king of nowhere

driving a rover is the best use of vall, imo. gravity is just right for being stable without climbing mountains being too difficult, terrain is varied enough to keep things interesting, and there's plenty of beautiful sights both on the ground and in the sky. In this post I recount my exploration of Vall, driving a rover halfway around the icy world to visit all biomes, with a suborbital jump in between. I especially recommend you visit kraken maw peak (south pole) and vallhenge, they are two of the most suggestive places in the whole game. Damn. I'm almost tempted to go back to it and do a full elcano

I always stopped at Gilly during my grand tours. Unfortunately, bad luck in resource distribution resulted in the moonlet being impossible to mine, or it would have been the best refueling spot in the whole kerbol system. Anyway, I did once try to land my whole DREAM BIG mothership there to protect it from radiations. While the attempt ultimately failed and radiation protection required other means, I still landed a 4000-ton mothership on it, and I still got a picture there's no score, but this should be worth a pretty good not-score There's also that time I did drive several km a rover on Gilly and found the green monolith (subchapter 5.6). Which is a pretty good achievement, given how difficult it is to stay on the ground on that moonlet

unless they changed stuff compared to my version, the inner radiation belt does not start until around 200 km, so you have room for space stations

In which way "intercepting all the junk" is different from "rendez-vous with every single piece"?

Part 10: Landers ahoy! Developing and launching the landers for Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis Being unable to transfer fuel poses some unique challenges, as fuel tanks have to be swapped every time. Launch mass limitation also forces a modular design After reading another report where people consider cheating the testing of stuff in sandbox (the challenge rules only specify mods), I asked challenge keeper JAXO if I was fine. He told me to go ahead as I was, but I'm still uncertain on whether I was supposed to do it or not. So I decided I'll keep testing in sandbox, but I'll limit myself to tests I could conceivably run in the career. So, I'll test everything in the Kerbin system, and won't try the landers on Jool. 10.1) Tylo lander 10.2) Laythe lander 10.3) Vall, Bop and Pol

yes, and you still have to rendez-vous with every single piece of debris individually. that's the problem

you'd have to chase them one by one with a probe made specifically to grab and deorbit. no easy way. there's a reason space trash is a problem

Then I'm going to only run testing in the kerbin system. I'm not sure what the spirit of the challenge is anymore, but I am limiting myself to tests that I can run at home, because those I could do within the career at just the cost of more time and patience. I started testing the tylo lander on kerbin (mostly to check if the modular structure made on multiple weak small docking ports could survive some shacking and the impact with the ground without tearing itself apart), and I will test the Laythe lander on Kerbin too. I am using the sandbox mode to test them, because they are modular with high part number and it would take a lot of launches and assembly to run the testing in caveman.

Meanwhile, I'd like to put forward another Jool 5 I did over one year ago, as part of another challenge. At the time, I wasn't even aware there was a Jool 5 challenge in the first place The report starts from a No Contract Career challenge. The first time I went for the trip, I failed, but I still linked that part because the subsequent part, where I improve the mothership design and then go on landing in all the outer Kerbol system and orbiting Eve before coming back home, would make no sense without the premise. It's quite a peculiar entry because it won't compete for low cost, low tech, tech gathered, or caveman limitations, but it had to deal with all of those issues in some form.

Part 9: The price of science Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis gets its supply of science jr and goo containers

there are appropriate containers for all the life support resources

there's no definite answer because it depends a lot on the ship. It's certainly possible to get within 1000 km, which is enough to get the "space low" condition for science.. Not sure you can go below 100 km without exploding.

Part 8: Ad memoriam (and updates) I make a memorial for Valentina. Meanwhile, construction of the Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis proceeds and a fifth kerbonaut is hired.

