Chequers

Thanks for submitting an entry, @jinnantonix - while it is a valid (and impressive) entry, it appears you have used a performance assisting mod to help you land, which is against the rules. If you are able to demonstrate that you're able to complete the flight (your word is good enough) without using the mod, then I'd be more than happy to proceed with the honours! If I am incorrect about how this mod has been used (I don't use mods, so I'm not an expert on what they look like in practice), then please let me know!

Hi @AHHans. The payload must have a power source - but it doesn't have to generate its own power. E.g. a Z-100 battery would be sufficient to fulfil the 'power source' requirement. Regarding the Vermilion Heart, all Kerbals must be recovered in their pods - which doesn't count the Command Chair. They can land separately, or in the same pod.

I’ve only ever had one career save. Never even started a Science or Sandbox game... though that does make sense for testing and challenges. I did restart the career after a day or two, once I’d realised what difficulty settings I like most. Since then, everything I’ve ever done in KSP has been in that save.

I've only recently taken my first steps out of Kerbin's SOI, following the 'Milestone' contracts, I've done a flyby, and more recently, an orbit of Eve. My most ambitious mission to date was to put a rover on Duna, which was successful. Still no footprints on another planet though. I've just completed what is likely to be the last landing of a Kerbal on Minmus. I've landed a Kerbal eighteen times on another celestial body: Ten on the Mun and eight on Minmus - and I think we know almost as much as we're ever going to know about Kerbin's moons. But now the contracts are telling me to get a Kerbal into an orbit around Eve... they want a spacewalk photo with the purple planet in the background, for some reason.

Gracious! You’re absolutely correct - I’ve updated the record. Apologies for missing that.

I've updated my recent post with some better pictures during the day. I realised that while sunset is a wonderful time to fly amongst the mountains, it does not make for good photographs!

Congratulations, @joshudson on your entry, and for your detailed mission report and screenshots. The OBC committee appreciate perseverance, so well done on pushing through to get your vessel into orbit and back again. Your recovery cost estimate seems entirely reasonable. You successfully pass out of Orbit Boot Camp, and are awarded the Kerbin Crescent, adorned with Silver Claw (with Kelvin Ribbon) and Cobalt Stripe. Particular congratulations on being the first to claim the Diamond Wings, for delivering a payload into orbit! you are welcome to display the Orbit Boot Camp patch in your signature if you wish. Did your vessel have a name? I see it named as 'Boot Camp' in the VAB, but is this a placeholder? It will be recorded alongside your name on the Honour Roll. A hearty round of applause for your achievement - do feel free to submit further entries if you wish to earn further adornments.

Wonderful! And I am proud to display my Kayak Club badge with pride! Thanks for taking the time to create one, noble @Smokey the Bear and @purpleivan - and I love the design!

Update I've updated the signature badge for Orbit Boot Camp to better reflect the challenge. There's also a new badge on the way for the 1st Class Register. Thanks!

Congratulations, @jshu, on your entry, with 'OrbitBootCamper.' Thank you for taking the time to upload a video mission report - it was great to watch your approach - you weren't too far from the KSC, either! Particular thanks for choosing Orbit Boot Camp to be your first challenge, too. Your entry was perfectly legitimate, although you are only able to recover 5,000 in parts. Nevertheless, this brings your total mission cost to 4,942 - which makes this a successful entry. Therefore, you successfully pass out of Orbit Boot Camp, and are awarded the Kerbin Crescent, adorned with Silver Claw (with Kelvin and Observational Ribbons), Amber Leaves and Vermilion Heart. Your name and vessel will be recorded on the prestigious Honour Roll, and you are welcome to display the Orbit Boot Camp patch in your signature. Well done! And please do feel free to submit further entries if you would like to.

The Three Sages I would like to to submit a location to the esteemed Kayak Club, for consideration as a landmark worth a visitation. I have checked the chronicle thoroughly, and did not find another had claimed it. I have named it 'The Three Sages', after a tale from local folklore in the area. It is found by travelling to the northern ice shelf from the KSC, then following its coast to the east, until one comes to highlands that are connected to the shelf. The Three Sages are close to the centre of the mountain range to the east. Photographs The Tale

It's amazing to see how challenges can totally change the way we view things. I've always liked SRBs, and wanted to use them far longer than their usual shelf life in career games - usually after the point in which the cost savings are outweighed by the utility of liquid fuel. Most of my rocket designs still use them to give them a cheap kick-start, but I'd never thought of the application in SSTOs... 'till now. I've even adapted a few of the vessels in my standard fleet to utilise SRBs, rather than jet or liquid fuelled engines. Like with OBC, I've learned some very valuable lessons, that make certain contracts in the Kerbin system very profitable. Thanks for setting up the challenge, @Klapaucius - I've only submitted the one craft, but I follow the thread and enjoy everyone's submissions immensely. The OBC committee are peering into this thread with impressed expressions.

