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

[18Watt]

12 hours ago, Sp1f said:

Hello comrades!

Welcome to the forums, great first post!

I’m looking forward to adding you to the leaderboard!  

[Sp1f]

Mun circumnavigation complete! This will be a "stock craft" entry with only a few visual mods.

In this career mode playthrough, I am trying to savor the early game by really exploring the Mun properly. To that end, in the weeks before destiny showed me this forum topic, I built a nice orbital station, complete with a general purpose rover for science collection and missions on Mun or Minmus. I call it the Gnat.

Spoiler

 

For the purposes of the challenge, here are some screenshots of the Gnat launching. I did launch from the KSC and fly it properly to the Mun - that just happened a week or so before I heard of the Elcano challenge. I originally intended the Gnat to just be used for light duty science collection and career contract running on the Mun and Minmus. It had already made one landing and 20km rove and I liked how it had handled. So when I heard of the Elcano challenge, I decided to give it a try with the rover I already had.

Spoiler

launching from KSC

 

upper atmosphere

 

burning for mun

 

The Gnat was intended as a part of the whole Mun/Minmus exploration package I called the Munar Gateway Station. Here she is docked at her berth before the mission.

Spoiler

Arriving on the Mun:

Spoiler

Leaving the Space Crane at the landing site and proceeding to the start line:

Spoiler

Placing a flag at the start line:

Some fun pictures of milestones on the way:

Spoiler

getting started

paying our respects

care package near the south pole, repair parts and some minor modifications to the rover.

found this by chance. weird spatial anomaly is visible that i see sometimes on the mun

After 27 days of driving when I could find the time, Bill and Dofrod finalled arrived at the finish line by the great arch. All the other Kerbals had come to celebrate.

Circle of flags:

Spoiler

Heading back home to the Munar Gateway Station to repair and prep the Gnat for Minmus:

Spoiler

 

[18Watt]

21 hours ago, Sp1f said:

Mun circumnavigation complete!

Leaderboards have been updated, congratulations!

Spelling 'Yay Bill' on the panels of the lander was a nice touch.  I have found docking rovers to rockets on the surface to be very challenging.  Your delivery and recovery sky crane setup looks great.

Again, welcome to the forums!

[MinimalMinmus]

Okay, I have come back from my holidays, and it seems that setting friction to its maximum mostly fixes wheels, otherwise it's like I'm driving on buttersticks. This means this elcano will come to an end successfully, I think.

[MinimalMinmus]

Teaser!

 

[MinimalMinmus]

Alright, enough procrastination!

Minmus Elcano, aka Fast on a Blue Moon

Spoiler

We're back to an Elcano, with the brand new Centipede Mark Two! As expected it's much sturdier than the mark one, but you go so fast on Minmus, the fore is a weakness anyways.

Touchdown in the Great Flats

Our team:

Let's get going!

Casually jumping higher than the Empire State Building...

In a Flat, an old flag is found.

Pushing the wheels to their absolute maximum, I reach one third of the orbital speed, not bad...

From the Flats to the Highlands, let's find that monolith!

The Greenolith conveniently spawned close to the Equator.

We are moving much, much faster than Minmus spins, so it's not suprising we end up running out of light.

We still find the fixed monolith.

Another flat, another flag.

Uh... how did that happen? Did I accidentally destroy all light in the Universe?

One sixth of Minmus to go

Just a bit further!

Done!

Obligatory photo:

And now we get going.

This will never get old...

Not that much science was left, but hey, not gonna complain. The real science is the rocks you've treaded on on the way, or something like that, dunno.

Ring of flag! No Elcano 5 because I am a derp who cannot count.

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by MinimalMinmus

[18Watt]

38 minutes ago, MinimalMinmus said:

Ring of flag! No Elcano 5 because I am a derp who cannot count.

That made me laugh!  If I had a nickel for every time I’ve done that...

