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The Elcano Challenge: Ground-Based Circumnavigation (4th)


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On 6/30/2022 at 5:13 AM, Zacspace said:

I messed with the wheel settings again and got the rover driving properly fast now. This'll be done in no time flat at 300+km/h

Honestly I never had a good experience with the big wheels. I usually gave up before touching all the settings... They always seemed to behave strangely for no reason. And I must not be the only one to think that ;)

But here you almost proved that it is possible to make a functional rover ! :o I'll wait to see your future adventures so that you can give us the best settings and only then I'll try again those damn wheels... :D

On 6/30/2022 at 1:44 PM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Beautiful morning on Laythe

What a beautiful ending! :heart_eyes:
Thanks for sharing all these moments, it was epic!
And congratulations, GRAND MASTER NAVIGATOR !

Spoiler

A trick to do with a geyser: put a kerbal in the middle, jump at the maximum moment of the eruption and activate the parachute at the right time!

Edited by Pouicpouic
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Congratulations to @Pouicpouic, @Zacspace, @Jack Joseph Kerman, and @damerell!  Leaderboards updated.  Some of the updated leaderboards were very short.

@Pouicpouic and @damerell added to the Moho leaderboard, a difficult planet to reach.  @Zacspace added to Eeloo, another planet which is difficult to reach.

And special congratulations are in order for @Jack Joseph Kerman, who became only the 4th player in the history of this challenge to achieve Grand Master Navigator!  The mission report was great, we can tell you went all-in on your Laythe entry.  Loved the extra new ships- especially the fireworks launcher, very appropriate!

@Pouicpouic appears to be very close to joining the Grand Master Navigator list, and @damerell appears to be positioned to do many more Elcano runs as well.

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Polar circumnavigation of Eve completed!

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This concludes an incredible 28 000 km adventure with the same rover. An Elcano grand tour!

Few people must have believed that it was possible when I started this challenge a few weeks ago. I admit that I didn't really believe it myself: there were so many possibilities to encounter a critical failure.

I had several moments of doubt:
- The KSC-Minmus transfer, for which I had to launch a new transfer-vessel (otherwise I probably would have succeeded this challenge in 1 launch)
- The Laythe-Pol transfer
- The atmospheric entry on Eve (I already knew that it was possible to land without heat shield, but not with exposed wheels)
- And a moment of doubt on Eve in the first third of the trip.

Spoiler

I chose a polar route to maximise the time on the ground (only 1 or 2% on the explodium sea)

Wait a minute?

On 6/22/2022 at 7:45 AM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

This run took a polar route as opposed to an equatorial one in order to maximize the amount of time I would be spending sailing in the oceans.

Oh yes, that makes sense :D

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Less than 20m/s on water, its better on land

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But it really depends on the biomes. The North Pole is really a hell! It is probably the most difficult place to access in the whole kerbol system (by land). I struggled for half an hour at 10m/s before deciding to go to sea and follow the coast.

And it's well before this pole that I thought my adventure was going to end here... no way to do 5km without breaking a wheel. Even at 15m/s the slightest shock was enough. And all the reloads didn't change anything. :huh:  And that's when I remembered a remark that saved me:

On 6/28/2022 at 12:50 AM, Pds314 said:

Usually timewarp instafixes it.

It was the perfect technique to fight against wheel fatigue. So I took a regular rhythm, every 25km (about 2° of latitude) stopped the rover, F5 and timewarp x5/x1 just to reset the position of all the parts.  But you have to be careful and watch visually the things moving: if there is an automatic save during the process it doesn't necessarily work.

Finally I had the right method and I could hope to do the rest. So most of the time I could ride between 35 and 65m/s and everything went pretty fast.

But one thing is sure: Eve is not soft on rover wheels. 

Hell in sight :

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The floor is slightly... yes, it's rubbish! :)

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Almost impossible to stop here

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Well, back below 83° it was already drivable at high speed

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Weird rock

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small lake

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Accelerate, brake, repeat

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The South Pole was much more accessible by land

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A passage ? If the North Pole is hell, maybe this is the way to heaven? :/

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Yes, I'm under the South Pole... :confused:

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but it's not paradise at all... quick quick, let's run away

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weird island

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28 000 km ! amazing

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I would have liked to have fireworks to celebrate this! But no... and everyone is stuck on Eve :D

--> we need a rescue mission :cool:

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Characteristics of the Grand-Tour:
- 2 launches (1 rover + 1 transfer vessel)
- Stock+, no mods, no ground warp (except Gilly)
- Chemical only (no nuclear, no xenon, no krakendrive, no RCS) --> 6 vectors, 2 wolfhounds
- No heat shield, but sufficient dv and parachutes
- 14 refueling with drill and ISRU
- 41 years 335 days IGT, 20 wheel repairs, about 100 reloads, 143.3 m/s top speed on Tylo
- approx 49.9m/s overall average speed while driving.

