EveMaster

One small correction: It was 74 experiments instead of 72. So it is 20 more points. This time it was my mistake because I remembered the number incorrectly. You can see the number of experiments on my last screenshot back in orbit and on the screenshots of @Space Nerd. Nicely done. Regarding your questions in the imgur post of the return: Probably the inclination correction caused this. If you are not in a perfectly circular orbit, burning normal/antinormal also changes the height of the apoapsis and periapsis. Docking in low Eve orbit is not easy because of the fast drifting. You can make your life easier if you orient the crafts facing normal/antinormal. This way the drift is directly towards the crafts or away from the crafts to dock and not sideways. Maybe the craft ditched into the atmosphere on the long ejection burn. I would have called them Eve Trinity because there are three of them, if there wasn't the nuclear bomb Trinity. Do you have any better suggestions? If not, we can stick to the not so creative "Eve Orbiter", Eve Science Plane" and "Eve Ascent Module." The craft files of my mission are here: https://kerbalx.com/EveMaster/Eve-Ore-Lifter https://kerbalx.com/EveMaster/Eve-Science-Plane

I now have completed a Jool 5 mission on a single launch at 30% Nerf-level. Not everything went as planned, but I managed to land on each moon of Jool and return safely. The mission report can be found here: https://imgur.com/gallery/mYeFzvM

I now managed to reach 3447 m/s in orbit. On my previous attempt, I did not know that you are allowed to rotate the craft. I rotated it by about 2-4 degrees to the east. SRBs and throttle on full all the time. Switching to prograde after reaching 15 m/s. Staying on surface prograde during the entire burn. Very shallow ascent profile. Pictures of my ascent:

@The Doodling Astronaut, now @Space Nerd and me have completed this round. We have done landings on Minmus and Gilly for refueling and on Eve for science. From Eve we have returned 72 science including a materials bay scan, and 3 robotic arm experiments as well as 300 units of ore. Here are the imgur mission reports of my parts of the mission: Kerbin Ascent and Minmus Refueling Gilly Refueling Eve landings Eve surface Eve ascent We launched three crafts in total. These are the crafts I designed and launched:

I have to add, that this is my experience with rocket powered planes with heavy engines at the back such as the Mammoth. In that case, canards also have more leverage than control surfaces near the back. I don't question that you can build a fine sea plane without canards. One thing that is important when doing water landings: Tilt up, so that you make contact with water with the rear of the plane first. If you don't do that, parts tend to get compressed and are destroyed.

If you plan to take off from the sea with a plane, your design should also have canards, that means control surfaces in front of the center of mass. They have the advantage that they help you lift up instead of pushing the tail into the water when you tilt up for takeoff. Center of lift and center of drag should of course be behind the center of mass. Rocket powered planes will only be able to travel several km after splashdown especially since you probably can't land them full on fuel because then the plane would not slow down fast enough during reentry. First go into a low Eve orbit if your contract allows this so you can better chose your landing zone. For reentry you have several options: Heatshield, using lift and tilting up 30 degrees to control your descent rate (dangerous) or retroburning once the heating starts. Once you are at a save speed at around 15- 20km height , you can control the path and glide to the nearest coast. Gliding is easy in Eve's thick atmosphere.

The checklist is a nice idea. One thing to add would be to launch with the correct crew. That means to have the correct professions on board or to have an empty seat if it is a rescue mission.

The density of Eve's seas is higher than on Kerbin, so parts have more buoyancy. Even full fuel tanks float on Eve's seas. Full ore tanks, heavy structural parts and heavy engines do sink.

You're right that building a self supporting off-world bases is the real challenge. The question is, can this be achieved in 10 years? I doubt it. Your hypo is indeed interesting but it is inconsistent. You assume gigantic collonies on the Moon and Mars but restrict to current technology. Such collonies are not possible with current technology.

