paul_c

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do it!!!!!!!!!! Do the hard challenge!!!!! Rise up to the challenge of sorting out the KSP install and doing it without the MJ info etc, you'll feel the accomplishment once its all done!!!! I get the feeling this challenge is a bit boring in the initial phase so you won't want to do it over and over with gradually increasing level, stick to the "Hard" and work through it!

100% reusable but with an "emergency" capsule decouple with its own chute, just in case. The flight plan is to go up vertically, then flip horizontal to maximise drag then deploy drogue then main chutes safely without tearing them off. Time will tell whether I can get orbital and retain the 100% reusability - I suspect not - but I will try to retain at least some of the fuel tank/engine. Or, do a thorough risk/cost analysis of it and further tests.... Its good to know I'm not alone - you sound like you're a little bit ahead of me.

Finally bit the bullet and with a 50km altitude test flight to double-check some parachute and re-entry config stuff, went for suborbital: The 20% multiplier for Diamond is brutal, its going to be a long slog with no stone unturned to gather the science. I'm now here: There's 3 paths I could follow: gen/adv rocketry; stability/aviation; basic science. I've actually done a cost-benefit analysis to see how much each path costs (in science), and what likely science it will earn me to progress. None of them are >1!!!!! (So, more contract stuff etc). Of course, I need to get them all eventually but I want to find the most efficient route through the quagmire. I am aiming for near 100% reusability, to allow me to focus on science gathering rather than needing to do non-science-earning contracts too much. And of course, each contract I take on needs to be thoroughly evaluated for risk and feasibility because failing a contract or killing a Kerbal is game over!

I have started my "Diamond" challenge. NCD is just too much for me, I will leave that one alone! So far its very grindy, I've had 6 attempts to get a decent starting contract and/or not kill either or both Val and Jeb in silly accidents. Since funds start at 0, you need a reasonable challenge which gives enough of an advance to actually do anything; then you have 1 'contract slot' to do things you can actually do. So far I have done a bit of KSC science but there's a lot more to come, I don't have wheels yet so no vehicle to move around. I could fly something suborbital, carefully, though. And rather than rushing into spaceflight, I am building up copious notes on deltaV, TWR and performance to build up a good understanding of flight characteristics etc. This way, I can see which contracts are easy, which are risky and which are out of reach with the current tech. Initially I am going for 100% recovery (so just fuel costs) and the contract styles were initially paying just hundreds but now they are into the 4-figures, and sometimes +1 science too. It is absolutely crucial to keep the Kerbals alive, the cost to replace is totally unobtainable. And certain contracts which would need an expendable vehicle (stage) would not be cost effective. I imagine I'll be a few days or a week just doing small (very gradually increasing) suborbital atmospheric flights until I have enough science and money to even attempt a suborbital >70km flight, never mind orbital.

AIUI its not so much cheating/abuse (you're not cheating/abusing anyone, its a single-player game) but that the essence of the challenge itself, is to be able to do stuff which progresses your exploration/science WITHOUT the usual upgrades and facilities which one might normally take. Ie to find ways around the lack of info/utilities the stock upgrade would have provided you with. An obvious example is rendezvous/docking - without detailed orbital info (such as inclination, LAN, targeting) you need to match the orbit by eye given only the map screen, then eg estimate your change of distance over time rather than being provided with a target speed. I am sure there are other examples for other aspects too.

If even the bigger/biggest engines are underpowered, its time to join fuselage sections side by side and have multiple (sets of) engines burning at once to produce the necessary thrust.

You can open the contract parameters on the buttons on the right and keep it open during the flight. Once all the parameters are ticked, do the staging and it should register as contract completed.

AAAaaah if you mean one burn without relight, then yes BUT you need to either throttle down towards the end, or do some funky maths to work out what the TWR ought to be all the way up. Its relevant in real life because engines don't always have a restart capability; and also the range of throttle control in real world is less.

For me, precision landing on Kerbin. I can de-orbit and get it safely home but the position is a bit random. If I have a ton of fuel - like 1000 m/s dV - left, I can get it closer but I've never landed exactly where I wanted to; nor when returning from elsewhere, been able to predict eg a daytime landing or even the rough place I'll end up.

