king of nowhere

A 6 km/s ship won't have enough thrust to land on tylo. Let's make some calculations. To land/orbit on tylo you need 2300 m/s. Make it 2500 for safety. you want 5000 m/s for the two-way trip. You also want a TWR of 2. Let's take the most efficient vacuum engine, the wolfhound (i experimented with higher thrust engines, but the advantage in thrust does not compensate the loss of Isp). The wolfhound has a thrust of 375 KN, or 37.5 tons (it's easier to think the thrust in tons). To have TWR 2, you can lift 18.75 tons. 3.3 tons are the engine itself, so you have room for 15.45 tons of fuel. Of course 1/9th of that will be the weight of the fuel tanks, so 1.72 tons of fuel tanks. Your ship will have a dry weight of 3.3+1.72=5.02 tons, and a wet mass of 18.75 tons. Apply the rocket equation, 380*9,81*ln(18.75/5.02) = 4912 m/s. Close enough to make it viable. You see there's no way you can reach 6 km/s; to do that, you'd have to cut too much on engine mass. You can content yourself with a lesser thrust; after all, when you will land you will have mostly empty tanks and your thrust will be higher, that's important. You can take off from tylo with a lower thrust without losing too much efficiency. Let's try some other figure; 2 wolfhounds, 36 tons of fuel + 4.5 tons of tanks, 2 tons of assorted payload. total dry mass 13.1 tons, wet mass 49.1 tons. 4925 m/s, starting TWR 1.53. It's up to specifications. If you want more dry mass, you have to add proportionally more wolfhounds and fuel. Yes, the weight escalates quite fast. For example, if you want a large convert-o-tron and 2 drills, that's 7 tons. 10 rtgs to use it with some speed, a couple large reaction wheels to have some manueverability, and a Mk3 command pod, that's close to a 10 tons payload. So you will need 10 wolfhounds and 200 tons of fuel tanks to bring that mass up and down from orbit. You could go refuel on Pol. Low tylo orbit to Pol surface is something like 1500 m/s, so you'd only need 4 km/s for your ship. It would increase your payload fraction considerably.

shielding is the only resource that does shielding, but do not despair. A few things that you may not know about shielding and radiations - when in interplanetary space, the main source of radiations are solar storms. Those, however, come from the sun and are blocked by other parts. Make a long thin ship with a large tank at the bottom, point the tank towards the sun, and you'll be protected by solar storms - interplanetary space still has some background radiations, however a single active shield will negate that. it's 2.5 tons, you can afford it - the hitchhicker containers have a "radiation decontamination unit", it will reduce kerbal radiation exposure by roughly 1% every 4 days and it works on one kerbal at a time, even if you have four of them inside. it's definitely not enough to cover you alone, but it more than compensates for the small amount of damage you take in interplanetary space. be aware that the RDU consumes some oxygen to work, turning it into CO2, but if you have a chemical plant to recycle co2, it won't be a problem. in fact, it doubles as a convenient source of carbon, to work some greenhouses. though i do not recommend greenhouses unless you are doing something really crazy like my projects. the first kerbalism grand tour i took, radiations were the major problem and the big scare. After that, I learned how to deal with them, and in subsequent grand tours they have been of no concern. Except when visiting the inner moons of jool, but for the rest of the time radiations could be ignored with the right preparation.

it is likely some of those solar panels are shading each other. i had to go to great lenghts to build large solar arrays without the panels overlapping. and yes, you can right click on every panel to see how much energy it produces, and see the problem for yourself. also, did you conside the power needed for the drills?

