The KSP Caveman Challenge 1.11.x - 1.12.x

[JAFO]

9 hours ago, paul_c said:

For Minmus, instead of sending 8 separate rockets, we will build a space station!

An ambitious goal indeed, and one that hasn't been tried before, I believe.

I like this! 

[paul_c]

I can't really take the credit for it. Its based on a very similar idea/design by Blaarkies, he added multiple science jrs to a craft in orbit then sent it to Minmus too. Its not really a "space station" either because it doesn't have any crew accommodation. Its just a modular thing with a bunch of docking to be done. It feels like space station construction though. 

The reason I figured is, on Minmus the orbital speed is "only" about 160 m/s (and much reduced gravity losses on descent/ascent too) so its feasible to land-take off multiple times there, where it isn't so much on Mun with its ~550m/s orbital speed.

Its also a "concept tryout" for interplanetary travel, which I don't need in "Diamond" but would be needed for NCD. Not saying I'm going to try that after......but......

[paul_c]

Mini update: I have been round all 5 of the re-orbited Mun landers which gathered science, and now have a "returner" craft orbiting the Mun with 5x biomes worth of science on board. I might need to visit 1 or 2 further biomes, so I'll keep it there just in case.

The "station" for Minmus is now 6/10 complete:

[paul_c]

"Minmus Station" now complete. Its a bit wobbly, but what good space station isn't?

23.62t in LKO:

[FloppyRocket]

On 2/8/2021 at 6:40 PM, JAFO said:

Congratulations, @FloppyRocket, on completing your second Caveman Challenge!

A new badge has been freshly minted for you, with both Talc and Apatite stones on it. Check your inbox.

A new entry has been carved on the cave wall.

Ooga!

Thanks much!

[Blaarkies]

6 hours ago, paul_c said:

"Minmus Station" now complete. Its a bit wobbly, but what good space station isn't?

23.62t in LKO:

This is amazing, well done! I bet you will have more than enough fuel for anything on Minmus, especially if you land on the border between 2 biomes. It only costs like 30m/s dv to the next door biome.

[Blaarkies]

Some new updates, working on an Eve flyby. I got the entire craft setup in Kerbin orbit, now I just need to actually launch towards Eve

 

I got up to using thumpers as add-on boosters now. Its making payloads like fuel much cheaper to launch.

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by Blaarkies

[paul_c]

Don't ask me how but I have achieved Minmus orbit. The space station is not built for flying. Pretty soon, the fuel imbalance twists it around when the engine's running, so 1/3 throttle at most made for long wobbly burns. Not so much a case of getting the launch window; but drunkenly crashing through another window which was left ajar, 5 blocks along from the original window, and waking up to find myself in the right house, albeit with a weirdly inclined retrograde orbit:

Near and far Minmus space science done, some fuel used; so let's ping off the spent module for weight saving/performance:

Bish bash bosh, a more-or-less equatorial prograde low circular orbit:

 

[paul_c]

The first of 3 trips to the surface of Minmus. A fresh "science module" is attached to the front of the lander/remote/probe and sets off.....

First landing, nice and safe (maybe next time I'll not put the aerials there!):

And hop to an adjacent biome. I figured, to keep the hops small, land on one of the flats (they make up 4 of the biomes) then hop to lowlands/slopes/midlands:

And return to the "station" to unload the data and pick up another science module:

Another landing:

For the last trip I was going to do "great flats" and "flats" but its quite a distance. A quick check on the map shows the table-top hill is "midlands":

Final reconfiguration ready for the trip home. The science modules still have a bit of fuel in them, so I'll make use of it; then the probe detaches for the final time, this time with the "return pack" of chute/data/heatshield too:

[paul_c]

I wandered into the astronaut complex (its pretty relaxed in there, there hasn't been a Kerbal'd space flight in months and no further plans for any) to congratulate the team on a job well done, even though its not over yet and I need to return a lot of science safely. Bob (scientist/astronaut*) and I sat down to do the detailed admin, which revealed we are actually 9 science points short of the target! So, we simultaneously look up to the sky, at the same time. I admired the fluffy clouds but Bob exclaimed "ouuuuuuccccccchhhh!!!!!" because he'd looked directly at the sun! Then it hit him - well, a ball of scrunched up paper hit him, the astronauts had been making paper aeroplanes but it descended into just rolling up balls of paper and throwing them at each other. 

