The "Duna Extended Research Program (DERP)"

[Nich]

I got precise node and got my transfer burn all set up

 

Now I have a question on recovery.  It seams that if I hit the green button to recover I get the parts and can rebuild it in 27 days.  If I add new parts (new payload) it takes 210 days.  If I recover via KCT it takes 160 days but at the same time I can build they payload which takes 150 days but then I have to scrap the payload and edit the lifter to attach they payload to the lifter which takes 35 days.  Giving a net of 15 days gained however it is a pain in the but.  Is KCT recovery function meant more for crewed ships or am I doing it wrong?

Oh and I figured out the porkchop plot   burn at 152 degrees with a final ejection angle of .49.  It was a little challenging to set up with 6 days of rotation to account for but I ended up getting a pretty good transfer.

[magico13]

1 hour ago, Nich said:

Is KCT recovery function meant more for crewed ships or am I doing it wrong?

I can't speak for the intents of this challenge, but in general the KCT recovery is intended for things like planes and SSTOs where all you need to do is refuel and go again. The time to recover is based entirely on mass (and distance from KSC), while building vessels is based on cost, so there's no real intentional balance between them.

You can use it for recoverable first stages but it requires a lot more work. It's supposed to be a pain in the butt because you're choosing to reuse the exact same parts with only manual fixes/refueling rather than the normal recover + refurb process which would be handled by your Kerbals, in exchange you might see reduced times (and for fully recovered things like planes it's night and day in terms of time). It's the difference between SpaceX landing their first stage and sending it out next launch with little to no refurb (and an already built payload), versus the space shuttle which used the same parts but had tons of refurb done so it was basically brand new.

[Enginerdy]

I was very impressed when I saw this challenge. It looks like you put a lot of effort into putting it together. I decided to stop lurking and join the forums so I could take a shot at it. This was one of my most interesting missions to date, I had a great time completing it. Thank you for setting this up.

 

My plan was to design for the extreme end of reusability to keep costs to an absolute minimum. I used TAC as my life support system, and also had KAS/KIS and USI Kolonization running. I used a SSTO which included the small drill and ISRU unit in the cargo bay so that I could refuel multiple times during the journey. I named the ship "The Watney". I wasn't able to launch in time to get any of the prestige points, and I ignored any objectives that would've required me to leave something behind. I wanted all of the hardware that I launched to return to Kerbin. I ended up visiting 5 biomes on Duna, and 5 on Ike, before returning home.

 

The cost of my ship was 228,992 funds, but I recovered it for a value of 228,883 funds. Apparently food, water and oxygen are a lot cheaper than I expected. I scored 27 points from visiting 5 biomes on Duna and Ike, and from putting one Kerbal into orbit and on the ground of each body. My final score was therefore 1.03

 

That score came out a lot lower than I expected. I feel like it may be because I used a ship that I'd already flown and worked out all the kinks on. There was no simulation involved in my play through. I'm not sure how to add an appropriate cost for the design work that had been done in a previous game.

 

I also feel like it may be too powerful to recover vessels from Duna, if you end up changing the rules, I wouldn't be opposed to that. I calculated a score without funds recovery and got a score of 2166, which puts me at the right order of magnitude with the others who have done the challenge.

 

Here's my album for the mission

 

-Enginerdy

 

 

[Nich]

I agree recovery is super important in this challenge.  In theory if you launched your ship 3/4 full and returned it full you could go negative and at that point points hurt you rather then help you.  They way I am doing it I made it a rule I have to complete every objective.  The dead line for the first window made it a very interesting engineering challenge.  I have 4 of the 10 habs in orbit atm and most of the prestige done.  Just waiting for the window to get them back by the dead line.

Here is my version of your ship.  It lands retrograde on duna and ike although I just realized with 6 kerbals I need more supplies but I will not get enough corresponding points to make up the difference.  Only trick it has up its sleeve is it is launched with empty tanks except the big ore tank which fills them up on the runway.  Then when recovered the tanks are full to help offset the cost of the supplies.

Oh and I just checked but a 3y 140d supply for 2 kerbals costs 2000(recoverable) and 225 (non recoverable) thus costing me 675 in supplies and making a profit of 1700ish on ore to fuel conversion giving a net profit for the mission.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Nich

[Northstar1989]

On 2/17/2016 at 9:16 AM, magico13 said:

Ooh, right in the heart 

 

I actually really like FMRS because for the situations in which it was designed, it does a great job. It's a huge PITA when you're just dropping SRBs and don't really want to spend a bunch of time watching them descend on parachutes. That's why I went out of the way to make sure StageRecovery is compatible with it: when FMRS is off SR runs, but when FMRS is on SR won't try to recover anything. That way you can get the best of both worlds.

