Kerpollo - A Complete Science Mode Run In 9 Acts

[noname_hero]

Munpollo

Let's begin with what tech I've been able to use to build my ship:

The ship itself, though, is no wonder. And if you think that it is more than a bit overengineered, you're right. My goal was to intercept an asteroid for yet more science, so I needed way more fuel than for a simple Mun landing.

Our next shot is Valentina, planting the first flag of the Kerpollo program:

And the next one is the whole ship back in orbit, getting ready to hunt for an asteroid:

As you can see here, what I've learned is that if your ship lacks a grabbing claw, you *can't* get a surface sample from an asteroid, even if you're willing to sink waist-deep into asteroid dust:

And the final screenshot for today is one of my courageous kerbonauts freezing their behinds off gathering science from one more of Kerbin's biomes:

[noname_hero]

Minmuspollo

The first shot is one of the whole rocket. If it look like less of an engineer's nightmare than the previous one, it is thanks to the fairing hiding the ugly truth.

The whole setup is a bit long-ish for my taste, but I was determined to hunt another asteroid, because this time, my tech list included the grabbing claw:

And here's what the orbital stage looked like, during and after a bit of rearranging. The first image is also one of the orbiter around Minmus, the second one the whole ship after redocking. Yes, the Poodle stage is attached to the rest of the ship by the claw in the second image.

Then there's the mandatory flag-and-lander shot:

And here, after too many days in space, the ship is finally attached to an asteroid. At least this time I got lucky and found a prettier one:

And my final shot is the lander back on Kerbin:

[Superfluous J]

@noname_hero those look good for proof but in addition to having no internet from tomorrow on, I'm on mobile only from now on and the wysiwyg editor is... well it totally sucks on mobile. So, I'll boot be updating the first post until probably the Monday after my vacation.

Is your game unmodded? It appears so. Normal mode, hard, custom?

[noname_hero]

Just now, 5thHorseman said:

@noname_hero those look good for proof but in addition to having no internet from tomorrow on, I'm on mobile only from now on and the wysiwyg editor is... well it totally sucks on mobile. So, I'll boot be updating the first post until probably the Monday after my vacation.

Is your game unmodded? It appears so. Normal mode, hard, custom?

The game is 1.8.1. unmodded, no add-ons. Normal difficulty, because a) I was a bit intimidated by the challenge, given I began playing in October, and b) I tried the Hard mode in another playthrough just before the challenge and my inability to transfer fuel from a tanker that worked on Normal showed me there might be more surprises hiding in the difficulty settings that I didn't want to run into during the challenge.

No rush with updating the first post. I'm already finished with Dreshollo, Eeloollo, Mohollo and Dunollo, and I've got thousands of science left after researching everything, but I've never launched from Eve before and I've only sent probes to Jool so far, so I've still got some learning to do.

[GRS]

Gewd Luck !

[noname_hero]

Dreshollo

The Dreshollo rocket is certainly following the KSP tradition of strapping on more boosters. I do like boosters, so I've even strapped some boosters onto *boosters*, so I could boost my rocket while I'm boosting my rocket. In my defense, I wanted everything but the boosters (and fairing) to reach orbit, and it did:

I think this was my first kerballed interplanetary mission that had to get by without using NERVs. But I do like lots of delta v, and I'm okay-ish with discarding empty tanks if that's what it takes, so my solution are those four tanks at the top of my ship. Sure, it took a lot of struts to make this design sufficiently non-wobbly during liftoff, and my use of those drop tanks was a bit inefficient during the mission itself, but the extra fuel made my kerbonauts feel more relaxed. And one look at my tech tree was enough to make them certain any future mission *would* get to use NERVs:

Planning an encounter was relatively easy, and *not* using NERVs creates pleasantly short transfer burns:

Following the path of excess fuel even made me ditch a part of my ship real close to the surface of Dres while there was still some fuel in it. To be honest, I've even tried to land on it, but hitting a horizontal-enough patch of surface was so much hassle I've decided to bite the bullet and leave some fuel on Dres. At least the lander had nearly all fuel left.

