ManEatingApe

Kerbin time (426 days in a year, 6 hours in a day)

I'm thoroughly enjoying your ladder related antics! Nice work getting to orbit starting with a loop-de-loop then going backwards, that is some great out of the box thinking.

Ah, interesting. I had assumed you were using the Kerbal's off-center mass to create a torque. The previous attempt allowed some...erm...creative clipping, with stuff floating in mid air. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of it, especially since we don't need any fairings this time around. Placing the 2nd docking port off-center but still facing forwards e.g. atop one of the Oscar-B tanks will be fine. Designing a tug with enough RCS and reactions wheels to handle the off-balance load shouldn't be too hard, as long as there's no obstruction when accessing the docking port.

That's totally fine! One very minor suggestion: If the solar panels are only for power, the I'd suggest replacing them with a single Z-100 battery (and removing the battery on the bottom) The 10EC on the OKTO is pretty tight when SAS is needed and the weak solar power at Jool is only really suitable for slow recharging. During transit this battery could be kept locked and only enabled at the last moment. This would reduce part count and allow you to add a second docking port facing forwards. This extra docking port will enable a tug to grab your lander and position it on the mothership during orbital assembly.

Nice work, that's an impressive achievement! As @Jacke and @Pds314 have already mentioned, conserving EVA fuel is absolutely critical. 1.65 tons is extremely lightweight for a Tylo lander and we can afford to add some more fuel. Consider that a pod based alternative to this lander design would mass around 6 tons, so even at say 2 tons total, this design is one third the mass. That's a decent savings. EDIT: Ninja'd by your previous post. New design looks good.

You could always add another Kerbal...

Welcome to the discussion @EveMaster, I think you have just volunteered for the Tylo section of the reboot I really like your idea - it's ridiculous, ingenious, audacious and very Kerbal all at the same time! If you can get it to work then not only have do we a great solution for Tylo, this could also be used for Laythe. My idea with this reboot is to use the unchanged default "Normal" difficulty settings so partial control will be available.

Great! That will come in really useful. As well as a need for large fuel tanks, there's a need for "wide loads". For example the Laythe lander will probably need to be to be one large piece.

Great brainstorming session and analysis! While a 16,000 hop relay would be interesting to construct, I think we can safely rule that out as infeasible. As the VAB doesn't yet have 50 million way symmetry it could also take a while to assemble a craft with the required number of antenna for a direct link. Using the TANGO lander as an example, the payload was: OKTO + 2 * Battery + 2 * Solar panel + Ladder + Kerbal = 0.1 + 2 * (0.005 + 0.005) + 0.005 + 0.09375 = 0.21875 tons If instead of Kerbal on a probe core we use your idea of Kerbal on a Lander Can then the payload mass is: Lander Can + Solar Panel + Ladder + Kerbal = 0.6 + 0.005 + 0.005 + 0.09375 = 0.70375 0.70375 / 0.21875 = 3.2 x vehicle mass It definitely would require some more assembly, but unlike using CommNet this approach feels well within the realms of possibility. There would also be some advantages to this approach: Kerbals in a can means that we can aero-brake at Kerbin using a heatshield on the return journey. No probe core means no constant power drain, so we can be less careful about orbits leaving craft in the shade What does everyone think about brainstorming this approach?

You could also deposit them on Moho <cough cough> A Jool->Moho transfer is a bargain at only ~8,800 m/s. This kind of creative out-of-the-box thinking is why I love challenges on this forum! I like the idea of skipping a Kerbal of the surface of a planet like skipping a stone on a lake. However I'm gonna stick with the traditional definition of landing: Stationary relative to the surface, alive and intact touching the surface. The main reason is that while I don't have a problem with skipping off Gilly or Pol at say 40 m/s, I'm sure that someone would figure out how to graze Tylo at 2km/s or something else ridiculous which would undermine the spirit of the challenge. As some encouragement you can still litho-brake to a standstill as much as you like as long as the Kerbal survives, for example like @Vanamonde 's entry

It most certainly was! I had a crazy idea to make things even more epic...what do people think about the feasibility of doing this again but with CommNet ON?

Great mission report! Have 160 points and the current top spot on the leader board. I liked the use of Breaking Ground hinges for the "klaw" mechanism and the teamwork between the multiple vessels. Doing things the unnecessarily hard way is very much in the spirit of this challenge.

I'm on the edge of my seat! ...<gets popcorn>

Long distance precision Kerbal bowling...love it! You score a strike on Minmus, have 10 points and a spot on the leader board.

The good news is that this mission is possible using propulsive braking only. In fact it's nearly possible using the existing save game and craft. There are 2 situations in which aero-braking comes in useful: Capturing at Laythe Capturing at Kerbin when returning from Jool For situation 1 @dvader used propulsive braking only when landing on Laythe, so no changes needed there. For situation 2 we did originally use aero-braking to capture at Kerbin. However that was mostly to preserve dV in order to make a fancy-pants landing right on top of the VAB. The craft had plenty of dV left when entering the Kerbin system. Out of curiosity I reverted to version 27 of the save game, just as KILO is entering the edge of Kerbin's SOI. Using only propulsive braking I was able to get Jeb into a 67x83km orbit at a velocity of ~2,300 m/s. This is still too fast for Jeb to survive when re-entering in an EVA suit, but close! A few hundred dV more and it would be perfectly feasible. As a bonus it would simplify the design as the combined Tylo, Bop, Pol and Vall lander design could be re-used for the return craft.

Update from the Community Caveman Thread - it looks like fairing heat protection shenanigans have been fixed in the latest version of the game. Please disregard any of my previous comments about the possibility. Propulsive landing for the win! Hooray! You are the first to successfully complete the challenge. Have 20 well-earned points and go straight to the top of the leader board. I liked your use of airbrakes to contain your Kerbal on the ladder inside the service bay.

Dang. This challenge used version 1.7.3 so it looks like the loophole exploit cunning workaround stroke of genius (take your pick ) has been closed in later versions.

I'm afraid not - carefully managing your Kerbal's jetpack delta-v budget is part of the challenge! Your Kerbal cannot be enter any kind of pod once you stage from Kerbin's surface. Relevant section from rules here: As a general tip, there's great research on the best way to keep a Kerbal and ship close together when time-warping over interplanetary distances in this thread:

Propulsive braking is a solid option. Depending on the planet, there might even be enough dV in the Kerbal's jetpack alone. @Pds314 had success using a fairing open at one end (through some tricky offsetting) to protect Kerbals from reentry heat in the Community Caveman Jool 5 Challenge. Link to post The game seems to model heat occlusion if something is inside the fairing collider, even if not connected to the craft.

Another fantastic mod that will do exactly what you want is kOS

No worries! There's a straightforward solution and maintaining backwards compatibility is really important. Kudos to you and the team for the effort and skill spent maintaining such an excellent mod. It works extraordinarily well and the quality of the documentation is outstanding.

@Klapaucius Congratulations on the TOTM award and for an entertaining challenge!

Thanks @ElWanderer that did the job! For anyone else reading: If you want the position of a planet at a specific time "t" relative to its parent body, then you must subtract the current position of the parent body, not the position of the parent body at time "t" as you might expect. Reworking the code sample and randomizing the time offset from epoch gives more sensible values.

What you're planning terrifies me...in a good way!

They say variety is the spice of life...I want to encourage our intrepid Kerbal to see as many new sights as possible, by keeping the scoring geared towards visiting as many celestial bodies as possible. Nice try...I guess "transport" was slightly ambiguous! Rules clarified that the Kerbal should be alive and intact. Psychological trauma is still an option. I look forward to seeing what inventive heat protection you can come up with!