The Lacklustre Tour (slight spoilers)

[Silverchain]

Thought I'd start a proper coherent thread rather than posting to General's "What Did You Do Today?" thread each time.

This is my Lacklustre Tour, in which brave Kerbals will visit everywhere they can get to except Eve and Tylo, which are being saved for last. I've recovered Kerbals from Tylo before, but it was scary.

The primary touring ship is the Euryale-class* Merry Go Round, which is being supported by a variety of other ships and spaceplanes. Orbert, Hadbly and Gilnie are its initial crew.

The story so far: the Merry Go Round has visited Moho and engaged in spaceplane operations, supporting the spaceplane Frustration which landed on the surface but was regrettably destroyed trying to launch.

RIP Ludlock Kerman, first casualty of the tour.

The Merry Go Round was refueled by fellow Euryale Let There Be Light and both ships headed independently to Eve.

At Eve the Merry Go Round was joined by a third Euryale, Journey of the Sorceror, which brought a science and hab module.

Skurj-class spaceplane/rover Gobstopper adjusts orbit for rendezvous with the Merry Go Round, science module and Journey of the Sorceror over Eve.

Intrepid Kellie Kerman left the rover to board the hab section after flying round the docked ships.

The uncrewed rover transferred most of its fuel off to the Euryales and entered Eve's atmosphere.

Rover away! Driving on Eve is easier than driving on Kerbin; you slow faster, the rover is less prone to tipping over and getting up to high speed is easy.

Kinda paradoxical that the heavier planets are generally the easiest ones to drive on.

Unfortunately after climbing up a mountain the Gobstopper flipped uncontrollably and was blown to bits... oh well, that's what uncrewed rovers are for.

*eagle-eyed observers might note a striking resemblance to the preceding Brigantia, Selene, Macha, Neman, Hecate, Morrigan, Badb and al-Lat classes. Not big on originality.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Silverchain

[Silverchain]

While the main ships were still in LEO, spaceplane Messy Lion streaked past them aerobraking to arrive at Gilly.

The spaceplane hadn't refueled since launch, and my cavalier approach left it running on fumes by the time it touched down.

On the other hand, this is Gilly and has the gravitational field of a small teapot, so no worries. Hey, there was a whole 10 units of oxidiser left on landing!

Franklin Kerman plants the flag. It proved very difficult to drive the rover as it kept bouncing into the sky; I'd hoped its (considerable, even empty) weight would be enough, but no luck.

I have driven rovers on Gilly before with much less trouble... on the plus side, by using internal torque and bashing the wings into the ground, the whole plane is thrown gracefully a couple of metres up.

Next steps will be the reconfiguring of the main ships; the Merry Go Round will head to Gilly and land for a rendezvous.

Not sure whether to try landing the science lab, but it sounds like fun...

[Geschosskopf]

I love complexly kerbal missions like this. Good job on the ship names, too

[Silverchain]

I love complexly kerbal missions like this. Good job on the ship names, too

Thanks - I love thinking of names for them.

After various reconfiguring of the ships at Eve - a couple of mostly empty fuel tanks were left in orbit - Merry Go Round headed for Gilly.

It turned out that there was a design flaw with the way the science lab is affected by the thrust from the nuke engines on the Euryale, and it wobbled all over until undocked and redocked a couple of times.

My fault for using an unrealistic puller configuration - the ship design dates back to 0.18 when senior docking ports weren't around, I just took the opportunity to slap one on the underside of the ship.

Landing by the spaceplane, it dropped off the science lab (bottom right), then I got bored with Gilly's low gravity and started aggressive maneouvres to land the main ship.

Gilly Base. If I'm lucky I'll be able to dock the spaceplane to the big tank that's on its side and take on enough fuel for it to make orbit.

At Kerbin, refueling ship Ladder Structure launches to LKO. I'm leaving the Science / Hab module on Gilly, so I'll launch a redesigned version of those shortly.

When the Merry Go Round leaves Gilly it'll aerobrake to LKO, take on fuel and the new science lab and possibly a lander, then head to the Mun and Minmus.

[Geschosskopf]

then I got bored with Gilly's low gravity and started aggressive maneouvres to land the main ship.

Yeah, I hate landing on Gilly. It's SSSOOO slow and you can't warp to make it go faster. And I don't entirely like doing a powerdive towards the ground. So last time I went there, I put about a dozen linear RCS thrusters all over the top surfaces of my ship and pushed myself down with that while remaining rightside up. I think it worked pretty good.

