Surveying Kerbin (concentrated with images)

[mattihase]

I often look at the thread "Long-term Laythe Mission" by Brotoro. Which is where he visits and names the various land masses of the titular moon. and that got me thinking why hasn't this been done for Kerbin. there probably has been at one point a thread where someone has already done this but i thought I'd do it myself.

Part 1: building a scout

The first thing I'd need would be hardware so I built this (it's in my career mode world so i don't yet have turbojets or delta wings):

As you can see Jorhat has immense confidence in this mission.

I was unable to get it off the runway until the end of it dropped from under the plane but it was fine after that.

After a quick maneuvering test I decided to fly over to the mountains.

I tried physics warping and the plane did a nose dive...

...but I pulled it out of it easily

After crossing the mountains I decided to land in a basin(or possibly a crater) to the north

you can see in the last picture I have the lights on so I can judge how far down the ground is

the plane glided into landing quite well and touched down without damaging it's rover wheels

I retracted the landing gear to allow the rover wheels to work and...

... found that thee plane was incredibly back heavy. so I lifted the rear gears and tried using those as rear wheels

I manage to get up t around 4 m/s before a wheel broke off and then it went much faster

then another wheel fell of and it started dipping into the slope so i decided to take off again. unfortunately I didn't know how badly the plane handled slopes.

so I reverted the flight. next time I think I'll put the bigger rover wheels on it. I even forgot to plant a flag (no that it matters considering I reverted the flight)

maybe I'll get something more productive done next time.

EDIT: Now with the images... I hope.

Edited November 20, 2013 by mattihase

[mattihase]

After last part's failure (the plane crashed and i didn't even leave a flag) I upgraded the kerbin explorer to version I.II (1.2)

This explorer has some canards, thrusters at the front and larger, more powerful wheels. as Jorhat was sitting on the runway (i reset the flight) I gave Malden Kerman the honour of testing explorer 1.2.

The canards I added allowed me to take off before the end of the runway.

time for some hardware testing...

Time warp:

It handles time warp well

How about maximum altitude?:

20,000 meters now let's try turning:

Oh that isn't going well. I think Malden might have a fear of heights too.

fortunately for him I recover the plane before the altitude reaches the negative figures.

Malden must live nearby. so I decide to land and name a nearby lake after him.

well the engines are still on... for now.

I decide to drive over closer to the shore

Close enough. I get Malden out to inspect the area and mark it with the Fabric based Light Automated Gonfalon or FLAG marker.

he decides to examine the lake...

It's a bit muddy.

he accidentally drops a FLAG marker into the lake. they are surprisingly buoyant and bouncy.

he eventually manages to grab and restrain the FLAG much to my surprise (I didn't think they could pick up deployed flags) and it gives me an question: Can he carry several flags along with him?

by planting a flag, reentering the cockpit and picking the flag back up I get this:

This could be useful for exploring areas that vehicles can't go. or sponsored mountain climbs.

anyway back he gets back into the plane, reverses it and takes off (and crashes into a mountain but I quicksaved before takeoff and tried it again)

Originally I intended to head back to the east coast but i was drawn in by a lake on the west coast that kinda looked like an estuary.

The landing wasn't as good as the one by Malden lake...

undeterred by the wrecking of the plane i drove it down to the middle of the spit of land separating the lake from the ocean and get Malden to plant a flag.

the curved lake separated from the sea kinda made me think of oxbow lakes. If they add a jungle biome I'll probably send Malden out to investigate it.

After renaming the plane "broken eagle" Malden calls in a recovery crew.

it's nice knowing progress is happening for a change.

[mattihase]

After making progress last time I decided to procrastinate more and upgrade my explorer (during which I discovered I couldn't stick rovers on the bottom...)below you can see a ruggedized version of last post's plane taking off during night:

after flying this plane 80 km or so to the north (according to the target distance indicator that I haven't got a screenshot of while it's active)

targeting a flag at KSC and returning I found that the explorer had a maximum range of 446 km. considering kerbin's circumference is about 3800km it isn't that good is it?

so I redesigned the explorer and then completely forgot to work out the new efficiency. (I think it's more because it only has one engine and retains the ability to get off the runway quick. and it glides, gliding's a thing I have a shortage of)

Ladies and gentlekermen I present to you the Kerbin Explorer type II:

I sent Advey to take it to explore the north-east coast of the KSC's continent (which for simplicity's sake I will now refer to as Demara).

His original goal was to land on the island to the side but I decided to land on this peninsular instead:

After a textbook landing I decided to flesh out the lore of our newly christened nation.

Kaiser sounded kind of kerbal...

anyway I set off for the next peninsular:

and did a less than textbook landing:

(it was the brakes again)

since I was there I placed a F.L.A.G. anyway.

So progress has been made in both plane design and naming places, the goals I had set myself.

and i still need to work on the landings

maybe the new drivable plane wheels will help with the not breaking.