My OPM grand tour explored the rest of the Sarnus system Slate looks good from orbit But once on the ground, it's a very harsh environment. Looks like it would be nice to explore with a dedicated rover. But a rover that doubles as ascent vehicle don't have enough powerto climb in this high gravity environment. Also, I find extremely irrealistic to have an airless world just besides a much smaller world with a thick atmosphere. I ranted analyzed at lenght the issue in the dedicated mission report thread, showing how it would be completely impossible. Hale, right in the middle of the ring system, is perhaps the most beautiful place in the whole kerbol system Gravity is so low that the lander won't stop bouncing. Had to send an astronaut in eva to plant the flag like this Too bad kerbalism places it straight in the middle of the second deadliest radiation belt of the game. My crew could survive 150 minutes in that environment, give or take. Time spent on EVA would count tenfold, as radiation shielding in the ship was already reducing damage by 90%. To get there and away fast enough I had to use crazy ridiculous high energy transfers, costing over 5 km/s Coming in from a polar trajectory was necessary to skip most of the radiations. But of the 250 minutes allowed, I spent a good 15 just making the injection burn. Finally Ovok is just outside of the rings. It's also deep inside the radiation belt, though being on a higher orbit it is a bit cheaper to reach. The sky is as beautiful as that of Hale. But the ground is dull. This planet is so small, my mothership is clearly visible from orbit: I brought it there with alt-f12 just to try the picture, of course; doing otherwise would just kill the crew the last moon of Sarnus is Eeloo, the same from Stock; it's just being moved around.

why wouldn't it be possible? It's not complicated at all. You just need a ship with a drill, a convert-o-tron, 3 km/s of deltaV (2.5 km/s are enough, but you can stay safe), and TWR >1.5 (kerbin), possibly >2. Those are not particularly harsh requirements. One of my rovers did it, with enough spare mass for all the rover parts. And it's certainly much easier to do than doing it in one stage Again, perfectly doable. You need 5 km/s and a TWR>1.5. You can do it if you use a large, powerful engine with an appropriately-sized fuel tank. As long as your crew pod is very light compared to everything else, it will work. Even just a crew pod, a couple large reaction wheels, an RTG, and 50 tons of fuel with an appropriately sized engine (a rhino could do the trick with this mass, but you'd have to check) would be enough. Oh, so it appears your problem is not deltaV or thrust, but trajectory. You've done a lot of other landings on other moons, and you learned techniques, but on tylo they don't work anymore. Indeed, on tylo the suicide burn is much longer than everywhere else, so the manuever that will result in a perfect mun landing will crash you down on tylo. You have 2 solutions: the first is the one mentioned by @Lt_Duckweed. It is the most efficient, fuel-wise, especially if you have low thrust. It is also extremely difficult to pull off correctly, unless you have a bunch of mods to help you do exactly that. The second solution is less efficient, but much easier: just pack an additional 500 m/s and start the suicide burn higher. on tylo, i've started suicide burns as high as 40 km. Have faith: to land on tylo you only need 2 things: 2500 m/s of deltaV, and 1.5 TWR. If you have higher thrust and you are good, you can go as low as 2300 m/s, but I don't recommend it. For a comfortable landing, I suggest 2700 m/s and TWR 2. If you have those, then your ship CAN and WILL land on Tylo, if piloted correctly.

Part 11: The lord of the rings With A'Tuin safely parked around Tekto, Trucker and Horseshoe take multiple missions to land on the remaining moons of Sarnus. Sarnus is a very difficult environment, with a very large radiation belt extending far out from the planet, a large airless moon nearly as big as Tylo requiring the use of the first heavy descent stage, and two moonlets stuck right in the middle of the inner radiation belt, where an unprotected kerbonaut would die in just ten minutes. This part of the mission pushed Trucker and Horseshoe to the limit of their capacity, but the two ships behave really well, and everything is accomplished without drama. 11.1) Slate, the bane of rovers 11.2) Hale: I have 7 km/s and I'm not afraid to use them 11.3) Ovok: deja-vu 11.4) The interesting side of Eeloo 11.5) Preparing for the next phase

not working. my first really huge mothership was slowing the game so much, when i had to turn it around i would put the game in background and go do something else while waiting. and yet, even before i finished its mission, i already decided on an even more elaborate mission, with an even bigger mothership. I've been playing with those incredibly laggy motherships since last december now, and I'm still trying to come up with more convoluted missions

indeed. you cannot deorbit multiple crafts simultaneously, the game can't deal with multiple vehicles in atmosphere

