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Testing a new manned craft for Eeloo : 24500 m/s delta-V LFO+Ion, this is the Ion stage (12000 m/s) with the small lander (1500 m/s) docked on top.

After recheck my ejection burn from lko was 1290 m/s not 1190 m/s, it was the lowest speed for a fast transfer (114 days). The real lowest speed is 1050 m/s approx for a slow transfer (181 days). This explain the excessive speed (5200 m/s) i had at first time above Eve atmosphere. I also rechecked vac delta-V of the Eve lander and it's 8200m/s, so i adjust the delta-V requirement for 1200m, 600m and sea level in my previous post. (not a big difference)

Well done ! Jool-5 and Duna Gilly Eeloo etc with the same reuse-able one stage rocket, that's a lot ! (and a lot of pic too) Yes Eve requires a very specific lander. Your report/ship gives me idea to finalize the design of my Mk5 driller, it will be an insane 17 kerbals huge driller main ship with 6000 m/s delta-V (one KR2 engine) low-med twr able to land on all moons (except Laythe and Tylo that will be done in my jool-5 with another lander) and Duna, Moho, Dres and Eeloo. In the end i shall have sent all my team (14 kerbals) on all possible celestial bodies, using only 3-4 different ships. Now i just need to check the windows, and work on the best ways and slingshots.

Thanks ! A good aero and good twr 8000 m/s delta-V rocket is required to orbit Eve after landing near sea level. I chose isru because i wanted to stay stock and lower cost, but it's doable without isru with SpaceY Heavy Lifters (for example) to help to send a little monster on Eve surface. Landing without heatshields and with a fully fuelled ship looked like impossible, but now i see something possible (heatshields+slowing before 60km and 30km), anyway i'll probably stay with this proven design. There are a few successful Eve landings and back on youtube, and recently i've seen a single stage winged rocket able to orbit Eve from 7000m. (astrobond) Oh and next time Jeb will send an 8 wheels Rover and a new all-in-one huge Driller/Lander/Refuel Main Ship (100 parts only, insane fuel capacity) that will be tested on Gilly...

It looks extremely hard, maybe i have something with lots of heat shields and engines for this but i need a separate install.

You can go to any moon or planet and back to Kerbin with chemical rockets (liquid fuel oxide), you just need to design it for specific mission: a rocket for Eve won't be the same than a rocket for let's say Dres. It's possible to use one reuse-able chemical rocket design for All moons and Moho, Duna, Dres, Eeloo (maybe except Laythe and Tylo), different players have done it. I have a design for this, it's big (17 kerbals + science + isru, 6000 m/s delta-V, one Kerbodyne engine KR2) but the bigger the better ! Nuclear rockets don't exist in real world, except old prototypes, they overheat a lot more than in the game, produce large amount of nuclear waste and use to blow in the face of their creator. Ion or other new non nuke prop are interesting.

Good looking Ship and nice mission you did, and well presented. Yep Gigantors don't like aerobraking, i'll use 2x6 retractable 1x6 solar panels to generate power, tests showed it was enough to sustain 3-4 reaction wheels and other basic stuff, while operating in the joolian system. For my Jool mission, i plan a classic Laythe aerobrake too, i hope the ship won't overheat to much. And i'd like to have so many contracts for the Jool area. Maybe my next com satellite will unlock more. You made a lot of money with that.

Here is a report of my second interplanetary trip, Jeb was in deep space returning from Duna, i decided mission to Eve had to be : - 7 kerbals (2 pilots, 2 engineers, 3 scientists) half my 14 kerbal team, they need experience - Valentina leads the first mission, Jeb leads the next one - Plant flags on Eve and Gilly surface - Send two permanent Survey and Com relay Satellites, a Refuel Station and a Driller Ship - Get science and back to Kerbin All parts are stock except Airbrakes and Sepratron that are tweakscaled 200% to help reduce part count. The mission was slightly oversized and there is probably room for improvement, but it already needed a lot of tests and calc. The big part is the Eve Lander, it weighs 2050 tons at Kerbin-liftoff and 750 tons at Eve-liftoff (8200 m/s delta-V), it uses jettisonable ISRU and 2 drillers to refuel at the surface. All pics here : (3+3 episodes) Val mission : Jeb mission : 6 contract mission have been completed for now. In the end it's a little costly, but finance are balanced by the contracts and i don't launch mission to Eve for 7 kerbals everyday in KSP and i had 12M money at that time. (now 19M) Installed Mods : Kerbal Engineer Redux MechJeb2 Kerbal Alarm Clock Stage Recovery Antenna Range StockBugFixModules SolarActionGroup PlanetShine EngineLight TweakScale Hyperedit (for test only, i call it the hypersimulator) Kerbal Joint Reinforcement (near the end of ep3)

I did a few Eve reorbit (120km) recently from 600m or 1200m and i needed respectively 7250 m/s or 7000 m/s delta-V (vac), it's probably 7500 m/s from sea level. (8000 m/s safe value) It depends on twr (mine was 1.1 at liftoff, max 3), ascend profile and aerodrag which were not perfect, on Kerbin this ship can ascend at 45% (MJeb) but on Eve it won't work under 85% (boosters blast the rest of the rocket even with 200% tweakscaled sepratron and 0° AoA, and it ends with more heating problems if the ship flies longer in the thick atmo). To get to 100km Eve stable orbit after a trip from kerbin (1290 m/s ejection from LKO was the lowest speed at that time for this window, 114 days), i needed 2000 m/s delta-V (1300 burn + 700 aerobraking) approximatively, my speed was 5200 m/s at first time at this altitude. mission report here

@ Red Iron Crown : do u have Kerbal Joint Reinforcement ? It really helps with big planes and huge rockets, good against Kraken. My Mk3 plane don't have any strut and didn't show any structural failure during all the flight/testing i've done, including dangerous maneuvers more or less intended at mach 2+. On your pic, your plane has flipped, is its CoM in front of its CoL ? i suppose it is, it looks well designed.

