Circumnavigating a planet (for charity)

[Alec Turner]

So, having just ticked off item #131 on my personal Elite Dangerous TODO list ..

Spoiler

.. and, having briefly skipped over item #132 ("get a Federal Corvette") due to unsufficient funds, I find myself staring at item #133 ..

• Circumnavigate a planet

Well alrighty then! Thankfully, since writing that, my SRV driving skills have improved considerably so it's no longer as crazy as it seemed. I reckon' I can average around 50m/s and I'm happy to spend a fair few days doing this (~1.5hr play session per day) so .. does some quick back of envelope maths .. I reckon' as long as I can find a nice planet under 200km radius I should be good to go.

The first thing I do is consult the EDSM stat's page featured on last weeks Lave Radio:

https://www.edsm.net/en/statistics/bodies​

Although it offers a few potential candidates it somehow doesn't inspire me so next I turn to Google and come across this little beauty of a thread ..

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/327401-A-journey-to-small-places​

.. where Cmdr Varonica has meticulously catalogued a whole bunch of tiny potato planets. Hmmm ... I'd really quite like this adventure to be all my own and not just a copy of what someone else has done! Spurred on by this thought I sit down this morning, open the galaxy map and start exploring systems looking for a suitable candidate for myself. I limit the star types to O/B/A in the hope of finding myself a nice little planet that at least has a really bright light source to make things more interesting.

Time passes ... 45 minutes later and I'm back at Varonica's thread making a note of two potential candidates: Hi'iaka in the Sol system (handy since that's where I'm currently parked following my Fed ranking mission above), and Pleione 3 A.

I tire of the supercruise to Hi'iaka and stop off at one of the moons around Saturn that seems small enough (as you can probably tell by now I can be quite lazy when it comes to the planning side of these missions, I just want to get on with it). It turns out to be rather dull. I drive maybe 8km but it's all just flat and featureless wastelands of ice as far as the eye can see and with far too many nasty little stones littered around its landscape for my liking. I get a bad feeling about Sol, it's just not going to deliver what I want, so next it's on to Pleione 3 A ..

Bingo - I think we have a winner! I'll be scouting the planet out properly tomorrow, choosing what route to follow, marking down some interesting landmarks to visit on my journey, deciding where exactly to start (and finish) and, most importantly, deciding what colour to paint my SRV - but from my initial foray I think this is going to be an absolute hoot! My intention will be to note my starting co-ordinates, pick a heading and basically keep driving in that direction (with a few landmark diversions perhaps) until I've gone right around the planet and end up back where I started. I'll allow myself to re-call the ship (if I want to scout the route ahead for example) but will always resume my journey in the SRV from the exact co-ordinates I last got to. Along the way I'll try to take some interesting screenshots and video and will post daily updates in this thread.

Image courtesy of Cmdr Varonica, who's full description of Pleione 3 A can be found over here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...small-places?p=5175057&viewfull=1#post5175057

---

Day #1 update: It's dark and I'm wearing sun glasses, hit it!

Day #2 update: A collection of interesting rocks.

Day #3 update: A nasty collision that ripped the hull straight down to 4%!

Day #4 update: A horrible sense of forboding.

Day #5 update: Chasing my own shadow.

Day #6 update: Sir! it's quite possible this planet is not entirely stable.

Day #7 update: Thank you ... and farewell for now!

---

Go to the Special Effect JustGiving charity donation page by clicking the following banner.

Circumnavigating a planet

Help Alec Turner raise money to support SpecialEffect

www.justgiving.com

And, if you'll allow me to get semi-serious for a second, if you haven't already heard of Special Effect, then this is the sort of thing they do ...

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http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/

o7 commanders!

 

[z993126]

I fear your intended average speed of 50 m/s is overly optimistic, especially if you want interesting terrain to look at along the way. My personal safe autodrive speed to avoid wrecking my scarab on every molehill microdune is 9 m/s. ^_^;; I think I've managed to hit 45 m/s but only on the paved roads of the larger ports. Even so, best of luck! Circumnavigating a body is somewhere on my bucket list, too.

o7

 

[superflyguy]

godspeed! i look forward to the updates

<-lightspeed->

 

[Alex Brentnall]

I make that 1068km (Pi x diameter = 3.14 x 340)

At 50m/s thats 6 hours driving. Remember to deactivate un-needed systems like shields and pack lots of fuel refreshes unless you plan on collecting on the way.. Personally I think I max out much lower, maybe 34m/s or even 25m/s average so factor accordingly.


Godspeed you madman!!