Great to hear @joshudson - I'm looking forward to seeing it! You can take the mass of the payload from the VAB. The payload simply has to have an antenna, power and a probe core: it doesn't have to have the ability to perform any burns or have any fuel.

As you've kindly mentioned me in your opening post, @Klapaucius, I thought I'd give this a go! It took some convincing of the Chequers Aerospace Project Committee to divert funds to this seemingly crazy vanity project, but Valentina - having recently survived a near-death experience - was able to convince the board that we needed to earn some silverware for our trophy cabinet. For publicity. And science. And other excuses. It gave us a good excuse to slip an upgrade to the runway under the radar, while the finance director was busy trying to ratify the 28,400 we spent on this mad endeavour. Val is getting a bit of a reputation for almost snuffing it during missions - and this was no exception. You'll notice from the attached video report that the rocketplane, christened 'Breakneck', almost takes a jaunt into the weeds to the left of the runway before lifting off. It's a miracle Val was able to wrestle this abomination of an aircraft into the air at all. Still, we don't have quicksaves or reverts as you know, so one must make do with the hand one has been dealt! The whole thing almost goes supernova on the way through the atmosphere too; but once again, Val - the Mistress of (near) Death gets away with it. She'll have to settle for Sodium for her efforts though; as unfortunately we didn't have the delta-v to complete the circularisation without using the de-orbit boosters. Of course, Jebediah knew before takeoff that she'd never make it back again; but he's been a little jealous of all the attention Val has been getting recently, and he wants to be the one to command the rescue mission. Perhaps I'll try this challenge again, once I've unlocked a few more parts. Val's used up enough her 9 lives for a while; and you won't find Jeb giving this a go. Time to mount the rescue mission to get our gal back. Video Report

Perhaps I don't have the same self-discipline you do, friend! When I first started playing, I tried hard not to use them... but ultimately, even without using them, it took some of the tension away. I had to start my career again with them turned off to force my hand. I appreciate that's not some players idea of fun - and having to go through a huge testing phase of each section of the mission before committing to it might seem laborious. But it slows the pace down for me, turns simple missions into week long projects, and knowing that I completed a mission without quicksaves/reverts even being an option... it just gives me a sense of satisfaction that I've rarely felt in a 'game' before. Of course, I've not had to deal with any major crashes yet, but I don't play with any mods, nor do I build anything outrageously complicated that could suffer from this mythical 'Kraken' I hear so much about. Perhaps in the future, I'll want to do more ambitious missions and some of the testing, and not being able to trial-and-error things easily, will become tedious. My contracts are becoming decidedly inter-planetary now; I just launched a probe to fulfil an 'orbit Eve' contract, and attempted to aerobrake to aid the capture burn; only to watch the probe become a firework even in the highest reaches of the atmosphere. The entire mission - and everything that went into it - was completely lost. I'll have to wait for the next transfer window to try again - and there's no promises that one will work either. For now, it's just exciting and tense - but perhaps eventually, it'll become frustrating and tedious, and maybe then I'll enable quicksaves.

So true! This forum has been invaluable as a new player: I'd hate to think how many missions would have gone awry if not for the great advice of you all. I've not really had any issues with crashes until this one - and I think it was an update running in the background that caused the issue. I can't quicksave, but @mystifeid suggested there's a backup folder which I might keep safe.

It's not a dumb question, but the answer is 'no.' And it's more complicated than just 'sure, let's add mods to the game'. Beyond the complicated technical and developmental acrobatics a mod developer would have to perform to make mods compatible with the closed-box consoles, there is actually a bigger barrier - Sony/Microsoft and games publishers don't want you to. There's a few reasons. The first is to protect their property - opening up their console to mods allows malicious software, glitches, or just low-quality content to be used on their hardware. There are all sorts of legal implications to this. The second is revenue. Why allow players to download additions and mods, when they could create a certified DLC and sell it? Ultimately, it's a combination of companies wanting to protect their property, avoid legal liability, and control the content players are exposed to. Mainly to create revenue, which makes sense, from a business point of view.

