Nefrums

So i removed most of the inline decuplers, That made it a lot better. This made it with 31 dV left. 599,94 funds/ton

Withot the rhinos gimbal the would be nothing controling the rocket.

Use the largest tanks instead, otherwise this will heavily favor the larges sizes. The price per fuel difference between the smallest and largest tank is: Size 1 +50% Size 2 +11% Size 3 0

not arguing with you there. For an upper stage isp is very important, as well as having enough dV and thrust. There are no engine competing with the poodle as the most cost efficient upper stage engine in itself. Drag is another thing to consider, 8 poodles are cheaper and have better isp than a rhino, while having the same thrust, However drag from 8 size 2 stacks are many times grater than a single size 3 stack.

Yes the size 1 fuel tanks are about 10% from the cheapest. But the Size 1 engines are very good. in terms of cost/thrust. LV-T30 "Reliant" Liquid Fuel Engine 5,1 Rockomax "Poodle" Liquid Engine 5,2 LFB KR-1x2 "Twin-Boar" Liquid Fuel Engine 5,6 LV-T45 "Swivel" Liquid Fuel Engine 6,0 LV-909 "Terrier" Liquid Fuel Engine 6,5 Mk-55 "Thud" Liquid Fuel Engine 6,8 O-10 "Puff" MonoPropellant Fuel Engine 7,5 Rockomax "Skipper" Liquid Engine 8,2 Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Engine 8,7 S3 KS-25x4 "Mammoth" Liquid Fuel Engine 9,8 48-7S "Spark" Liquid Fuel Engine 11,1 Kerbodyne KR-2L+ "Rhino" Liquid Fuel Engine 12,5 S3 KS-25 "Vector" Liquid Fuel Engine 18,0 T-1 Toroidal "Aerospike" Liquid Fuel Engine 21,4 24-77 "Twitch" Liquid Fuel Engine 25,0 CR-7 R.A.P.I.E.R. Engine[Note 2] 33,3 LV-1 "Ant" Liquid Fuel Engine 55,0 LV-1R "Spider" Liquid Fuel Engine 60,0 LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motor[Note 3] 166,7 (For a fair comparison the cost of Twin-boar was decreased by the cost of a Jumbo tank as that comes included in that engine.)

The problem with size 1 is not the fuel tanks or the engines, the difference in efficiency is negligible. The problem is the decuplers, fuel lines etc. I made a quick test with a size one rocket and managed to get 753 funds/ton. This still has some room for optimization.

twin-boar + poodles works 627 funds/ton

I'll have to give this a try!

You could exit Eeloo and go into a retrograde Kerbol orbit and intercept Kerbin at the PE, should not take more than a ~5k m/s dV exit burn from Eeloo (when Eeloo is at its AP). You would then enter Kerbin SOI with over 20k m/s relative velocity.

yes. somehow i managed to use 0,169 as g... Surface gravity 1.69 m/s2 (0.172 g)

Why do moons when you can do planets? 261p from Eeloo! I also made a small test of how much dV you can get out of the EVA Propellant. I got 634,3 m/s

g'sASL^3 x (PE + AP)/1000 Remove the remaining EVA propellant as a factor as remaining fuel can be used to increase PE/AP, sum AP and PE, and increase the weight of the G.

I disagree. The size of the capture burn depends on the relative velocity of your ship and the body you what to be captured by. In a hohmann transfer to the mun, when you intercept the mun at your AP, you ship is traveling much slower than the mun. If you where to intercept the mun at your PE when coming in from an Kerbin escape trajectory your ship would be traveling faster than the mun but relative velocity would be lower, (I think.. haven't actually done the math)

Yes after further reading it is quite obvious that this requires n-body. However I wonder if a mun transfer could be done cheaper with a kerbol gravity assist, in the 2-body world of KSP. It should be possible to exit Kerbin SOI and shortly after fall back into it. But I suspect that a simple flyby of the mun before a second encounter would be simpler and cheaper dV wise.

I read an article on "Low-energy transfer" and wondered if this is possible in KSP. And if they would require less dV than standard Hohmann transfers in KSP? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-energy_transfer A WSB transfer requires 3-Body simulation that we do not have in KSP, but I could not really figure out if the Low-energy transfers depended on that.

I have started with the singel command pod approach. Staging only used on kerbin and Eve.

ok, I missed the rule about that the payload only can be used for the last 500m/s

Is the payload allowed to contribute to the launch to orbit? So a SSTO payload would score infinitely?

Assuming that an Agonizer is an energy weapon it should not have mush recoil. (or create bullet holes. or go "BLAM! BLAM!" ) Will Evil Kenlie return home now? His orders where "Return with your missile racks empty, or not at all!" so mission accomplished? Evil Bob has kind of set that up with "But if he does return somehow..."

I first tried the y8 launch window to Eeloo, The problem with that was that the Dres and Duna transfers where really bad. In the y6 window the Kerbin->Eeloo->Jool take slightly longer but Jool->Dres->Duna is faster. As you can see the illustration @ihtoit made, I flew Kerbin->Eeloo->Jool->Dres->Duna in 3/4 of a lap around Kerbol.

Add lots of airbrakes and chutes, preferably attached to radial decuplers so they can be discarded before accent.

I use KSP Launch Window Planner by alexmoon.

Several resent test have confirmed that drag does not change when closing intakes. The optimal accent profile is slightly different depending on how much drag you have. For draggy ships I try to get to level flight at 10km before accelerating past mach 1. For low drag ships I accelerate to mach 3 at see level and then climb at 4-6 degrees to get to 1600m/s before 20km. This however require you to have the very draggy shielded docking port or heat shield at the front of your ship, or else it will overheat. So it is not really valid for small (mk1 parts) ships.

Turn out that you only need ~2,7 km/s dV from LKO for a Ike round trip. I had about 1200 to much. 14,7 t 30 parts:

I'll try this in hard mode: no ion, nerv or command seats. I managed to build ~16t ship with ~4k dv left in LKO. should be enough for the trip.