This was really fantastically shot and narrated. Bravo!
The First Great Planetary Expedition
- Thread starter Alec Turner
- Start date
This was really fantastically shot and narrated. Bravo!
Ta, it was great fun doing that route!
Hear hear, @Nick Sticks - totally agree, loved reading through that and bravo for scouting the Northern route - it was epic!
I arrived at Geo Site #11. The 150-something kilometres from the Southern Ghosts were just as dark as the ones before that. Matter of fact, I haven't seen sunlight since approaching the South Pole. So, to summarize... bumpy terrain, the occasional canyon, boulders... and night vision! At one point I was blasting my way across some really nice and flat terrain. With night vision off. I hit a boulder, come to a standstill and switch on night vision. To my amazement, I'm actually crossing a ridge, a couple of hundred meters wide, that runs between two steep canyons. I paused to take a picture but unfortunately can't find it anymore... These things make me wonder. Just a fraction of a degree either way anywhere along my approach to this ridge and instead of "flyving" at 50m/s I would have been negotiating terrible humps and bumps. What are the odds? Amazing really!
For the last stretch, our blue companion has made an appearance again. Hopefully, there will be some sunlight soon.
The campfire is nice and cosy. I'll hold for a while. Hopefully, some fellow Expeditioneers are soon to arrive... (I really have no idea where everyone is)
For the last stretch, our blue companion has made an appearance again. Hopefully, there will be some sunlight soon.
The campfire is nice and cosy. I'll hold for a while. Hopefully, some fellow Expeditioneers are soon to arrive... (I really have no idea where everyone is)
Today I complete the last stage of the Northern route (in the dark) and then make a beeline for the North Pole and, more specifically, Sulphur Peak. Since I'm a good 20° off on the longitude I pick a heading of around 60° and sure enough, as Chi Herculis creeps out from behind Apasam, a towering edifice rises up on the horizon in front of me.
@Nick Sticks comes on-line but I'm barelling towards my goal at 80m/s and reluctant to lose my momentum so I ignore his Wing request for now and plough on. Some time later I run out of momentum and, from quite some way up my chosen peak, establish contact and voice some concerns that I might be on the wrong peak (my longitude is still way off).
With hindsight I should have listened to Slackjaw Bob! For now tho, Nick deploys his alt/droid to come and check and meanwhile I take in the view. Hmmm, there is another peak waaaay over there in the distance (just in front of Apasm).
Nick pops back into comms ... "I have bad news".
Doh!
Oh well, there's only one thing for it!
Source: https://youtu.be/iLogcVLFElA
Some time later and I'm quite literally on top of the world!
@Nick Sticks comes on-line but I'm barelling towards my goal at 80m/s and reluctant to lose my momentum so I ignore his Wing request for now and plough on. Some time later I run out of momentum and, from quite some way up my chosen peak, establish contact and voice some concerns that I might be on the wrong peak (my longitude is still way off).
With hindsight I should have listened to Slackjaw Bob! For now tho, Nick deploys his alt/droid to come and check and meanwhile I take in the view. Hmmm, there is another peak waaaay over there in the distance (just in front of Apasm).
Nick pops back into comms ... "I have bad news".
Doh!
Oh well, there's only one thing for it!
Some time later and I'm quite literally on top of the world!
Is it too early to start building pyramids at the North Pole?
Looks like next meetup on the North Pole will be just in time for me to reach the South one.
When I met with Alec for the first time on Kumay, he gave me his coordinates, I entered them into my GPS app and flew to join him for a drive. He was waiting and as I was approaching the surface he wrote to me "hmm... you're on the other side of the planet...".
You see, I often mix up coordinates, forgetting to correctly set +/- f.ex, so I usually end up in wrong places.
Story of my life, I guess
When I met with Alec for the first time on Kumay, he gave me his coordinates, I entered them into my GPS app and flew to join him for a drive. He was waiting and as I was approaching the surface he wrote to me "hmm... you're on the other side of the planet...".
You see, I often mix up coordinates, forgetting to correctly set +/- f.ex, so I usually end up in wrong places.
Story of my life, I guess
As far as I know we have yet to conduct the science experiment where we have one commander at the North pole and one at the South and then wing up and check distances to measure the diameter of the planet. You up for a spot of science on Saturday afternoon?Looks like next meetup on the North Pole will be just in time for me to reach the South one.
When I met with Alec for the first time on Kumay, he gave me his coordinates, I entered them into my GPS app and flew to join him for a drive. He was waiting and as I was approaching the surface he wrote to me "hmm... you're on the other side of the planet...".
