septemberWaves

I'm guessing that's supposed to be 2000 instead of 20000?

Mods List Update Just so that people know, I've now alphabetised the list of allowed mods, and provided links to the forum pages (or equivalent) for all of them.

@Jetski I have to say I really like the design of that colonial transport (it's also I think the first time I've seen a major use for the 7.5m parts from SpaceY). Also, when it gets updated, this mod will help with hiring kerbals because, amongst other things, it removes the price inflation.

Potential Challenge Updates (in bold). Feedback appreciated. @Oafman I'll take a look at the mods you mentioned. If they're balanced enough (I'm pretty sure B9 is, I know nothing about the other one currently) I'll add them in. In order to keep the vessel count down, yes you can remove communication satellites, but keep in mind that if you're using RemoteTech you will require coverage anywhere that you're landing uncrewed vessels. Why 25t of lifting capacity from Tylo? Well, there's a couple of reasons. The most practical one is that if you send your lifter as one of the earliest vehicles you send, you'll be able to use it as a skycrane, to transport most of your base modules and vehicles (assuming that they're not too awkwardly-shaped) down to the surface. The reason I say that that should be the capacity to lift from the surface as well is predominantly for semi-realism. Although in KSP you can get most resources on most planets and moons with a solid surface, in reality you'd likely be finding some resources in some places that are unavailable elsewhere, and would hence need to transport them between moons. There is also a practical application here in that, if you don't want to spend a long time driving around with a rover to get stuff from one Tylo base to another, or if you have cargo that's difficult to fit on the rover but can fit on the freighter, you can use it for that purpose as well. Semi-realism is also the reason for trying to keep prices low. A colony is going to be enormously expensive, but it's still good to try to save money where you can (much like real-world space programs try to do when possible). Funds are theoretically infinite in-game but presumably the kerbals have some sort of economy (although considering the lack of any visible civilisation on Kerbin other than the KSC, hmmm...). Part of what makes this so challenging is building enormous things whilst trying to keep your endeavours profitable. Although, since you bring it up, I may separate scoring into points-based scoring and funds-based scoring rather than combining the two categories, though I'd like to get some more feedback as to whether or not I should. I think I may remove KeepFit as a requirement for Hard mode. I wasn't fully sure about requiring it for Hard mode anyway, and now that I have some feedback and that I've looked a little more into how the mod works (I don't always have time to do this immediately but I try to find out a greater level of detail about the mods for the challenge when I do have the time), it doesn't seem like it should be an absolute necessity. As for the career games, I did suggest having maximum returns on funds and science so that it's quicker to unlock everything. I still do like the idea of having to acquire some science data to progress though, because that'll give some purpose to all of the satellites and lander probes that get sent to the Jool system. I appreciate the feedback, it helps me to improve the challenge. ---------------------------------------------------------------- @Luovahulluus Thanks for telling me about that mod, it looks like exactly the sort of thing I want in the game. I think the current rule setup allows it anyway as it's a utility mod but I'll add it in specifically. ---------------------------------------------------------------- @RA3236 This seems like a good idea. I'm not going to require that people submit their computer stats, because people might want to try something that's huge but not 500-kerbals-and-several-hundred-ships huge, regardless of their computer power. I think I'll split off into another thread for this smaller challenge, because I'll have to rethink achievements to make things more, well, achievable when you have less processing power or gameplay expertise. I will probably also add some unique aspects to this smaller challenge to make it into its own thing instead of just a toned-down Jool 500. This might take me a couple of days to fully compile, but once I have done that I'll let you know (I'll also intralink it with this challenge thread and the guide thread). ---------------------------------------------------------------- Also, speaking of the guide thread, that should also be getting updated in the next couple of days. There's a couple of freight transport systems that I'd like to show off (once I refine the designs) as well as the explanations behind my design choices for them.

Honestly I might not bother with the cycler since DeepFreeze is now up to date, but if I do decide to do it for the fun of the challenge, I'll probably have a main cycler vessel with space to freeze 50 to 100 kerbals, and a couple of smaller (compared to the main vessel anyway) transports to break off from the main ship probably around a hundred days before nearing the target SOI and stay there until the return window arrives, whilst crew are transferred with in-system vessels. This would probably not be a worthwhile method for Duna, since the crew would spend so long out of the main cycler vehicle that it would defeat much of its purpose. But since the Jool transfer is so much longer it's most likely far more efficient on resources. Additionally, the nature of the Jool 500 challenge means that, if I do decide to use this method, I'll already have the infrastructure to transfer crew around in the Jool system, as well as to refuel the cycler from the Jool system for whenever it does need to make course corrections. Of course, to do this I'll need a cycler which goes above Jool's orbit and below Kerbin's orbit, so that I can get the desired bidirectional transfer, but that should be possible. I just have to hope that other planets don't get in the way.

Isn't the general idea of a cycler orbit that you stay far enough away from the SOI of your targets (or in the game, completely out of the SOI of your targets) so that your cycler orbit doesn't get altered by the flyby and you only have to make minimal correction burns? I've been looking into cycler orbits a little for my Jool 500 challenge and from what I can tell you're ideally not supposed to enter the SOI of either Kerbin or your destination planet. Rather, only your surface-to-space and space-to-surface crew transports should be anywhere other than the solar SOI once your cycler is properly set up.

