ManEatingApe

It's an fun problem, optimizing for mission simplicity (or working around script limitations). Not totally sure on the overall mission profile yet but one idea I'm thinking of is parking a mothership in circular Jool orbit just outside Tylo, then 5 separate landers (one per moon). Not the most efficient delta-v wise but would keep mission profile relatively simple.

Description There has been plenty of healthy debate on this forum about the merits of flying missions manually versus various forms of autopilot assistance (for example MechJeb). This mission thread will not attempt to address that debate, but instead try something a little different by taking autopilot assistance to the ridiculous extreme: Completing the Jool-5 challenge with no player input whatsoever! Required Mods kOS (Kerbal Operating System) is the core mod enabling this attempt. kOS adds a virtual computer to craft that allows execution of scripts of arbitrary complexity.

The only wrong direction is if you capture into a retrograde orbit of Jool! (have done this by accident) Seriously though, the great thing about KSP is that there are always many ways to accomplish things. Want a pod..use it! Want all the science..do it! Want to use nukes...go for it! You can optimize in any of several areas e.g low mass, low part count, low risk, low mission complexity, low requirements in real time. Then you can always go back and try the same mission in a different way just for kicks. It's not strictly related to your question, but it's also fun to toss a probe int

For the Tylo lander, have you considered a command chair instead of a pod? The mass savings would be considerable. A flags and footprints only Tylo lander can be in the 2 to 2.5 ton range (budget some more than this for the Science Jr) Your plan to re-use the ascent stage of the Tylo lander for Val, Pol and Bop is a good idea and a great way to save some parts and mass.

4,000 m/s dV should be more than enough to return from Jool to Kerbin, including capturing propulsively into Kerbin orbit. A thought occurs based on your description (but a picture would be even more helpful) - where is your transfer trajectory intercepting Kerbin? You want the PE of your transfer to be a close as possible to the PE of Kerbin. This way your craft's velocity and Kerbin velocity are mostly aligned, so you only need to cancel out the hyperbolic excess. If you're intercepting Kerbin away from the PE of the transfer orbit, then you'll have a significant radial component. Hopeful

This is a fun challenge with plenty of potential! A single stage vessel to Eeloo at periapsis needs about 4,500 to 5,000 m/s from LKO. High but not impossible for an efficient design. The obvious choice of ion engines is feasible but has some drawbacks. Solar power is basically non-existent at Eeloo's apoapsis and Eeloo's gravity is high enough to make landing on the low TWR of ions alone challenging. Best bring some alternate power source and some extra landing engines. A Rapier/Nuke combo would also be quite effective and probably simpler to execute the journey. To get the ball roll

That's gonna be a little tricky (but not impossible)! One idea to consider is a separate tug craft, with RCS and a decent reaction wheel that could wrangle your side by side rockets together.

Nice entry, added you the leader board in the chair category. I liked the truly minimal design and taking advantage of the extra EVA fuel allowed by the new 1.11 inventory system.

That's an ingenious and entertainingly Kerbal discovery! I like the idea of your unfortunate Kerbal clutching an extra tank of fuel all the way down and back. Sure, I'll allow it: I'm intrigued if it will work.

Gotcha - the parts remain outside the bay, but the nosecones are placed inside it. Clever, but I'll have to disallow it. Either live with the drag of the nosecones or streamline things into fewer stacks. Flags producing body lift at an angle is a confirmed bug. The ESA exploit challenge feels like a better home for flag related chicanery.

Thanks for asking for clarification in advance, I appreciate it. This spirit of this challenge is to get as cheap as possible, within the constraints of the normal intended physics of the game. Excessive clipping is just one aspect of that philosophy. Bearing that in mind... Hard no on both of these. (they would come under the Wheaton rule category). The heat shield trick is amusing, but falls under the same category of unintended physics glitches as the (now fixed) drain valve exploit or various other Kraken-tech. Any entry using this would go straight to the Rogue's Gallery. You cou

Nice work on the ruthlessly reduced reusable refinement. You retain the top spot in the category.

Another fun trick - if you get a Kerbal to jump, then run the EVA report while they're in the air, then you'll get the Flying low EVA report (which is per biome).

MOAR Boosters... 2nd mission (first part of six): Checkout the original posts here and here, and the entire Kerpollo sequence of videos at my Vimeo account, set to some crackin' tunes.

A single like just doesn't seem enough for this amazingly creative achievement! KSP will now need it's own version of the Oscars... Awesome work @Makc_Gordon