I doubt the fins at the bottom make any real difference. they are detached when the rocket detaches the helicopter blades. and while it's climbing as an helicopter, there is a full rocket to lift, and the weight of two big fins is mostly irrelevant. So, the main mass reduction is to put three seats and a fairing instead of the pod, but that's not always possible. Another small improvement, I discovered that the Mk 3 parachute is bad. It's 3 times heavier than the regular parachute, and it is NOT three times as effective. Using smaller parachutes would be more efficient. And discarding your parachute after landing on eve; if you have regular chutes, you can discard them with some eva construction if you bring all the crew to help. Unless you need those chutes to land back on kerbin. the last stage (marked with 2 in the vab) looks a bit overpowered, twr >1 on eve is a lot for the orbital stage. So maybe you could shift fuel a bit, add some 20% fuel to it and remove some 600 m/s from the first stage; if you save enough mass this way, you may be able to get away with a smaller engine than the vector. but unlikely. if you have troubles getting in a 90x90 orbit, you may want to add 20% fuel to that last stage and leave everything else the same, the weight increase on the full rocket is very small so the helicopter part and the first stage should behave just the same, and you should gain some 300 m/s that will give you extra safety. By the way, congratulations for giving detailed information. I don't think I've ever seen anyone asking for help include in the picture the twr of the various stages

was an unidentified aerodinamic problem. she took a mostly vertical suborbital jump; i wanted to do things mildly, so I used leftover fuel to brake; it run out around 35 km. then i jettisoned the rocket, keeping only the crew pod, a cargo bay, and a science jr. there things went wrong; the capsule picked up a lot of speed fast, it flipped, and i didn't manage to turn it right again. I opened the cargo bay for extra drag, and tried to oscillate the pod also for drago , but she still slammed into the hill, too fast to deploy the parachute. there was also a parabrake in the cargo bay, for extra safety, those deploy more easily than parachutes. I had similar accidents before and after, and i always survived. the parachute opened at the last moment, but it opened. And those times, i didn't even have a parabrake. maybe that time it was purely vertical speed, so the pod didn't have time to brake. Maybe that time it was the science jr, it added mass. maybe it was the attempt to land on mountains, Val still missed the mountains and hit hills at 1100 m altitude, maybe an extra 1100 m would have allowed the parachute to open. I thought the parabrake would grant extra safety in any case, but it didn't make a difference. Whatever the reason, it's directly linked to my attempt to get a material bay study on mountain biome. Hence a material bay on the mountains as a base for the monument.

Also, I built a memorial for Valentina. Earlier in the caveman, I lost her to a stupid accident in an easy routine suborbital mission. I still don't know why the parachute didn't open, nor do I know if it was my attempt to land in the mountain biome that doomed her. Regardless, she died trying to land on a mountain to get a science jr reading. Now I brought a memorial with a rover which, because of the 30 part limit, is seriously crappy. it is hugely understaffed in solar panels. it took me four days of driving to get to the mountains; the last day just to climb a short slope. and here's the memorial deployed. I did bring a science jr, the part that contributed to Val's demise, to act as a pedestal for a likeness of her, outstretched arms, palms pointing up as if urging her people to reach for the stars. Due to the pose, I'm informally calling it the Valentina redentora P.S. I considered carrying it to the top of a mountain, for most majestic placement. But with that limited rover, it was already difficult enough to get there

in theory, yes. in practice, it's glitchy. and you can't do it on a ship flying; the moment you use the pod, it's an habitat and you can't change it. the safest way to disable the habitat functionality is to edit the save file. I did it, and it worked. you can check if it works because you can see the internal pressure of your ship among the data on the panels in the upper right of the screen

