Magzimum

A planned landing on Minmus for refueling the mothership: (Note that the mothership has landing legs, showing this was all according to plan!) And an unplanned landing on Pol. Mothership is a lot smaller, after it dropped a bunch of tanks here and there before getting to Pol. Complete mission report here. @Sharpy, where was the 1st picture taken (with the tall nerv-powered ships)? Bop? Gilly? How did those not fall over?

Hmm, a "Space race" could also be an interesting challenge on the forum? (And may have existed in the past too). Fresh stock career --> What is the earliest date you can get to a particular planet/moon? Sorry that this comment is a little off topic.

Follow these steps: Do the tutorials. They are great to teach rendezvous and docking. Install KER. It gives you information on how far your ship can go, so you avoid running out of fuel halfway (or bringing too much). Make a rescue ship. Get your Kerbal home. Abandon that science. The Kerbal(s) can just EVA (leave the ship, to do a spacewalk towards the rescue ship). Make a new lander with more fuel. Land on the Mun. Get the science. Go home.

That's a really interesting comment - I did not know that the heat model was so sophisticated that it includes actual orientation of the part. I had never realized that radiators that face the sun don't work so well because they also absorb heat. Can radiators also heat up each other? (Normally, if you'd place two radiators in a parallel setting, with the radiating surfaces facing each other, they would not work). Can radiators heat up the ground below them? (Normally, if a radiator faces the ground, it would evenually heat up the ground, and then stop working unless the ground is able to conduct that heat away - and heat conductivity of soil is quite poor for dry ground). For me, I understand heat transport phenomena quite well, but I'm mostly struggling to figure out what is in the game, and what it not.

In real life, there is a large difference in the design of cooling equipment for atmosphere or vacuum. Is this the same in KSP? I.e. is the radiator good for space, and the thermal control system good for atmospheric use? Or are both equally good for both situations? Take for example the Radiator Panel (large) and the Thermal Control System (small): - Radiator panel (large) Thermal control system (small) Cost 450 450 Mass 0.05t 0.05t Elec. 0.025 ⚡/s 0.025 ⚡/s Diss. heat 10,000 2,500 If presented like this, then the only trade-off is the retractability of the TCS vs. the much higher heat dissipation of the radiator. Note: I hope that these numbers are still correct - I pulled them out of the wiki (which isn't always accurate), not the game itself to which I have no access at this moment.

Thanks! The Minmus landing was actually really easy for me, because I have landed a bunch of ridiculously large rigs on Minmus, most of which were far less maneuverable than this ship (example 1, example 2 ) I always struggle with the interplanetary courses, but I got some really good answers to questions I had a few weeks ago when planning a different mission, but already having the Jool-5 in mind as well (thanks again @Streetwind, @Sharpy, @Plusck for your answers in this thread). tr;dr, good planning and lots of pratice made this possible.

I did a Jool-5! 25 Kerbals: 5 to each moon, except to Pol where I landed all 25. It's all stock, with no ISRU. I hope it qualifies for 2nd or 3rd level. I think both.

Plotting a course back to Kerbin is (at least for me) a difficult task. I chose to circularize my Joolian orbit, so that I could use the Transfer Window Planner tool. I first matched the plane of Laythe, then made the orbit circular. The Jool-5 Mk4 had enough fuel left that it did not have to wait for the very best transfer window. So, it chose the first opportunity. The bottom stage was depleted during the burn back to Kerbin, so it was left behind. A bunch of plane and velocity corrections were made before the Kerbin encounter was achieved. And after some fine-tuning, the course went towards a low Kerbin orbit. And the ship reached LKO without much trouble. The small bit that remained of the mothership would remain in orbit. It can either be used as a refueling station for smaller missions, or it can be sent to another planet as a relay (it has 11,000 m/s worth of dV, because all the payloads have been decoupled, and the tanks are mostly full). The habitat and lander meanwhile made a small final burn to lower their periapsis into Kerbin's atmosphere. The atmosphere did the rest. And thus the Jool-5 challenge was completed!! Now, the Kerbals wouldn't be Kerbals if they didn't take this last opportunity to quickly plant a flag and pose next to it, with a lander in the background... ... Before being recovered, together with their ship. The mission gathered a whopping 26,387.7 science points, which will not be used on anything, since all science nodes have already been researched. Cash is no issue either, but it's still nice to get some funds from recovered parts. And the KSC now has 25 five-star Kerbonauts available for its next mission! This adventure probably took me over 100 hrs to plan and execute, if not double that. That is also the reason I decided to make such a lengthy mission report. If you made it this far, thanks a lot for reading this! *** THE END *** Imgur

