Theolain

Well, now you know. What I don't know, is if people (Elitists?) would consider this cheating, particularly using cheats to speed up testing various parts?

Impressive, I am in the middle of trying an Eve mission as well, though I do not have as much science unlocked as you and I am doing one mission (to the surface and back). I also thought my attempt was going to be expensive (around 600k), but it seems it could be a hell of a lot worse! Did you do any test missions on sandbox? I am, as I don't want to risk losing my Kerbals and will also launch other missions during my career attempt.

Thank you for the welcome. I have created the start of my mission details, how is best for me to link to it? URL in initial post? I wonder if anyone else has had the same Kraken as me? Maybe I can see if the save is still there and take screenshots, or videos? Thought I am not really savy enough to make a vid of it....

After my last mission to Moho, land with science and Kerbals and return (the deltaV to slowdown at Moho was insane), I decided my next stop would be Eve as that was the next launch window and is the next planet in. I probably don't have the tech for it, but I am trying to land with science and Kerbals and return. The main tech needed that I am missing is the inflatable heat shield or even the largest std one, and most of my designs are based around mitigating this. This will actually be my first atmospheric landing and lift off from playing nearly 440hrs, I am probably nuts for trying it, especially from reading up the difficulty of ascent and the thickness of atmosphere. I am trying out different parts in sandbox, so as to not have to cheat in career, or risk my precious Kerbals (I am fine sacrificing them in sandbox). In my trials I am cheating things to orbit, or whatever place I need to be to test out various parts. So far I am around 2 weeks or so of casual playing. For now, I will just add my old and current designs with a little bit on each. My current progress is, I have a lander with science that can land and take off with a success of around 25%. (Low, I know) I am currently still optimizing this part. The Poodles are just to de-orbit when cheating into Eve orbit. The heat shield arrangement is 1. to keep me stable in Eve atmosphere and 2. to protect my final stage terrier from going boom on descent. When in lower atmosphere, it does some interesting wiggling about. This like most of my screenshots is a slightly older version, but it is still mostly the same. I have an interplanetary stage with enough deltaV to get me there (and back when the lander is ditched). Though I have not tested this yet with my current version of lander. Std interplanetary type stage? This is an earlier version of both the lander and the interplanetary stage, but I don't seem to have a more recent screenshot. The 2 pods are so I can take a scientist with me to reset experiments in Eve space. I have also managed to get the full thing into Kerbin orbit. No screenshot of this, but I dare say it looks like any other std heavy lifter. It did look like it was going to cost 600k to launch the monstrosity. I am closeish to the full mission and it is looking possible, but really difficult (and expensive). I cant find many screenshots of my failures, but here is my first attempt of something that would escape Eve. I gave this up pretty quickly as it was too heavy and SRBs don't seem like they are a good idea to haul to Eve, lots of research after this failure. which lead to my current design. Extras, I met my first real Kraken last night, due to issues dumping my top heat shield I quick saved under parachute power, when I reloaded, things started accelerating randomly. I tried to stage to see if this would sort it, and parts ended up heading out of the solar system at 10milion+ m/s. Bonus pictures of my Moho crafts. I will try and keep this updated and detail my trials and tribulations to be able to achieve it in my career save. I do not want any advice yet (unless I ask for it) as I like to work things out myself and research myself (Hope I don't offend anyone here, I know you are all awesome helpful people). Once I am done, any advice or constructive criticism for a try in the future will be welcome, or even learning for future missions. Wish me luck! Edit: I totally forgot to add that I am not using mods, I didn't use them even when deltaV wasn't calculated and made a nice spreadsheet to calculate for me. I want to add the graphics mods some time, but I am happy with struggling with the various game play struggles... especially with some of the quality of life changes since I last played.

So, I haven't been on a forum for a long, long time, but my experience tonight and the amount I have used the forum to help has prompted me. My experience tonight was my first real encounter with the kraken in nearly 440 hrs of playing ksp (I know, probably not long compared to most of you). Been trying to beat the final boss (kerbals with science equipment to eve surface and back) without the inflatable heat shield or full tech tree unlocked, trying things in sandbox ready for the 'real' try. On my try this evening, I quick saved when my cutes were fully open (when I ditch my heat shields it keeps on taking out some of my ship). On loading this save, my ship random accelerated tearing itself up in the atmosphere, when I ditched the stage it flung me into space at 10million m/s. I ended up having to ditch the attempt and retry. I can not find anyone having anything similar, but I assume it has happened to others? I assume, don't quick save in the atmosphere? I may sometime post details of my full mission if anyone will be interested? Anyway, about me, I am a metaller, live in the UK and make AR modules (the bare bones optics inside a headset) for a living and outside of ksp I play jrpgs mainly. I have played a lot of ksp, but not really done a huge amount of interplanetary travel. Last successful mission was landing on moho and back (ignoring the kerbin system). I tend to try things way above my ability level on ksp. Tldr: kraken hit me for the first time today, from the UK, not been on forums for a while.