patfree14094

I've always struggled with the SSTO's. Sure, I can get 1 physically into orbit, but to actually have enough delta-v to go anywhere else but back to kerban? That's really challenging. And I have yet to put in the effort to do much better than that, seeing as multistage rockets are way, way easier considering the tyranny of the rocket equation.

Hope this isn't too lame, but... Just set up 3 bases on Laythe, devised a vehicle for refueling aircraft and spacecraft, and, successfully did an intercontinental flight between two bases on laythe. I feel I am ready to begin expanding the colonies I have established on this moon, and it has me so excited! I sent kerbals here 3-4 years ago(in real time), and I remember using docking nodes to assemble the interplanetary stages before leaving kerban. These latest bases, aircraft, and mining/refueling rovers were sent up with one launch, are bigger, badder, and fully operational. I can fly between continents, refuel, and return to the original continent. That is way harder than just landing here, and I am happy to have done it! This is the link to the imugur album showing a little bit of what I've accomplished so far! Only 356 Kerbals perished in the pursuit of this grand experiment!! https://imgur.com/a/T22ZDqs

So, this is my next entry, and this time, I am under 100 tons. Soon, I will decide to launch a monoprop powered rescue mission, probably incorporating 2 external command seats, a heat shield, and a parachute, seeing as I accidentally colonized the mun with this mission. This mission was meant to just be a test, but, things looked promising, and I decided to just go for it. Annnd... I was short at least 400 dV, and am unable to return to Kerbin at this time. Stelory Kerman has enough snacks for a while though, so, all is good. Launch from KSC: 15 pts Reach LKO orbit: 50 pts Enter Munar SOI: 35 pts Mun orbit: 20 pts Crewed Mun landing: 80 pts This was 200 Points. 96.819 Ton craft. 268 Parts, so the Kerbals can still eat their snacks in near real time. Also, each RCS tank in the lower stage is it's own stage. There are a lot of them. I did not take pictures of every single staging, nor would I post them all if I did. That would be horrendous.

Jimmymcgoochie, you know what? I glossed right over that... Oops. Back to the drawing board for me then, thanks for pointing that out. And even my 1st attempt was a no go then, that came in at 159 tons. I think I know how to fix the design to lower the weight, and will post an under 100 ton craft when ready.

I screwed up, and glossed over the 100ton requirement. Oops. Guess this didn't count then. My bad. Was still fun, and will redesign. Take 3, with a somewhat nicer rocket, weighing in at 164.835 tons, and with 392 parts on launch pad, resulting in 30+fps while launching from the KSC... Much better, as Kerbals don't like it when they lag, since it forces them to eat their snacks in slow motion. I think I can safely claim all of these points, had a perfectly safe landing this time around. Did have slight mishap on mun, just shy of the delta-v required in landing stage, but the return stage did the job. And fell over, but, since Kerbal safety is the absolute last priority... eh I'm disappointed in myself, I didn't take the screenshot of the return stage rolling away when I planted the flag... I thought it was funny. Oh well, my plaque basically said: Uh/Crap, my ship is running away!

I very much like the Ion ship you built! Super cool!! I played around with the fuel cells as well, and made a fuel cell transport craft(too little power to be useful as a lander though) for shuttling around in space. Mine is more of a hybrid however, it uses both the fuel cells(when in a planet's shadow), and solar panels when it is exposed to sunlight. Your ship is definitely better thought out, seeing as mine uses a greater amount of fuel compared to Xenon, whereas your craft is a bit more balanced. You calculated a fuel to xenon ratio for your craft at around 50... Mine came out to 95. I'll probably take inspiration from that and see if I can even that out a tad bit so I can dump the solar panels entirely. These my xenon shuttle:

