Norcalplanner

I've been looking for a new challenge, and I think this may be it. Given my record with space planes (which is littered with the bodies of dead kerbals) it'll probably be a rocket-ish SSTO with parachutes. I've already got an 8-kerbal SSTO orbital taxi, and an unmanned SSTO tanker that takes up 20 tons of fuel at a pop, so I think the groundwork is mostly in place. Let the flight testing commence...

Jeb died today while trying to land my new tanker spaceplane after topping up an orbital fuel depot. With the fuel delivery tank empty, the COM shifted slightly behind the COL, resulting in an uncontrollable craft after it re-entered the atmosphere. I'm still in mourning. :-( Stinkin' spaceplanes...

Check the center of mass in relation to the center of lift for your spaceplane in ALL configurations - with and without cargo, full fuel, half fuel, and almost empty fuel. I've only killed a few kerbals in my five months of playing the game, but they were all on spaceplanes.

A bit easier than expected, but it was only a class B. My nuclear-powered ship had over 11,000 m/s of delta v before docking, and that only went down by about 1,500 m/s after asteroid capture. I think I'll try a D with that same ship, but I think I'll need to design something bigger if I want to go after an E.

I love the new version of KW, which is one of my favorite mods, with one tiny exception... Why did the Vesta get downgraded as much as it did? It used to be my go-to engine, now it's just another engine in a crowd. I know it was OP, but it seems to me that it should have been changed down to 100 kN and 0.7t instead of 90 kN and 0.75t. It used to be that two Vestas were better than an LVT-30 or LVT-45, and now they're a little bit worse. I suppose it's realistic, but not quite as much fun, to only make it useful as a single upper stage engine for a payload that's a bit too much for an LV-909. I guess I'm mainly upset that the update made my Jool-5 lander a lot less capable, particularly on Tylo.

I like where this is going, especially with the hit to reputation. As a way of slowly making the kerbals less responsive, how about instituting a power drain on the ship's electrical system? Perhaps representing the Kerbals trying desperately to microwave anything remotely edible in the capsule? The drain could increase over time, ultimately becoming so large that the ship can't do some meaningful things, like transmit science.

Thanks. It was a few too many refueling trips - in spite of the somewhat clever multi-role aspects of most of the ship, it was still a pretty brute force approach, with the lander around 100 tons fully fueled. Now that I've had a chance to reflect, I've made a few observations: 1. MechJeb laid in some pretty bad courses - I was generally much happier with my manual course plots, which arrived at the target with lower differential velocity and reduced expenditure of fuel. 2. TAC fuel balancer helped a lot. It’s not perfect, but it helped make sure that no rocket engine ran out fuel prematurely, which was especially helpful on Tylo. 3. The trip back home still took over 2 years. I need to investigate ways to reduce that time frame - landed back at Kerbin with several thousand m/s delta V in reserve, so we had fuel that could have been burned to speed the return. 4. All the mining and refueling got a bit tiresome. 5. I need to be much smarter in how I spend my fuel. It may be worthwhile to have a small nuclear tug to move Pooh Bear to a different moon instead of moving the whole ship. 6. I should really look at putting a ship or a fuel depot in orbit between moons, such as between Vall and Tylo. 7. It worked well to turn off MechJeb at times for landings, especially on Pol and Bop. I learned my lesson from the previous Jool challenge trip. 8. Pooh Bear probably could have been a bit smaller. Moving around a 100 ton lander used a lot of fuel, even with LV-Ns. There’s probably a good 60 ton version that can be made with 4 or 6 LV-Ns and 2 LVT-30s. 9. I was generally pleased with the lifter design, which was fairly compact and efficient (16.9% payload mass fraction) for the size of ship being sent up. Lots of SRBs were used, since they’re very cost effective in 0.24 career mode. No thrust plates were used. Burning some of the Milne’s engines towards the end of the ascent seemed to work well, especially since they could be refueled from the last lifter stack after a stable orbit was achieved. 10. I still had a little bit of Kessler syndrome - I forgot to add a probe core to Rabbit’s last lifter stack, so it remained in orbit around Kerbin as debris, even though it had enough fuel left to de-orbit itself. No other debris was generated. 11. I was proud of the footprint left in the Jool system by this single ship - five manned fuel depots, each with some science and comm gear; four kethane scanners, also with science and comm gear; and one satellite around Jool with multiple science experiments and comm gear. 12. It works much better if you wait for sunlight before trying to visit anomalies. 13. The 8 landing struts, a late addition to Pooh Bear, provided some needed stability. The ship probably would have fallen over on Laythe and/or Pol if they weren’t there. Majority of the weight was still resting on the LV-N engine bells. All in all, an enjoyable and challenging experience. I hope people enjoy the photos and whatnot.

