Spricigo

Nah, plenty of deltaV. Orbital speed 176,8. 176.8*2=353.6 ... but that is whitout raising the Ap before orbit inversion.

Go to the challenge subforum and read the challenge submission guide. But yes, its expected that you at least try your own challenge to prove it possible or demonstrate that you put some effort into it. Friendly warning: Often, what could have been a good challenge get ignored because is poorly set up.

While not necessarily more efficient possibly it is. Unfortunately, the mooar [stuff] approach seems, IME, much more common than well thought optimization as motivation to use orbital construction.

Gily and Ike are possible. That said, one does not land on Gily, rather you dock onto it. Ike is bigger but not that large to make the poodle necessary anyway. So the craft is either not good enough or overkill.

Yes, but the way OP define it give me the impression he may want a "one size fits all" design. That is the reason of my remark. Having some sub-assembles for particular tasks (e.g. a series of Launch Vehicles 1t, 5t, 10t ...) may help to speed-up the design and allow more time to explore. But usually is the customization of the craft for the task at hand that gives the more relevant advantage.

Shouldn't be a issue if you got the mod from the official thread, where you may ask for more help if necessary

Actually my advice is less boosters. The major issue with his design is it is a big, heavy but not particularly powerful rocket . Streetwind's idea of DeltaIV alike design is a interesting one , another is SRBs (with crossfeed enabled and LFO tanks on top). Depending on the destination a Terrier instead of the uppermost Poodle is a considerable mass saving (since that is the last stage it will make a big difference for the whole rocket) A bit problematic to give more specific advice since the OP didn't defined a particular objective. A craft tailored for a given celestial body/mission can be made much more efficient.

Kind difficult to say without knowing what you want to do. Is a science gathering mission? Are the craft going to land on the Mun? That trajectory would put you in orbit around the Mun, but different mission profiles have different 'ideal' trajectories. Vanamonde's guide is very helpful. Take the time to read and understand it.

I see this in version 1.2 but AFAIK didn't changed.

And can get weirder, two pilots in a crew cabin...can remote control probes but can't control their own craft (without a probecore/command pod).

I can only imagine the amount of thought you put on this. So I know that my comment risks to sound naive, but if there's a chance to be of some use that is what your endeavor bring to my mind: What I'm wondering is if switching a couple of nevs for chemical rockets (lets suppose a pair of Darts) wouldn't allow you to start that phase a bit lower or cut some mass. Even if that results in the same mass there's the fact that with chemical propulsion mass will decrease quicker. I'd like to point that the massively more powerful Vector and Mammoth are not far behind in the Isp department. Also remember that many returns from Eve are planned to depart from some conveniently high mountain. It may not address the concern of how much is left to crash. But the same happens with the traditional staged rocket.

Well, that is up to AeroGav to find out if is enough for if is enough for his purposes. Besides, he may have fun with his self-imposed challenge even if he don't succeed.

Even before that a nice advantage would be to send materials to build ships off-world instead of relying on pre-built modules that are bulky and need to be assembled with docking ports. It may even turn out to be more expensive than launching the complete craft from Kerbin surface but have a convenience edge. Sadly, I don't see that happening in stock any time soon.

The wiki is know to have some outdated stuff. I'd take the in-game value as correct. On a side note, I wouldn't worry much about it. It is probably good enoughtm for most practical purposestm until rounding errors screw with that orbit on the long run.

Starting a new game allow setting starting money/science/reputation. Failing that, I think debug menu cover this. With the option to require part unlock you can unlock only the allowed parts and ask for people to limit their build to this parts. Well, that don't really block anything. But given that challenges are usually done along a honour system I don't think that is a big deal. IMHO mostly is some tools to streamline the whole process that are required (or rather are useful) .

That part can (mostly) be done by sharing a previously set up savegame. Major difficult seems to be the 'planetary location' , not because it can't be done (just warp to when that arrangement happens) but because it may take some time to find when the desired combination happens. That part is a bit more complicated. For one side there is the problem of meddling needless in what people install in their personal computer and the fact that the limitation probably need to be done by a "blacklist" that can get pretty big quickly*. On the other hand people could just decide to use less than *I suppose a "whitelist" would requires some way for the mods be previously acknowledged as this, and a potentially overcomplicated way to recognize [ModA] as [ModA] I think a few more tools to setting up the savegame would be interesting. Granted that there is mod option for this (e.g. hyperedit). Also seems that Squad is developing something along those lines as part of a paid expansion.

Noticing that the idea of building off-Kerbin is an (interesting) idea is gaining some momentum in this thread, I'd like to address that a economic system that change how we deal with in-kerbin building can also be interesting (either as a stock feature or as a mod). Right now we have a contract system that throw money at us so we can exploit the infinite resources of Kerbin to wander around wherever we want.

I tend to agree with this. At least mix and match a bit with darts/vectors (that can be ditched along the way). However I'm also very curious what results AeroGav's experiments will reach. He seems pretty confident his craft can pull this out if it get enough of a 'head start'. But that is a 50t beast, bound by 1.7g into a thick atmosphere. on a different note... I don't see why not use mods with that can provide acceptable (and balanced) technology not present in stock game. Even if one is against still 'unproven' technology like nuclear turbojets or air-augmented rockets certainly there is less motive to oppose electric propellers or rocket engines optimized for where you are going. Sure, some people will avoid the modded craft and even tell you that is a 'lesser' achievement but as you noticed the same happens for stock propellers. But that don't really matter, if you are set to do it for the challenge and rule of cool that is as good motive as any other. Don't waste your time with the naysayers and have fun.

Funny enough. That is the entire point of the game for many players and more than enough to keep them entertained for long time. You reach that lifeless rock once, then you want to reach that lifeless rock again using a different method, then reach that lifeless rock while doing a extra stop in a different lifeless rock...nothing to do when you arrive there, but the travel is what really matter.

Actually that seems like a interesting idea that can probably be extended for other kinds of services. As in: "I just happen to have that spacecraft that can put Xt in orbit around the Mun for Y. Any taker?" Yes, contract system is really weird at times: -We get paid to slave Kerbals found in space. -People ask us to put stuff in space just to get it robbed by us. ... Personally, I use the mantra: "Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game. Just a game...."

It don't need to be...if it become a race I'd entry with a overpowered rocket than can reach the orbit in a couple of minutes wasting a s-load of fuel. If being SSTO, spaceplane is a requirement, something like this: just for fun(and messing with the spaceplane crowd). On a side note, I should take the time to develop this craft. The planes have some serious flaws and the rocket being a SSTO was just lazy design. Back to the realm of sanity: several good ideas in this thread. There is a good chance that I will adopt a design similar to those of @zolotiyeruki and @mk1980. There is any chance to spare a craft file?

That is the point. Without a full fledged n-body physics it will be worse than patched conics.

Not cool situation indeed. I'd like to see a image of the craft because I suspect that it may have serious design issues related to staging and engine choices.

It may be the case you are not using your jet engines as much as would be ideal. For that case I will let the spaceplane guys offer better advice than I have. However a different possibility its that you carry more liquid for those engines than they require. You may try to substitute you liquid fuel tanks for some LFO or just reduce liquid fuel tankage.

Lets assume he is cheating. So what? Its not a challenge and if he claims that is a legitimate way to get out of Eve we can just ignore him. The same way he can use a mod with unbalanced parts, cheat menu , hyperedit or whatever and it will be his concern if that is 'legit' or not because the rest of us really don’t care. Nonetheless , he seems to be well aware how stock propeller are perceived by the community and already get over that 'cheating' discussion.