The starry heavens above me, a sturdy rover enclosing me; Slate circumnavigation

[king of nowhere]

Ever since I decided, early in my first career, that the best way to fulfill two survey contracts would be to drive a rover 600 km on Mun, I discovered that I like driving rovers, in an odd way. There is a sense of peace in cruising across the vast expanse towards your destination. And there is the sightseeing. And the sense of accomplishment in a work well done, when your capable rover performs well. Several of my missions then included long stretches of driving, whether from trying to reach every biome on the moons of Jool, or from looking for the green monoliths on every planet.

A few months ago I was deep into my A'Tuin mission, an extended OPM grand tour. A wonderful mission, but very long and very taxing. I was four months into it, and still needing more months to complete, and I wanted a pause. So I stumbled on @Jack Joseph Kerman's excellent Tylo circumnavigation mission, and it hit all my major appeals: large, overengineered rovers, magnificent visuals, adventure. I decided to do a similar mission on my own. It's been my secondary mission for the last three months, I've been engaging it occasionally whenever I needed a rest from my main missions. 

As a target, I picked Slate, from the OPM package. Slate is a moon of Sarnus, the kerbalized version of Saturn, and it struck me when I visited it in my A'Tuin mission a month earlier; here was a moon with valleys, mountains, canyons, it was a super duper interesting place. And Sarnus in the sky, magnificent. It also had high gravity and very irregular topography, though. The rover I was using at the time, the Horseshoe, needed to be able to land and take off on its own; as a result, wheel power was sacrificed, and it was unable to move around much on the bumpy moon. I would have liked to spend more time on Slate, but I had to leave - and let's not forget the kerbalism-added radiation belts, and the fact that my rover had broken life support and could not stay on its own for more than ten hours.

I decided, this time I'd do it justice

 

Part 1: Rover and mission

The most important part of such a mission is always to design a good rover. Technically, anything capable of moving will do. But in practice, you want something that's fun to drive. This generally means good performance and good looks.

This time I didn't need a rover that could land and take off on its own power. I didn't need to make a light craft to carry around with a mothership. And I was inspired by @Jack Joseph Kerman's rover, which was anything but practical. So I wondered what would be fun to bring on a rover. And so Tamarromobile was born.

Sightseeing was a major part of the mission, so I took multiple command pods with good IVA views, I wondered "which one of those should I use?", and the obvious answer was "all of them".

I mounted the cupola on top of a rotating servo, to provide a mobile panoramic platform. Including an action key to rotate; there are some high towers around the world with rotating panoramic decks, I wanted to reproduce the idea.

I also used 18 illuminators for night driving, and multiple lights around the rover to make it look good. The name Tamarromobile, roughly translatable as Pimpmobile, comes from the garish look of those lights.

Of course, since I am set to driving this on a very difficult planet, I also needed to make it functional. And I learned that to drive on a bumpy place, you need wheel power, to propel you uphill. So I took some trusses moving away from the rover, to have a high stability, and I fit 36 wheels onto the frame - I'd have used more, but I ran out of space.

The resulting rover is one of the most fun I ever made. It has exceptional stability (it can cut across steep cliffs, and the only times I did capsize it has been falling into craters), good acceleration, and it can climb reasonably steep slopes. 10 degrees are easy, it can go up 15 degrees with difficulty, for higher slopes it needs to start switchbacking. Well, when you want to carry a full observation deck and a Mk3 passenger bay for no other reason that it looks cool, of course peformance isn't going to be the same.

For power, I used 16 advanced RTGs from near future electrics (equivalent to 64 stock RTGs) and 14k electrical charge capacity. As a testament to how difficult Slate can be, Tamarromobile still managed to run out of electricity during some particularly hard mountain passages.

Tamarromobile has 130 parts and weights 47 tons.

 

An Elcano challenge doesn't have any special requirements on how to get there - if I recall correctly, you can even alt-f12 your rover there, as long as you then perform the circumnavigation. But I decided to do a real mission, with a launch from Kerbin. Since that was too easy, I also decided I'd do a single launch, and I wouldn't use nuclear engines.

I didn't want to create a new KSP folder to change the mods, so I resolved to leave kerbalism there; but I set 0% chance of critical malfunctions (so that nothing could broke that an engineer could not fix) and 100% shielding efficiency, so that radiations wouldn't bother me. At this point, the only concessions I had to make to the harsh mod was to add a couple tons in radiation shielding and some food containers.

Edited October 21, 2023 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 2: Launch and cruise

Tamarromobile doesn't have to be encumbered by rockets, but I still needed to land it on Slate, hence it needed a sky crane of some sort. This brought up the weight to about 80 tons. Then it needed a way for the crew to leave Slate. Then it needed a way to return to Kerbin. And all that stuff would need to be sent to Slate in the first place. And that transfer vehicle, in turn, would need to be launched from Kerbin. So, all in all, it was still a big launch; not as big as the DREAM BIG or A'Tuin, but not much smaller.

Tamarromobile also requires an oversized fairing. It weights 50 tons alone

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Main engines are 12 mammoths, but there are 8 vectors to increase thrust and four darts that would be in the last stage but can be ignited immediately, and so why not?

I'm not really sure what went wrong here. Especially since it happened months ago. But sure the vector booster punching through the fairing looks good

First stage separation

So far, so good. Though it took me several hours of trial and error to make the launcher works, in the end it flies good. Despite that ridiculous oversized fairing. 12 mammoths are enough to make up for the drag.

Second stage burning. Now that the atmosphere is thinner, the rhino of the third stage is also ignited

Second stage also jettisoned. Now igniting the wolfhounds on the cruise stage

Soon atmosphere will clear for the big piece: the fairing

It unfolds like a lotus blossom

Seen from the Mk1 cockpit

Seen from the cupola

Seen from the Mk3 cockpit

And from the Kerbin reentry pod

Yes, I did reload the game to take pics of the fairing unfolding from multiple perspectives. I have a lot more pictures, actually.

The ship complex seen from the reentry pod

And from the cupola, pointed rearwards

At this point I realize I haven't yet shown what's inside the fairing. So I went back and took a schematics

Tamarromobile full mission ship

That bunch of fuel tanks at the bottom are to reach Sarnus, which is very expensive - I was actually surprised by how expensive it is from Kerbin, because I was used to grand tours where I move between gas giants with very little cost. But of course, moving from an inner to an outer planet is a lot more expensive than moving between two close planets. I included a rhino engine so I won't have to split the burn in several manuevers. The rhino will then be jettisoned, for reduced weight; there will be no more high thrust manuevers after leaving Kerbin.

