[COMPLETED] Beyond Home Space Race - winner! @jimmymcgoochie

[kspnerd122]

Just a warning, UNE Jebediah(manned interstellar craft) will be launching soon, it is a colony vessel that will carry the equipment needed to build up a large base, also it will carry 10 kerbals to kerbol, I am on Y22 and I landed on lond with UNE Von Kerman

[jimmymcgoochie]

AAARG(r)- Data dump incoming!

Well, if you're only allowed to post updates on Saturdays it will inevitably lead to a big pile of an update as I cram nearly a week of gameplay into one post.

First and foremost, another important milestone completed- first Kerbals on Armstrong as Ganymede 6 touches down; I forgot to get a screenshot right away with the game clock in it, so I'll just have to go with the first image with the clock and say Y1, D9, 00:48 as the landing time.

This was followed a little while later by Ganymede 7 which landed less than a kilometre away, bringing the science part of the deployed science array with it (glitchy deployed solar panel info box wouldn't go away):

Now on to new and bigger things- the Pasiphae probes, destined for several different planets and their moons:

The basic design was the same each time, with varying numbers of solar panels depending on how far out the destination was. Pasiphae 2 also had a tiny atmospheric probe/lander to chuck at Hydrus, but otherwise they were all the same.

More science means more unlocks:

These new fuel tanks will be put to good use for the second wave of Pasiphae launches, especially Pasiphae 4 which aims to do what Pasiphae 3 could not and make orbit of Fury; Pasiphae 3 was the amateur mistake of 'just hurl it straight at the innermost planet without waiting for a transfer window, what could go wrong?' and will reach Fury at such a blistering speed that it'll get a gravity slingshot most of the way out to Rock's orbit, needing only a small course correction of under 200m/s to get an intercept. Oops...

Ganymede 6 and 7 returned with MOAR SCIENCE!

Which in turn unlocked moar science nodes:

Then Ganymede 8 blasted off for Ash, the outermost moon with the lakes of lava. Bob and Julbo clearly don't appreciate Val's flying technique:

After one of the Pasiphae probes catches a (planned) slingshot from Ash more science was returned:

The first pieces of the Endurance were unlocked, along with other useful structural stuff:

Second-gen Pasiphae launches followed, featuring small drop tanks on the upper stages and more delta-V than the first lot:

There are screenshots of each Pasiphae probe in the tracking station included in the Imgur album, but I won't spam them here- long story short, probes are going to orbit Fury, Hydrus, Hydron, Scaythe, Scindo and Rock (plus one that's going to fly by both Fury and Rock but orbit neither)

Then came another big launch- Lysithea 1, the first crewed interplanetary ship carrying Bill and a small autonomous rover to Hydron and hopefully carrying Bill back again!

The first probe landed on Ash, though there were a lot of weird graphics glitches going on and it didn't go quite according to plan:

It turns out that Ash has a 99 day rotation period so scanning will take a long time ; in the  meantime, Ganymede 8 also landed on Ash, again with a glitchy black square of terrain underneath it:

That delta-V reading is a lie, there's less than 800m/s of fuel left... And then it fell over so they're stuck there for good. I'm planning to send a rover out that they can drive around in and get science until I can be bothered to send a rescue mission. They don't seem to mind though:

Then I launched Carme 1 (a rover, obviously!) towards Ash, but things went a bit, well...

The second launch went fine though and Carme 2 is now hurtling towards Ash where it will give Ganymede 8's crew something to do until they get rescued.

One more node unlocked, not particularly useful right now but it's a requirement for the Ranger and Lander later on:

Jeb was sent out in the prototype Carme rover to add a seismometer to the Rhode deployed science cluster, then drive around KSC getting additional science, before he got bored and did a bit of drifting. Good science returns though:

That seismic sensor might not be that useful, but there are a few massive space rocks currently on collision courses with Rhode so they might just work for that.

All the albums:

https://imgur.com/a/5WYvc67

https://imgur.com/a/3KWPtvm

https://imgur.com/a/KhATs6Z

https://imgur.com/a/06SdEUa

Milestones:

• First Kerbals landed on Rhode's moon (not Lua)- Ganymede 6 at Y1, D9, 0:48.