This is my progress towards a monoprop powered rocket that can escape Sol's SOI. I tested it as a phasing rocket, basically, just going straight up until all stages exhausted. I've sent more than 1 kerbal out of the solar system forever this way just for fun with normal rockets. So far, able to escape Kerbin's SOI and exceed Duna's orbit. Still have some work to do. Here is the latest version of the rocket : https://imgur.com/a/BZRfH9mo, I guess I have 15pts for launching from KSC 40-pts for leaving Kerbin's SOI EDIT: Just succeded in landing on the mun, and bringing my kerbal back, although I cannot say I did so safely. Ended up having to rely on Stelory Kerman's personal parachute, since I didn't add any, and uh... yea, due to overheating upon the 8th or so aerobraking burn, could not open chute, and had to use RCS thrusters to decrease speed to 60m/s, which, surprisingly, was survivable without a parachute. Who knew? Also, I will happily admit my rocket is absolutely terrible, the second(or 3rd?) rocket will be much more rocket'y, and will harm fewer kerbals, I promise! And 677 parts is a few too many. So here is the Mun landing album: https://imgur.com/a/h16X7jr And I think my points were: Launch from KSC: 15 pts Reach LKO orbit: 50 pts Crewed (with safe return): 40 pts --------- Questionable? The kerbal did return... Barely. Enter Munar SOI: 35 pts Mun orbit: 20 pts Crewed Mun landing: 80 pts Total of 240, or 200 if slamming into kerbin at 60m/s and miraculously living does not count as a safe landing.

Are there any points specifically for breaking escape velocity for the entire solar system? I saw points for Duna, but, that may be my next goal, if it's possible with monopropellant.

Well, just achieved LKO with a monopropellant rocket. Didn't think it was entirely possible, but, Here it is! It is also one ugly bird, but my very first monoprop only craft! Monopropellant Rocket Ok, so, I probably should've tallied the points for what I managed to do... So, here it is thus far. 15-KSC Launch 20- For 66.54 tons launch mass 50-Reaching LKO 40-Crewed + safe return I may make a higher delta-v version soon.

Here is my Apollo 13-1/4(or 3/4) entry. A few minor glitches, one on ascent from the Munar surface, where I decoupled from the MEM, but failed to fire up the engines immediately, and panicked, thus dropping the MEM on it's side. Oops. Also, slight error of calculation on Kerban Aerobraking altitude, resulting in having to use the engine and tanks of the command module as a makeshift ablater shield, as I hit Kerban's atmosphere at 3000+ m/s at an altitude of 55,000 meters. Jebediah was in a bit of a hurry to return home as the crew ran out of snacks, and fewer than expected Kerbals were killed in the making of the Apollo 13-1/4 rocket. I posted the round trip from Kerban, to the Mun, and back here on imugur Apollo 13-1/4, hope you guys enjoy the trip! I apologize, the pictures are in reverse order, meaning you have to scroll to the bottom of the page to begin the journey, I was too lazy to order them the other way around, and wanted to get the pictures up before bed. Have a good day everyone! Also, there may be some clipping of lander and fuel tank as well. Perfectly safe for the kerbals, being surrounded by explosive fuel/oxidizer mixture.

My entry is an F-15 Tomcat with one time VTOL capability (using 4 duct taped jet engines, which were cut off after lift off). A few days ago, I had made an SR-71 Blackbird that was capable of attaining the speeds and altitude necessary for this challenge, minus the required VTOL, before I knew of the Challenge. So in good Kerbal spirit, I ripped the engines off of that plane, duct taped them to the modified F-15, and here are the results. Please note that no Kerbals were harmed in the destruction of the runway as the vertical engines fell. Also, if dropping those engines disqualifies my craft, my apologies in advance, and I at least hope my post is entertaining. At 20,035m, Top speed of 1232.5 m/s was attained. And after my hop across the pond, I rendezvoused with the SR-71 Blackbird that I flew a few days ago. https://imgur.com/a/JeFX4 I also hope I inserted the images correctly.

This is my go. I don't think I spilled anything on it this time.

ok, I'm going to attempt this now. This is the link to it http://www.filedropper.com/quicksave And thanks for the suggestion, that makes things a whole lot easier.