[The Error]

Landing on Gilly consists (for me) of:

Slow down.

Orient nose-up.

Deploy gear.

Go get cup of tea.

Return to see I've barely moved, rage, and powerdive.

Suicide burn to land.

???

Profit!

[Silverchain]

The return from Eve went smoothly; Merry Go Round left Gilly, made a Hohmann to Kerbin and aerobraked to an elliptical orbit before achieving Mun orbit.

I'd originally intended to aerobrake completely to LKO and refuel there, but this worked.

In Munar orbit, Merry Go Round refueled from the antique space station Munlab One, a hangover from the earliest days of the space program crewed by wizened Kerbals in orange spacesuits.

Strictly speaking it refueled from the Kerbal Transfer Vehicle which had been docked to the station, which had only a small amount of fuel to spare.

Merry Go Round needed to make a second rendezvous with the Ladder Structure to top up completely.

At some point that ship will be broken up into its constituent fuel tanks, but for the moment it'll stay as a whole.

Merry Go Round (visible in the middle distance) landed near a small Munar base in the East Crater. Not an ideal landing site but there were no problems.

At this juncture crewmember Gilnie has left the ship to stay on the Mun, as a form of insurance - in case of accident, I don't want to lose the whole of this well-travelled crew!

The lander visible here is a prototype of the one I intend to use later, and the rover is an extremely durable specimen I'll try to take along too.

[technion]

Landing on Gilly consists (for me) of:

Slow down.

Orient nose-up.

Deploy gear.

Go get cup of tea.

Return to see I've barely moved, rage, and powerdive.

Suicide burn to land.

???

Profit!

I found trying to land a spaceplane with a lot of lift on Eve to be a very similar process.

[Silverchain]

Yah, I found landing the spaceplane on Eve (upthread) to be a slow process - quite good, though, plenty of time to find a good landing spot, and the final approach speed was very low.

Nothing spectacular happening at the moment - the Tour ship is still landed on the Mun, and I'm trying out and discarding a variety of impractical lander designs.

I've hit a bug where I can't get Kerbals out of their ships (the EVA button doesn't appear for them) - it's easy to get round by stopping and starting the game, but it's making operations involving lots of craft a bit of a pain.

Anyway, back at the Mun landing site, which seems like a worse and worse place to rendezvous with each ship I land...

[Silverchain]

This is the lander design I'm going to use, the Orkney-class. Coyote Man heads off to join the other ships on the Mun.

It should be capable of a fully powered descent and ascent from Duna, to save me worrying about parachutes.

By extension it's good for Ike, Dres, Vall and Eeloo, though not terribly efficient.

The spaceplane Topsy Turvey was launched a while ago carrying a lander as cargo. Due to a design error the lander legs were on upside down, so it's remained in LKO.

I thought I'd bring it to the Mun, but a series of failings during the descent led to a fatal crash. RIP Neildas Kerman, second casualty of the tour.

I don't think any of the other ships were hit by debris...

[Silverchain]

Coyote Man launched from the Mun and refueling from a Munar transfer vessel. (I'll spare you more pics of landers and rovers being tried out, there were a lot!)

Merry Go Round made an uneventful launch, picked up Coyote Man, a modified Blue Toga-class rover and a fuel pod from the Ladder Structure and headed to Minmus.

Merry Go Round landed first, opting for a nice and simple landing on the Greater Flats. Coyote Man followed carrying the rover. Driving it is difficult.

So far so good - next step will be to bring a replacement Science and Hab module out to Minmus orbit, bring more fuel over from the Ladder Structure (with one fuel pod already detached it's unbalanced, so I have a dilemma; it has a lot of fuel in its central booster tank that I don't want to waste but which isn't accessible by a docking port if I drop it, so I must leave it attached but somehow carry the other two fuel pods. It's possible, but perhaps simpler to carry them over with yet another ship!)

...and then we're off to Duna. Gulp. That place claims my ships.

[Silverchain]

In Minmus orbit, the replacement Science / Hab module provides a perch for Skurj-class spaceplanes Enactor, Am I a Good Woman? and Cowface!*

The unnamed module (I'm thinking of calling it the Butterfly Bush) is crewed by Kerbals from the Ladder Structure and has an engine block and that ship's remaining fuel tanks attached.

The spaceplanes descended to the Great Flats to rendezvous with the Merry Go Round and Coyote Man.