At some point in the past, the game stopped providing me with an unlimited supply of flags.  So I started marking progress with KerbNet markers.  I still like flags better.   But it did cause me to change how I name waypoints.

I label my waypoints now with the basic lat/long (ex. 05N060W).  That has reduced the number of waypoints I mis-label, but I still think dropping flags as you go is a more elegant way of doing it.

I’ll get your latest run added to the leaderboards soon, great post!

[IvanSanchez]

So, literally years after my mun circumnavigation, I've finally done a Duna one.

This is with modded KSP 1.11 in my career game, with a bunch of mods - notably SSPX and most of near-future. There are a few screenshots at https://imgur.com/a/WYWog6i .

The trip includes a 200-meter-long interplanetary ship, carrying 6 kerbals, plus a 16-ton rover with a SSPX greenhouse and a 20-ton crew land/ascent ship in a coaxial configuration (with help of some 5m annular saddle trusses). The rover lands by itself, then the crew land on the land/ascent ship, rover goes rendezvous the lander, all 6 crew transfers to the rover. All 6 crew then go on to visit all of Duna's anomalies and most of its biomes, ending up at the ascent ship to get back to the 200-meter mothership in orbit.

My SCAN BTDT shows the path taken quite nicely:

[18Watt]

10 hours ago, IvanSanchez said:

So, literally years after my mun circumnavigation, I've finally done a Duna one.

Nicely done!  Entry added to the leaderboards.

[TRAPPIST-1E]

If i install this mod

Spoiler

https://spacedock.info/mod/2672/KSP_PartVolume

for just one part of the mission and uninstall it right after, does it count as modded

[18Watt]

5 minutes ago, TRAPPIST-1E said:

for just one part of the mission and uninstall it right after, does it count as modded

Yes, that would be a modded entry. 

[TRAPPIST-1E]

NVM, i messed up lithobraking and did not quicksave

 

[18Watt]

Eeloo circumnavigation complete!  The last one!  

Well, this has taken a very long time, but I have finally completed a circumnavigation of every stock celestial body in KSP.   Since @Fengist posted the original Elcano challenge, in March of 2015, only two players have completed a circumnavigation of every stock CB- I'm the third.  It's not quite 5 pm, but I'm having an adult beverage anyway.

Getting There:

Spoiler

The delivery ship in the VAB.  Taking two rovers, although I only need one.

Sitting on the launchpad.  It's a night launch because that's when the first window to Minmus was, I like to launch directly into Minmus's inclination.

Refueling on Minmus.

Not sure what I'm doing here- looks like I'm in solar orbit, burning to get to Jool, where I'll refuel again.

Refueling on Pol.

After two refueling, I finally reach orbit around Eeloo.  And have plenty of fuel.  I probably could have skipped the refuel stop at Bop.

De-orbit burn at Eeloo.

Obviously not the most efficient descent, but I have a lot of fuel, and am being extra careful.

On the surface of Eeloo.  Sliding across the surface at 0.1 m/s.

The Drive:

Spoiler

Starting out.  To get the rovers to the surface, I just decouple them, and let them plop down.  The rovers are pretty sturdy.  They should handle a fall from 20 m no problem.

54 m/s was workable, although at 3X warp I usually traveled at 30-45 m/s.

Here's a shot at 3X physics warp.  For me, bad things seem to happen at 4X warp, so 3X is as high as I normally go.

I think this was my first flat tire.  The two containers on the back of the rover are full of repair kits.

Shot showing my progress.  I drop a KerbNet marker every 30 degrees of longitude to mark my path.  I traveled along the equator, +/- 5 degrees latitude.

Might as well collect some science while I'm here.

Another shot of my progress.  I'm a little over halfway around.

Here's a shot of the front of the rover.  It's very basic.

Almost there!  I'm within 55 km of the mothership, and got a flat tire.  In case it's hard to tell in the screenshot, the left rear tire is broken.

So, the engineer got out and used a couple more repair kits.

Getting real close!

Back where I started.