The first bits (matching orbital plane, meet up with Pol) are put in the spoiler. I think it's a little boring. After the regular maneuvers, the Jool-5 Mk4 found itself in a Pollen orbit. Pol is so small that the lander core does not need any additional stages. It has more than enough dV. The Pol crew consisted of Cargie (pilot), Jedry, Kathvie, Gibie and Leaxy. On the surface, the Pol crew did the mandatory thing: a picture-with-a-flag-and-the-lander-in-the-background. The flag was backwards, which probably fueled a lot of conspiracy theories that this was all staged in a studio in Kollywood, but we from the Honesty-department assure you that this really happened. After this, the crew got a little excited about planting flags. The mothership then landed in one of the flagged areas that indicated a horizontal patch of ground. And OF COURSE they were all gonna stand next to a flag, with the lander and mothership in the background. And the mothership turn its NERVs to max., The lander then also took off, to rendezvous with the mothership in orbit. And thus, with all Kerbals back in LPO (Low Pol Orbit), the Jool-5 was completed. 25 Kerbals visited 5 moons, 4 of which were visited by 5 Kerbals on the surface, and the 5th, Pol, was visited by all 25. All that remained now was to plot a course back to Kerbin, and land these Kerbals safely. That meant leaving Pol. ... bye Pol. You were cool. Next post will be the last: plotting a course back to Kerbin, and landing 25 Kerbals safely on the surface. imgur

The Tylo escape plan was not really a plan. A simple burn got the Jool-5 Mk4 into a Joolian orbit with an apoapsis that touched the orbit of Bop. Then the ship burned to match planes with Bop, and only then the intercept was planned. At least, that was the plan. In the spoiler below some details of the transfer to Bop. Not much excitement, actually. "Hello Bop! You're looking lumpy today!" The Bop lander was decoupled. After landing, the crew did what the crew does best: pose and smile for the camera. I bet they would be great at cutting ribbons too. The crew, by the way, consists of Elbo, Willa, Willas, Payin and Steadith, and they were having significantly more fun than the Tylo crew. The lander had so much excess dV that it could easily do a little biome-hopping. The first landing was in the "Ridges" biome (which was surprisingly flat, for a ridge). It then moved to the Slopes and Valley (both in the spoiler below) before flying to the Peaks biome. The ship was landed at a stunning 21,748 meters altitude. According to the wikipedia site on Bop (early November 2016), this is not the highest location in the solar system. That should be 21.758m altitude (so 10 m higher), also on Bop... but I actually flew to the location where that peak was supposed to be and could not find anything nearly so high. Anyway, whether this is the highest peak in the solar system or not, it was bloody high and a good picture. Also interesting: the ship had switched its navball to 'orbit', perhaps because of the altitude. Finally the ship also flew to the Poles biome, and then got back into an equatorial orbit, made a rendezvous with the mothership and docked (all in the spoiler below). After meeting up with the mothership (Jr docking port on the side), transferring the excess fuel into some empty tanks of the mothership, the bottom stage was decouped to litter Bop forever. The lander core continued to dock (Sr docking port at the front). And a little burn later, the mothership left Bop's tiny SoI. Bye Bop, you were fun to play with. Next and final stop: Pol. imgur album here

I answered my own question how quickly you can get a Kerbal on top of the large monolith. My record so far is 1 minute 07 seconds. I considered to turn this into a challenge, since there are probably multiple ways to tackle this problem. Also, my score can easily be improved if you use a little more violence. What do you guys think, could this (with some good set of rules) turn into a nice little challenge?

The Tylo adventure starts with a burn. Because in KSP all adventures start with burning stuff, which may explain the game's popularity. The lander was separated. KER shows the final orbit of the mothership: 668 km x 245 km, with a Pe at the day-side of Tylo. Landing on the night side would have been more efficient perhaps but also more suicidal. The lander lowered its Ap and Pe a little more, then started what is essentially one huge suicide burn. The lander has a Mainsail on the central tank. The 6 outer tanks each have a Dart (aerospike) engine. The lander should have a little over 7,000 m/s dV (KER underestimates it as usual, because it doesn't understand my intended use of the docking port). Unsurprisingly, after landing, the 5 Kerbals lined up for the mandatory crew-with-flag-and-a-lander-in-the-background-and-Jool-and-Vall-and-Laythe-on-the-horizon picture. Such behavior comes natural to Kerbals. For reasons unknown to even the Kraken, this crew left their smiley faces on the mothership. Nobody died, girls! You're on Tylo, and you're alive! The lift off went without problem (but I was too busy to take a screenshot). Val steered the ship towards the horizon as soon as possible. And thus the Jool-5 Mk4 was complete again, albeit a little shorter than before. Now that the large Tylo stage had been used, confidence grew that there was enough fuel in the nuclear stage to finish the mission. That had always been the biggest worry. Bop will be dealt with quite thoroughly in the next post! (imgur album with all pics - and nothing more, so no need to check it: http://imgur.com/a/ROIZs)

