Nefrums

half way there! http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/129407-dres-mapping/

To boldly go where no kerbal have gone before! ... ever And to find the answer to the ultimate question: How many craters are there on Dres! I will fly to Dres and plant a flag in each of the craters there. To be able to land in all the craters I decided that ISRU was the simplest way. Here is the ship and its trip to Dres: As no one have ever been to Dres before I will be the first one to land in each of those craters, and will thus be entitled to name them. (I am quickly running out of famous kerbals to name them after some tips would be appreciated). Map of the visited and named craters: And here comes the super fun, exiting and very varied album of the landings: (who said that Dres was boring??) Dres with lots of flags on:

So the big question in life is "how many caters are there on Dres"? I must try to find out!

Dres might need some love, but 42 craters is a lot..

Keep the ship pointing very close to prograde have a part that can handle the heat on the front of the ship. I have only found two parts that can do this: the shielded docking port and a heat shield. Both have terrible drag, but the docking port is slightly better

Spark also works well for small ~2t tylo landers.

Thanks! The "nocecone" consists of a 2.5m faring, 2 small ore tanks and a shielded docking port. I got better performance from this then I got from a C7 adapter and a shielded docking port. The shielded docking port still have terrible drag, but it is the only part that can handle the heat. It was a bit tricky to balance the ships CoM/CoL both with full fuel tanks + payload and with empty tanks without payload.

My single vector rocket "Long Stick" was meant as an entry in the Rocket Only category. Will you add it? I have been trying to beet the reusable score for a while and finally done it. With the "Stingray Mk12" Payload fraction: 56.04% It has 6 rapiers and one Nerv.

I decided to test how much you can lift with a single vector engine, here is the result: Payload fraction: 26,84 %

I'll give you some competition in the reusable rocket category. Here is my simple reusable two stage rocket: RLS mk1: Payload fraction: 20,80%

As this is a plane challenge I tried to make a plane for it. It went even faster and higher. 33,115 m 721 m/s 86 engines

Nice one! Here is my manned version: 32,928 m 664 m/s 64 engines

Cool TIE fighter! and pod racer! I'll make another entry, this time with a maned survivable one with a kerbal in a pod.

You know that you can take the quadhammer to just past the edge of kerbin soi and then just after you pass the boundary burn a few dV towards kerbin to get back in Kerbin soi. This will give another 6 xp and take your kerbals to level 3. I used to send my noob kerbals on a trip just out of kerbin soi as it is a very quick way to get to level 2 (2 xp for kerbin orbit + 6 xp for leaving kerbin soi) If you fly out of kerbin soi and plant flag on minmus it is enough with a mun flyby to get to level 3

You did not say it had to be maned right? and it does not have to be able to land? I got this 7 part ship to up to 30,323m and 522m/s You should add maned and landing requirements, It would make this more challenging and fun!

Surviving reentry in a command seat was harder in 1.0.5 than it used to be. You have to have something to shield the kerbal with. The wings was the lightest part that I could think of to do that with. And they also meant that I did not need a chute.

Here is my 3t entry.

It would be fun to try this challenge with only a single engine on the entire ship. Or has that already been done on the irsu level?

This challenge is so much fun. I just had to redo it. Some highlights: No science from Kerbin surface No science from unmanned missions Jeb landed on the mun and returned safly

It is a bit hard to design a working shuttle. Here is my first working prototype. I messed up the landing approach a bit but managed to save it by burning the remaining rocket fuel.

Wings are good for gliding on the water! Here is my ship Wing glider. The entire bottom of the ship is covered by the wings, this gives less drag when in the water, and allows for greater speeds. It was easy to land and take of from the water. It got up to 90 m/s in the water using only jet engines. Powered by two Whiplashes ans one Aerospike.

Put a shielded docking port at the front of your ship and it will survive 1600m/s

There is a small mod that lets you lock/unlock fuel in tanks with action groups. http://kspmods.net/tank-lock-mod/

And the Rhinoplane Mk2 gets: 57.16 % This time it has 15 Rapiers, 8 Panthers, 2 Nervs and the Rhino. It had even more dV left this time. I was a bit worried when the Rhino ran out of fuel when AP was at 42 km, but 6 min later the nukes had done their job and raised the AP out of the atmosphere.

beware that using ions at Jool is a bit tricky as solar panels only get ~4-5% of Kerbin efficiency,