Beriev

Along with the Not-Rockomax Micronode, I'll made a case for the Probodobodyne QBE. It's basically an OKTO-2 (no reaction wheels, tiny battery), but repackaged into a much larger core, without any major advantages. High impact tolerance? Nullified by the fact that nothing else you can add to a probe is, resulting in a crash landing which the probe can only survive for a few minutes before the battery dies. Low cost? When you add a reaction wheel to get the desired control, an OKTO is cheaper overall, and if you don't use a reaction wheel (where mass is low enough to make not having it matter), an OKTO-2 is far more effective for Delta-V. Plus, there's the issue of what is taking up so much space in that probe core that it's basically an OKTO-2 with like 10 times the volume? I've made a stop gap solution of using them for atmospheric impactors, but I feel that they need to be buffed in one way or another. Adding a super weak reaction wheel, for example, (I mean, cubesats use them, and the QBE definitely would work as one) would make it useful for the gap between the OKTO and OKTO-2.

I've played since 0.19, and I love the old school sense of playing with stock parts almost entirely, without either DLC or parts mods. I do concede though, that I've inevitably added EPL and/or a late game engines mod (like KSP-IE) to just about all of my careers, as I feel they add a dimension that lengthens the game that is just not possible with stock.

Based on the name "Chequers", I immediately thought of a checkerboard and subsequently, chess. I propose naming your new launchers after chess pieces, such as "Pawn", "King", or "Bishop". Another idea could be my current career's naming scheme of army ranks for each series of rockets (aka each major tech relating to launch hardware), with the first generation being the "Corporal" series (early solids), and my current series being the "Captain" series (Mainsail, Thoroughbred, and Twin Boar).

Best of luck to you @ralanboyle and have fun! Watching your video, I realized one clarification I didn't make that may have big implications for the first launch: you don't have to develop 2 CRPUs after the first launch simultaneously. I was thinking more like creating one CRPU for a few launches and once enough science is gathered via rockets using the first CRPU only, you could design the second CRPU to use.

For the first question, I was thinking that it's not super difficult to get 30-40 science from the first launch, which makes the Swivel and Reliant within reach of one launch should you only shoot for them in the tech tree. If you're really pushing it and get like 70 science, you also have the Thud and Terrier within reach, but that's probably stretching the first launch. I would imagine that your best bet for a CRPU would be using a Swivel (for the gimbal) or a Reliant (for the thrust/ISP). As for the second question, although OTRAG was meant to launch more high tech satellites into LEO, I was thinking closer to your latter suggestion, where the entire rocket is CRPUs, not just the lower stage. The payload can be changed out, of course, and things like RCS, nosecones, and landing gear can be added to CRPUs, but any other propulsion for anything ranging from LKO satellites to manned Laythe landers is not permitted. I do concede that this might just make this harder, so if you want, you can follow the idea to use two CRPUs instead of just one designs, presumably of a terrier engine for better efficiency.

Hey all, this was an idea for a career I had, based on the idea of OTRAG, but first, I will probably need to explain what it is/was, for those who don't know about it. What is/was OTRAG? OTRAG was one of the earliest private launch vehicle companies, operating in the 1970s and 1980s, but was never successful. Their idea was to have a tall, slender (16m x 0.27m), and mass-produced Common Rocket Propulsion Unit (CRPU) that they would be able to bolt several together in order to achieve any payload to Low Earth Orbit, staging them as needed; for example, a sounding rocket would use around 4, while an orbital launch vehicle would use several dozen or hundred. The CRPU was supposed to be extremely simple, with a pressure-fed engine, no gimbal (steered via differential throttle), and an ablative nozzle, ending up with a quite low efficiency for the engine (around 297s), but this was countered by the intended-to-be cheap cost of production (due to economy of scale), resulting in what's effectively a cheap but big launch vehicle that looks like a "bundle of drinking straws", as Scott Manley described the designs in a recent video. The Basic Challenge After one launch in career mode (since this idea doesn't work too well with just Fleas), design a Common Rocket Propulsion Unit, with fixed amount of fuel, a certain profile, and an engine , and all further rockets must only use that design. For example, 720 units of fuel [4 FL-T400 tanks], a 1.25m profile, and a swivel would work as a CRPU. Also, you can't modify any single CRPU's basic design, even if it's just something like offsetting the engine to allow for landing gear clearance. There is no limit to how many CRPUs you can use on a rocket (and you can detach them as needed), only the limits enforced by the game itself (mass/part limits). The tanks on the CRPU may be replaced with longer ones later, but the total amount of fuel and the tank diameter may not be changed. For example, you can switch from 4 1.25m FL-T400 tanks to 2 1.25m FL-T800 tanks on the CRPU for part count reasons, but you can't switch to a 2.5m X200-16 tank. You are allowed to change the amount of fuel inside the CRPUs in the VAB, but any empty tanks are not allowed to be removed before launch. For example, for the previously described CRPU, you could lower the fuel down to 180 units, but you can't remove the empty FL-T800 tanks or FL-T400 tanks, since that would require a different assembly line, making the CRPU idea worthless. Since differential throttling is not super practical in stock KSP, gimbaled engines are recommended, and since monopropellant is not great at propulsion, I'm allowing usage of it for things like docking. Of course, cheating of any amount is not allowed, unless it's justified (such as in a Kraken attack). Try not to clip non-structural parts (mainly fuel tanks and engines) through each other on CRPUs unless it can be rationalized. The end-goal is to finish the tech tree. Some Further Ideas I recognize the fact that this idea is extremely narrow, so I've layed out a couple more ideas below that might make the career more fun and less grindy. This is the rough idea for a challenge after all. This challenge is supposed to be in the same vein as the Caveman challenge in that it's highly customizable in difficulty, while still retaining the base idea behind it all. Use 2 CRPUs instead of one throughout the career (presumably a taller one for less efficient lower stages, and a shorter one for more efficient upper stages and/or less tipping over when landing on other worlds) Constrain staging to certain methods of attachment (OTRAG originally used radial attachments only, but fired each stage serially, using no crossfeed) Limit the VAB to tier 2 at most, to limit the part count to 255 (meaning that you can't build too big of a rocket, and must resort to orbital docking for larger missions) Start with 2 non-CRPU launches, to allow for easier access to the 2.5m parts for better CRPUs. Use an SRB for the CRPU (knowing first-hand how difficult it is to work with solid fuel, this probably is quite hard) Tie the number of CRPUs allowed to a building's current level (Example: Upgrading Administration center to level 2 allows creation of extra CRPU for a total of 2 CRPUs) Try landing a kerbal on a hard-to-visit destination (Moho, Eve, Dres, Laythe, Tylo, Eeloo) and return them to Kerbin (this is more of an end-game idea if the challenge ends too fast) Completers Since this challenge is finishing the career, I will add any player who finishes this challenge in the blank space below in future edits, with any notes as to what ideas above they used or anything notable about what they did. @ralanboyle The first completer, via a series of YouTube videos. Used 2 CRPUs, one with 4 FL-T400s and a Swivel engine, and the other with 2 FL-T400s and a Terrier engine. Took a relatively fast approach, doing only a few missions around the Mun and Minmus before going interplanetary with Gilly and Ike landings, culminating in a flyby-only Jool 5 mission. Nice work! Feedback Any feedback is welcome and encouraged, as I imagine there's plenty of holes in this that need patching. Note that although I've not actually attempted this challenge, but as a veteran player (since 0.19), I have strong reason to believe that it is feasible; a previous OTRAG challenge on here had the original poster launch a 32 ton payload to LKO using 36 CRPUs, each of which had a 1.25m diameter, 990 units of liquid fuel, and a swivel engine (or reliant, the pictures are a little hard to tell from).

