camacju

https://imgur.com/a/VSBd5Jc And here's my submission. The path was: Kerbin-Mun-Mun-Mun-Kerbin-Mun-Kerbin-Kerbin-Eve I spent 841 m/s total on this path

This challenge was inspired by a post where someone got from Kerbin to Eve for 873 m/s. I thought I could improve on that with more judicious use of gravity assists, and I want to see what everyone else is capable of. The rules: You must start in low Kerbin orbit (under 90 km). This is where the delta-v counter starts. You are allowed to use cheats or hyperedit to get the craft into orbit but that is the only time that this is allowable. Mechjeb/autopilots are allowed. This is more of a maneuver planning challenge than a piloting challenge. Your score is the number of meters per second of delta-v used between Kerbin orbit and an Eve encounter. Showing delta-v readings at Kerbin and at the Eve encounter is required. Showing delta-v readings at points in between is recommended. You don't have to actually get to Eve - if you have one nonzero maneuver remaining before an encounter then you can add that to your current delta-v expenditure. Leaderboard: camacju - 841 m/s

Here's a quick rapier+vector plane I made Here's a plane I made with just a rapier to see how fast I could go

yeah... I can't really get the rescale to work. I tried reinstalling and the game just hangs before entering the menu screen with that extra cfg in the gamedata folder. I might have to drop out of this challenge

Yes, I've got everything @jimmymcgoochie

I still can't get the config to work. What's the file path I need to put the rescale in?

@jimmymcgoochie Yes I do I know that Kopernicus and beyond home are working because the planets have changed. I have sigma dimensions installed and I pasted the text from the rescale config into the settings.cfg file.

Ok yeah the rescale definitely didn't work. What am I supposed to do to get the rescale working? p.s. this is another reason why I wanted to do a stock parts mission - I'm really bad at getting mods to work in ksp

https://imgur.com/a/bOi9ap5 First mission - Hermes 1 With an almost empty flea booster the mission is over in 55 seconds Edit: I'm suspicious that the rescale didn't work since KER is reporting a higher TWR for my Hermes 2 rocket than I'm expecting. Is there a way to check? Also I'm just supposed to paste the config into Sigma/Dimensions/settings.cfg right?

ok I'm getting an issue where Kerbin is re-colored but all the planets are still there like in stock. I'm in 1.10.1 and Kopernicus is throwing up an error saying that it doesn't work on that version. Do I need to download 1.9 and use that?

Thanks!

is this a problem?

Perhaps that could be a new challenge - make a SSTO that is as hard as possible to deorbit without massive overheating. I have a couple ideas for this tbh

Is this too late for me to enter? I'd like to do the masochist option and do a completely stock parts run. No dlc either edit: How would I create one Beyond Home game and have the rest of my games be stock? I don't want to mess up the other saves that I have

https://imgur.com/a/CMVSlfQ Okay, so... I have no idea what happened between Mun insertion and low Mun orbit - I obviously didn't have infinite fuel enabled but I somehow gained fuel. This mission cost me 159 funds but I feel bad about that glitch so I'll subtract another 200 m/s worth of fuel from my score, bringing mission costs to 160 funds even. Some more further thoughts: The lander uses 33 funds worth of fuel. If the remaining 300 m/s of margin is used for circularization, it would use 35 funds of fuel. Meanwhile the SSTO's rocket phase uses ~70 funds, and ~40 of that goes to circularization. I might be able to save a significant amount of funds by doing something like jinnantonix and not pushing all the way to orbit on the first stage. I will have to use some rocket on the booster however - otherwise the lander won't fit in the service bay anymore. Another possible way to absolutely crash the challenge is to make a magic wing heat shield prop plane. Then the entire cost of the mission would be 35-36 funds. Since I can't make a good stock prop for the life of me I'll leave that opening to someone else. @ManEatingApe

Summary of a couple optimizations for the booster: Remove one of the elevons of the SSTO and one of the intakes; add a spark engine - cost of orbiting is now 131 funds compared to 146 Remove one of the liquid fuel tanks and replace the wings with basic fins, and remove 22 oxidizer from the fuel tank - cost of orbiting is now 127 funds with a *tiny* margin of fuel left. This is probably close to the cheapest SSTO booster possible In total I've shaved off 19 funds from the SSTO phase. Any more and I'll probably have to significantly change the design and/or the flight plan

