AlphaMensae

In between revising my Eve lander, I've been working on a 2-stage rover-carrying lander for Tylo and Laythe. The intended rover is my workhorse "small" GL-1000 mode, which has various sub-variants which mainly diffetr in the docking port options (1 and/or 2, top and/or bottom mount, large and/or small ). I've succesfully tested the lander only on Tylo, then added the rover and did a test on Laythe, using HyperEdit. It went very well, including a drive down 1500m to the sea. The rover, with its 200% size wheels, handled the steep dunes with ease, though I did flip it once, only resulted in two broken tires, easily fixed. I'm still using v1.04, I don't know if it's different in 1.05, but I did not need a heat shield for the atmo entry, even though I came in very steep before retro-burning to ensure I came down on suitably level ground...not too mention ground, period.

Well, after many revisions and scrapped redesigns, I got my lander down to 244t (minus the heat shield and deorbit engine for testing purposes). One of the intermediate designs that worked was a revised version of my previous slimmed-down lander as noted above. That came to 310t or so, but I thought I could do better. So this was the result: The first version of this lander worked great, had enough fuel to leave 1400+ m/s dV in the crew stage after the circularization burn, but that seemed a bit much, plus it was a bit too wide with too many parts, so I did some rearranging, deleting and adding to come up with the version in the picture. The legs are on decouplers, and if released just after liftoff, make a surprisingly large fireworks show when they hit the ground. The radial launch boosters use the Moa engine from Space Y, with the base toggled off so they'll "fit" in a 1.25m tank, in this case the T1200 tank from Fuel Tanks Plus, plus a T800 and a 1.25m nose tank from FTP. Main (lower) stage uses a Mainsail, the tanks being the 3/4 Jumbo and and adapter tank from FTP. The middle stage uses Rhinos Tweakscaled to 1.25m, both in the core and radials. It's my alternate to the Aerospike, which are rather heavy and have no gimballing. The upper crew stage is simply a T400 and Terrier. I added a nose cone and separator on top of the docking port for the launch, it's ditched when the Terrier is lit.

Yup, the wide part goes up on those wheels.

This. I've designed a whole series of larger-type rovers that go beyond the usual small command seat-type, and the old Mk1 is perfect for them. It's a big reason I've stuck with 1.04 as I have no real use for the new Mk 1.

<slaps head> Stupid me, elevons=elevator+ailerons...that would explain the difficulty in trying to pull out of a five when the plane ended up going ground-ward.

Thanks, Snark, that was what I'm looking for. Yeah, that engine is a beast, it must be throwing me off. Didn't know the nuke has its own intake, thought that little turbine in front was just for looks, guess I misread the info. While in-flight I noticed it was getting .1 less than required Intake ATM, so that's why I added the structural intakes. Yup, I did disable pitch and roll on the tailfin (I remember THAT from Scott Manley ). I also only enabled pitch on the canard and roll on the elevevons, is that going too far. I started with the regular delta wings, then switched to the Big-S Delta, thinking this plane needs much more lift. Also switched from two to one tailfins, should I go back to two?. While I don't plan on doing extended flights with this plane on Eve (just far enough to get to as many biomes as possible from the 60-100 degree longitude region), I'll put radiators and RTGs on it to be safe. Don't want it unintentionally turning into a nuclear lightbulb.

Ok, I have this idea for taking a nuclear turbojet (from Porkjet's Atomic Age mod)-powered plane to Eve, but I'm out of practice at making planes since I built a simple little science jet in the early days of Science Mode (v1.04), as I've only built rockets since then. This is my current version: It takes off and climbs just fine, even does slow turns ok, but get a little agressive with the maneuvering and it goes out of control...or I'm just terrible at flying planes. I've locked the gimbal on later test flights, and that seems to help, but only so much.

Made more revisions: Reduced the radial boosters to four, replaced the Mainsail stage with another Ratite, replaced the Mk16 XL chutes and Rockomax 16 tanks with the FTP nose tanks, put 3 radial chutes on the boosters, added another set of legs and reduced the size to 300%. Almost made it to orbit...more tinkering.