The cruise stage then has fuel and the food containers for the long trip, which includes arriving at Sarnus, capturing, and circularizing around Slate; all in all, it's easily over 1500 m/s. Once around Slate, the ship will release two relay satellites; those are very simple, made of just 3 parts: the dish, a probe core, and an RTG. Then Tamarromobile will be landed by its sky crane; except that I could not stick a sky crane in the center because there was the observation deck there, so I had to make two asymmetric sky cranes. But the system works. Then I also land the Slate ascent vehicle, a lightweight rocket with only the four seats for the crew, which will be used to return to orbit. Then I have the return stage, which will act as living room for the return trip - this time it will be ion powered, the ion engines are visible under the relay sats. Finally, the Kerbin reentry pod has a thermal shield and is made to resist high speed reentry.

To save some fuel, I'll take a gravity assist from Jool

Not the most efficient, Sarnus injection is quite steep, but better than nothing

Ejecting the rhino engine

Seen from the cupola

Arriving at Jool

Yep, the cruise to Jool was totally unremarkable. I set radiation shielding at 100%, so no radiation problems. I set no critical failures, so even though something did broke, I could always fix it with an engineer. In all my kerbalism missions, I sort of forgot how smooth space travel is in the stock game.

Finally, preparing for Sarnus arrival

The trajectory for capture around Slate

The capture looks fairly inefficient, especially the red manuever - why is it there? Why not make any apoapsis lowering at periapsis?

I don't remember the specifics because it was months ago, but probably there was Eeloo in the way, and this trajectory worked anyway, and I had enough fuel. And the chemical fuel will be lost after Slate, so there's no reason to conserve it.

Arriving at Sarnus

The brown speck on the right is Slate

All the major moons. On the right, Eeloo and Slate. On the left, near the sky crane tank, is Tekto, scarcely visible because it's dark green against a black background.

What I initially assumed to be Hale turned out to be a speck of dust on the monitor instead

Passing under the rings

Capture burn

Didn't take additional screenshots for the capture around Slate, those are all regular manuevers. The next screenshot happened when I released the relays, in high Slate orbit

Looks impressive, but it's just the stage separators

The relays are going on their own now

Finally, after circularizing, Tamarromobile is also detached

Edited February 20, 2024 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 3: Landing, ready to commence circumnavigation

Designing an asymmetric sky crane for Tamarromobile wasn't easy, but this one flies true. It adds close to 120 tons, constituting most of the mass I had to send in orbit, but it provides a very comfortable margin of 2900 m/s, a good 600 m/s more than needed. Would have probably been a good idea to pack some less fuel, actually.

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The sky crane is made of two separate pieces, and can't be removed normally. To get rid of it, I turn on one engine and detach the docking port. The sky crane starts spinning wildly. Observation deck should be turned on the other side to avoid being on the path of an heavy, fast moving piece of junk.

Unfortunately, still pictures do not give a good idea. Also, the sky crane explodes on the ground soon after

It's not a 100% safe system, one of the sky cranes collided with an RTG and broke it. Not sure why I didn't reload, but 15 RTGs are fine.

Landing site, seen from observation deck

The remains of the sky crane. Looks like the aftermath of a rave party

Now the ascent vehicle, it must be landed separately. In stark contrast with Tamarromobile and its sky crane, for the ascent vehicle I put a lot of optimization effort to make it as light as possible. It ends up at less than 9 tons, with a lot of thrust. A powerful, effective vehicle.

Using EVA construction to free it from its packaging

Now, I did put the ascent vehicle sandwitched between two docking ports, planning to remove the pieces with EVA construction. At this point, though, I discover I cannot remove the lower docking port, because it's now the root part.

I did try to turn on the engine and overheat it, but it causes the whole vehicle to explode. So... I don't remember what I did. But seeing as Bill is here removing parts, and next screenshot Jeb is piloting and Bill is already down with Tamarromobile, I'd guess I sent up a replacement with alt-F12. Not sure why Bill is down instead of going with the ascent vehicle, though. Anyway, descent phase

Jeb landed, the vehicle still has 2400 m/s

Which I'm not sure will be enough to lift everyone when the mass of three additional kerbals is taken into account. Maybe I can remove some empty fuel tanks to gain a little bit. Ok, worst case scenario, I'll miss orbit by 100 m/s, and then the jetpacks will be enough to circularize.

I landed in the middle of that large valley, which the biome names Tygoo valley. It looked a very interesting place to visit first. The landings were not very accurate, though, the ascent vehicle with Jeb landed at 30 km from Tamarromobile.

So, first thing to do is go pick him up. Fast, because this is still kerbalism, Jeb has air for 90 minutes in his suit. No worry, in 90 minutes Tamarromobile could cover well over 100 km, even 200 km depending on the terrain.

Tamarromobile starts moving, from the cupola

The Mk1 cockpit has the best view

The Mk3 pod would be great, but you can't see in front of the rover, so it's not a good driving spot

Jeb will be at the end of this canyon

Those canyons look a lot more canyon-like from above

I eventually learned that canyons are terrible places to drive in. I am always tempted to move in them because in the real world they would have a relatively flat surface. Here, they don't. They often have the most sharp bumps, those that are the greatest threat to wheels, and they still lack flat land. But it will take me a while to accept it.

Ascent vehicle can be seen in the distance

Planting a science station

I stocked Tamarromobile with 7 science stations, that I will release at strategic intervals. I leave the first one here. Jeb is picked up, and the circumnavigation can finally begin

Navigating will already prove hard. Tamarromobile is at the crossing of three canyons, none of which go straight south.

Edited February 20, 2024 by king of nowhere

[Vanamonde]

That is a large rover. 

[king of nowhere]

Part 4: Tygoo Valley

The first part of this trip entails going south following Tygoo Valley, coasting the Yahel mountains to the east. Then the Yahel mountains turn from southward to westward, barring my way, and Tamarromobile will cross them in a deep valley

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Tygoo Valley is a very difficult terrain, for it is crisscrossed by canyons. You can see in the map above how much I deviated Tamarromobile's path trying to dodge the major obstacles or trying to stay in what appeared to be easier ground. But it's hard ground everywhere, so probably not worth the effort. Progress is slow.

How is one supposed to dodge obstacles in a terrain like this?

Going down a canyon

Going up the canyon wall on the other side, taking some switchbacks

Sarnus being wonderful in the sky

High speed in one rare flat stretch

Tamarromobile is keeping a cruise speed around 30 m/s in this valley, slowing down a lot when there's climbing to make. It can go a lot faster, but Tygoo has particularly treacherous terrain. The ruggedized wheels can accelerate to over 50 m/s, and can sustain speed above 100 m/s, but take a bump too hard, and they will explode. "Bump" here refers to any too-steep change in terrain inclination. Gradual changes are fine, but a sudden angle in the terrain will kill the front wheels. And while I am tempted to keep going - I have 36, can lose some! - I have a whole planet to circumnavigate, and each wheel lost would slow down the rover and make driving more difficult. 

