Claw

Absolutely, 100% free for you to use. That's gonna be awesome! I saw your other entries and figured you'd get there, given the pace you were putting them out. Pre-Congrats!

@18Watt Hey, this is amazing! So glad you are carrying on this challenge. It was definitely a favorite of mine. Fengist designed the original badges. I think (but can't remember for sure) that the set was incomplete and eventually lost to the sands of the internet. So I used his design as the basis and redid them all, which are the ones currently in use today. Also, I attempted to give definitions to the "stock / stock craft / modded" categories, so I apologize for any ambiguities! I'm also excited to see another Grand Master on the board. I need to go find that entry!

The rule is really about not simply piloting a vehicle in such a way that you bypass much of the challenge/point of doing a terrestrial circumnavigation. With that said, it's hard to know exactly where the line is. Given that it's Gilly, regular contact with the ground, and the speeds you are showing...I would consider it a novel approach to the circumnavigation. So, with the above in mind, I think that it's within the spirit. Also, I'm not sure this approach would be very practical on other bodies, (vs if there was an engine involved, and simply flying/gliding/hovering), so it doesn't seem overly abusive. Definitely cool to see new/novel approaches to a challenge that's been around this long.

I like the open design. Your delivery rocket also looks pretty interesting, especially with the rover sitting on top. ...Gilly ragdoll...the memories! I found on my rover, I ended up disabling the reaction wheel most of the time. I really only kept it on board in case of a crash/flip. Then I would turn it on so I could get back upright. The only place it didn't really work out was on Eevee. I had to beef up the whole design specifically for that mission. I like that we ended up with similar capabilities and overall size, but different looks for our rovers. Kinda cool to see another similar design!

Thanks! I'd be interested in seeing your design as well! I also had a few instances of kerbals running into unpleasant experiences (i.e. turning into spaghetti) if the rover hit the ground too hard. Took some tweaking to find the right height for the seats, but turned out to be a great design in the end.

Nope. But maybe I try to call this other guy (@Vanamonde) and see if he makes it back in time.

Perfectly acceptable. Here was my core design (though it underwent some modifications). There are actually two command seats inside: One for the driver and one for the navigator. Later, I modified it to have command seats in the side pods as well. There were some other...unfortunate incidents...that this rover helped fix. Also note that cores are allowed, it's just that it also needs a kerbal on board.

@minerbat I'm late to the party but yep, that was me. @Thalamask was hot on my heels, but I don't think he completed. I'm not sure if I want to think about or admit to how much time it took. But it's definitely possible (see links to the Grand Elcano mission in my signature, though some of the content is broken due to age). If you have any questions, let me know. Good luck!! Since it's in legacy mode, I guess I can weigh in. The spirit of the challenge was to take a kerbal along with (no drone). And for the player to drive it (not automated). So it wasn't intended that one would simply make a rover, turn on an autopilot, then go to bed. If that makes sense? It's a long, long journey (I know). But that's part of the core of the challenge. Also, there's actually quite a lot to see along the way if you look for it.

A seat would work better than a lander. I would agree with Geonovast in that I doubt Bob would be able to hold on the entire time. It's possible though, so you could always give it a go! What's the worst that could go wrong??

Yes. The parts act like a big tree (as mentioned earlier). If there's a loop, the physics calculations break. Nope. They automatically disconnect with no action needed on your part (which is why I prefer it over the auto-strut, which can sometimes have unintended consequences). Cool. Just wanted to make sure (it's a common thing for people to try and get tripped up on). Glad you're already on top of it! Also, welcome to the forums!

As mentioned, you can't make a "loop" of directly connected parts. Your particular setup is (in my opinion) best fixed by simply using a strut near the bottom of your engine stack. I personally avoid auto-struts for these situations. Just ensure that the decoupler's connection point for the liquid engines is in a good spot for the liquid engines to run (so they aren't wobbly by themselves). Then strut near the bottom of the solid booster. (Pics below) One other thing I see that might be a problem for you. I see some parachutes on your solid boosters which leads me to believe you are planning on separating and recovering them. If you're running without add-ons, you will have a hard time recovering those boosters. The stock game automatically deletes airborne objects below a certain altitude if they are not near your active vessel (the one you are controlling). This is to help reduce the physics burden, but has the side effect of not being able to recover things like boosters with parachutes. If you really want to do this, you either have to stay near the boosters, switch to them and follow them to the ground (which is a problem for your main ship), or use an add-on (there are a couple to chose from).

Stock doesn't have a "dV spent" tracker. The best bet, as suggested, is to know your starting dV and do the math based on what you have left. If it's for efficiency, I assume you're attempting different ascent profiles for launch?

This has been a culprit in the past, especially with laptops. I've also heard it happen with PCs when the fans stop working or the heat sink doesn't have proper thermal putty. (KSP can be rough on processors and graphics cards.) Also, if you updated KSP or your graphics drivers recently, check if KSP is still using the proper video card. Sometimes the nvidia 3D settings lose track. Does this happen with any vessel, or just some particular ones? Also, take a look at the log file and make sure it's not getting spammed with messages. If, for some reason, you have a corrupted ship or part in the save, it can cause excessive log entries which leads to slow performance (because the computer is outputting so much to the log file).

