Jetski

Chapter 7 is up - the first Kerbals are orbiting Vall, and my first land base (a converted supply ship with habs attached) is camped out in the lowlands of Vall. 10-Kerbal base, and 5 Kerbals in orbit for now. Just set up my correction burn for the frozen 100-Kerbal colony ship, I need to get these bases up and running! Just a suggestion for RT commsat networks: If you can conclusively prove you have 100% coverage all the time from fewer sats, that is cool, and maybe @eloquentJane can give you a pass. If not, just put up 4x4 and call it a day, as sat launches are far from the most difficult part of this challenge. I'm interested to see some of the cleverer RT designs, but I think people are having trouble getting them working permanently in practice what with timewarp and all. If you have a better solution maybe show a few screenshots to prove your point?

Chapter 7 - First bases arriving After another hiatus from this challenge, I finished a few months of timewarping and started some of my big ships entering the Jool system. My first manned mission arrived, and is now safely orbiting Vall, preparing to land. I also landed a big base/supply ship - no drills but tons of fuel and space for harvested supplies. Another massive orbiting supply depot has entered the system, and will enter Valls SOI in a few days. My first 3 logistics/mining bases are unusable as yet, but I think I can get them into a holding orbit around Jool, and I have a skycrane coming to help them land on various moons and get going. I also have some bases coming for Laythe (including a floating one I want to try) and an improved design for logistics bases that I sent on a hyperbolic burn a full year after everything else, but should arrive shortly. Lots going on, and the first Vall base is up and running!

@Venusgate great job, the conversion is well on its way. Still more station maintenance to do if anyone is up for it. Let's get rid of those asteroids! Sorry, I was hacking around in the savegame and I completely mangled the Duna ship. When I loaded the save up, none of the ships were flyable from the Tracking Station, and I did some hacking from previous saves to fix it. Feel free to add it back if you can without nuking the save - I'll even allow HyperEdit for this one, as I was the one that killed it In general I want to keep the number of ships that aren't involved in the station to 1 at most - otherwise this becomes pretty unmanageable. I'll ask that someone returns it or deorbits it before we send the Jool mission. Sorry @KAL 9000, I don't want to change the rules to allow a specific ship to go. This is a design and cooperation challenge more than anything, and the purpose is to encourage innovation within the part count allowed (difficult I know). If the ship can't work, it's back to the drawing board. It's possible to design a Laythe lander within the constraints of this challenge (I posted a doable version a few pages back), but an SSTO may be too difficult. Prove me wrong, and make something new that works! Remember, if you make a 2 or even 3 module ship connected by Jr. ports, you can request a KAS mission to remove the ports later - maybe someone else has mad KAS or design skills and can make it work. Make a friend, get help Also, I'm updating the OP now with the latest savegame, cleared for next mission. load KSP, make a fresh Sandbox save called KSS download the KSS.sfs file save it to your "ksp\saves\KSS" directory. Go into your KSS sandbox save within KSP, go to Space Center, and Load Saved game you should see "KSS" as one of the options (also persistance and quicksave), load it up You are in the correct universe to do the challenge. Get to it! When you finish, go to Space Center and Save Game as KSS. Go find your savegame file, should be "ksp\saves\KSS\KSS.sfs" upload that file to a file sharing site of your choice (I used Dropbox) I updated the OP, some of the filenames were a little confusing. You should always be saving a file called KSS.sfs, that brings up the Space Center when it loads (not immediately loading the ship). Then you go to tracking center to load the station. And when you save it for the next person, go to Space Center and save it there before sharing, don't play games renaming or sharing the quicksave or persistent.sfs, it gets too confusing for new players to sort out.

Basically, yes, this would be a very single-player approach, and technically within the rules. I won't hassle you about it. A drawback is your modules may be stripped for parts by someone during the wait. A better method would be to coordinate with one or more other players and get it put together quickly All modules must initially be assembled using docking ports, as KAS attach is only used during maintenance missions. During a maintenance mission, you can later remove the ports if you like. OK, so here's the latest save. It was well and truly broken on the latest version, but I was able to salvage the station after the Duna mission. The excellent Duna ship was unfortunately lost in the conversion, but the flags are still standing for now. The asteroid is apparently made of quicksand - here are some images: Really what needs to happen now is a major station maintenance mission to consolidate the station and remove the asteroids. It's been nice to have the class E to connect stuff to, but the Klaws are getting too glitchy. I suggest launching a fairly powerful tug, and detaching each section from the asteroid and connecting it all together with docking ports or KAS, and releasing our two captive asteroids into LKO. I suspect there will be losses in the process, as several sections have been more or less swallowed by graphics glitches in the rock. Any volunteers?