We will go to the Sun! There is science out there! So we quickly cobbled together a rocket based on the successful Mun Explorer series, basically adding 4x big aerials. And launched it:

Just avoid the moons, and keep the foot on the throttle for ages until the Ap is > 84Mm:

Yay! Some sun science!

Calculations reveal that we are still 0.1 short, but I'm hoping "World Firsts" from bringing back a vehicle that's landed on Minmus, will supply the last few. 

* Bob calls himself an astronaut because he scraped through the training but in fact has never been to space, and is terrified of heights. To the extent that he lives in a bungalow.

[paul_c]

Mun data return was uneventful:

Minmus data return took much longer, I came out of Minmus SOI then did a series of burns to gradually lower the orbit, including this one to 100% avoid inadvertently hitting the Mun's SOI (or the Mun!!):

Eventually reaching this:

Just grazing the atmosphere with ~2000m/s deltaV left, looking good! I had not planned in massive detail, instead just played it "safe" with excess fuel/performance etc. The design of pinging off 9x or more modules helps a lot too:

Safely home (nearly):

Minmus science haul:

Tree completed with 8.5 science to spare:

Settings and KSC:

So overall, COMPLETE!!!! I went to share the news in the Astronaut Complex but they'd been celebrating for the past 2 days anyway. The swimming pool is being dredged as we speak. 

In review for "Diamond" challenge, its pretty dull at the start, money is VERY tight unless you look closely at the contracts and there's several bumps where you need to make do with lesser technology then work and work for the next little upgrade. The first trip to the Mun is hairy, after that it gets better. Minmus is essential but I left it until I had good experience of dockings and decent tech to do it with. Never bothered with 2.5m parts this time though. Also, I estimate about 10% of the science came from (lots of) contracts along the way. Personally I saw the risk of losing an astronaut as "game over" so I focused on remote probes ASAP, although in the start I built up a good bunch of data on suborbital performance to achieve "test/haul part xxxxxx at altitude yyyy and speed zzzz".

[Blaarkies]

10 hours ago, paul_c said:

So overall, COMPLETE!!!! I went to share the news in the Astronaut Complex but they'd been celebrating for the past 2 days anyway. The swimming pool is being dredged as we speak. 

Well done thats amazing! I just finished my Eve flyby, need about 250 more science, Mun surface science is nearly untouched in my career so i know im close. Congratulations, great job on completing this one! 

[JAFO]

19 hours ago, paul_c said:

So overall, COMPLETE!!!! I went to share the news in the Astronaut Complex but they'd been celebrating for the past 2 days anyway. The swimming pool is being dredged as we speak.

Truly an amazing effort, mate! Outstanding, even.

Congratulations on being the first to achieve Diamond level in this iteration of the Caveman Challenge.

Your new custom Topaz/Diamond badge is in the mail, and your name has been carved on the cave wall.

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by JAFO

[paul_c]

Many thanks......I am going to start on NCD. I'll do a separate thread 

because I imagine it will go on for some time, but post summary updates here. It begins.....

[JAFO]

On 2/12/2021 at 4:09 AM, paul_c said:

I am going to start on NCD.

Kudos! Bon voyage!

[Blaarkies]

Bob found a Mun stone! Its a nice surprise for the EVA landing mission, a bit of free science on the way. 24 science points (after the 20% returns from CM - Diamond challenge)

I also learned that the EVA jetpack can be refilled by just putting it into a different inventory container (from Bob into the command pod), and then when taken out again back into Bob's inventory, he once again has 5.00 EVA Propellant (So much for the 3 spare EVA packs in the rocket).

This means that infinite fueled Kerbal push-around vehicles are possible even in the Caveman challenge  

Edited February 17, 2021 by Blaarkies

[Jacke]

23 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

I also learned that the EVA jetpack can be refilled by just putting it into a different inventory container (from Bob into the command pod), and then when taken out again back into Bob's inventory, he once again has 5.00 EVA Propellant (So much for the 3 spare EVA packs in the rocket).