I've just checked back in after a few days. Yeah, the 5m parts and 1.875m parts are DLC-exclusive, same with the F1-equivalent. (I don't own the DLC, if I sound strange.) Best of luck with the redesign!

I echo the above sentiment, in that it does look very friendly for new KSP players, though I do have a thought about the design. I personally wouldn't expect a new player to get the DLC expansions out of the box, so you may want to make a core-game parts only version of the rocket.

This mission report inspired me to take on my own RSS career with stock parts, and I've been enjoying it so far. However, I've been having troubles with landing on Mars, because the stock parachutes don't want to deploy until well below the surface, even when set to 0.01atm. How did you overcome that on your Mars lander?

Do one of the challenges or a career, but in RSS (or via a rescaling mod), keeping the parts limited to stock physics (so no mods like SMURFF or RO).

Greetings. This was a one-off mission that I did earlier this year, across the duration of February 2020, but one I had been designing since mid-2016. Below is the original information I posted on the Jool 5 topic, as well as the album to view the full mission at.

Hey, I am having trouble with the download on my Mac. The file downloads as a .zip, but it extracts into a ".zip.cpgz" file. When I click that file, it extracts as the .zip file again, creating an infinite loop. I've already tried the Unarchiver and Terminal to no avail, so can you check if you uploaded the file to GitHub correctly?

Would it be possible to add a way to create the pulse units away from Kerbin? Like perhaps via conversion from Ore and/or Uraninite?

After 4 years of on-and-off work, I am ready to present my Jeb's Level Jool 5, performed in a 6.4x system. The mission was flown in v1.7.1, but was partially designed in v1.1.2 (which means that some old part models are present). I used Kerbodyne Plus for the launcher (Behemoth Aerospace Engineering and SpaceY both glitched out on me), but kept stock outside of LKO. I did use several in-flight QoL mods: MechJeb (both via AR-202s and "Mechjeb and Engineer for All"), Bon Voyage, AutomatedScienceSampler, Kerbal Alarm Clock, and Kronometer (10.5 hour days, ~640 day years). Sigma Dimensions was used to rescale the solar system by 6.4x, using Galileo's parameters from RESCALE. Hanger Extender and Editor Extensions were used for construction. I flew with 5 kerbals, with Jebediah taking the first steps on Tylo, Bill doing the same on Laythe, Bob on Vall, Valentina on Bop, and Karry on Pol in the end. The original plan was different though, with Valentina taking the first steps on Laythe, Bill on Vall, and Bob on Bop. The launch costed $29,567,650.00. No extra refueling missions were used; everything was done in a single launch, without ISRU. I also brought a Jool atmospheric diver, Laythe plane, Laythe ComSat/refueling tank, Vall rover (that became a ComSat instead), Tylo Rover, Pol ComSat (ComNet was not enabled, though), and an unmanned lander that ended up landing in Dres's canyon, due to a vastly overbuilt transfer stage. The delta-V values for many, but not all (I'm not perfect), maneuvers are scattered throughout the provided album. Upon recovery, 49,430.1 science points total were obtained from the Jool system. The mission album is below (I apologize if any unnoticed grammatical errors are still present). Enjoy! https://imgur.com/a/g1hgYT

Hello, I have a question pertaining to the "no cheats" rule. When I move my Jool-V ship from the VAB to the launchpad, it rips itself to shreds the moment physics initiates. However, I have found that if the "unbreakable joints" cheat is activated for a second or two while the ship settles down into its clamps and then deactivated before launch, after that, the ship is perfectly stable, even in flight. My question is, would that be permitted when I do the real mission, or would it fall under "using cheats during the mission?" Thanks.