Eve - A ground based circumnavigation @ 13 m/s

[Fengist]

An attempt to circumnavigate Eve by land... and sea

There comes a point in playing KSP where you're brainstorming ideas of what to do or what to create and one hits you that you simply can't get out of your head. After reading a rather ludicrous challenge about circumnavigating Kerbin by walking, the idea of a ground based circumnavigation began to appeal to me. There are so few things left to truly conquer in KSP and I had done most. Driving across a planet and the long-term challenge of all the things going wrong... appealed to me.

I was already aware of a rover-based circumnavigation of Kerbin that was completed. Since everyone wants to be unique and do something no one else has, this left only a couple of choices for planets to drive around... Duna and Eve. Duna would be a unique challenge and it's in the back of my brain, but the grand challenge, one bigger and more daring that Kerbin? Eve... without a doubt.

First, it's stinking huge. There's roughly an extra million kilometers to drive across compared to Kerbin. It's gravity is on the verge of a black hole and trying to fly through it's atmosphere is like trying to cut a brick with a butter knife. Even thinking about doing this was proof of insanity.

I made several attempts a couple months back to design a vehicle capable of a ground based circumnavigation and ended up putting it on the back burner. Here's the problem I kept encountering. How do you create just one vehicle capable of driving around a planet that's just at home on land as it is on water yet able to drive millions of kilometers at warp speeds without things falling off?

Unlike the gent who circumnavigated Kerbin, I wasn't going to be able to replace crashed vehicles. His basic rule was, no game saving. If he crashed, he flew another replacement vehicle out to it (He claims to have gone through some 70 Kerbals). On Kerbin, that's fine. On Eve, a replacement vehicle is a year away. Plus, when he needed to cross a body of water, he loaded his rover on a boat. Eve is too remote to send gobs of support vehicles. Mine, had to do it all.

When I finally sat down and commited to it, I imposed some basic rules.

Self-imposed rules

1. No infinite power source. This means, no thermo-electrics, nukes or anything else that provided constant power.

2. I wasn't going to restrict myself to stock. While I admire those that do things stock and many things I do stock as a challenge to myself, this was not going to be one. I wanted my Kerbals to ride in style.

3. One vehicle. Reloading saves was fine, but after the landing, no replacements. If something broke, it had to be fixed or the entire mission started over.

4. I allowed myself one reconnaissance vehicle. Eve is vast and keeping pointed in the right direction would be a challenge. I decided to use one aerial recon vehicle to act as a 'target' to point the main rover towards.

After days and days and days of testing, I finally settled on a design.

I present ... Walkabout

Walkabout Description:

The first thing you'll notice is... no wheels. I settled on some screw drives developed by Kerbal Foundries. Two things influenced this decision. First, I know Eve's terrain. I've been there. It's not exactly flat. One big thing the screw drives provided was length... It meant that if I ended up diving down a hill, provided I mounted them far enough forward, that I wasn't going to have the nose diving into the ground and exploding. The second thing was, they had HUGE ground clearance. For my planned method of flotation... that was a must have.

Next, you'll notice I went with LLL for the main body parts. I liked the wide-based stance of the 2x1 parts and the ability to change the fuel tank into a Karbonite tank.

Yes, I am using Karbonite. This is more or less a test after using Kethane for years. But, it's not rocket fuel. It's purpose is to provide power via a roof mounted generator for when I felt like driving at night. The BIG drawback. Karbonite is damned heavy. Loading up that fuel tank adds another 13 tons to the vehicle. Yea, fully loaded, 35 tons.

There's also a few other basic parts, like batteries, a collection of solar panels and a small Karbonite drill. But the other major decision was KAS. Being able to fix and replace broken parts in the field was going to be essential. You'll notice 2 roof mounted KAS containers. I loaded them with a whole collection of goodies should things break.

So, there you have the vehicle and the basic plan. Now, for the route. Since land based travel is typically safer than water, I chose a land-heavy route. Although this may be a bad choice, I decided to tackle the long boring trek across the vast desert first and save the challenging water crossings for last.

You may notice the word 'Target' on the map. Since avoiding that huge sea in the middle of Eve was going to end up saving me a lot of time, the northern point of that sea would be a waypoint I'd need to hit. That would be the landing spot for the recon drone. From there, I could target it and head it's general direction and save a good bit of time.

So... the design was complete, the testing was done and the route planned. I had 3 Scansats around Eve giving me some nice detailed maps that I could reference from the ground. The only thing left to commit myself to this lunacy... was to pull the trigger.

(As I complete this self-imposed flagellation, I'll keep you apprised of the events unfolding)

- - - Updated - - -

En-route to Eve

Time to deorbit

Mission Log

Landing on Eve

Day 0 - The insanity begins

Day 1 - It always happens in threes

Otto and Cruise - and a response to posts

Day 2 - Anchors Aweigh

Day 3 - A screw loose and a response to posts

Day 4 - Target and a response to posts

Day 5 - Protrusions

Day 6 - A turn for the worse

Day Unknown - Contact Lost

A short video of Walkabout on Eve

Day Unknown - Debris Field

Day 7 - Rescued

Day 8 - Sailing and a reply to posts.

Day 9 and 10 - The End of the Line

Edited February 1, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Landing on Eve

Yeah, we're travelin' down that lonesome road

Feel like I'm dragging a heavy load

Don't try to turn my head away

I'm flirtin' with disaster every day

-Molly Hatchet

With Kerbals you make the greatest of plans... and they never execute as planned. One of the fun things about this game is the creative adaptations you come up with to bypass the fubar's.

Fortunately, the landing on Eve wasn't catastrophic.

I missed my intended landing spot by about 100km. I had intended to land close to the ocean so that my final leg would consist of crawling out of the water and being done. Not to be. I missed. Realizing I was going to miss, I turned to point the lander module with the engines down. Hopefully, this would keep me aloft a bit longer and get further east.