The Milne has successfully returned from the Jool-5 Kethane Challenge! I gave a brief introduction back on page 144: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-The-Ultimate-Jool-5-Challenge-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-mission?p=1310169&viewfull=1#post1310169 Here's the scoring total and the photo journal. Points I think I earned are on the far left of each row. POINTS: 330 Mission points 179 Laythe points 124 Vall points 258 Tylo points 129 Bop points 129 Pol points 1149 Total points POINTS BREAKDOWN OVERALL MISSION POINTS: 45 +5 for every Kerbal on the mission 20 +20 Jool impactor probe (max 1) 20 +20 Jool orbiting satellite (max 1) 0 +20 Main Ship remains in orbit around Jool as a Space Station (max 1) 10 +10 for a Mobile Lab -100 -100 if Nuke engines are used (if Isp is greater than 799 in vacuum and uses fuel+oxidizer) 0 -50 if a Kerbal dies 50 +50 Main Ship is somewhat refueled from a moon's Kethane resource (max 1) 40 +40 Kethane sample brought back to Kerbin 20 +5 for every Kerbal return to Kerbin (max 5) 560 (brought back 16,811 points, after subtracting science not from Jool) special points for science: science points brought back in a Mobile Lab to Kerbin, divided by 30 -335 initial Full Ship Weight modifier: -1 point for every ton in Kerbin Orbit before leaving to Jool 330 overall mission points POINTS COUNTED PER MOON: Laythe 10 +10 for mining Kethane (max. one per moon) 10 +10 mapping/communication satellite 40 +10 Kerbal landed 50 +50 Landing a Mobile Lab (max 1) 50 +50 if both surface/water samples were brought back to Kerbin 8 +2 permanent living space per Kerbal in orbit around the moon (same rules as before) 6 +6 remaining Kerbal in moon's orbit (max 5) 5 +5 remaining mapping/communication satellite (max 1) 179 total for Laythe Vall 10 +10 for mining Kethane (max. one per moon) 10 +10 mapping/communication satellite 40 +10 Kerbal landed 50 +50 Landing a Mobile Lab (max 1) 8 +2 permanent living space per Kerbal in orbit around the moon (same rules as before) 6 +6 remaining Kerbal in moon's orbit (max 5) 0 +5 remaining mapping/communication satellite (max 1) 124 total for Vall Tylo 10 +10 for mining Kethane (max. one per moon) 10 +10 mapping/communication satellite 40 +10 Kerbal landed 50 +50 Landing a Mobile Lab (max 1) 8 +2 permanent living space per Kerbal in orbit around the moon (same rules as before) 6 +6 remaining Kerbal in moon's orbit (max 5) 5 +5 remaining mapping/communication satellite (max 1) 129 subtotal for Tylo 258 Tylo Special: doubles all the points 258 total for Tylo Bop 10 +10 for mining Kethane (max. one per moon) 10 +10 mapping/communication satellite 40 +10 Kerbal landed 50 +50 Landing a Mobile Lab (max 1) 8 +2 permanent living space per Kerbal in orbit around the moon (same rules as before) 6 +6 remaining Kerbal in moon's orbit (max 5) 5 +5 remaining mapping/communication satellite (max 1) 129 total for Bop Pol 10 +10 for mining Kethane (max. one per moon) 10 +10 mapping/communication satellite 40 +10 Kerbal landed 50 +50 Landing a Mobile Lab (max 1) 8 +2 permanent living space per Kerbal in orbit around the moon (same rules as before) 6 +6 remaining Kerbal in moon's orbit (max 5) 5 +5 remaining mapping/communication satellite (max 1) 129 total for Pol There are 159 images in the album.

