DennisB

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this. I'm happy to hear, that you think, the dV budgets are adequate to complete the missions. That's the point of the challenge. Not to find the most fuel efficient way, like you do normally, but to use the additional fuel to finish faster. I thought about this too, and that's the reason, why I decided to use the universal time and not the mission time for the results. Using all the available fuel should make it possible to finish the mission before the perfect constellation even occurs.

After my first challenge didn't get much resonance, here is the next one. It took so long, because I was busy with my Jool mission. Since I play KSP, I saw many brilliant players, who did incredible gravity assist maneuvers. In most cases, the goal was fuel saving. I thought about a different challenge, which could be challenging even for them. That means, completing the mission with a vessel, which is far from ideal, with a fairly tight fuel budget, in the shortest time. The vessel for the challenge is called the Dumb Probe. It's a ridiculous machine, I don't know, what the kerbal engineering team had in mind during the construction. Maybe... to make your life more difficult? It is powered by one RTG and one ion engine, has a huge amount of useless liquid fuel as ballast, and a probe core, which can't follow maneuver nodes. It has a total dV of 2247m/s, it can sustain maximum thrust for 126s with an acceleration of 0,49-0,52m/s² (61,9-65,1m/s), or 0,04m/s² with persistent thrust. There are two different missions available. Mission 1: Get the Dumb Probe to an escape trajectory from the solar system, with reduced fuel (empty one of the Xe-tanks, so you have only 1512m/s dV). Mission 2: Do a Grand Tour, and visit the SOI of all celestial bodies of the solar system. The date (not the mission time), when the mission is completed, will determine the ranking. In mission 1, it is the date, when the probe is on an escape trajectory, and it isn't within and won't cross the SOI of any of the planets or moons. In mission 2, it is the date, when the probe reaches the final SOI and isn't on a collision course with a celestial body. To start the mission, download the Dumb Probe from KerbalX (https://kerbalx.com/DennisB/Dumb-Probe). Start a new game with CommNet switched off, because the probe doesn't have an antenna. If you try mission 1, empty one of the Xe-tanks. Except this, there are no further changes on the vessel allowed. Cheat the Dumb Probe into Kerbin orbit with Alt+F12. Both your PE and AP must be within 80-100km, within this range, you can set the orbital parameters, like you want. Switch the clock to Universal Time, and go. Don't forget to document your route and your maneuvers to show afterwards. You can use visual and information mods, but no flight assistant mods, because it's part of the challenge, to execute the maneuvers manually.

I've just found this post from 2020. I was definitely not the first one, who did this. Like in my case, that discovery happened by "accident" too, like some real life discoveries.

It's in the post above the other one.

You should check the final page of the old thread. There are some entries. I've completed the challenge on the first three levels, but only the first one was noted on the wall of fame. I've started on the next level (hard) too, but didn't complete it, because I started my Eve mission.

A little correction. That restriction was only in sandbox mode. In science mode, it's possible to recover 100% science points.

It's in the very first post of the mission report. 860 parts plus inventory, and 1100t. And thanks for the review.

In this case, I can understand you. But, except your last mission, you did everytime something new. So, if you would build something new from scratch.... I have the same feeling too. My mission was really exhausting to the end, and at the moment I can't imagine to do it again in the foreseeable future.

All the deployed science experiments are global, not biome specific. To be honest, I didn't try, to do them multiple times, I assume, the same would happen, as when you collect temperature data at the same place multiple times, the same as if you would do it once, but I didn't prove it. If you don't complete the Grand Slam Experiment in one shot, you can do another one, and the science will be accumulated, until it reaches 100%, like I did it on Tylo, where my first shot was only enough for 54%. To the scores. The Grand Slam Experiment has a base value of 80, the mystery goo observatory 45, the ionographer 100 (only on vacuum bodies), and the weather analyzer 60 (only on atmospheric bodies). That means, the available science on Laythe is 2590, but it's really difficult to do the Grand Slam Experiment on atmospheric bodies (that's the reason, why I didn't try it), on each of the other moons you can collect 2700 science points. I think, after this, I can postulate another record breaking mission by you. You said, that you don't have any goals in the game. I think, this could be one. I'm looking forward to an even larger (or a more sophisticated) mission.

