Difficult Eve Contract

[Chequers]

Thanks community, for helping me in the past with my explorations of Eve; your advice have helped me get to grips with interplanetary transfers and returns, completing some tricky contracts in the process, including returning from a fly-by and orbit of Eve. Both were a huge step up from the Mun and Minmus missions I was getting to grips with.

But almost in mockery, KSP has once again launched the difficulty upwards, with a contract to: 'Enter the atmosphere, Splash-Down on, and make land contact with' Eve. In a single mission.

Cracking my knuckles in confidence, I launched a probe for this first landing on Eve, hoping that with enough ocean covering the surface, I'd get lucky and land in water, rather than make landfall. All went perfectly, aside from a tense few minutes plummeting through Eve's atmosphere. But nothing exploded, and I got good chutes, over the ocean, and splashed down. Then the probe sank under the intense gravity and was lost. Awesome.

I'd hoped that 'make land contact' just meant landing - but it didn't. So the contract was a failure.

I'm struggling to come up with a design that can reach Eve, enter the atmosphere, splash-down, and then move over to land. I imagine some form of lander with rockets powerful enough to overcome Eve's gravity for a hop to a nearby landmass? 

The other sticking point, was the only ticked component of the contract was 'splash down on Eve'. The 'enter the atmosphere of Eve' portion remained unticked... does it have to be manned?

Happy to hear your ideas. This is a serious step-up in complexity.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Chequers

[Spricigo]

31 minutes ago, Chequers said:

I'm struggling to come up with a design that can reach Eve, enter the atmosphere, splash-down, and then move over to land. I imagine some form of lander with rockets powerful enough to overcome Eve's gravity for a hop to a nearby landmass? 

Any kind of boat that can get agrround at the sea border should be enough.

If you have the DLC you may try something similar to my Padwheeler. Another option is to make land contact first and then rover to the sea (you will be splashed down as soon as you lose land contact.)

52 minutes ago, Chequers said:

The 'enter the atmosphere of Eve' portion remained unticked... does it have to be manned?

Tr to get in orbit first and then enter the atmosphere. If that is what you did try to get into the atmosphere without getting in the orbit first. 

If the contract don't say manned/unmanned,  either should work.

 

[king of nowhere]

rockets on eve are a bad idea, but you can put a helicopter-like propeller. in fact, you can make a helicopter quite easily, or just a rover with a propeller pointing backwards for water propulsion (warning: propellers seem to have problems in water. keep it exposed to the air)

[jimmymcgoochie]

I would build an electric plane or a rover for this contract- unless it has to be completed in the specific order: atmosphere, splash, land, touching down on land first will complete that objective followed by a nice drive (or flight) to the nearest body of liquid to complete the contract. Planes are faster and you can get away with very small wings due to Eve’s thick atmosphere, but don’t expect much speed and you’ll need either electric propulsion (robotics or from a mod), or something more exotic like explodium breathing engines or an atmosphere-breathing nuclear engine; rovers are slower and less versatile, but can easily be done with just stock and with the help of Bon Voyage you can cover a lot of ground in the background.

[Fierce Wolf]

Make 2 landers, one to splash and another to land, izi pizi

[jimmymcgoochie]

2 hours ago, Fierce Wolf said:

Make 2 landers, one to splash and another to land, izi pizi

And when one lands in the wrong place? Better to have one lander that can move than two that can’t.

[Chequers]

Thanks for the advice; though nothing is 'izi pizi' in these missions or me. I don't have reverts or quicksaves, so whatever I try has to work first time.

I'm leaning more towards trying a splash-down, with some form of ability to then traverse the ocean towards land. I'm pretty confident that I will have to splash down first - as landing on ground, then being able to take off in order to splash down elsewhere would require a lot of energy and fuel.

I'll keep you updated with my design!

[Spricigo]

1 minute ago, Chequers said:

as landing on ground, then being able to take off in order to splash down elsewhere would require a lot of energy and fuel.

Except that you don't need to take off, just entering the water from land is enough. As long as your craft in the water (or whatever there is in Eve's Ocean) and not moving the game consider it splashed down.

[Fierce Wolf]

No rollbacks? Bring 10 small proves, they don't need science stuff, just land/splash. A shotgun approach to Eve!

[EveMaster]

9 hours ago, Chequers said:

I'm leaning more towards trying a splash-down, with some form of ability to then traverse the ocean towards land. I'm pretty confident that I will have to splash down first - as landing on ground, then being able to take off in order to splash down elsewhere would require a lot of energy and fuel.

If you plan to take off from the sea with a plane, your design should also have canards, that means control surfaces in front of the center of mass. They have the advantage that they help you lift up instead of pushing the tail into the water when you tilt up for takeoff. Center of lift and center of drag should of course be behind the center of mass.

Rocket powered planes will only be able to travel several km after splashdown especially since you probably can't land them full on fuel because then the plane would not slow down fast enough during reentry.

First go into a low Eve orbit if your contract allows this so you can better chose your landing zone. For reentry you have several options: Heatshield, using lift and tilting up 30 degrees to control your descent rate (dangerous) or retroburning once the heating starts.

Once you are at a save speed at around 15- 20km height , you can control the path and glide to the nearest coast. Gliding is easy in Eve's thick atmosphere.

[Spricigo]

7 hours ago, EveMaster said:

If you plan to take off from the sea with a plane, your design should also have canards, that means control surfaces in front of the center of mass. They have the advantage that they help you lift up instead of pushing the tail into the water when you tilt up for takeoff

Just saying, if that is the advantage they have none over my seaplanes with control surfaces in the tail. (Which quite often are regular planes that happen to take off from the water just fine )

[EveMaster]

6 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Just saying, if that is the advantage they have none over my seaplanes with control surfaces in the tail. (Which quite often are regular planes that happen to take off from the water just fine )

I have to add, that this is my experience with rocket powered planes with heavy engines at the back such as the Mammoth. In that case, canards also have more leverage than control surfaces near the back. I don't question that you can build a fine sea plane without canards.

One thing that is important when doing water landings: Tilt up, so that you make contact with water with the rear of the plane first. If you don't do that, parts tend to get compressed and are destroyed.

[Spricigo]

13 minutes ago, EveMaster said:

this is my experience

And I merely pointed that it don't match mine. Maybe I didn't push my design to the limits you pushed yours or maybe I just luckily stumbled on  something that happens to work well with tailplanes. 

Point is, if I built fine (or even not so fine but workable) sea planes without canards, so do others. 

[Chequers]

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions - it's given me lots to think about and test. I've settled on the design of a small 0.625m probe that has dual-configurations - able to land both on water and solid ground depending on which biome it comes in over, though solid ground would be preferable. As I only have one shot at this mission, I needed to ensure that regardless of the circumstance, the mission could proceed.

Once touched down, it can perform a short hop with quad mounted 24-77s to the nearest ocean/land mass to complete the contract. It is a tiny probe, but packs in all of the required comms and battery systems to be entirely independent once released from the transfer stage. 

Just waiting for the next Eve transfer window; I'll let you know how it goes.