I'd also like to mention that StageRecovery does support powered landings, not just parachute based ones. Sure it's an abstraction of the process and doesn't require physically landing the vessel, but when you're focussed on the main mission and have landed your stage 100 times already it's kind of annoying to have to go back and land it again and again and again.

 

I second the motion to allow FMRS. You can just as easily keep track of costs (I'm pretty sure you still get recovery screens, if not then just keep track of when your funds change) and it requires more physical effort in return for diversified launch vehicles.

 

PS: Don't use FMRS with KCT's simulations. Bad things apparently happen.

Awwww, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.

 

Yeah- I saw the part about powered landings only *after* my post.  It's still only an abstraction though- and doesn't necessarily simulate things like a launch stage falling over and exploding (like the Falcon 9 did on that barge a while back...) from landing crooked, for instance.  I think proper design of SpaceX-style launch stages is important to actually getting the funds back- and adds difficulty for reward in a way abstracted landings don't quite.

Plus, the propulsive landings just land wherever the trajectory takes them, right?  With a Spacex-style landing,, you can get the launch stage right back on the launchpad (or, more commonly in my experience, the runway- I prefer to aim for it as it's a bigger target, and I've only succeeded in landing right on the pad a handful of times...) and get a higher recovery %

 

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

14 hours ago, Jasonden said:

OMG yes.  How have you ever lived without it?  Seriously, dude

All the features that are found in Precise Node are already a part of MechJeb's Maneuver Node Editor.  To my understanding, the Maneuver Node Editor window in MechJeb actually came before Precise Node was ever developed- though I have no idea whether Precise Node was a MechJeb ripoff of sorts or simply the same exact idea and interface developed independently (in a case of what I, as a biologist, might call "convergent evolution").

 

Regards,

Northstar

[Enginerdy]

7 hours ago, Nich said:

Here is my version of your ship.  It lands retrograde on duna and ike although I just realized with 6 kerbals I need more supplies but I will not get enough corresponding points to make up the difference.  Only trick it has up its sleeve is it is launched with empty tanks except the big ore tank which fills them up on the runway.  Then when recovered the tanks are full to help offset the cost of the supplies.

Nice! That's a good looking ship. It looks quite a bit lighter and more efficient than mine, but we were definitely working to a similar concept. One of my big limitations was that it took ~100 days to refuel the ship. I believe you'll have a faster refueling time with the large ISRU unit. I felt like I had to rush to make sure I could complete the objectives within the 8 years. I ended up doing non-Hohman transfers to and from Duna to save as much time as I could, but got back with a good amount of time to spare.

 

I'd thought about launching it empty and refueling from the runway first, but that felt like overkill. As part of a larger mission it sounds much more reasonable. If we really want to min/max this, the best solution is to launch a ship with ISRU empty, refuel from the runway and immediately recover it for a profit. You get 0 points, but then your final score is a negative number divided by 0, or negative infinity. That idea clearly wasn't in the spirit of the challenge though.

[Nich]

15 minutes ago, Enginerdy said:

Nice! That's a good looking ship. It looks quite a bit lighter and more efficient than mine, but we were definitely working to a similar concept. One of my big limitations was that it took ~100 days to refuel the ship. I believe you'll have a faster refueling time with the large ISRU unit. I felt like I had to rush to make sure I could complete the objectives within the 8 years. I ended up doing non-Hohman transfers to and from Duna to save as much time as I could, but got back with a good amount of time to spare.

 

I'd thought about launching it empty and refueling from the runway first, but that felt like overkill. As part of a larger mission it sounds much more reasonable. If we really want to min/max this, the best solution is to launch a ship with ISRU empty, refuel from the runway and immediately recover it for a profit. You get 0 points, but then your final score is a negative number divided by 0, or negative infinity. That idea clearly wasn't in the spirit of the challenge though.

Yep once I added TAC the small ISRU just doesn't make sense unless it is on a probe.  Ha Ha cant believe I forgot about mining the driveway

[Jasonden]

15 hours ago, Enginerdy said:

The cost of my ship was 228,992 funds, but I recovered it for a value of 228,883 funds. Apparently food, water and oxygen are a lot cheaper than I expected. I scored 27 points from visiting 5 biomes on Duna and Ike, and from putting one Kerbal into orbit and on the ground of each body. My final score was therefore 1.03

 

That score came out a lot lower than I expected. I feel like it may be because I used a ship that I'd already flown and worked out all the kinks on. There was no simulation involved in my play through. I'm not sure how to add an appropriate cost for the design work that had been done in a previous game.