Maybe consider removing that second stage engine and adding just a bit more fuel (to keep the dV about the same). That might also enable you to remove many of the struts, which will slightly improve performance. Additionally, removing an engine could reduce the overall price of the rocket (if you're dealing with funds at all). If it's still a bit flip happy, you could also try putting some fins near the bottom to help improve aerodynamic stability and control (in a manner visually similar to the Saturn V).

You have a lot of mods that I am not familiar with, but something is definitely breaking your camera, and you're getting null reference errors from things affecting the sky (sky color, sun, sun flare, etc). It's unclear from the log what's causing this. The nearest thing to the big list of errors is Hangar Extender, but that may or may not be the core of the issue. Right before the issues appear, it seems your ship undergoes an explosion, then you revert to prelaunch, then you go back to the editor. Is that what happened? ... Does this same camera issue come up if your ship does NOT explode? (i.e. can you revert or leave with no issue, assuming nothing catastrophic?) Unless someone else comes along and knows right off what the issue is, I recommend removing some of your mods (maybe half) and trying the same scenario that causes the problem in order to narrow down the issue. - If the problem still happens, start removing some mods until it stops. - If the problem isn't happening, then start adding some mods until it happens. Once you find the mod, then you can try asking for help in the mod's specific thread. Hopefully someone can come along and give you a more direct "mod x is incompatible with mod y" answer soon. Good luck!

It would also be helpful to know which mods, and if you can post a log file. Information on obtaining the log can be found here: Hopefully this will get moved to the modded help forum, which might get you a quicker answer.

I did a quick replication of your ship and managed to fly it into orbit without having the fairing break (and I didn't use any struts). Interestingly, I ended up grabbing the 3.75m fairing and ran with that. I didn't go back to see if there's something different internal to the 3.75m vs. 5m fairings, so there's a possible issue there. It may also be something with the adapter you're using. Another possible cause of the problem is thrust to weight ratio. The big reaction wheels especially can sometimes bend or crush under the weight of a ship on top of them. This usually comes up with rockets much bigger than yours (i.e. there is a lot of weight on top of the reaction wheels), but could still be a factor if your takeoff TWR is particularly high. This could be popping up when you do the gravity turn since the reaction wheels and/or fairing are already under stress from the TWR, then it gets some bend during the gravity turn. I have my doubts here because I also tried flipping the rocket sideways and it stayed together, but it can still be an issue. I also noticed (not unexpected) that the rocket wants to flip over. There's so much surface area on the fairing that turning too much off of prograde while at semi-high speeds causes the rocket to really want to flip over. I'm not sure if that's also part of the issue you're running into.

If you have a lot of weight above the fairing base and the fairing base itself is small, you can try making that section stronger by adding some struts or using a larger fairing base.

As bewing just mentioned, the often overlooked item (especially for vessels or other debris without a probe core) is the map filters. When you go to the tracking station, debris markers initially default to off.

Additionally, make sure braking is off for the nose gear. From the video, it looks like the nose gear touches down first (meaning there's going to be some bounce) and the brakes come on before the main gear are fully seated. It may be coincidental, but as soon as you turn on the brakes, the nose compresses and the tail slides out (with no main gear on the ground). You may also want to consider turning off the front upward facing RCS since it's further driving the nose gear into the ground. SAS is probably helpful for keeping the nose straight, but it's also going to keep firing the RCS so it might help if you settle the tail manually or attempt keep the nose off the ground. Once the mains are seated, start tapping the brakes before applying them full. Alternatively, you can tweak down their effectiveness to keep them from biting too hard when you turn them on.

Can you help explain "how" your rocket is failing? Is it just sitting on the pad? Does it flip over during flight? Something else?

Sorry nobody has replied to you in a few days. Assuming you're talking about these.... They are still in v1.7. Sometimes parts disappear from the install (or get corrupted) during an update. If you're on steam, try validating the files (right-click->Properties->Local Files tab->Verify integrity of game files). If that doesn't work, then you can try copying your save files somewhere safe...then delete KSP and reinstall it.

It might help if you have a picture of the hab module, or if you can give us the exact name. (In the past, some of the habs didn't have a portrait or hatch, so you had to grab on with a claw before you could get the kerbal out. I don't know if that's still the case in the current version.)

Not necessarily "one fairing" but definitely want to avoid the wide, then narrow middle, back to wide setup. It would be better to either have one fairing, or replace that middle small fairing base with a larger one. Also, Aegolius13 also pointed out something that often catches people. The atmosphere is thicker and tends to cause difficulty during entry. Things burn up more, flip over easier, and such (as Aegolius13 pointed out). So once you get there, you may need to try different speeds and angles for entering the atmosphere.

Sounds like a yummy place to land. Unfortunately, it's not there unless the pack is installed.