It doesn't help that Tamarromobile is so responsive and easy to drive, it makes you want to go faster, faster. Until you hit the wrong ridge.

I exploded wheels and reloaded a lot in the first few hours of driving. I gradually learned to control my speed and to spot from afar the dangerous ridges.

To the sides are majestic mountains

The Mk1 cockpit is a perfect place to spot such angles in the terrain, and in time it will become my favourite driving seat. The cupola is very nice for its elevated view, and whenever the rover takes a jump it shakes for a bit, giving a better impression of movement.

Tamarromobile must cross the istmus between two craters

Quite the difficult passage

As seen, Tamarromobile is glued to the ground and can cross steep elevations, provided it can go horizontal. However, if there are steep ridges in the rock wall, tamarromobile will bounce over them and lose height while suspended. It also loses speed, which is essential both to make a switchback (else it gets stuck halfway across the turn, when it's pointing straight up) or to cross the ledge. So, while Tamarromobile can go up very steep smooth walls, crenellated walls are hard. And in that specific case, going forward the wall became so steep, Tamarromobile was beginning to slide down - it wasn't at risk of capsizing, the wheels were pointed horizontally, but it was sliding down nonetheless. Took me some time to pass that. In retrospect, going around the craters would have been faster.

This is a weird effect of the light. Having too many lights on seem to have strange glitches. Eventually I shut down a few, because there appear to be some kind of conflict where more lights are simply not calculated.

The bottom of a canyon. As you can see from the hole behind the rover, it's not even terrain either

Another canyon wall climbing

This weird visual effect happens when you go below 0 elevation

Same, from the cockpit

After about 300 km, Tamarromobile is out of Tygoo Valley, in a biome called Eudae bay. The terrain gets a lot flatter.

Terrain on Eudae Bay

This is actually the norm for non-highlands terrain on Slate. The terrain is still very rough, but there are no canyons to cross, and you just have to avoid the big craters. With a rover that can climb 10° slopes, this terrain can be trasversed easily. Poor Horseshoe couldn't climb 10° on Slate, and surface exploration with it had been virtually impossible.

Visual from above. The second big canyon, the one bifurcating like a Y near the top of the mountains, is my detination

Tamarromobile crossing an isthmus between two craters

With maximum magnification, Ovok is barely visible in the sky (top of the image, just to the left of the rings)

Finally, 200 km after leaving Tygoo Valley, Tamarromobile arrives at the mouth of the canyon that will lead up to what looks like the easiest pass in the Yahel mountains

Edited February 20, 2024 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 5: Thoushaltnot Pass, elevation 9200 m

The next stretch of road is shorter, but even more difficult. Tamarromobile must cross the Yahel mountains.

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Here's a terrain view of the valley. Doesn't seem that hard

Tamarromobile descends into the canyon

It's very steep, but the rover has good brakes

Contributing to the difficulty is the deep shadow; this time I am not using light amplification. I've been using light amplification extensively since I discovered it, but in this case using the floodlights is part of the adventure.

The canyon floor is so deep, it's below 0 elevation, causing the strange visual bug

The canyon rim is at over 3 km, so this canyon is well over 3 km deep. It's also very long, roughly 150 km from the north access to the south access. And it's a nice place to drive a rover.

So I named it the "suck on this, Dres canyon" Valley. Sorry Dres, you just lost the one reason that justified your exhistance.

The lower part of the canyon is gently sloping, an easy drive

The first real difficult passage comes when triple craters block the canyon. You can see them in the second picture, about two thirds of the way to the top. There's no way to go around, must cross them.

Here Tamarromobile climbing a side to get over the ridge

And climbing

Here Tamarromobile cleared the first ridge, but it must still pass the second. And it's steep enough that the wheels start slipping. You can also see, looking behind, that there are many sharp ridges

And finally we can rest on a relatively flat area on top

This first obstacle is cleared, but from now on the terrain becomes steeper. The valley floor becomes a succession of ridges and holes that prevent transit. Outside of the canyon is chaos and madness. The canyon walls provide the only straight, level surface to drive on. Needless to say, I lost many wheels trying to ford those obstacles.

Climbing the upper stretches of the canyon

Pointing the cupola backwards, to see the road taken so far

Fork in the road

Here the canyon bifurcates. Both paths seem equally viable. I take the left one because it looks straighter.

The terrain in the canyon always had ridges and holes, but it's getting worse. Now there are those consecutive rock ledges, each one with a hole in front, and climbing the canyon walls is made difficult by the lack of long stretches of flat wall to pich up speed.

Each ledge is about 500 m higher than the previous one, so I called this stretch "Staircase of giants". On the plus side, at 500 m per ledge, the pass can't be too far.

Trying to switchback in the narrow confines of the canyon

Climbing a ledge

And another. The view is magnificent up here

And you can see, I'm already above 7000 meters. The flag 500 meters below Tamarromobile's position is marked as Staircase of giants. The previous flag is the Fork. The one before it is the hard passage with the three craters. Before that one is the "suck on this, Dres canyon", and finally the further flag, on top of the canyon wall, is the point where I did descend into the valley.

A couple more kilometers and 700 meters vertical, the Staircase has ended. The pass is now near

A good view of the pass

From this perspective, the right path looks a bit higher, but smoother. I wonder if I should have turned that way at the Fork. But then, I'm sure it would have been difficult anyway.

Finally, after some more climbing, the pass; it's 9200 meters high. For all the difficulty I had in coming there, it's clear it didn't want me to cross. So I named it Pass Thoushaltnot, or Thoushaltnot Pass.

I drop another science station, it's the third. The first was left with the ascent vehicle, and the second one I dropped at a time when Tamarromobile's path strayed westward on the plateau west of Tygoo Valley (Gorgoroth plateau, according to the biome).

Tamarromobile on Thoushaltnot Pass

And now the descent begins. If you look closely, you can see the floodlights as Tamarromobile moves down the shadowed ridge

The canyon on this south side is even steeper than the north side

Again, hugging the canyon wall is the best route

Here's a particularly nasty piece of work that I named the toothsaw. I did enhance light a bit to make it clearer. Its succession of bumps was killer for the wheels, but the narrow ravines on the sides were no better option

Once more, the lights of Tamarromobile can be used to get a sense of scale

Going down, though, is a lot easier than going up, because at least there's no need for switchbacking. And so, with many less problems, Tamarromobile could reach the bottom.

The opening of the canyon can be seen

The south access to Thoushaltnot Pass. Looks even worse than the north side.

After the canyon, the terrain becomes flatter again. Tamarromobile is entering the southern sea.

