My payloads keep vanishing + Surface Scan help

[Der Anfang]

This is quite frustrating. I have a contract where I am supposed to perform temperature scans on Kerbin. I have succeeded in completing two of the three scans, one remaining of which is a stationary location, a surface reading. To make matters worse, it's on the mountain range just 60 or so kilometres away from the centre. I can get there by flight no problem, but actually landing on a slope proves to be not only tedious but also very difficult. I want to try to recover my crafts if possible, or I would have lost funding rather than gained any, since this contract offers only a few 10k or so funding total. I have tried several approaches:

1) Munar Lander styled air craft with rocket motors to ease landing. A munar lander with jet engines meant to cruise the 60 km between ksc and the scan location, and equiped with a landing descent rocket motor. While I rely on the rocket motors exclusively during the landing phase (rather than jet engines, for obvious reasons), the whole thing seems to tip over. Even when I do successfully land (a little more than half the time), I am never on the spot I need to be, usually several metres off or so from the location.

2) Deploy a rover straight from the space centre. Very slow, very tedious. By the time I get 10-20 km out, the wheels break (I must confess that I have been using mech jeb auto pilot and go afk since it would take me hours to get to the surface scan location). The only problem is that at some point either the wheels break or it tips over, and even with the landing leg restabilizer method, usually they break before I can get thing back up right. It's a leg dance, and it just simply doesn't suffice.

3) Deploy a rover/flyer hybrid. Again, same issues with both issues of 1 and 2 combined. The only reason to this approach was to leap over hills and such, and let the rover crawl the majority of the way.

4)Payload drop style aircraft. Now this is an interesting one, and have come close to succeeding, with some issues of course. Basically, fly an aircraft over the location, try a precision drop. The payload is a rover with chutes on it. This makes it easier to just go right to the spot. Even if I dont land right on course, that's why I drop a rover off nearby as close as possible and have it get there on it's own. This would be a flawless method if I wanted to recover everything from it, except that there is one major problem that gets in the way: Either the load or the aircraft disappears completely off the fabrics of kerbin space-time, whichever one I am not controlling. I wouldn't mind just letting the drop craft vanish and finish the mission controlling the rover, but I would lose way too much compared to the funding I would earn from the contract.

I don't want to cancel the contract either, or I would obviously be penalized. Any suggestions on what I can do to get the stupid surface scan on a hilly slope? I want to be able to recover everything used if possible, without it vanishing on me or anything like that. Also, is there any possible way of preventing things from vanishing? I am not sure why in the world that happens, but it seems to happen only in the atmosphere of Kerbin.

[worir4]

You could try the method from no.1 but just add parachutes to help you land. Also having a wider landing leg base should make it less likely for you fall over.

[LordFerret]

I don't play Career mode, I play a Science_sandbox mode, but I had a similar problem in wanting to obtain science from the nearby KSC mountain tops. I tried launching a capsule, tried driving a rover, even tried driving a rover near and hiking a Kerbal pilot up ... took forever, and many of the slopes encountered were impassable. So, I designed this jet...

As seen in this second image, the cargo bay holds a manned science package payload...

After flying low and slow recon and finding a suitable flat spot, I made one final pass and ejected the science package payload. Due to the way KSP handles such things, the caveat is that you must fly circles around the payload not exceeding 2km until it lands. Once landed however, you can return the jet to base and land, then switch back to the capsule and run your science experiments.

[Der Anfang]

I don't play Career mode, I play a Science_sandbox mode, but I had a similar problem in wanting to obtain science from the nearby KSC mountain tops. I tried launching a capsule, tried driving a rover, even tried driving a rover near and hiking a Kerbal pilot up ... took forever, and many of the slopes encountered were impassable. So, I designed this jet...

http://i.imgur.com/pStNLyy.png

As seen in this second image, the cargo bay holds a manned science package payload...

http://i.imgur.com/A6gI7SU.png

After flying low and slow recon and finding a suitable flat spot, I made one final pass and ejected the science package payload. Due to the way KSP handles such things, the caveat is that you must fly circles around the payload not exceeding 2km until it lands. Once landed however, you can return the jet to base and land, then switch back to the capsule and run your science experiments.

Very very similar approach, as stated in no. 4 on the methods. I would need a rover with a thermometer however (it's a surface temperature scan), not a stationary science package by the looks of yours, since precision landing that package would be very difficult. Are there any mods that prevent the drop offs from disappearing? I suppose I will have to circle nevertheless. Oh well. Thanks in advance!

[vexx32]

Moved to Gameplay Questions.

[LordFerret]

Very very similar approach, as stated in no. 4 on the methods. I would need a rover with a thermometer however (it's a surface temperature scan), not a stationary science package by the looks of yours, since precision landing that package would be very difficult. Are there any mods that prevent the drop offs from disappearing? I suppose I will have to circle nevertheless. Oh well. Thanks in advance!

You could do something similar with a very small rover. Does it have to be manned? If you don't have the parts available in your tech tree that I used, you can still accomplish it another way... which I've also done before. I created an earlier jet which, when over my target, could eject the entire nose of the jet with all the science experiments attached, and would float down on chutes (manned mission). Of course, the rest of the jet was sacrificed and crashed, but I got my science. You could try the same thing with a small rover on/as the nose of the jet... just put rover wheels and chutes on it. Might be worth a try if you don't mind sacrificing the rest of the plane.

As far as mods, I've not used it but Remote Tech might be what you're looking for... others here could probably tell you better.

Edited February 15, 2015 by LordFerret

[IllicitMedic]

Yes there is a mod that can extends the 2km range (pretty much as far as you want) but I don't remember its name, I'll try looking for it.

EDIT: I'm still looking for it, but in the mean time, this could be of use.

Edited February 15, 2015 by IllicitMedic