Thanks, Rune, some good ideas there. I had already started thinking about putting the landing legs on the bottom-mount lander can (acts as an EVA elevator instead of putting a bunch of ladders on), which will be the first thing ejected after launch. I might just have to switch to 1.05 so I can use the bottom-node aerospike, that would simplify matters. Or go back to the 4 1.25m Poodles for the upper stage I'm definitely not going for a minimal or low-mass design, as the ship that will take this to Eve will be using Porkjet's Nuclear Lightbulb, so it can be a bit heavy. Plus I like the challenge of launching an all-up multi-functional crew ship from Eve. I also want it keep the capability of bringing my planned rover down with it: That's just the base version for low-grav moons, I made various slightly alternate models, only differing in number, type and placement of docking ports. The Eve version though uses aerospikes instead of Sparks and has 4 radial chutes.

There's actually four books total in the (original) TTA series. I didn't know about the last two until much later, when that new thing called the World Wide Web came about. The other two are Spacewreck: Ghost Ships and Derelicts of Space (probably the best one, even surpassing Spacecraft 2000-2100...could be KSP history book ) and Starliners: Commercial Travel in 2200 AD. This is a nice (simple) website about the books. GSB is considered to be the weakest of the books, as it was a publisher-mandated rush job, and it suffered for it. Still, the main story is great, and the Peter Elson artwork is just fantastic...my avatar image was an Elson used in the book for a specific ship that was key to the main story.

As it was for me, though the second book, Great Space Battles, with the introduction of Peter Elson's artwork, was an even bigger influence.

Yup, this proved to not be the "final" version, as I quickly started thinking of a redesign, with the goal being to reduce the size and weight. Here's the newest slimmed-down version: It uses four stages, three in the central stack and the fourth being the 6 radial Ratites. Top stage uses 2 Terriers, middle stage uses 2 aerospikes, bottom one still uses a Mainsail. My first test entered Eve's atmosphere just fine, but I ended up landing on way too steep of a slope, and it started sliding and breaking stuff, so no launch from the surface first time out. There's a docking port in front because the ascent vehicle will have enough DV to meet up with whatever ship brings this to Eve. I'm also considering bringing a largish rover down with the lander, it will separate before touchdown and the scientist Kerbal will be able to visit (hopefully) several biomes while driving to his/her ride off the purple rock. That's why there's no science package on the lander (not yet at least ).

Is the 8K of DV a rounded number? You're actually going to need more than that, as that's the theoretical value; in pracrtice, you're going to lose DV due to gravity and drag, which on Eve can amount to quite a lot, especially launching from ta or near sea level. Plus factor in whatever you need to do once in orbit, i.e. plane changes, rendezvous, etc.. I have an Eve vacuum DV of 9813 ms/s on my Eve lander/ascent vehicle, ended up with 1150 m/s left once raching a 115 km orbit, which will be used (once it's launched for real) to rendezvous and dock with the mothership. The middle stage on my Eve ascent vehicle also flipped out, but it was immediately upon staging. Adding fins (in this case 8 of them to 8 radial FL-T400s) solved the problem (also made a total engine makeover, that might or might not have helped too). My upper stage has no fins, as it also is meant to be a vacuum stage