Ok, my challenge is this. Save Jebadiah Kerman, who is on course to collide with kerban. You need a rocket that can reach him, rendezvous, take him aboard and bring him back to kerban safely. The scenario files are here: I have a quicksave file for starting altitudes of 1,2, and 3 thousand km. The lower the altitude, the harder it is. 1000km http://www.filedropper.com/1000_1 2000km http://www.filedropper.com/2000km 3000km http://www.filedropper.com/3000km The scoring system is as follows: -The lower the score, the higher in ranking you are -Jebediah(yea, not the same character from the story I know) will crash at 21:57:48 MET time(The time that goes with your warp function) -For every minute after this time that it takes you to get Jebadiah to the ground safely, a 100 points is added -For every Minute faster than this(although I don't see how this is possible) 1,000 points is subtracted ---Starting points for level of difficulty achieved *1000km = -1,000,000 *2000km = -100,000 *3000km = -10,000 And the multipliers for points(not including starting points, e.g. land 5 min after crash time in 1000km difficulty, means 500 points X100= 50,000 additional points, equaling -950,000 points total) are as follows *1000km = X100 *2000km = X10 *3000km = x1 Back Story: I had Bob Kerman On an ion powered craft that was headed for eve, that, er, spontaneously exploded due to Bob using bits of metal as fuses... again. What remained useable was the second stage(in space, it had two stages, the lower one with several ion engines to provide a bearable amount of thrust), and 2 small solar panels(the other solar panels also exploded). A heroic effort involving waiting over 4 years, throttling down to 45% thrust, and inching towards kerban at the world record slowest speed, almost saved our brave kerbalnaut... However, doom was soon to befall him, as he slightly, er, undershot the planet(or overshot?) and ended up on a collision course with kerban. Seeing as 45% thrust wasn't enough to establish an orbit once the error was discovered and there was no parachute on the spacecraft, Bill was doomed. Despite our best efforts of launching rockets randomly towards his direction when he was at an altitude of 500,000m, he died that day. This scenario is essentially a recreation of that fateful drop. This should be feasible, I have been able to launch straight up towards a target, decelerate rapidly, and rapidly accelerate to over 4000 m/s in the opposite direction, then land the final stage with a parachute, with stock parts minus mecjeb(didn't even use it). That took me a little over 8 minutes total, the challenge being to rendezvous with the target within the short window period of time and transfer the crew.

What about this one then? It's a VTOL liquid rocket aircraft. It uses infernal rocketry parts to rotate the engines, which provides forward. up, down, and backwards controls. Otherwise, it takes a while to build up speed since staying at an altitude above crashing is usually a better alternative than flying into solid ground, however I have gone as fast as roughly 400m/s in it. There's a slight chance the craft can return the Kerbel safely, but that's unlikely since the fuel tanks are made with tupperware containers. It contains 51 parts 4025 Delta-V in the atmosphere, 4442 delta-V in space TWR 1.09 Max TWR 4.48 each engine puts out 120 kn of thrust

Ok thanks for the help there.

These are my Kethane landers and interplanetary spacecraft. The large lander has a small rover on its underside and uses kw Rocketry, Nova Punch, infernal robotics, and kethane mods. The other craft uses KW rocketry and Kosmos Spacecraft Design I think.

Ok, I hope I linked the images correctly, but these are my semi-exotic crafts. One of them uses rapier jet engines as rocket boosters to put the whole fuel tank with NERVA engine up into orbit without having to modify it in any way. This rocket is the base for a spacecraft that holds 9 kerbels, and has massive solar panels, which look cool but are wholly unnecessary, which will very soon be making a tour of the solar system thanks to the Kethane mod. The rapier engines use very little fuel under 18-20km, but just guzzel it once switched over to oxidizer use. The second craft is kind of a rocket powered motorcycle, lander, helicopter contraption thingy. Best to use mecjeb with that one, I am still trying to land it onto the heli pad at the kerbel space center manually, but the controls are just all wrong, right left=up, down, or down up?, up,down=right left, or left right?. Rotate is yaw, so its the only thing even close to intuitive about this thing.

http://<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/XwLRb/embed"></iframe>This is my first lander, I have had limited success in making a kethane rover that could refuel a launch vehicle, so I just made an all in one lander as simple and efficient as possible. I designed it so on kerbel, it could just get off the ground and travel a little ways without use of the fuel in the main tank(while full). I figured correctly that'd be sufficient, sent it to minus, deployed the drills, filled the tanks, took off(to 75km orbit) and landed once, with more than enough fuel in the side mounted tanks to do that once more without using the main tank. The idea is the larger tank the lander is built around wont have to be used at all during take off, landing, and docking with a ship in orbit, thereby leaving a healthy amount of fuel for delivery to whatever ship I have in minus orbit. No kethane base would be complete however without toppled over landers filled with legions of kerbels. Stranded, doomed to randomly use their jetpacks to enter into minus orbit at the wims of myself, never to return to solid rock. <iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/XwLRb/embed"></iframe>