Norcurion

Something like this?

156 Points Also to be used as Headquarter and/or Shopping Center (i used Mechjeb, cause i'm lazy) Disclamer: The whole "Stack Hitchhicker's until the CPU melts" idea is from some other designs in the forum

When you watch the Curiosity Rover Landing and think: "unfair, that crane is not stock"

Well then... im in high Joolian Orbit, Big Five is complete, that is left of the Selene III, 108 Science Items collected so far, let's search for new landing sites somewhere else EDIT: If anyone cares: Just sending Crew Reports from any Joolian site (all surfaces, hi/lo orbits, and hi lo atmo, land and sea at laythe) brings 790 Points of science

Do the rules allow the visit of other celestial bodys or will that disqualifiy the science collection part of the jeb level ? I've got some Delta V left and don't want to waste them... (I could count out the science made on the other body from the total amount of science made)

The Kraken occured another time at Laythee... seems i wont quicksave on that planet again ( but this time i've got a quicksave secured shortly before landing) @ Space Viking : That Lander looks great!

Finally I've got some time to assemble my second try EDIT: Aaaaaand done! to throw in some random numbers: orbit: 310x309 km mass: 299.01 tonns Launches: 4 combined mass on pad: ~3000 tonns part count: 378

I'd like to develop a little story based upon my failed try of Ziv's Jool - Big 5 challenge. I'm no native English speaker, so please be kind Feel free to ask if something in the text isn't comprehensible It will partly consist of text, partly of screenshots with the story written as the comments from the subsequent pictures of the imgur gallery. TAME THE KRAKEN Chapter 1: Dark Clouds Some while ago, in a well known little solar system... Jebedia Kerman, head of the Kerbal Space Program, was called upon the "Security and Prosperity Council" of the United Worlds of Kerbin. The new Lord of the United Worlds (LOTUWOK - as they call him in the KSP) was known for his strange views regarding space exploration. Jeb started to feel a little unwell in the stomach as he entered the low entrance hall of the great, pompous (and a little bit pretentious) government Building in Kerbana, the capitol. He walked trough many corridors, decorated with crimson carpets on the wall (crimson carpets behind green heads – pah !) , through rooms adorned with flowers and pictures of green heads, once important and now gone. The multiple security guards eyed him suspiciously as they searched him. The climate had changed. Nothing was left of the jubilant feeling, the joy that was shown on his last arrival, shortly after that glorious mission to Minmus. While he paced down the floor he tried to identify the sense. Hostility. That's what he felt after he arrived. There was no time left to think about that. He had reached the operational wing of the building where the Council was located. He pushed open the great, two-winged door and was bewildered. The great painted canvas with the achievements of decades of Kerbal engineering and pioneering spirit, those great reminder of the past that graced the room on all the walls - which should remind everybody of the most important things – were gone! Even the precious ancient drawing of Hugbert Kerman, the first Kerbal to archive an suborbital spaceflight, was gone! He remembered this heroic feat that he heard of the first time in history class. Hugbert blasted himself into space 80 years ago with an old rusty heating pipe filled with the powder of thousands of firecracker as a solid rocket booster, lashed on a chair that was welded on a giant pan as a heat shield. (the pan was from one of those ridiculous town events they call: "We grill the greatest sausage of all times†That this gem of history was gone could mean only trouble. He found himself on a chair, facing the seven council members sitting opposed to him at a twelve meter long, wooden desk (just like the judges in a courtroom). In the middle sat the LOTUWOK, a face as grim as that of an Kerbonaut who was grounded. “And here we shall have him, MR. Jebedia Kerman, right?†“Yeeeeesâ€Â, he said in a long sustained way (cause he hated to point out the obvious ) “Then your the big kahuna of this space thing?†the LOTUWOK asked with a sneer grin. He suddenly thought back to the old LOTUWOK, a entertaining and cosmopolitan man, Lord Joso, who always had had a friendly word for him. Unpleasant matter that he had to die right in the dawn of this great Jool Mission the KSP had planned for several years now. “Yeeeeees indeeeeed, thats me, the Lord Commander of the Kerbal Space Program, as who I am known and referred toâ€Â, Jeb stated as polite as he could muster. “You shall hear our verdict now: it is not longer necessary that Kerbal individuals travel to space, as it is our belief that they belong down on this GREEN Planet. I hereby declare, effectively with the First of January, that spaceflight is restricted to unkerboled vessels and shall be used only to launch satellites to provide services to the planet itself. You are dismissed!†Jeb hinted a bow, just enough to meet the etiquette, mumbled “your lordshipâ€Â, turned around and raced out of the hall, his head discolored in an unnatural dark, nearly yellow shade. This damnable, stupid old man! he thought... The Kerbal Parliament was elected by all Kerbals to ensure that the individual rights of every Person was respected, but the head of state, the Grand Lord, had to be a peer of one of the ancient noble Houses of the Planet. He was to set the general objectives of the state's policy and he was quite powerful as long as he did not violate specific rights stated by the constitution. Furthermore the line of succession was – to put it mildly – complex (Building a Tylo Lander was a piece of cake compared to the heraldry of Kerbin). He pulled out his Celly, pushed the speed dial button and heard that somebody picked up the phone. There was nothing but background static, no one answered. He whispered “Monomethylhydrazine†and thought for a moment to hear somebody say “Crap†before the call was terminated.