I've voted 75-100 tons : The HypersonicCarrier2 SSTO can deliver 85 tons to low kerbin orbit with a little fuel remaining, i've posted it in the 'Stock Payload Fraction Challenge' here, score 35.5% (Val Nich Slugy Rubisco scored better)

I'm preparing a Jool-5 trip/challenge 2nd Level and Jeb Level : (100% stock) One big main ship with lots of fuel capacity and room for 2 Kerbonauts (2 pilots) + One lander (39t, 4450 m/s delta-V, twr 2 (kerbin) can orbit kerbin) designed for all moons for 2 Kerbonauts (1 scientist and 1 engineer) with all scientific instruments One launch with a little refuel (115t) in LKO I'm not sure of the final design but for now it's looking like this on the launch pad : Without the launcher delta-V is around 9.7k m/s, the tanks docked between the lander and the main ship will be additionnal tanks for Tylo. It'll be my heaviest launch, part count is decent with 354 part. With KJR and a few struts, it's very rigid.

I've added the score (566) to my post. Not sure about the calc

1728 m/s ! Funny plane, it really wants to blow itself by going too fast but it's easy to control.

Here is a new entry, i had to try this challenge. The HypersonicCarrier2 did 35.5% : (Single stage) 239t on runway 85t payload in orbit (5 large ore tanks) Size Length 33.3m, Width 23.2m, Height 9.3m, 86 parts (100% stock) without payload 10 rapier (i didn't like it with 8 rapier) Big delta wing classic design Enough fuel remaining for little orbital and air maneuvers Classic flying path (supersonic asl, climb 17°, better reach 1200m/s just before 20km, increase to 1550m/s at 20km, climb 15° switch rapier at 25km, orbit) Note : there are really good designs in the top of the leaderboard.

Challenge accepted and completed : RULES: The payload must be either deployed radially or dropped out of a cargo bay Yes radially The payload must be controllable Yes (okto probe) No cheaty mods (MechJeb is OK for readouts and flying the plane home, no HyperEdit!) Yes (MJ, KER, KJR, SR) No using SSTOs Ok No debug menu Ok Pics or it didn't happen* imgur album Airbreathing engines only for carrier plane Yes (2x3 airbreathing Rapier) POINTS: The basic point formula is as follows: (-)h + 2t = p, where h = height above atmosphere (.07 Mm) in megameters (averaged of both periapsis and apoapsis, rounded to nearest the nearest tenth), and t = mass of final payload in orbit. Height is negative around non Kerbin planets Final payload : 8.2 tons in LKO with 5077m/s delta-V remaining Plane Fly back (requires flight manager or similar): +20 points Yes (stage recovery did it) Payload has Kerbal aboard: +30 points per Kerbal No (plane has room for 6 kerbals, but not payload*corrected*) Payload has science instrument: +10 points Yes (thermometer, barometer, gravioli detector, surveyscanner and narrowbandscanner) Payload has power generator: +10 points Yes (8 solar panels 1x6) Payload has antennae: +10 points Yes (big dish, it's also a com relay sattelite) Payload is put in orbit around one of Kerbin's moons: +50 points for Mun, +100 points for Minmus Payload orbits a planet: +500 points Eve (5077 m/s delta-V remaining after LKO reached) polar orbit 150 km Score : 566 = (-h+2t ??? 0.06+2*8.2=16.46)+20+10+10+10+500 *Minimum Screenshots Yes imgur album Plane at launch showing airbreathing engines on the carrier plane. Plane dropping payload Payload burning for orbit Payload in orbit and fully deployed Picture of map mode with periapsis/apoapsis height visible Payload burning for destination Payload orbiting destination I was surprised the first time it worked as it's a lot harder compared to rockets, plane trajectory is very important (need speed over 1500m/s + good vertical speed + plane nose going down slowly), plane engines drain all tanks so i needed to lock fuel everywhere on payload, then unlock fuel just after cutting engines + dropping payload + switching ship + fullthrottle on payload engine and MJ with new params (...) Another annoying aspect is adding the payload to the plane, it's another ship. But that was fun ! note : the airspeed challenge helped me indirectly.

It's 1707 m/s as shown in the F3 screenshot, but it doesn't make a big difference, and GraviTykillz has better speed with his blue arrow. My second record started above 30000m, so yes it's outside the rules. It was fun trying this challenge, i fly rockets more often than planes.

8 GB and Win7-64Pro, it works fine. I try to add only low memory low bug Mods so the game (32bits) can run a few hours before crashing/needing a restart.

I've never lost kerbals in this career, but overheating during Reentry (Kerbin, Eve) and Extraterrestrial landing (tests with Tylo recently, Jeb and Bob were like crashtestdummies) are the most dangerous.

717 m/s at end of runway (mach 2.04), Kerbal survived and is happy Stock and KER+KJR

Here is my entry : two planes First : 1707m/s horizontal at 21km Second : 1750 m/s horizontal at 29km (diving engines off) Both planes tend to go up slowly with SAS neutral, they go down slowly with SAS prograde, it's easy to adjust at high speed