Possible to perform a flyby with only the first 2 tech nodes unlocked?

[Cunjo Carl]

Got it! It's totally possible to flyby Mun and return with no shenanigans. The margins are a little tighter than I normally like, but it's repeatably doable with this.... thing.

(Highlighted to show attachment point)

The left stack is attached by a radially-attached fuel tank which is 2 above the upsidedown flea. The flea has a 42 units of fuel in, which is just enough to destroy that attaching tank, even after the exhaust damage reduction of 1.1. It needs to have the one spacer tank inbetween because of 'damage offset', which prevents the SRB from damaging itself and small things immediately attached. Everything needs to be attached with rigid joints to keep oscillations down (  <3  v1.2). Also to this end, some tanks go up from our radial tank and some down to keep the height of the craft down and help its stability. Fuel will flow from the radial stage to the primary one through the fuel tank without any higher science, which is a new feature for v.1.2! You used to need to do this through radial SRBs (glitch). The fuel flow priority is first the lowest tanks, then the upper tanks of the second stage, and finally the tanks on the top stage. The mission can succeed with a vertical launch, but it has slightly broader margins with a high arc (2 small ticks rotation at launch, 20-30 degrees from vertical at 8km and 20-30 degrees from horizontal at 50km.) It's not designed to orbit, just burn for the Mun from within the atmosphere and take whatever extra scraps of deltaV we can get from the Oberth effect. It's definitely wiggly on the way up, and small wiggles should be ignored, while large ones of the whole craft tilting should be damped as best as possible. To launch, whack the spacebar as physics comes on and press z-t as soon as possible afterwards.

The exposed tank top creates an enormous amount of drag above 400m/s (boo v1.2), but it's generally better to just keep at full throttle anyways. It's almost worth it to replace 2 fuel tanks with a mk1 capsule just to act as a nose cone, but the margins wound up slightly lower with this setup.

For reentry, make sure to keep atleast 30 electricity and do the first pass ~38km with no SAS on the way back up. The second pass can be done largely without SAS, but a ton is needed during final descent beneath 20km.

I'm planning to put together a quick video (and edit it in to this post) later this evening showing how all the bits work; it's a bit finicky. Still, it can haul a massive science payload of 1 thermometer *ahem* out to its destination!

 

In my practice run I had 16 fuel remaining and opted to do a near flyby successfully. In this one I had... 11-ish I think, so I went with a high flyby. The closer you get, the harder Mun kicks you and the more you need to burn to return. Also, I showed how to do the harder inner flyby, which is better for deltaV. The easier outer flyby can be done by putting AP at 13.5Mm, at the cost of 3 or 4 fuel, which is within margins.

The video is pretty dry, but I hope it's helpful!

 

 

   Edit: Oh, one more one more thing! You may know all this stuff already, and it's kinda off topic, but I'd be remiss to not mention these other easy-science gathering techniques. Because it's biome-by-biome, Polar orbit EVA science is a very lucrative source of early easy science. You need to be in low space to get it, but it can be a very eliptic orbit, and because you can get the entire planet in one shot (with pod science gathering), the goodies add up quick (or for you, perhaps somewhat less dauntingly slowly). The no-shenanigan craft can't quite get to a polar orbit and back, but even slight upgrades to them (nose cones) should enable it. The shenanigan craft will have no problem with doing a polar orbit on either Mun or Minmus.
   Also, flea + Basic fin planes are nice for hopping to nearby biomes. Thermometers deliver more than twice the science while flying, and this can be run in addition to the landed ones you already have. There's one more kind of science you can collect, which is jumping science! Believe it or not, EVA'd kerbals are technically flying while they're jumping, which should give you an extra 0.6 per biome. Unfortunately, all of KSC is supposed to count as 1 biome for this purpose, but there's still phantom flying biomes strewn about the place like crazy and sometimes you get lucky.
   Finally, they're kinda off topic at this point but let me know if you'd like the story mission exploit or the EVA kerbal free reentry glitch. Given this crazy spacecraft worked I don't think you'd need them, but they exist.