Really elegant, Ziv. Gamey as all heck with the massless parts as most low mass craft are, but very elegant.

KABOOM (the Kerbal Administration for Big Overpowered Orbital Machines) is proud to present their latest ship, the Milne. This ship will be attempting the Kethane variant of the Jool-5 Challenge. 1979 tons, 580 parts, and initial TWR of 1.78 sitting on the launchpad 335 tons, 374 parts, and TWR of 0.48 when departing LKO for Jool 9 brave Kerbals are making the trip, 5 of whom have volunteered to stay behind in the Jool system 1 launch, no refueling before leaving LKO This is in my new 0.24 career save. The only mods being used are MechJeb, Editor Extensions, and Kethane. The old version of KW Rocketry is still installed, but no KW parts are used in this ship. Key design concepts and considerations for this ship: 1. Atomic power. LV-Ns and RTGs are used as much as possible in the design. 2. Fewer stages. When departing from LKO the Milne consists of two main stages, rather than the four main stages of KABOOM’s previous effort, the Jool Explorer. 3. No Kessler syndrome. If all goes according to plan, no empty fuel tanks or other debris will be jettisoned into space during the trip. 4. Two or more roles for major systems. Most major systems have at least two roles to play during the trip. For example, the kethane scanning probes are fitted with LV-Ns, and are oriented and attached to the Milne so that the LV-Ns can serve as part of the drive section during flight, rather than simply being dead weight. 5. Stock parts. All parts, with the exception of MechJeb and a few pieces of kethane equipment, are stock. I wanted to challenge myself a bit, and see how far I can go without any significant mods. 6. Better names. The previous Jool Explorer had generic names for its parts, such as the tanker section and the lander. In keeping with the Milne’s name, all designations are taken from A.A. Milne’s classic Winnie the Pooh books. The two main parts are Pooh Bear (the lander) and Eeyore (the tanker). Parts of Eeyore can undock and become their own craft, with designations of Kanga, Roo, Piglet, Christopher Robin, Tigger, and Alexander Beetle. The lifter, doing all the work of pushing Pooh and company into orbit and then crashing back down to Kerbin, is Rabbit. 7. It’s all about Pooh Bear. Pooh Bear is the heart of the Milne, and consists of almost 100 tons of KABOOM’s best engineering efforts. A stout and helpful craft, Pooh Bear is equipped with 8 LV-Ns and 4 LVT-30s, and serves as the main drive section of the Milne when docked to Eeyore. When undocked, it’s a 2-man universal SSTO lander. It can function as a tug, reconfiguring Eeyore’s modules as needed. When carrying Owl (the mobile lab), it’s a science gathering machine. When landed, it’s a kethane miner with two drills and a converter, so it can refuel itself as long as it lands on a kethane deposit. When carrying the Hunny Pot (a supplemental 18-ton fuel tank), it functions as a tanker that can bring more than 40 tons of fuel back to Eeyore per trip, at least when returning from Pol, Bop, or Vall. When carrying the supplemental hitchhiker (as it will on the trip home) it’s a roomy interplanetary craft with two seats per kerbal. 8. Some efficiency has been sacrificed in favor of playability. The design uses fewer larger parts when possible to reduce part count and lag, even though it comes with a mass penalty (such as using a few Z-4K batteries instead of dozens of massless Z-400s). Both Pooh Bear and Eeyore are fitted with reaction wheels. To reduce burn times, the fully assembled Milne has 12 LV-Ns and 4 LVT-30s. TWR is 0.23 in nuclear mode, and 0.48 if the LVT-30s are also fired up. 9. We’re going to leave a presence behind. Much of Eeyore can undock and become multiple independent craft. If everything goes according to plan, the Milne will leave manned fuel depots in equatorial orbits around every moon, a kethane scanner/science satellite in polar orbits around four of the moons, and a small science satellite around Jool itself. 10. Modular design. There are lots of docking ports, allowing multiple configurations for both Pooh and Eeyore. The five orbital fuel depots can be docked together to make one large station instead of 5 small ones. 11. Rockets only. KABOOM is focused on rockets. No planes, rovers, boats, or jet engines are included in the Milne’s design. 12. Future-friendly. Putting fuel depots in orbit around each moon, each with room for three more kerbals, should aid in future Jool exploration and colonization efforts. 13. Nobody is stranded. Each manned fuel depot has enough Delta V, thrust, and parachutes to make it successfully back to Kerbin. They can also land and become minimalist ground bases on every moon except Tylo. 14. Real-life testing. No hyperedit advance testing at the actual locations, only a few reverts and a real launch with testing on and around Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus. Although the test launch cost 1.1 million funds, 25% of that was recovered from many of the parts landing near KSC. 15. A smaller ship. The previous Jool Explorer was 860 tons when it departed LKO. The Milne is 335 tons, less than half the weight. In spite of this, the new ship will be leaving behind a much larger presence in the Jool system. 16. Minimal landing gear. This may be a bit gamey, but Pooh Bear has only been fitted with a few landing struts for stability, with the bulk of the weight resting directly on the 8 LV-Ns instead. The ship’s design made it difficult to attach enough struts to support a 100 ton ship, and the LV-Ns have an impact tolerance of 12 m/s, rather than the usual 6 or 7 for most parts. Testing shows that it works - with half a load of fuel on board, Pooh Bear landed at Kerbin on flattish ground at 8 m/s without incident. It was also able to drill and fully refuel on the Mun while carrying the Hunny Pot (its heaviest and most unstable mode) on a 15 degree slope, also without incident. Chapters will be posted as they occur -I'll update my sig once I have enough for a real gallery.