This idea started when I realized the most difficult achievements one can do in this game have to do with aerodinamics. I've never much liked playing with planes, so this thing surprised me. When I became good enough that I got bored with regular career, I started looking towards mods that made things more difficult, coupled with increasingly fancy mission requirements. But apparently, a lot of the most skilled players are trying to save every possible gram of fuel in their ssto. Then i realized, it's actually the most challenging things in the stock game; with stock isru and some decent mastery of interplanetary transfers, completing a grand tour is relatively trivial. And I can't imagine any challenge more difficult without involving atmospheres. To me it was natural to keep running convoluted space missions with mods, but most people did something different. Surely a lot of them left the game. So I'm asking out of curiosity, to see how far the gamer imagination has gone to keep a game fresh. What are your ways to keep things interesting after the regular stuff becomes too easy?

I've been wondering why all those high-end optimization goals have to do with atmospheric flight and aerodinamics. especially with this being a game about spaceships. Then I realized, once you master orbital manuevers, there really isn't much that the stock game can offer. especially if you use isru, you can go everywhere without many problems. Once a player becomes good enough, the regular career holds no challenge anymore. and then the stock game only holds real challenges in aerodinamics. another option is to grab mods, and yet another option is to leave the game entirely. I wonder what's the percentage of players that pick either options. It's an interesting tangent, I'll open a thread for it

My OPM grand tour reached Sarnus, with its breathtaking ring system. Arrowhead spaceplane took a dip inside Sarnus atmosphere, getting some great images of the rings. I took some 60 screenshots of that. It's hard to pick just a handful to show here zooming on the inner moons Eeloo, Ovok, and Hale (the smallest and innermost, in the gap between the rings, you'll likely mistake it for a speck of dust on the monitor) Arrowhead also visited Tekto, the outermost moon. With low gravity and a thick atmosphere, it is the perfect place to aerobrake. It would also be a perfect place to fly a propeller plane, unfortunately a bug prevented the propellers from working - no, the plane is not broken, it still works perfectly in every other atmosphere. It also works on Tekto, for a few seconds, then the propellers keep spinning but abruptly stop producing any thrust. I had a similar bug with a rover on the moons of Neidon, where the wheels were spinning but the rover wasn't moving. I had to compensate by cheating unlimited fuel to fly around the place. Anyway, most of Tekto is featurless, but it has some good stuff near the north pole this system of deep fissures is extensive, and the deepest among those can easily rival with the dres canyon in size. But they are much better than the dres canyon, because 1) they have a better color, 2) you can fly inside with an airplane; or at least you could, if there wasn't an aerodinamic bug And then there is this impressive tower at the exact geographic north pole Massive, ominous tower, surrounded by spikes. I'm calling it Barad-Dur I still have to visit the other moons

so you are telling me you can perform those very complex kerbin-eve-kerbin-jool multiple gravity assists... but you can't use a single gravity assist to get captured at jool?

Part 10: To Sarnus! A'Tuin refuels on Wal and Tal, then goes to Sarnus, for once in a proper transfer window. It aerobrakes at Tekto, parking in the moon's orbit. Shortly before arrival, Arrowhead was released, it took a deep dive amid the rings and sampled the high atmosphere of the gas giant, and it then arrived at Tekto, exploring the planet while waiting for the mothership's arrival. There were krakens. 10.1) This is what I get for wanting to save weight on uranium (Wal refueling and failed exploration, Tal refueling) 10.2) A straight transfer 10.3) I'm getting used to long trips by now 10.4) A dive between Sarnus rings 10.5) He who fights with krakens might take care lest he thereby become a kraken. And if you play for long with a bug, the bug also plays with you (Tekto exploration, with bugs) 10.6) Ordinary aerobraking with an extraordinary ship

it's easy, really. all you need to do is, when you are entering jool's sphere of influence, to pass in front of tylo. In fact, just make sure to get a tylo intercept, and see how it changes your trajectory. Move around a bit, you should find a gravity assist to get captured by jool even just by accident. Just make sure you pass close to the equator, otherwise you'll end up in some horribly inclined orbit. Here are some examples the first two use laythe, but it's the same principle. Look at where is periapsis compared to the planet's orbit in this second case, it looks like the periapsis is in the wrong side. but if you can account mentally for the fact that laythe will be on a different place during flyby, you'll see it works. but i repeat, you just have to try move your periapsis around finally an example with tylo. though this one is from a certain distance, not very visible

there is no engine or anything whatsoever that uses more oxidizer than liquid fuel. there is no way in game to burn more oxidizer than fuel. this leaves a few options still on the table: - you actually loaded less than the full capacity of liquid fuel - you misspoke and you actually run out of liquid fuel