You see, I often mix up coordinates, forgetting to correctly set +/- f.ex, so I usually end up in wrong places.
Story of my life, I guess
I wonder what would happen if I dismissed the Cobra III?
Absolutely. It will be nice change to be in the wrong place in the name of science for once
I should report all of you. There is no way I can read and being flyving at the same time. So you have to make these damn posts so interesting that I am at a stand still while I read these posts.
Well back to the Kumay, I got to make some time up.
Caliber
Well back to the Kumay, I got to make some time up.
Caliber
That's why I only post sporadically - once you get 'in the zone' it's best not to stop, or it's back to skidding around in circles (again!)
Just arrived at The Jumble but it's dark, think I'll wait for Chi Herculis to shed some light on this area before I try to navigate it. Shouldn't be too long as I drove for over an hour in darkness before arriving.
Edit: I made my way through The Jumble and arrived at Geo# 14
Edit: I made my way through The Jumble and arrived at Geo# 14
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I've updated rosta locations for Jonas and Caliber as far as I know where they last were. I'm thinking of adding Factabulous there too.
@LetItBleed1980 great screenshots!
(btw., made it to South Pole! Yay!)
@LetItBleed1980 great screenshots!
(btw., made it to South Pole! Yay!)
Thanks!
I'm currently between site #11 and the next (don't know the number as I'm not at my computer). There's a huge canyon system between those waypoints. I was utterly lost last night. I'll share some pics later today and a detailed report of my struggles.
So much this. It's a great feeling when you are going full throttle and you hit jump after jump just right. The highest speed I've noticed my SRV travelling at was around 79m/s, but I don't really look while I'm going at that speed!
I've got a couple of hours worth of video where I was travelling with three other commanders, and as soon as I work out how to do it I'm going to post it at 10x speed or similar. I was looking to cut bits, but when I looked through the video the whole journey was awesome!
Just today I watched Cmdr turkwinif video of his 2.5hrs circumnavigation to try and understand how he did it. Video is cut and fastforwarded, so it's hard to tell, but often it shows him achieving speeds like 800m/s. That's just unbelieveable!
I've learned a lot about flyving during this trip and recently I even started using Assist Off hoping it holds the key, but I just can't see too much of a difference at this point, not to mention I wouldn't believe speeds like those were even posiible if not for that video.
I've noticed that it's all about the angle you approach the ground. Too much and you hit hard, too little and you land. Make it just right and you bounce nicely, not slowing down.
But even if I do it right for a while (not too long though-sooner or later I'm bound to make a mistake) I don't see too much increase in speed. Not beyond 60,70, or maybe 80 m/s.
Assist off absolutely holds the key as it means that you don't lose speed on the bounce. With assist on, you'll always be slowed down on the bounce. It took me ages to twig that was the reason I couldn't flyve very fast, and I've only really been driving fully assist off since the start of this expedition (so very much thanks for causing that, Alec!!).
You also have much more control with DA off, so long as you are good with the throttle. The only time I put DA on now is when I am going to stop, and even then I often won't bother (as I've also discovered the handbrake recently
).I should add, though, that I still haven't worked out how to get into orbit...
Re: stopping - handbrake is obviously one way although, since you're bouncing and not in contact with the ground very much it's not brilliant. Another way is to tilt backwards 45 degrees or more and boost against the direction of travek (although it's pretty unnverving to be hurtling downwards at 80m/s tilted backwards and not being able to see where you're going!
Re: going really fast - the key is consistency. Your tilt boosted speed builds up gradually - you need to keep it going (without any speed killing bad bounces) for at least 10 minutes or so in order to get up to those 100m/s+ speeds (and @turkwinif just did it for half an hour plus in order to build up to those 300m/s+ speeds). For ages while following the exploits of @SushiCW et al I was flumoxed by this ('cos I just couldn't get above 40m/s) but I think this is the key (I say think because I've never managed to get up to orbit speeds either).
Re: going really fast - the key is consistency. Your tilt boosted speed builds up gradually - you need to keep it going (without any speed killing bad bounces) for at least 10 minutes or so in order to get up to those 100m/s+ speeds (and @turkwinif just did it for half an hour plus in order to build up to those 300m/s+ speeds). For ages while following the exploits of @SushiCW et al I was flumoxed by this ('cos I just couldn't get above 40m/s) but I think this is the key (I say think because I've never managed to get up to orbit speeds either).