So, the crew have their eyes set on Vall, 2nd moon in the Jool system. Once in orbit, the Vall lander was detached. It is a lot smaller than the Laythe lander. It's just a straightforward lander (no rovers or planes), and the moon is obviously a lot smaller. After landing and a cup of tea, the crew made an effort to look happy on the mandatory crew-with-flag-and-lander-in-the-background-picture. Twice. ("Don't move, one more, one more, this time with the lander's solar panels extended". "Smile!".) Blast off of the Jool-5 Mk4 lander stage, on a rendezvous with destiny. Remind me to never call a spaceship "Destiny". It's so cheesy. It's even worse than "Jool-5 Mk4". The lander first docked with its front-side docking Jr, to transfer excess fuel from the lander stage into some empty tanks of the mothership. This particular docking step was more precise: the stairs of the lander core and the Tylo stage had to line up. After docking, this was checked by an EVA. Check. Next post: the Tylo landing! Imgur album for this and the next post (which contains nothing extra, really): http://imgur.com/a/ROIZs

So, with the lander safely on Laythe it was time for the mandatory picture-with-crew-and-lander-in-the-background. The two planes were offloaded for some biome hopping and science gathering (yes, I have all science unlocked already, but still made an effort). It was a pity that the island where the crew landed only had 2 biomes: shores and dunes. (I didn't know, and only found out after plenty of flying around). Here Jeb and Megcy are on their way to the Dunes. Jeb and Megcy eventually found the Dunes, managed to land without crashing, and performed some experiments. Spoiler below: 15 pics, flying on Laythe and getting attacked by the Laythe Kraken. All fun comes to an end. Time to pack up, get back into orbit and move on. Blast off! The lander used the closed cycle first, quickly using up the leftover rocket fuel in the outer tanks, then switched to the airbreathing mode. It accelerated in airbreathing mode until the Apoapsis was outside the atmosphere. Because the lander had not used all the fuel on the descent, she now had excess liquid fuel for the ascent. And after separating all stages as well as the nosecones, the lander core is revealed: this is the part of the rocket that will visit all moons and will make it back to Kerbin. (It's flying over the landing site, marked by the little square on the surface). So the crew get back to the mothership, docking to the Vall lander. Laythe visit: Check. Onwards, to Vall. The ship approaches Vall for stage 2 of the Jool-5 challenge. Moar Posts coming soon!

5 Moons. 25 Kerbals. 5 Kerbals to each moon. The Jool-5 mission is *ON*. Behold the Jool-5 Mk4, carrying Jebediah, Bill, Bob, Valentina, Megcy, Steltrice, Linissa, Kerbus, Wilsted, Rodgel, Nedrien, Jocee, Margaret, Grasie, Isathy, Cargie, Jedry, Kathvie, Gibie, Leaxy, Willa, Elbo, Payin, Steadith and Willas to the 5 moons of Jool. Game stats: Version: 1.2.1 All parts are stock Mods: KER and the Transfer Window Planner (latter was installed halfway, but only used for some input for the return) Jool-5 Mk4 stats: 1029 parts 2,997,467 funds 98.6 m tall 4,584.877 tons on launch (most upper tanks are empty) room for 31 Kerbals (25 will board) The idea of the ship is explained below: A large mothership (nuclear), with 4 lander stages and a lander-core. The lander core visits all moons, and a dedicated lander stage (which itself consists of multiple stages) gets that lander core down and back up again. The concept and the lander core was tested already on a Duna / Ike mission, and the Laythe and Tylo stages were tested before using the cheat to get the landers in orbit of those moons. I intend to post at least 100 pics, possibly a few more. So, below I will put several chapters in "spoilers", with some of the main pictures visible for all. LAUNCH! Frame rate was an impressive 2 fps, and time slowed down to about 1 game second per 3 real time seconds. Spoiler: 9 pics of the launch to LKO. Once in orbit, and with the fairing gone, the solar panels extended (which were brought along more for their lavishly good looks rather than their poor efficiency out at Jool). The Jool-5 Mk4 is now a magnificent spaceship. The general idea is to launch for the flats of Minmus, where the ship will fill all its tanks. After fueling up, the ISRU will be disposed, and the ship will fly to Jool and back without any refueling. Spoiler: 8 pics of the transfer to Minmus On Minmus, I tediously offloaded 25 Kerbals for the mandatory Smiley-Kerbals-with-lander-in-the-background picture. But I gotta say, it looks quite epic so that was worth the time! Note: the two rovers in the background were used for the Elcano challenge. They were launched separately - and were used only to scan for a good mining location, and to pimp the picture even more. They reported ore concentrations of 12% on the Great Flats, so that was excellent. Spoiler below: 7 pics, launch from Minmus back to a high Kerbin orbit During the launch from Minmus, the tanks attached to the mining rig were depleted and discarded (while still in Kerbin's SoI). Spoiler below of the transfer to Jool, and eventually to Laythe (in 10 pics): After some years, some burns and correction burns, the crew arrived at Laythe (in a retrograde orbit, which was done on purpose). Below, the spoiler shows in 8 pics how the lander slowed down enough to start the landing (without heat shields). As soon as the lander hit the atmosphere, she slowed down using the Rapiers (in rocket-mode) so that the velocity was low enough, and nothing blew up. The lander was supposed to be able to steer a bit, but the approach of the landing site was a little less elegant than planned: the lander was going sideways as much as she was going forward. Below in spoiler: Laythe descent. That moment when you take a look at the surroundings, to see where the heck you've landed, and you see this giant planet over the horizon, together with the Sun. Epic. I'll post more as soon as I have time (tomorrow)! Hope that the use of spoilers keeps the thread readable. Imgur album of these pics - contains nothing that's not already here: http://imgur.com/a/HYnAD