I'm not the greatest expert in plane aerodinamics, but I can suggest checking if the rotor is still working at top speed (460 rounds per minute). When the air becomes more dense, the propellers face more drag, and as a result to rotor may not be able to push it at full speed anymore. also, sometimes propellers can get bent; i've seen it happening in particular when you leave the propellers active in vacuum, or when you reload with the propellers moving in a thick atmosphere. If thet get out of shape, they will lose efficiency. if neither of those is the reason, then yes, it's up to air density and pressure. I'm not sure on how those impact the efficiency of propellers, but I know they do

there is no such thing as a long distance in orbital mechanics. only large deltaV. Distance is mostly meaningless. 3 million km to go from Moho to Eve are far more expensive to cover than 30 million km to go from Dres to Jool. And then there are plane changes where you cover no distance, but they are super expensive. besides everything that @jimmymcgoochie said, I want to bring a personal example for how Nervs are not always the best despite great Isp. I was running a Jool 5 mission. I had the mothership that was supposed to land and refuel on Vall, so it needed enough thrust to land on Vall. And of course since it was big I assumed it was a good idea to use the Nervs. The ship was fairly big, carrying fuel for 2 big landers, so I needed 24 nervs to land it on Vall. I also had issues because the mothership used liquid fuel, one lander used oxidizer, and one used a mix. Later, when I got more experienced, I made some calculations. Those 24 nervs were 72 tons heavy. I could get more thrust with just 4 wolfhounds, for 13 tons. I made some calculations with the rocket equation, and it turned out, I would have gotten a greater deltaV if I had used 3 wolfhounds. the increased mass was just making me lose so much. Nervs are great to manuever a large ship in deep space, but they have limitations and drawbacks like everything else.

As I was approachins sarnus, I want into IVA view from a cupola to gaze at the planet as it grows bigger. It's something I do sometimes. I was very surprised when I saw a small streak of light moving; I realized it was a comet (the comet, as for some reason they stopped spawning after the first one) I reloaded back to confirm if it was the one I was already tracking, and since I was there I could start looking at it from the moment it became visible. For a while I thought it must be a new, unidentified comet (is it even possible that the game will throw in a comet like this?) because it was on the wrong side of the sun, but eventually I realized the simplest explanation: my iva view was upside down I had no idea you could see comets like that. Asteroid are not visible until they come in physical range. and especially i had no idea you could see then so far maybe i should try to get a better viewing spot from up close