 

I also feel like it may be too powerful to recover vessels from Duna, if you end up changing the rules, I wouldn't be opposed to that. I calculated a score without funds recovery and got a score of 2166, which puts me at the right order of magnitude with the others who have done the challenge.

 

Very sweet mission dude.  And you've definitely recognized that, given the rules at present, the best score would come from an empty fuel tank with ISRU sitting on the launch pad, mined, and then recovered.  For a score of -infinity!

Maybe we could say that anything that has left Kerbin's SOI (Mun and Minmus are within Kerbin's SOI by this definition) gets no recovery on cost, or partial recovery on cost perhaps.  I'm going to have a hard time scoring my returned spacecraft anyway because they're in some ocean somewhere and I'd have to do the percentage recovery by hand based on the lat/lon.  

TAC LC must be fundamentally different than USI:  for USI, the life support supplies are the most expensive part of the whole mission.  Kind of ludicrous, but there you go.  I launch 20t of supplies and it costs me like $260000.  I launch a full spare 20t fuel tank and it runs $110000.  Go figure.

[Nich]

How long do 20t of supplies last?  I think food ox and water for 2 kerbals for 3 years is only 1.9t

[Nich]

So I did the math and USI at 16.5 kg/kerbal/day comes out to 23.6t of raw supplies not including tankage.  TAC uses only uses .33kg/kerbal/day.  Tankage is very heavy with a 3:5 ratio

[Death Engineering]

On 2/18/2016 at 10:08 AM, Jasonden said:

OMG yes.  How have you ever lived without it?  Seriously, dude

Hehe.. I never use it, and I've 'been-there-done-that' pretty much everything. (See profile 'Mad Scientist')    

On 2/18/2016 at 1:28 PM, Nich said:

I got precise node and got my transfer burn all set up

 

Now I have a question on recovery.  It seams that if I hit the green button to recover I get the parts and can rebuild it in 27 days.  If I add new parts (new payload) it takes 210 days.  If I recover via KCT it takes 160 days but at the same time I can build they payload which takes 150 days but then I have to scrap the payload and edit the lifter to attach they payload to the lifter which takes 35 days.  Giving a net of 15 days gained however it is a pain in the but.  Is KCT recovery function meant more for crewed ships or am I doing it wrong?

Oh and I figured out the porkchop plot   burn at 152 degrees with a final ejection angle of .49.  It was a little challenging to set up with 6 days of rotation to account for but I ended up getting a pretty good transfer.

Doing laser-precise interplanetary transfers is one of fave parts of KSP, especially around Jool.  

17 hours ago, Enginerdy said:

I was very impressed when I saw this challenge. It looks like you put a lot of effort into putting it together. I decided to stop lurking and join the forums so I could take a shot at it. This was one of my most interesting missions to date, I had a great time completing it. Thank you for setting this up.

 

My plan was to design for the extreme end of reusability to keep costs to an absolute minimum. I used TAC as my life support system, and also had KAS/KIS and USI Kolonization running. I used a SSTO which included the small drill and ISRU unit in the cargo bay so that I could refuel multiple times during the journey. I named the ship "The Watney". I wasn't able to launch in time to get any of the prestige points, and I ignored any objectives that would've required me to leave something behind. I wanted all of the hardware that I launched to return to Kerbin. I ended up visiting 5 biomes on Duna, and 5 on Ike, before returning home.

 

The cost of my ship was 228,992 funds, but I recovered it for a value of 228,883 funds. Apparently food, water and oxygen are a lot cheaper than I expected. I scored 27 points from visiting 5 biomes on Duna and Ike, and from putting one Kerbal into orbit and on the ground of each body. My final score was therefore 1.03

 

That score came out a lot lower than I expected. I feel like it may be because I used a ship that I'd already flown and worked out all the kinks on. There was no simulation involved in my play through. I'm not sure how to add an appropriate cost for the design work that had been done in a previous game.

 

I also feel like it may be too powerful to recover vessels from Duna, if you end up changing the rules, I wouldn't be opposed to that. I calculated a score without funds recovery and got a score of 2166, which puts me at the right order of magnitude with the others who have done the challenge.

 

Here's my album for the mission

 

-Enginerdy

 

Wow, fantastic mission! Thanks for participating and joining the forums just to do so... WELCOME!