Ziv, Thanks for the answers. OK, so I'll leave the RTGs and stacks as is - there's no advantage other than an aesthetic one. Thanks for the clarification on leaving guys in orbit. It's extremely inelegant, but then again, danger is my middle name. If one of the LV-Ns goes kaboom due to an overly enthusiastic landing, I'll have to jettison the opposite engine and try to carry on with a lower TWR. Expedition only it is. Ship should be launched and on its way later tonight.

I have a couple questions about the Jool-5 Kethane challenge for Ziv, or anyone else who thinks they know the answers. I'm finalizing the design of my ship, and would appreciate clarity on a few rules and points items. Questions are: 1. Is minor part clipping OK? I have some 1.25m stacks that clip a tiny bit, and I've rotated the RTGs more for aesthetics than anything else. Would this violate the "no clipping" rule? I can unrotate the RTGs and put in some cubic octagonal struts to remove the clipping, but the design won't look as clean. 2. Do Kerbals left in orbital stations around Joolian moons count as Kerbals left behind for points? Right now the plan is to leave manned mini space stations around each moon, but I could modify my plan to turn the stations into ground bases if needed. 3. Is landing on the LV-Ns and not using landing struts considered "cheating"? My lander rests directly on the LV-Ns without standard landing struts. I know that it's gamey and unrealistic, but the part has a maximum impact tolerance of 12 m/s, and has worked well in testing. 4. As a single 1800 ton launch without any refueling, would it be eligible for the low mass challenge? I know that it would come in last, but Jeb can be a bit of a glory hound. Any assistance and/or clarification would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. I've posted a few images to show what I'm talking about

I've moved away from asparagus staged boosters for routine flights. Now it's mainly a cluster of 8 Rockomax or S1 SRBs around a 1.5 orange tank stack with a mainsail, with the SRBs thrust limited so that the initial TWR is around 1.7 or so. Everything fires at launch, then MechJeb throttles back the mainsail to not exceed terminal velocity. SRBs drop off around 12K, mainsail throttles back up, orange stack drops off close to orbit, and then the first quarter or so of whatever transfer stage is on tap is used to circularize the orbit. I'm finding that I do a lot more landings near KSC. Money hasn't been much of an issue since I tested some big parts in orbit, including the KS-25x4 and the LFB 1x2 - I got 1.6 million funds just for those two tests, and now have around 7 million or so. It doesn't seem fair, as the contract for planting a flag on Eve only has a reward of 170K. I'm currently in the flight testing stage for a new kethane-powered Jool-5 challenge ship, and I'm sure it's going to be at least 1 million with all the scientific equipment on board. Thankfully, I currently have contracts to explore Jool, Pol, and Bop, so the ship should be just about paid for if everything goes according to plan.