 

[Alec Turner]

I fear your intended average speed of 50 m/s is overly optimistic, especially if you want interesting terrain to look at along the way. My personal safe autodrive speed to avoid wrecking my scarab on every molehill microdune is 9 m/s. ^_^;; I think I've managed to hit 45 m/s but only on the paved roads of the larger ports. Even so, best of luck! Circumnavigating a body is somewhere on my bucket list, too.

o7

You're dead right of course. If I was simply covering ground then that estimate would be fine, I present as evidence a recent video from a 50km race on Wasat A 2 E that took me around 12 mins (which is about 70m/s) ..

However, I'll be stopping to take screenshots, diverting to do hill climbs, jumping back into the ship to scout the route ahead, etc so, errr, yeah ... it could well take a lot longer than I've anticipated. Perhaps a sweepstake is in order. Guess how many hours it will take me and the closest to my final time wins, err, well, their name posted in a size 5 font in the final post as an absolute minimum. I'll start the clock once I've scouted my route and actually set off on the journey.

 

[Nick Sticks]

I've tried this before but gave up after about a week, maybe the planet I was on was too big.
I did come across a few things that were good though. Seeing smoke in the distance to the side led me to a crashed ship.
The scariest thing was when I saw something moving in the distance to the side travelling on the ground.
What could that be? I had to investigate and in the end it just turned out to be a canister rolling on the long incline.

 

[dannysquid]

Good luck. This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do but fear sadness and the end of relationships!

My favourite thing about ELITE is the awe-inspiring sense of futility and loneliness you get from staying up late at night, staring out over giant procedurally-generated craters on entirely fictional moons nobody else will ever see. But I can see why they don't advertise futile loneliness as a selling point, even if it is maybe the most extraordinary thing about the game.

 

[Macy]

Great idea. Crazy idea too. I might try that myself.

 

[Alec Turner]

I make that 1068km (Pi x diameter = 3.14 x 340)

Hmmm ... that's like doing the Wasat run 20 times. I think I'm mentally prepared for that.

Remember to deactivate un-needed systems like shields and pack lots of fuel refreshes unless you plan on collecting on the way..

Nice tip about turning off modules, I would have forgotten that! I have a fair number of refuel and repair mat's stocked up. I'm also carrying two SRVs (hmmm, wonder if I should go for 4?).

Godspeed you madman!!

Thanks!

I've tried this before but gave up after about a week, maybe the planet I was on was too big.

Dang! One reason I created this thread is to try and force myself to plough on no matter what. I'd hate to have to admit defeat publically! How far did you manage to travel, any idea?

I did come across a few things that were good though. Seeing smoke in the distance to the side led me to a crashed ship.
The scariest thing was when I saw something moving in the distance to the side travelling on the ground.
What could that be? I had to investigate and in the end it just turned out to be a canister rolling on the long incline.

Cool! Really looking forward to some unplanned adventures turning up along the way.

Good luck. This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do but fear sadness and the end of relationships!

My favourite thing about ELITE is the awe-inspiring sense of futility and loneliness you get from staying up late at night, staring out over giant procedurally-generated craters on entirely fictional moons nobody else will ever see. But I can see why they don't advertise futile loneliness as a selling point, even if it is maybe the most extraordinary thing about the game.

So I need to name my 2 (or maybe 4?) SRVs. I'm quite tempted to call one of them "futile loneliness".

 

[Barking_Mad]

Good luck. This is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do but fear sadness and the end of relationships!

My favourite thing about ELITE is the awe-inspiring sense of futility and loneliness you get from staying up late at night, staring out over giant procedurally-generated craters on entirely fictional moons nobody else will ever see. But I can see why they don't advertise futile loneliness as a selling point, even if it is maybe the most extraordinary thing about the game.

+1.

 

[Nick Sticks]

Dang! One reason I created this thread is to try and force myself to plough on no matter what. I'd hate to have to admit defeat publically! How far did you manage to travel, any idea?

Not sure, it was sometime ago. I was taking screenshots so I should be able to work something out - if I can find them

What I did work out was that I could set the SRV to 8 - 10 km/h and let it head in the right direction. At that speed it didn't take any damage when it hit something. The planet was dark most of the time (that dates when I was doing it) so I didn't see much ahead.
I did also get some attention from NPC's that would attack me. That reminds me of another scary thing that happened - seeing moving shadows on the ground of NPC's flying overhead.

Edit: and turn off as much as you can including the shields to conserve power.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Just imagine it as an old school Sag A* Buckyball, you'll be fine

 

[Nick Sticks]

Found my screenshots.

I set off from a ground based port called Burnell Vista in the Bangwa System which has a tall tower. This allowed me to keep looking back to target it and get the distance that way for sometime.
I could see the base and the tower for about 50km.
I travelled a total of 288km before I gave up. Not that far when you think of it but it seemed like it at the time.