After spending the last 15 months building increasingly titanic mothership and sending them in increasingly convoluted missions, I decided to try a different style and take a caveman challenge. Guess what I did? I'm trying to build a titanic mothership and send it in a convoluted mission. This is the core of the Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis The core grows with more crew pods. They are not needed, but it just feels wrong to send the crew to jool without any living space The core of the ship is completed. Now the service probe (on the left) is installing the first drop tank. Many more will be needed. Caveman limits to 18 tons. The Cetotherium module is too big and aerodinamically challenging to be launched with this restriction, so I buff the launcher with additional drop tanks with a dedicated fuel tanker. Also recycling the poodle engine from the second stage. Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis will have 4 poodles, all attached through docking ports because I will discard them as I lose drop tanks. The last piece of the Cetotherium launcher is discarded, revealing the mothership so far. By my estimation, I will need upwards to 200 launches to complete this but at least I know what to do with my free time in the next few months

there does seem to be a certain regularity in the way the game generates contracts. The "get science from location X", which are my main source of income in this challenge, tend to repeat regularly; Mun surface, Mun space, Minmus surface, Minmus space, Kerbin space, those five appear in no particular order, but without repetition. After I get all 5, I get no more new "science from X contracts, until I pick another contract. it can be a contract of any kind, but i must grab one. and then the game gives me again the five contracts, and then again i have to pick something different. If I skip one, like earlier I was rejecting the "science from Mun surface" because I didn't have a fixed base there, I keep getting the same contract. I wonder, if I actually accept all test contracts without accepting anything else, if I can exhaust test contracts this way.... worth a try maybe EDIT: just checked, it's starting to give again the same parts to test. still no 1.875 m thermal shield. i guess i'll have to research the tech. EDIT again: just when I gave up, I got the contract for it. it's almost like the game could read my mind...

the bobcat and cheetah engines are also from making history, but i got them easily

playing a caveman challenge, taking advantage of contracts to test parts to use stuff that I don't have a tech for. I would like to get the 1.875 m heat shield, and I'm trying to get a contract for it. I spent over one hour refreshing contracts, I got several ones for the 2.5 m heat shield (in the same tech), but none for the 1.875 m. Now I suspect that there are no contracts generated for that part, ever. But how can I know? is there some way to know if I will get a contract for the 1.875 m shield or not?

We've discovered in recent years that oxygen in an atmosphere can be the result of solar wind stripping it off. You have water, the water is broken by solar radiation into hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen is lighter and escapes in space, oxygen remains. It's happened on Mars, except the oxygen all went to oxydize stuff around and there's not much in the atmosphere. But the process could generate a high oxygen atmosphere. Probably not that far from the sun, though

Part 7: it's not a King of Nowhere's mission without some massive mothership! Preparing for the Jool 5, I begin assembly of the Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis

Part 6: Just to show that I can I decide that I will not try to finish the challenge by launching a kerbal on a ladder and collecting EVA reports. However, I still land on Mun a kerbal on a ladder, to make a point that I could have completed the challenge thusly, had I wanted.

@JAFO @Mr. Peabody I did not get a clear answer to this question. I've been testing stuff in a separate save whenever it was too dangerous or time consuming to do it in the career. I've been doing that because it was my understanding that the rules allow it. But, reading the caveman jool 5 mission thread, I saw people having different interpretations. I would like a final answer on this. I also suggest that the "no mod or cheat menu in separate games" line in the first post be clarified. Finally, I haven't yet done anything where testing in another save was too intensive or game-breaking. I only used the cheat menu to transfer a rover from the runway to the launchpad, to save some minutes. I would want to know: if you rule that this kind of testing is now allowed, will my submission still be acceptable if I stop that kind of testing now? Or is my entry already disqualified? Please, answer. I am about to build a Jool 5 mothership. I still have to build the landers and test them. I will have to launch close to 100 fuel canisters in orbit. If you tell me I'm good, I will keep with the slow grind. I will wait to test the landers on laythe and tylo for your greenlight, or lack thereof. If you tell me I'm already disqualified, I'll cheat myself a huge amount of money, and - after launching a handful of fuel canisters in orbit normally - cheat the rest of them there, skipping most of the boring part. It would really suck if I went through all the slow, boring grinding parts, only to be told at the end that I was disqualified anyway due to a misunderstanding in the rules