Honestly I'm in the middle of my own Jool 5 challenge, amongst other things. I haven't done it yet largely because the last ship I designed for it (in 1.0.5) probably would've worked but it lagged so badly that it was unplayable; but also because since then I've been a bit addicted to spaceplanes now that I know how to make them. I'm attempting it again though now that I can mod the game to oblivion and make several-hundred-part ships, because I feel like it's an important achievement for me (I also want to use a spaceplane for Laythe since I can now). Anyway though, good luck with Jool 5, and I'm looking forward to seeing your attempt at Jool 500!

@Jetski The scoring seems correct. Also you will probably be pleased to know (if you don't already) that KIS, KAS, and Kerbal Alarm Clock are now all updated.

This is looking very good so far. Good luck recovering that logistics base.

@Aidian Mechjeb is a wonderful tool for beginners, but it comes with the unfortunate issue that before Mechjeb can help you learn to play the game, you first must learn to use Mechjeb. On ascent, limit your angle of attack (5 degrees is good for most rockets, less if it's got a heavy payload or large fairing or is awkwardly shaped). Also, keep your SLT (sea level thrust-to-weight) above 1, but not too far above 1. The autopilot has a feature to limit the throttle of liquid thrusters, or you can limit the thrust of both liquid and solid rockets when you're in the VAB. Air resistance is the most difficult part of getting to orbit (well, after you figure out a way to create a controlled directional explosion that's sustainable for several minutes and can be turned on and off at will, but in this game that's a given really), and the best way of making sure air resistance doesn't cause problems is to have as low a thrust as you possibly can when in an atmosphere whilst still allowing your rocket to accelerate. Personally I find it better to limit the thrust on the engines themselves rather than relying on MechJeb to do it, mainly because it leaves fewer buttons to press when you're in flight and possibly trying to get some good screenshots of the launch. Mechjeb is also by far the most valuable tool for learning to dock. There's a lot less micromanagement for docking than for ascent; all you need is the rendezvous autopilot to get close to your target, and then the docking autopilot to attach the two craft together. After some time of watching what Mechjeb does, you learn pretty well how to do it in stock. Landing though, is a bit hit-or-miss with MechJeb. Literally. Most of the time it works perfectly, but if you want to avoid blowing up from atmospheric heating, or you're in too high of an orbit around a non-atmospheric world, the landing autopilot has issues (although I've yet to test it out in the latest version of Mechjeb). My advice here is either ensure that you quicksave before any landing attempts, and you should probably learn to land manually (and don't trust the spaceplane guidance either when you eventually start making spaceplanes). Finally, I've always found that the best way to get to most places in the Kerbol system is to overengineer. Need 3000 delta-v to get somewhere? Bring 3750. Need to land something colossal on the Mun but have no idea how many engines to use? Add as many engines as you can fit pointing vaguely downwards. As you get better at the game you wont need it, but early in your space career it's good to have a lot of redundancy in case of mistakes.

@Luovahulluus Really the contracts I've set (such as the larger transports to carry round small vehicles as well as several crew) are things to complete in order to get points. You don't have to complete all of them to qualify but you need to at least attempt every category of the challenge. And the design specifications I provided were with various mods in mind (not that mods are absolutely required at Easy level but I wouldn't recommend doing this in stock). The larger transport vehicles in particular were initially intended as a way of having life support for very long missions as you can't usually fit enough in a small short-range vehicle. And in any case, I wanted to give some sense of realism to the colony. In reality, when people eventually go to colonize other worlds with hundreds of people, they'll need this sort of infrastructure, and much of it will be out of necessity for maintaining the colony. I realise that this probably isn't a challenge for everyone, and some aspects can be a bit repetitive (I would encourage building different designs for bases and vehicles to keep it from being too monotonous), but really the scale is the main part of this challenge. Anyone can (with a bit of practise) land a small base and some rovers on any of the Joolian moons. It's really the scale of the operation that makes this a true challenge. It's also a challenge in design and planning: designing all of these various utilities to specification for this gargantuan colony's various needs, and planning how everything will work together to ensure functionality, safety, and above all success. So to provide something which is probably more of a conclusive answer: no, you don't have to do absolutely everything in the challenge. And if you're not doing it to compete over the score you get, then there's no real need to fulfil every sub-quest (but really you should probably attempt most of them). You win if you make a self-sustaining colony of 500 kerbals in the Jool system in a semi-realistic fashion as intended by the layout of the challenge; at the most basic level that's all there is to it. There is one final thing: I mentioned making different designs for bases and vehicles to keep things interesting. Well, I ideally want to encourage creativity and diversity with how people approach the challenge. It's meant to be a semi-realistic colonization program, but that certainly doesn't mean that everything has to be similar. All of the mods I've allowed are supposed to provide a good variety of options for how to approach each part of the challenge. USI is great for a lot of it (particularly the larger transport rovers), the Near Future mods are similarly good, and there could just as easily be any number of designs made out of the desire to either look good or just mess around (for example, I've thought of attempting to make an ion-levitation modular train for Pol and Bop; I have no idea how efficient or effective that'll be but I'll probably do it anyway). You don't have to complete everything that is laid out (unless you're trying to get all the points and/or complete certain CHALLENGES) but trying to do it all anyway definitely has the potential to be a lot of fun. Sure, it'll almost certainly take weeks or months to do everything, but it'll also provide the opportunity to try a lot of new things in the game, provided you have that sort of dedication and free time. @Wardstone111 All of those mods are allowed. KER is a Mechjeb-style mod (and I said that similar mods to Mechjeb are allowed anyway), RPM is pretty much visual and any purely visual mods are allowed (plus I think RPM is a dependency for a couple of the spaceplane mods anyway). Connected Living Space I will add as it's a utility mod, as well as Contares since it's balanced enough for the challenge. After looking into Kerbalism a little more I've decided to add it in to the life support options (though I'm not sure about renewability with its resources).