I only used it for plotting maneuvers and displaying delta-v @ManEatingApe

Also - the series of gravity assists to get to the Mun is ripped off from inspired by a post by PLAD, but I use fewer gravity assists. An 843 m/s burn gets me an orbit that just reaches Mun's orbit and pulls me up into a higher orbit. After 7 orbits I get another Mun assist that pulls me up into an orbit higher than Mun. This gives me a Mun encounter after one more orbit that is pretty much an ellipse and only requires 205 m/s to circularize instead of 250 m/s. I had enough fuel that I didn't need to do this but it's useful for saving those last droplets of fuel. Some further thoughts: The lander consumes 34 funds worth of fuel and uses 2543 m/s of delta-v. I bet I could get delta-v usage under 2500 with more careful flying. The SSTO consumes 146 funds worth of fuel. 88 in rocket mode and 58 in jet mode. Since rocket mode is the biggest part of the mission, it could potentially be useful to add a spark engine or two onto the ship and use that for circularizing the orbit. It'll barely affect dry mass but it will increase specific impulse. Another possible way to increase savings is to use the lander for the final circularization and fly an orbit-once-around with the SSTO, saving the fuel needed to boost the heavy SSTO up to orbit and then pull it back down again.

Another entry, this time showing the true costs instead of using fuel cost (spoiler alert: it's the same number lol) https://imgur.com/a/Vmb2H8f Cost is 180 funds - 18250 in VAB and 18070 recovered The goal here was to have a SSTO and have the lander be able to fit into a service bay. I unclipped the parts from one another as you suggested. Potential areas for improvement: -I could take a more efficient ascent profile - during previous runs I was able to orbit and land the SSTO with more than twice as much oxidizer remaining at the end. Flatter ascent will probably be better in this case -Time the Mun descent better and take a flatter descent - landing on the crater rim instead of in the crater will probably save about 25 m/s both ways -Use the EVA pack more. For example the kerbal and lander could brake into Mun orbit separately and rejoin each other in low Mun orbit. Similarly, the kerbal's EVA pack could be used for small course corrections as well as the Mun ejection. This could be a source of significant delta-v savings since the kerbal is a large portion of the lander's dry mass. -Figure out how to go without reaction wheels and use a spider engine instead of ant engine - but the higher vacuum ISP of the ant will counteract that. I wish ksp had smaller reaction wheels as the tiny size reaction wheel is way overkill for such a small lander @ManEatingApeis this one acceptable?

https://imgur.com/a/wAWNXAS Here's a submission I did for an orbital relay race challenge. The two outer boosters can reach orbit and get back to KSC three times in a row before their fuel is depleted. The center core can orbit four times in a row.

I think the record for lowest dV from LKO to EVE is 873 m/s using many Kerbin-Mun assists. Theoretical minimum is 840 m/s because that's the minimum you need to escape from Kerbin. And if you can get to Eve you can bounce between Kerbin and Eve until you escape Kerbol, for practically no delta-v cost at all. I bet escaping Kerbol using less than 900 m/s is possible.

This was going to be an entry for a low cost Mun mission challenge but the rules changed to disqualify this run. SSTO booster puts a lander in LKO and returns to the KSC. In total this mission used 180.4 funds worth of fuel and was 100% recoverable, for a net cost of 180.4 funds. Name: "cheap mun"

With the current lander it took me 623 m/s to land from a low Mun orbit, and the theoretical minimum (assuming infinite TWR and perfect timing) is 574. So I'm losing about 50 m/s to gravity losses. If you double the TWR then you'd expect to halve the gravity losses to save 25 m/s total. And I would have enough margin in this kind of mission to prefer the ease of the reaction wheels over a 25 m/s savings which represents less than 10% of my margin

@OutInSpace All you need is 1600m/s for a Laythe transfer, which can get you on an escape from Jool. Then get a Jool assist to bring you down to Kerbin. I had 400 m/s more than that - I docked with 2026 m/s remaining

https://imgur.com/a/UPfPgno Year 1, Day 234, 2:37:31, no ions This is a decent mission profile - I timed the aerobrake so I would get an encounter with the station within one orbit. Around Jool maybe two hours could be shaved off but I doubt it. This is probably pretty close to the earliest possible entry under 100 tons with nuclear engines.