MythicalHeFF

I decided to turn the Maverick, the SSTO lander for my upcoming grand tour mission, into a space shuttle instead, because, let's face it, that's cooler. (and also it may or may not have just barely failed to reach orbit over and over again and I really didn't feel like making it heavier to accomplish its goal). In the test flight that this screenshot was taken, I used the RAPIER engines during ascent, but I later removed the need for this by increasing the angle of the outer Vector engine on the bottom of the main tank. I then painted the main tank orange to give it more of a Space Shuttle look, and added some custom flags again. Including our.. sponsors!

That is actually insane that Gregrox managed to modify the temperature of the Lava biome on Yalthe/Yokane to melt your rovers, I had no idea that this was even a thing when I was doing my grand tour last year. When I went to Yalthe myself, I thought it was the most boring place in the whole Reander system.. guess I should have inspected it more closely! Also, I don't remember seeing any of those "fault lines" on Yokane when I was there... that's certainly an interesting terrain feature... same with Dakkon and Totooa! I might have to go back and do a more comprehensive mission to Reander and its moons some day; ever since my grand tour attempt failed due to endless game crashes, I've sort of stopped playing this mod.

I began to realize how much I've slept on mods all these years... especially Kerbal Konstructs!

Completed construction of the HEFF-3500, a ship I plan to use for a grand tour of the Alternis Kerbol mod for an upcoming Youtube series. (this will include Tylo, but the lander is going to be launched and sent there separately). It's a new and improved version of the HEFF-1000, the ship I originally made to celebrate 1,000 subscribers, and wanted to use, but scrapped due to the cargo bay being too unstable (piston doors are way more Kraken baity than hinge doors). It's inspired a bit by Gargantua, a ship from a series by ShadowZone from years ago. Total mass: around 990 t Total part count: 1,208 HEFF-3500 on the surface of Minmus in a landing test. The wide cargo bay makes it impossible to use regular landing legs, so I instead used extra-large landing gears mounted on pistons, which seemed to work pretty well. Cargo bay opened in orbit before an engine test. Inside, there are two landers: the Kangaroo (top), which will be used for all landings besides Eve and Laythe, and Leonardo, the Eve lander (bottom), which makes use of propellers to make the Eve ascent easier than it otherwise would be. Behind Leonardo are also two 1.875m fuel tanks, which will be attached to the Kangaroo for its Eeloo descent: landing on Eeloo in Alternis Kerbol is almost as hard as landing on Tylo in stock KSP. More on Kangaroo: As for Laythe, we have another lander/SSTO, the Maverick, which will be launched separately from the HEFF-3500, carrying the crew to LKO and docking with the main ship. After it has landed and returned from Laythe, it will then return to Kerbin on its own, hence the name Maverick. I also did quite a bit more interior design/finer detailing on this ship than I did on its predecessor, which I quite like: The original ship, the HEFF-1000:

I discovered that the 5 meter structural tubes make for quite good interior spaces.

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Can I get my name changed to "MythicalHeFF" please?

Got down to 27°F and a hard freeze the other night here in New Hampshire, winter is coming…

Ran a half marathon the other day, and this was fittingly stuck in my head for the first 8 miles.

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When you fly a plane in real life for the first time and wonder why it’s not controlled using a keyboard and mouse.

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?

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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.