Thank you!

Water landing has a phase of about 2-3 seconds where you want to have RCS when the chutes get cut and the ship splashes down... having R/T glowing is very useful .... And when the Jet engines run hot while starting there is also a moment where the rocket wants to go crazy... And while landing on tylo it has nearly only aerospikes, so no thrust vectoring from the engines... but otherwise i don't use em on landers either

And i know i could make the lander lighter with ease... but it is reconfigurable and able to land on all other bodys (with some 8 tons or so addons for laythe) - so i spare a lot of mass that i otherwise would have to blast to jool... Yeah when you need Delta V... lower the mass of the payload EDIT: Removed 6 struts and 4 RCS Thruster and replaced the rcs tanks with some with better mass/load ratio... Bäm! 80 dV more

It's a pure Delta V tradeout.... with two spikes instead of the screen shot config on the 3.5 side stage you've got -100 dV, with only one spike you have +80 dV (EDIT: the spike and those lv909 are 1.5 ton vs 0.5 and 175 vs 50 Thrust - so they count as nearly one kind of engine as long you're in space in my opinion) Damn this challenge boosts my understanding of the game, thank you alot ziv My problem is that those extra 200 delta V would cost me about 8 tons + on the weight of the lander -.-

I need your Expert Advice.. you think that will be sufficient for the tylo landing? (from low orbit 30x30 or so) it will have +100 dV from ditching the gear...

Hmm... Beware of the Ahab Mk I Kraken! (coming soon to a planet near you!) (PS i know that ahab hunted a sperm whale) Actually they weight about 100 kg, just like the heavy landing feat. they have certant advantages, like that the lander starts walking down slopes instead of tumbling over .... and 4 of them are strong enough to land a 56 ton lander with 5 m/s

Don't Know if that is already known, but you can build heavy duty landing feet from 2 jrn docking ports, an octagonal strut, a octagonal cubic and a ruggisized wheel. attach the cubic strut to the surface, put one port there (face down), dock the other port, attach the octagonal strut and then the wheel face down. the side of the wheel. It was able to resist a 56 tonn Tylo lander landing with 5 m/s on four of those wheel legs It has some strange features: - its about as heavy as an normal heavy landing leg - The landing is elastic/feels like a strong spring, means heavy load, higher speed and it will jump. (a little bit) - If you land on a slope the lander will beginn to "walk down" instead of tumbling over - i think it was supportet by SAS, but that is just a guess here you can see how the gear is compressed

Actually that thing landet without problems ... It swam perfectliy. I saved. I started. I crashed making nonsense... And after that i quickloaded... boooom ... Maybe the damn science pod under it caused it -.- Thank you It takes more than one kraken to stop me.. My brave (crazy, stupid) Kerbals work on improvments for Selene III... like the optional chutes (so they wont land on tylo) AAAAAND the mobil Science Pod. I'll land just near the coast and fly on dry land... Taaadaaa Science for water and soil Those 2.4 Tons are totally worth it! (and Jeb kind of likes it too)