This means that infinite fueled Kerbal push-around vehicles are possible even in the Caveman challenge 

EVA fuel refills are supposed to be drawn from the Monoprop on the spacecraft.  There was also a bug fixed with 1.11.1.

[Blaarkies]

8 minutes ago, Jacke said:

EVA fuel refills are supposed to be drawn from the Monoprop on the spacecraft.  There was also a bug fixed with 1.11.1.

That might happen for EVA <-> Boarded kerbals, I can't really test that in my current challenge. I noticed this refill while unpacking the science equipment. The EVA pack is too heavy to carry with a deployable science experiment, so i took it off (stored it in the streamline container), and afterwards put it back on, and magical full EVA fuel.
That container is part of the same craft though, but I'm sure I emptied all Monoprop from the command pod before launch (does not have any RCS thrusters on the lander)

[JAFO]

1 hour ago, Blaarkies said:

Bob found a Mun stone!

Link is borked. I get a 403 error on that.

[Blaarkies]

14 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Link is borked. I get a 403 error on that.

Oh my! It seems that I first need to get a share link from Google Drive before it shows up in public. Thanks for pointing it out, I would have had no idea at all

[Jacke]

Over the past week I've been getting back into KSP.  Last thing I did of any note was my minor parts in the Community Caveman Jool-5.  Prior to that was an aborted Caveman NCD attempt in KSP 1.6.1 in 2019.

I detailed what I did so others may find it helpful.  Did manage to earn 87.2 Science at 10% reward in the 11 missions.  Some of the missions were rather...unique.  Like my Mission 10, a rocket glider carrying a Caveman Roller to the Island Airfield.

I did produce a set of updated Science Checklists with many added Caveman notes (see the link in my signature), the major source originally being @JAFO's KSP 1.4 Checklists.  I did a quick check and they should be good still.  There's a lot of Science out there!

Anyhoo, I decided to come back to the Caveman Challenge for KSP 1.11.1.  I am a bit concerned about all the bugs I'm hearing about with 1.11 and even 1.11.1 added.  But that's what the Caveman Challenge is good at doing, getting in touch with the KSP base game bugs and all.

I'm interested in how Caveman is different under the updated Challenge under KSP 1.11.x.  The DLC Expansions are now allowed.  But I'm seeing them not show a lot of significant part changes until the later Tier 4 and 5 nodes.  Except for the Vostok/Voskhod inspired command pods.  Which I wonder if the advantages outweigh their disadvantages to using the standard Mk 1 Command Pod.

I'll finished with a mod suggestion to improve the naming of screenshots and--if allowed--quicksaves, both in one post.  As it's past the Unity change with KSP 1.8, it should work in 1.11.

 

[JAFO]

14 minutes ago, Jacke said:

I did produce a set of updated Science Checklists with many added Caveman notes (see the link in my signature), the major source originally being @JAFO's KSP 1.4 Checklists.  I did a quick check and they should be good still. 

Awesome! I have GOTTA get me a set of those! Thanks! 

14 minutes ago, Jacke said:

I'll finished with a mod suggestion to improve the naming of screenshots and--if allowed--quicksaves, both in one post.  As it's past the Unity change with KSP 1.8, it should work in 1.11.

I like this, too.

[paul_c]

As I see it, the only notable change is "EVA Experiments", which adds 25 science points per biome/situation; but its quite late you can unlock it anyway so its something for the end-game.

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, JAFO said:

Awesome! I have GOTTA get me a set of those! Thanks! 

I was just looking over my Checklists and of course found some typos I just had to fix.

So I rolled out a new version.  Images coming soon whenever the Intrawebs stops crushing Imgur to ineffectiveness.  (My Imgur galleries in my 2019 NCD Career topic won't work until then either.)

[paul_c]

26 minutes ago, Jacke said:

I was just looking over my Checklists and of course found some typos I just had to fix.

So I rolled out a new version.  Images coming soon whenever the Intrawebs stops crushing Imgur to ineffectiveness.  (My Imgur galleries in my 2019 NCD Career topic won't work until then either.)

Are you going for a 1.11 NCD attempt?