What to do after DUna

[Liowen]

This is odd question, but one I am currently stuck on with Duna having been landed on. Where do I go next? Would doing moons like Ike, Gilly, or would it be better to go for Dres or Moho? I know right now Eve is out my reach until I make something that can both land and return to space. Just trying to figure out a battle plan for future mission with .23 both to hit.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Liowen

[KvickFlygarn87]

Grand tour.

...

[Mr Tegu]

How about rescue and home?

[Liowen]

How about rescue and home?

Oddly enough I have no one stranded anywhere LOL. As for the Grand tour idea I do have thoughts on that, but I need more work to make it a reality. I mostly need a tug that can haul my 34 passenger lander around.

And yes I had all those filled with Kerbals when it landed LOL

[hansman1982]

Visit Eve (I prefer to send Kerbals that have terminal illnesses there, so I don't feel bad stranding them).

[ElJugador]

Visit Gilly, Ike, or Dres.

[700NitroXpress]

Get an SSTO, tow that sucker out to Laythe and fly it around the planet, then return to Kerbin and land that SSTO on the KSC runway.

[WafflesToo]

I was in the same boat until I noticed that if I take my Mün lander and perch it on top of my Duna transit unit it gives you long enough legs to reach Dres.

[Vlk]

I still find it fun to revisit the mun or minmus, with different designs (probes/rovers/vtol/ssto/kethane miner/spacestations/bases etc). But you can go to Laythe too, its fun. Or any other planet/moon. Moho is interesting too, it has no atmosphere to aerobrake (like dres and eeloo)

[Liowen]

Get an SSTO, tow that sucker out to Laythe and fly it around the planet, then return to Kerbin and land that SSTO on the KSC runway.

LOL you have not seen how bad I am at flying yet have you?? SSTO is not something I am ready to build, I think anyways, as I have a hard time with the rockets. Even flying the tour bus, see picture above, into orbit was a risky thing. Although in hindsight building in 5 minutes without testing anything most likely was not that smart either . Maybe with the RAPIER, not SABER, engines I will try a space plane, but for certain it will not be a SSTO version. Maybe tonight I will work on the design a bit, but dead serious my first plane was a horrid thing to look at and flying it was not even an option.

[Tank Buddy]

Gilly is interesting. There Ion engines are more practical than chemical rockets.

[maltesh]

On a new save, the first Hohmann window to Duna opens at about 50-60 days in.

Assuming your path isn't too circitutious, shortly after a ship that takes that window arrives at Duna, the first Hohmann window from Kerbin to Eve opens.

About 60 days after the Eve spacecraft arives, a window to Dres opens up where Dres is pretty near its descending node through the plane of Kerbin's orbit upon arrival.

At least, that's what I wound up doing in my 0.22 save. Return windows from Duna and Eve open up while the Dres ship is in transit, if I recall correctly, and the return window from Dres to Kerbin opens up maybe about a month after the Dres arrival.

[Soda Popinski]

After reaching Duna the first time, partly inspired by Scott Manley's videos, I decided to install some realism mods and restart career mode. I went with Deadly Re-entry, FAM (with KIDS to keep it difficult), Procedural Fairings, Kethane and a few other mods to round things out. Just got back to Duna yesterday (aerobraked with ballutes), hope to land today before 0.23 breaks all my mods.

[700NitroXpress]

LOL you have not seen how bad I am at flying yet have you?? SSTO is not something I am ready to build, I think anyways, as I have a hard time with the rockets. Even flying the tour bus, see picture above, into orbit was a risky thing. Although in hindsight building in 5 minutes without testing anything most likely was not that smart either . Maybe with the RAPIER, not SABER, engines I will try a space plane, but for certain it will not be a SSTO version. Maybe tonight I will work on the design a bit, but dead serious my first plane was a horrid thing to look at and flying it was not even an option.

We all started out that way, it took me 10 planes just to figure out what to do, even then they sucked. But after a few more, you start noticing things that work really well and that drives future designs. I went out to Moho before I went to Duna, so that would be my recommendation. Moho takes a lot of Delta V to get to and back to Kerbin, but it's easier than tackling Eve. Gilly is too easy, Ike would also be a fair destination, I haven't landed on Ike yet myself.