[kspnerd122]

Data dump

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r_1k-YrTbjMlTAp3AW3i3xdTUl4H-3wIr9hh6Jialv4/edit?usp=sharing

[Barrackar]

Picking up last techs needed via Lua Researcher: https://imgur.com/gallery/9O4Tl1m

Janus Assembly begins (First use of non-stock Konstruction parts): https://imgur.com/gallery/UvrSmrh

Milestone-sort-of: The Janus landers in the Janus assembly can hold 10 kerbals each so the orbital assembly seems to qualify as a station around Rhode which can hold at least 10 kerbals at least until I send it on its way to Janus.

Next steps: Attach more fuel segments. I am using 48 Nerv engines to push the roughly 230t payload of the lander stack to Janus. The first fuel segment added about 700 dV to the assembly; however, there are diminishing returns from each fuel segment added as it brings the total mass higher and higher. So next I repeat again and again bringing additional fuel segments to the orbital assembly.

Current game time: 24 days 20 hours 57 minutes.

***Note: my computer crashed once on approach when the Janus assembly came into physics range. Hopefully the part count for the final assembly after fuel is added is within the capabilities of my computer so I can actually launch. We'll see. 

@jimmymcgoochie I am getting the same strange black square terrain glitch as well. That is what made my early Lua landings so difficult, not being able to see the slope of the terrain. However, I didn't get that when landing on Armstrong so it seems to be a planet specific glitch. Some have it and some don't. Weird.

[kspnerd122]

Wait, I know how to fix that, encountered it while playing GPO, just reinstall EVE and scatterer.

[jimmymcgoochie]

AAARG(r)- a big bag of missions.

Jeb was sent up on Lysithea 2 to fly to Scaythe, just in case something doesn't work with Lysithea 1's trip to Hydron. This mission had to be launched twice because of a catastrophic RUD during the first attempt, but Jeb was fine and the pod was bolted to a new rocket before he could figure out how to disengage the child lock on the hatch.

A few science transmissions and continued roving around Rhode produced more science, which unlocked more nodes:

A rescue mission was sent out to Ash to recover the crew of Ganymede 8, only for Ganymede 9 to end up in the same situation with not enough fuel to get home and faceplanting immediately upon landing. The lack of fuel was partly due to lugging three SRB powered impactor rockets to Ash, which comprehensively failed to generate any seismic science whatsoever .

A conveniently timed asteroid arrived in Rhode's SOI so the grabbers were unlocked and a mission was sent to grab it.

Ganymede 8 was reassembled by the crew and all the fuel from Ganymede 9 was siphoned off to make 8 able to get home with a big haul of science:

More nodes unlocked:

After a couple of successful aerobraking passes, Ananke 1 had  a close call when the asteroid overheated and Luner hit the abort button, causing the pod to decouple and pull 88g which destroyed every part apart from the pod and its parachute in a weird but welcome fluke. Luner and the samples he took from the asteroid were recovered safely, but still represent a net loss after the tech node unlock is considered:

Progress continues towards unlocking all the components for the Endurance, the most expensive of which are the base and science components and the propulsion systems. With several thousand science points needed, those interplanetary probes better send back some serious science!

Moar pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/IpW1VRa

I went through a lot of game time today but all things considered I'm feeling pretty confident about hitting all the milestones quickly and more importantly in the right order. Next up- interplanetary arrivals.

[jimmymcgoochie]

AAARG(r)- Boring science scraping ahead.

Did some missions to get some science, along with some course corrections for the Pasiphae probes and Lysithea crew landers. Most interesting was Pasiphae 3 flying past Fury at silly speeds, but unfortunately no signal to send that juicy data back home again .

A bit of roving around Rhode and both orbital surveys and infrared telescopy for Rhode and Lua pushed the science total up further, but still some way short of unlocking key Endurance components:

This also raises an important issue- if a simple probe can't send data back from a few planets over, how are the interstellar missions meant to send their data back from the next star over? This may require some chunky super-sized relays from Extended Antenna Progression (powerful, but large and heavy) or using the signal reflector stuff from NFExploration; so far I've only used a few fuel tanks from NFX and skipped the antenna feed bit entirely, but there's no reason why I can't use the whole thing.

Full album with all the boring details: https://imgur.com/a/qjeeNht

Next up- interplanetary probes that might actually be able to send science back! And if not, new tech unlocks (and/or full NFX installation) to make it work.