Well, reentry was done and I was nowhere near the coast. So, I went ahead and ditched the lander. And here's a surprise. It landed completely INTACT. I'm still not sure how that happened.

Most of the parachutes deployed as planned. Somewhere along the way, at least two of them on the parachute pod got lost. Being an expert in Kerbal Engineering, I had extras. As you can see in this image I'm coming down nose first. While not a huge issue at this moment, I had two more chutes in the back that weren't opened. Once they did, I was almost vertical. That was some improper planning on the placement of the chutes directly attached to Walkabout. Once the two did open, I cut the rear most two chutes and it leveled out just fine. I landed at 6.4 m/s

And finally, walkabout has arrived. Next on the to-do list... a full systems check to see what got broken. In KSP, it's never IF something breaks, it's WHEN.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Day 0 - The insanity begins

When I drive that slow, you know it's hard to steer

And I can't get my car out of second gear

What used to take two hours now takes all day

Huh, it took me 16 hours to get to L.A.

-Sammy Hagar

After landing safely on Eve and a full check to make sure none of the bits fell off, other than a couple of parachutes, it was time to get to work. The first order of business was getting rid of the parachute module. While sounding simple, it was going to be the first critical part of this journey. Not only does it house a collection of parachutes but it's also a counterweight. Walkabout, surprisingly, has a very low center of gravity. This is actually nice as it has less of a tendency to flip over. But, it had the potential to cause problems during flight with it being off center. So, I added six tons of dead weight to the parachute module to bring the COG up a bit. And now, it was sitting on the roof and had to come off.

I attempted to do this gently. After decoupling it, I sent Kirke (he's a Captain ya know) up on the roof to try to push it off. And he jumped, and pushed and beat on it, without success. I even had him smash it a few times with his helmet, and we all know, Kerbal helmets are deadly weapons. It didn't budge. Finally, I resorted to plan-B. The least desirable one. I turned Walkabout sideways to the hill and shook it. Having 6+ tons rolling around on the roof wasn't my first choice but... it worked. It finally rolled off without becoming a loose cannon. While he was up there, Kirke decided to go ahead and remove all the radial parachutes from Walkabout since we wouldn't need them any more. You know, part saving, weight saving... etc. He thinks someone back at the VAB coated them with grease. As soon as he grabbed them, they slid out of his hands, fell to the ground and promptly exploded.

The boys crawled to the top of the nearby hill and planted our Day 0 flag. They named the spot Walkabout Hill. They turned West and began the long journey across the desert. They didn't make it 10km before they made their first scientific discovery. They've tentatively named them 'Shiney Spots.' Now this is a real mystery. They're bright spots on the ground. But, they don't appear until we drive over them. Bob, the science guy, wanted a sample so he got out. Here's where it gets strange... once he left Walkabout, he couldn't see them. But, those still in Walkabout could. We directed him to the spot where it was and he planted a flag just in case we wanted to come back later and study it. He got back aboard and we headed west again. More strangeness. Exactly SIX kilometers later, another one appeared! Again, Bob got out but couldn't see it. So, we directed him to the spot and he planted another flag. We did this four times and every time, the Shiney Spots were exactly 6 km apart. It was at that point that Kirke suggested it might be monsters living under the sand and if Bob kept jabbing them with flag poles, he was going to end up poking one in the eye and get eaten. We left the Shiney Spots alone after that.

The boys managed to make a couple hundred kilometers and just before we stopped for the night, we found a small lake. We decide now would be as good time as any to test the hydrofoil system by crossing it. We made it across and that's when things began to go wrong...

Walkabout Hill. Our initial landing spot and where this day started.

Kirke trying unsuccessfully to remove the parachute module

Parachute module successfully removed by 'shaking'

Walkabout Hill, our starting point.

Major scientific discovery. Shiney Spots.

A trail of Shiney Spots.

A view from on top a hill.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Day 1 - It always happens in threes

Well, the midnight headlight

Find you on a rainy night

Steep grade up ahead

Slow me down makin' no time

I gotta keep rollin'

Those windshield wipers

Slappin' out a tempo

Keepin' perfect rhythm

With the song on the radio

Gotta keep rollin'

- Eddie Rabbit

When things go wrong, it's typically in threes. Don't ask me why, but that's just one of my life experiences I can count on. I expected Kerbals, since I'm inexorably tied to them, would have the same issue, three things going wrong.

After we tested the hydrofoils and nothing fell off (don't worry, I'm saving the pics of them working for when I actually cross a real body of water... assuming I get that far,) we did a visual inspection and found some... issues.

Issue 1: It was discovered that whenever we quickly reversed direction that the forward screws would twist and bend and point about 10 degrees downward before coming straight again. Bill, the engineer for the mission took a look at things and suspected it was the lower suspension system flexing. As a patch job, he got on the roof, grabbed one of the KAS boxes full of spare parts, crawled under Walkabout and began trying to strap the undercarriage down. After he was done, we tested again and it was still flexing. After further study, Bill declared it an engineering flaw. Apparently, some genius back at the SPH decided that the gyroscopes in the cab just weren't enough and added an extra gyroscope module between the cab and the forward solar array. They then bolted the undercarriage to that gyro. Now, every time we quickly go from forward to reverse, that whole module flexes and bends and even points the cab downward. So, Bill undid his repairs, climbed on the roof and attempted to bolt the gyro to the forward solar compartment. While it didn't completely fix the problem it did help. Hopefully the whole forward end of Walkabout won't fall off now.

Issue 2: While crawling around under Walkabout, Bill noticed that the rear center hydrofoil was bent. Somewhere along the way, it had managed to shift a couple of degrees off true vertical and was now canted slightly with the top toward the port side. We did some background checking and as best as we can figure, this happened during landing. For now, it's nothing critical. That particular foil stays submerged while we're traveling by water. It's main purpose is to lift Wakabout up and above the surface. The hydrofoils on the side provide the actual stability, so it being off a few degrees is still acceptable. BUT, if it shifts any further it could cause issues later. And we still have a LONG way to go before we'll actually use them.