[Liowen]

We all started out that way, it took me 10 planes just to figure out what to do, even then they sucked. But after a few more, you start noticing things that work really well and that drives future designs. I went out to Moho before I went to Duna, so that would be my recommendation. Moho takes a lot of Delta V to get to and back to Kerbin, but it's easier than tackling Eve. Gilly is too easy, Ike would also be a fair destination, I haven't landed on Ike yet myself.

Yeah I am actually loading the game right now I 2 ideas for SSTO's, one I would like to have in mind would look like an A-10 Warthog LOL. Not sur if it will work though, but I will try and see. I will keep those in mind as well, right now I am just getting ideas to start working on after .23 tomorrow. I have done a buzz by Eve a long time ago with my original lander that would have been far too heavy to ever land, in fact it looked like a barge really.

[700NitroXpress]

Yeah I am actually loading the game right now I 2 ideas for SSTO's, one I would like to have in mind would look like an A-10 Warthog LOL. Not sur if it will work though, but I will try and see. I will keep those in mind as well, right now I am just getting ideas to start working on after .23 tomorrow. I have done a buzz by Eve a long time ago with my original lander that would have been far too heavy to ever land, in fact it looked like a barge really.

Well, if you're not opposed to helpful ships, here's a transfer stage that can take over 100 tons of payload anywhere in the solar system. I used it to take a space station out to Eeloo so it should get you anywhere you want to go as long as you dock it in orbit. If you retain all of the grey tanks and engines during the ascent, you can refuel them in orbit and then it will have enough fuel to go to Moho and back to Kerbin round trip for sure.

Transfer Stage

Edited December 16, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[Liowen]

Not opposed at all to helpful things of that nature. I made a SSTO, a small one by some I have seen, it flies great but there is as usual a problem. I run out of oxidizer either getting into a stable orbit, or just before. Do I really need to use liquid fuel, or could I put mix tanks on to the jet engines since they seemingly do not drink as much fuel it seems?

I give you the Tadpole MK1 in orbit (since reverted since I could not make it back to Kerbin)

[700NitroXpress]

Not opposed at all to helpful things of that nature. I made a SSTO, a small one by some I have seen, it flies great but there is as usual a problem. I run out of oxidizer either getting into a stable orbit, or just before. Do I really need to use liquid fuel, or could I put mix tanks on to the jet engines since they seemingly do not drink as much fuel it seems?

Pro tip: Use Ram air intake engines and never use the radial intakes, replace the radial intakes with Ram intakes by attaching the intakes to small girders.

Overall, your SSTO is nice, small is good, just add a little more fuel. You can use the combo tanks for the jet engines, but it's kind of a waste.

If you go to the space craft exchange and the rocket builders, you can find some companies that are really good at making SSTO's, good for getting ideas.

[Liowen]

Pro tip: Use Ram air intake engines and never use the radial intakes, replace the radial intakes with Ram intakes by attaching the intakes to small girders.

Overall, your SSTO is nice, small is good, just add a little more fuel. You can use the combo tanks for the jet engines, but it's kind of a waste.

If you go to the space craft exchange and the rocket builders, you can find some companies that are really good at making SSTO's, good for getting ideas.

I will have to see how that would look, I burnout at about 25km then kick on the aerospike to get the rest of the way up. I do have two of the smaller ram airs at the front of the tanks, although they are a bit hard to see. I have mechjeb on there to give me a reading of TWR and it is saying 3.50 at launch, but that seems wrong to me for some reason. I will search around though for images of others and see what I can do to get it better, might be a bit better once those RAPIER engines come out tomorrow.

[MatzahMan]

Personally, when I am stuck or without a clear goal in mind, I build crazy contraptions. Rocket-powered cars, jet powered cars, building a space station then sending a craft the splits apart and watch the wreckage (never can get tired of the f5 key), "making" rescue mission scenarios, etc. Eventually an idea pops into my head and I start doing something on Laythe or Duna, with a clear goal and interest in what I am doing.

[technion]

Just to clarify, was this a "return trip" to Duna? If you can do that, you can manage a one-way probe to any of the Jool moons.

[Liowen]

Mine is a round trip with a Kerbal in a command pod. I have thought about doing a probe to one of Jool's moons, but not sure yet what one (Bop maybe since I do not see many things about it on here for whatever reason).