Equatorial cannonball run

[disorganise]

So whilst I wait to hear from support on the fate of my data, I voluntarily grounded myself at BP2. So to pass the time now that the flying circus etc is done, I thought I'd start an equatorial cannonball on Tuesday.
I'd planned to do this ages ago on a potato but owing to an unfortunate ship versus gravity incident, I never had time if I was to catch back up to the fleet.

So Monday evening IGT I dropped down to 0/-180, jumped in the SRV and took a heading of 270.

So far, there's been a mix of not very flat plains and rocky moguls (bumps large enough to throw the buggy several metres in the air, spin you around, cause a tumble and generally slow progress to a relative crawl) but no significant hills or huge depressions...at least not from the SRV perspective.

I've made it to 0/-175.3 after 3 days playing for about 40 mins or so before work. And so scale hits.....
If my maths is roughly right, it'll take about 150 hrs at this rate....which could be 3 or 4 months for me and not helped by a likely week away for keyboard next week.

Still.....if anyone else is looking for something to do, feel free to join me in open.

[PS, I have plenty of (pretty boring tbh) screenshots of progress which I can link if there's interest. Possibly the distance travelled might be interesting.]

 

[dognosh]

At a continuous 20 m/s , without interruptions and spins it will take you 103.4 hours , so 150 sounds about right, but then you have to take total utter boredom in to account

 

[mls]

i thought about this too, but decided this would be a hell of a lot more fun if done on a planet with so little gravity you could sustain your srv with the thrusters indefinitly.
This could mean that you actually fly your srv like a helicopter around the planet at much greater speeds than srv max speed. Possibly a ton of fun, or even more!

I thought about this kind of srv race before and wanted to do a complete BP circumnavigation from DWE celebrations end to Jaques arrival, but i found that the average speed drops more in the directions of 5m/s when you are in hilly regions.
Therefore your time estimate would be more likely to be 300-400h+

good luck tho

 

[dognosh]

Good points, I was thinking mainly about the flatlands and the pesky rocks that constantly hurt the SRV

 

[disorganise]

Therefore your time estimate would be more likely to be 300-400h+

Eek!!

 

[Macedonica]

My kind of Commander! If I wasn't doing the polar trip, I would join you in an instant - so what I wonder is, if I am heading up towards the equator along the -85 longitude an am currently at -73 Latitude (I think!), will we 'bump' into each other at all? The odds are remote but who knows? Especially if the SAR kicks off for Jacques Station here on Beagle Point 2 on Sunday!

 

[disorganise]

That would be pretty awesome really wouldn't it?
I made it to 0/-170.5 before work this morning......so only another 10 times ish to go to be roughly in line with you.
It depends a lot on availability of game time as I'm travelling in RL for the next week.

I'll post regular positions here. I don't have the writing skill (nor the time) to write a great story around this trip like you're doing so it'll be just be some boring stats for the most part.
I have screenies up on imgur, just need to have a bit of time to copy the urls over

 

[Macedonica]

That would be pretty awesome really wouldn't it?
I made it to 0/-170.5 before work this morning......so only another 10 times ish to go to be roughly in line with you.
It depends a lot on availability of game time as I'm travelling in RL for the next week.

I'll post regular positions here. I don't have the writing skill (nor the time) to write a great story around this trip like you're doing so it'll be just be some boring stats for the most part.
I have screenies up on imgur, just need to have a bit of time to copy the urls over

Ach, skill be damned! Just plunge in and start writing, dammit! (That's what I did!). I could even include your writing into the 'Enquiry' portion of my own narrative as another perspective - that would be a lovely development. I am planning on maintaining a -85 meridian up to the -0 latitude. the 'Ecuador' of Beagle Point 2. If I push the gametime, I could cover that distance in a week or so maybe? Not sure of that fits into your own itinerary, though?

 

[disorganise]

Starting point 0/180, 0/-180

oopsie, silly me

a wee hillock

End of Day 1:
Total Distance: 20KM

Day 2:
Total Distance: 80KM

 

[disorganise]

ummm. Shouldn't 0 degrees be in the centre line? that's always where I thought the equator was - you, it having 'equal' in the name and all

 

[Macedonica]

ummm. Shouldn't 0 degrees be in the centre line? that's always where I thought the equator was - you, it having 'equal' in the name and all

http://i.imgur.com/QvH5JvE.jpg

It should, yes. My own planet map puts me almost exactly on the right parallel or latitude as far as I can tell. Yours looks as if your navicomp is playing with you . . . May be logging out and back in again to see if it realigns?

Great pics by the way - you seem to be traversing more interesting terrain than I am discovering so far!

 

[disorganise]

It all started as an idea on a potato world some months ago...
Wouldn't it be cool to drive all the way around the planetoid and arrive back where you started to meet your own tyre tracks? Simple enough really.

Except....well....let's be kind and call me a space tourist. The fabulous benefit of being a tourist is that one does not get bogged down in detail.....the downside is that one does not have any idea about the detail!
So I was, zipping off in my buggy and minutes later....hazza! there's someone else here! How else could there be fresh tyre marks at 90 degrees (give or take....details ) to my travel.