I'm not entirely convinced by that new Science Lab as I ended up making it unbalanced in order to fit Materials bays onto the sides. Flying it to the Mun was wobbly.

It was a bit better behaved on the way from the Mun to Minmus (probably because of the extra mass and torque modules on the fuel tanks) but I might have to revise the design and send another.

*don't knock it. It was good enough for Alexander the Great.

[Silverchain]

I launched another Science / Hab module full of excitable Kerbals.

An engine block module took the Science / Hab module to the Mun, where it was attached to the Ladder Structure.

Ladder Structure crossed the vasty deeps of space to the Red Planet and performed a reasonable aerobraking to a long elliptical orbit, ending up passing by Ike.

I like Ike. The Science / Hab module phones home.

[Silverchain]

Skipping Ike for the moment, the Merry Go Round aerobraked to Duna orbit carrying Coyote Man. The lander made a good, fully powered descent.

A long while ago, the aptly named spaceplane Dunan Bananaslip had crash-landed. Coyote Man had touched down about 20km away, so I broke the first rule of Duna club and hopped closer.

(To just over that ridge there. Honest.)

Charlie Kerman had been patiently awaiting rescue for a great many sols, and bravely clung to the lander's ladder for a lift to orbit.

CHAAAARRRRLLIIIEEEEEEEEeeeeee.....

It didn't work. RIP Charlie Kerman, third casualty of the tour. I don't do it deliberately, honest.

How was I to know that holding onto a ladder is too much for a Kerbal when they're madly accelerating up through the atmosphere?

Coyote Man made it back to orbit without further catastrophe.

The lander design could do with some minor revisions based on practical experience, so I'll knock up a new model and ship it over next.

The other ship is at Ike, and there's an old Brigantia-class in LDO, the Land of Sand, and a spaceplane touched down somewhere on Ike.

[Patupi]

You need to put more crazy glue on your ladders! You can never have enough crazy glue! Though I have to admit, the ladders then do get rather crowded... permanently.

[Geschosskopf]

Too bad about Charlie. But he knew the job was dangerous when he took it .

[Silverchain]

Dangerous ain't the half of it.

No great developments today (sotto voce) I crashed two planes at the Pyramids (/sotto voce), but testing of the new lander shows promise.

A small SSTO crew shuttle ran out of fuel a while back, so it seemed like a good opportunity to try out the new and improved rescue seat.

TOASTY!

(in fairness, it isn't intended for Kerbin reentry, just vacuum and low pressure hitchhiking...)

The craft landed successfully, and all was well.

...and then I sent one out to Duna, got a bad intercept with Ike, tried to be clever with an aerobrake-to-landing and crashed it.

RIP Bartfrey Kerman, fourth casualty of the tour.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Silverchain

[Silverchain]

No progress today as I've mainly been housekeeping, landing a whole bunch of ships that were in LKO and recovering landed ships from Kerbin.

I launched a couple more Euryale-class ships, the Royal Rainbow II and the Shi.tsu Tonka*, and tested a new-model Orkney D(una) lander with 'chutes to assist in the descent.

Royal Rainbow II passes behind a borrowed ship going by the designation Project Funky Gibbon.

I was spamming the Gibbon-class to orbit trying to iron out the design flaws (there was a Gameplay Questions request), and now I don't know what I'm going to do with them all.

*when the moon is a pie in the sky...

[Silverchain]

Another day, another accident.

Royal Rainbow II, carrying an as-yet-unnamed lander, begins a burn out of LKO for Duna.

Shortly afterwards and for no identifiable reason* all three main nuclear engines exploded simultaneously, leaving the ship stranded on an elliptical orbit around Kerbin.

I was able to rendezvous an engine pod with the ship. Clamp-o-Tron Senior ports are wonderful things.

Royal Rainbow II is ready once more.

I do like to overcomplicate things.

*ok, I'd alt-tabbed out of the game and back into it while leaving the engines on at x2 warp on a big ship carrying a slightly unstable and heavy load on its front docking port. Possibly that had something to do with it.

[Silverchain]

In orbit above Duna, new arrival Heineken Keg brings a can full of fuel to the nearly empty Coyote Man.

Heineken Keg descends under chutes towards the surface of Duna.

Happy landings.

Back on Kerbin, spaceplane Six-Pack (unimaginatively named for the extra wheels it's sporting) lifts off...

...and touches down. Back to the drawing board!

My aim at the moment is to get spaceplane rovers safely touched down on the surface of Duna and rendezvoused with the lander.