It seems a bit hit and miss - the Mk 55 is still awaiting some desperately needed attention. It also looks like they didn't update the cost for all the parts - I find myself using more of the big S1 SRBs instead of the medium Rockomax BACCs, since the two parts are the same price.

Is that still the case? I haven't been terribly aware of problems, but maybe I'm just not doing things Kerbally enough.

Same here. I only used it before when I was worried about part count and/or having decouplers the same diameter as the rest of the rocket, but now it's kinda-sorta-almost decent.

It seems to me that, lost amongst all the contract discussion, is the fact that a number of parts have finally been rebalanced in 0.24. For example, both the mainsail and the skipper have had their Isp bumped to 320/370, and the skipper lost a ton of mass. The skipper in particular is finally a viable engine, having better stats and connectivity options than the old trick of using a cluster of 3 LVT-30s. The poodle also lost half a ton, and is a bit more viable as well. Some of the KW Rocketry engines now look worse in comparison, simply because they now have some of the lowest Isp figures around. Has anyone else talked about this much? And has anyone noticed their old rocket designs using mainsails and/or skippers having higher performance?

Currently at 2.2 million after about twenty contracts. Been to the Mun, but not to Minmus yet. Over a third of that came from a single mission, a request to test the LFB KRB 1x2 booster in Kerbin orbit. A little difficult because you can't stack it on top of anything, but I was able to fit two radially around some 2.5 meter tanks with a mainsail and lots of SRBs. It helped a lot that I emptied out 90% of the fuel in the LFBs before launch.

I regularly launch ships without any launch clamps at all, including really big ones with thrust plates and asparagus staging that can lift 500 tons into LKO. As long as your struts are placed correctly (triangles are your friend) and you use editor extensions to make sure that all the stacks are the exact same length, your ship should be fine on the pad sans clamps.

In my case, it was one ship that reached orbit with a lot of empty tanks. Two refueling ships were launched to top off the ship, then it set off for Jool (with a totally overpowered inefficient transfer burn whose main positive characteristic was that it took less than three minutes).

Thanks! I'll add the badge to my sig. I wasn't sure if it was level 1 or level 2 - three different kerbals went down to the moons, but only one went down at a time to any particular moon. As indicated in the log, the other two ships were sent along simply to take advantage of the same launch window in an attempt to establish a Joolian base of operations. No kethane flowed. They didn't interact with the Jool Explorer in any way, and ended up suffering a humorous/tragic fate after failing to establish any sort of stable orbit in any part of the Jool SOI, careening off into unplanned trajectories.