"One rover to rule them all" :D

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@Pouicpouic Congratulations on finishing the challenge! I see my status as the newest Elcano Grandmaster was pretty short-lived. I certainly wouldn’t have thought it was possible to drive around every planet with a single rover, especially given that mine literally broke down on Eeloo. 
 

About the fireworks, I’ve got some left over from the 4th of July, want to borrow some? :D

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55 minutes ago, Pouicpouic said:

I chose a polar route to maximise the time on the ground (only 1 or 2% on the explodium sea)

The Eve biome map on the Wiki suggests a slightly wiggly polar route wouldn't require getting my wheels wet at all. Am I missing something, or was it just easier for you to do short water crossings than to do the extra distance the wiggles would need? My rover isn't amphibious _at all_ so I fear this could be a bit of a problem.

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28 minutes ago, damerell said:

The Eve biome map on the Wiki suggests a slightly wiggly polar route wouldn't require getting my wheels wet at all. Am I missing something, or was it just easier for you to do short water crossings than to do the extra distance the wiggles would need? My rover isn't amphibious _at all_ so I fear this could be a bit of a problem

yes you are right it is possible to do everything without getting wet but: be careful at the poles (especially the north pole), the terrain is extremely chaotic... I thought I was going crazy before I saw that I was near the coast and that access was possible by the sea.
I simply avoided a few detours by passing sometimes through the water.

But yes, honestly it can largely be a problem for you (or maybe you can stay at more than 5° from the north pole to avoid this hell)

Spoiler

on the side where I arrived and from 87°N it is walls like that.

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Edited by Pouicpouic
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1 hour ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

especially given that mine literally broke down on Eeloo

Indeed I still have trouble understanding some of the problems you had. I may be wrong but the only noticeable difference between us is the time-warp while driving. Finally even on gilly I warped only when the rover was not touching the ground anymore. But that's probably not the point, idk? :/

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

I see my status as the newest Elcano Grandmaster was pretty short-lived.

It was very motivating to see your adventures in parallel ! ;)

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On 7/6/2022 at 9:33 AM, Pouicpouic said:

Polar circumnavigation of Eve completed!

Welcome to the very short list of Elcano Grand Masters!  And sincere congratulations to you and @Jack Joseph Kerman!  

On 7/6/2022 at 9:33 AM, Pouicpouic said:

Few people must have believed that it was possible

I admit I was among the doubters- very few of my rovers could have endured even two CBs, let alone all of them.  Completing the whole thing with a single rover is unique, you are the first to do that!

On 7/6/2022 at 9:33 AM, Pouicpouic said:

I chose a polar route to maximise the time on the ground

I actually found my rover was much safer on water on Eve.  I actually went a little out of my way to maximize time on the water.  Also, the poles on every CB in KSP are beyond difficult- you have to be very brave indeed to choose a polar route anywhere.  Especially on Eve!  I believe another recent Grand Master also did a few polar routes.  I'll tip my hat to both of you- the poles are serious rovering!

On 7/6/2022 at 9:33 AM, Pouicpouic said:

A passage ? If the North Pole is hell, maybe this is the way to heaven?

Ha!  Although you don't know until you look...

On 7/6/2022 at 9:33 AM, Pouicpouic said:

... and everyone is stuck on Eve

The crew I sent to do the Eve Elcano is still there..  That was a year or two ago.  I've told them they shouldn't hold their breath waiting for a recovery..

On 7/6/2022 at 10:21 AM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

I see my status as the newest Elcano Grandmaster was pretty short-lived.

It's still a very very short list.  The challenge has been going for 7 years now, there's only 5 names on the list.

On 7/6/2022 at 12:55 PM, Pouicpouic said:

It was very motivating to see your adventures in parallel !

I agree wholeheartedly!  It's been fun watching y'all blaze through every CB!  Congratulations again to both of you!

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2 hours ago, 18Watt said:

I admit I was among the doubters- very few of my rovers could have endured even two CBs, let alone all of them.  Completing the whole thing with a single rover is unique, you are the first to do that!