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by Cunjo Carl
remembered some things

[xendelaar]

Hi guys, here are my replies to most of your suggestions and questions. I didn't use your Individual  quotes to make my post a bit shorter, so forgive me if the asnwers seem a bit unclear.

I will try to work on the suggestions tonight.

------------------------------

@bewing: 2 eva’s on kerbin per biome.. thanks for the tip! That’s another 0,2 science points per biome! I didn’t know that was possible!

@Blaarkies : actually, I tried the 10% challenge before, but stopped when I couldn’t get any profit from the contracts. I started the 20% challenge afterwards and profits then became “sky high” again. It was a great career-run! I just love the science grind. now.. almost 6 months later, the 10% idea started itching again and here we are… on the forum, begging for pro-tips hehe.

Thanks for the tip on upgrading the runway before the launch pad! I never thought about it that way. I also didn’t know about the new biome the VAB generates when upgrading it. Darn these decisions!!

@Cunjo Carl: I don’t mind using some offsetting to help me in my cause. To me, that’s not really cheating, but I understand that other people frown upon such ideas.

The idea of upgrading the astronaut complex first is a very interesting one. An EVA report on several mun biomes and kerbin biomes would be great. I will have to check what the science yield will be. In any case I won’t be upgrading the VAB… that upgrade is around 450K credits! I would have to perform 500 tourist jobs in order to get that thing built. No thanks haha

Your 6 fpr xendelaar 4 ship looks really creative. You’re pushing the envelope here man! Awesome! I hope I have some spare time this evening to try your design. It sounds really complicated!

I have been thinking of making a mission report of this challenge, but I still don’t know if I can overcome this money and science “valley” I’m currently in. Besides that, I don’t know how to make a report on performing 50+ repetitive contracts before anything interesting happens. Ah well.. we’ll see. J I’m glad you like the idea though! I will sure spam you when I find a nice way of reporting my experiences. Your reports are always very nice to read, but I don’t think I have the skills to “copy”your format. J

@Streetwind: thanks for the idea! It’s a shame your first design didn’t work! Thanks for the effort though Your second design is a beauty btw! Very clean and easy  to reproduce! I will definitely try this design ASAP!

@IncongruousGoat : thanks for the info, but I don’t have the FT200-400 or 800 unlocked yet.:)

@bewing again: I did visit most of the KSC biomes the first days. With a thermometer, EVA and crew report it yields approximately 1 science point. I didn’t use the eva-jump-report method yet, so I will be visiting these biomes again soon! Science points for the win!

@Cunjo Carl: the “Xendelaar Mun shot” (catchy name btw ;)) is out of this world hehe! OMG that thing looks hideous haha. How did you come up with this thing. It so creative! Must have taken hours to come up with a working iteration! I love it.  I will watch your video later this evening. I can’t wait

I really want to know more about the story mission exploit and the eva kerbal free entry glitch! Please post or PM the details

 

[IncongruousGoat]

2 minutes ago, xendelaar said:

@IncongruousGoat : thanks for the info, but I don’t have the FT200-400 or 800 unlocked yet.:)

Oh, I'm well aware. It's just that someone mentioned the possibility of roving around Minmus on the 18 t/30 part limit, and I felt compelled to present evidence of the feasibility of such a mission.

[xendelaar]

So here's a small update. I tried @Streetwind's design first since this was the most easy craft to build. It took me a couple of tries but after a couple ascends I finally had an encounter with the Mun.

Here's a small impression of the mission.

Spoiler

Shamelessly copying @streetwind's craft

Got into orbit and head to the Mun with even some reserves

Harvesting those sweet science points!

Successful re-entry with a smooth landing... I didn't lose any part. The landing spot was a bit far from the KSC so we lost 80% of our 7800 kredit investment. Luckely we gained more from missions and world firsts

 

When I landed I gained 3,8 science points which brings me to 15 science points in total! This raises another question... which tech should I choose next. The one with the barometer (survivability) would increase the science output on the short run, but general rocketry would open up the path to a Terrier engine with advanced rocketry. With the terrier I could visit even more planets...but adv. rocketry costs 45 science points..

decisions, decisions ...