Issue 3: Nothing else broke... yet. Ok, wait... there's supposed to be an issue three because that's how things work. Who's screwing with my Karma? Well, tomorrow will definitely fix that!

The boys packed up, planted a flag, called this spot Fixit Lake and continued to head west.

Today we locked onto Target, our aerial drone at the first waypoint, and turned on Otto. Even though Target was still reading 55 degrees below the horizon, Otto aimed straight for it and we took off with a heading of around 325 degrees. The basic plan is to head north, around some highlands and then turn west toward Target. Jeb set the cruise control and the rest of the day, fortunately, was uneventful. I'll save a description of how Otto and the cruise control works for a day when nothing much happens... assuming there is a day when nothing much happens. Suffice it to say for now that the two together allow me to walk away from the drivers seat while still heading the right direction and moving forward. It's not perfect and I can't go watch a movie, but I can go grab some coffee without TOO much worry.

By our best guess, we made around 300km today. Tomorrow, we wait for issue 3 to arrive...

Bill playing mechanic under Walkabout.

Bill deciding he was not a mechanic and coming back out from under Walkabout.

Bill on the roof re-engineering Walkabout.

Our technology at work and how Jeb is able to avoid diving off cliffs.

Preparing for the Eve sunset. If you've never seen one, it's green.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Fengist

[lo-fi]

Cool! Good write up, I'll be following your exploits on Eve

[waterlubber]

Those shiny spots are "MBLs" Mysterious Balls of Light. It's a bug.

Neat, I would have used the hover thingers from foundries.

[Kurtvw]

Thats a really cool concept, great post!

[Wallygator]

Holy bejeebus!!! I wish you all the best of luck on this venture... Wow!!!

[Fengist]

Thank you to the well wishers and followers of this madness. Should this give you the urge to do the same, seek therapy.

Those shiny spots are "MBLs" Mysterious Balls of Light. It's a bug.

Neat, I would have used the hover thingers from foundries.

I actually played with those, not as a mode to cross land but to cross water. And they did work. It just felt too much like cheating since I was essentially flying at a very low altitude. Years ago I played with Romfarer's Lazors and had the same feeling that I was cheating and got rid of that mod too.

Be glad my first plan to cross water ended in tragedy. I tested Boat Parts, not as a boat but as a method to crawl along the bottom of the ocean, and it worked. Imagine how exciting that would have been (*cough*). At the last minute the whole idea had to be scrapped. I found that when I tried to launch, it had a nasty tenancy to aim for water.

---

Otto and Cruise

Ok, I said I would get to this and have decided that now would be a really good time. Reason being - in an upcoming post I'm going to present some information that you're probably not going to believe. So let me prepare you for it.

As far as I know, and I haven't checked in version .90, there is no 'auto run' key. Since KSP is about flying things rather than driving, Squad has given us thrust but not an accelerator. And THAT was one of my big concerns before even thinking about beginning this. Allow me to present some math that will highlight exactly why this was a concern.

According to the Wiki the equatorial radius of Eve is 700,000 m. Some quick geometry tell us that the circumference is therefore 4,398,229.7 m. A lot. The circumference of Kerbin is 3,769,911.1. Also a lot. I mentioned the posts from the guy who circumnavigated Kerbin by land. Since he's the only other person I know of to even attempt this madness, his journey was all I have to go on. It took him SIX MONTHS to complete. Granted, he obviously took his time doing so, but I was looking at a long journey as well. Here's how long.

Eve equatorial radius: 700,000m

Eve equatorial circumference: 4,398,229.7 m

Average speed of Walkabout: 13 m/s

Optimal circumnavigation Time: 338325.36 seconds / 5638.75 minutes / 93.9 HOURS

Ok, assuming I don't use warp and assuming I can keep a perfectly straight path around Eve I was looking at 93.9 hours of holding down the 'W' key PLUS having to do some steering. I dunno about you guys but I occasionally feel the need to flip someone 'the bird' and I felt that doing so with a nub for a middle finger just wouldn't have the desired effect.

Ok, so first, I needed a way to hold down the 'W' key without sitting a rock on my keyboard. Autohotkey to the rescue. This is an open source program that I tinkered with years ago when playing MMO's and I knew it worked. Next... I needed a script. While I'm still playing around with other scripts, here's the one I use mostly because it works.

NumPad1::HoldW()

HoldW(){
    SendInput {w up}{w down}
    Loop
    {
        Sleep 100
        GetKeyState state, w
        if state = u
            return
        If GetKeyState("s")
        {
            SendInput {w up}
            return
        }
    }
}

Basically, as long as KSP is the focus, I hit the numpad 1 button and it holds down the 'W' key. When I hit the 'S' button, it releases it. I'm sure you can see the advantage of doing this. (Note: If you decide to use this, Autohotkey must be run with Administrator Priviliges, otherwise, KSP doesn't even know it's there.)

As for Otto, Squad to the rescue. Prior to .90, I would have had to use a mod. But now, with SAS being able to track a target, it's dead easy. I built a 'target drone' and flew it to Eve prior to launching Walkabout. I landed it at the first critical spot I'd need to hit and then set it as the 'target' for Walkabout. Turn on the SAS, click the target icon and voila, I have an Otto.

Now, before you think I can go do bed and let this thing drive itself, not so. First, we know for a fact that Eve is not flat. Second, I've already found bodies of water that I've had to avoid that aren't visible on any map. And finally, there's warp vectoring. When using physics warp, Walkabout tends to follow the lay of the land. It prefers to go straight up hill and straight down hill. Any time it's on the side of a hill, it vectors in the downhill direction.

This is my Otto and Cruise on a hillside at warp 4.

