sdj64

Kerbals are from Duna! I think that it's actually supported by "evidence" in game. Kerbals' large heads and small bodies would be well suited for lower gravity than Kerbin has. On Duna they can run just as fast as on Kerbin, they aren't slowed down like they are on the Mun or other lower gravity moons. Also their jetpacks are conveniently just powerful enough to be used on Duna. Their green color allows their skin to absorb more sunlight which is predominantly red on Duna (green is reflected but red is absorbed by Kerbals' skin) so they can warm up and make vitamin D more efficiently. Kerbals also probably hibernate, that's why they don't need life support for long missions (in stock KSP). It would be a good adaptation for living on a cold planet like Duna. And now for the non-gameplay origin story. Kerbals live underground on Kerbin because as Duna's atmosphere became thin and unbreathable, they were forced to go underground there. Eventually after hundreds of years they realized they couldn't stay underground on Duna forever, so they built many ships to travel from Duna to Kerbin to colonize it. When they got to Kerbin, despite the breathable atmosphere their culture was already built around living underground so they just live underground on Kerbin too. It took the Kerbals a long time to become established on Kerbin, and during that time they forgot most of the knowledge of space travel. However, the spirit of courage and exploration has always been a part of their culture, only the bravest Kerbals made the trip from Duna to Kerbin long ago. The space center on Kerbin was built above ground for practicality, the only reason Kerbals build above ground is aerospace related buildings. They could use underground trains for transportation between their cities and trucks like the VAB ones for cargo movement. It's also why off-road rover wheels take so long to develop in the tech tree. Planes take longer than rockets to develop because Kerbals are initially stuck in the Duna mindset and they never used planes or jet engines there because the atmosphere is so thin and lacks oxygen. As for Easter eggs...

@-DDD- A very nice looking mission! It seemed well planned and thought out, and proved the usefulness of KAS in keeping weight down for maximum performance. I liked the single-Vector Eve lander, that's something I haven't seen before. Now for the bad news: Poor Bill must have been really uncomfortable after sitting in a spacesuit all the way to Moho and back. But other than that a fine mission and definitely deserving of an Ultimate Challenge badge, at least. Now for some questions: Yes, KW rocketry is not on the prohibited list and it's fairly balanced so it's all good. The Jupiter 4 is a really cool concept but very different than the Jool 5. If you complete it, you can post it on this thread for recognition if you want, but it won't go on the same leaderboard. Yes, just the B9 Aerospace Pack is banned. The wings are fine. And finally, sorry to hear about the setbacks, @McQuacker and @Jack Joseph Kerman, glad to hear you have plans to fix it and try again!

Here's a two seat lander that you might like. The higher mass of the 2 man lander can needs two aerospikes, but it should do Laythe no problem. It doesn't SSTO on Kerbin so you'll need to make a lower stage for it to send it up to the mothership. Really anything with a shielded docking port on top will work well reentering forwards. It's incredibly heat resistant and doesn't depend on ablator so it's fully reusable.

A long while ago I tried to build a "bobsled" space shuttle that has a side-mounted tank without a side-skewed center of mass. Today I revisited that concept with a much smaller shuttle, and it works! It's nice to use a Mainsail again, I've barely used them since Mammoths and Vectors were introduced, but it was exactly what this shuttle needed. This isn't officially an entry but it does complete STS-1. I'll keep using my Mk3 shuttle for the real missions since this shuttle's cargo bay is too small for the later ones.

The problem is really that KSP doesn't model terrain hardness. You can't have all terrain wheels without... terrain. The grass field next to the runway is just as unyeilding as the tarmac. It would be great if different surfaces reflected their properties. It should be really easy to get the little landing gear stuck in the sand on Laythe or Duna, or sinking in the mud on Kerbin, reducing your speed dramatically if the vehicle is heavy and the tires are small. On the other hand, a light vehicle with big tires wouldn't get slowed much. Once that is implemented, give plane landing gear the chance to pop their tires if they exceed a certain speed on certain surfaces. The Mun's surface is hard and rocky so it wouldn't get the landing gear stuck, but sharp rocks and bumpy terrain can easily puncture the tires. Ideally each biome would be its own surface.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. The Viper and the Supernova are both obviously overpowered and comparable to other mods on the banned list. I'm afraid DSEV will have to go there too.