I'm leaning towards survivability...

any thoughts?

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by xendelaar

[Cunjo Carl]

4 hours ago, xendelaar said:

@Cunjo Carl: I don’t mind using some offsetting to help me in my cause. To me, that’s not really cheating, but I understand that other people frown upon such ideas.

The idea of upgrading the astronaut complex first is a very interesting one. An EVA report on several mun biomes and kerbin biomes would be great. I will have to check what the science yield will be. In any case I won’t be upgrading the VAB… that upgrade is around 450K credits! I would have to perform 500 tourist jobs in order to get that thing built. No thanks haha

Your 6 fpr xendelaar 4 ship looks really creative. You’re pushing the envelope here man! Awesome! I hope I have some spare time this evening to try your design. It sounds really complicated!

I have been thinking of making a mission report of this challenge, but I still don’t know if I can overcome this money and science “valley” I’m currently in. Besides that, I don’t know how to make a report on performing 50+ repetitive contracts before anything interesting happens. Ah well.. we’ll see. J I’m glad you like the idea though! I will sure spam you when I find a nice way of reporting my experiences. Your reports are always very nice to read, but I don’t think I have the skills to “copy”your format. J

 

@Cunjo Carl: the “Xendelaar Mun shot” (catchy name btw ;)) is out of this world hehe! OMG that thing looks hideous haha. How did you come up with this thing. It so creative! Must have taken hours to come up with a working iteration! I love it.  I will watch your video later this evening. I can’t wait

I really want to know more about the story mission exploit and the eva kerbal free entry glitch! Please post or PM the details

 

 

Thanks for the individualized answers across the board. They're a welcome treat.

(Just thinking out loud): One other advantage of EVA is it lets you rerun thermometer and barometer experiments, so you only need to bring one of each. EVA science together with these would give a clear path to the terrier or the matscibay, whichever seems more valuable... The terrier really opens up doors with its low cost and ludicrous deltaV... Hm. On the flipside, if you thought you could get the reliant and the matscibay with just the launchpad/runway instead, you could tote those hefty bays a few at a time out to Mun/Minmus surface. It'd get pricey fast though. It all feels just on the edge of possible, so I have a hard time not thinking about it- good choice of challenge! And best of luck moving forward.

Thanks for checking out the speedrun! I wouldn't worry about copying the format though. The simpler/cleaner formats used by other folk are just as effective and more popular while being a lot easier to put together. I'm mostly doing the complex layouts just to experiment with some new things and keep sharp.

Surprisingly, the working iteration only took about 10 minutes. I then wasted an hour trying to spoof the aero system into considering a sideways tank a cone, but KSP never took the bait

The exploit/glitch are pretty quick, so I'll just drop them in here.

Spoiler

If you head back to KSC just after finishing the current story contract you're on (difficult for flybys because of timewarp), you have a few moments to make a quick save before the system generates the new mission (new to v1.2). Then, if you go in to the mission control and don't see the mission you want, just reload the save! In v1.2 you could also just wait till the offer expires and see if the one you want pops up next time, but if you're on a flyby and want the orbit/eva/return mission, the time saved becomes important. It then becomes necessary to know what missions are available when, and the huge text block in my speedrun thread should hopefully help.

To reenter a kerbal for free you can do what I call 'tunneling': put the Kerbal on EVA, use the jetpack to put their Pe on Kerbin to ~2km with open water just past Pe (south pole is nice), head in to the tracking station and watch them go just past the Pe (2.5-3.5km alt), then jump into their shoes! Whack alt+f5 as physics comes in just in case it doesn't work, but 99 times out of 100, the convection of the cool air will cool them more than the bowshock and airfriction heats them. Hold shift to slightly slow the descent, and let them splash into the drink- tada! Reentered Kerbal! They can carry all of your experiments, so it's a nice way to get a free return.