So, even if I can get up and walk away, using physics warp while doing so is just begging for a disaster. I've already discovered that if Walkabout vectors more than 45 degrees off it's heading... well, nasty things happen.

Now that being said, I am able to drop out of warp and with some relative safety, go make a cup of coffee, get a bite to eat, etc. as long as it only takes a few minutes. Rest assured, the rest of the time, I'm at the controls having to steer.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Day 2 - Anchors Aweigh

Out in the woods

Or in the city

It's all the same to me

When I'm drivin' free, the world's my home

When I'm mobile

-The Who

Ok, so it happens in fours. I guess the added gravity of Eve has magnified my bad Karma.

While it started off well enough and the boys left Fixit Lake with high hopes, it quickly changed at sunset. Walkabout has roof mounted solar panels that provide the power to turn the screws and run the SAS during the day. While they do keep up most of the time, when the sun gets low on the horizon, they start to wane a bit. There are four battery packs on Walkabout so it's not like we come to a screeching halt when the sun goes down. And we have the Karbonite generator sitting on the roof. But, the plan was to use it as little as possible. Instead, the forward and aft compartments on Walkabout are solar arrays. When needed, we could stop, open them up, throw a quick charge on the batteries and go a bit further. Well, that system is now crippled. When we tried to extend the forward panels, that nasty word 'broken' appeared and Bill declared them un-repairable. We did some research and found out exactly what happened. Apparently, when Kirke (he's a Captain ya know) was up on the roof removing the radial parachutes, he dropped one right on the solar array. Everyone glared at Kirke and his only response was... "It was grease I tell you." Since it's not a 'critical' system, we decide it wasn't worth it to backtrack.

Next came the anchor. For whatever reason, our nose mounted winch has become... well... flaccid. It started popping out of it's retracted spot and just dangling there. Now if it were just the winch connector, it would be no big deal. But, we had a massive anchor attached to that thing. Originally, we'd planned on having the anchor in one of the cargo boxes, but we discovered whenever we warped, that the box would sink half way through the roof of Walkabout. It was decided that rather than have a potential explosion, we'd just mount the anchor to the winch. Well, now it came loose and was flailing around, banging on the nose of Walkabout and we had a potential explosion. Again, Bill our engineer got out and attempted to put it back where it belonged. We even lowered the center hydrofoil so he could stand on it and then lifted him up like it was an elevator. But, every attempt to re-mount the anchor failed. And then... Bill dropped the anchor, at which point, it promptly exploded. Of course, Kirke thought this hilarious. Bill glared at him and said, "grease." Even though the winch keeps coming loose, it's not nearly as dangerous without the anchor attached. Let's just hope we don't need it, that's the only one we had.

The Shiney Spots continue to follow us at precise six kilometer intervals. We managed to stop right on top of one and it looked like beams of light were shooting through Walkabout. Kirke said the monsters probably had 'lazors' and were trying to burn their way into the hull. We kept going.

We stopped once to let Jeb get on the roof and watch the sunset. He enjoyed this moment of serenity, and he'd need it. Tomorrow would bring a disaster that could cripple the mission to the point of not being able to continue.

We drove on into the night running the generator for power and our best guess was, we made around 300km. We stopped on a high ridge and Seanbles planted a flag. He named the spot, "Middle of Nowhere Mountain"

With the forward array broken, we were now dependent on the rear array for backup emergency power.

The swinging anchor - Once the anchor... exploded... we were able to retract the winch back into it's slot... but it wasn't going to stay there.

Kirke's monsters trying to bore holes in Walkabout with 'lazors'

Jeb communing with an Eve sunset

Our progress thus far.

[Stratzenblitz75]

You want to circumnavigate Eve, at 13 m/s!? Man I thought I was insane when I drove ~100 Km on Eve, but you take it to whole 'nother level.

Anyways, I'm liking the story so far! All those engineering problems makes for an interesting adventure!

[Space Peanut]

Enjoying this as well. Good balance of detail in your story - think some people get a little too wrapped up in characterisation at the expense of describing the adventure!!!

Hope you keep it up till the end even if it becomes an epic journey of survival for a lone kerbal!

Cheers

[Fengist]

You want to circumnavigate Eve, at 13 m/s!? Man I thought I was insane when I drove ~100 Km on Eve, but you take it to whole 'nother level.

Anyways, I'm liking the story so far! All those engineering problems makes for an interesting adventure!

Glad you're enjoying it. And yes, I am a tad off kilter. If you think 100km was a lot and you like engineering screw ups, read the next post. It even amazed me.

And as to the 13 m/s...

Initially, I designed Walkabout with 3 Karbonite tanks, 3300+ units of fuel, and two Karbonite turbofans on the rear. While this did give me 40 m/s speeds at 2/3 throttle, it created more problems that it was worth. First, warping became a massive challenge to keep the thing straight. Secondly, all that fuel increased the mass to over SIXTY tons (which is why it took 2/3 throttle). Third, trying to float 60 tons on water added up to a huge part count. And finally, when driving at night, the generator uses about 800 Karbonite to keep the screws alone powered. With all that Karbonite usage, I'd be stopping every few hours to fill up. Instead, with warp 3, I'm still at almost 40 m/s and 0 Karbonite usage (during daylight). It wasn't a hard decision.

Enjoying this as well. Good balance of detail in your story - think some people get a little too wrapped up in characterisation at the expense of describing the adventure!!!

Hope you keep it up till the end even if it becomes an epic journey of survival for a lone kerbal!

Cheers

Thanks Peanut and I agree. A lot of people who do these kind of stories get too wrapped up in the Kerbals themselves and the dialog. While that's fine, the only Kerbal I know of in this game with a 'personality' that everyone recognizes is the man, Jeb himself. And I think that's just brain damage from landing on his helmet once too often. I thot about how best to pull this off and the only idea I liked was to become a part of the crew myself yet retain some omnipotence.