And here's another shot of a happy Valentina, most likely while chatting about leaving Dres behind and heading back home:

And this is a shot of those brave kerbonauts back home. Bob, always hungry for more science, convinced Val to land some way away from civilization:

[IncongruousGoat]

Part 2 of my 3.2x scale Kerpollo is done. The borked tech tree was repaired using a jet-powered science roller, and the Mun and Minmus were conquered with the aid of only a little lithobraking.

Album is here: https://imgur.com/a/l2dxXYZ

Hopefully the next part won't be as delayed as this one was.

[Superfluous J]

On 12/26/2019 at 1:09 PM, noname_hero said:

As you can see here, what I've learned is that if your ship lacks a grabbing claw, you *can't* get a surface sample from an asteroid, even if you're willing to sink waist-deep into asteroid dust

Interesting. I never knew that. I almost want to submit it as a bug.

Good job on Drespollo, I'm surprised you didn't got for a Dresteroid after hitting an asteroid on both the Mun and Minmus trips.

Edited January 6, 2020 by 5thHorseman

[Superfluous J]

@IncongruousGoat sorry for not putting you in the participants list earlier. I think with the tech tree thing I just forgot. I've fixed that now.

Can't wait to see a low-tech Duna mission

[noname_hero]

On 1/6/2020 at 10:00 AM, 5thHorseman said:

Good job on Drespollo, I'm surprised you didn't got for a Dresteroid after hitting an asteroid on both the Mun and Minmus trips.

I hit an asteroid during Munpollo because I didn't know I'd need a grabbing claw, and during Minmuspollo because I knew I had one.

However, 60 Science is not that much, and given I'd either have to build a huuuge ship, or I guess some creative one, I've decided to make my Drespollo mission easier and stop hunting more asteroids. Transfer windows back to Kerbin are kind of fixed, and I knew how low the chances would be there'd be an asteroid on a nice trajectory during my return, so I've decided to find science elsewhere. And me having a full tech tree before Evepollo tells me I've found enough.

 

I'm not exactly happy about how often I'm getting to play now, as real life has to take precedence over KSP, but I haven't given up on the challenge. I've already failed Evepollo once, because Eve's atmosphere is much worse than I expected it to. *Landing* is easy, I've managed to land a probe and a separate rover before with little trouble, and landing with my lander was okay-ish. The ascent? A combination of aerodynamic forces and changing center of mass always destabilized my lander before I made it above 20km, even when I tried to keep my speed around 100 m/s. But another ship has already managed to make a few aerobraking passes, my apoapsis is under 6Mm now, and this lander should be more stable. Hopefully, I should be able to attempt a landing and a liftoff during the weekend.

Honestly, I feel like Jool 5 will be far easier than this, given I'll be able to mine for fuel..

[Superfluous J]

41 minutes ago, noname_hero said:

Honestly, I feel like Jool 5 will be far easier than this, given I'll be able to mine for fuel..

I don't know about strictly easier, but it's a fun hard, as opposed to Eve being a slog.

[noname_hero]

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I don't know about strictly easier, but it's a fun hard, as opposed to Eve being a slog.

Truth is that while I didn't want to complain too much, you sure know what you're talking about there.

Sitting through like two dozen aerobraking passes, not knowing whether the lander you've built will be able to lift off, or whether you'll have to try one more time, *is* a slog.

Plus the lander is about twice the size of the transfer stage, so the whole setup flies like a brick with butterfly wings :-)

[BeanThruster]

On 12/20/2019 at 3:16 AM, 5thHorseman said:

I'm looking at Kerpollo now and believe yours is the first manually-pushed rolly car I've ever seen.

Uhm, yeah, I found the roller is much easier to steer in this way. And also less prone to nasty explosions. You know, I believe ground operations have become somewhat dangerous since 1.8.