(Note, this is still in v 1.04) Proving that what goes to Eve does not have to stay on Eve, I set about to make a not-entirely-stock Eve lander for my developing fleet of interplanetary ships. It may not be the best design, but I did successfully make and test a (rocket) vehicle that can leave the Purple Ball O' Doom, without being too big or tall. This is a "final" revision of my third design, meant to take a Mk 1 lander can down and back up. To make EVA easier without putting a zillion ladders on, I put a Mk 2 lander can at the very bottom to act as an EVA "elevator", i.e.transfer the Kerbal down and up. Could have used another Mk 1, but I wanted a bigger attachment node for the 5m stack separator. It also meant that the main stage is purely radial engines, with no central one; the central and outer tanks feed the inner engines. The pics combine two separate tests (used HyperEdit), the entry phase from the previous revision and the landing/launch from the final version. The only things different between the two ships was that the four Kiwi retro-burn engines (from Space Y) were replaced with a single Mainsail below the heat shield, a Mainsail replaced the 8 Swivels in the middle stage, plus 8 active winglets were added, and more fuel was added to the main stage. I had thought the Kiwis could perform as descent engines to slow down the final few meters, but they did nothing and still ended up using 4 of the main engines, so I ditched them. I made the changes to the middle stage after it kept flipping out after staging. I wanted to keep both the middle and upper stage short, so either the Mainsail and/or winglets proved to be the solution. The main engines are 8 Ratites from Space Y, a 2.5m engine with more thrust than a Rhino, especially at low altitudes (Rhinos proved to be useless on Eve). Less efficient too, but that's not I needed for the first stage of an Eve ascent vehicle. Most of the main stage tanks are from Fuel Tanks Plus, the 3/4 and 1.5x versions of the standard orange tank. Added some stock Rockomax tanks as needed. Main chutes are 2.5m Mk16 XLs plus 8 radial drogue ones. The big radial decouplers with built-in sepratons are also from Space Y (those things are so cool and useful!). And the heat shield is a Tweakscaled 5m one from Space Y (not sure if it mattered) up to 20m size--no problems with heat there! Middle stage as noted is a Mainsail on a Rockomax -32 tank with 8 radial FL-T400 tanks. Upper stage is a FL-T400 with 4 -200s and 4 1.25m Poodles (used Tweakscale), they have a mass of .377 and 45 kN of thrust. Thought about using aerospikes but wanted something with thrust vectoring and lower mass. The upper stage has an RCS fuel tank from FTP and 4 quad thrusters. And of course I put MechJeb on it, though I only used it to hold pro/retrograde, not to land or launch. The landing struts are LT-2s upsized 300% mounted on 200% pocket I-beams. Several 2.5m reaction wheels are in the ship, with main power from 4 200% size RTGs Not sure what was going on with the landing struts on the landing (broken? glitch?) but the ship was stable and took off fine. Went into a polar orbit since that was how it came in--wanted to land on, well, land and not in the sea. Started at relatively low altitude too, 654m ASL (heh, the previous test landed in the Highlands ). Ended up with over 1150 m/s DV left after the circularization burn. The first version of the lander included a top-docked rover, my latest "mega mini" type, the plan being to transfer the scientist Kerbal from the ship to the rover after then pop off the rover before landing and have it drive back to the ship, visiting several biomes on the way That proved to be successful, so I stopped bothering to include it on later versions. I might even change the plan to land the rover separately, or even several rovers...but that would require a 2 or 3-Kerbal version of the ship...guess what will be next?

NecroBones, I didn't mean the SRBs were overpowered, it's the ship itself with those SRBs (and they are the smallest ones) on it. I always forget about turning down the thrust in SRBs...eh, it's more fun to launch this thing full-blast.

Congratulations! Hey, no prroblem, glad to help, and I called it a "standard design" because I thought that was what most people make first, but maybe it is more of a personal style. Sure, you could just stick 3 or 4 landing legs on a single FL-T400 (or -200 or even a -100) tank with a Terrier or Spark engine and you have a lander, or go more minimalist with something like Snark's, but I like my landers wide and low and with plenty of fuel, which is why I use 4 radial tanks around a central one. Sure, it's heavier, but more delta-V is better than less. Now, when you get better, you can make something like this:

Success in leaving the Purple Ball O' Doom! The pics start with the lander on the ground, the entry was just like the previous test so I didn't bother (one change was using a single Mainsail below the heat shield as a test retro-burn engine). Not sure what was going on with the landing struts (300% LT-2s) but the ship was stable and took off fine. Went into a polar orbit since that was how it came in--wanted to land on, well, land and not in the sea. Started at relatively low altitude too, 654m ASL. Ended up with over 1150 m/s DV left after the circularization burn. Replacing the 8 Swivels with a Mainsail in the middle stage, plus putting 8 active winglets on the radial tanks did the trick--no flipping out after staging. I also added more fuel to the main stage, as I was using the outer Ratittes to slow my landing speed, so needed to have enough fuel for that as well as to reach a high enough altitude on the ascent before lighting the middle stage. The non-stock tanks are from Fuel Tanks Plus, thee 3/4 and 1.5x versions of the stock orange tank. Main engines are the Ratites from Space Y (so much thrust from a single 2.5m engine, perfect for Eve), as are the big radial decoupler+sepratons. The upper stage uses 4 1.25m Poodles (Tweakscaled), lower mass and more DV than LV-909s. Oh, at the very bottom is a 2-man lander can, it acts as an "elevator" for EVA access. No way was I going to put a zillion ladders on this thing.

I'm testing out an Eve lander. Got my third version to land on the surface in one piece. On the ascent, it starts out well, but the uupper stages flip out upon staging--they worked fine on Kerbin. I'm trying to keep the length short, so those stages are short and stout, so that could be the problem. Next revision will have a Mainsail for the middle stage and winglets instead of 8 Swivels, will see how that works. The upper stage uses 4 1.25m Poodles (Tweakscaled). Main stages use Space Y Ratites.

