Let's see where this little ravine takes me

Jumped in and out of several valleys yesterday, mostly in the dark with NV - Wormwood's 19-hour day doesn't always coincide with convenience - some easy, some hard.
Got deposited on a small plain approaching the latest barrier. I've met a lot of these, but this seems to be the tallest yet. I'm glad Alec's ability to find suitable names hasn't deserted him, but I'm running out and simply calling this El Grosso (probably wrong in every language, but conveys the essence of the threat).
Experience tells me the highest peak doesn't belong to the nearest mountain in the range and the early morning light just adds menace rather than clarity, pointing out the peak.
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Three mountains later, several extreme slides and there's still another gap to cross and more up to come. Parts of El Grosso appear to be impossibly sheer, but looks like a reasonable route might be straight ahead, a little to the right, then on to the top. Best laid plans . . . waiting for suitable daylight.
Wormwood-067.jpg
Beautiful images! Are you grabbing hi-res screenshots or using any shaders or anything? Your images seem to have a certain subtle brightness to them compared to mine.
 
Beautiful images! Are you grabbing hi-res screenshots or using any shaders or anything? Your images seem to have a certain subtle brightness to them compared to mine.
I confess.
I use the standard f10 screen grab and open the .bmp in PaintShop Pro. Applying Adjust/Smart photo fix spruces the brightness and contrast more than enough to bring out details so I drop the Overall setting from 28 to 0, less if the result is still too bright (the same software may offer different results on other computers). If there are other details I want to bring out/drop back, I play with the Highlight and Shadow settings but not very often.
I find straight grabs are generally too dull for stills - I suspect that most online news sites make similar changes to improve their images - but playing with this level of adjustment might be quite tiring. Doing things this way means I don't have to mess about with monitor settings just to play ED.
I use Xara Photo and Graphic Designer to stitch panoramas. It's very good but does tend to crop top and bottom when joining three or more shots, presumably to remove jagged edges caused by rotations.
 
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It looks like you can beat on the SRVs pretty darn hard. Is that true? ...and despite your early-on concern for leaving some pods behind, I presume that you are able to record coordinates at any time (or create a bookmark)?

I'm gonna have to outfit a couple on my ship to give them a try!

Great story...
 
It looks like you can beat on the SRVs pretty darn hard. Is that true? ...and despite your early-on concern for leaving some pods behind, I presume that you are able to record coordinates at any time (or create a bookmark)?

I'm gonna have to outfit a couple on my ship to give them a try!

Great story...
The SRV is actually really tough ... as long as you plant your landings from height carefully (make sure you don't hit a rock) and cleanly (i.e. fairly level and not face first into a vertical rise). Hit a shear surface with your canopy at speed and you're gonna feel it. Also, make sure when you set off that you have repair synthesis pre-selected in the right hand panel (so it's right there when you need it - i.e. when your hull is below 50%, often mid-air and seconds from an otherwise fatal impact) and don't be afraid to burn through those repairs like peanuts - stock up on iron and nickel (personally I wouldn't worry about anything other than basic 100% repair synthesis unless you're doing something fairly extreme like flyving at over 150 m/s in order to bounce yourself into orbit).

As for leaving stuff behind, there's some role play going on here. In practice, the surface sites (with escape pods, crashed ships, etc) will be gone as soon as you jump out (e.g. into supercruise). You can of course record your coordinates (sadly no surface bookmarks yet) but those things won't be there when you return.
 
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It looks like you can beat on the SRVs pretty darn hard. Is that true?
I'm getting complacent - I lost my third on this trip, even though it had 51% hull. Who would have thought flying at 60m/sec backwards could be so destructive?

The only problem with having a climbing plot is that you can't see your objective when you're face to face with the rock. Just when you think you've cracked it . . .
Wormwood-068.jpg


. . . there's more.
The last part wasn't too bad, but I did find two quick ways down before hitting the heights. I think we can safely say that this planet is round.
Wormwood-069.jpg


I was more than half way down when I thought how interesting it would be to take a shot from the hump in that crater. Unfortunately, having made an elementary navigation error on the way down, it took me nearly two hours to find it.
WormwoodCrater03.jpg


But the view back was worth it.
Wormwood-070.jpg


Back on the northward trail, there's another one in the way.
Oh, pinnacles!
Wormwood-071.jpg
 
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The only problem with having a climbing plot is that you can't see your objective when you're face to face with the rock. Just when you think you've cracked it . . .
. . . there's more.
This is soooo true. I imagine that, without aerial reconnaissance/support, this must be a very real problem for actual mountain climbers. Where exactly IS the top? And is it the thing I'm currently climbing or is this a mere foothill compared to what I'm gonna see when I get to the top of it?
 