So ultimately a quick save file bug killed my whole mission -.- I was on laythe and quick saved before restart to orbit. After reloading my lander exploded. Repeatedly every time I’ve loaded the save game. It was so intense that one time the mechjeb pod was accelerated to an orbital speed of 37 km/s and left the Kerbol system (see screen shots) The ship had a lot of design flaws, so I’ll not repeat the mission, instead there will be a Selene III, redesigned from tip to toe. I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears in it, so I’ll post it never the less if it's OK - What mods did you use, if any? Mechjeb: I use mechjeb for standard actions like reaching LKO and the Jool transfer. furthermore i use it to execute the Nodes i planned manually. - How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbal? 4 Hardware Launches + Crew Launch - How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where? There would have been a full orange tank necessary directly after the recapture of the Lander in the Laythe Orbit due to too much suboptimal designs of the lander - Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey? I had 2 Hitch-hiker's storage container which doubled as the lander for Kerbin. There were 8 Kerbins on board: Jeb Bill and Bob and two others for the lander, Jebley and Jobley for the Lab and one to make coffee - Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? there was a Hopper for Laythe, some kind of ugly minijet to get to the land an catch soil probes and atmospheric science with the nose probe - Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it! HKO -> JOOL ~2100 Jool -> Tylo intercept ~500 Tylo orbit ~ 1500 Tylo -> Laythe ~ 800 Science plan for Laythe: The lander was to land on the ocean and had a full science Setup + two additional Setups in a drop pod (that was to be read out by a swimmer and left on laythe) higher Atmosphere: Nose probe while (re)entry rest while re orbiting No EVA lower atmosphere: Nose probe while flying the hopper rest with science drop pod on chutes EVA when all chutes deployed Sea: 2nd science hardware of drop pod Water probe EVA Land soil probe from Hopper landing on an island

In my humble opinion: YES Reason: A challenge for a standart, state of the art "realistic" mission is the Jeb-Mode. the minimum weight from pad challenge should in my opinion show what reducing weight can bring. I would love to see/make a chair+ladder+crazy EVAing solution for the big - 5 problem;) (after i beat the normal one )

Update: After the full Jool injection burn: Yes it does wobble, painting big O's in the sky like this: (with about 0.5 - 1 Hz) It was not that bad, there was never any fault in the construction. And it wobbled fine around the node marker and the burn was pretty exact (for that amount of circling) Never the less i did tree Burn brakes so that the ship could rest, because i thought that the oscillation grew stronger over time. After ditching the rearmost engine segment it flew perfectly

I had only one acceleration test so far, but that looked very stable. I think one big advantage is that the engines are divided amongst the whole construction, thus lowering the force on the docking ports. But I’m still slightly concerned about the jool aerobraking maneuver. There is a little Leythe hopper that will get up mounted on the side of the crew shuttle and attached at the side of the jool ship and I'm not sure if this will render the construction tumbling uncontrollable. Hopefully not, because the lander's drag should be totally irrelevant for a 250 tons ship The foremost part of the main ship with two nuclear engines is cut of and used for the descend. That is the whole design: the conventionel Part of the ship has about 5000 dV, planned with a small TWR (1.4 on earth) when full. But the tank that connects to the ship will be nearly empty when the Tylo expedition is started, so the nukes drain the two big tanks and are jettisoned right before the final landing. That leaves the big tanks about half empty and with a rather big TWR for the early ascend. the landing "things" are detached after starting from the surface those medium decouplers under the parachutes are the place where the leythe engines will be installed, and the landing gear is replaced with pontons for water landing.

4 launches later my Spaceship is finally waiting for the launch window. But that will have to wait until tomorrow, after hours of watching various Launcher disintegrate for even more various Reasons and docking a giant Pencil I'll have to sleep first

The count is just out of interest Had to scrub my whole design, calculated some delta V wrong... Here is Rodtrey training with the brand new Lander in the Laythe configuration. When it's on the real mission, it will carry down 2 additional fully equip Science Packs for high/low altitude research which are dumped into the ocean shortly before landing and manually read out by a swimming kerbonaut.

Thanks for the clarification! I’m aiming for Jeb, but to let those Crew Reports uncounted would be sad The Lander and the Crew Module is already in LKO, only the tug, the lab and some planet specific lander upgrades are still to be blasted into orbit ...

Would it be OK if i create a new Career game and edit the save game in the way that i have all technology unlocked but 0 science Points? In that way i could measure the Points that i gather via antennas. Technically its cheating but I wouldn't get any advantages...