So here's the final after action report and critique of the challenge, my ship design, and some of the mods I used. Full photos and captions which grew increasingly witty as I progressed are found in the link in my sig. - - - - - CHAPTER 6 - POST MISSION EVALUATION, OBSERVATIONS, AND CRITIQUE I. Thoughts about the Jool-5 Challenge: I liked it. It’s ambitious, but not overly so, and I think that most players who’ve made it successfully to another planet and back should eventually be able to complete it. It gives people an incentive to explore more of the Kerbol sytem. Thanks go to Ziv for coming up with the idea in the first place, and for creating the nifty graphic for putting in people’s signature lines. II. Observations about the KSP program and mods: 1. MechJeb is five parts helpful, one part infuriating. While it was great at maneuver planning and performed very well on Laythe, Vall, and Tylo, it screwed up (or tried to screw up) landings on Pol, Bop, and Kerbin. 2. KW Rocketry is great. The tanks and engines are just a little better than stock, which gives designs using KW parts a bit of an edge without seeming horribly overpowered. This trip reinforced my admiration for the Vesta engine, which performed very well. Its high TWR, low weight, and Isp of 400 is one of the primary reasons my lander had so much delta V. 3. Poles and/or high altitude EVAs can be glitchy. I’m still not sure what happened on Pol, but I’m pretty sure the "anomaly" I was investigating on Bop was a graphic glitch at the north pole where the textures come together. I’ll be staying at least 10 degrees away from all poles in the future, and will limit EVAs to more reasonable altitudes. 4. Even though LV-Ns are the most fuel-efficient thing around, the KR-2L on the tanker stage is still a heck of an engine. Vacuum Isp of 380 and 2500kN of thrust in a single 6.5 ton part is hard to beat, especially if part count is a concern. I figure I can get the tanker stage down to about 15 to 17 parts, as long as it retains the KR-2L. If I switch to LV-Ns, the part count for that stage will jump up to at least 40. 5. Detailed textures on parts are great. I’d like to offer a big thank you to those part designers who include rivets, paint, and other visual cues on their rocket parts. Having these cues and reference points in the VAB makes rocket assembly easier and more accurate. This is especially important when it comes to attaching struts, which can induce wobble or rotation if not placed evenly. 6. Orbital height really matters. As I noted in one of the photos, the delta V for orbital capture around a moon without an atmosphere is greatly reduced if the orbit is higher up. The tanker stage saved a lot of fuel by parking in a 1,000 km orbit around Tylo instead of a 100 km orbit as originally planned. III. Critique of the ship design: 1. The Explorer’s design had a lot of fat. Without radically changing the design, I think I can cut out about 5 or 6 tons from the lander, and 6 to 8 tons from the Explorer mothership. Part of these changes involving going from 8 LV-Ns on the mothership down to either 6 or 4, and removing two Vestas and shortening the side stacks a bit on the lander. The lander in particular was overpowered, being able to hang on to the two extra empty side stacks while ascending from Tylo. 2. Refueling those three monster lifter stacks while in orbit around Kerbin was overkill. [but it sure looked cool. - Ed.] With a lighter lander, mothership, and tanker stage, and a slightly modified lifter, I think that a revised Explorer should be able to make orbit with a single mostly full center lifter stack. That single stack can then handle the majority of the interplanetary transfer duties without any refueling. 3. I should convert the tanker stage to use LV-Ns, probably eight of them. If I do, I’ll likely need some supplemental regular engines to complete the initial transfer burn to Jool in a single orbit, which is a non-negotiable mission requirement as far as I’m concerned. Initial thought is to put on 2.5 m side drop tanks tanks with Vestas or some other efficient engine attached, then drop those engines once the initial burn to Jool is complete and/or the side tanks are empty. 4. The side drop tanks on the Explorer mothership were too big, and need to be either reduced in size or eliminated. With conversion of the tanker stage to LV-Ns, it makes more sense to have the fuel stay in that stage as long as possible for more efficient transport. 5. I brought along way too much monopropellant. At the end of the trip, both the tanker stage in orbit around Tylo and the Explorer mothership back at Kerbin had over 2/3 of their monoprop left. Although the part count will increase slightly, I should put in a few of the .75 ton cylindrical tanks and ditch the 3.4 ton inline tank in the Explorer. The lander should switch from the .55 ton inline tank to one or two of the small spherical tanks. Only the tanker stage will retain the big inline tank with 750 units of RCS fuel. 6. If I want to reuse ships, I need to use more docking ports instead of decouplers. The Explorer’s main drive section is still perfectly useable, but there’s no way to re-attach a command capsule to a decoupler that I’m aware of. I haven’t used KAS all that much yet - if it’s possible for Kerbals on EVA to remove the decoupler from the drive section and put on a 2.5m docking port instead, the ship may yet come back to life. Otherwise, it will lie dead in its parking orbit for the foreseeable future. 