 

Anyway, after some time I have two more mission reports done. (it took me more time to prepare the reports on imgur than the actual missions). 

--------------------------------

my past entries:

Kerpollo

https://imgur.com/a/08YYoWq

Munpollo

https://imgur.com/a/PZj99md

Minpollo

https://imgur.com/a/gQdNdIW

 

--------------------------------

and the new missions:

Dresollo

https://imgur.com/a/itJD3FY

and Eelollo

https://imgur.com/a/lIWZkIx

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by BeanThruster

[Superfluous J]

On 1/16/2020 at 1:00 PM, BeanThruster said:

it took me more time to prepare the reports on imgur than the actual missions

I hear that. I actually posted the last challenge I did as a video because I got sick of Imgur, and videos were easier.

Regarding sepratrons, I have found that 2 tiny fins tilted 5 degrees (1 tick in the rotate tool) away from the main stack make for safe (and pretty!) separations sans sepratrons.

Edited January 18, 2020 by 5thHorseman

[noname_hero]

Eeloollo

This one was still easy, because NERVs, my favorite long-haul engines, make basic interplanetary travel relatively simple and straightforward.

And as nearly always, my rocket has boosters on boosters for that little bit of extra dV. I know SRBs are not the best boosters there are, but they're cheap, and I'm used to career mode and occassional penny pinching.

Unfortunately, I flew this mission back in December, before I knew what proof I'd need, so I don't have a screenshot in orbit, just a flight plan. And the dV info is IIRC kinda wonky, given the drop tanks and other features I use.

What I do have is my ship near Eeloo. One feature that is quite obvious here is that the lander can carry two kerbals, even thought I only landed with one. And the reason is similarly obvious too, I guess, namely I also use this lander to return to Kerbin.

What I also have is the lander on Eeloo. I know that Jeb is a pilot, not a scientist, but it felt more... right... to have a dedicated pilot fly this mission. My space program was still young, scientists or engineers were to be kept away from piloting.

And here's the whole ship leaving Eeloo. It looks different becuase it lacks some LF tanks.

And the final shot is just the lander, back on Kerbin. It is not landed, I'll admit, but I managed to not save the game before recovering it. However, it is the same basic design as in some other missions of mine, its speed is under 7 m/s and the terrain beneath is safe. I do have a mission summary screenshot, though, in case this is not enough.

 

On a side note - I'm done!!! I've returned back from Joolpollo! But as others have mentioned, these reports take time too, of which I have less than I'd like to. But I should have some more of it later today, so we'll see what I'll manage to write up.

 

[noname_hero]

Mohollo

My techbase was a little more advanced than for Eeloollo, but there was no scientific breakthrough comparable to NERVs.

As a results, my launch vehicle was similar to the previous one. I'll admit I rollbacked my first attempt even when I was already on an intercept course to Moho for a sort of pointless reason - it took me that long to notice I let Jeb pilot the flight, even though I set a policy of alternating between him and Val when I began the challenge. Kinda useless when they're all at max level, but it wasn't my first visit to Moho, so I wasn't afraid I couldn't make it again.

Braking near Moho is one of those moment that sure make a newbie-ish player nervous. All those temperature gauges make for a frightening sight, even if they're radiators.

However, I was finally confident enough of my crews' abilities to let a scientist pilot a lander. If you're wondering about the grabbing claw on top, that was just a case of "you know what, may'be we'll get lucky and encounter a magic asteroid near our course back home". Of course we didn't. Oh, and of course there's Bob's favorite part, snack box Experiment Storage Unit, above that command pod.

Redocking was easy. Unlike the first time I was to Moho, and forgot to add an antenna to my unkerballed transfer stage, and spent nearly all the fuel in the lander biome-hopping plus reaching orbit. That was a mission where I was afraid I'd have to get out and push. Mohollo? Easy redocking, a bit of a wait, a short one given Moho's orbit around Kerbol, and we were up and away.

