Nefrums

This is the largest plane I ever built, it was fun. I found a mod that allows me to unlock the fuel in tanks with action groups, This helped allot to get the rapiers to draw the fuel from the disposable tanks first. Panthers are really good engines, they have better twr than rapiers at < Mach 2 and slightly better isp. But they flame out around Mach 3. The 24dV that was left in the last stage means another 8-10t of payload should be possible with the same last stage. Time to squeeze in a few more radial ore tanks in the cargo bay.

I had to work hard to beet the reusable score with a non reusable plane. But I think this design have a bit more to give. Rhinoplane Mk1: 13 Rapiers, 6 Panthers and one Rhino! Payload faction: 56.20%

Sad but true, then. I'm currently experimenting to see what gets the best performance of a shielded docking port or a small heat shield with a nosecone in front of it. The heat shield have worse drag then the shielded docking port. The nosecone in front of it have significantly better drag, but will blow up and expose the heat shield around ~1300m/s.

The only parts that can survive being at the front off a ship that I have found are the heat shield and the shielded docking port. Both of them have terrible drag, so much so that the difference of putting them in front of a size 1 stack and a size 3 stack (with adapters) are negligible. This means that the drag of a large size 3 ship is not that much higher than a size 1 ship. Have I missed something or are size 1 ships no longer viable for this challenge? And why is it so hard to decouple wings without them smashing into the ship and wrecking everything...

This sounds fun, I'll give it a try. Never been down to the low biome before.

Well done! Your eve accent was more efficient than mine. You had a smaller lander and put more mass into orbit than i did.

Or you could do it like this: 1. Timewarp until launchpad and Eve and landing site are aligned. (happens once a day. eg: 2:35 d1 y1) 2. Use Ship Lander This was a fun challenge! Album updated:

[quote name='Right']Nice one Nefrums, I'm using a rapier for Kerbin ascent too.[/QUOTE] Yeah it is the obvious choice. I'm using a two stage kerbin plane, without OX for the rapier and a terrier as the second stage. It is actually the only part of my mission that is tested beforehand. I'm assuming that the second stage of the Kerbin plane will be able to land on Mun and Minmus as well. I brought lots of xenon and the ship has way more dV than needed as aerobraking used to be hard in 1.0.4, it might be better now thou. The Vector engine is very good on Eve, about the same isp and twr as the mammoth. One tip when hyper editing the ship to the landing site, Time warp to 2:35 (y1 d1) before leaving the launchpad, then the ship will land the right way up.

Level one accomplished. :) and the mission have just started. [imgur]VwoJ2[/imgur] To be continued...

[quote name='Red Iron Crown']No, it isn't.[/QUOTE] awww... no easy mode then I guess.

[quote name='Mikki'] [COLOR=#ffa500][I]This craft depends on Kerbal Joint Reinforcement Mod![/I][/COLOR] [/QUOTE] Is Kerbal Joint Reinforcement allowed? I would like that, but I assumed that it was not allowed as it changes physics.

Damit, this is so hard now.. I'm having trouble keeping my ships from blowing up, i'm not even getting close to the speeds Val gets.

I tried to make a new entry in 1.0.5 and I can tell you that Mk1 cockpit is out. It now overheats at ~1.3km/s at 20km... ;.;

I think Bill have seen Kerbulus, and it might not be such a gray uninteresting place as everyone thinks it is.

What have the Kermulans done to Moho? Edit: I mean Noho, or Muho?

I suggest removing category 3, and only have 3 categories. I'll soon post entries for 1.0.5 (as soon as I manage to stop playing some post apocalyptic game)

A Tylo flyby will get you captured in the jool system for 0dV. I usually do a tylo fly by followed by a aerobrake at Laythe, This lets me get into a Laythe orbit for 0dV. Here is an example of how your path could look like: http://imgur.com/RNjrwJZ The most important thing is to approach the moon from behind. ideally your ship should be traversing in the same direction as the moon when you intercept it. When transfering between moons where aerocapture is not possible you should try to get your PE as close to the moon as possible. This will make the capture burn cheaper due to the oberth effect A general tip is to not drag your entire mother ship down to low orbits of the big moons leave the big ship in high eliptic orbit and let your lander go to low orbit by itself, or use a tug. On Tylo it cost ~800 dv to get from high to low orbit, and as mush again to get back. You should take a look at the mission reports linked in the first post of this thread. Most of them are full of examples of how to do this. And get Precise Node. It makes all maneuvers so much easier.

Thanks! It was fun trying to perfect those orbits and get cheep transfers between the moons.

If the ship turns very slowly you have to few reaction wheels. Add more of the stronger ones. If the ship is wobbly it might help to spread the reaction wheals between the wobbly parts, or just add more struts. I also recommend saving before executing a maneuver node an reload if it fails. Precise Node is the best mod ever! must have!

And it does not explain the "Kermulan" name

Some quotes from the interlude taken completely out of their context: "Probes can do almost anything a kerb can, and they always do what you tell them." "what if .. they did exactly the opposite" "things I don't think a kerbal would ever do. Could ever do" And why do that evil SSTO have what looks like a grabbing claw at the front?

I'll try to do 60%

I tried using mechjeb. Smart A.S.S. made things a lot easier! I could get the same payload to orbit for significantly less fuel. 56.30%

Thanks, the jr docking port in the tylo lander did the same job as a decoupler + fuel duct, that saved me 45 kg When decouplong the first stage tanks the stupid game gives focus to the detached tanks, not the lander. I solved this by having an action group for decoupling on "0" with is close to the key to change active craft ("Ã…" key on my keyboard) To be honest i think the screenshot of the tanks being decoupled is from a failed landing atempt.. But it was the best screenshot i got of the tanks decoupling, it all happens so fast that it is hard to get a good screenshot after switching focus to the lander.

That depends on if you plan to take your mothership down to low orbits of all planets or not. If your landers can get from high orbit to surface and back you will save a lot of dV for your mothership. Getting from high to low orbit for the moons cost about Tylo: 1600dV Laythe 1200dV (half that if aerobrake is used to lower the orbit), Vall 450 dV. Also if you have a reusable single stage lander for Vall with about 2500dV that lander is able to get from high orbit of any of the big moons to land on Bob and Pol and back. Saving lots of dV for your mothership. Also how mush dV your mother ship can actually spend is a bit difficult to calculate as the mass of the mother ship decreases as the landers is discarded. I strongly recommend that you bring some sort of tug that can get your tylo lander down to low tylo orbit and your kerbals back to the mother ship after the tylo landing. With that 6500 dV should be plenty