I don't use any of these glitches when dabbling around, but when really trying to find the limits of the game they're good tools to have in your corner. By the way, @bewing, no telling plz! . I have a handful of dramatically more harmful (to be avoided) glitches I can pass along if you're thinking to do another round of bug hunting?

 

Also, out of curiosity, I just tested out a reliant version of the same ship...

Spoiler

It's wildly more powerful and has plenty of spare parts for all the barometers/thermometers you could want. It could definitely do a Minmus landing. Heck, it could probably flyby Eve/Duna.

The bottom reliant needs to be tipped the teeniest tinyest bit inwards, and you need to play with their thrust limiters to keep it stable on the way up. Not exactly first class flying, but perhaps a thing to look forward to?

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by Cunjo Carl

[bewing]

lol!

[bewing]

7 hours ago, xendelaar said:

When I landed I gained 3,8 science points which brings me to 15 science points in total! This raises another question... which tech should I choose next. The one with the barometer (survivability) would increase the science output on the short run, but general rocketry would open up the path to a Terrier engine with advanced rocketry. With the terrier I could visit even more planets...but adv. rocketry costs 45 science points..

decisions, decisions ...

I'm leaning towards survivability...

any thoughts?

 

The way I figure it, I want to make the long-distance trips the fewest times possible -- because they are expensive. So I want to have the most scientific instruments on each ship I launch as possible. So I take the devices first.

Then try to get to distant places second.

So I'd go for survivability. The barometer will pay for itself over time.

 

[xendelaar]

7 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

The exploit/glitch are pretty quick, so I'll just drop them in here.

  Reveal hidden contents

If you head back to KSC just after finishing the current story contract you're on (difficult for flybys because of timewarp), you have a few moments to make a quick save before the system generates the new mission (new to v1.2). Then, if you go in to the mission control and don't see the mission you want, just reload the save! In v1.2 you could also just wait till the offer expires and see if the one you want pops up next time, but if you're on a flyby and want the orbit/eva/return mission, the time saved becomes important. It then becomes necessary to know what missions are available when, and the huge text block in my speedrun thread should hopefully help.

To reenter a kerbal for free you can do what I call 'tunneling': put the Kerbal on EVA, use the jetpack to put their Pe on Kerbin to ~2km with open water just past Pe (south pole is nice), head in to the tracking station and watch them go just past the Pe (2.5-3.5km alt), then jump into their shoes! Whack alt+f5 as physics comes in just in case it doesn't work, but 99 times out of 100, the convection of the cool air will cool them more than the bowshock and airfriction heats them. Hold shift to slightly slow the descent, and let them splash into the drink- tada! Reentered Kerbal! They can carry all of your experiments, so it's a nice way to get a free return.

I don't use any of these glitches when dabbling around, but when really trying to find the limits of the game they're good tools to have in your corner. By the way, @bewing, no telling plz! . I have a handful of dramatically more harmful (to be avoided) glitches I can pass along if you're thinking to do another round of bug hunting?

 

Also, out of curiosity, I just tested out a reliant version of the same ship...

  Reveal hidden contents

It's wildly more powerful and has plenty of spare parts for all the barometers/thermometers you could want. It could definitely do a Minmus landing. Heck, it could probably flyby Eve/Duna.

The bottom reliant needs to be tipped the teeniest tinyest bit inwards, and you need to play with their thrust limiters to keep it stable on the way up. Not exactly first class flying, but perhaps a thing to look forward to?

 

The contract exploit is very clever. I will definitely use that.  I don't know if I'll use the kerbal landing exploit though..  abandoning space ships is an expensive thing to do at the moment.

Does the reliant version really get to reach minmus and land? That's very impressive. Instead of landing, i could orbit the moon and biome hop with the eva suit! That would be a great way to get all of science. 

37 minutes ago, bewing said:

 

So I'd go for survivability. The barometer will pay for itself over time.

 

Your train of thought makes sense. 

The way i see it I could either beeline towards:

1. the terrier in combination with launch pad upgrade. I would be able to land on all the biomes of minmus that way.

However..without eva.. biome hopping is not going to work. So on second thought this option isn't a very clever one hehe.