Here's a shot of the markers I left:

[MythicalHeFF]

My Tylo circumnavigation is complete, and I've written an extensive mission report about it in this thread: 

 

The thread isn't currently completely finished. but I plan to write the remaining log entries in the next couple of days.

The craft is completely stock and no visual mods were used. Only took me 22 days of driving to complete, as it turns out that while big rovers look cool, they're not particularly practical.  

A little album I made showing the highlights of the mission:

Spoiler

Launch of descent stage

Launch of Odyssey proper

Transfer

Rendezvous

Docked!

The planting of the first flag after landing

SCIENCE!

Uphill battle

Visual bugs

Climbing Mt. Kerlington

More driving

Fixing wheels

The North Pole

Party!

Leaving North Pole

Picking up some serious speed

Casually breaking half my power supply

Landing of the Tylo Ascent Vehicle, which I forgot to screenshot the launch of...

 

More rolling hills

Jump

Taking a rest for the night

Entering the dark spot where the Tylo Cave is located

First visual on the cave

Preparing a probe to send more repair kits to the Odyssey, which is running low on them

Launch

Launch of extra crew module for the KSS Hampton, a ship that I used to capture a class D asteroid to build a space station around. The Hampton will be used to take the crew home from Tylo once their mission is complete.

Reconfigurations

Refueling

Exploring the cave!

Placing science experiments did not go as planned..

And.. teleportation?

More cave photos

Ground science

Leaving Tylo Cave

Driving around a crater rim

Another dark spot, located near the point on Tylo facing directly away from Jool

Halfway there!

More boring hills

Almost out of repair kits

Ditching the Mountaineer to save weight

Casually got flung several football fields away

The back is looking pretty jacked up now

Putting the mission on hold to deliver the repair kits and get the Hampton to Tylo

Gravity assist

Landing the resupply probe

Continuing on

Valley with some pretty nice scenery

Mountaineering

10,000!

 Back downhill

Joolrise

The South Pole

North again

The interior of the Odyssey has suffered some pretty serious structural damage by this point.

Lost a bunch of wheels going up a mountain, meaning I now only have 23 of the originally 28 wheels.

500 km left

Powering up a steep hill

Picking up SERIOUS speed!

200 km to go

The final obstacle: the crater rim

Ascent vehicle in the distance

The Finish Line!

Final parking

The Hampton approaching Jool

Tylo orbit insertion

Boarding the Ascent Vehicle

Powering down the Odyssey for the last time

Liftoff!

Rendezvous

Boarding the Hampton

Kerbin return trajectory

Ejection burn

Kerbin orbit insertion

Detaching the crew module with the Odyssey crew

Re-entry

Splashdown!

 

[18Watt]

That is truly amazing!  That's not a rover, that's a Walmart Supercenter on wheels!!!  Getting something that big to the surface of Tylo is epic!

1 hour ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

as it turns out that while big rovers look cool, they're not particularly practical.

Yeah, but sometimes looking cool takes priority over practicality.  

1 hour ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Visual bugs

That made me laugh right out loud!  I get that bug sometimes too.  At first it was annoying, especially when it was messing up my screenshots.  Now I just shrug.  Glad someone else is getting that visual bug too.

1 hour ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

The North Pole

Oh boy, I should have put a warning in the challenge rules to be careful at the poles!  It appears you were familiar with the hazards of operating at the poles, and lived to tell the tale!

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Jump

I gotta ask, how does a Walmart Supercenter handle jumps?

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Almost out of repair kits

For the tiny rovers I use I usually get away with 4-8 repair kits.  I imagine you used repair kits like my kids use ketchup.

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

The interior of the Odyssey has suffered some pretty serious structural damage by this point.

I think using physics warp accelerates the distortion.  For me, as long as it doesn't affect the functionality of the rover I'm fine with it.  When part placement is critical it becomes a problem.  The rotors/propellers I used on Eve started sagging, in danger of hitting the ground or water.  Just one of those things that happens on an Elcano run.  Elcano runs are truly brutal on rovers.  And shopping centers.