You're right, adjustable landing gear would be a great thing. You could try to build them with robotic parts, with hydraulic pistons or with z-shaped hinges. If you try this you should disable wheel autostrut, because autostrut and robotic parts don't go well together. Alternatively I suggest to go with multiple sets of landing gear. For a 1kiloton plane you need a smaller front landing gear setup for maneuverability at low speed and a larger one for takeoff and landing. For docking you can make small adjustment in height by tuning the spring settings in game. I managed to dock this heavy craft on Minmus: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/ghD20fN This 400 ton craft of me can dock on Eve using a second set of landing gear: https://kerbalx.com/EveMaster/Eve-Infinity

We have lot of science from Eve surface and atmosphere but less than 100. No science from orbit or from other bodies. When I landed on Eve, shortly after me asking the question about scoring, i did not know, that was allowed.

That is a good idea. Minmus has some inclination but is also easy to reach if you do the burn from low Kerbin orbit at the ascending or descending node. If you would arrive early just do the transfer burn some orbits later. You don't have to match the inclination that way and changing the inclination high up at Minmus orbit is cheap. You don't have to do precision landing and docking on the surface, two alternatives are: Ferry ore from the surface to a converter in orbit. Advantage: No need to carry ISRU-converter up and down. Have full mining equipment on the lander. Advantage: If you run short on fuel you can use your payload on the way back into orbit. If you decide to ferry ore to a converter in orbit it is important that you use the the large converter. The large converter can create much more fuel out of the same amount of ore. The large drill has the advantage that it also works with low ore concentrations in addion to being faster.

Nice challenge. Should it be manned or unmanned or can it be both? You might want to rethink the scoring. Eve is pretty much impossible to return from with monopropellent. The puff engine has an ISP of 46 at Eves highest point and a TWR of 2.44 from the engine alone. At Eve sea level the thrust from monopropellent is 0. Maybe it's possible if you combine it with propellors. All of Jools moon the same points does not make sense. Tylo and Laythe have far higher requirements than Pol and Bop.

Does only surface science and splashed down science count? Or also flying low? What about high up in the atmosphere science? I think obviously science in orbit does not count since it is a lander challenge, is that right?

Updates from my space program at 30% nerf level: After having unlocked more parts this is now my standard lifter for around 172k funds without payload and a lifting capacity of around 20 tons: With this lifter and similar ones I built my mun station with several launches. The mun station contract was not profitable on its own despite a reward of several thousand k funds but I combined it with other contracts. Below is my mun station with my nerv engine mun lander. The mun lander can visit 2-4 Biomes before having to return to refuel in orbit. The station has plenty of fuel for refueling due to the contract requirement of 6000 liquid fuel on the station. I also brought dlc surface science instruments to the surface of mun and minmus. Later I moved the entire station from mun to minmus orbit. My first interstellar mission combines several things. It has a rover and directly lands from Kerbin transfer, breaking using a heat shield. The heat shield stays on until the landing for a testing contract. My launcher also has 5 small relais satellites and one interplanetery satellite. Third it has a lander can with room for 2 Kerbals, Jeb and Bob. I separated the lander can from the other parts shortly after leaving orbit. The kerballed craft I tuned at an Eve flyby to do multiple gravity assist on the route Eve-Eve-Kerbin-Kerbin-Jool. When entering Eve SOI, I separeated the lander with the rover from the relais sats and tuned the orbit, that the lander arrives 12 minutes before the relais sats reach periapsis. My Eve rover: I retroburned with the relais sat still docked together into a captured orbit. Then I aerobraked into a lower orbit. I left the interstellar relais sat in a highly elliptical orbit that also has some inclination from the intial capturing. That way there is a higher chance that it can connect to Kerbin. The other 5 relais sats I put into a low Eve orbit with equidistant spacing. My Eve relais network: With the manned lander I captured around Jool using a gravity assist at Tylo. I flew by all moons of Jool and landed on all 4 biomes of Pol. Then I used gravity assists at Laythe and Tylo to transfer back to Kerbin. At Kerbin I used a flyby at the Mun, an aerocapture at 50km and retroburning to capture in an orbit around Kerbin. I set the apopasis to 40km on the next orbit and aerobraked to a landing. With the science returned from the Jool system I now have unlocked the entire tech tree and have 15.8 million funds. Next thing I want to try is to a Jool 5, if possible with a single launch.

3331 m/s left. The fuel tanks is still disabled.