And the mission ended on the green fields of Kerbin, once again caving in to Bob's requests for more samples and data.

[BeanThruster]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:43 AM, 5thHorseman said:

I hear that. I actually posted the last challenge I did as a video because I got sick of Imgur, and videos were easier.

I'm a complete newbie at video editing, but I think I'm going to invest some time in that. I'm a little bit on the verbose side, and I'm completely terrified when thinking at a Jool mission report on Imgur.

 

On 1/18/2020 at 2:43 AM, 5thHorseman said:

Regarding sepratrons, I have found that 2 tiny fins tilted 5 degrees (1 tick in the rotate tool) away from the main stack make for safe (and pretty!) separations sans sepratrons.

 Interesting. I'll give that a try the next mission, that is Dunpollo.

Now, here is my Mohollo

https://imgur.com/a/ALB20Nq

[Superfluous J]

FYI I've not forgotten you all I'm just busy IRL. May not get to this until the weekend.

[BeanThruster]

21 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

FYI I've not forgotten you all I'm just busy IRL. May not get to this until the weekend.

Don't worry about that.

I need a quick answer, though. Apparently, KSP 1.9 is out there. Can I update my install, or should I stay with the old version?

[noname_hero]

Dunollo

This one, while not being the most difficult of my Kerpollo mission, was certainly the craziest one. This was the first time one of my kerbonauts had to land on parachute. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, so let's take a look at my tech tree first. To put it simply, I've had pretty much everything by now. The one missing item I would have liked too, one I've highlighted in the screenshot, is probably my favorite gripe with KSP's tech tree - RTGs are pre-Apollo tech, why the {snip} make them level 9 tech? However, Duna is close enough to Kerbol to make RTGs more of a luxury item than a mission requirement.

The launch vehicle is an evolutionary step over my previous Kerpollo designs, a fat thing with boosters on boosters to haul up way more fuel than I'll need. I've even added radiators onto some of the engines, because even though I don't really know whether it would actually overheat, such a horde of engines certainly looks like it might be eager to.

And here is the transfer stage, already braking near Duna, as it looked the same even when leaving Kerbin's SOI. Like I said, way more fuel than needed. In case you're wondering about those doughnut tanks, those were a total dead weight, a badly designed abomination intended to partially refill my lander, one I've had to ditch with all the fuel still in them.

Of course we have to have a photo on Duna. And of course it is Bob down there, all the instrumentation windows pinned in place for faster gathering of science data during flight. Who you don't see is Bill, who went down too, both to get some first-hand experience and to repack the chutes for a landing on Kerbin. The parachutes, besides also doing a reasonably good job of hiding the snack box/experiment storage unit from the more ignorant news reporters, had one more unexpected role to play in this tale.

If you're wondering about the speed shown in the next screenshot, that's the first of the two somewhat kerbal-ish moments of this journey. What you see is the lander above Ike, preparing for a free fall while the transfer stage tries to regain the velocity it worked hard to dump just moments ago. Yes, I did the landing burn with the whole transfer stage, which had *lots* of liquid fuel but no oxidizer, to save some fuel in the lander. And because one can only fly one ship in stock KSP, I had to let the lander fall while the transfer stage accelerated to reach a stable orbit again.

What made me perform such a hare-brained maneuver? I forgot I had to leave a kerballed ship in orbit even around Ike, not just around Duna, so my first attempt at this mission simply landed my whole ship on Ike. The lander was never intended to land on Duna, then Ike, then Kerbin. But I wasn't going to fly the whole mission again before trying to make do with what dV the landed did have.

The mandatory landscape shot of Ike is here, again with Bill and Bob sharing the lander.

What I'm not including here are shots of my ship back around Ike, or detaching some drop tanks to hit Munar surface, or hurtling near Minmus, with Bob adding more and more samples and data into a gradually emptying snack box. What I do have to include is the one person who has been overlooked during most of this mission. Jeb.