Sorry question-askers, I've been traveling this weekend and haven't had time to respond. Good luck to you all who are preparing your missions! @TheHacker000 Your mission uses several prohibited mods as eloquentJane said. It's cool to do it your own way, but it won't be in the leaderboard. @Galacticvoyager Your rocket looks great. The mammoth engines are fine for the clipping rule, their 3.75m body isn't clipped and it looks like they could be rotated to not clip at all, but you don't have to mess with it. @ProtoJeb21 As rkarmark said, mining and processing on any planet or moon is allowed. You will get the ISRU tag if you mine outside of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus.

Completed STS-10 with a small manned base and without ISRU. Unfortunately had some aerodynamic instability on the way home and couldn't land back at KSC. It performs very well in the low atmosphere but apparently doesn't have the control authority to reenter well. I'll be moving the wings back and doing more tests before the next mission. http://imgur.com/a/1zuLI

It's been great running the challenge and still seeing continuing interest and new entries all the time. Thanks for your continuing support! @HarrySeaward Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1! Sorry it took so long to review, I had to find time to watch your 2.5 hours of video. Your plane was impressive and compact, and I liked the minimalist rover integrated into your Tylo lander. It must have taken a lot of dedication to complete all of the long drives. I have to ask, though, is there a reason for using parachutes rather than horizontal landing? Does the plane not have enough lift from its wings?

I meant a literal propeller engine, like on an RC plane or helicopter. The engine in the article you linked uses trace gases from the atmosphere that extend up to low orbit (in real life but not in KSP). You still wouldn't be able to use it in interplanetary space. Yes, I did mean reactionless, but propellantless is a less ambiguous descriptor in terms of KSP game rules. A solar sail is propellantless, but not reactionless. I know there have been some solar sail mods in KSP, and those are banned too under that rule.

This rule is meant to allow "propellantless" engines that only work in atmosphere, such as electric propellers and nuclear thermal turbojets. Those are based on real physics and technology because they use atmospheric gases as their reaction mass. For this challenge, they can only be used on Laythe or in Jool's atmosphere if you wanted to go there, but to get back to orbit you would still need a regular rocket engine. An engine that can produce thrust in space with no propellant breaks the laws of physics (at least as far as we know) and is banned because it makes the challenge too easy. Edit: in previous versions of KSP, I had a rule that any mod was banned unless you asked first. I took that rule out because it became cumbersome to handle all the requests and the vast majority of mods are not overpowered. But, if you go looking for loopholes I will have to add those mods to the banned list.

Yes, it is allowed and it would count as modded. I've never heard of Solaris Hypernautics before but now seeing it, it will have to be banned. It's significantly more powerful than, say, Atomic Age or Kerbal Atomics, both on the banned list already. Not to mention the Cannae drives... That's my bad, though, not yours. However, given the large number of missing screenshots this attempt is not going to qualify. Next time, include some pictures of reentry on Laythe and Kerbin, and during landing and takeoff everywhere. Try to keep more of the shots in the light if you can. Nice illustration of your Pol landing. I would consider this an SSTA (single stage to anywhere) because of the ISRU. It doesn't have to be a spaceplane.

Oh, cool. I like the redesign with the four nukes. It should do very well on the Mun and Duna. The top tank uses a clipped decoupler and the fairing's longer attachment nodes to float it in front of the nose.

That looks really familiar... Looks like a slightly scaled-down version of this with some extra bits and bobs on it. I did put it up for download on KerbalX but if you downloaded and modified it, it would be cool to at least tell me. Otherwise it's a really weird coincidence that so many of the small details are the same. If this is an original design, sorry to sound like I'm accusing you of plagiarism and good luck with the challenges.

I've never visited an asteroid in career mode. The two times I've captured an asteroid were both for "land an asteroid" challenges. Also, I've never used ISRU outside Kerbin SOI. I do have an SSTA mission going on though, which will soon land and mine at Jool's moons.