And no, I am NOT walking a Kerbal around EVE!

---

Day 3 - A loose screw

Here I go again on my own

Goin' down the only road I've ever known,

Like a drifter I was born to walk alone

An' I've made up my mind

I ain't wasting no more time

-Whitesnake

It was still many hours before sunrise and the boys got the urge to ramble. So, they kicked on the lights and began a night journey across Eve. Everything was going great, the Karbonite generator easily kept up with the demand and it looked like we'd have more than enough fuel to drive all night.

And then... things began to go horribly wrong. At first we noticed that the middle pair of screws was somehow getting off center. When Walkabout was designed, all of the screws were pointed in a nice straight line. That was no longer the case. Somehow, the middle screw was getting twisted. On the starboard side, the screw was pointing downward in the front while on the port side, it was pointing up. It wasn't too far off yet so we'd managed to catch it early. Bill again, crawled under Walkabout for a looksee but couldn't even tell which part was actually bending. The only idea he had was that the Karbonite drill, which was mounted to the undercarriage for that pair of screws, was somehow banging against the underside of Walkabout and causing the misalignment.

Luckily, the engineers back at SPH had the foresight to use the mini-drill. That meant, it was movable. Bill unbolted the drill and reattached it to the side of Walkabout. Hopefully, that would solve the problem and with any luck, the screws would come back into alignment.

Not so. The further we went, the worse it got. By the time we decided to stop and attempt a repair, the mid screws were canted a good 7 degrees. While Walkabout is fully capable of running on four screws, if these got any worse they'd be digging into the ground, bringing us to a screeching halt. Bill had only three suggestions:

1. We keep going and see how bad it gets.

2. We attempt to break the screws off.

3. We use the winch now to try to straighten them out.

None of these options were very appealing. We voted for option 3. Since this was going to put some serious torque on most every part of Walkabout, Bill insisted on an F5 before we even began. Nobody disagreed. He climbed on the roof and grabbed the magnet from the KAS box. Since he couldn't stick it directly to the screw, he attached it to the mounting hangar. We fired up the winch and began pulling... and the magnet popped off. We tried this a couple more times and the net result was no change before the magnet lost it's connection. Bill's response, 'moar boosters.' He put the magnet back in the box and grabbed a port connector. This time, he bolted it to the outside of the screw. We began pulling and this time, it didn't come detached. But, it began bending the cab of Walkabout as the tension got tighter. The screw refused to budge. Instead, the entire forward set of screws were bent out of alignment as well from all the winch torque.

Bill put the port connector back in the box, retracted the winch and stepped back inside. Grumbling in frustration he said this left us with options 1 or 2 and slammed his fist on the F9 button...

When the lights came back on...

The screws were straight.

Bill looked utterly baffled but after checking, the screws looked just like they did when they came off the SPH floor. All three pairs were in perfect alignment. Jeb declared him a genius and Kirke (he's a Captain ya know) said we'd managed to dodge the Kraken. Nobody disagreed with either assessment.

After a sigh of relief, the boys settled in and we continued onward. But that relief would become worry again tomorrow. We checked on the misaligned hydrofoil... and it had shifted position again.

If you've never seen a sunrise on Eve, it's amazing. Not only do you get treated to a green sky, you also get some other wonderful effects. The twinkling of rocks. While this occurs most everywhere, at sunrise on Eve, it seems intensified. Looking off into the distance at the dark purple hills, just as the sun comes up, you see hundreds of bright twinkling lights. Offset against the green sky, it's an amazing sight.

And then, you get the shadows of nothing.

Just as the sun is coming up over the mountains, and if you're in a valley, dark shadows begin creeping across the valley floor. While a picture simply doesn't do this justice, we actually parked for a few minutes to watch these shadows moving across the ground as the sun came up. We all knew it was caused by rocks up on the hill but it made it no less amazing.

We kept going well into the morning and finally stopped at a place Seanbles named Flying Rock Hill.

And then, we checked our progress... and then we broke out a calculator because something looked wrong. According to what we were seeing, we easily drove 800 km.

Tomorrow... we meet up with Target.

---

Though I can offer no solid evidence of actually driving this far in one setting and I can sit here and give you lots of anecdotal 'proof' that it's possible, the two best sources of proof I have are math and my BTDT (Been There Done That).

First, the math.

Wakabout averages 13 m/s. Uphill, it still holds 11-12 m/s depending on my physics warp. Downhill, it usually keeps to 15 m/s though I have had it up to 26 m/s. So let's assume first that I sit down for an 8 hour session of driving. 8 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds x 13 m/s = 374,400 meters.

Now, for the past few days I've been crawling around in the Eve lowlands and midlands. No huge hills and I've been able to keep the physics warp at 3 most of the time with spurts of warp 4. It's been pretty easy running. Occasionally, when going uphill I have to drop down to warp 2 or 1 to let the screws gain some traction. So let's assume for now that I'm averaging warp 3.

374,400 m x warp 3 = 1,123,200 m

Ummm wow... wait a minute.

With an equatorial circumference of 4,398,229.7 m. That means that, purely theoretically, it's possible.. I say possible... to complete a circumnavigation at 13 m/s in 31.3 hours... at warp 3!

Obviously, I didn't do this math before setting out on this journey. I even informed the wife, not to expect to see me for a month or so as I'd be driving across Eve (yea, she looked a bit confused).

Now obviously, this number is well short of reality as terrain will influence the time it takes as well as the route I have to take to avoid various obstacles. But, 1,000 km definitely is doable in an 8-10 hour driving session.

Ok, so you're thinking, how utterly simple-minded must this guy be to sit and stare at a rover driving across Eve for 10 hours straight? I can only say this... it's INFINITELY more entertaining that watching reruns of Bonanza.