For the first stretch of road, Tamarromobile needed 7 hours to travel 500 km, an average of roughly 70 km/h; and it wasn't easy terrain either.

To climb to Thoushaltnot Pass, Tamarromobile needed 2 and a half hours for 56 km, or 23 km/h. To descend, one hour for 55 km. Took me a lot longer to do it in real life, what with all the crashing and reloading. Though not too often, I mostly learned to drive safely.

[king of nowhere]

Part 6: Across the southern sea

Tamarromobile crosses the south pole, alternating flattish expanses with mighty terrain artifacts

  Reveal hidden contents

Close to the poles, terrain artifacts take the shape of huge furrows crossing the ground, all aligned to the poles, forming a network of parallel valleys.

I called this region the plowing field

The access to one such canyons

The terrain is mostly flat, not too many craters either. Provided you move in a north-south direction, you can proceed with speed. Crossing the canyons perpendicularly, of course, would be a lot more difficult.

Lots of flat terrain; Tamarromobile can pick up speed safely

Canyon bottoms are still all angles, and require more careful driving. But they lack the deep holes and sheer climbs that made canyon bottoms unpassable in the mountains

The shadows are also getting longer, not much visibility outside of the floodlights. Closer to the poles, it's darkness except for the tops of the hills

The starry heavens above me

Much closer to the pole - roughly above 85° of latitude - the terrain changes again, it becomes a lot more irregular. The parallel canyons are still there, but they are interspersed with other terrain features, sudden changes in inclination, and more craters.

Average speed was over 100 km/h in the plowing field region, while it dropped to around 50 while crossing the actual pole.

A particularly nasty crater complex I had to cross. I called it the artillery firing range

Here in enhanced light to see it better. I did a lot of driving with normal light using just the floodlights to see, but I also want the screenshots to show something

There's also the mickey mouse crater complex, a set of four overlapping craters making a good likelyhood of a mickey mouse profile.

And here crossing a very narrow canyon; this is just a few kilometers from the pole, which is behind that ridge at the end of the canyon

At this point I got stuck there. It took a lot of effort to break free

And finally, the pole - with its usual terrain glitch

In normal light

At the south pole, I deployed another science station - the fourth - and kept going.

I picked Tygoo valley as landing place because of its interesting topography, but it has the additional benefit that going round the world in that fashion, Sarnus will always be visible on the horizon.

From now on, I continue on the night side of Slate, in complete darkness (which is also the name I gave to the flag immediately after the pole). I wanted to experience some night driving. Turns out, it works pretty well. While the view is limited, you have enough of an advance warning to brake/steer if there are obstacles ahead. And you can still see craters from the silhouette of their jagged borders against the night sky.

A moment of night driving. I've been keeping a speed between 30 and 40 m/s in this stretch; faster would be dangerous in the dark

The jagged, broken line of the horizon is the telltale sign of a crater. Steer clear.

I did drive some 250 km in those conditions; not many screenshots because, well, there's not much to see. The terrain reverts to the southern sea, crossed with furrows, and then around the 75^th parallel those furrow lines disappear again, leaving the southern sea mostly flat. I kept an average of 75 km/h in that region, a lot slower than I did when I had flat terrain and good visibility, but still good. Of course, 30 m/s is a lot more than that, but there are the occasional craters I had to avoid, and the pause to plant a flag every 30 km, and maybe one or two additional stops to save the game in between, so the average is slower.

Eventually I reached the Sombor mountains (biome name); it's a thin, narrow mountain chain, a lot smaller than the Yahel mountains. I like driving by night, but it has the disadvantage that you cannot see the countryside, so as soon as I got close to the more interesting terrain, I stopped one day to wait for dawn.

The Sambor mountains in the distance. They are more white in the south, and brown in the north, a possible indication of water in the shaded regions

And here Tamarromobile is switchbacking up the ridge leading to what I named W pass

W pass, thus called for its shape seen from above (can't always come up with good names), is a mere 4000 meters, pretty easy to cross. At the top I established a fifth science station.

This was a long stretch of road, if overall easier than the previous ones. From the end of the Yahel mountains to W pass, Tamarromobile has crossed a good 700 km of planet; it's now one third of the way

Edited March 10, 2023 by king of nowhere

[MythicalHeFF]

  On 2/22/2022 at 1:41 PM, king of nowhere said:

Part 6: Across the southern sea

Tamarromobile crosses the south pole, alternating flattish expanses with mighty terrain artifacts

  Reveal hidden contents

Close to the poles, terrain artifacts take the shape of huge furrows crossing the ground, all aligned to the poles, forming a network of parallel valleys.

I called this region the plowing field

The access to one such canyons

The terrain is mostly flat, not too many craters either. Provided you move in a north-south direction, you can proceed with speed. Crossing the canyons perpendicularly, of course, would be a lot more difficult.

Lots of flat terrain; Tamarromobile can pick up speed safely

Canyon bottoms are still all angles, and require more careful driving. But they lack the deep holes and sheer climbs that made canyon bottoms unpassable in the mountains

The shadows are also getting longer, not much visibility outside of the floodlights. Closer to the poles, it's darkness except for the tops of the hills

The starry heavens above me

Much closer to the pole - roughly above 85° of latitude - the terrain changes again, it becomes a lot more irregular. The parallel canyons are still there, but they are interspersed with other terrain features, sudden changes in inclination, and more craters.

Average speed was over 100 km/h in the plowing field region, while it dropped to around 50 while crossing the actual pole.

A particularly nasty crater complex I had to cross. I called it the artillery firing range

Here in enhanced light to see it better. I did a lot of driving with normal light using just the floodlights to see, but I also want the screenshots to show something

There's also the mickey mouse crater complex, a set of four overlapping craters making a good likelyhood of a mickey mouse profile.

And here crossing a very narrow canyon; this is just a few kilometers from the pole, which is behind that ridge at the end of the canyon

At this point I got stuck there. It took a lot of effort to break free

And finally, the pole - with its usual terrain glitch

In normal light

At the south pole, I deployed another science station - the fourth - and kept going.

I picked Tygoo valley as landing place because of its interesting topography, but it has the additional benefit that going round the world in that fashion, Sarnus will always be visible on the horizon.

From now on, I continue on the night side of Slate, in complete darkness (which is also the name I gave to the flag immediately after the pole). I wanted to experience some night driving. Turns out, it works pretty well. While the view is limited, you have enough of an advance warning to brake/steer if there are obstacles ahead. And you can still see corners from the silhouette of their jagged borders against the night sky

A moment of night driving. I've been keeping a speed between 30 and 40 m/s in this stretch; faster would be dangerous in the dark

The jagged, broken line of the horizon is the telltale sign of a crater. Steer clear.