Umm. I posted this in the old thread, but did not receive a response from Claw yet. I guess I will re-post it here then?

Follow the following steps: Build a lander - these are usually specific for the Planet / Moon you're trying to visit. They differ in: Amount of fuel to land and take off again Parachutes (often not functional, sometimes essential) Your design choices, such as the number of Kerbals and science instruments Build a launcher Add Moar Boosters until it is capable of going there and back again. Most important: just try. You will fail several times, and if you don't start trying, you won't get there.

Shht, don't give him any ideas. He's trying to bring the Kerbal back this time!

This. ^ As an extra challenge to myself, I try to do some of the forum's challenges as part of my career. I already completed my first Elcano (Minmus) and I'm currently in the middle of a Jool-5. That's how I spend excess funds. I got all science unlocked though, and I actually use quite a lot of the more advanced parts. Looking at the bottom of the tech tree, I use at least 1 component from each advanced research node.

Also, the Mk1 and Mk2 have almost the same weight. So for a little extra weight, you get wings and increased heat tolerance. I think it's a bargain, in terms of what you get for the same mass. However, it would be nice if there is a tank in between the Mk1 and Mk3 tanks. Off the top of my head, the Mk1 holds 400 units, and the smallest Mk3 holds 2500. That's quite a big gap. Realistically, you could at best fit two Mk0 tanks in the empty space of the Mk2, thereby increasing the fuel from 400 to 500. Hardly a solution for the gap I mentioned above.

Yeah, when any fuel tank with LFO explodes, they can just stop the physics calculations for all the parts on the rocket, and instead just render the giant explosion. The parts stopped existing anyway.

Speaking for my current career (1.2.1), which is in its 9th year now: I shot a probe out of the solar system. It's currently (after some 3-4 yrs) about twice as far out as Jool, but still travelling some 15,000 m/s, so it will go a little further. I have only been to Eve so far, but I still have two functioning (albeit stationary) landers: one in the ocean, one on land. Moho is my next target, but I may shoot some Icarus probe into the Sun for the hell of it.

Note that there is a trend that all relay antennas are a real pain to put onto any ship. All the antennas that tuck away nicely are all direct antennas, not relays... And frankly, I like it that KSP gives us a bit of a challenge this way. A two-way interplanetary communication relay shouldn't be something that you stack away onto the rocket as an afterthought.

I don't recognize the problem. I do lots of rendezvous-ing in the game, and every time I made a burn the wrong way, I had myself to blame, not the game. The game almost always gets it right which mode the navball should be in. Depending on your play style, your solution to live with this 'nuisance' could be: Have a good system of save games. If you lost too much fuel, but you can revert back to the situation just 5 minutes ago by loading a save game, the problem is not too great. If you play hard-core without saving: Use many many many many checklists. Don't do anything impulsively. Check check check. Personally, I make lots of stupid mistakes (burning the wrong way, decoupling stages that aren't empty, etc.), so I use lots of save games, with coding so that I can always revert back.

Tired of long and complicated missions? Build a little agile stunt plane, and fly around the KSC. If you put the Kerbal in a command seat, his terrified face will put a smile on yours. Bonus points if you manage to fly below the bridge in the R&D center (without crashing, obviously)... Build a glider (plane with no engines). Put your Kerbal in it, strap 1 or 2 Fleas (or Hammers) onto it for initial speed, launch, decouple the Fleas, and try to glide to the Island Runway.