Among the millions of KSP players, there are maybe some who have already done all this without reporting to the community: I already know someone who made an Elcano circu on Duna and who never came to tell it. ;)

Spoiler

But it's true that I haven't seen anyone else put a kraken on the Mun arch for example :D

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No one could have known, but I must admit that I was not starting from scratch for this attempt. I have already experienced careers in hard level, built and tested dozens of rovers, and travelled hundreds of km with them.
About 2 years ago, I wanted to try a Jool 5 in rover (yes, only 1 rover to land and leave the 5 CBs). In 5 or 6 attempts I succeeded, which led me naturally to make a Grand-Tour in rover (lands on all CBs without circumnavigation)!

Spoiler

a kind of rover SSTE (no nuke, no xenon, 32wheels, drill and isru in the cargo-bays)

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You can start from the KSC and go anywhere in the Kerbol system with this "rover" :o And no, it is not possible to come back from Eve with that (Stories of real SSTE are quite recent)

After all these experiences, one of the hardest thing was to find a reliable way to be amphibious. :/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last night I found a lake on Eve. Interestingly, I was in the Shallows biome without actually being in the water. I'd kind of assumed the entire Shallows biome was at least somewhat wet. This thread seems like a good place to ask my fellow circumnavigators what it actually consists of.

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9 minutes ago, damerell said:

I was in the Shallows biome without actually being in the water.

I have seen that before, and don’t have a good explanation for it.  Best I can come up with is that biome boundaries don’t always occur where you would expect them to.

On several of my saves the ‘Shores’ biome on Laythe never had any ore, at all.  I often use boats powered by jet engines on Laythe, to replenish the LF I use ISRU drilling.  I found I had to get out of the ‘Shores’ biome to find ore- which often required driving several km inland.   In other words, the ‘Shores’ biome actually extended much farther than I would have thought.

Another possible explanation is that the terrain modeling has been changed slightly over the different versions.  It’s possible that the location of the water (or whatever is on Eve..) changed slightly, but the boundary of the ‘Shallows’ biome didn’t get adjusted accurately.

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On 7/17/2022 at 7:29 PM, damerell said:

This thread seems like a good place to ask my fellow circumnavigators what it actually consists of.

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Indeed the biomes are very badly adjusted : "expodium sea" at 300m. No sea in sight.

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Raising the unwelcome possibility that my planned dry route (well, the remaining 3/4 of it), planned entirely by taking a highres biome map and colouring all the dry biomes yellow and all the wet biomes black, might have some sea on it which thinks it's not sea. I guess I'll find out.

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I'm not done with this challenge yet! ;)

There are still some nice expeditions to do (Kerbin, Laythe and Eve circumnavigations by sea) and also some marks to set.
Future generations of speedrunners will need these marks to have the motivation to improve them.

So here's a reference: Circumnavigation of kerbin in 13h 23min 14sec IGT (by sea) :cool:

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So I guess it's conceivable to aim for the sub-2-day mark with a better craft.

Spoiler

Departure from the runway

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capable of :
>150m/s on land

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>78m/s in water (at 0° lat) and 83m/s at 45° latitude.

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These screenshots above are related to the 1st attempt but I restarted (forgot to empty the monopropellant... :/)

The gain of about 0.6m/s would save me less than 6 minutes in the end...

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Heading west, I saw 2 sunsets and only 1 sunrise.

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A good part of the journey was therefore at night.

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My route was calculated to be daylight when I reached the land portion (leaving just after solar noon from the KSC)

Sunrise

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I was a bit ahead of schedule. First land reached 1 day 2 hours IGT after the start. (i.e. 8 hours, whereas I had planned between 10 and 11 hours)

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Big lake

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small lake

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Around 30min to cross this section

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Second small land section reached just before 2days IGT (12h)

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Only ~9min to cross this section

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second sunset

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KSC in sight

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finish

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2d 1h 23m 14s !

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The craft contains 14 RTGs to continuously feed the 2 rotors at 460 RPM. (no time-warp from start to finish)

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Here is a graph with data from my screenshots :

Spoiler

It shows my water speed (between 78.6 and 83.1 m/s) as a function of latitude (between 0° and 45°). In red at night / In blue during the day / In green at sunrise
The variation in air temperature and density is therefore responsible for the differences encountered with the propellers.
If Kerbin's atmosphere is modelled according to the simplified NASA equations for Earth, then the pressure at ground level does not change much with latitude. On the other hand, air density would be at least 16% greater at the pole than at the equator.

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http://www.braeunig.us/space/pdf/Atmosphere_0-90.pdf

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7 hours ago, Pouicpouic said:

So here's a reference: Circumnavigation of kerbin in 13h 23min 14sec IGT

Nice!  For one of my Kerbin circumnavigations I used a jet powered boat.  It was capable of similar speeds, but I ended up cruising slower to save fuel.  Even going slower I still needed to refuel during the land crossing, using ISRU.  So I think my voyage took several days longer than yours.

