Jetski

Bob Kerman has decided that he wants to demonstrate the ultimate science gathering recovery mission to an excited public. Unfortunately, he only has permission to launch a single ship, and all the radio equipment at KSC is currently tuned to the Kerbin Kup final match. How will he make the most of this opportunity? What is highest possible science gathering score that he can manage in a single launch? Will it be more effective to try a Grand Tour of the planets, or can he hoover up local science for insane bonuses? Only you can decide! Challenge can be conducted any way you want - only scoring metric is how much science is recovered on Kerbin Transmissions don't count, so don't bother with the MPL or antennas). The launch should be done on Normal difficulty, in Career mode. Feel free to edit your savegame to max the tech tree and buildings, or use an existing savegame as long as no other ships are involved in the mission in any way (no refueling, no passing off science from an old ship, etc). Recovered Science is the only thing that counts, you don't have to bring the whole ship back as long as you get the science home. Pics of recovery screen are mandatory, also any pics you have of the mission are helpful as well. Of course no F12, Hyperedit, or mods which add parts or change physics. Visual mods, KER, Mechjeb, Transfer Planner, etc. are fine. Planet mods like New Horizons or Outer Planets will be listed separately. No active strategies in the Admin building (would make this impossible to score) New! No ISRU permitted. This is to keep this form becoming a potential infinite grind on science. You are stuck with what you bring up in your single launch. Plan accordingly. Here's the first part of my attempt. It's a very ambitious attempt at a Grand Tour but I didn't bring along any Materials Bay or Goo pod for weight reasons. No score yet as it is still in progress, but we've visited the Kerbin moons, Eve, Gilly, and Moho so far. Interested to see how this compares to a smaller effort with more equipment. Also, a badge will be forthcoming when we start to see completed attempts. Leaderboard: michelcolman 38330.6 Jetski 9352 (incomplete mission, science not yet recovered)

I always go for early plane parts, as the tail fin is ideal for steering my style of rocket, and I can make a quick Sci rover with a Juno to hoover up KSC science fast. Agree that as actual plane parts not overly useful. Wings are handy as big fins for big lifters, and as low drag pylons to attach boosters far away from main body of the rocket, I use the type C for this a lot. After the first plane node I rarely bother with aero nodes except for completing the tree. Edit: also wings sideways at the top of a lander for max drag are epic for Eve descents, keep you pointed straight, lots of drag, and high heat tolerance! Ugly but highly effective

I'm still here. Started the version just before they introduced SCIENCE! (tm)

Probodyne HECS and ElectricCharge

Consider downloading the New Horizons mod. Really well done, and a good spaceplane playground near Kerbin orbit.

Worth noting that the port has higher drag

Of course, that's just to give you the BB code and sizing. Your challenge, beter to have your banner 240 x 105 seems a good size, and imgur links are free and easy

Hows this? Signature code would be as follows: [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/130844-the-ultimate-challange/"][img]http://i.imgur.com/y1nLlqC.jpg[/img][/URL] That was about 5 mins in Paint - Pretty sure it could be done better lol

Nice! I tried something similar with the jet powered sled I first built. Now you have to go for the speed record Mine shouldn't be hard to beat. Hardest part for me was sorting out the winch and harpoon. I usually play stock(ish)

Kerbal Insubstantial Tethered Eyesore. (K.I.T.E) Attempt # 1. Nope. And Attempt #2: Success! Jeb is stoked (briefly), but he needs to have a word with the driver of the towing cart. And now for the speed record: Fastest I could get was 174 m/s, shortly before my towing sled (2 Vectors) turned into scrap. Nice thing though is the glider usually flies away intact from the wrecks. I had fun with this, thanks for the challenge.

@Just Jim Any chance of a badge for this? I can make one if you can't be bothered

This.

Yeah, took too many pics I think, but in my defense it was a REALLY long challenge. Did it in Sandbox, so I can't show the contract info. Plenty of room for improvement. Ions would probably be a better way to handle this challenge, I was all nukes for the most part. Not great on the transfer burns generally, and in total I needed 3 launches: one for the outer planets with pod and lander bodies, one epic fail at Eve, and one for final Eve/Moho/home lander bodies. Only the one command pod though, and got a flag on every body. Edit; posted a condensed version on the "What I did in KSP today thread" if you can't be bothered wading through all the albums

How much fuel does my station hold? All of it.

OK, last post I promise Finished this challenge, Val met up with the heat shield and some spare fuel in Eve orbit, then headed home. I did some very inefficient burns to get Kerbin intercept, just because I could as a sort of a victory lap. WHen I hit Kerbin SOI, I realized I never landed on Minmus or the Mun, because I originally only intended this mission to be a Jool-5. Oops. Just enough fuel left (and no landing gear) so plant flags on both, then a burn for home. Val is very happy to be home after 39 years and 369 days of flight, planted a flag on every body in the system in the same command pod. Done!