And I need to get one of the Blue Toga rovers out there too.

[Silverchain]

I mentioned earlier that I was wondering what to do with all those borrowed Funky Gibbon-class ships...

...they do look very cool when landed with all their solar panels deployed.

In the foreground is the Jessica Rainbow; back left the Desmond Droideka, then a small orbit shuttle and the rover Felicity Vector, then the Daniel Elijah Pulsifer and finally Coyote Man on the right.

Getting all this hardware to the same place was a wee bit complicated, especially the rover. I landed the rover about 55km away on that orbit shuttle but didn't want to risk making a suborbital hop with it attached.

So I drove it... fortunately the base rover is pretty much indestructible, but it lose a lot of externally mounted bits and pieces on the way. And then I tried hopping the shuttle over and it worked just fine...

Coyote Man has just enough fuel to make orbit, I think, but I don't want to risk it so I'll leave it here at the base.

I'll launch Heineken Keg, rendezvous with the Merry Go Round and use that for Ike instead, though I still want to see some other sights of Duna.

[Silverchain]

Spaceplane/rover Cadillac Bling aerobraking at Duna.

Cadillac Bling landed safely and searching for whatever that anomaly is that's down on the southern polar cap.

Bollocks. And it's cold down here.

Smelly Shandy landed near the base and drove there.

Okay, okay, that's it for Duna. On to Ike!

[Silverchain]

Ike. The Wrecking Moon. Messing up carefully planned Duna inserts is its joy.

Spaceplane Channel Nine, lander Heineken Keg and a Blue Toga rover gathered at a camp on Ike. Kerbals Johncott and Sherbal mounted the rover to drive down to the darker lands.

Bouncy! The rover performs well here, particularly so as the stabilising RCS jets and fuel tank on this one survived the descent and help slow it from jumps like this.

This area appears to be a succession of long downhill slopes and jumps, but without any extraordinary scenery to gawk at.

Well, kinda. Noticing an unusual feature (the flying boulder visible centre right with Sherbal stood underneath it; not the Boulder, but a flying boulder natheless) our heroes stopped the rover to have a look.

Peculiarity ensued as it landed upside down from an overly-zealous braking and the seat Johncott was sitting in fell off. Johncott (foreground) survived, but seems to have been reclassified as Debris, and is not controllable.

Despite my best efforts to run them over with the rovers etc. I flew the spaceplane here, but will probably just take the Keg straight back to orbit and pick up a new pilot.

I may have to try editing the save, but I'm loathe to do it.

Next up, I've another lander in a more-or-less polar orbit, so I'm going to look for the Boulder.

(ETA ...if it's there.)

...well, that didn't work; I landed a rover and lander on the north pole and waited for a while, but no sign of it. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough but t'interweb suggests it's gone. Shame.

Worse, the Kraken struck, claiming the Euryale-class ****su Tonka on its way out from Kerbin, so in addition to the loss of Johncott Kerman who's paralysed on the surface of Ike, Richrod Kerman, Jedmy Kerman and Barsey Kerman and their 300 ton spaceship have vanished completely. Fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth casualties of the tour.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Silverchain

[Silverchain]

Dres: What could possibly go wrong here?

Heineken Keg sits next to the old Brigantia-class ship Canyonero and a rover transport ship; two of the Canyonero's crew try out a new model Blue Toga rover.

Keg first landed near the bottom of the canyon, but the ground down there is too steep for me to risk landing the big ships. And this new perch makes for a good view.

Bringing the Canyonero over was difficult enough even here because muggins didn't time it right and it was pitch black.

I have a long-standing ambition to jump the canyon with a rover without relying on rocket assist during the crossing. Must be possible from somewhere with the right run up!

(Using plane wheels, rocket along the ground and angle up and over, that is...) The Blue Toga would plummet messily to the floor and there'd be more death.

Merry Go Round with the Science/Hab module attached is orbiting overhead. Running a bit low on fuel so I'll need to bring a fueler out before heading to the Joolian moons.

Also, after valiant service Ladder Structure (with a relieved Ludlock Kerman* onboard) returned to Kerbin.

Well, bits of it. I was trying to land the main ship (it was only meant to be for space, so only the capsule had chutes) but it kinda disintegrated.

*the Mysterons have been at this one, who's died twice at least so far.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Silverchain

[Geschosskopf]

I really enjoy this thread for its sheer nuttiness.

And I'm with you, I need to canyon-jump on Dres, too