The only 'hard' evidence I can present is the BTDT (Been There Done That) scanner of the roof of Walkabout. Primarily, I mounted it so I could access data from the Scansats without having to switch to them. One neat side benefit of this device, it tracks your movement and highlights a path in the mini map. If you look at the image with both of the maps up, you'll see on the mini map, one trail that starts from the west side of the map, heads north west and then west. That's the BTDT track of Walkabout.

You'll also note two trace dots just north of that large sea. That's where Target initially landed and where it is now. I turned it's BTDT on briefly when I landed and parked it.

So there you have it. By my best estimates, in 3 days of driving, I've now surpassed 1/4 of the distance around Eve. But trust me, I've looked what's coming. This day, will be a rarity.

A tiny speck of light in a vast sea of desolate purple sand.

The misalignment of the middle screws

Bill moving the Karbonite drill from the undercarriage to the side of Walkabout

Bill attempting a repair with the KAS magnet. You'll notice there's zero tension on the winch. In this picture it's very obvious how far out of alignment the screws have become.

After the magnet failed, Bill attached a connector port to the outside of the screw and attempt to bring it back in alignment.

Bill's miracle repair job... smashing the F9 key.

Sunrise on Eve and the twinkling rocks.

Shadows of nothing cross the valley floor at sunrise.

Seanbles planting our Day 3 flag at Flying Rock Hill

Satellite track of Walkabout and it's current position.

Orbital track of Walkabout's current position

Edited January 2, 2015 by Fengist

[Cydonian Monk]

Nice so far! Gives new meaning to "screwing around" on Eve.... I wonder - are the bent screw tracks the result of Eve's gravity and how the, er, rover/ship is sitting at the moment, or is there some part breakage going on? It'd be nice if we had some truly warpable parts in KSP, perhaps not entirely soft-body physics (because that would murder too many PCs I think), but still something more than just blown tires and busted solar panels.

Think some people get a little too wrapped up in characterisation at the expense of describing the adventure!!!

A lot of people who do these kind of stories get too wrapped up in the Kerbals themselves and the dialog.

I kind of agree with both of you, though I'm guilty as charged. In my case it's a situation of disproportionate free time - Often I find myself writing an update somewhere away from my PC (in down time on my phone, etc), so I do perhaps get a bit long winded.... (And I'm bloody forgetful, too.) I do rather like the balance you've struck so far. And one devil of an adventure it is.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Cydonian Monk

[Slam_Jones]

Nice! I'm feeling a little inspired to try my own cross-planet trek. Not sure whether I want to do Duna or Eve yet tho.

PS have some rep

[Fengist]

Nice so far! Gives new meaning to "screwing around" on Eve.... I wonder - are the bent screw tracks the result of Eve's gravity and how the, er, rover/ship is sitting at the moment, or is there some part breakage going on? It'd be nice if we had some truly warpable parts in KSP, perhaps not entirely soft-body physics (because that would murder too many PCs I think), but still something more than just blown tires and busted solar panels.

Well, I have a theory as to what's going wrong but I'm saving it for a future post. I'll just say this. Lots more things are going wrong, to the point that I've had one save game restore me into a ball of fire, and busted solar panels figures into the calculation.

Nice! I'm feeling a little inspired to try my own cross-planet trek. Not sure whether I want to do Duna or Eve yet tho.

PS have some rep

Glad you're liking it. Since this is my first huge ground circumnavigation, I probably should have picked Duna as well to test the design on. Having to deal with land AND water added a lot of parts to Walkabout. And... as James Doohan once said, "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

And rep is always nice to have when I make the Mods mad (and I do on occasion). Thank you.

---

Day 4 - Target!

The mountain is high, the valley is low

And you're confused 'bout which way to go

So I flew here to give you a hand

And lead you into the promised land

- Edgar Winter Group

With only about 150km to go before meeting up with Target, the boys woke up focused and determined. They got started shortly after sunrise and made only one pit stop along the way to watch some more shadows of nothing crawling around on the desert.

Many of the issues we've faced so far, continue to plague us. While the middle screws are remaining mostly straight, we can still see them getting slightly out of alignment over time. Bill's fist slamming on the F9 key seems to fix it each time. The winch keeps coming disconnected, though that's just a matter of retracting it again and Kirke's monsters are still trying to bore holes in Walkabout. And the hydrofoil... that's a different story.

I mentioned in day 1 that it was somehow off center. The mechanics behind it are quite simple. There's an Infernal Robotics piston that connects to the undercarriage and runs up and through the center of Walkabout. It allows us to lower the hydrofoil into the water and thus, raise Walkabout above it. It is becoming a serious concern. It's basically wallowing around inside it's mounting, constantly changing position, thus, twisting the foil. If you go back and look at the pictures from day 1, you'll see it sticking up through the roof in the midst of the solar panels. In one picture, it's sitting low and canted to the left, instead of being centered. Two pictures later, it's sticking up several hundred centimeters higher. Well now, it's mostly returned to a centered position but it's canted forward... and it's raised up significantly.

The good news is, Walkabout doesn't 'need' that foil. It has a total of six. While that one is really nice to have it's not essential to a water crossing. It'll just make the crossing a good bit slower. The big concern... corrupted saves.

But, this was not a day to worry about engineering problems. This was a day to focus on Target.

We popped over a hill and there sat Target on the beach where we left it well over a year ago. Target is a quad-Karbonite turboprop powered VTOL. Some of you may have noticed it's a 1.1 version. The original version only had two wings mounted horizontally opposed. While it few great, Eve has a way of sucking down anything that doesn't have a wide stance. Even though there was plenty of landing gear it still became top heavy enough that whenever we filled it with fuel, it would flop over. So, the engineers back at the SPH added two more wings, on top and bottom. Now, the only problem with it is all those landing gear tend to grab the ground when we take off. But, it's manageable.