Sorry, I didn't explain it in the mission report in detail. As you told in your mission report, that the deployed experiments doesn't count for the result, I asked for the reason. The answer was, because they are transmitted. Yes, I know, that transmitted science doesn't count, that's the reason, why I recovered them. I thought at the beginning, that those science can be transmitted only. I wanted to do them on my Eve mission, but it wasn't possible to transmit the science there, because I did the mission in sandbox mode. But as I picked up the science experiment, I've got the science report (at the end of Episode 3 - Part 2). The Jool mission was made in science mode, to get the science scores, and in this case, the experiments transmit the science. But because the transmitted science doesn't count, according to the challenge rules, I had to prevent this, which I discussed in the old challenge thread. So I placed my relay satellites really far away, so the deployed experiments don't get connection to them, and the science can't be transmitted. To recover the science reports, I just have to pick up the experiment. You can see it at the end of this video, which I posted also in the mission report (Episode 3 - Part 3).

I've finished my Jool 5.5 mission. You can find the mission report here The science score before and after the recovery The total science score, collected during the mission, is 147217,4, including the 320 points for the resource scans, which gives a final score for the challenge leaderboard of 146897,4 points, which is currently a NEW RECORD! In the following chart you can see the detailed scores for each celestial body, together with the available scores, and the individual science reports in brackets. I collected 92,72% of the total available science score in the Jool system, 690 of the 721 available science reports, missing only the landed reports on Laythe's water biomes, and the Grand Slam Experiment on Laythe. If I would do the same mission again, with my current knowledge and experience, I could collect the recovery points for landing and suborbital flight at Bop, Pol, Vall and Tylo, and I would launch the second projectile into Vall, which all together would improve my final score to approximately 147850. For further improvement, a redesign of the spacecraft and the mission would be necessary.

Episode 13 - From Tylo to Kerbin (Sep 26-27) It was a very long mission, but now it's coming to an end. I really wanted to end it as fast as possible, to get the final score for the challenge. Together with the fact, that the test mission is already an eternity in the past, the landing on Kerbin ended with some mistakes, and it was different from the original plan, but it shows, that there was in almost every part of the mission enough safety margin (except Tetrapus on Tylo, and the Laythe descent and ascent were also tight) Preparation Transfer to Kerbin The final landing (not like planned) Vessel and science recovery Summary

The most important for me, it should be capable to do the job. Aesthetics will come during the developing process, or not. I think, my Eve and Jool rockets have a special kind of aesthetics, which is probably a result of the game physics. They aren't mainstream at all. This was my Eve rocket for a challenge. It is capable to collect every science report of Eve's surface and atmosphere in a single mission (except the Grand Slam Experiment). This was my first interplanetary mission, and the first one with a large ship, and since then it's always visible in my avatar. And here is the mission report.

Without docking port, you can get the science with a kerbal. If you go on EVA close to the part, which holds the science report (command pod, probe core or science container), open the menu of that part, and there is an option to grab the science. Deorbiting the lander without fuel could be complicated. You can push it with a kerbal on EVA, but the better way is, to bring up a docking port or a grabber, and deorbit it with another vessel.