I did drive some 250 km in those conditions; not many screenshots because, well, there's not much to see. The terrain reverts to the mostly flat southern sea, crossed with furrows, and then around the 75^th parallel those furrow lines disappear again, leaving the mostly flat southern sea. I kept an average of 75 km/h in that region, a lot slower than I did when I had flat terrain and good visibility, but still good. Of course, 30 m/s is a lot more than that, but there are the occasional craters I had to avoid, and the pause to plant a flag every 30 km, and maybe one or two additional stops to save the game in between, so the average is slower.

Eventually I reached the Sombor mountains (biome name); it's a thin, narrow mountain chain, a lot smaller than the Yahel mountains. I like driving by night, but it has the disadvantage that you cannot see the countryside, so as soon as I got close to the more interesting terrain, I stopped one day to wait for dawn.

The Sambor mountains in the distance. They are more white in the south, and brown in the north, a possible indication of water in the shaded regions

And here Tamarromobile is switchbacking up the ridge leading to what I named W pass

W pass, thus called for its shape seen from above (can't always come up with good names), is a mere 4000 meters, pretty easy to cross. At the top I established a fifth science station.

This was a long stretch of road, if overall easier than the previous ones. From the end of the Yahel mountains to W pass, Tamarromobile has crossed a good 700 km of planet; it's now one third of the way

 

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And here I was thinking that Tylo’s north pole was crazy! I gotta say, how does one not lose their sanity crossing through those deep valleys over and over again?

Great mission report so far by the way, I’ve been reading every entry as soon as I get the chance.

[king of nowhere]

  On 2/22/2022 at 5:46 PM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

And here I was thinking that Tylo’s north pole was crazy! I gotta say, how does one not lose their sanity crossing through those deep valleys over and over again?

 

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ah, sanity.... i had one of those, once. then i started playing ksp.

more seriously, once you commit to running a long mission like an elcano on a large planet, some variety helps keeping things interesting.

[king of nowhere]

Part 7: Cutting the Muil Plateau

After another stretch of flat ground, Tamarromobile crosses a large, but relatively level plateau. As it's getting bent to the point of uselessness, I get rid of the observation deck.

  Reveal hidden contents

As you can see from the map, after W pass and the Sombor mountains there is still a fairly long stretch of road - almost 300 km - that's still called southern sea. It keeps being relatively flat, with gently sloping hills that Tamarromobile can climb leisurely, a lack of hard angles that make wheels explode, and few craters that are easily dodged. Tamarromobile can go down a crater and up the other side if it must, but it's a lot more convenient to turn around it when possible.

Typical portion of the northern part of the southern sea

On this terrain Tamarromobile can push for a lot of speed, in relative safety. In this terrain I set the speed record, both for istantaneous speed and for average speed. For average speed, you can see from the map between the two marked flags there are roughly 300 km (reminder: on Slate, 1 degree of latitude is 9.5 km) and they were crossed in little less than 3 hours, for over 100 km/h average speed. Saved games are also less frequent, sometimes I'd go for a full 15 minutes before stopping and saving; both because I felt safe enough in not exploding, and because I didn't want to stop the rover. As for instantaneous speed, I brought Tamarromobile to over 100 m/s down an incline.

Speed record; only the flatness of the land allows driving at such speed. Also, you can see the Muil Hills in the distance

Another high speed moment

Do notice that it's not too remarkable to reach 100 m/s on a rover on a high gravity world; what's remarkable is surviving the process. I do count high speed records only if I can then stop safely. And Tamarromobile brakes very well; it often skids and performs an about-face, but it stays glued to the ground in doing so. I'm reminded of my old driving on Tylo with the Dancing Porcupine rover, where I did reach speed in excess of 100 m/s, but it was completely impossible to slow down at that point, because just touching the brakes would destabilize the rover and send it tumbling on the ground; the only way to slow down was to find an upward slope.

This is also a part of the trip where I'm gradually succumbing to the monotony. I have only taken two screenshots of this stretch of road, both for the speed. I had to reload the game to snap a few more to post here.

Those three hours of driving brought Tamarromobile to the foothills of the Muil Hills, which form a wide plateau. My path will cross it in the narrower section. I also have two convenient canyons to help with the crossing. The first, on the southward side, starts wide and easy; I can still run at high speed here. I named it flat canyon.

A stretch of Flat canyon. Running at 50 m/s here

Soon, though, the canyon gets narrower, and it starts having all the holes that litter the bottom of many other canyons

But it's not long until I reach the ramp that gently slopes up to the watershed. The high part of the plateau is much more rough than the plains, but still relatively level. A part of me wishes I could have found an excuse to drive across it.

The high part of the plateau, looking back at the path taken

If you look in detail in the map at the beginning of the chapter, Flat canyon runs almost straight north, then one has to cross the watershed, and then there is another canyon, that starts by going eastward but eventually takes a steep turn to point north. I called it Bent canyon, and that's where I'm going.

And looking forward. Tamarromobile is faintly seen by its floodlights. The first valley to descend into Bent canyon is blocked by a crater, so I cross the ridge to the right and take the next valley

Path of Tamarromobile on this part of the Muil Plateau

The valley that Tamarromobile used to descend into Bent canyon, I named Deep Cut Valley, because of its very regular shape. It looks almost like someone took a giant cleaver and hit the mountain range there.

Meanwhile, I haven't posted pics from the observation deck in a while. Unfortunately, all the shaking from the road are causing that fixture to get progressively more bent downward, to the point that it's now no longer working.

How the observation deck has been reduced, falling progressively downwards

View from the observation deck. Now it's only good to observe the rover itself

I decided I may as well get rid of it, before it can get broken on its own and potentially mess up with the rest of the rover. I decided that already well before reaching the Muil Hills, but the cupola cannot be manipulated, and I didn't find any suitable place to fix the problem. Not until I was about to descend down Deep Cut Valley...

Finally! 300 km after I started looking for one, I find another floating boulder! You never get a terrain glitch when you need one

Boom! Don't worry, I moved the crew away

After a bit of EVA construction to clear things up, here's Tamarromobile's new profile. Also, this is Deep Cut Valley, this straight gash in the hills

Bent canyon is like the other canyons I found on Slate: in the high part, narrow with a very irregular bottom. It gradually gets larger. Bent canyon is very long, stretching a good 90 km - though I skipped its highest part. Most of its lengh is of the narrow/irregular variety

Upper reaches of Bent canyon

Midway along the canyon. The bottom is practically impassable, as often I move along the much flatter walls. I am amazed that I could go fast in those conditions, though

Still more mountaineering

The main obstacle encountered along Bent canyon is this crater cutting the canyon perfectly. Not much point to try and go around, Tamarromobile must go down and up the other side

It's too bad I didn't take screenshots while at it, but really, I took so little pics in this part of the road. I wasn't clear on how I'd make a report, I was thinking I'd just post a very shortened version. It's only later that I came to fully realize the variety of terrains encountered and how all this can be made into an interesting adventure and not a "I did drive for 3300 km forward and that's it".