First order of business was to get it's engines restarted and warmed up. They'd been sitting a long time. While we were there, we decided to refill Walkabout's Karbonite take. We'd used up most of it in the previous nights travels and expected at least one more night run. Since Target has 2 drills, it would make the process a lot faster. So, we hooked the KAS winch up to it's connector port, transferred some fuel over to Walkabout and began drilling.

Once that was finished, we took remote control of Target and began the process of relocating it. And that's when plans changed. If you look on the map of Eve, right on the equator is a massive crater lake with an island in the middle. We'd seen images of this area and knew we could get around to the west side of it. So, we sat target down on the west side of that lake. But as we studied the map further, and with our engineering issues on our mind, a new plan developed. Just north of that massive crater is a smaller crater lake. To the north of that is a passage to the west, our intended direction. If we could skirt around to the north side of that crater, we'd avoid a lot of mountain terrain and save a lot of time. We sent Target up to have a looksee and... it looked passable. The downside, we'd be making a water crossing a lot sooner than expected.

It's now or never eh? We relocated Target and set off into the sunset.

A quick note about Target. If... you're planning on flying around Eve I do NOT recommend a VTOL unless you've had LOTS of experience flying them. Fortunately, I fly them a lot. Fixed wing aircraft have a MUCH easier time landing on Eve due to the soup-like atmosphere. It's not uncommon to still be flying at 15 m/s. VTOL don't get that advantage, and instead have to deal with the Eve gravity. You're either going up like a rocket or down like a rock. You really have to be good at throttle management to land a VTOL on Eve. I did it for the challenge and for the fact that I wanted to be able to land Target very close to wherever Walkabout might find itself.

Target in sight. Less than 100km to go.

Stopping to watch the 'Shadows of Nothing'

After days of tracking it, we finally meet up with Target

Having a quick drink before we continue, we used the drills on Target to help fill Walkabout's tanks.

Buzzing Walkabout.

Target's new location... for the moment.

Sitting on a pink beach. Bob, our science guy, says that Eve was once covered by oceans and all the sand was created by billions and billions of pooping parrot fish. Pink poop?

Checking on a new route plan.

Target landing on Eve.

The revised route. One that will hopefully be shorter and less treacherous. While we sat out on this journey for the adventure, engineering issues now have us focused on completing it rather than risking it.

Edited January 30, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Day 5 - Protrusions

He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

-The Beatles

Ignoring mechanical problems yesterday has led to major concerns today. The piston for the rear hydrofoil has gotten worse, much worse, and it continues to wallow around in it's mounting. To add even more to that problem, the pistons for the rear side foils and a one of the front side foils has also began to shift positions. Again, we called on Bill our engineer to... fixit. Bill pretty much declared the piston a lost cause after only a brief attempt to fix it. He tried to attach struts to it and have it extend and retract. The struts broke. He tried anchoring the whole works to the ground while we used Walkabout to pull it straight... the struts broke. He even attempted to bolt a ground pylon to the foils and retract it upwards, hoping it would pull the piston downward. The pylon got sucked up inside the solar array doing nothing.

By the way, there's some really, really strange quantum physics going on inside those KAS boxes. Ground pylons are huge!

As for the side foils, Bill had an idea of what might be causing the rear ones to get out of alignment, the solar panel array. He suspected those panels were banging against the pistons and knocking things askew. So, after demanding an F5, he started work on getting rid of those panels. I'll let the pictures tell that story... Let's just say, we did an F9 afterward.

With no hope of fixing things, Bill suggested we give Walkabout a bath. Perhaps all that jostling caused by the water would have some effect. Since we were going to have to make a water crossing, we really had no choice anyway. We pulled up to the river we needed to cross, extended the side foils and dove in. Walkabout floated just perfect. We turned on the screws, started lowering the bottom foils and... it took off like a jet ski... to the right. It seems the misaligned foils in the rear were causing it to turn hard to the right in the water. We turned back to the left and found that even though we had to do a lot of steering, it was at least manageable. One of the interesting parts of Walkabout's design, it's actually faster in the water than it is on land. As in, rip itself apart fast. In order to keep it in one piece, we have to adjust the depth of the center foils to keep the speed down. As long as we're under 20 m/s, it stays together. Anything over that and we'd need a lot of glue.

We made it across the river and... the rear piston was sitting lower, not where it should be, but not as bad as it had been. Bill was right. A bath did wonders for Walkabout. The side pistons were still out of whack but, again, there was nothing much we could do about that. Our only hope was that this beast held together for the rest of the trip.

The good news, that trip was half way over now. At least according to our Scansat. We got really confused looking at the numbers. According to Scansat we started somewhere east of the 180 degree mark and headed west. We crossed the 180 line and the longitude started going down. Today, we passed the 0 degree mark and the numbers started going back up. Now, if you look at the orbital view of where we are...

It says day 4 ended at 39 north, 20 east... Today we ended at... get this... 31 north, 368 west... I knew Eve was huge but apparently, it's so large, they had to increase the number of degrees in a circle to accommodate it. I'm not sure if Euclid would approve.

We met up with target again at the isthmus that it had spotted (previous days pictures) and decided to call it a night. Tomorrow, if we hold together, we'll finally be getting into the big mountains.

---

A note on my suspicions about the wobbling parts:

To my knowledge, no one has put a single ground vehicle to this kind of beating before. We're WELL over the 2,000 km mark. And there's been a LOT of warp physics going on. If you look into a save game file, you'll see that part locations on vehicles look something like this:

position = -0.170904040336609,-10.9031105041504,-0.648719549179077

Now if you ask me, that's a LOT of significant digits. From my experimenting, pretty much everything has an effect on that placement except the part you'd think it relates to, the root part. Camera angles, longitude, latitude, elevation... etc. all figure into that number. Now, when you're bouncing around on the ground and those parts shift position constantly, any time you stop and save, that position is recorded. That's a pretty precise number and I'm betting, it's pretty easy for that number to change in relation to other parts. The more you save, the further the potential for it to get out of whack, especially for parts that are surface attached and don't have a specific node to attach to.