Hi all, just got back. The station looks pretty spectacular, and nice Duna mission. To answer a couple of questions: There are 3 types of missions permitted. One is to add a module to the station, 5 parts max + 2 docking ports. Another is to add to a spaceship (for example the Jool ship) 8 parts + 2 docking ports. The third is a station maintenance mission, the only time KAS/KIS use is permitted in the save. On a station maintenance mission you may move anything you like but not add parts: build a ship, move a module, get rid of extra docking ports and KAS attach parts together. All mod parts must be deorbited of course or the save will be broken. You must wait for another player to contribute between missions of any type. This is specifically to keep a single player from adding a high part count ship or module to the station by launching several modules in a row and KAS welding them together. If you want a big ship, get people to help you! Have another player launch the drive section. Share designs and screenshots! That's the point of this challenge This isn't quite right - please read the OP for instructions on sharing the save. If the explanation there isn't making sense, let me know and I'll be happy to explain further. Also, for the moment, I have the save.

You can do the same burning to Jool, just jump the window by a few days, burn a little longer, and shave years off the transit. I've launched an "efficient" rocket at the perfect window, warped a year to the next window, and sent a second rocket on a fast track to beat the first ship there. Down side of this (minmus also) is its a little harder to slow down. Can be set up with nodes easily.

Impressive. I had almost the same ship, but I used a heat shield to reenter, so I lost a fair amount of dV. Aerobraking and reentering on the Terrier looks like it was much better.

Post pics! I'm interested to see how you recover the reliant stage with the added parts needed (probe/chutes) and still have enough parts/dV to fly by the Mun withe science payload. I tried and was 300 dV short, but was considering a direct ascent launch might be more efficient

OK then, I think I'm done then. I also did a high orbit suborbital probe for sci Jr and goo recovery, and a few more surface level missions, unlocked a 90-level node, basically I can do anything in LKO or surface, but longer shots aren't going to happen with the mass limit combined with recovery requirement. Also, I'm super interested to see an Eve SSTO launched from Kerbin in Hard mode with no saves allowed and all parts recovered. That would be quite an accomplishment. To my knowledge, @astrobond is the only one to make an actual Eve SSTO, and it was hyperEdited to the perfect launch spot, and the ascent margins were razor thin (many attempts using KoS scripting). Maybe things have changed in 1.1.2?

Here's my attempt so far. The answer to "how far can you get" is LKO. I could do much more, except for the above rule. No facilities upgrade basically makes this a very difficult Caveman Challenge on Hard mode, with the additional limitation of recovery. I recovered everything so far, but the limitation of 18T and 30 parts makes it unlikely that I'll get any farther and still be able to recover all parts. I have all the 45-level research unlocked, and 300K funds or so. I could possibly make a Mun flyby if I got the margins razor-close, or started assembling stuff on the lawn next to the runway in 30-part modules with cranes and junk, but I think I'm not up for it. Get rid of that single rule, and I'll show you how much further I can go Otherwise, I'm thinking I'll drop the recovery theme, and just use this as another Caveman entry.

If using Gilly, make your refueling rig able to fly up and meet your ship in a highly elliptical eve orbit to save dV. Otherwise you could burn a lot of fuel leaving eve orbit after refueling ops. Make the refueler do the work instead!

Hard to calculate costs for EPL vessels for scoring, though

Heh. @eloquentJane is surely up next

Didn't get pics this time, but after a hilarious EPL interlude, and a failed attempt to become proficient at UKS, the mission continues with my MKS-Lite/USI-LS/Deepfreeze mods. First massive colony ship has a Jool intercept, and I launched a re-designed Laythe Supply base that should be able to produce quite a surplus of resources. Both caught the same window as my experimental floating base and the Skycrane for rescuing defunct craft in-system. Onwards!

@Enceos Great mission! The station looks amazing, much cleaner. The 1.1.x updates had really mangled the asteroid Klaws, this is a huge improvement. Concerning parts and such, my thought is that if it's on station it's fair game, unless someone is deliberately causing havoc. You can always launch another module. Also, parts can only be disconnected and reattached during a KIS maintenance mission like the one that has been just completed, no KIS/KAS permitted on regular module launches. Docking/redocking is stock and can be done any time. If we are trying to put something together as a group (Jool ship comes to mind) it would be poor form to cannibalize it for parts But we will make it clear if that becomes a problem. I'm just proud of us for getting the station looking this good. Incidentally, I'll be away for a week and unavailable. I expect the station to be even bigger and badder when I get back

If you clip the airbrakes way in the heating model doesn't let them cook as badly. Alternatively, the little Type E wings are very light and have insane heat tolerances - I use them slapped sideways for maximum drag at the top of my Eve landers to slow me down and keep me pointed forward.

Using KER it's really easy to just add engines/srbs until your dV works out. Basically I slap together a new lifter every launch, but it goes very quickly.