The exit of Bent canyon, looking back

At the end of Bent canyon, Tamarromobile has another stretch of flat land, called the northern sea.

Edited August 16, 2022 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 8: The northern sea, same as the southern one, but with islands

Tamarromobile heads north towards the pole, crossing the mostly flat northern sea.

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After Bent canyon, another large expanse opens up; it's the northern sea. Unlike its southern counterpart, the northern sea is dotted with "islands" and a few "impact craters". The smart thing would be to avoid them, but I want to collect samples from different biomes, so I am instead trying to cross them. The first thing I crossed here, though, was the equator, marking halfway through the circumnavigation.

Terrain is again mostly flat, at least flat enough that this rover can always go straight and accelerate to maximum. As a result, average speed in this stretch was also akin to 100 km/h, but difficult to estimate exactly because I didn't go straight north all the time.

Some typical terrain in the northern sea

Sarnus has been mostly covered under the horizon. Here in a rare appearance with Eeloo

The "islands" are really small sections of mountains. I traveled to the foothills of one to collect a biome sample.

Crossing a ridge on an island

The island, seen from above

Visiting an impact crater was a last minute decision, because it required a significant detour, 100 km west. But I wanted to visit, so I went there anyway.

Doesn't really look like an impact crater. It's a very mild depression with a different terrain color

I plant my second-to-last science station here in the "impact crater"

I will plant the very last science station in a random flat location shortly afterwards. I realized all the science stations I left are in special places - mountain passes, vallayes, the south pole - but I was missing a normal, average piece of land. And science needs data from there too.

Some more flat ground

I climbed this ridge hoping to find a new biome, but it still counter as northern islands. It was one of the few mildly difficult passages. You can see Tamarromobile's floodlights in the center

There is a mountain to the west, but it's the same biome as the previous one, so I skipped it

Not much for this update. The terrain is pretty much the same. Indeed, at the time I was feeling a bit of fatigue for the prolonged driving, and I only took 2 screenshots of the whole place; once more, I had to reload a few saves and take some pics.

This part of the road ends with the rougher terrain around the north pole.

Edited February 20, 2024 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 9: passing the north pole

The north pole has some irregular terrain artifacts, just like its southern counterpart.

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Going north, the terrain keeps being mostly flat; the first sign that we are nearing the pole is an increase in craters

Like this one, that I didn't see. I don't suppose there's any chance Tamarromobile can survive this?

Ouch! I hadn't saved since ten minutes before

The craters keep increasing, to the point that I marked the start of this stretch of circumnavigation as rolling golf course. Rolling because it's a rolling plain, and golf course because it's full of holes.

By the way, both because the terrain is more interesting, and because I decided I'd do a full report after all, I started taking more screenshots again.

Tamarromobile passing between two craters

Tamarromobile passing between two other craters, except they are closer and there are more craters in the background

Do notice the color change in the terrain, it gets less brown and more grey moving towards the pole; the change is not noticeable when driving, it's very gradual, you only see it when comparing pictures.

Second sign that the pole is near are the long parallel furrows, expecting them any moment now

Oh, here they are! The cliffs are more pyramidal, though

The sky is particularly spectacular at this time. We get used to it and stop noticing, until something shakes us from our complacency

Ovok

Still Ovok, bigger

Hale is barely visible as a handful of pixels, in the outermost ring gap

There are still some flat stretches of land intermixed with the craters and furrows. At least I didn't get a crater in the middle of a furrow, as I got at the south pole

I also discovered that I can activate internal overlay. Nice!

More pyramidal peaks. They are markedly different from those on the south pole

This is a textbook trap. Hitting that angle at any significant speed would break wheels; notice how slow I'm going. Also notice that it looks like a wall but it's actually flat, the perspective is skewed because I am on an incline

Sarnus rings are fully visible above the horizon; it means the pole is very close

My god... it's full of stars!

You can even see Sarnus through the ground from the right angle

I am curious: what would happen if I try to drive into the gap?

This happens. Predictable.

Yes, I got it, stop exploding stuff. Geez!

Wasn't a foregone conclusion, though; in my hard level kerbalism grand tour, I did find the terrain glitch at the south pole of Eve, and I did drive my plane through it, and it actually worked (part 5.4 of that mission report). I went below the ground. Eve has seas, though, that probably makes the difference.

Leaving the pole behind, pointing to the ascent vehicle. Now three-quarters to the finish line

Once more, I crossed into the night side and I'm driving in complete darkness

I like driving in the dark in an empty place in a trusty vehicle. It gives me a feeling of cozy relaxation, akin to watching a snowfall out of the window while hugging a stove. So, once more, I did drive like this for a couple hundred kilometers.

Here I discover that the Mk3 cockpit can also be used effectively for IVA driving. Not as effectively as the Mk1 cockpit, though; I still feel I have too many blind spots to relax

Eeloo with Ovok

From the rolling golf course to the north pole I kept an average of 90 km/h, barely impeded by the terrain. Not sure if it's because it was easier than the south pole, or because I got more practiced at driving in those conditions. From the pole to where I finally decided to stop and wait the day, I kept 70 km/h, the standard for driving in darkness.

After the pole, the terrain gets flatter again.

A stretch of flat land after the pole, that I use for high speed racing

Until I leave the northern sea biome to enter Robau bay.

 

[king of nowhere]

Part 10: The hills of Robau bay

I assumed this new lowland biome would also be flat. I was wrong.

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At this point I have a choice. Straight south would pass directly amid the Yahel mountains; staying on the crest of a mountain chain does not look like a good idea. So I can go westward and return to Tygoo Valley, or I can veer eastward and stay in Robau Bay and then cross the Yahel mountains on one of the many canyons. Both look similar difficulty-wise: Tygoo Valley is difficult terrain all the way, while the westward path is easy terrain followed by a stretch of very difficult terrain.

I picked the westward path because it brings me to new terrain. I've been in Tygoo Valley already - for 300 km - I'd rather visit someplace new. Plus, the mountain crossing looks interesting.

It soon became clear, though, that Robau Bay is not flat, easy terrain like the southern and northern seas. The first such indication I got from crossing a massive crater complex barring my path.

There's a good half dozen craters overlapping here

Going up on the other side

Another magnificent view of Eeloo and Ovok

Robau Bay is dotted with "islands", like the northern sea. Those are a different biome, called the Kowgan Archipelago. This time too, I take a detour to climb one such island to take a sample.