This is soooo true. I imagine that, without aerial reconnaissance/support, this must be a very real problem for actual mountain climbers. Where exactly IS the top? And is it the thing I'm currently climbing or is this a mere foothill compared to what I'm gonna see when I get to the top of it?
It's a problem even for hill walkers - though GPS has seen me climbing more 'correct' mountains :D
 
I've now replaced the faulty steering unit with the new "Hotas 4" model and I must say it seems far more responsive than the old "T.Flight". Didn't have long this morning but decided to resume my climb of the Obsidian Citadel ..

hNWwxLt.png


.. and made it to the top with seconds to spare before the weekly systems reboot.

Cnrox0P.png


LzHXLsG.png



What a truly fantastic vehicle the Scarab SRV is!

PzmhZXb.png
 
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This is soooo true. I imagine that, without aerial reconnaissance/support, this must be a very real problem for actual mountain climbers. Where exactly IS the top? And is it the thing I'm currently climbing or is this a mere foothill compared to what I'm gonna see when I get to the top of it?

Truly enjoying the thread, Alec.

What you're describing is a very real thing called a 'false peak'. And it's pretty emotionally devastating when climbing, as one is fairly exhausted by the time this becomes an issue.

When I climbed Mt Antero (14,276 ft/4351.4m), that was our exact experience. I was a lot younger and a lot dumber and didn't stay on any of the trails. I was with two friends and we just went straight up the mountain.

Towards the end, there were at least five or six times where we looked up and saw the pinnacle. We would get to that point, only to find it to be a false peak, with the mountain continuing to rise above and away from us.

The last two or three times it happened, we almost gave up. Talking about it afterwards, we found the only reason none of us gave up is because each of us was afraid the other two would think less of us.

Looking at your pics, I really, really, really wish we had a couple of SRVs with us.
 
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I'm getting complacent - I lost my third on this trip, even though it had 51% hull. Who would have thought flying at 60m/sec backwards could be so destructive?

The only problem with having a climbing plot is that you can't see your objective when you're face to face with the rock. Just when you think you've cracked it . . .
Wormwood-068.jpg


. . . there's more.
The last part wasn't too bad, but I did find two quick ways down before hitting the heights. I think we can safely say that this planet is round.
Wormwood-069.jpg


I was more than half way down when I thought how interesting it would be to take a shot from the hump in that crater. Unfortunately, having made and elementary navigation error on the way down, it took me nearly two hours to find it.
WormwoodCrater03.jpg


But the view back was worth it.
Wormwood-070.jpg


Back on the northward trail, there's another one in the way.
Oh, pinnacles!
Wormwood-071.jpg
I must say this planet is something of a mountain climbers paradise. There always seems to be one more mountain on the horizon, they're satisfyingly big, endlessly challenging but seemingly never impossible (and not icy) and the views from the top are always spectacular and worth the climb. I reckon' I'll press on and just see what's over the next horizon! :)

@TheWonko thanks ... amazing story! "False peaks" eh? Troubling tho' they are, at least I know what to call them now.
 
The last mountain was nowhere near as high as El Grosso, but there were one or two slippery spots. In retrospect it shows its two sides: an apparently gentle slope up and a very steep slope down.
Wormwood-073.jpg


I used the experience to develop a technique to mitigate the effects of slopes greater than 70°. I call it the Batman and Robin Effect.
Wormwood-072.jpg


Back on track, the mountains are gone both before and behind, replaced by another plain with no features on the horizon.
 
Climbing mountains with the scarab can be a lot of fun! But I'm also reminded now why I often choose to fly up and land on the mountain somewhere, if I can.. LOL :D Tiny ships are great for that, I just don't use them very often, so this doesn't usually work. ;)
 
Climbing mountains with the scarab can be a lot of fun! But I'm also reminded now why I often choose to fly up and land on the mountain somewhere, if I can.. LOL :D Tiny ships are great for that, I just don't use them very often, so this doesn't usually work. ;)
High on my QoL wishlist (after a better bookmark system, including surface bookmarks) is the ability to deploy the SRV from a hovering ship (e.g. anything below 500m and we should be allowed to deploy, maybe with a Proceed/Cancel warning).
 
View from the crater.
Wormwood-070.jpg


And back to the start, circumnavigation complete and ready for a temporary leave of absence.
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Wormwood is so close to the rings of the primary, you could almost jump the gap.
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It lacks the variety of Kumay (thus far) but it's very nice.
It doesn't have the ice, but it does have colour and there are lots of interesting features that haven't come our way - I've yet to run into a geological. Kumay was locked to its star so half is in permanent darkness. Wormwood is locked to the planet that dominates one hemisphere, so all parts get some light.
There are three enormous craters, Big Splash (in the shadows), Median Splash and Small Splash just waiting for visitors.
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There are lengthy valley systems.
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So I've dropped down into one . . .
Wormwood-078.jpg


. . . and drove 160km from my start point through valleys, canyons and ravines until the plains took over. The longer sets in the image above - on the other side of the planet - I've yet to try.
Wormwood-079.jpg


Looking forward to finding more.
 
While I'll probably never drive around a planet, you have inspired me to fly around a planet someday in my little Eagle. I'm talking true flying, around 2-4 km above the surface in "normal space". I'll even bring an SRV in case I see something exciting!
 
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