Did you get that to work? I tried to make one like that too, but the thrust torque just increases until it flips out of control. I then realized that the tank is draining from the front to the back, because it's in a horizontal orientation and the game doesn't take that into account. I solved the problem by using two tanks, with one flipped 180 degrees, and a pair of engines on each tank. Balanced out the engines and it worked fine, I made a large rover-lander version that got into Kerbin orbit and back.

I just love the Rhino! I have used it for its intended purpose as an upper stage for big payloads, but now I downsize it with Tweakscale (the 1.25m version has a mass of .577 and 128.3 kN thrust )and use it on all my large rover-landers and supersized non-LV-N landers. Like this: Then I unintentionally made a SSTO lander rocket using one standard Rhino and a Kerbodyne 14400 tank, which I use as a crewsupply shuttle to service orbiting ships: A larger 7-Kerbal version with more supply capacity needed some SRBs, of course I used Space Y SRBs (it's so ridiculously overpowered). I feel the same way, I'm not interested in building a Scott Manley-esque floppy monstrosity, I'm building my IP ships around a single huge LF tank and launching it fully-assembled and fueled into orbit.

Very good, and here's a jumbo version with over 5300 m/s DV plus a lifter (using only 2.5m parts) to get it into orbit. The lifter is all Mainsails including the upper stage. Yeah, it could have been asparagus-staged, but I usually don't bother with that. And it ought to have used the 3.75m parts, but JackBush doesn't have those yet.

You're welcome! I'm still in my 1.04 Science Mode save, and actually did go to Minmus first for a big science-mining mission that unlocked the rest of the (stock) tech tree (did some earlier one-off landings there and on the Mun too as well as some probes to Eve and Duna, plus I science-mined the KSC). I think I used an Apollo-style mothership-lander combo, refueled in orbit and then went back down for more science. I think I had all the instruments by then, and went to every biome on Minmus (each of the flat areas is its own biome), and came back with something like 4000+ (or was it 6000?) Science. Since you do have the Mainsail, you can use a better lifter: This uses a Mainsail as the core engine, a Skipper and Rockomax-32 tank as the kick stage (enough to send it to the Mun or Minmus), plus two Skippers in the radial boosters. Add two more of those boosters and you'll have over 9700 m/s total DV. I didn't have KER when I was doing my Minmus/Mun missions, so I had no idea what my rockets were actually capable of--could have gone to Duna.

I've been a long, long fan of Stewart Cowley's Terran Trade Authority books, and that thing immediately reminded me of many of the images used in those books, especially the work of Peter Elson, and this image in particular: It's because it's so...round and non-standard.

Yeah, I guess it's a bit more than a "basic" model, it's the higher trim level with more options. The other two instruments are the negative gravioli detector and the seismic accelerometer. All the really huge craters on the Mun are a separate biome and they're surrounded by Highlands and/or Midlands biomes. So all you have to do is land in one of those big craters then jump outside it, then maybe to another big crater, and you'll have visited three biomes just like that. Heh, I quickly built something similiar for a lifter. https://imgur.com/a/KLkl6 (For some reason inserting the Imgur album here was resulting in low-res versions of the pictures, so here's the direct link to the album with launch pictures) Also uses a Skipper, Poodle and 4 Thumper SRBs. Probably could of put a larger tank with the Poodle to send the lander all the way to the Mun, now it just gets into Kerbin orbit with about 160 DV left.

Yup, you only need the one scientist so you really only need the 1-man pod or lander can. You'll have to do an EVA to collect the data from the Science Jr. and other instruments. Here's a basic "standard model" 1-man ship/lander combo (the pod and science package separates for re-entry) using the Mk 1 pod: As you can see from the Kerbal Engineer Redux readout (a must-have mod if you get nothing else), it has over 4200 m/s of delta-V. That's enough to get to the Mun and orbit, land, do a short hop or two to another biome, get back into oribit and return to Kerbin. Build a rocket to get it into orbit; if you have the 2.5m parts in the tech tree then it will be easy, just use the orange tank as a core and add appropiate engines and radial boosters/SRBs. You should be able to send the ship to the Mun and even into Munar orbit without using any of its own fuel, thus extending your surface time.