Cpt Kerbalkrunch

I'm hesitant to mention it, after you've put in the extra effort, but it's no longer necessary to bring them back to Kerbin. Once you've captured at least two, you can stop anywhere you want. You've earned your badge, and some style points as well. Could not agree more on the small converter. It's a lot like a kid with his vegetables. For every spoonful he eats, he feeds about ten to the dog. Anyway, great job.

From LKO, you can flip your orbit at Jool for a little over 3,000 Delta V. A brute-force method can't compare. The only thing better (Delta V-wise), would be multiple gravity assists. Those would add decades to your time, however, and probably wouldn't be feasible in a career game. I'd use Jool.

@Red Shirt, glad you stuck with it and went back for more. To me, asteroid catching is pretty much the same as anything else in KSP (or life itself, for that matter); nothing gets any easier. You just get better at it. And you're already better at rock grabbin'. You even passed up the little guys to go straight for one of the big boys. Nice work. @Marschig, wow. I'm not sure what to say. That was awesome. Your ship is fantastic. Love that design. This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking I would see when I thought up the challenge. I've grabbed enough asteroids to know it's not so easy to control them when you're pushing them rather than pulling. That was highly impressive. And Munar orbit on top of it? Definite style points for that.

Reminds me of "Tiny Planet" from Rick & Morty. I've been to Dres a bunch of times, but I've never actually seen the Dresteroids. I keep unknown object tracking off unless I'm actually planning to capture an asteroid. I always forget to look for them when I'm there. I'll try to remember next time. Nice pic, though.

I wonder if that's one of the things covered in the 1.3.1 patch coming out? I know I heard something about drills overheating due to a bug, but I haven't experienced it (just the action group problem, which is definitely in the patch I've heard). At any rate, good detective work.

No, you're not wrong at all. That's exactly what the Nerv is made for. It's just a personal preference. I can't stand those 30 minute burns. When I wanna make a plane-change or a transfer, I want it to happen quickly. I like the mission profile you've set up. I'm a fan of stacking contracts myself. I try to make every flight as profitable as possible. I would agree that it sounds like the ISRU is going to be pretty important. Haven't seen your setup, but as long as you have thermal controls and a good engineer, you should be fine. Hope all goes well.

Wow. Not sure which is more impressive, your ship or your score. That had to be tough. Great job.

Yeah, they really do make a huge difference. Since your ore tanks are full, maybe just leave one drill running while you're off doing something else. That should be enough to keep the ore rolling in while your converter works on the ore you already have. The thermal control systems are great, to me, because they take heat from anywhere on the ship. They don't have to be near the heat-source. And they work better than radiators. I don't think I've ever seen them get too hot before.

@GuyWithGlasses, you already have your ship built, and it sounds like you know what you want to do, but since you're asking for advice I'll just give my opinion. If I had to make just one suggestion, it would be this: ditch the Nervs. They have the lowest TWR in the game. They're heavy, expensive, and weak. I respect their capabilities, but I despise all their drawbacks and never use them. It's just a personal preference for me, but for you; you're only going to Duna. That's a big step early on (your first interplanetary mission is extremely exciting), but it's a pretty short trip from Kerbin. You can get there and back without building a large ship; even when using only chemical rockets. I'll assume you're planning to land on Duna and Ike while you're there as well; in which case, the higher TWR of chemical rockets will come in handy. Notice in the VAB that a Terrier has the same thrust as a Nerv at just 1/6th the weight, and about 1/25th the price.

If it's the Mun you're traveling to, the maneuver is actually pretty easy (though it won't seem so early on). I say easy because it's in an equatorial orbit, so you won't need an inclination change. For a very simple rundown: launch your rocket and turn due east (90 degrees). Once you're in a stable, equatorial orbit, setup a maneuver node. Spin the prograde dial until your projected orbit (the yellow line) reaches the Mun's orbit (about 11,000km). Now left-click and hold on the maneuver node itself and drag it around your orbit until you encounter the Mun (you'll know when you do). This will get you a very simple encounter. I'm not sure how much else you want to know right now. As @Aegolius13 said, there are plenty of videos out there. For me, I think the training missions are excellent learning tools, and I highly recommend running through them all.

The bottom-right corner of your screen isn't visible. What level engineer do you have on-board? In my experience (and I've done a ton of mining), the most common issue with over-heating is the lack of a good engineer. It's not always possible (especially early on), but a four or five star engineer is a must for a good mining operation (IMO).

I like your mission profile, but I guess I was thinking of people who wanted to send everything in one self-sufficient ship. Mostly because that's the way I do it. I send drills and converter with a 5-star engineer. A Class E has an incredible amount of ore. I mined about 40,000 units of fuel from mine and it barely noticed. It was still about 2,000 tons afterward. As I said, I've found a design that works and I stick with it mostly because I know it works. When I make even the slightest changes, asteroids suddenly become uncontrollable. Because of that, I just stick with it and am hesitant to try something else. That's part of the reason I was excited about this challenge; so I can see the way other guys capture asteroids. To me, it's one of the best things about these weekly challenges. You'll see a bunch of players doing the same thing but in different ways. And I'll often see engineering wizardry that I never would've thought of. That's part of the reason I was hesitant to give advice. I didn't wanna influence anyone or act like my way was best. At this point, though, I don't really care about that anymore. I just wanna see more entries. Was just looking at your ship again, and it's impressive that you're able to control such a huge asteroid with such a small ship. It might be because I'm impatient that I always bring larger engines so I can move faster.

