DustInTheWind

It's been a while since I posted, but I present you with this: https://imgur.com/gallery/v61kVcV

@GameslinxHow would you like them submitted?

@Gameslinx, I crash everytime I try to load. I've removed every other mod except for the links listed in first post, and I've tried to launch without the listed visual enhancement mods to see if that helps, which it doesn't. Do you want the logs / stack trace, and how would you linke them submitted?

Here is a picture of the actual orbital vehicle after landing: Engine not inline with CoM. And another angle

What I really want to know about the X-37 is how it offsets the apparent misalignment of its main engine center of thrust with its apparent center of mass...

Great entry @Foxster, however the crew cabins weigh 500kg per kerbal which is disqualified according to rule 2 and are supposed to be in a cargo bay or behind a faring if used. I think the OP didn't give that rule adequate consideration as you can't transfer crew to parts behind a faring unless the faring is so large you can clip the camera through it.

Yet another excellent mission @Kergarin!!!

Wait, so if a hitchhiker, lander can, or any crew cabin are used, they have to be enclosed in a faring? You can't transfer crew to parts behind a faring unless the faring is so large you can clip the camera through it. Unless you use some mod that will do that.

Or, you could just do what I did and use a Mk1 Pod with a Clamp-o-tron on the bottom. I've used this basic design twice for "tour" missions. 1.05 - I ran the Eve mission first, so I had the port under a faring 1.2.1 - I did Eve after Jool 5, Eeloo, Dres, Duna, Ike, and Gilly, so I couldn't use a faring. That cost me a lot of additional drag.

My last final is December 16th, then I have a big private party to play, then the Christmas Holiday. I will attempt this around New Years. CKAN worked, thanks for the tip.

@Nefrums, Well done! And....I am totally stealing your atmospheric lander. I had no idea the atmospheric ISP penalty for Tekto would be small enough to keep such a high TWR. I was planning on an Aerospike for the flatter ISP curve, now I will have to rethink my attempt once I get OPM to work again.

This could be one of the challenges with a long forum life if the rules were refined a bit: Mods are not addressed: I think informational mods like KER, MJ, Precise Node, etc should be allowed. Non-physics and aesthetic Mods like Chatterer, EVE, Planetshine, etc should be too. Part Mods can get tricky, but Jool 5 kept a good list of mods that weren't too "cheaty." Then you get into LS mods and stuff like like Dang It! ISRU is not addressed. It should be Any limitations should address if recoverable SSTOs or Boosters account for mission cost. Also, with these long missions, there is the possibility of picking up contracts to offset mission cost. My Ultimate Challenge entry ended up netting 42,275,000 funds since I often checked for new contracts. I more than doubled funds in that save even with sending two EVE landers since the first one had a fuel line line issue once I got it out of the VAB. What about CommNet? Since 1.2 this can greatly affect the difficulty of single pilot missions, and with the distances involved with OPM, a robust DSN becomes a necessity What about command pods? Keeping Jeb in a command seat for a couple of decades makes for one stinky spacesuit. Great ChallengesTM are usually something that either a moderately experienced player can accomplish or something where failure is still fun enough to warrant another try. Perhaps the way to do this is to have levels like Jool 5, but instead of the number of Kerbals, base it on the mission cost. Heck, maybe instead of a low-mass sub-challenge, do a low-cost sub-challenge and open the challenge up to as many designs as possible. It would be really impressive to see an OPM Grand Tour, and it should be possible with ISRU.

If your mission plan is based on using elliptical orbits for the mothership or a tug to shuttle around the landers, then it should be enough since you are a master at gravity assists. Sarnus can cost a lot of dV for a circular orbit. Caveat Emptor: I haven't played OPM in a long while, so my input is based on an older version. I used to budget 3,200 m/s for Sarnus orbit in case I couldn't get a good gravity assist.

I just can't get over the budget without using ISRU, which was never defined by the OP. That might be because I have never been able to pull of an efficient SSTO flight profile. Now, if recovered funds don't count against the 250k, the mission becomes much more manageable since the cost of getting a payload into orbit is only fuel. With Slate, you can use any single-stage lawn chair lander that can almost do Tylo. With a little work, and a Clamp-o-tron Jr, that lander can be used for all non-atmospheric moons with a couple of disposable LFO tanks for refueling and a Tylo descent assist stage. Tekto isn't as much of an issue if you use a lawn chair inside a fairing, but I always considered that "cheating" since there is no visual way in or out of the faring. However, using a command pod really ups the total payload to haul. Can you even still do a lawn chair lander for Laythe? Last time I put a kerbal in a chair inside a service bay, he went *poof* at about 30km.

Solar panels are as effective as they are on Eeloo, so not very. Slate is not quite as bad as Tylo, but very close. Tekto is Laythe without Oxygen for air-breathers. Here is an older (1.1.3) dV map OPM delta V 1.1.3