[GuessingEveryDay]

Uh... I'll let it slide one time. But please post only on Saturdays. Meanwhile I haven't been able to access KSP at all lately thanks to some weird access violations and breakpoints. See here: 

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Turns out NFX does things to antennas that are incompatible with the way Sigma Rescale multiplies antenna power and also aren't affected by the stock settings, meaning that if I add the antenna feeds system from NFX all comms parts default to their original ranges and are underpowered for the rescaled system. So I wrote a patch that can boost the range of both feedable antennae and signal reflectors to match the buff that Sigma Dimensions adds to normal antennae. It actually seems to work- so far!

[GuessingEveryDay]

Anyways, I can't compete in the race at all now, and I'm still holding out, hoping for a solution, but it looks like I may have to drop out.

Here's where you can help if you want though...

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

@GuessingEveryDay I have five probes going to five different planets and moons beyond Rhode's SOI, and two of them have arrived at their destinations. I also have a crewed vessel which has made it to another planet and is ready to land. Can I do the landing, claim the two interplanetary landing milestones and then finish off the comms network later (as it's already in progress) or do I have to wait until all five relays are in orbit of five different planets/moons before doing the landing (which will delay the landing by over a year)?

[GuessingEveryDay]

33 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

@GuessingEveryDay I have five probes going to five different planets and moons beyond Rhode's SOI, and two of them have arrived at their destinations. I also have a crewed vessel which has made it to another planet and is ready to land. Can I do the landing, claim the two interplanetary landing milestones and then finish off the comms network later (as it's already in progress) or do I have to wait until all five relays are in orbit of five different planets/moons before doing the landing (which will delay the landing by over a year)?

Okay. Show me screenshots of the comms trajectories proving that your comms are on track to enter the target planet's SOI, then you may continue with the interplanetary landing that will earn you both achievements. And the comm systems.

[jimmymcgoochie]

By a combination of "hurling a probe at the suns" and blind luck (because those sunflares are retina searing even on a screen!) I actually managed to orbit Fate and then escape again. It turns out that a solar probe is actually possible after all!

[GuessingEveryDay]

3 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

By a combination of "hurling a probe at the suns" and blind luck (because those sunflares are retina searing even on a screen!) I actually managed to orbit Fate and then escape again. It turns out that a solar probe is actually possible after all!

If it's there, it's possible, it'll just take a while.

[jimmymcgoochie]

AAARG(r)- another data dump.

Hmm, now what have I already posted and what's new? This posting once a week thing is getting confusing.

I'll split them according to which Imgur album they're in, which might make it easier to keep track of.

Spoiler

Tech unlock:

Europa 7 relays deployed to polar Rhode orbit to improve communications:

More science gathered:

Massive 'scatters' on Lua found by the Leda 1 rover:

New node unlocked to give more science experiments:

Used new science experiments to get more science and unlock another node:

Spoiler

Pasiphae 6 makes Hydron orbit:

Lysithea 1 arrives in Hydron orbit shortly afterwards:

Pasiphae 2 arrives in Hydrus orbit shortly after that:

Tech unlock for better communications- taken before I switched from EAP to NFX antenna feeds:

First interplanetary landing (and Kerballed landing) at Y3, D113, 2:20 on Hydron:

Sinope 1 rover deployed and promptly driven off a kilometre high cliff:

Adrastea 1 lander lands on Hydrus:

Europa 8 super-relays deployed using NFX antenna feeds system to get the effects of 24 RA-100 relays from 24 tiny relay transceivers and three big reflectors:

More nodes unlocked:

Pasiphae 4 makes orbit of Fury:

Puny little moon was too small to capture into orbit with Callirrhoe 1:

Callirrhoe 1 versus Fury's upper atmosphere was only ever going to end one way...

More nodes unlocked:

Leda 2 mission flies around Rhode and its moons getting as much science as possible:

Giant Kraken skeletons!?!?

Leda 3 heads for the barycentre hoping to get close to the binary stars before burning up:

More nodes unlocked:

Pasiphae 5 arrives in Scindo orbit:

Lysithea 2 arrives in Scindo orbit:

Another interplanetary landing completed:

Spoiler

More tech nodes unlocked:

Megaclite 1 heads to Rhode orbit and from there to Gateway:

A bit of trajectory fiddling and a helpful gravity assist from Kohm will capture into a sub-orbital orbit of Gateway without having to perform a capture burn at all:

And back to Scindo, which I forgot about when I reloaded the game, where Sinope 2 drove for 22km by hand:

Jeb does a short hop out of the crater, lands on a little plateau with huge cliffs nearby and goes jetpacking for science:

Why do I always land these crewed missions on little plateaus with huge cliffs nearby? Possibly because there are several different biomes nearby.