Yep, 1.1.2 has been fine. I'm modding the daylights out of it and rarely if ever get a CTD. Problem is all the people who aren't having problems are busy playing instead of posting forum issues

Looks like around 3000m is the magic number where you can sustain with enough lift. Now to trim it down so that it can make orbit next

I noticed that last few missions. Perhaps @Enceos maintenance mission will rearrange things to be a bit more pleasing to the eye

Here's some really helpful info from @DStaal in reply to my befuddlement on the UKS forum. Lots of the tutorials/wikis for the interactions between UKS and USI-LS are confusing or outdated, this is the closest I've found to a real start for those of us who aren't already fluent in UKS So: @Jetski, your first priority it sounds like is getting Supplies from an offworld source. Decent enough place to start. You have two resources that you need to make supplies, and a couple of optional ones that can help your productivity. The two you need to worry about are Mulch and Fertilizer. Mulch, of course, comes from Kerbals consuming supplies. So if you've got Kerbals in the base you can likely ignore that one. (If you don't - and I'll admit I'm not sure if the Aeroponics module works without a Kerbal - then you'll need to ship it in from your other ships/bases. Which can be worthwhile anyway, in some cases.) Fertilizer can be shipped in from Kerbin, or you can mine Gypsum and convert it using either the MK-III Regolith Sifter, or the MK-V Crush-O-Matic. So your minimum is one of those, a Gypsum drill, one of the greenhouses, and some storage. I mentioned some optional resources: Water can help reduce your supply consumption (meaning you can more easily grow more food than you need) and it can be used in the Aeroponics modules (along with Substrate) to produce more Supplies - but you need a greenhouse as well to do it. Water can be harvested directly using it's own drill, or you can use the same drill as for Gypsum to get Hydrates - which can be converted into water in the MK-III Regolith Sifter or the MK-V Crush-O-Matic. So, depending on the resource distribution, you may already have the parts in place. Substrate is a different drill yet - but it doesn't need to be refined. Logistics is mostly something that can be ignored under UKS - Turn on warehousing in all relevant parts, and build things fairly close together, and you typically won't have to worry about it. 'Fairly close' is 150m if you don't have a logistics rover manned and nearby - 2k if you do. Or just attach the big Kontainers to everything and have Planetary Logistics sort it out for you. (Which has the range of 'surface of the same planetiod'.) You can't quite let this run unsupervised - you need to check in every once in a while and let physics load, so KSP can run catchup on what's been done. It doesn't actually run in the background - it just quickly makes it look like has once you look at it. (But I find it's a good idea anyway to check in on bases every once in a while - it helps keep them in place so the kraken doesn't eat them.) Playing around with it is good, but I actually find the easiest way to look at what does what is in the VAB - all the parts list what they consume and what they produce, and you can get a general idea of what you'll need from that. The one exception is the dirt converters, which don't look like they produce anything - they actually produce *everything*, but how much they produce depends on the local abundance. (Which means it isn't static ratios, like the rest of the parts.) And to answer the other question in your first post: Yes, if you take a look through all the parts you'll see that nearly everything can be produced off-world. (The exception being Pu-238, used only in the MK-V Scout-200 Power Pack, which is basically a powerful RTG. Note that the power distribution functions of the Scout work without it having Pu-238.) Some of the production chains are quite long, but they are possible. My suggestion is to focus on the LS loop first, since it's the one that interests you first (and because it's usually the first critical one) and then work on the rest later. There is one other 'catch' to the LS loop though: It doesn't work on Kerbin. Because, on Kerbin, your Kerbals don't use supplies, and therefore don't produce Mulch. Take them to orbit (and ship in fertilizer) or the Mun to experiment. (Or: set up on Kerbin and *ship in* Mulch...) Anyway, once you've got that, then you can start on MaterialKits or SpecializedParts. Just break it down, look at what you need in the VAB, then work out what gets you that.

Just curious, does DeepFreeze store frozen Kerbals as a part attached to the ship? I've been grossly abusing this wonderful mod to send 100+ Kerbals on a massive colony ship to Jool, and I noticed as each shuttle brought up more colonists and froze them aboard the mothership, the lag got worse. Finally, after 3 shuttles worth of 36 or so passengers, the main burn was so laggy it reminded me of high part count ships in 1.05... Running 1.1.2 with latest version of DeepFreeze, SpaceY, USI-LS, and MKS-lite.

Just empty all the mono on the solar panel side

Yep, go ahead. I think that was a mixup on saves, someone missed a deorbit. Scavenge away For what it's worth there's already a little klaw RCS tug up there Good catch, updated the OP and cleaned up some of the wall of text that was growing there. Cleared for next launch.

OK, so I spent about an hour and a half on an EPL/MKS Lite modded attempt. Completely unacceptable for this challenge, sorry @eloquentJane, but definitely proof that it makes it REALLY easy. It was actually really fun, but a surface base on a slope on Pol (I just landed wherever, no scouting) was a bit buggy for my taste. Kept having to move survey stakes, try a build, have it explode or launch into orbit, repeat as needed. Self sustaining took about 2 builds with MKS.