Well, that would be due to your inability to keep a straight and true course wouldn't it?! too hard...moving on

Months later, I arrive at Beagle Point and get yacking with all sorts of experienced pilots with far greater skills than me, and they duly impart some knowledge.....you know, the basic stuff like "see that there boyo, well that's a compass bearing that is. If you do follow that as closely as possible, you'll go in a straight line won't you?" Wonderful How didn't I already know this?
During one of the, ahem, bar sessions, there was mention of some mad old fool who decided to drive pole to pole. Most of talk was friendly micky-taking mixed with incredulity at this Cmdr Felix Macedonica's proposed mission. I didn't say much. I was quietly thinking "yes! that's brilliant!"
And so with my new found 'skills', I decided I would give my original idea a crack as well....on the same planet. Why not? There's a snow ball in volcano's chance that we could accidentally 'trip' over each other since we'd be traveling at 90 degrees since my plan is to stick to the equator.

I figured I would try my best to not call down the ship, except for...well, you know. Certainly I wouldn't be boarding the ship with the SRV unless absolutely necessary - I figured I wanted to circumnavigate in one buggy with all repairs being done on the planet..if possible.

The first day I managed to make 20km. That was almost a whole degree! Only 359 left to go....oh boy.
the 2nd day I picked up the pace and made 80km....woohoo! I might make it round faster if I simply boost off the surface and wait for the planet to turn underneath me.....except that probably doesn't happen here right? [them details..]
Day 3 was...220km completed...awesome. Totally busted axle....disaster!

A little gully:

This one got a bit serious:

May have found an impassable gully

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Therefore your time estimate would be more likely to be 300-400h+

wow, i've only played for 192 hours in total since June 2015, id only be half way round [woah]

 

[disorganise]

9 days it took.

9 whole days.

Oh sure, I could probably have boarded the ship and gotten the hangar to replicate a new axle in a couple of hours.....but that would be cheating my own rules from the start. So hand held blow torches and micro-furnaces it was to fabricate the necessary material to effect a repair. Gawd know if it will last. If it doesn't, I'll recall the ship I guess.

I've christened the buggy 'The Rock Diviner' as it seems that no matter how flat the surface, this buggy will seek out the only substantial rock for miles around and hit it with such force that it's little wonder the wheel don't fly off.

Day 4 (12 technically but I'm not gonna count the excessive repair time) saw me reach 0/-164.179, so 50km further around

The 50km were hard won because of the rough terrain

Day 5 knocked off another 90km and was a mix of really very rough terrain and long flats with rocks that the buggy sought out with increasing accuracy. Screaming down a hill into a 'ravine' at one point, a bump sent me soaring...and despite panicked boosting I face-planted a huge boulder and took some serious damage...to both buggy and pride.

Such was the accuracy of The Rock Diviner, that spontaneous explosion was imminent

I'm sure these gaping chasms are but tiny cracks from the perspective (and comfort) of the ship

 

[disorganise]

Day 6; End position 0/-156.8259, Distance today 80km, Cumulative total 540km
Discovery: Canyon; Proposed Name (subject to prior existing name): Disorganise's Despair

Interesting day.
Started off driving parallel to a chasm. No problem whilst parallel, except my course took me more and more inclined and it soon became clear I was gonna have to traverse this thing!

Whilst going down was relatively easy (guided falling basically), going up the other side was a whole different matter. It was tough, real tough.

There were many tense stumbles

but eventually progress was made

There was inevitably a false peak of course, so the climb was effectively done twice, but eventually....success

The reward......endless plane

 

[mls]

Nice one, i did that once on BP 2 but after a good hour of driving down hill i couldn't be bummed to go back up so i took the ship.
+1 rep for sticking to it and going all the way

 

[Macedonica]

Great updates! I was wondering what had happened to the Beagle Point 2 Equatorial Expedition. I loved the canyon episode - you seem to be discovering/claiming much more interesting terrain than I am whilst moving up through the -60s Latitudes. I bought a HTC Vive on Saturday and I can tell you that driving the 'James Caird' or the 'Dudley Docker' in VR is a queasy experience indeed. Keep the updates coming and I look forward to an RP at some point!

 

[disorganise]

RL took me afk for just over a week so no progress.....but this weekend I should be able to get a good few hours in. I've got about 71 degrees to get around to your line if I understand correctly - I'll try to get as far as I can this weekend; I don't think I can make the Educating Ed livestream becuase timezone makes the pre-meeting 3am, but....... I'm just wondering if we could somehow manage to be somewhere close to meeting, maybe there can be a flyby.......but it does mean knocking off those 70 odd degrees (60 for you) which I'm not sure is doable.

 

[Macedonica]

Hmm luckily me partner has just jetted off to France for a week so I can sink some serious time into this SRVing. The weekend will be good as I can eat some a lot of the latitudes, I think. I will hit the equator around the -82 Longitude (if I remember correctly) but can divert onto a better bearing if that suits?

 

[disorganise]

Day 7; End position 0/-155.7812, Distance today 20km, Cumulative total 560km

Bit of a slow one today. The rock sniffer (aka the SRV) did a wonderful job of colliding with boulders just out of sight, and turning my world into a beautiful kaleidoscope of violently spinning mass.

Uncle Breb always had this weird picture up on his shed wall when we was kids. Said it brought him luck and was from Earth. Never can forget that picture, it seems to have meant so much to Breb. So when I happened across this rock, I had to claim it for him. I hereby name this rock mini-Uluru

It's quite noticeable now that the Sun is way up above instead of ahead. It seems to be a bit brighter as a result, but it's a bit annoying I can't use it anymore to navigate - it was easy before; just keep pointing towards the sun. Oh well, guess it means I'm making progress I suppose.

Finishing spot for the day....had enough of the clipping rocks and spinning and don't have the energy to concentrate on climbing what could turn out to be another steep canyon, so....gonna sleep on it.