7. I need to put one or two more reaction wheels on the tanker stage, and/or use the RCS thrusters more. Watching the ship slowly turn was majestic in a Stanley Kubrick sort of way, but it added a lot of unnecessary real-life time to the journey. 8. I’ve decided that any future journeys of more than a month’s duration must carry along at least one Hitchhiker container for additional living space. I think even the stoutest Kerbal would go a little stir crazy after being cooped up in a 3-person command pod for more than a year. 9. Science was lacking on the lander. No material bays or goo canisters made it down to the surface of any of the moons; only massless detection gear was attached to the lander. If I do something like this again, I’ll try to make some modular science packages docked radially around the mothership that can be pulled off by the lander, taken down to each moon in turn, and then re-attached to the mothership. IV. Evaluation of myself: 1. I used MechJeb too much. This is my first career save with MechJeb installed, and I leaned on it too heavily. It took some of the fun out, and I spent more time than I anticipated just watching the screen as MJ did its thing. For future landings, I might let it go so far as to do the initial de-orbit burn, but then I’ll turn it off and take the lander in manually. For docking, I’ll probably let MJ get the initial orientation correct with the lander perpendicular to the target docking port (which I’m not great at), then do the approach and translation myself. 2. I’m developing a grudging respect for LV-Ns, and will use them more in the future, but I still don’t like them. They’re heavy, awkward, and weak. Ships using them tend to have much higher part counts, which increases lag. Transfer burns can take a really long time, and may need to broken up into multiple orbits (which I hate). And I don’t like the engine sound, which is coarser and raspier to my ear. (I also dislike the sound of the 48-7S, but that’s a different topic.) All of those negatives are offset (barely) by their phenomenal Isp of 800. I also feel like I have to impose some real-life limitations on their future use that many other players do - no atmospheric operation, no staging where they drop into an inhabited atmosphere, etc. I’m thinking that once I get KAS figured out I’m going to go back to Vall to retrieve the two drop tanks in orbit, which each have an LV-N attached, and de-orbit them into the crushing depths of Jool’s gravity well. 3. I need to trust the aerobrake calculator more. Twice I added a bit of additional height as a safety margin for aerobrake maneuvers, and both ended up not being orbital captures. If I add a "safety margin" for aerobraking in the future, it’s going to be only a few hundred meters of periapsis height. 4. I need to be smarter about fuel use. The lander headed down to both Laythe and Vall with full tanks, and ended up burning more fuel just to bring the unused fuel up into orbit again. 5. Shifting around fuel manually is only interesting the first few times you do it. After that, it becomes a chore. I need to try out TAC or some other fuel management mod. 6. I’ve concluded that I cannot keep track of multiple ships in hyperbolic orbits while performing planetary operations. If I ever launch multiple ships again during a single transfer window, I’m going to wait until all ships are in stable orbits at the target location before doing anything. Starting the Explorer’s mission with trips down to the surface and plotting transfers to other moons while the other two ships were still inbound ended up being a bit of a disaster. 7. Kerbal Alarm Clock is great, so long as I remember to use it EVERY TIME. Forgetting to activate it a few times led to undesired results, especially with the two follow-on ships. 8. The roleplaying aspects just sort of manifested themselves as I was writing captions for the photo albums. The Kerbals started to develop distinct personalities, especially Wilman. This turned into an unexpected outlet for creativity, and ended up being fun. 9. I liked my over-the-top acronym for the space organization launching the rocket (KABOOM), and I may use more acronyms on future reports and/or career saves. Next on the list is the National Association for Development of Impressive Rockets, or NADIR. 10. I spent too much time flying this mission and writing up the mission report over the last week. It’s time to put the game down for a while and spend more time with the family. When I do pick it up again, if I try another big challenge (such as the kethane variant of this challenge) it will be stretched over a much longer real-life timeframe.

I used it a half dozen times, although two of them were not my fault.

This is one of my favorite threads to read.

Bobcook, Thanks for the kind words. I did exactly what you described in terms of leaving the SOI of the planet when it was time to leave Jool and come back to Kerbin, but somehow I never thought of doing it on the outbound leg. I think I'll also give the Kethane variant a try. Not sure about the surface hoppers, and it may be a month or so before I finish it (which may mean that it gets done in 0.24) but it's in the queue of future activities at this point. Norcalplanner