I hadn't really done the math for such a mission but knew that SSTO/ISRU would produce good results. I'm not going to make a rule-change exactly, but more of a clarification. that once the mission is over, KSC has closed their doors to spaceflight and is now being pressured by politicians to focus their attention on building something more important to the typical kerbal; perhaps cookware.

This means that any parts that are recovered but are not used again in a mission will not count in the recovered funds.

Since your (albeit beautiful) space plane will not be used again, its initial build costs cannot cancelled out by recovery. The funds were spent to build it and although it was recovered intact, since it won't be used again its funds won't count toward the score. However, your space plane will make fine (radioactive..) landfill.    Hope you're not too chuffed about it...

OP has been updated to clarify this and since I think I may counted the final launcher's recovered funds in my own score I'll have to account for that.

_______________________________________________

 

I realize that this clarification is going to negatively impact at least one ongoing mission, and for that I apologize.

At the risk of ruining at least one mission already rolling (sorry..   ), I've had to make a clarification to the rules in order to keep in spirit with the challenge's design:

Important note on Recovery: Only hardware which is reused for another launch or mission can be counted. The funds to build the hardware, once spent, cannot be recovered through some kind of sale or auction. Recovery is intended to offset or reduce the costs of building new hardware. If a stage is recovered and not used again for another mission (a booster stage or space plane), that hardware is chopped up and used as land fill. Who would do such a thing? Only Canadians.. 

Q: "Why a time limit on launching and recovery?"
A: Kerbals have lost interest in the space program by Year 6, Day 1 and have turned the launch pad(s) into a Theme Park, but Mission Control is still running a skeleton crew until Year 8, Day 200.

Q: "Why do Kerbals who are not in a Kerbin return trajectory by Year 8, Day 200 count as 'lost'?"
A: Kerbals need the "geniuses" at KSC to get back home. When Mission Control is closed down on Year 8, Day 200, they conveniently forget about helping to get their kerbal brethren back and wander over to the Theme Park.

Q: "Why can't I count recovered hardware that doesn't get reused?"
A: If the recovered hardware isn't going to be launched or reused, due to pressure from the new Konservative government, the hardware is unceremoniously chopped into little bits and used as landfill for the Theme Park. (see Avro Arrow "Black Friday") 

Edited February 19, 2016 by Death Engineering
i hate the new forum

[Nich]

So my first window attempt 2

Very similar to my previous attempt except I launched Duna and Ike Science labs/landers separately.  The heavyish lifters now have basic canards which makes the craft less wobbly but it is sill a lawn dart or unstable (depending how I move fuel) I suspect this is due to the wonky behavior of cargo bays.  The Ike lander got bugged and only 1 of the 4 fuel pipes were connected correctly.  This is the exact same as the Duna lander but with parachutes removed.  On the duna lander I also included drouge chutes which made landing a much more pleasurable experience.  I had enough fuel I could have done a crew exchange and landed 8 kerbals on Duna and Ike but it is getting a little repetitive and I am ready to fast forward to the Kerbal habs portion of the program.

 

[Jasonden]

1 hour ago, Nich said:

How long do 20t of supplies last?  I think food ox and water for 2 kerbals for 3 years is only 1.9t

It's maybe 1.5 years of supplies or so for 24 Kerbals.  To last them on the surface while waiting for the next window back to Kerbin.

[Nich]

So they actually use a little more supplies then TAC and the cost difference is enormous in TAC 20t would cost you 30,000 and last 1.7 or 1.8

[Jasonden]

15 minutes ago, Nich said:

 I had enough fuel I could have done a crew exchange and landed 8 kerbals on Duna and Ike but it is getting a little repetitive and I am ready to fast forward to the Kerbal habs portion of the program.

Yeah; I think that my final score, too, will be as much a function of when I decide to call it 'good enough' rather than when I'm finished doing everything that I could possibly do.  Even with KCT, those first 4 Duna windows give you a lot of time to work with!

Also, I find that I'm designing with much higher margins on my missions that I usually do.  The reason is that while flying so many missions in parallel, if just ONE runs out of fuel/supplies or something, then I don't just lose an evening's worth of work having to go back to the backup, I lose like a week or two's worth of work.  All in all it makes me design a bit more like aerospace people really do.  More gold plating please -- I need it for my fuel tanks

[Enginerdy]

2 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

Since your (albeit beautiful) space plane will not be used again, its initial build costs cannot cancelled out by recovery. The funds were spent to build it and although it was recovered intact, since it won't be used again its funds won't count toward the score. However, your space plane will make fine (radioactive..) landfill.    Hope you're not too chuffed about it...