Or

2. Take The austronaut complex upgrade and go for survivability and stay on the planet and get all the scraps of baro science i can find. Also i would retrieve  science points from Eva's i from space and flybys. 

3. Go for the austronaut upgrade and take general rocketry,  build @Cunjo Carlcontraption and eva biomehop the poop out of minmus.

It's going to be option 2 or 3 i think.

 

 

Money wise, things are going to get better soon, i think. During my flyby mission i received my first "get the science around kerbin "contract.  If i could put a kerbal into space with an antenna i could get free cash untill i run out of electricity. With an alternator and some fuel i could really increase my income!

Also,  i read that beelining towards the sciencelab would be a smart thing to do. I think that's true, but generally i dislike the sciencelab since it's sooo overpowered. With the lab i don't even have to go outside kerbins SOI to unlock the whole tech tree. Maybe this is not the case in my current situation so we'll see if I'm going to use the lab eventually.

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by xendelaar

[Streetwind]

I'm in agreement with @bewing here, and think option 2 is your best bet. EVA reports are just as valuable as themometer readings, and barometer reports are worth 50% more than that, even. There is a large amount of science you can get just by repeating the Mun flyby you just did, fitted with barometers in place of the thermometers. Let's tally it up:

On Kerbin's surface:
- Barometer launchpad 0.36
- Barometer ocean splashdown at end of mission 0.48

Flying on Kerbin:
- Barometer, low 0.84
- Barometer, high 1.08

Low in space above Kerbin:
- EVA report 4.8 (0.8 each for grasslands, shores, highlands, mountains, desert, water)
- Barometer 1.2

High in space above Kerbin:
- EVA report 1.2
- Barometer 1.8

High in space above the Mun:
- EVA report 1.6
- Barometer 2.4

= 15.76

That's already more than the 15 science you just spent on the barometer, recovered in just one single mission. Admittedly the barometer did only half the legwork, but it will pay for itself soon enough.

With a polar launch on Kerbin, you can get EVA reports for another five biomes (ice caps, tundra, badlands, northern and southern ice shelves), so another 4 science, plus a 0.36 surface barometer reading for wherever you touch down. At that point, in just two flights, you have 20 science ready to go for General Rocketry. Which even without a launchpad upgrade should unlock Minmus flybys, and more dV so you can get a low Mun pass and/or carry mystery goo.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Streetwind

[Cunjo Carl]

I know it's probably not the most exciting, but the barometer can be used at each location at KSC, plus a tiny "KSC" phantom biome by just rolling it around on a pod on an empty flea. This can be supplemented by EVA from KSC phantom flying biomes if you're running around out there. I finally figured out how to do them and figured I'd pass it along... Set the physics timewarp to 3x and nab the EVA report while jumping. About one time in three you'll get that tasty "EVA flying over..." .56 science. Not every spot works, so it requires a bit of running around, but I haven't found a facility that doesn't eventually (after 5-15tries) yield the science. Don't forget the crawlway! With a KSC tour, @Streetwind's mission and a later MInmus low/high flyby, that barometer should just be able to pay for itself. Then, when you get to land later it can start paying dividends. I'm a fan of both 2 or 3. Both have their own advantages but require redoing missions in different ways. Youch! 10% returns

 

[bewing]

21 minutes ago, Cunjo Carl said:

I finally figured out how to do them and figured I'd pass it along... Set the physics timewarp to 3x and nab the EVA report while jumping. About one time in three you'll get that tasty "EVA flying over..." .56 science. Not every spot works

Well, in older KSC versions you could only rarely get "EVA in flight over" readings, and nobody ever figured out how to reproduce it. But yes in 1.2, you can get it at all locations in all the KSC biomes by jumping. If you are too high when you click the button, you'll get EVA in flight over Shores. If you are too low, you'll get EVA at the Runway or whatever. You have to be just exactly at the right height in your jump to get EVA in flight over Runway, or any of the others. But every spot does work. You just have to time your button click with some precision. And you don't need the timewarp.

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by bewing