Here crossing a crater on a hillside. It was that, or going all the way to the top, or going all the way to the bottom and then climb again

Good thing Tamarromobile is stable

And I found this valley going down, giving regular terrain for a while

Robau Bay is a lot more irregular than other lowland biomes. More ravines, more steep ascents, more craters. More n sharp angles to kill the front wheels.

Typical landscape in Robau Bay. Notice the ridge in the center of the image, and all the holes in the middle corridor devoid of craters

The mighty Yahel mountains loom on the west. I have to keep some distance to avoid canyons

More of the common ups and downs of this place

Here Tamarromobile just crossed a crater; it then has to go down a depression, up a steep ridge, and down another deep depression, and up another steep ridge

The winding path between plateaus, craters, canyons. I called this place the Gouged hills

Surprisingly, though, I still somehow kept a 100 km/h average speed. Apparently, as long as there aren't very steep stretches where I have to switchback, I can keep going fast. I did reload more often than in other places, though.

Almost at the end: after crossing this bride between the craters and going down the other side, there is a strip of dark terrain; that's Chicken paw walley, where I'll cross the mountains

Close enouh now that I can see the ascent vehicle location without map view

This stretch of road ends at the Craters of Hercules, which I named after the columns of Hercules because they symbolize a gateway to another world. It was sometimes frustrating, but always interesting.

Edited February 20, 2024 by king of nowhere

[king of nowhere]

Part 11: Crossing the Yahel mountains. Again!

Tamarromobile crossed the Yahel mountains on Diamond pass (7100 m), a much easier route than Thoushaltnot pass. It returns to the ascent vehicle, completing the circumnavigation.

  Reveal hidden contents

As usual for canyons on Slate, this one starts large and easy. After the craters of Hercules, the only significant obstalce is a couple of close craters

those are not the craters of Hercules, they come later

Fast, easy driving along Chicken Paw valley

I named the valley after the black streaks on the ground

Eventually, the valley grows narrower, the ground more irregular. Tamarromobile can be distinguished from its floodlights, taking the right path

The same point, IVA view

It's entering Ascension canyon. No, I didn't name it because it ascends; I named it because it's leading me to the ascent vehicle.

Ascension canyon is a lot harder. First, the canyon is cut by a crater

Some climbing circumvented it

Still climbing, the crater in the background

Then the canyon floor starts going up and down, a bit like the Staircase of Giants leading to pass Thoushaltnot. However, those ledges are a lot lower, and I can just skip them by staying on the wall - something I could not do the previous time. Or rather, I could do it and I did, but they were so high and so close to each other that I had to climb several kilometers on a 20 to 30° inclination, switchbacking all the time. Here, switchbacks were extremely rare.

Staying on the wall, skipping the hard terrain

Now past the worst, returning on the canyon floor

The upper reaches of Ascension canyon and Diamond pass

The canyon bifurcates in two straight lines before the pass, and the lines join back afterwards, making a sort of diamond shape that I named the pass for. The pass itself is a long ridge with level elevation. I took the right path, I don't think it makes much difference. Approach all the way to the final ridge was straightforward, only the ridge required some actual climbing.

Nearing the final ridge, a first milestone: I can see the landing site in the 100 km range. That's Tamarromobile landing site, the ascent vehicle is 30 km later

Climbing up to diamond pass. Or perhaps all the way to Sarnus?

Climing the final ridge. In the left is the crater that can be seen in the last aerial view

Tamarromobile reached the top of Diamond pass

And from here on, it's all downhill

Looking down at the valley. Now also the ascent vehicle is within the 100 km range

traveling down, turning around a first crater

Unfortunately this valley, which I named obstacle canyon, is littered with craters. No less than 5 of them, though some are too far to appreciate from here

First crater; I can skip it by climbing up on the left

Which is what I'm doing here

Second crater cannot be dodged. Here the moment when Tamarromobile is about to enter

Must go slowly here; crossing the rim too fast would entail jumping, and jumping in this gravity is not recommended (see the beginning of part 9 for what happens if I take a long jump down a crater)

And going up the other side. Here it takes some speed, Tamarromobile must go straight in the end and cross the rim perpendicularly, or it will hit with the bottom

Too much speed

That stunt costed me 6 repair kits. But I have a lot of spares, and no need to conserve anymore. Bill is fixing the wheels

Another crater, this one can be skipped

Another milestone: I can also see the return pod

Final stretch of Obstacle canyon, inclugin the landing site of Tamarromobile and the ascent vehicle. The remaining craters can all be skipped easily

Getting close. Here I'm back on the path I took when I first landed. It felt harder at the time

Finally, the ascent vehicle

Crew is ready to leave

The circumnavigation ends here, but the report will still include the return trip

Edited March 5, 2022 by king of nowhere

[18Watt]

  On 2/12/2022 at 6:03 PM, king of nowhere said:

An Elcano challenge doesn't have any special requirements on how to get there - if I recall correctly, you can even alt-f12 your rover there, as long as you then perform the circumnavigation.

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Actually, that is not correct.  Elcano rules do specify the rover must be flown from KSC, with no cheating your vessel into position.  Also, all support vessels must be flown from Kerbin as well.  So I'm glad you flew the mission from Kerbin!  Delivering large items from the surface of Kerbin is quite difficult, as you are certainly aware.

  On 2/12/2022 at 8:12 PM, king of nowhere said:

I'm not really sure what went wrong here. Especially since it happened months ago. But sure the vector booster punching through the fairing looks good

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That looks like an exciting event!.

  On 2/15/2022 at 9:57 PM, king of nowhere said:

Going down a canyon

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Wow, that is some insane terrain!

  On 2/16/2022 at 4:28 PM, king of nowhere said:

So I named it the "suck on this, Dres canyon" Valley. Sorry Dres, you just lost the one reason that justified your exhistance.

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Yeah, that canyon blows the one on Dres away.

Fantastic trip description!  I don't know anything about Slate, but that terrain looks absolutely brutal.  Also, my hat is off to you for choosing a polar route.  After visiting the poles on a few CBs I have personally vowed to never again take a rover to the poles.  

I love your rover!  Especially the rotating Cupola, that is a really neat feature.  

I suspect you may be the first player to do a complete Elcano circumnavigation of Slate.  Wow.

Oh, thank you for putting the large groups of screenshots inside spoilers!  That is very helpful..

Edited March 5, 2022 by 18Watt

[king of nowhere]

Part 12: Running back

The crew returns to Kerbin with a fast pod just before they run out of food.

Do compare the food available in supplies with the close approach to Kerbin

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I've been often guilty of putting an insane amount of effort to optimize some small, insignificant detail, while just handwaving other bigger issues. I've done it in the DREAM BIG mission, when I didn't test whether the small lander could actually land. I've done it in the A'Tuin mission, when I removed water tanks to save 4 tons or dry mass, all the while leaving 50 tons of unused oxidizer tanks.