DID IT! Ok, Eve has been defeated by Val and her trusty command Pod. Now just on to Moho then home! Edit: and a Moho landing. Val has now landed in the same command pod on every planet and moon. Now just to meet back up with my heat shield and fuel pod around Eve, and back to Kerbin for a landing!

Brought out a new Eve lander and trying again. I really want to complete this one Val has been waiting impatiently to complete her mission, poor girl hasn't had a cold beer in 37 years

I think the trajectory mod is useless as of 1.05. Small changes in attitude, and timing on when I open chutes makes a huge difference. Learning a lot though. Val will conquer this purple monster yet! I think this lander design is from before they nerfed the aerospike, TWR is a lot lower than it should be, barely 1 at times. A redesign for modern conditions is in order.

Rats! After landing at a variety of heights up to 3500m, still no success. Basically I'm using my main ship in a 150 km orbit to deorbit, drop the lander on a ballistic trajectory, then burn back into orbit using nukes. Not ideal, but it's what I've got. So I'm throwing Val at Eve, and I can't seem to get a lucky landing spot. Anybody know a better way to get a specific landing spot? Installed Trajectories mod, but it's not accurate because I make the burn, then decouple so the ship changes AFTER I no longer have engines to adjust. Also a vertical drop isn't safe as my shield will burn up. Sounds like I need a different lander

Fuel wasn't the issue, there's just a top limit on the size of Eve lifter I'm willing to transport out there before FPS goes to single digits. I'm going to try @parzr landing spot, maybe better luck from there. If that fails, I'll go get a bigger lifter, and not try to package my Moho diver in the same launch

Eve failure! So I got my Eve and Moho ship over to Eve SOI, met up with Val in the drive/pod lander, and got everything reconfigured nicely. Then I tried landing. First attempt I jettisoned the fairing and it knocked off a few landing fins, unfortunately with half my chutes attached. Next attempt I landed too low, my lifter can't make orbit from 1900m, despite my best efforts. Now another F9, and I'll try again later. Here's the meetup and attempts so far, though.

Also, mission info: - Which game versions did you use? 1.05- What mods did you use, if any? only KER for information- How many Kerbals are on the mission? Just Val- How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbin? One- How much did your mission cost? 774,913- Did you needed a refueling mission? No- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? No extra ships, just a variety of bodies to land a single command pod- Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it! Impossible to track, as the ship reconfigured completely 6 times. Something like 20K total, mostly not used for the Jool 5 part but going on to the rest of the planets- Any additional note or description? It was a blast playing with this ship, I never intended to do more than Jool 5 when I was building it, but I was able to do a ton of moving stuff around and tailor it in flight like Legos for a variety of uses. Particularly happy with the Duna aerobrake later in the flight. The versatality of the Klaw tug I included at the last minute really allowed me to do a lot with this ship. Also I should have added an RTG, solar power was very borderline, and I wasted a bit of fuel to do brightside manouvers. I didn't test anything before launch, and I didn't pick great windows for the most part, this while mission was very seat of the pants - felt very Kerbal

Yikes! Just read the rules more carefully, and realized that the way I'm running this mission would disqualify me, as I am not returning directly from Jool, but meeting another ship before I run Eve and Moho. So I forked the savegame, and instead of continuing on, here's what Val does if she's trying to just complete the Jool 5 following the rules. Instead of going to Eeloo and on to the rest of the planets, she just does a simple return to Kerbin, landing safely behind her giant heat shield and leaving the mothership in orbit for another day. This concludes my Jool 5 entry for easy level, but the adventures will continue over in the Ultimate Challenge thread.

Im working on this with a stock ship, got my single command pod landed on the Jool-5 (posted pics over there too), Eeloo, Dres, Duna, Ike, and now waiting in a Gilly orbit for my Eve lander and Moho diver transfer stage to show up. Val is having quite a time of it, with a lego-style ship featuring a Klaw tug that has gone through 6 reconfigurations at last count. Part 1: Part 2: Part 3:

Part 3 finished. Val has left Eeloo behind, and stopped for a quick investigation of Dres. The lego ship switches around, ditching the fuel section, the reconfiguring again for a lopsided aerobrake into Duna, followed by a landing with parachutes in another configuration. Then a quick hop to Ike, and a jaunt over to Gilly to wait for the Eve lander and Moho diver to catch up. Just Eve, Moho, and back to Kerbin. if she survives, the same command pod will have made its own little Grand Tour. We'll see how it goes.