Yes, I managed to forget my lander only had room for two, but I launched with three kerbonauts aboard. So my first shot here is of my transfer stage, by now slowed down to subsonic speed, and moments before making the Kernobyl Nuclear Power Plant incident look harmless in comparison. The second shot is Jeb, safe and sound, about to make a splashdown.

The rest of you can be glad you didn't have to read his crew report.

And our last shot for this mission is one of Bill and Bob, getting ready to munch on their last snacks of this mission, happy to have heard that Jeb is such a bada** that the first thing he did after getting back to KSC from that landing was taking his first hot bath in waaaay too long.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Gargamel
Portions Redacted by moderator

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, BeanThruster said:

Don't worry about that.

I need a quick answer, though. Apparently, KSP 1.9 is out there. Can I update my install, or should I stay with the old version?

This challenge is version-agnostic. Use whatever versions you like and change them at any time for any reason.

Though I'll note if you downgrade to 0.90 for your Eve atmospheric entry

[BeanThruster]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

This challenge is version-agnostic. Use whatever versions you like and change them at any time for any reason.

Though I'll note if you downgrade to 0.90 for your Eve atmospheric entry

Glad to hear that. I’m rather curious about the new revamps.

[Superfluous J]

@noname_hero Your Mohollo entry saved your Eelollo entry because you basically used the same craft, and had to redock on Moho to get home proving that the craft was capable of redocking. I think you had to on Eeloo anyway to get fuel for the ride home, but I'd still have preferred a picture with the orbiter and lander docked.

I'm checking out Dunpollo now.

@noname_hero When you do Jool, make sure you get a screenshot of every lander+orbiter in orbit before and after landing. I'm giving you Dunpollo even though you didn't do it for Duna, your Ike shot implied it. Be more thorough on Jool though as it's far more complex.

Edited January 25, 2020 by 5thHorseman

[noname_hero]

7 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

@noname_hero Your Mohollo entry saved your Eelollo entry because you basically used the same craft, and had to redock on Moho to get home proving that the craft was capable of redocking. I think you had to on Eeloo anyway to get fuel for the ride home, but I'd still have preferred a picture with the orbiter and lander docked.

I'm checking out Dunpollo now.

@noname_hero When you do Jool, make sure you get a screenshot of every lander+orbiter in orbit before and after landing. I'm giving you Dunpollo even though you didn't do it for Duna, your Ike shot implied it. Be more thorough on Jool though as it's far more complex.

Eeloollo? Eh? The report *includes* a shot of the whole setup leaving Eeloo, I've even mentioned the missing drop tanks... The lander doesn't fly all the way back home alone, it redocks with the transfer stage and flies home on NERVs. That's also why it shows more than 5k dV on the active stage alone.

As for Dunpollo, is the following screenshot sufficient, or should I look for another one?

Ummm... I already did Evepollo and Joolpollo, I just have to write the reports. But I think I do have enough screenshots plus savefiles to suffice. Would it be okay to post say a screenshot of the lander on Laythe, then the whole ship around Vall, followed by a lander on Vall, then the whole ship around Tylo...? So I don't have to fill the forum with too many similar screenshots? I had to dock around Laythe to fly to Vall, didn't I?

[Superfluous J]

13 minutes ago, noname_hero said:

So I don't have to fill the forum with too many similar screenshots?

I don't know how postimg.cc works but if it's like Imgur, you could just link to the album there. Or, post the pics in spoilers so they'll only take up room if they're expanded.

For Jool, did you have a single mothership with a lander (or several landers) that went everywhere and stayed in orbit? Or did you do like I did and have one mothership that got the whole setup to Jool (Tylo actually for me) and then from there sent smaller orbiter/lander combinations to each moon? If it's the latter, then yes I'd like to see the lander and orbiter docked around the target world in all 5 cases. If it's the former, then sure, showing that they're docking one time is enough, and if both ships are present in the same screen shot (docked together) on each world and then coming home, that's fine.