EdFred

I started a new career, just, well, because. 1 Suborbital launch, and 1 orbital launch (12 of the beginner tanks all stacked vertically) was able to get me Sci-Jr and Mystery Goo. 1 vertical launch with 2 Good pods and a Sci-Jr to get above 250km or whatever the magic number is. The 4th launch was a Munar orbit, landing and return with 2 mystery Goo containers, 1 Sc Jr, 1 Thermometer. I was running low on fuel, and so the return launch was near horizontal in the Mun's retrograde orbit. Got a Kerbin periapsis of 28km, and I landed back on Kerbin, upright, in the grasslands, with 72dV to spare. After 4 launches, almost half the tree is completed.

Hahaha. Awesome. Did you reduce the amount of fuel/thrust on those, or just let 'em go full bore?

I must have really been doing it wrong. I used to just bring the whole science Jr and everything attached to it back to Kerbin - one Mun/Minmus biome at a time.

My first couple attempts - which resulted in splashdown - I did the deorbit burn before detaching the final tank, but I used so little, I figured I had a safety factor, and also because I got tired of topping off only 20 units of fuel in 8 tanks. I also went with the random landing spot, which is why I ended up at 92m - and still almost in the drink. Here's a directory of the screen shots of the lander, with and without the lifter, as well as my refueler. They were taken post-mission. http://webpages.charter.net/edfred/EveTwo/ The 00010.jpg shows the stats for Eve.

Jeb just returned home from Eve after spending waaaay too long in a lander can - alone.

Not waiting. Though I just started a couple months ago after .23 was released.

I've had success with nuclear engines getting to and from Duna. Build your ascent stage with chutes so they can be recovered (and probes cores if you want to officially recover them). It's easy enough to get 4000+dV with nuclear engines which is more than enough to finish circularizing Kerbal orbit, go to Duna, land and return home.

No way. I love the Mun. I have a 12 Kerbal colony residing in the shadow of the Arch on the rim of the East Crater. I do have a massive battery stack to keep things lit up during the night, however. Though, I have heard rumblings of them wanting to renounce their Kerbal citizenship and refer to themselves as Munbals.

That is exactly what I did. 30km/100km with a 70% flight curve. I learned that lesson on previous failures.

Artichoke staging?

I actually accomplished that this weekend, after much failure prior to 23.5. It took lots of docking, and refueling, and dragging tanks to Eve but it's doable. I used the new KR1x2 rockets as my first stage - 8 of them, so 16 engines burning. Bonus with those engines: No need for landing gear, they withstand 20m/s impact. The craft file is on my home computer, but I went horizontal rather than vertical with my design. I onion staged 8 of the KR1x2 units, followed by 8 Skippers, followed by 4 (or maybe it was 8) LV-30s on the 800 tanks, followed by 4 aero spikes, then a single aerospike, then the final stage was a 90 unit fuel tank with the 2 radial Rockomax engines lifting Jeb in a 1 man lander can. I launched into Kerbal orbit on Saturday night, by lifting all of that with 12 or 16 of the new Quad pack rockets. I had the Clampotron Srs decoupled to the bottom of the Skipper engines, and then spent Sunday attaching 8 of the the 3240 unit fuel tanks to those. After doing my ejection burn, I redistributed fuel, and jettisoned the empty 3240 tanks. Upon reaching Eve, I left a fuel tank (with probe core, small docking port, battery, solar panels and rcs) in 105x105 orbit. I did a short de-orbit burn, and left the landing location to chance. (After a quicksave of course). After 3 splashdowns in the ocean, I finally landed safely at a whopping 92meters at a shade over 6m/s. Kerbal Engineer said I had just under 12,000dV remaining. I dragged along a Science Jr with Goo and sensors attached and after dropping that to the surface after landing Jeb collected the data and made it back to Eve orbit with about 500dV remaining which was plenty to rendezvous with the fuel tank, top off (about 2000dV after topping off), and get back to Kerbin. Oh yeah, to save weight, no chutes on the lander can, so it was a powered landing on Kerbin. I can post the craft file later if anyone is interested. Oh, I noticed that MechJeb does not work very well with the new engines. All the burns are way off compared to the Rockomax and smaller rockets.