To everyone who likes to get involved with these weekly challenges, I'd like to apologize for a challenge that might be a bit too time consuming and/or challenging to complete quickly. I've been catching asteroids for awhile now, just for fun and to complete contracts, so I've gotten quite a bit of experience at it; but I was hesitant to offer any advice. Not because I didn't wanna help (I'm always happy to help other players whenever I can) but, because although I have a couple thousand hours in, I know there are players with a lot more and I didn't wanna look like I was giving advice to players who don't need it. Anyway, we're in our final week, so I'm gonna dispense with all that. First off, a rule change. You are not required to bring your asteroids anywhere. Once they're captured they're captured. And remember that you only need two asteroids of any size to complete the challenge. You can decide for yourself when to stop. I instituted the scoring system to add more challenge for veteran players and to encourage a bit of competition. If you've attempted the challenge at all, you know capturing multiple asteroids with a single ship is not so easy. So if you capture a couple then you've earned your badge and can wear it with pride. @RonaldRayGun, @redshirt, and anyone else attempting the challenge, some quick advice. Choose your asteroids in the tracking center and begin tracking. Set an alarm for each so you can see when they encounter Kerbin. But this is the key for capturing multiple asteroids: do not attempt to capture them at Kerbin. You only need to launch from Kerbin. You do not need to capture your asteroids there. For a single asteroid, I usually grab them in LKO. But to capture multiples, that'll really make it tough on yourself. Just let them pass through Kerbin into solar orbit. Now go into solar orbit yourself and go after them. We all know this is the wrong way to travel somewhere, but you're not trying to go anywhere. You just wanna capture asteroids that are in an orbit roughly the equivalent of Kerbin's. Target them one at a time and plot your intercept. You can raise your Ap a bit or lower your Pe a bit to speed up your rendezvous. Just hit maximum timewarp and wait 'til they're close enough for a good rendezvous. Then move on to the next. A quick tip; pack plenty of monopropellant. You'll need multiple RCS ports and Vernors to control your ship while thrusting with an asteroid in tow. An "expert" tip, if you will; assign your Vernors to an action group so you can disable them quickly. A solar rendezvous is the same as any other, except everything is more pronounced. You'll want to make small adjustments, but the moment you engage RCS the Vernors push you slightly sideways. The slightest movement can turn a 1.5km rendezvous into a 60km rendezvous. So disable the Vernors and just use the RCS ports for fine adjustments. And this might be most important of all: it's an unwritten rule that Alt/F12 is always acceptable for testing. Once you begin tracking an asteroid, you can Alt/F12 a rendezvous with it. Once you have your design, use the rendezvous feature to grab it and test your ship. You need to know if you'll be able to control your ship under power with an asteroid in tow. Engage RCS and accelerate slowly. Increase power and see how well you can control it. A design tip: if you're hunting big game, bring your big guns. I recommend Mammoths. If you want to grab a Class D or E (not to mention multiples), their great power and gimbal are invaluable. Set them out as wide as you can and strut the crap out of them. I always use the same basic design for catching asteroids because I know it works. It took some trial and error but I'm able to control even the largest asteroids with it. If you've seen my Mun Arch Challenge video, "The Lonely Kerbal", I used the same ship design to bring a Class D asteroid through the arch. The design is the most important part of this challenge (as it often is). Just get your design down and test it. Then tweak what you need to and you'll be ready to go. If I can do it, anyone else can as well. You saw how easily @Terwin smoked my score (nice job, by the way). I suggested this challenge the same as all the others in the weekly suggestion thread, because I thought it would be fun and challenging. I didn't expect it to get picked, but I was really happy when it did. However, I'm now on the verge of having the first weekly that was a complete dud. So apologies to all who didn't need advice but just haven't had time yet. We still have a week to go, and I'd love to see some more entries. So good luck to all, and hope to see your successes soon. Thanks for reading such a long post. Cpt Kerbalkrunch.

It's something to think about for the future, though. You'll notice the second ship (arriving first) will need to burn more to capture. Of course, more is a relative term at Minmus since it's so easy to capture. When traveling to other planets though, the discrepancy can be much greater. Sometimes enough to ruin an otherwise good mission.

If I had to guess (and I do ), I'd say your first rocket had a more efficient maneuver that allowed for a good encounter with Minmus. The second rocket was a bit off. To compensate and still get a good encounter, you had to burn longer. The second ship was then travelling faster and actually passed the first. I see this quite a bit when I launch multi-vessel missions to the outer planets. Accept as it applies to the future efficiency of your maneuvers, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just burn to capture with your first (second?) ship and then leave it in orbit 'til you capture with the other. No need to rush your maneuvers and maybe miss a node.