joshudson

In honor of love lost Place (or have) a space station in orbit of Kerbin in range of 100x100 to 120x130 with at least two docking ports Place a female kerbal in the space station. The method of doing so is expected to use up one of the docking ports. Send as a male kerbal to to the space station at high speed. In particular: * Have a TWR of at least 2.5 on the pad. * Get shock heating during ascent * Get a space station intercept within 2.5km while still suborbital (PE below 70km); use the velocity matching burn also as your orbital insertion burn * Dock with the space station within one orbit after launch. Hard mode: * Intercept space station with PE still below the ground * Exceed 5 TWR at some point during flight. * Dock within half an orbit * Do not rotate the space station Insane mode: Do it in RSS (adjust space station height to something reasonable) I have done easy mode entirely by accident in my career save, and hard mode on purpose. My entry (hard mode): http://imgur.com/a/nLjVU I got to intercept and matching velocities within 6 minute of launch. I managed to fail to record the time to dock, but from this point it was without time acceleration and couldn't have been more than 5 more minutes. Balanced mods welcome. If you really want to keep score, probably the best way in keeping with the spirit of the challenge is minimum time to dock. Yeah that leads to radical risky docking maneuvers but that's the Kerbal Way.

This is known as the Manley maneuver and is quite commonly done.

I refer the honorable gentlemen to a classic:

I recommend the following stupid approach: put it in about a co-munar orbit, quit, edit the save file to make the orbit exact. Due to single body physics it will stay there.

Let's get the ball rolling. I can't dock w/o reaction wheels but a better pilot should be able to pull it off. This ship has 4 balls of RCS clipped into the empty space behind the decoupler. Mods used: TAC Life Support, KER <blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/qfFdZ"><a href="//imgur.com/qfFdZ"></a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Embedding doesn't work yea. http://imgur.com/a/qfFdZ

Wow! Now I can't tell if I made a challenge too easy or if Nefrums is unexpectedly good. I didn't think anybody would be able to do it w/o any gravity assist. His 1700 >> my 700.

To complete this challenge: Launch a probe core from KSP to Kerbol escape trajectory without dropping any parts after starting to move. (Leaving launch clamps or any other part attached to them is deliberately acceptable.) To complete this challenge with a score > 0: have an RTG and an antenna on the probe core. Your score is 1000 * the total mass of all science parts including antennas (that is, any part by default in the science section). You may place fairings in the ship editor, but if you do you may not jettison them until you already have a Kerbol escape trajectory. Part clipping is allowed for structural parts, but functional parts may not be clipped into each other. Exception: the size 2 reaction wheel is hollow and may have smaller parts clipped inside it. Optional allowed mods: KER RemoteTech MechJeb MechJeb for all BetterTimewarp Any other installed mods that do not alter gameplay as far as this challenge is concerned. You may use HyperEdit to place your comm network but this mission must be flown without it. No kraken drives or other physics abuses, no cheats. My attempt failed, but got into an orbit between Dres and Jool, so I'm convinced it's possible with the right gravity assist.

I counted the decoupler as a part because the other two did. Anyway, Nefrums beat me by being a better pilot even if he discards the decoupler. (I can't pilot well enough to get his booster in orbit.)

Apparently you guys don't realize I'm sitting at 8.2 points.

I cut the top off my mun launch SSTO and found I can lift 41 tons with 4 parts (5 if you want the expended booster decoupled). The launch vehicle depends on the payload providing control and battery. Fairing counted in payload as I didn't jettison it. (The normal payload for this vehicle does not require a fairing.) http://imgur.com/gallery/ZepXx

What is that, some kind of stock propeller powered by reaction wheels?

No kidding. I have the ISRU designed; with that amount of fuel I can put it in orbit with 2k delta V remaining, which is more than enough to make Minmus. From that point, it's just a matter of how much grinding I want to do. I can make Duna and every airless body except Moho once fully loaded with 3.5k delta V.

You gotta fly better than I do to pull that off. I stink at planes.

I got most of the way through an attempt before notice the reload requirement. I ended up with a single launch space station with its initial crew and the rocket almost completely recovered. A few more tweaks and I should have it on land not splashed offshore of KSP. I'm never gonna be good enough to land at KSP so forgettaboutit.