Finished STS-9! My shuttle is a spiritual successor to my old shuttle from the previous challenge, but designed from the ground up. It keeps the nose-mounted external tank, but its new double wing shape allows the addition of two SRBs made up of 5 Kickbacks each. There are now only 3 Vectors instead of 6. Today I learned that asteroids decide on their size when you first see them, because it was 28 tons before, on the first failed mission. The payload was a nose adapter with drills and a claw, and an ISRU unit, 2 radiators, and an ore tank. There was another claw pointing up from the cargo bay, so the asteroid could ride above the shuttle on reentry. Unfortunately, it was unstable and couldn't glide all the way to KSC. The asteroid was 7.8 tons, but I converted a small amount of its ore to oxidizer and it was 7.1 tons on landing. http://imgur.com/a/VcmPM

There aren't enough grand tours out there for the name "yet another". It looks like you have a good plan and doing it in career mode will be that much more rewarding. Good luck!

Guess what I have! An awesome new shuttle, an STS-9 mission plan, and a class B asteroid! Guess what I don't have... *facepalm* Anyway, glad to be back with the Shuttle Challenge. I got to STS-8 on the Shuttle Challenge V3, so I'm very happy to try out the exciting later missions. More pictures will be coming once I sort this out.

Anything that's docked to your ship when it flies to Jool is part of your ship, so yours is fine. The rule is about a refueler that flies to Jool separately. Like Physics Student, you could maybe dock fuel tanks or a mining lander to your main ship for the journey? You can even take fuel tanks, drop them somewhere in the Jool system, then go back to them to refuel. Or use gravity assists to save some fuel, if you weren't already planning to. There are lots of possibilities to make your design work.

Okay, I looked at that rule again and I decided I want to keep it as it is. You can't have both. If your ship carries an ISRU unit but doesn't use it (make sure to document this really well) then you are allowed the refueling mission.

Oh, sorry. There is only one refueling mission.

Most of your numbers appear in the ballpark. Mostly, you won't go to a certain Jool orbit (I have no idea what orbit your numbers assume) between the moons so those will be lower. Tylo departure is about 900, Laythe about 650? Pol and Bop departures depend so much on where you're going. Bop plane change does not take anywhere near 2440. Kerbin return can vary widely and often takes more than 950 if you're avoiding the atmosphere. Lots of these can be reduced further with gravity assists, so your ship can stay well away from atmospheres but still save considerably. The ship looks cool! Is it intended to carry a lander? I don't think it was IRL but you might have other plans. Alright, so your question boils down to: can you send your refueling mission ahead of time? The answer is, yes. The original intent of that rule was to rescue a ship that ran out of fuel by accident, not to plan to supply a ship that can't make it without. Don't worry, though, the hardware reuse idea is cool and if you need a fuel drop, go for it!

Great to see an index thread of the greatest challenges. It would be awesome to see some of the older challenges resurrected. Though, I'm worried that this thread itself might drop off the first page because it doesn't have contestants to keep it bumped. It would be a good candidate for a sticky. I think the Ultimate Challenge should deserve a place. Grand tour challenges are very hard to keep going until even the first entry is complete and the Ultimate Challenge is one of the few successful. First posted by @Just Jim and now maintained by @HoloYolo. Edit: Also Doing it Apollo Style (recently got a reboot) and Apollo Applications are both very good. Apollo Applications might fit here better, for its greater ambition. @GregroxMun

I'm a fan of his story too, but he isn't finished yet!

@AeroGav Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3! It was amazing how close you were to not making it so many times over the mission, and still you pulled through. That has to be the most underpowered (in TWR) spaceplane I've ever seen make orbit. And it was able to do it again on Laythe with even fewer engines! It looks like you learned a lot from the mission both in piloting and design considerations. Just a note, I'm giving your entry a STOCK tag because the only mod parts were purely decorative. That lounge was a nice touch, I don't think anyone has done a decorated interior for this challenge. It might have contributed to your drag troubles, there's a common bug with cargo bays not always properly shielding parts.