And I've done it now, by allocating 100 tons for an oversized sky crane with 500 m/s more than reasonably needed, and then shaving an already diminutive ascent vehicle down to the last kilogram.

My main failing was that the deltaV data in the VAB did not account for the crew. And with such a bare-bones vehicle, the half ton for four kerbals is going to impact a lot. Hence I realize I'm really tight on fuel, and I try to make the lander lighter by discarding everything possible. On a vehicle, I must stress out, that was already reduced to the minimum.

On the plus side, those lateral fuel tanks were already mostly empty, so I could pool all the fuel in two of them and remove the rest.

Starting to drop pieces away. This looks like the martian scene, when Mark Whatney vandalizes the ascent vehicle

Everything is removed. I'd take off one of the bigger tanks too, but the rocket would collapse on the ground if I did

Ready to leave. According to the deltaV map, I need 2150 m/s to orbit Slate, and I don't have them. But then, orbital speed is only around 1900 m/s, with high thrust I may be able to pull it off

I made a second large mistake here: I didn't account for the mass of the samples. In kerbalism science samples have mass. I normally ignored that, because it's 25 kg for a ground sample, and in the past I always used large landers. But now I have 13 ground samples, 325 kg.

I tried to launch - worst case, I'll finish orbit with the jetpack - only to discover an even bigger problem related to the science samples. Namely, you can only pick up all or nothing. So I took Bob, told him to take science data from Tamarromobile. Now Bob weights an additional 325 kg - though he still can walk, jump and climb as usual. The seats are placed around the center, but one of those seats now has 325 kg more than the others, and it's off-center. On a ship so small, this is enough to alter the center of mass of the whole rocket. It wouldn't fly straight. 

And no, there is no way to split those samples evenly. You can either take all or nothing.

Ok, maybe there was a way, because the Mk1 cockpit can hold 1 single science sample, so if I transferred there maybe I could have split them. But I didn't think about it at the time. Probably I would have fell victim of the lack of deltaV anyway.

So, after all the effort to collect those samples, I had to go down and put them back in Tamarromobile. At least I can imagine that those samples are safe inside the rover, to be collected by a future mission.

Takeoff. Immediately after clearing the ground, the two empty lateral tanks are discarded

Discarding also the final lateral tanks. It would have been convenient to also discard the engine and use a smaller engine to finish

Passing over the Yahel mountains, for the last time

In orbit. 160 m/s feel safe enough for a rendez-vous. And still plenty of oxygen

Intercept manuever

At first I was having some problems with that; during the last two months, I got so used to playing in caveman, I was forgetting that I can use manuever nodes! As soon as I remembered that, though, I got an encounter in no time.

The ascent vehicle returns to the return pod. With 36 m/s. So yep, not much room for samples

The cruise module still has some fuel in it; now that the big mass of Tamarromobile + sky crane was jettisoned, it's lasting for several hundreds m/s. No reason to not use it

Soon, though, the cruise module is dried up. Now the real return pod is unleashed

This pod is based on the highly successful Dolphin model developed for the DREAM BIG. It's the most successful design of that mission, seeing as I changed everything else, but I kept using that Dolphin design for every single mission afterwards. A sturdy, heat-resistant crew pod for reentry; a detacheable hitchhicker container for crew comfort during the long trip. And plenty of xenon for high speed, high energy transfers.

Unfortunately, the two RTG only allow running the engines at 30%. Even at 4x speed, it took hours to perform those manuevers.

First manuever, returning to Kerbin in 3 and a half years

Only at this point I do look at the supplies and realize the pod only has food for 2 and a half years. Another mistake: I did check life support duration with one single crew member on board!

Or maybe I knew that I'd need no more? Can't remember, it's been so long ago. The Dolphin model was developed to return in 1 year from anywhere in the stock system; Sarnus is a bit further, but returning in two years is certainly feasible. And I have plenty of xenon. So, second manuever

Returning to Kerbin fast enough

This new manuever reaches Kerbin just in time. I could go even faster, there's many km/s left, but meeting Kerbin in that specific part of the orbit, crossing its path almost perpendicularly, will have a tremendous intercept speed.

I still can use the engines to slow me down if needed, though.

Two years later. Running out of food one day before Kerbin. The crew will skip a meal, they'll be fine

Crossing the orbit of Mun

Jettisoning the unshielded crew pod just before reentry

Hitting atmosphere at 9.7 km/s! Even Val is terrified

Yes, if I burn I can reload and slow down first, but with low thrust it'll be annoying. I'd rather try and see if I can go for direct reentry first.

The previous record for a Dolphin pod was 8.5 km/s. This pod uses the Mk3 pod, which is even more heat resistant, and there is no acceleration enabled - part failure for hitting 50 g was the hard limit the previous time. So surviving is possible.

Indeed, though the heating bar goes close to maximum and stays frighteningly there for a long time, the pod survives.

But there is another problem. The parachutes were inside the pod, to be deployed at the last moment. I forgot to assemble them.

Here trying some extreme engineering feat of installing a parachute while in freefall

Didn't work. Had to reload to before reentry.

I installed the parachute before reentry... and this time the pod exploded. I guess the balance was so thin, a single parachute messing up with heat transfer was enough to tip it on the wrong side. So I reloaded again...

And mounted it on the nose, the only place where I'm sure it won't interfere with the pod heat balance

Indeed, the pod survived

Finding the right periapsis was also very hard. One single km too low, and the pod would burn. One km too high, and the pod would cross the atmosphere without slowing enough, and escape Kerbin

The pod is going up after passing periapsis, but it slowed enough for capture

Floating down on chutes

12 m/s terminal velocity is a bit high, but the Mk3 pod will survive that easily. If some other parts explode, it's not a problem.

Thermal shield exploded, but the crew is safe. And hungry, since they skipped meals for one day

And this concludes the Elcano challenge on Slate. Good driving, lots of interesting places.

I could do another Elcano. Where next?

Wal is a moon of Urlum. Airless, Duna-sized, it has this huge mountain chain encompassing all the equator, with peaks rising over 20 km

An equatorial circumnavigation of that moon seems like a owrthy challenge

The Leaping Mantis rover will rise up to the task. Or I will get bored and frustrated first

So this is going to be my next Elcano. I'm not sure when, or even if, I will complete it. But it certainly seems a good engineering challenge for a mountain rover.

[18Watt]

Nice of you to bring the crew home!  The crew I used for an Eve Elcano is still waiting for a vessel to get them back to orbit.  Also, nice job recovering from unexpected obstacles.  I see that using the realism mods forces you to come up with creative solutions- you can’t just wait 10 years for some replacement vessels to arrive from Kerbin.