Nice challenge! Is it allowed to add autostruts and/or "rigid connection" or how it is called? Is it allowed to change the staging? For example put the decoupling and ignition of the next engine into the same stage or deploy the fairing earlier. Is it allowed to deploy the fairing while still in the atmosphere? The upper fuel tank of the terrier stage is disabled. Can this fuel tank be enabled for the deltaV readout of the scoring? The craft is a quite straight forward design with a very high TWR and plenty of delta-V, so less experienced players should also be able to put the craft into orbit. I suggest another play mode with a seperate leader board in addition to the maximum remaining delta-V readout: Cheat the gravity to a higher factor and still put the payload into orbit. The gravity factor is the score.

@vyznev Do g-forces from crashes count for the high-gee tourism contracts or does the g-force have to last for some time? That would be risky though when playing without reverts. Maybe you could build a rotating device to achieve the g-forces. I now build a relais network around Mun and around Minmus with the smallest relais dishes. For my first mun landing I forgot to put a decoupler on the lander. I do play with F5/F9 and with reverts, but I do not use any other savegames. The nerfed Terrier engine was not strong enough to burn it away. I had enough fuel left because I have refueled in orbit from another craft (No fuel tank at more than 30%"), so I decided to attempt a landing anyway. After some F5/F9 reloading I managed to land without tipping over. I also had enough fuel left to put Jeb back to orbit together with the help of his EVA jetpack. For my second Mun landing I built a 794 kg SSTO that can bring 3 Kerbals holding onto ladders from low Mun orbit to the surface and back. Unfortunately without an antenna it cannot connect to my relais network but only directly to Kerbin. Unintendedly I descended during an eclipse, so I had no solar power during descend. But by putting the probe core to sleep mode for part of the descent the 10.0 units of energy lasted just until touchdown. The Kerbals are currently back in orbit at my space station in low Mun orbit. The station now has only place for 3 Kerbals, but I have accepted a contract to build a station with 20 Kerbals around the Mun. At the moment I have 1,8 million funds. I'm planning to explore more parts of the Kerbol sytem. Until now the nerfing mostly affects the ascent from Kerbin, not so much the lower gravity bodies and the orbital maneuvers.

I guess, playing in "Science mode" and unlocking all technology with alt+F12 cheat menu is OK. It is basically the same than playing in "Sandbox mode" without cheats but has the advantage that the returned science and where the craft has been is reported on mission completion.

My space program on Jeb level, normal difficulty settings and both DLCs makes good progress. I have upgraded most buildings to level 2 so far. My admin building strategy is "Fundraising Campaign" at 25%. Using that I have enough money without having to grind. Right now I have 442000 funds. My biggest achievement was orbiting the mun right now. Pictures of some craft I built from left to right that achieve escaping atmosphere escaping atmosphere with 2 tourists escaping atmosphere with 4 tourists achieving orbit rescuing mission from low equatorial Kerbin orbit rescuing mission from low equatorial Kerbin orbit + putting 2 FL-TX900 to orbit. Combining the missions of putting fuel tanks into orbit more than pays for themself if I combine them with Kerbal rescue mission. The two fuel tanks (30% full) with two docking port jr is the maximum payload that I can put into orbit with level 2 VAB and launch pad. Right now I have transported two of these fuel depots to orbit. My next plan is to use them to land on the Mun and on Minmus.

An unmanned two stage rocket I built in sandbox mode nerfed to 30% landed on the surface of the mun. There were no extras on the lander, not even an antenna or a battery. The battery run out seconds after landing. I'll try Jeb difficulty level. I hope it is not too grindy.

I think Jool sea level is too extreme. A more reasonable goal would be low in Jool atmosphere, which is below 120km. Maybe add bonus points for people that manage to get lower.

I think you are talking about this video: Edit: Oops, that was Eve and not Jool sea level. Stratzenblitz did however do a Jool sea level mission:

Is it allowed to use engines after entering the atmosphere?

I build the "Nano Space Shuttle" last year that only weights 7.650t. This shuttle launches vertically and lands horizontally. I also made another even smaller shuttle, but that does count because it lands using a parachute.