 

[Alec Turner]

Day #1 (03.11.3303)

Having chosen my planet (Pleione 3 A) my first stop is a quick trip back to the Stargazer asteroid base to top up the tanks on my two SRVs, which I shall name "Joe 90" (after my childhood hero and favourite Gerry Anderson character and and also because of the compass bearing I've decided to follow) and "Maria" (because she can climb every mountain and ford every stream).

Having done that it's off to the planet that shall be my home for the next few days.

I do some basic scouting of my new home and quickly decide that, in order not to get lost and to ensure that I don't accidentally cut any corners, I'll start from a recongisable point on the equator and then simply follow a heading of 90° right around the planet. There are enough features along that route to keep the journey interesting, it'll be much easier than trying to follow an angular route around the planet, if I'm lucky I should get to witness some glorious sunrises and/or sunsets and I can use the longitude reading (lattitude should remain largely constant) to track my progress.

I've selected a mound in the middle of a medium sized crater at co-ordinates -5°,-173° (just off 0°/180°) as my start and finish point.

Here's my Python "The Call-out Charge" and "Joe" all parked up and ready to roll!

It's 6:14am on the 3rd November 3303, it's dark and I'm wearing sun glasses, hit it!

After a minor false start (I could have pretended that I meant to stop at the bottom of that mound for one last look around but the truth is that I didn't) the journey gets underway. I must say I'm spectacularly pleased with this little planet. The terrain is absolutely perfect for some challenging (but not too difficult) fliving^*1 and the low (0.04g) gravity allows me to quickly get into a nice rhythm that has me covering the ground at around 70m/s (I actually managed to hit 100m/s at one point!).

^{[B]*1[/B] fliving (verb) - a combination of driving and flying used to describe travelling at speed in an SRV by gaining altitude and then tilting forwards and boosting to gain speed.}

There is one slight problem that I hadn't anticipated which is that, because I've turned off a lot of unnecsssary modules (shields, sensors, scanners, cargo hatch and power distributor - 4 pips already in ENG), my heat signature is so low that my windscreen rapidly ices over around the edges.

At one point this ice lights up so brightly that it actually makes it difficult to see (a bit like when you drive a cold car into early morning winter sun). I hit record and what happens next takes my breath away ... this journey is going to be absolutely epic!

I finally park up at 7:12am, co-ordinates -3°, -123°.

I've been travelling for just under an hour, have covered 50° of longitude and so, by my calculations, have covered 148km. My starting "SRV distance travelled" was 8.19MM and my finish distance was 8.35MM which suggests around 160km so let's call it 150km for day #1. That's an average of 41.7m/s which means I'm looking at a total journey time of around 7.5hrs. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Alec Turner]

STOP PRESS

I've decided to open up a JustGiving charity donation page for this craziness.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/circumnavigatingaplanet

If you find this endeavour remotely entertaining then why not bung them £5 and prove that this isn't just an exercise in futile loneliness!

Look, you even get bonus videos simply for thinking about it!

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Never knew quite how cool ice looks on the SRV cockpit...

 

[Ozric]

Lunatic

Supported!

 

[varonica]

May the gods of Foxcroft be with you CMDR.

I have circumnavigated a number of small bodies in normal flight, I have covered entire moons on three occasions, Coltan for instance required me to fly 50,000kms at around 400Mps to do a complete surface scan, that took me more than a week of playing (not constantly of course), but fortunately with the right method you can relax a bit, it doesn't require constant attention like driving, that will be a challenge, I look forward to your finish announcement!

 

[Alec Turner]

May the gods of Foxcroft be with you CMDR.

I have circumnavigated a number of small bodies in normal flight, I have covered entire moons on three occasions, Coltan for instance required me to fly 50,000kms at around 400Mps to do a complete surface scan, that took me more than a week of playing (not constantly of course), but fortunately with the right method you can relax a bit, it doesn't require constant attention like driving, that will be a challenge, I look forward to your finish announcement!

Thanks Varonica! And thanks for providing me with a place to do this, so far I'm really loving this little potato planet. The landscape is perfect (it's like Tiny Wings on acid), the gravity is leaving me with lots of boost in reserve for emergency rock-bounce recoveries and as for the backdrop ... who'd have thought that a blue-grey nebula on a dark black background would look quite so stunning!

 

[Alec Turner]

Updated the OP with a bit more information about Special Effect and why it's a charity dear to my heart. Thanks to Alison (and everyone at Special Effect - and Ceyda's mum too!) for supplying the extra material and, basically, for everything you do.

[heart]