Sorry I forgot to mention that my submission was done in the 1.1 pre-release, not in 1.0.5.

@Jetski It may take me a while because I have a lot of exams over the next couple of months, but now that the required mods are up and running I am beginning to experiment with the methods of creating renewable supplies for USI Life Support, and I will be updating the guide when I have a good idea of what works. I'm also adding in DeepFreeze Continued now that it's been updated to help with interplanetary transports, and I'm unbanning Near Future Propulsion because, based on prices and the generally low thrust of the engines, I feel like it's balanced enough for this challenge.

That's pretty unfortunate about the wheel bug. Still, on the bright side it'll allow you to potentially make improvements to your vehicles (including having life support already integrated into them without KIS/KAS). Also, that's a clever way of generating funds. CHALLENGE UPDATE I am making a change to one of the vehicle specifications. Instead of 50 tonnes, the heavy cargo vehicles now only have to be able to transport 25 tonnes to/from the surface of Tylo or Laythe. This is because, after some reconsideration, I've concluded that for the average player, the challenge of constructing a cargo vehicle to reliably transport that much mass to/from the surface of those two moons is too great a challenge.

I removed that rule about only getting science from Jool because science isn't judged as part of the challenge so there's not much point in having that rule.

Just a quick updade on my mission: I'm not going to be able to upload the images until tomorrow, I ended up not having time tonight unfortunately.

Here is the station save: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qwmsiae1il31o2j/KSS.sfs?dl=0 I'll upload pics a bit later once I've dealt with imgur (it takes me a while to sort out the screenshots properly). A brief summary of what I did, until I can get the images uploaded: Spent around an hour and a half attempting to upscale one of my SSTOs to be able to carry a small cargo as well as 8 crew members Gave up on the SSTO for now Launched the payload (a docking strut intended for use with SSTOs) on a Tano X rocket (which is an overpowered rocket for this payload but it's my most fail-safe design) Docked the payload on the end of that Mk2 section and then de-orbited the Tano X upper stage and the docking probe

Am I allowed to send crew as well as a module, or does it just have to be one or the other?

I have the save. I'll try not to take too long with it.

Can I be added to the queue to add a module please? I've decided that I'm too lazy to wait for this to update to 1.1 (and I'll probably forget some of my ideas for station modules) so I've reverted to 1.0.5 for this.

Do you think you could perhaps add some more detail to this challenge submission? If you look at the more popular challenges on these forums, you'll see that they pretty much all have a few paragraphs of information detailing specific requirements for the mission, as well as a set of rules, and usually a points system so that people can judge how well they do. Your challenge looks like it has the potential to be interesting and fun to attempt, however it is incredibly lacking in detail, regulations, and explanations (as well as either a list of allowed mods or a declaration that the challenge must be done using stock parts).

Here is my entry: the S1 Shooting Star. It's a cargo plane that can take 2.2 tonnes worth of payload to a 75km orbit. It's not my first spaceplane, but it's the first that's well-documented enough to qualify for the K Prize. My other spaceplane design flew better and could be landed at the runway easily, but I've unfortunately lost the craft file for it (but I needed this new design anyway for the payload capacity).

I'm doing it in Career, but in pretty much the most sandbox-y way possible. Science, funds, and reputation are all on maximum starting amounts and maximum rewards, just so that I can get started with the MEDUSA Program right away. I'd do it in my current career world but that's a stock world and I want to use mods for this.

This looks like a lot of fun. I'll be attempting it over the next few weeks in a heavily modded 1.1 save (well, as heavily modded as I can currently make it). I plan on launching a complete research program to the Mun. I will explore every biome and gather every unit of science. I will place numerous bases across the Mun's surface, and several stations in its orbit. I will also create a large selection of transports for both crew and resources. Basically, I'll be doing a mini Jool 500 but on the Mun instead of the Jool system. Prepare for the MEDUSA Program...

I'd love to contribute to this station (possibly using my new SSTO spaceplane skills), but I'm in 1.1 and I don't plan on reverting back to 1.0.5. But as soon as 1.1 is fully released and this station save gets updated, I already having a few ideas about what I might be able to add (probably starting with a docking boom for spaceplanes).