michal.don

Hi guys, I recently started a modded playthrough with a historical mission contract pack that simulates the real progression of the space race. I reached the part where I'm sending the first satelites to the Moon. I'm aware that most of the missions sent to Moon used the free return trajectory in case something went bad (which it does quite often in KSP), but I'm not sure how to plot my trajectory so that it sends me back to Earth atmosphere. I read some stuff on wiki, including the height of munar periapsis, but it doesn't work for me, the final Eart orbit is still pretty far off. What am I missing? Does any of you know how to plot a free return trajectory, either in RSS or the original stock system? Thanks, Michal.don

Well, I did some early tests yesterday.... It got me thinking, what it takes to complete this challenge. And the results are scary - The craft must be able to survive two aerobrakes with interplanetary speeds, SSTO Laythe, Make two burns of cca 2000 m/s with reasonable TWR... while having a cargo capacity for an outpost for 4 and ISRU and all the things that come with it AND a freaking aircraft And since I refuse to design a new shuttle, or make big adjustments on Kolumbia, because I grew very fond of it, it's going to be a hell of a challenge I'm probably taking a personal gas station with me to the Joolian system, because the 1800 - ish delta V that Kolumbia has in its internal tanks are just not going to be enough in any case I have a few ideas how to sort it out, and a few of them involve maneuvers and flying properly Jebediah-level-insane, so it's gonna be fun. I hope I'll be able to fly it in a few days, as soon as I pick a good Laythe landing spot, and figure a way how to stuff all the things in a cargo bay and get them out without too many explosions. Michal.don

A quick update - just for the LOLs I managed to install the 64k RSS, started the game.... And wow, everything is HUGE!!!! It's gonna take a while to get used to.... Anyway, I clear the first two V1 and V2 contract, and Sputnik comes. And no matter how hard I try, I can't reach orbit.... And I am nowhere close.... What's the deal? is my launch profile so bad? What am I missing? Wait a minute..... 40 000 kms.... radius.... That's not circumference!! I somehow managed to resize the real-sized solar system, so I made Earth and everything else 6,4 times bigger than in real life So a change of plan, I'm playing the regular RSS, and I managed to put Sputnik into orbit with a lot to spare on the first try Michal.don

Thank you all for your insight guys. I think I'll go the SMURFF+RSS+Historic packs way first, and once I'm a bit used to the bigger size of planets, I'll try to master the real fuels/chutes/everything that RO brings. And if everything goes south and I'm not able to send anything to space, I can go back to my stock-ish save and practice some more Thanks again, Michal.don

Hi guys, I would much appreciate your insight. I've been playing KSP for a while now, and since I got better by time, most of the things are by far not as challenging as they used to be. Apart from Eve, I manged to do mission to every stock body, and have bases or stations on many of them. Mun, Minmus and Duna are permanently inhabited by Kerbals in modular bases. I have designed and piloted my share of spaceplanes and SSTOs. But.... It's just not the fun as it used to be. I believe most of the fun that came from experimenting and horribly failing could come again if I started another playthrough with a more challenging system. And I would like to know what you would suggest. - Should I just play with a resized system? And if, which version did you have most fun with? 2 x the size? 6,4 x the size? - Or should i go straight for RSS or even RO? Do you think I'll manage, or I should get some experience in mid-size system? - Are the resized systems playable with stock parts, or should I get some mods that rebalance the engines and fuel tanks? And if, which do you find the best? - Am I missing some obvious, simpler option to change the game to be different and fun again? Thanks, Michal.don

I like to keep my designs simple and on the small side. This is my current Duna lander that serves as a taxi between my Duna base and an orbital outpost placed at 60 kilometre altitude (the lander is the thing on the right). With a crew capacity of four, surface TWR of cca 5,0, and several hundreds of Delta-V margin, it weighs under 20 tonnes and consists of only 30 parts. I refuel it on the surface, but if you have an orbital refueling station, it's going to work as well. I like the looks of your lander, but getting the beast of it to Duna would be quite expensive (which I guess is not a concern if you are not playing carreer mode). Michal.don

Good point, I'll update the OP Wow, I wouldn't think anything like that is even possible. I'm curious if anyone here manages to do something equally awesome. Michal.don

Probably the easiest thing to do is to autocomplete the contract in the debug menu (Alt+F12, Contracts, complete).

Hi there, I built a simple small plane and performed the rescue mission. The time was 45:04, whis is probably better than ambulance would perform where I live Here's the album: It was a nice relaxed flight, thanks for the challenge, Michal.don

After a suggestion from @eloquentJane, I altered the rules and started a modded category, in which you might use part mods of your preference. Sorry I didn't think of this earlier, the two categories now should make the requirements from my part a bit more relaxed. Michal.don

I like that idea, thanks for your insight. I'll update the OP.