My OPM grand tour reached Urlum. The planet itself is nowhere near as beautiful as Neidon, but one of the moons is great. Mixed reviews on the rings, they look good from certain perspectives, from others they are underwhelming Here A'Tuin is passing straight through the rings. Seen like this, they are just lines A closeup of Urlum from periapsis Polta is really beautiful. It is my new favourite celestial body to drive a rover on And from this perspective, the rings look much better It's purely a matter of tastes, but the color, the color variations, the topography, they are all perfect. P.S. The crew pod is red because the life support got broken. Don't worry, there is enough air for two days before the crew start getting CO2 poisoning. And this is the second moon, Priax. I really did not like it. Its extreme ruggedness makes it really annoying to try and drive anywhere. Plus it is incredibly dark; this picture has, like, 70% light amplification; in normal light, you can't see anything. The one good thing about Priax is the sky, and least from the right spots on the surface Further from Urlum is the big moon Wal, with its own moon, Tal. Tal is very small, as small as Pol, and somewhat less irregular. It's nice, though I prefer Pol. But it's an extremely important refueling spot There are flying boulders on Tal too. Unlike stock boulders, which you can pass through, OPM boulders will collide. Here I almost crashed with a boulder in mid-air Those pictures, taken when Arrowhead was plunging in atmospheric flight inside Urlum, are the best images of the rings I have. From this perspective, they really look good. Urlum itself is nothing special when seen from orbit, but from the low atmosphere it gets this beautiful glow. I can only describe it as "otherworldly". Which is very appropriate, since it's on another world. The last moon shown here is Wal, high in the sky while A'Tuin refuels on Tal. Wal is somewhat bigger than Duna, and extremely rough. It looks good from afar, but not from up close Here is a closer look at Wal, while I'm trying to land A'Tuin on it. Unfortunately the uranium concentration on Tal was below treshold, I had to get down and get more. Wal has a huge mountain range surrounding the whole planet at the equator, guess which biome has the right resources to allow for isru? Such are the inconveniencies of trying to land a 5000 ton ship on a planet with 0.37 g amid a mountain range. Yes, A'Tuin started tumbling down the incline and exploded. But it's also a pic of the surface of Wal. I didn't take many because I don't like it, from up close the colors make it look dull, washed out This successful landing is just a few km north of the previous attempts, I managed to hit a relatively flat place amid the foothills. This place is already at 11 km of altitude over datum, and the highest mountains exceed 20 km. You can see one of them in background, part of the wall running around the equator, though I have no idea how high that one is. I tried to explore the place with the rover, but between high gravity and irregular terrain, I kept exploding and it wasn't fun. I eventually gave up.

very impressive. But what's the power source on that thing? I can't see any solar panel or rtg or anything. also, what are those wheels? I don't recognize them from stock atmosphere?

stunts? stuff i did with the rovers is probably the top. I once dove down a huge cliff on Vall and reached 120 m/s before finally losing control. What's amazing is that, thanks to an effective armor, most of the rover survived. All the crew did, and there were even enough wheels left to keep moving a bit. Or perhaps it's the time I took an eva inside jool's low atmosphere stuff that should have killed my crew, and almost did? Probably the cake goes for landing on laythe with kerbalism at hard level. that mod puts a huge radiation belt around jool encompassing all the inner three moons, and hard level severely reduces the effectiveness of radiation shielding. I also had limited life support, due to an oversight in design. After reloading the game a dozen times, I finally managed to reach the mothership with 90% radiation damage, half a day's worth of food, and 20 m/s left of deltaV.

no idea since i've never seen this, but maybe there is a time limit in the contract? or some other additional requirement?

Part 9: The Urlum system A'Tuin reaches Urlum after an even longer trip. The moons are explored, and Arrowhead enters in atmospheric flight on the ice giant. A'Tuin then uses Wal and Tal to refuel 9.1) Neidon the bug-riddled 9.2) Planning route for Sarnus Urlum Plock Jool Sarnus Urlum 9.3) The even longer trip 9.4) Urlum insertion 9.5) Sightseeing on Polta 9.6) Nothing to see on Priax - Tal is ok 9.7) Inside Urlum 9.8) Landing on Wal and Tal So, now I will stay a few years while I get a full supplement of uranium. Or until I gather enough fuel to leave Wal, whichever comes last. When I leave, I will leave Horseshoe on the ground, to rejoin the mothership in orbit; I want to drive in those mountains, they look like a good challenge. Then I will land again on Tal, filling the fuel tanks to the brim. I should have at least 15 years before the Urlum-Sarnus-Plock window, so I should have time even with this low ore content. On Sarnus I will land A'Tuin remotely on Eeloo after evacuating th crew, to get new water and nitrogen. I can stay landed a couple of years before I have to return to the crew to get the nuclear reactors serviced, and I hope I can get enough fuel to cover the cost of landing and take off, which is not incospicuous. And then hopefully I will be in the right position, and with enough fuel, to get to Plock. Which turned out to be a surprisingly difficult target, no easier than Moho, if for different reasons. There's a lot of hope in the previous paragraph. Let's see how it will actually go.

fair enough. there's no accounting for tastes

Objection! Let's see if a few pictures can change your mind