"Hard"/Topaz gives 60% of the science value figures on the wiki. Given that the tech tree is fixed, its possible to calculate approx what is required for each challenge - and I did a number of calculations along the way, for example "science yielded per biome" with/without transmitting, with/without science jr, with/without landing a Kerbal there. Part of the fun is discovering, or rediscovering where the different biomes are (it would be frustrating to hit the same one over and over, so you'd want to visit others). I wouldn't want to spoil the fun for others but I ended up with a list of biomes, then put a * by those which were on the far side; or needed a big plane change (my retriever was in approx equatorial, as were all my orbits due to the Mun being on 0deg and burning normal/antinormal mid-way to align as best I can). I know I left an amount of science on the table, which I'd need for Corundum/Diamond - I think for these you need to be more methodical. Time to Ap/Pe is not given in the stock install with the caveman settings but its pretty easy to guesstimate off the map; or by observing the vertical speed if you really need to be on the other screen.

I don't know about MechJob but certainly yes, you could just fly it up to 200km then circularise. And also, due to the "reversibility of orbital changes" I think it would be the same energy required to do so.

You don't get the orbital period, time to Ap/Pe, inc, ecc, angle to prograde. It doesn't really affect the Kerbin orbit stuff but it would be useful once you start going to (and coming back from) the Mun. Its not up to me to make the judgement though. There is advice on previous pages of the thread on how to disable mods if needed.

Orbit Info???

I will be interested to hear how you progress through Tier 5 on "Hard". I found it the most involving; the others being very approachable.

Debating whether to try Corundum or Diamond......the first pays 30% science (half of Hard) and the other 20% science? Any other big differences?

Try driving it a bit to the south. The location markers have never been brilliant at pinpointing a location.

It does seem a bit like two steps forward, one step back.

I tried twice for Minmus. The second attempt, I am convinced my distance was Minmus SOI + 1mm so I never even made it. The beauty is, the thing stays in an eccentric Kerbin orbit so I timewarped a bit, only to see it intercept the Mun and fling off into outer space. I really struggled with intercepting Mun consistently without the helper nodes. Mun landings aren't that bad once you have the technique nailed - it also helped that it was a similar vehicle again and again so I got good at judging when to burn (I found, for a TWR of 10, burn when speed in m/s = altitude/5, ie at 2000m and 400m/s, do the burn. Its not a suicide burn to land but it does the job quite efficiently with a bit of altitude left).

I can't remember how I did it but I think I sent a big multi-part ship to Duna/Ike with a relay or two. Relay detaches, flies to a high orbit, then the lander only needs a small aerial to do it. It would also be possible with a much more scaled-down relay (possibly even with no fuel/engine) if you left it in (low) orbit then immediately went for the landing so you remained underneath it and in its range. Also for the 1st career, everything that went to Duna had a relay on it too, even if it wasn't asked for. After 3-4 sats there is a semi-useful comms network available for use. The other option is you could just chance it - the atmosphere on Duna is thin and it might not break off, especially if its retrofired and/or the chutes come out early?

A further 5 Mun-space dockings were done, the last pair being the 2x relays which also had science jr and goo. The final one remained attached, because it was a spaceship with fuel/engine etc it had some useful deltaV and took me out of Mun orbit on the way home too. Checking the right fuel/engine is burning! (No fuel transfer thru the heatshield etc) Since I was in a highly eccntric orbit, I waited until it aligned approx with the "normal" ejection angle to leave Mun SOI After a number of lowering burns (I achieved Kerbin orbit then lowered it, rather than direct return) I could plan the re-entry with (reasonable) precision: There's a lot of valuable science in that lunch box! Things are heating up!!! Looking good. Was almost tempted to do a normal burn but resisted... Phew! Chute deployed okay Not long now... A LOT of Mun science (don't put all your eggs in one basket?) No facilities upgrades Tree completed to level 5 Settings As can be seen from the write up, the bulk of the science was from Mun surface landings, using the mission mode of sending a lander-docker and an orbiter-science receive/store-returner. Later on I used 2x relays to ensure comms for 'far side' stuff (3 biomes visited there). I also tried land-return in one craft but it was very marginal on fuel and (I) couldn't take the science jr due to weight etc. With 60 science per biome, this really helped. In the end I never needed to send a Kerbal to the Mun. I could have in the final stages but they'd have transmitted stuff and still be there! I also did a bunch of "science farming" around KSC; and visited the popular biomes of Kerbin. I didn't have much luck de-orbiting a science jr to use on far away places so it only went suborbital. I also did a craft with enough delta V to leave Kerbin SOI and 2x HG5 antennas (captured the Kerbol science before it went out of range). Various bits of Kerbal-made technology are littering the Mun, this is my favourite: A bit of science was also earned from world firsts, contracts (their rate of earning is v poor though) and a few craft that made it back from the Mun. 2 Kerbals are dead so I focused on remote probes rather than killing more Kerbals - they're expensive to replace. Along the way, I built a 2 pax Kerbin orbiter for contract work and a fully reusable sub-orbital thing (it separates but the parts remain in physics range so both are recoverable on chutes).