Sorry, I must say no because of the engines, I'd like to keep the field level for stock players. I hope it's not an issue. Michal.don

Yes, I do not see any reason why not. The part mods limitation is mainly to prevent people from using overpowered engines. The fuelpumping is what I consider a quality of life mod, so I have no issue with that, either. Yes, I did, it is documented in the second post. I didn't include it in the OP, but it should be the first post right under that. Looking forward to your entry, Michal.don

My entry, the Noonwraight SSTO. It was able to achieve two orbits, and a suborbital hop with an Apoapsis of 58 800 m. I could improve it a bit by discarding most of the monopropellant and refining my landings, but I'm quite happy, as it is a first plane I built capable of reaching orbit twice. Michal.don

Single Stage To Orbit Multiple Times challenge The premise of this challenge is pretty simple: you have to build a vessel that is capable to get to orbit, reenter, touchdown at KSC runway, takeoff and get to orbit again as many times as possible. Rules: 1. The orbit must be stable ( Periapsis of at least 70 000 m). 2. The vessel may not decouple any parts. 3. The vessel must be crewed, be able to generate electic power and have any sort of cargo bay (you may use it to store batteries and solar pannels). 4. To be considered "stock", you may use quality-of-life mods as KER, KJR, and stock atmo. However, your vessel must use stock parts only. No hyperedit of course. 5. In the "modded" section, you may use any mods including autopilots and part packs. However, engines that consume only electric charge are not allowed. Your engines must use some kind of fuel. 6. You should post an album with pictures of takeoff, ascent, in orbit, at least one from reentry and touchdown at runway. Please keep your resource tab open in your screenshots. 7. Of course, no ISRU allowed. 8. You don't have to stop after the landing, just touching the runway is enough. Scoring: 1. The most important criteria is the number of orbits you were able to achieve 2. If there is a tie, the height of your periapsis of the last incomplete orbit decides 3. If your periapsis was under the surface of Kerbin, the height of your apoapsis decides There are two leaderboards for this challenge - stock and modded. Look at the rules to find out which category your mission belongs to. If you want to participate and have any questions, feel free to ask. Leaderboards: Stock 1. @michal.don with Noonwraight - 2 complete orbits, Ap of 58 800 m 2. 3. 4. 5. Modded 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Looking forward to your entries, Michal.don

Hi there, this is my newest SSTO plane, the "Noonwraight". With four Rapiers and two nukes, it has 3000-ish delta-V left in LKO with a TWR of 0,37. It's not designed with a sizable cargo bay, but a small one can be installed instead of the passenger cabin. It might not be the most useful spaceplane, but I absolutely love the looks of it Michal.don

As for the landing site - I didn't choose my landing spot very carefuly, I just aimed for the lowlands and chose the final landing spot during the descent. I didn't aim for the base, because I had to visit the orbital outpost anyway, and the lander is 100% reusable and refueling it takes little time. As for the radiators - the cooling was far from optimal. I tested the design in sandbox, and with a 5 star engineer on board the refueling time was reasonable. During the "real" mission in my carreer save it took much longer, I suspect it was because the engineer had only three stars, but time wasn't really an issue, I had more than one year until the next transfer window to Kerbin. So to answer your question - two static ones are "enough", but it would be much much better to pack bigger and more efficient radiators. Michal.don

Yeah, that's what my shuttle was doing all the time, too. You might try to add a few chutes, they do miracles, When I added them, I managed to land on my second try (without them, it took more like 50 or so). Anyway, I love your design Michal.don

Landed on Duna for the Space Shuttle challenge And scored loads of science on my Jool 5-ish mission I had no idea I could get so much just by landing on the Joolian moons once. Michal.don

Hi there, I managed to finish the mission. It took some time, mainly because I had to manage my Jool 5-ish mission in the meantime. The modifications to Kolumbia weren't as drastic as I feared - I just switched the big cargo bay for a fuel tank and a smaller bay for the ISRU and drill, added two chutes, and improved the RCS system a bit. As you can see in the mission report album, I used this mission to rotate the crew on my Watney base located on Duna (Okay, I didn't have to add these images, I just wanted to show my lander which I think is pretty sweet ). As always, it was really fun, and I'm looking forward for more Enjoy your holiday SM, Michal.don

Yeah, the landing on Duna is definitely tricky, the answer seems to be "moar chutes". Two drogues and two regular managed to slow me down, and a bit of thrust to level the flight before touchdown did the job. Still working on my mission, but the most difficult part should be done. Michal.don

Hi there, I thought the same for the whole time I played stock. What really changed my view on engineers was the moment I installed KIS and KAS. Since then, the game was a completely new story and engineers became the most important part of my space program because of their construction skill. I don't know whether you have any mods installed, but if you are looking for more options for engineers, KIS and KAS might be the thing you are looking for. Anyway, I agree that more activities and abilites for engineers in stock would be nice. Michal.don

Well, seems I have no choice other than landing on the red planet I returned home from family holiday today, and I finally got all my mods running, so I think I'll submit my mission in a few days. I'm not certain whether Kolumbia will do it, but I will sure as hell try to get it there and back Looking forward to the mission (and the big ore pod as well), Michal.don

Hi, the new version causes me some problems as well. When I try to select any mod (just click the tick-box), it prints this error message: Do you know what might cause this? Thanks, Michal.don