Jeb leaves Scindo behind and heads up to park in a Scaythe orbit:

Leda 3 managed to get into Fate's SOI and swoop down to space low without burning up:

It actually ended up in orbit of Fate, but I pushed it out again after getting the science to try and aim at Destiny on the next orbit.

Even small stars are really bright at close range, you can just see the spacecraft on the right:

Got distracted by the solar orbiting and forgot to screenshot the fifth Pasiphae capturing into orbit to complete the interplanetary network, so here's the next best thing:

Interplanetary comms network with 5 satellites around 5 different planets/moons completed at  Y4, D350, 2:31 and a sixth satellite is close to reaching Rock too.

Solar science is very profitable:

Spent it to unlock the Endurance engines:

One space station in orbit of Rhode with 3 Kerbals and space for another 9 at Y4, D352, 2:58. I'm rather surprised that it reached orbit without needing the second stage at all:

New 'relay' deployed using the Endurance's command module and its 70Tm built-in antenna to cover pretty much anywhere in the Tempus system and beyond:

New node for a nuclear reactor- three of those will power 2 Endurance engines for the first interstellar probe:

Milestones:

• First interplanetary landing- Y3, D113, 2:20.
• First Kerballed interplanetary landing- also Y3, D113, 2:20.
• Interplanetary comms network- completed at Y4, D350, 2:31.
• First Rhode space station- Y4, D352, 2:58.

Construction of the Jupiter 1 interstellar probe is underway and it will be heading up as soon as I stick a lander on it to lob at the first available planet or moon.

Imgur albums:

https://imgur.com/a/y078Syi

https://imgur.com/a/f6TBKxC

https://imgur.com/a/YIzEqkf

@GuessingEveryDay Can I move the Rhode space station to Lua and count that for the 'first space station around a moon' milestone, or does it have to be a brand new station?

[GuessingEveryDay]

2 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Can I move the Rhode space station to Lua and count that for the 'first space station around a moon' milestone, or does it have to be a brand new station?

Okay, the Rhode station needs to do 10 orbits before being able to move it, so after10 orbits around a point, you may move it to Lua.

In other parts, I am forced to drop out, because I can't get KSP to play without crashing. So it's just @jimmymcgoochie and @kspnerd122.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I've just discovered a slight problem with my grand plan to build a fleet of Endurances- to unlock all the remaining parts (Ranger/Lander SSTOs, the engine pods, science and base parts) will cost me 9600 science. Throw in the little Viper craft (mini Ranger) and that goes up to 15k science!

Fortunately, I now have a formidably powerful propulsion system using two of Endurance's engines powered by 3 chunky fission reactors that can reach delta-V values of well over a million seconds; the game runs horribly slowly (under 2FPS in some cases) and the burn times are several hours long, but blatting over to Gateway in 30 days instead of 4 years will definitely help get that science as fast as possible.

The Jupiter program has begun, firing an interstellar probe at Kerbol and a slightly smaller (but still pretty huge) probe at Gateway to start gathering the ~10,000 science needed to finish off the Endurance.

https://imgur.com/a/6ZFqTu5

If this race had started now I would be giving some serious consideration to Far Future Tech as the beta for that was recently released, but I'm committed to the Endurance now and FFT is too new and unfamiliar.

 

[Barrackar]

I am going to concede the race  / drop-out. I have brought several thousand dV worth of liquid fuel to my orbital assembly to fuel the NERV nuclear engines but when within physics range my computer is running at 5 seconds real-time per second of in-game time. To attempt to reduce computation I researched Mk3 parts for 5,000 liquid fuel per part instead of only 800 but looking at Jimmymcgoochie's performance with endurance it is clear I have an answer to the question: No, a conventional rocket will not arrive at Janus earlier than the fancier engines which depart later. The amount of fuel I would need to bring to orbit in order to compete with that level of dV is computationally prohibitive because my computer wouldn't come close to running it. Not to mention it is really boring hauling 100's of tons of fuel up when it is running so slowly even if it doesn't outright crash. I have added some screenshots to my previous imgur set showing the dV and TWR I am looking at based on pure NERV engines. See: https://imgur.com/a/UvrSmrh

My estimation is I could make an arrival in Janus in around 46 years game-time according to maneuver nodes, but at the current pace in looks like others will be able to get their much sooner by departing later with better engines.