I think I broke the game. My craft exploded at an altitude of 56635m with a velocity of 22489.3 m/s. Unfortunately the G meter failed to rise off the bottom.

This used to be possible in the pre-1.0 days using a techinque known as air-hogging. Air-hogging is gone. In theory you could do this with a munar gravity assist to change your trajectory into an orbital one, but this requires you to go > 3km/sec at below 21km altitude. This means the most likely result of trying it is a burnup. Unless of course you're willing to allow *no* engines to meat the challenge and I get out my ladder drive.

This is the error: [EXC 19:13:15.540] InvalidOperationException: Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object System.Linq.Enumerable.First[StarComponent] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 predicate, Fallback fallback) System.Linq.Enumerable.First[StarComponent] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 predicate) Kopernicus.StarLightSwitcher.Update () How do I know? Same problem. Can't figure out what the problem is either.

Well look somebody @KerbonautInTraining got Jebediah's level already. I thought that would take a lot longer. I'm obliged to point out that Jeb does NOT care how much space debris he leaves behind. @TeilnehmerGo for it. The ion engine is stock. For that matter, the fake cabin using service bay and nose cone is stock too (but you need a ladder all the way to the gournd to load it in stock).

Nicely done maccollo. Puts my 28.5kt monstrosity for level 1 to shame (it looks vaguely like KerbonautInTraining's picture). First the dropping PE at AP to get rid of the booster, then the precisely timed suicide burn, then the ANT engine. Just ANT engine. Sheesh. I'm embarrassed.

It would pretty much defeat the point to allow general tweakscale. @Dr.K KerbalI have a stock-parts craft saved with 21k delta v on the pad and no nuclear engines. @KerbonautInTraining: Can't wait to see it. I wonder which of us is heavier. I'll have to check. (I did direct ascent with 1 Kerbal but I suck at efficient design).

Challenge: Moon landing in RSS using stock parts. I originally planned to have a true scoring system; however this challenge proved so difficult on attempting it myself I'm not too sure that is reasonable. Anyway, here are a few challenge levels. I have done the first one so it's possible. Don't bother launching your rocket if it doesn't have at least 17k delta v. I think you need 18k but 17k might be possible with a hot enough launch. Level 1. Land one Kerbal on the moon and return him/her safely to Earth. Level 2. Same as 1 but leaving no space debris. (Anything left in low lunar orbit may be assumed to decay into the moon. RSS doesn't have the masscons.) Level 3. Land two or more Kerbals and return them safely to Earth. Bill's level: Land two or more Kerbals and return them safely to Earth, no space debris (see level 2 about masscons). Jebadiah's level: Land three or more Kerbals and return them safely to Earth, no docking. Allowed Mods: Real Solar System (required) Module Manager (required for RSS) Kerbal Engineer (strongly recommended) Mechjeb for all TAC life support (optional; glutton for punsihment) FAR (optional but unnecessary -- stock aero is good enough for me) Disallowed mods: Mechjeb: placing the part would make your craft non-stock; use Mechjeb for all Please, use sandbox. As far as I know, playing career in RSS like this is not feasible. No kraken drives, no ladder drives, no F12, no ways of cheating I haven't thought of. Standard evidence applies; if you're low bandwidth post your craft file. I've got a pretty good idea what crafts would be able to do it by inspection + Kerbal engineer. Level 1: Nefrums Level 2: maccollo Level 3: maccollo Bill's Level: Jebediah's Level: KerbonautInTraining, parzr Jebediah + Bill's Level (same mission): maccollo, Nefrums, Mesklin

You get out while still on the pad and ride the outside of the booster all the way to orbit. Just don't turn the booster too hard or you fall off.

Yee-hah I did it. I haven't seen anybody else get the orbital EVAs so I think I've got something new, but I suppose I could have missed somebody else earlier. [HTML]<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="AJctD"><a href="//imgur.com/AJctD">KSP Caveman</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/HTML] Unfortunately I can't seem to keep the editor from screwing up the album. Until a mod can fix it, link: [url]http://imgur.com/a/AJctD/embed[/url]

It's possible. I got a kerbol escape that needed no steering awhile back. But he has no points for this particular category so I can't be bothered.