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Lost a bunch of wheels going up a mountain, meaning I now only have 23 of the originally 28 wheels.

Just think of the weight you saved!  And you'll use less electricity too!

2 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Powering down the Odyssey for the last time

Nice run!  I propose the Odyssey be designated a national landmark.  That was really impressive!

It looks (to me) like that was a 100% stock entry?  That's how I'm planning on entering it.  Please advise if it should be in a different category.

[MythicalHeFF]

27 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

That made me laugh right out loud!  I get that bug sometimes too.  At first it was annoying, especially when it was messing up my screenshots.  Now I just shrug.  Glad someone else is getting that visual bug too.

Yeah, that big was pretty amusing at first but it later got annoying. However, I later discovered that you can fix it by just opening the EVA construction menu again,

27 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

I gotta ask, how does a Walmart Supercenter handle jumps?

It handles them surprisingly well, actually. As long as I didn’t go face-first into an uphill slope, no wheels broke at all up to 50 m/s. Above that speed, though, and you’re playing risky games. I did crash the Supercenter pretty hard a few times and had to reload the save.  

27 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

For the tiny rovers I use I usually get away with 4-8 repair kits.  I imagine you used repair kits like my kids use ketchup.

Yeah, about the repair kits.. hoo boy. I stacked an entire 2.5m container and a half full of them thinking that would be plenty, but it turns out wheels sometimes just do whatever they want and break, Of course, I was responsible for the damage most of the time. Including the extras brought by the resupply probe, I easily used over 100. Probably somewhere in the 120-150 range.

27 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

I think using physics warp accelerates the distortion.  For me, as long as it doesn't affect the functionality of the rover I'm fine with it.   Elcano runs are truly brutal on rovers.  And shopping centers.

I didn’t actually use any physics warp at all for the entire mission, as I couldn’t; doing so caused the wheels to gib out and break, so that was a no-go. The distortion didn’t affect the Odyssey’s functionality in any way except for the fact that it eventually sealed the rover garage shut, meaning that I had to get rid of the Mountaineer as it was dead weight. By the end of the trip, the Odyssey had pretty much had it. I made a newer version that I posted on KerbalX which has more struts to avoid this problem. 
https://kerbalx.com/MythicalHeFF/Odyssey-3

27 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

Just think of the weight you saved!  And you'll use less electricity too!

It looks (to me) like that was a 100% stock entry?  That's how I'm planning on entering it.  Please advise if it should be in a different category.

I guess I saved weight, but in doing so my already abysmal uphill climbing abilities were severely compromised. Wasn’t fun. 
This entry was 100% stock; I had no mods installed whatsoever for the entire duration of the run. Thanks for the compliments by the way, I’ve been really eager to get this mission finished so I could post it here.

EDIT: By the way, how do I put badges and things on my profile that people can see on my posts? (i.e.the Tylo Circumnavigator badge) I’ve been on the forums for 4 and a half years and never bothered to ask.

Edited November 12, 2021 by Jack Joseph Kerman

[18Watt]

7 hours ago, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

By the way, how do I put badges and things on my profile that people can see on my posts? (i.e.the Tylo Circumnavigator badge) I’ve been on the forums for 4 and a half years and never bothered to ask.

Paste a link to the image to your signature in account settings.  It's not in your profile info, which is where I thought it would be.

• Find the badge you're looking for- most challenges have them displayed in the first post.
• Copy the link to that image.  For me (Mac) I right-click on the image, and look for 'copy link' or something similar.  
• Click on your user-name in the top right of the forum page, and select 'Account Settings'.
• In Account Settings, you'll find the 'Signature' menu item, on the left somewhere.
• With your cursor in the signature box, Paste (Ctrl-V) the link.
• Profit!

Note that the KSP forum does not actually store images.  Any images displayed are links to sites like Imgur.  The badges for Kerpollo are stored on Imgur, you just need to copy the link to that image and paste it to your signature, not the image itself.  If that makes sense.