I don't think there's enough science points available without landing on the Mun (for tier 5, which is10x 90 science) . High and low space are 2x and 3x, landed is 4x but then there's all the biomes too. I am not sure if the challenge can be completed only by transmitting from the surface, with the % achieved in transmissions. AFAIK there is no penalty in transmitting then later recovering for the remaining %, but you need to take the reading/experiment again - easy with temp and pressure, not possible with the same goo canister or science jr though*. So I've been transmitting then re-taking temp and pressure, but not transmitting science jr unless I know I'm stuck on the surface for ever. *Unless reset by a scientist, but then you need to take the ~1 ton crew module, etc, or do 2 trips - one for the science kit and one for the command module + scientist. But then it would also need a controller because a scientist can't drive....etc etc I had no luck with landing science jrs on some of the Kerbin biomes so I've missed out on a bit of Kerbin science here and there. Also, it would be possible (but very slow) to wait for relevant science-earning contracts like "science from space around ........." or "test ............" since they typically earn 1 or 2 science points. Surveys typically earn 2 per reading (so in theory are better) but might need multiple flights to achieve it all. Obviously comparing the time taken for 60x 2 point contracts vs returning a bunch of science from Mun surface (120 points I think?) its worth investing 60x the effort into it. I tried 3 times to intercept Minmus, close but not done it yet. In theory if you can do that, the delta V requirement is lower because landing needs slowing from ~160m/s low orbit speed (and reaching it again) rather than ~550 of Mun. And the science multiplier is a bit more too.

The above is true, tiers 1-4 are quite approachable. There are a little bit of tactics in "if I gather this science, I can upgrade those parts". And I felt at various stages it was the tech/parts available as the constraint, not the (lack of) money. I'm on tier 5 now with 5 squares to go and the "easy" science is all done - been to the flat bits of Mun and transmitted stuff back, etc. Now I'm butting up against the 18t limit which really limits what you can get on and off the surface of Mun (not much! Including not much remaining fuel!) I am not sure if its physically possible to get a crew member to-from Mun and home again with an <18t vehicle and the available parts (no exotic engines etc). (I'd be interested to see vehicles which can do it). Its probably quite easy with a 2x18t or whatever if its joined together. I'm having to do loads of dockings to retrieve the full science values and am at the stage of needing to plan carefully where I'm going, to get fresh biome stuff each time.

"Learn the rules before you break them". In theory, to circularise an orbit ie raise the Pe, you want to burn exactly towards the horizon, exactly at the Ap, to boost the velocity to the needed amount (so that its a circular orbit, ie Pe rises to match Ap). In practice, you can't insta-burn because no such engine exists (and if it did, it would tear the spaceship apart with G forces!) but the theory is that its a point in time/space. So we burn near the Ap, in the right direction, for the right time. (Neither can you get Pe and Ap exactly the same because as you burn, the Ap will move away from you or flip to the other side of the orbit etc so you aim for nearly circular; or raise Pe 'enough').

The radial and normal just appeared after auto-update to 1.11.1, I'm assuming its a glitch. Its inconsequential, because I know what they are anyway and I'm not using the "hold" function. Its an OCTO controller, it shouldn't have them (nor any target stuff unfortunately)!

I'll try it! This is my very-basic, 2 satellite relay/comms network. The idea being, highly eccentric orbits should mean they spend most of the time at one side of the Mun, and being opposite to each other, one covers one hemisphere and the other the other. I know I ought to send a third relay, but for now I'll try this...