No, I'm not upset about it in the slightest. That's what I expected to happen as soon as I calculated a score of 1. I was hoping you'd make a rule change like this. It gives me a good excuse to make a 2nd attempt with some labs and habs. Also I did calculate a score in the event that I couldn't recover my vessel for funds, with the updated scoring mechanic I end up with a score of 2166, which isn't half bad.

 

Unfortunately Tanya Kerman didn't take the news as well. She stole the ship rather than see it put in the landfill and is currently refueling on Minmus. We suspect she's headed for the Jool system.

[Nich]

So something in KCT KER or KIS are not playing nice but today it almost cost me a mission.  I launched my miner today and it was supposed to have a takeoff weight of 107t but when I launched it it had a takeoff weight of 115t.  well above the capacity of the lifter.  Luckily I was able to use the fuel out of the miner and processes some ore I had on board to make orbit (7 dv to spare) and it has just enough dv to make minimus to refuel before going to Duna.

Also for some reason I have not been able to detach craft connected via docking ports so I have been using engineers to detach them with screwdrivers.  Now my miner has a docking port stuck to its side and I can not detach it because it is the root part.  Anyone know how to change this?

[DBowman]

Sorry to ask a nubish question but I never play 'science'. When you say 'recover' science what do you mean?

For a surface sample any 'pod' will only hold one surface sample so can I transmit that? or is the point to bring the samples back to Kerbin (surface? or orbit will do?) maybe by loading them into the Lab and returning that? The wiki says it can store infinite experiment results - does that mean surface samples?

For the atmospheric data I guess you mean that I can transmit what I get from doing a crew report 'flying over Duna Highlands' (say)? I guess they can be loaded into the lab also...

[Nich]

1 pod can hold surface samples from differed biomes.  atmospheric data  is captured by a scientific instrument.

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Atmospheric_Fluid_Spectro-Variometer

 

[Nich]

Well there is definitely something thing wrong with the KCT KIS combo.  Went to burn to minimus today and my miner was missing 3/4 of it dv.  Yet again the fuel piping to the central engine is messed up.  It looks like all the procedural parts are attempting to go the same direction (only 1 intersects the central engine)

[Death Engineering]

On 2/19/2016 at 6:15 PM, Enginerdy said:

No, I'm not upset about it in the slightest. That's what I expected to happen as soon as I calculated a score of 1. I was hoping you'd make a rule change like this. It gives me a good excuse to make a 2nd attempt with some labs and habs. Also I did calculate a score in the event that I couldn't recover my vessel for funds, with the updated scoring mechanic I end up with a score of 2166, which isn't half bad.

 

Unfortunately Tanya Kerman didn't take the news as well. She stole the ship rather than see it put in the landfill and is currently refueling on Minmus. We suspect she's headed for the Jool system.

Hey that's awesome.   Hope to see another run!  Leaderboard updated!

Sorry I've been sparse with my replies lately.. ran into a spot of trouble IRL that has kept my online activities somewhat curtailed.

How's everyone else doing?

Edited February 21, 2016 by Death Engineering

[XpertKerbalKSP]

This is very interesting indeed!

Im thinking of making a series of missions like in the Martian where you send a bunch of supplies before hand and get on a spaceship and go on another large transporter a.k.a the Hermes and go to Mars!!!

[PacThePhoenix]

30 minutes ago, XpertKerbalKSP said:

This is very interesting indeed!

Im thinking of making a series of missions like in the Martian where you send a bunch of supplies before hand and get on a spaceship and go on another large transporter a.k.a the Hermes and go to Mars!!!

My thoughts exactly . I was actually thinking of taking a 'Martian' style approach at this challenge, but that would mean an extremely high cost and almost no reusability. I might just do it for fun though .

[XpertKerbalKSP]

22 hours ago, PacThePhoenix said:

My thoughts exactly . I was actually thinking of taking a 'Martian' style approach at this challenge, but that would mean an extremely high cost and almost no reusability. I might just do it for fun though .

Oh, also it would take a LOT of effort to pull off something like that. I'd have to construct the Hermes in space and send up suply ships to mars at the same time. Then Id send up my crew and get them on board Hermes to mars and then do the Mars orbit insertion and then land in the Duna Decent Vehichle and then wait for the launch window and then launch in the Duna Ascent Vehichle and then dock with Hermes and the go back and send suplies for Ares 2 at the same time.

Se how that was the longest sentence in the world?