7 hours ago, Pouicpouic said:

2 rotors at 460 RPM. (no time-warp from start to finish)

Just a suggestion, but have you tried RPMs less than 460?  I leave the limiter set to max (460), but can usually get more speed and efficiency by increasing blade angle until the RPMs drop to a lower value, like 330-390.  Also, yes I found that even 2X warp was too unstable to use with propellers, so I went with jets.  I think I need to take another look at doing a propeller boat run.

Unfortunately, I don’t think your latest run counts as a Sea circumnavigation, since you crossed the peninsula east of KSC.  But I’m pretty sure it’s the fastest circumnavigation of Kerbin so far.

 

23 hours ago, damerell said:

Raising the unwelcome possibility that my planned dry route (well, the remaining 3/4 of it), planned entirely by taking a highres biome map and colouring all the dry biomes yellow and all the wet biomes black, might have some sea on it which thinks it's not sea. I guess I'll find out.

I hope that turns out well!  I don’t remember if your Eve rover is amphibious or not- I need to look at the updates on your mission report thread.

Edit- just caught up on your thread, and I realized your ‘amphibious’ plan is to sink and drive on the bottom of lakes!  I have no idea how well that works, never tried it- but I suspect it could be painfully slow.  So I’m hoping you don’t find many unexpected bodies of water!

Also, I personally consider the terrain near the poles of every CB (except Kerbin) to be buggy.  They are the very definition of ‘buggy’.  I nearly choked when I realized you are trying to do Elcanos without quicksaving.  Even outside of polar regions there are too many glitches to count that can unexpectedly ruin your day.  In polar regions, all bets are off, the terrain is so buggy it seems like the ground is actively reaching up to squash your rover.  
 

Edited by 18Watt
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I think my main plan is not to go near any water but if, eg, I have a river to cross I expect to be able to get through it.

The basic trouble with the no-quicksaving thing is - if I knock bits off the rover and carry on with what's left, that's a fun and interesting challenge. If I roll the rover upside down and through luck or judgement I can self-right it, that's also fun and rewarding. If I get 2/3 of the way around Eve and just get it stuck on its back, gah!

Possibly I should shell for Breaking Ground to use its parts to be able to re-right. DockRotate is great at what it does but doesn't do anything else; IR seems to be in some kind of dependency hell in 1.9.

Oh! Another possibility (with more forward planning or a return to the mothership to wait out the delivery time) would have been to have sent multiple rover landers. Get 2/3 of the way around and flip the rover, OK, drop another rover at the same spot. I think that answers that question, tiresome as the extraction and return to Eve will be.

Edited by damerell
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1 hour ago, damerell said:

Possibly I should shell for Breaking Ground to use its parts to be able to re-right.

I enjoy the BG parts, and highly recommend it.  That said, I found the robotics parts to be not as practical at flipping rovers than I thought.  In addition to not really being as effective at that task as I had hoped, you also end up with additional parts which add weight, are sometimes cumbersome, and can break.

Except for Eve and Tylo, rovers can be righted using the extremely overpowered reaction wheels, or reasonably powered RCS thrusters.  (Yes, I know I’m bringing up a sore subject with RCS…).  Anyway, I do like the BG pack, but I personally did not find the robotics components very helpful as rover-righting devices.

Edit- Being reluctant to use quick saves is noble.  No, I take that back- on Elcano runs it’s insanely brave.  My opinion is there is a difference between using quick saves to correct your errors, and using them to correct glitches in KSP.  And there’s plenty of glitches, much more so when operating in polar regions.  As you know.

Edited by 18Watt
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7 hours ago, 18Watt said:

Unfortunately, I don’t think your latest run counts as a Sea circumnavigation, since you crossed the peninsula east of KSC

I am sad to hear that the passage through the peninsula disqualifies me for the entry by sea. It's only 1.1% of the trip in duration.
But okay, I accept it, so I'll have to make another regular attempt ! :D

7 hours ago, 18Watt said:

but can usually get more speed and efficiency by increasing blade angle until the RPMs drop to a lower value, like 330-390

A better efficiency (less power consumption) that would seem logical to me but I confess that I have difficulty understanding for a better speed?
I would do some tests to see, thanks for the comment.