Episode 12 - Tylo (Jun 26 - Jul 12, Aug 13 - 28, Mission Day 312-369) The last episode is long ago, but that close to the finish, I can't give up. Now it's time for the final moon Tylo, which caused unexpected trouble, because of insufficient testing and preparation for the mission. I was simply too confident about the capabilities of Tetrapus, and ended up with (at least for me) too many explosions during the tour. But let's start with the report. I hope, I can remember the details after so much time. Before the tour On the tour After the tour Tetrapus demo video

The question is, how it could transmit the science once. Did it happen with a direct connection to the KCS? Then you have to wait, until Minmus rotates to the right position to get connection again, and hope, that the science wants to be transmitted then. Did it happen via the relay satellite? Then you have to wait until it comes to the right position, when the science wants to be transmitted. Maybe you can put your satellite into a higher orbit, so it has connection for a longer period. If nothing helps, you can go back to Minmus, after the experiment has finished, pich it up, and you can recover the science. I don't know, what is in the contract. Do you need to transmit the science?

It depends on, how much time you want to spend looking at the open sea during your tour. Last year, I started a Kerbin Naval Elcano with a minimalistic vessel, which could reach over 70m/s on water, but then I decided to do a Jool 5 instead. For that, I designed my Falcon airseaspaceplane, which can reach 80m/s on the water on Laythe, before it gets unstable, and I'm sure, there is still room for improvement.

Are your foils adjustable? As I tested my design, I accelerated close to the speed, where it got unstable, changed the inclination, and looked if it made it better or worse. Another question regards the flipping. Are your floats still like in the pictures? Maybe you should make them longer to make flipping less likely. If you look at my plane, the floats have about half the length of the entire plane.

Others already mentioned the lack of thrust. I think, another issue is drag in the water. You have the two floats and the main body swimming in the water. I suggest to put the floats deeper, and make them probably larger, so the main body of the plane doesn't touch the water even at zero speed, and put the foils onto the floats. This is my design, which worked on Laythe with the thrust of four fan drives. Water landing and takeoff at 4:00.

You need two fuel lines (one in each direction). The fuel transfer works only, if it can be done in both directions.

Yes, but I'm not of that kind. I know, the challenge rules allow to do it that way. But for me, it's part of the challenge to build vehicles, which can do the mission reliably, and which I can operate safely. I test out the limits of all my vessels, but it looks like, I didn't test driving on Tylo enough. But now, I have to deal with it. (I was so happy as I finished the 20 hours long tour on Vall without any damage or reloads.) I've already had issues with the projectiles, which were insufficient for Vall and Tylo, but I had a clever solution for it, to save the situation at least at Tylo, which you will see in the next episode. Luckily, I noticed the issues of the spaceplane on Jool before the start, because that could've ruined the whole mission.

My Tylo tour doesn't go well. It turned out, that my rover isn't strong enough for Tylo. I had already some explosions, and lost several hours of driving, because I still don't save often enough, and if I load the autosave, it loads the moment immediately after the crash. Now I'm sure, that I can't complete the mission before my vacation, so there will come some weeks of silence here. I will complete the mission for sure, but I'm a little sad, that I can't do it in a manner, like I wanted, and like I did my Eve mission. Before Tylo, I reloaded only 7 times, and only 3 of them were because of my fault. From now, I have to drive very careful or reload more often.

Make sure, your construction mode is "place". I had that issue, that nothing happened, as the construction mode somehow switched to "rotate", and the kerbal tried to rotate the storage unit, which was impossible, but then I got a message, that the part can't be edited.

Episode 11 - The Grand Reunion (Jun 14-16, Mission Day 286-312) The vessels and the crew are still spead out in the Jool system. Now it's time to reunite them, and fit together the pieces of the Tree of Life, or at least, the remaining parts of it. Overview of the situation At Jool At Vall At Tylo

Episode 10 - Jool (Jun 05-09, Mission Day 278-286) Today we come probably to the highlight of the whole mission. There were already many missions to Jool's moons, but only a few went into Jool's lower atmosphere, and even less did it without a heatshield, so this one is something special. Because of the length of the maneuver, and a lot of trial during the development, it took quite a long time, but finally I got it to work. As I already mentioned, Laythe was more a technical challenge, while Jool is also (or probably more) a piloting challenge, because of the construction of the spaceplane. Overview of the situation The way to Jool Flying on Jool