Lightest Eve Lander Challenge v1.1.x & v1.2.x

[Kulebron]

Is this thread still active?

I managed to get down to 18.005t dry weight, hauling 2 kerbals in service bays. This figure includes drill and processor unit mass. Does this count, or I should fuel it instead?

I did this using spike engines. I did try the Shuttle engine-based design too, but failed to make anything better than 40t. (edit: forgot I had a big heatshield on it and parachutes on it to tear it from the ship itself). 

 

Edited March 8, 2017 by Kulebron

[Foxster]

Definitely has to be the wet-weight but you can dump the mining gear using decouplers and it's the weight you have when you hit the spacebar to liftoff that counts.  

[Kulebron]

Ok.

@Foxster How did you attach the radial-mounted stages in the last design?

[Foxster]

Smoke and mirrors

It's actually one stack mounted behind a small nose cone clipped inside the main craft. Then two halves of the stack are moved to either side of the craft.

Because of the poor way that KSP models occlusion this means that both those apparent stack halves continue to be streamlined behind the small nose cone.  

Edited March 8, 2017 by Foxster

[Kulebron]

Ah, I saw that on YouTube. So this challenge does not forbid parts clipping. Anyway, I learned from you a lot, thanks.  Somehow I missed the wing-like decoupler that also transfers fuel. I think I can save some drag on this too. And probably I'll use this approach to build a ship for 2 kerbals in a payload bay (not for the challenge).

[Laie]

Don't know where else to put it, so I place it here. Both of the above vessels work, the Fat Boy even better than an equivalent craft made from slim tanks (not shown). I don't know why. It really shouldn't. But it does.

However... sticking to the FLT line allows me to remove small amounts of tank from the stack, and add an even smaller amount to the upper stage. That's how I arrived at Thin Man.

I've written a krpc launch script that dials in a gravity turn, then turns on SAS to prograde. The script also stages, and throttles down when the nosecone is about to blow up. Very handy if you're doing a lot of try, rinse, repeat cycles.

Script and craft files here.

Not sure if I'm still on the same physics as when this challenge was created. Parts have been revamped, especially the Mk1 pod has become a little more pointy, but a few quick tests suggest that the effects are slight to nonexistent.

ETA, Q: how is it supposed to land, how can people get in and out?

A: drain all tanks, mount a wide tank of equivalent capacity at the bottom, add heat shield. Also throw in another crew module for easy access near the ground, pilot can then teleport to the top and refuel the rocket from the bottom tanks. Science container is required to pull experiments from the bottom and make them available at the top. Example:

Due to the offset chute it comes down with a tilt, but the low CoM makes landing easy. Don't know how much of a slope it can cope with after the fuel has been pumped up; but as you can see it doesn't need to be perfectly level.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Laie

[Foxster]

Linky to craft file not working. 

[Laie]

@Foxster Unprepared change of IP address and DNS trouble, sorry. It seems to be back online for a lot of people; if it doesn't work for you, please be patient or use another name server). If you can see a picture of two LVs at the beginning of the post, the download link should work as well.

[Foxster]

18.069t...