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5 hours ago, 18Watt said:

I enjoy the BG parts, and highly recommend it.  That said, I found the robotics parts to be not as practical at flipping rovers than I thought.  In addition to not really being as effective at that task as I had hoped, you also end up with additional parts which add weight, are sometimes cumbersome, and can break.

Except for Eve and Tylo, rovers can be righted using the extremely overpowered reaction wheels, or reasonably powered RCS thrusters.  (Yes, I know I’m bringing up a sore subject with RCS…).  Anyway, I do like the BG pack, but I personally did not find the robotics components very helpful as rover-righting devices.

Thanks, that's interesting to know and will save me a bit of money IRL.

The Mk VII's reaction wheel is undersized for this kind of thing, but I found on Moho (and so I suspect any lower gravity world) Dockrotating the anti-roll arm would eventually jiggle the rover into an orientation where RCS+wheel would right it. Unfortunately Eve and Tylo are only two worlds but they're quite a high proportion of the distance. :-)

RCS not a sore subject at all - I gave up 20 degrees progress on Moho and got what seems to be a slightly better rover design out of it.

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On 7/20/2022 at 11:30 AM, Pouicpouic said:

Future generations of speedrunners will need these marks to have the motivation to improve them.

So here's a reference: Circumnavigation of kerbin in 13h 23min 14sec IGT (by sea) :cool:

Challenge accepted.

Spoiler

After a few design tweaks, this is what I came up with.  Powered by 4 rotors and 16 RTGs.  Speed on water is about 139 m/s.  On land, I have no idea how fast it will go.  Anything over 100 m/s on land is scary and risky.

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Sunrise shortly after leaving KSC.  It's the only sunrise I'll see this trip.

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After one hour:

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After 2 hours:

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At 3 hours I'm passing through the straits west of KSC.

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4 hours:

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Reached the land bridge at 4:40 into the trip.

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It's capable of 170 m/s+ on land.  Honestly, I rarely went above 100 m/s, because it had a tendency to lose control during landings.

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At 5 hours I'm nearly across the land bridge.

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Here's some more shots:

Spoiler

At higher latitudes I was able to get 143 m/s.

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One day (6 hours) into the trip:

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7 hours:

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8 hours, just dropped the last marker, KSC is in sight.

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Parked at KSC, 1d 2:07.  

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I'm really not sure how fast this will go on land, probably need to take it to the North Pole to find out.  During this test run I hit 207 m/s before running out of runway.  But I think it could go faster- just not safely.

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8 hours 7 minutes.

Edit:  I should share some design notes:

  • The KAL reminds me to drop a KerbNet marker every 1200s (20 minutes).
  • The vertical fins are mainly to add stability.  On water, they are locked at 0 degrees.  On land I free them up to aid in yaw control.
  • The horizontal fins were originally intended to aid in pitch balance.  However, at speed (130-140 m/s) on water, the ideal setting was 0 degrees.  So I just left them locked in that position.  But theoretically if I had pitch issues, I could use them to trim the boat out.  
  • The lights turned out to be useless:  They don't illuminate water at all, and I timed my run so that it was daylight when I crossed the land bridge.  Oh well, better to have them and not need them...
  • Max speed occurred at 460 RPM (on water).  That means I could have done a little better with more propeller blades.  I have 8 blades per rotor (32 total).  One modification I'd like to try is adding blades, maybe 12 or 16 blades per rotor, see what happens.
  • I used the medium landing gear.  Although the vessel is extremely light, I almost never use the small landing gear.  My rule of thumb is whatever size landing gear 'looks about right', use the next bigger size.  These worked well.
  • During my last speed run down the runway, I tried to get it airborne at the end.  I wasn't able to keep it in the air, but I forgot to unlock the horizontal fins.  
Edited by 18Watt
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6 hours ago, 18Watt said:

8 hours 7 minutes.

Amazing ! :o This one is set to stay for a while (probably) ! Well done !

So the next milestone would be a sub 1 day trip ?

6 hours ago, 18Watt said:

Max speed occurred at 460 RPM (on water)

Only on water? So you confirm that it is possible to get a top speed below 460 RPM on land?

7 hours ago, 18Watt said:

I was able to get 143 m/s.

Does Valentina still have all her hair?  :D

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2 hours ago, Pouicpouic said:

Only on water? So you confirm that it is possible to get a top speed below 460 RPM on land?

Not yet.  I need to test some more, and won’t have a chance for a few weeks.  I’m starting to think that is more of a factor at much higher speeds, like 250 m/s+.  I ran out of runway before I was able to play around with it.

2 hours ago, Pouicpouic said:

Does Valentina still have all her hair?  :D

Yes, but her teeth are covered with bugs now.

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