Jack Joseph Kerman

It definitely isn’t a requirement for the challenge these days, if I remember correctly about half of my submissions were polar circumnavigations. I do think it was a requirement way back in the early days of the challenge, but was changed because it made little sense to restrict them to the equator when a polar route would be just as long.

I don’t see why this wouldn’t count as a circumnavigation; you’re starting from the KSC, and visiting both poles, which means you’re going from one point to its antipode and back. That will be, at minimum, an equal distance to the circumference of Kerbin.

5’11.5. So close yet so far.. Probably would be 6 foot if I didn’t have a swayback, but we’re rounding here, right?

5622

I am proud to announce that I am now the third player to have completed the Super Tylo challenge in full! I've had the idea to do this challenge for quite some time now, ever since I first saw this video by Kerbonaut on their mission to Super Tylo over 4 years ago, but never got around to it, as other, easier missions always took priority... Until now. Not only that, since I am not the first person to have landed and returned a Kerbal from Super Tylo, I needed to do something "impressive" to get all three stars, which is why I've decided to bring two kerbals with me, as well as a rover, all on a lander that is able to land almost entirely under its own power, hardly using the atmosphere to slow down at all. The Lander and Rover: The Crew Capsule & Support Tankers: Getting Stuff There: The Crewed Mission: Overall, this was one of the most challenging and fun missions that I've ever designed in KSP; if you're looking for a real challenge, I highly suggest you try this yourself.. it's even harder than it looks. I remember going into this challenge thinking "I will own this", and then promptly being humbled. Great mod as always, @GregroxMun!

I completed the Super Tylo mission in Alternis Kerbol, after roving around for a bit and deciding that a true long-distance rover trip here would be next to impossible, as the wheels have a tendency to break at the slightest inconvenience under this gravity. Originally, I wanted to try and get my rover down into the low-lying brown area as shown in this screenshot, but this area is surrounded by extremely steep cliffs and fjords on pretty much all sides. As you can see from the view from near the edge of one of them: while driving downhill is possible, on steep terrain like this, I would have to constantly switchback, which is practically suicidal due to how much speed you gain when you are facing directly downhill I ended up driving about 55 km from my original landing site before deciding to turn back, and ended up taking a different route back, essentially going in a big circle. Once we had made it back to the lander, the Sandwich, we launched back into orbit, which went surprisingly well, and I got the ascent down on my first attempt (as opposed to the over 20 attempts it took to land. This place is essentially Eve in reverse.) I then made my rendezvous, and EVA'd Nedzer and Hairy Kerman to the "Dante" return capsule, and made my way back home. Overall, I'm still pretty proud of how this mission turned out, as I accomplished my goal of landing and returning from super Tylo, as well as (as far as I can tell) being the first person to do it with multiple kerbals and a rover, as well as an almost entirely powered landing. If you're an experienced KSP player looking for a real challenge, I would highly suggest that you try this out: it's even harder that it looks. I remember going into this challenge thinking "I will own this" and promptly having my KSP ego deflated as a result.

The rover can go uphill okay, as that is what I specifically designed it for (having a high wheel to mass ratio). Things get a bit dicey, however, when it comes to going downhill, as you gain speed so quickly that it’s very easy to be fine one moment and barreling to your doom at 100+ m/s the next. Another annoying thing is wheel failures, as under this gravity they happen very easily.

I finally landed on Tylo in Alternis Kerbol after almost an entire week of preparing the mission, failing over and over again to design a lander, and flying it to Tylo. For those unfamiliar, Alternis Kerbol is one of the oldest planet packs for KSP, and essentially what it does is rearrange the Kerbol System, as well as changing various things about the celestial bodies themselves. For example, Kerbin is now a moon of Jool, Eeloo is now much larger and has Vall as a moon, Ike is now a comet, and Tylo.. well, Tylo has been hitting the gym, it seems. It now has a radius of 1,103 km and a crushing surface gravity of 4 gees, making it extremely difficult to land on. Just landing seems to take roughly 8,000 m/s of delta-V, as you lose an insane amount of it due to gravity. To my knowledge, only two other players have landed and returned from Super Tylo before, but, as far as I can tell, I am the first to do it using a (nearly) entirely powered landing. I say "nearly" because I did use a couple of parachutes, but, as it turns out, at the altitude I landed at, there was barely enough pressure for them to even deploy, making their effect essentially negligible. I'm also the first to bring a rover with me, so there's that. Here's a music video showcasing the many failed landing attempts, both in testing and on the real mission, as well as the final, successful attempt. I still haven't finished the mission yet, as, me being me, I want to try and conduct a long-range rover exploration before going home.

Yes Man

The sash ringing.. the trash singing.. mash flinging.. the flash springing.. ringing.. the crash-dinging..

Photoshop

Italy

Made a 100-meter fuel tank using a modded version of Tweakscale... ..and crashed it into Dres at 2/3 the speed of light using overclocked engines, delivering enough kinetic energy to destroy it entriely. "I am become Death, destroyer of Dres". -Bob Kerman

I don’t know, I just have a vague memory of seeing a video/post from back then that stated Eve’s atmosphere went to like 110 km or something.

Hydrodynamic Kerbal

EVA

Treasure

Can I take a guess and say it’s 2 Wolda from Whirligig World? I remember having issues with kerbals overheating there during my ill-fated grand tour mission.

Jool’s current atmosphere doesn’t start at 300km, it starts at 200km. Before version 1.0, however, it started at only about 135 km or so, if I remember correctly. As for the other planets, I don’t really know, apart from that eve’s used to start slightly higher than it does now.

SpareCow17