Thalamask

Here's a quote from the challenge guru @sdj64 himself that may help you out. It's in relation to a ship at Dres, but basically applies to a grand tour as well.

Episode 9 - Munar Orbit In this busy episode, we launch several of satellites and make a start on our Munar relay network. We also unlock some science, rescue four Kerbals and make our first orbit around Mun.

I've completed many of the Elcano challenges, HY. I personally recommend Ike and Eeloo as best driving locations, but recognise that personal choice comes into it a lot. If you look through my mission logs (linky in sig) you'll be able to get some idea of how scenic each planet/moon is, as well as my impression of how pleasant each one was to drive on. Claw is another one who's completed a bunch of Elcano's, so you can check his mission reports too.

I did, but I couldn't make one that would work on Vall and Tylo as well, so instead of having two landers, I just made sure that the one I brought could do everything.

Looking good, Maverick. A few things to consider - 1) How are you going to refuel. Are you going to use refuelling tankers, ISRU, what? If you're using tankers, it might be a good idea to run with KAS/KIS to make refuelling easier. If you're running ISRU, you might want to rebuilt in 2.5m parts, as apparently the small ISRU parts are kinda rubbish. 2) Land bridges - You might want to stick a third pair of wheels in the middle of your pontoons. It'll be no fun if you go over a sharp incline and break your pontoons in half.

Thanks for the quick review, @sdj64. The reason I had to do Laythe first was because of how I built my rocket. I originally planned to split the Tylo segment off once I entered Jool's SOI, send that on to Tylo alone and proceed on to Laythe with my mothership to save on dV. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a probe core on the Tylo stage, so I had no control over it, thus had to use the mothership to drop it off first. Since my Laythe lander was glued on top of my general purpose lander, I couldn't use that as the ascent stage on my Tylo lander, so I had to wait until I'd used up the Laythe stage first.

Episode 8 - More Kerbals In this episode, we rescue more Kerbals than you can shake a stick at. Between the four rescue missions, we also launched a new communication satellite, performed some space tourism, upgraded a number of buildings and performed some new research. We also had two failures... a satellite launch failed to make it off the pad, and our first attempt at a Munar orbit was aborted while still in Kerbin orbit. Enjoy!

I think I've finally completed the Jool 5 Challenge here. All in all, I took 118 screenies to support my application. I sure hope it gets reviewed quickly so I can claim my first forum badge! - Which game versions did you use? 1.0.5. I started it under 1.0.5, and 1.1.2 was crash prone so.......- What mods did you use, if any? Engineer, 'Jeb, Alarm Clock and Joint Reinforcement.- How many Kerbals are on the mission? 5- How many launches were needed to start your mission from Kerbin? 9, 1 mothership, 1 refueller and 7 orbital refuelling tankers- How much did your mission cost? 3.8m Kerbucks- Did you needed a refueling mission? Yes, I was hoping not to have to use it, but it didn't work out that way.- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? No. I originally did on my first mission and that's part of what sunk the attempt.

In our final episode we plant flags on Pol and Bop, return to Kerbin, rendezvous with the Kerbin Return Vehicle and bring our five brave, exhausted Kerbonauts safely home. I breathe a HUGE sigh of relief as I finalise my entry for the Jool 5 Challenge!

Then design your rover better.... design is a fair part of the challenge after all!

Given that your rover HAS to be Kerbaled, RemoteTech isn't really a factor, is it?

Same as me, I guess. Next time @boolybooly visits the thread. He seems to visit every couple of weeks, so give it until the end of the month I'd guess.

Yes. Yes, you are and I hope you have a great time doing it!

In episode four we continue our quest to plant flags on all the moons of Jool. We start by transferring to Tylo, landing on that and sticking a flag in it. Then our refueller arrives (not a minute too soon) and we put that into Tylo orbit, rendezvous and refuel. We then put our mothership into a holding orbit beyond Tylo and prepare for the landings on Bop and Pol.

In this episode, I perform the Laythe landing, even hitting land on my first attempt (it took me a couple of goes to stick the landing though, but we won't mention that)! After landing on Laythe and sticking a flag in it, I returned to orbit, then swapped active crew members and transferred over to Vall which also gets a flag stuck in it. The Vall lander, which will also be landing on all other moons, then reorbits and docks back with the mothership.

Great read, mate. I hope you're going to post this into the Elcano Challenge thread!

Yup. 1.1.2 is proving particularly crash prone for me (haven't tried 1.1.3 yet) so I'm still largely working on a 1.0.5 install.

In this episode, my mothership and refueller transferred to Jool. I put the mothership into orbit around Laythe, after a detour to drop off the Tylo stage as I forgot to put an AI core onto that stage so that it could proceed separately. Current position is - 1) Refueller still on encounter path for Jool, 2) Tylo lander stage in orbit around Tylo, 3) Mothership in orbit around Laythe. All in all, things are looking passable, but I think I'm going to need the fuel in that refueller to get home. In the next part, we'll start the moon landings with Laythe up first.

My (small) entry to this awesome challenge, the Silver Dart:

I'm about to start my second attempt at this challenge... wish me luck! Linky

Jool 5 Chronicles - Attempt 2 [Complete] This is the recording of my second attempt at the Jool 5 Challenge. I certainly hope it goes better than my first attempt. Wish me luck! For this attempt, I've stuck with 1.0.5. I'm having crash trouble with 1.1.2, and I started working on this back in 1.0.5 and I don't really want to try to transfer all the ship files over to a new install. I'm running stock except with infomods like Engineer, 'Jeb and Kerbal Alarm Clock and the necessary Kerbal Joint Reinforcement for having large ships. I'm aiming for a level 3 completion, so I've got five Kerbals loaded up and ready to go. I'm also planning on taking no chances with this mission. I've cut back on mass, so no rovers, satellites etc. like on my last mission, I've got docking ports on everything just in case, and I'm sending a refuelling mission along even though I don't know whether I'll need one yet. In this first post, I'm just putting together the craft I've spent much time building and testing. I launch my mothership in one big launch, followed by six refuelling missions to refill the mothership's tanks. I then launched my refuelling mission, with another launch to refuel the refueller! All in all, I launched nine rockets costing 3.8m Kerbucks to get this attempt off the ground. A short imgur album of getting everything into orbit follows:

Episode 7 - Satellite Network! A short, but busy episode. Nothing new, unfortunately, so I've kept the screenies to a minimum. We've got three tourist trips, we complete out network of comsats in Kerbin orbit, deploy a satellite to relay to Mun, and rescue a stranded Kerbal.

Episode 6 - Satellites In this episode we upgrade a building, rescue a stranded Kerbal, fail and the succeed at a space tourism Munar flyby, and launch our first communications satellite into orbit.

No worries. I'm well aware that you've got more than a few things on your plate as it is! Thank YOU for keeping this challenge alive.

Updated. Elcano Challenge for Minmus is now complete.