuse to try out all my planes, so I have spent more time flying a fleet to the Dessert Airfield than doing inspections. But we have government funding, so it is all good...

Edited January 1, 2019 by Klapaucius