Here's one to practice with..

[MythicalHeFF]

28 minutes ago, 18Watt said:

Paste a link to the image to your signature in account settings.  It's not in your profile info, which is where I thought it would be.

• Find the badge you're looking for- most challenges have them displayed in the first post.
• Copy the link to that image.  For me (Mac) I right-click on the image, and look for 'copy link' or something similar.  
• Click on your user-name in the top right of the forum page, and select 'Account Settings'.
• In Account Settings, you'll find the 'Signature' menu item, on the left somewhere.
• With your cursor in the signature box, Paste (Ctrl-V) the link.
• Profit!

 

Got it working, thanks! I see it's basically just like posting a screenshot, which I've done literally hundreds of times now, but in Account Settings. I didn't know where to look before, I thought maybe I could just search my profile but didn't think about the account settings themselves.

[Scarecrow71]

And here we go with the start of my entry into the Elcano Challenge.  Hitting up Minmus first; I posted my progress through today in the "What Did You Do In KSP Today" thread, which I have linked here.  I'll be adding posts here as I get more progress.

 

[18Watt]

11 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And here we go with the start of my entry into the Elcano Challenge. 

Nice start, and welcome to Elcano!

I like the lander arrangement, you have a ship to take you home too!

One note- I see you are headed north.  If you are really brave, and try to visit either of the poles, QUICKSAVE a lot.  The poles are worth seeing once, but there is a very high risk of getting destroyed there.  That applies to all CBs- stay away from the poles unless you’re really brave.  Cue ominous music…

[Scarecrow71]

1 minute ago, 18Watt said:

Nice start, and welcome to Elcano!

I like the lander arrangement, you have a ship to take you home too!

One note- I see you are headed north.  If you are really brave, and try to visit either of the poles, QUICKSAVE a lot.  The poles are worth seeing once, but there is a very high risk of getting destroyed there.  That applies to all CBs- stay away from the poles unless you’re really brave.  Cue ominous music…

Why must I go to the poles?

[Scarecrow71]

And I made it to the North Pole today.

Man is this slow.  Like, painfully slow.  At this rate it will take me ~1 more week to get back to my starting location at Vision II.

[18Watt]

41 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Man is this slow.  Like, painfully slow.

Yup.

Couple of tips for speed:

• First, speed isn’t always a good thing- becomes more likely to explode.
• The TR-2L Ruggedized wheels are capable of speeds up to almost 60 m/s.  Not that you want to go that fast, especially on Minmus.  The wheels you are using only drive up to about 25 m/s.  That’s probably a safer speed on Minmus..
• Not sure if you knew this or not, but you can activate Physics Warp while rovering. 

Physics Warp is not the same as normal warp.  As it’s name implies, physics still happens during physics warp.  It can be activated by holding the Modifier key (Option key on Macs, Left Alt key on PCs I think) while pressing the Warp increase button.

Physics warp is either 1X (normal), 2X, 3X, or 4X.  A word of caution, traveling under physics warp greatly increases the odds of your rover exploding.  The higher the warp, the worse things get.

I actually design my rovers specifically to be somewhat resistant to using physics warp.  Even so, I often find that I can only safely use 3X physics warp at max.  And I back off my speed a little too.  
QUICKSAVE before trying physics warp!!!

[Scarecrow71]

I will not exceed 10.5 m/s on Minmus; I've flipped 8ver and exploded too many times doing so already.  I may try the physics warp to see if I can get through this a bit faster, though.

[Scarecrow71]

I am now about half-way through traversing Minmus.  Very slow going.  I cannot use physics warp any longer on Minmus; I have found that the game will randomly turn the wheels sharply, causing me to spin uncontrollably until I land completely upside down, spilling Bob from the rover and then the rover exploding - or, in one odd case, spinning off into space.  This means that I have to literally sit here FOR HOURS watching the rover move.  Sigh.