Indeed; but I was so focused on the looming mountain coming within a few hundred metres of the lander, that I didn't notice how quickly I was pushing the apoapsis up. All was well though, a quick calculation once back in orbit meant I had sufficient dV to continue the mission, and still return to the CSM for return to Kerbin. I suppose that's the benefit of 'Apollo Style' missions; it divides the mission up into sections, so that as long as you can get your Kerbal back to the orbiter, you know you can get them home safely.

I don't have saves or reverts enabled, friend! Hence the dilemma! If I couldn't save Val, she'd be lost forever. It makes the learning curve very steep - but very rewarding. I used very little fuel from the ascent stage during the abort burn - and so was able to proceed with the mission and comfortably rendezvous with the CSM in Munar orbit. Valentina is safely back on Kerbin, with plenty of stories to tell!

Success! I pointed vertical and fired the engines, crossed my fingers and hoped... and (narrowly) managed to avoid hitting the surface. I got below 500m, and really didn't think I was going to make it at one point. The poles are horrendously mountainous. It as actually a very eerie biome to land on... but I managed to push the apoapsis up high enough to avoid scraping any peaks. It actually didn't use much dV, and I was able to circularise at about 12,000m, and come around for a second landing attempt, managing to set down with less that 15m/s dV remaining in the descent stage. Valentina was very thankful for the timely intervention of your advice! Thanks for saving another Kerbal - and (more importantly) the mission! A very tense burn later, and Val is on the up! Safely down!

There are four LV-1R's mounted around the Lander Can, mounted on Oscar-B's: it's perfect for hauling just the lander can back into Mun orbit - but it's not going to add much to the Spark stage (I think I may have mentioned it's a Terrier previously - it's actually a Spark). Certainly not enough to slow us down to anything reasonable I don't think. My game is paused at around 3800m above the surface, and I'm travelling at ~500m/s at this point. TWR is rated at 4.5 for the Mun, with the single 48-7S 'Spark', and quad LV-1R 'Spider' boosters engaged. ...I hadn't considered adding energy to re-orbit... I absolutely have enough fuel to land - I've hardly used any in the lander. What would be my most effective burn at this point? Perpendicular from the surface?

Emergency! While on what has become a routine mission to continue exploring Mun biomes, Val has had a bit of misfortune. The mission proceeded nominally: Val clambered into the lander, detached from the CSM, and initiated the de-orbit burn to bring her down to the surface of the Mun at the designated landing zone, on Mun's south pole. Then, catastrophe! A complete loss of input. Also known as, 'KSP Crashed'. I crossed my fingers and hoped there was an autosave somewhere nearby. And fortunately, as I reloaded and checked the Tracking Station, sure enough, the flight was still in progress. Unfortunately, it's skipped a good part of the descent... and Val's lander is about 3,000m above the surface, without a landing burn initiated. I immediately hit pause: I know from previous calculations, this is not enough time to slow down. The lander will impact the surface of the Mun at over 100m/s, destroying the lander, and no doubt killing Val. I don't have quicksaves or reverts enabled, so whatever I try, I only have one shot at trying to salvage this situation. Is there anything we can do to rescue Val? Here's what I have to work with: The lander has two sections: the main lander, with science experiments. This has a terrier engine, which is currently engaged. On the surface, the Lander Can detaches from the base of the lander, for returning to the Command and Service Module in orbit. These radial boosters are not currently engaged... but I don't think they'll add enough thrust to slow down the craft; but perhaps they'll do enough to survive an impact? Or is it worth having Val bail out and use her jetpack? I'm not sure she'd have enough stopping power either. Thoughts?

Congratulations, @BallistX on resubmitting StarCharter Mun, which does indeed claim the Opal Festoon for highest Delta V once in orbit; which I can see from the screenshot, 'Setting up the Manoeuvre' in your mission report. The honorary list of unique adornments has been updated with your name; and I have also updated your entry on the Honour Roll - what was the final cost of the mission?

An honour! As you rightly pointed out, it bears the shape of my homeland, Australia, so it seems fitting to name it in accordance. I propose ‘Lake Omaroo’ which is an aboriginal word meaning ‘beautiful view.’

Aha! It certainly is Newfoundland! I am glad another has been here previously - it was too pleasant a place not to have been adorned with wistful gazes before mine.