Maybe if I find the time I will start over and go through the milestones in order and see what I can do with the KSPIE engines after I unlock those.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I'm one Janus base away from finishing, so I'll hold off on posting this week's stuff until I'm done. I seem to have misread the milestone for 'first interplanetary base' as 'interstellar' and put a base on Dynasty instead of somewhere easier to reach like Hydrus or Scaythe (or their moons). But it's a base, on a planet that isn't Rhode, so that still counts!

I didn't realise when I started this just how ludicrously OP the Endurance actually is- half a million ISP plus really lightweight fuel makes for some truly absurd delta-V numbers, and even the Landers and Rangers manage ISP of 18,000 seconds which gives the Lander about 40km/s delta-V when unladen. Unfortunately there are still a few bugs like missing fusion pellets, strange heating problems and control points not working right resulting in a few near-misses with moons after burning 'prograde' which was actually straight down.

[jimmymcgoochie]

AAARG(r)- Race completed!

It took a lot longer (in real time!) than it should have, but I finally finished off all the milestones. It helped that the Endurance mod came with a deployable habitat module that can hold 10 Kerbals and has its own control point and batteries, so that plus a couple of solar panels counts as a 'base'- though I added a science module to each to make it more like a real base.

Here's the really brief recap with just the milestones themselves.
 

Jupiter 1- first interstellar probe at Y5, D173, 00:10 (it entered Kerbol's SOI at this time so that counts as being 'interstellar', but later it entered orbit of Janus, lobbed some rovers around and eventually parked in a polar orbit for scanning).

Spoiler

1100km/s delta-V! 

Metis 1- first space station around a moon at Y5, D180, 1:39.

Uranus 1- first interstellar landing, first interstellar crewed landing, first interplanetary base (because I misread the milestone and thought that said interstellar not interplanetary) at Y6, D270, 01:47.

Spoiler

1.2FPS 

Endurance- it was a particularly complex mission so it gets its own section with a few different milestones thrown in.

Spoiler

Yes, I put drop tanks on it. It really needed them at the speeds I was getting out of it.

 

 

First interstellar base on a moon of Janus- Tau base, Y6, D298, 2:18.

Spoiler

Bases on Janus and all its moons-     .

Spoiler

Base on Eterna deployed at Y6, D306, 05:07.

Base deployed on Talon at Y6, D322, 02:11.

Base deployed on Lond at Y6, D380, 00:04. No screenshots taken at the time, probably due to some kind of glitch forcing a game reload, so here are two taken after I landed the Janus base- the first shows that there are 3 Kerbals on board, the second shows its MET which I think started when it undocked from Endurance as it works out to be around Y6, D379, 05:44 which is 20 minutes before the screenshot above when it landed.

 

Base module landed, but the Lander's left side VTOL engines both got destroyed by phantom terrain and the crew is on the wrong Lander so has to come down separately.

Base deployed on Janus at Y6, D403, 04:19.

And just to show all those bases in the tracking station:

Spoiler

Wait a minute... Was a base on the surface of Janus removed from the list, or did it ever exist there at all? If that's not part of it then I completed the final base milestone at Y6, D380, 00:07, although that would be the one base that I don't have all the screenshots for.

@GuessingEveryDayI am

DONE!

From the start node to bases on Janus and all its moons in under 7 Kerbin years, and with the totally arbitrary restriction of using cryogenic propulsion as much as possible. If I never see another 1.2FPS slideshow during a 14-hour interstellar burn again, it'll be too soon!

Albums are here with all the details:

https://imgur.com/a/6RzQ1dL

https://imgur.com/a/qL5AplH

https://imgur.com/a/9krs2J7

https://imgur.com/a/6y14nc8

https://imgur.com/a/kMXOreQ

Edited November 28, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie

[kspnerd122]

Data Dump

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D2hnv5Gyb_VzG8BNAt6W5IhY0MiB4lcB5Xx4-JVZ0Ec/edit?usp=sharing

Almost done I guess I will be in 2nd

[GuessingEveryDay]

14 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

@GuessingEveryDayI am

DONE!

Indeed, you are! Congratulations to @jimmymcgoochie for completing the Beyond Home Space Race! And yes, there was originally a requirement to have a base on Janus, but I thought that would be overkill, I was wrong though... We await your completion @kspnerd122

[kspnerd122]

I am about to do interplanetary base then the rest is a cake walk