But that's just my suspicion.

The misalignment of the rear foils.

The alignment of the foil piston getting progressively worse.

Yea... right.

Side foils extended in preparation for a water crossing. You have probably recognized my foils as air intakes. For whatever reason, they float really, really well. One thing I did at launch was to build up as much air pressure as I could and then, close all of the intakes. The air inside them is from Kerbin.

With the front center foil well into the water, the front side foils have lifted mostly out of it. They're no longer producing a wake. The center forward foil creates enough lift in the water that Walkabout is now balanced on the two rear side foils with the center rear being the speed control.

A rooster tail...

Exiting from the other side.

Our progress thus far.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Day 6 - A turn for the worse

They say the sea turns so dark that

You know it's time, you see the sign

They say the point demons guard is

An ocean grave, for all the brave,

Was it you that said, "How long, how long,

How long to the point of know return?"

- Kansas

We entered the highlands before we stopped last night and our worst fears were confirmed. The piston has become a major issue. Not only is the rear center one leaning left and right, it's now leaning forward and it continues to change vertical position. And, the rear side pistons have angled further downward as well. And now, one of the forward pistons has begun to shift positions.

The concern isn't that we won't be able to make a water crossing. Walkabout is capable of floating on it's own but the side pistons regulate it's stability. Without out at least two opposing foils, it will eventually tip over. The concern is the effect they're having on the rest of Walkabout. Any time parts intrude into other parts and they get to wallowing around, strange physics begin to occur.

We've already looked at the possibility of completely ripping out the rear center one. And while ripping the foil, the plate that holds the air intakes and even the piston itself is easily doable by running at speed and jamming it into the ground, ripping out the piston housing is a different matter. And with nothing solid to use for leverage, yanking out the side pistons... isn't going to happen.

We're at the point now that we have to run with all of the pistons, except the forward center one which is behaving, extended in order to keep them from banging into the sides of Walkabout. To make things even more painful, the two center screws continue to get misaligned, but not nearly as bad as before. But the only way to fix them seems to be Bill's miracle cure of F5 followed by bashing F9. But, each time we do, it seems the pistons get further out of alignment. We fix one thing and four more problems get worse.

Bill got out and, knowing before hand it would probably fail, attempted to coax the side foils back into alignment. He even left struts attached to the pistons as we drove along, hoping it would jostle them back into position. With the rear center one, the only option he had left was to try to lock it down with struts.

And now that we're in the mountains, the flexing of these parts is only getting worse. And so is our travel distances. While I certainly wouldn't call these mountains unpassable, the steep grades are slowing progress down to warp 1 and 2. Anything above that and Walkabout is just as likely to go backwards as it is forward. We did briefly come out of the mountains to run along a beach south of a big crater, but then, it was back into the mountains where we ended the day.

With all of the course corrections and having to follow the slope of the terrain, we left Target sitting on the beach south of the crater.

The south rim of the crater we skirted around. As you can see, the angle of the rear foils is really getting bad.

Briefly coming out of the mountains to run along the south rim of a large crater.

Bill attempting to lock the center foil piston in position with struts.

And Bill's attempt to adjust the side pistons. As with previous attempts, the struts ended up snapping.

Our position thus far.

[Space Peanut]

the excitement and adventure continues!

think your mission planning here was pretty spot-on. The notion of the "target" probe is brilliant and definitely something I will use if i'm ever skilled / mad enough to contemplate doing something like this myself!

[lajoswinkler]

Oh wow, this is... wow.

[Fengist]

Day Unknown - Contact Lost

As far as my eyes can see

There are shadows surrounding me

And to those I leave behind

I want you all to know

You've always shared my darkest hours

I'll miss you when I go

-Alan Parsons Project

From: KSC Kerbin.

There has apparently been a malfunction aboard Walkabout, the vessel attempting a circumnavigation of Eve. Voice contact has been lost with this vehicle and the KSC Tracking Station reports it is no longer able to pinpoint this vessel's location. Mission Control has taken control of the remote drone Target and has begun searching it's last reported location. Other resources have also been redirected to Eve in an attempt to locate Walkabout. Thus far, the only information we have are the last two images transmitted by Walkabout. The status of the crew is at this time unknown. We will keep you informed as the situation unfolds.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Fengist

[Needles_10]

What happened?

[Tw1]

That's not a good sign. Save corruption?

This has been a good adventure so far, quite a feat of endurance.

An interesting choice, going with screw propulsion. Making a reliable Eve amphibious vehicle is tricky, my own was tested and revised for a long time.

I use a wide, catamaran design with a low COM for stability. It uses separate wheels and propellers, and sits in the water- the body is made of carefully chosen impact resistant parts. I didn't have the same limitations though, and mine was only for one Kerbal. I like how yours looks like a boat from side on. It is quite long, what sort of terrain steepness can it handle?

Are the screws incompatible with mechjeb rover autopilot? I find that quite reliable, and being able to plan the route in detail in advance is quite useful. Though, this autobutton thing looks useful. I might have a go myself, and see if it could help, should I return to my attempt to tour the Jool moons using a ladder engine.

The Eve sunset is awesome, and your description of it, fantastic.

You haven't had much luck with those part placement glitches.

Interestingly, my experience with part position in the save file has suggested the opposite, with position being set relative to the Root.

I've adjusted parts of vessels using those parameters before.

My own Eve story is one that's more about Kerbals as characters and planets as environments than the mechanical battle to travel them, but then, it's a different genre. Each to his own.

I will be following this, if you get it working again. Otherwise, it was still quite the feat to read about.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Tw1

[Fengist]

A short video of Walkabout on Eve

Edited January 10, 2015 by Fengist

[Big Kerbie]

RIP brave Kerbalnauts. Our planet mourns your loss.