KevinTMC

I'm partway through Tier 6, and the mission reports are piling up. I've come to a good spot to take a breather, so here's a report on the progress to date. Tier planning notes: On each of the last two tiers, I got into early difficulty due to sub-optimal technology choices. I've therefore decided to try something new and daring for Tier 6: having a plan. The science needed to clear Tier 6 will be gathered from three types of missions: probes to the Mun, probes to Minmus, and kerballed missions to the Mun. I already have the technology to pull off the first type, including landing missions. I will have the technology to pull off the second type once I unlock either a more efficient probe core or better batteries. (I'll want the bigger heat shield as well if I intend to bring back goo.) The third can wait as long as a fair bit of science remains to be gathered from Mun probes. Since time is a key element of this challenge, and Minmus takes much more time to get to, my initial science purchase will be directed towards getting a probe headed there straightaway. (Minmus also promises to turn a nice profit due to contracts, which won't hurt.) With enough science in the bank to unlock two nodes, I could pick up both the HECS core and the POT-360 batteries; but I think I can get by with just one of those, and will try to do so in order to get the bigger heat shield for goo return (with radial chutes helpfully in the bargain there too). Choosing the probe core would save me a bit more mass on the Minmus mission, but the batteries will be more helpful to other missions later on. So Advanced Electrics and Basic Flight it will be. Once the Minmus probe is on its way, I will launch a probe to get more science out of the Mun. Between collecting more gravity scans, transmitting the rest of the seismic data, and returning goo from the surface, enough science can be collected to unlock the next node (maybe even the next two). With that purchase I'll unlock Advanced Exploration, letting me get a kerballed Munar flyby underway even before the hoped-for science bonanza from Minmus starts rolling in. If all three of these missions go to plan, and the crew reports from Munar space prove as lucrative as I hope they'll be, I'll be able to unlock the rest of Tier 6 (or nearly) after just three primary missions and in less than three days. A few more launches will be needed after that to earn Team Effort I and to complete Biome Hunter III...and then I can attempt "One small step..." and completion of the tier. It's a beautiful-looking plan. We'll see how it survives encounter with Tier 6. Mission report album: Whew. Time to take a breath, now that the board has been cleared of all missions except Fugu 1 (which is now simply drifting home with a dead probecore). I've got 1,130,707 funds and 582 science in the bank. The science will be enough to unlock three of the five remaining nodes in this tier. It is a half hour into Day 4. The rest of Tier 6 awaits.

If you look at the slideshow attached to my Tiers 1-3 report, you can see Coelacanth 1, the craft I used to achieve Biome Hunter I. Mass was 22.485; highest altitude achieved was 123,117. (I believe the version number was 1.649 at the time rather than 1.64999, but I don't think there's any significant change there.) I may have got a little lucky with the trajectory--which needs to be westward from KSC for this suborbital flight--but I believe the results should be readily repeatable with similar craft.

My Emu program is now complete. 17 different craft were constructed; counting repeat contract grinding, there were 24 Emu flights in all. My plan was to start with gathering more science near Kerbin. That meant opening Tier 5 with Aerodynamics and Space Exploration, so I could put Kerbals into orbit for Crew Report science. But in what order? I chose Aerodynamics first, thinking I would be able to earn enough science from goo retrievals in Kerbin space to unlock the next node. Once again, I had made a technology mistake. Since my missions that had gone straight up to 70km and then straight back down hadn't needed heat shields at all, I thought perhaps the initial heat shield would be fine for going straight up to 250km and then straight back down. Testing quickly revealed that I should have taken the warnings in the heat shield's part description more seriously. It wasn't going to get the goo home from high space...at least not so long as I was having to reenter with a craft big enough to make a powered landing. I went ahead and collected low-space goo...and found myself with 89 points, one short of what was required to unlock the next node. Well played, BTSM, well played. I was going to need to figure out how to get a craft into Munar space--and halfway back to Kerbin to transmit science--with existing parts and a 75-ton mass limit...or I would need to get lucky and turn up a contract to test radial chutes. I got lucky. After successfully returning an appropriately small goo payload from high space, I was able to unlock my second Tier 5 node. I pondered going for Space Exploration as previously planned, but gosh that command pod looked awfully heavy, and I had lucrative Mun contracts and contracts that involved docking on my hands...and wouldn't it be nice to have reaction wheels and the inline stabilizer available before risking kerbals? There wasn't any reason I couldn't wait until the end of the tier to go for "This land is your land, this land is Badland", so long as there was plenty of science to gather around the Mun. So...Advanced Construction it was, to help me get there. Things started to move along a bit better from there--though I spent a lot of time and effort raising money from contracts, while waiting for vessels to reach or return from the Mun. Maybe more time and effort than was necessary...but on the other hand, going to the Mun isn't cheap. (Especially when you carry along an absurd number of batteries.) The Emu 11 report is the most involved, as it is the most ambitious and complicated mission I have flown yet in BTSM...and there was also a rather inconvenient mishap along the way. By contrast, Emu 13 and 13K were much simpler and less nerve-wracking. (Maybe I should have gone for "This land is your land, this land is Badland" a bit earlier in the tier after all.) The slideshow turned out to be a big one; I'll probably divide future tiers' reports into parts. Tier 5 is now complete, on Day 2, 15h 17m. All modifier points were again claimed: Tier 5 - "This land is your land, this land is Badland" (4) - Survivor II (2) - Goo hunter I (2) 265,028 funds and 428.6 science are in the bank. Whew. Tier 5 may be a breeze to BTSM veterans, but it put up a good fight for me. It may be a little while before I can dive into Tier 6...but I'm looking forward to discovering what further challenges and dilemmas await.

I'm working on Tier 5 and have reached the point where I'm starting to run concurrent flights. And it finally sank in that, as with the stock game, electric power does not drain on unfocused vessels yet in BTSM (though FlowerChild intends to fix that at some point). How have others working on this challenge been handling this issue? So far, I've just been preventing myself from consciously scrimping on batteries, trying to make sure I've got enough batteries packed for the entire anticipated duration of the mission. I've got a feeling this might get hard to estimate and keep track of soon though...

Ah. I think I see. So it's really just designed for matching up with highly inclined orbits, and doesn't care where the target is in its orbit. In which case, it's telling me that I should wait 5 1/2 hours if I want KSC to match up exactly with the roughly 1-2% inclined orbit of the target. (Thanks, I think I'll just deal with the plane change. ) I appreciate the clarification. I still don't understand the Closest Distance thing at all. In my situation at least, the distance numbers it gives are wacky, and the times are sometimes accurate (based on where the target vessel is in its orbit, and how many orbits KAC is set to search) and sometimes way off. See here, for instance: (The highlighted orbit is of the target vessel, which has just passed its apoapsis.) Eh, maybe this tool just isn't really meant to be useful in my particular situation either. I can just eyeball it like I normally do...I was mainly just wanting to use KAC here to see at a glance, when focused on other vessels, how far away the target vessel was to its closest approach to KSC. (It would be then up to my best guess as to how far ahead of that to launch, as always.) I guess I could set a maneuver node for the target vessel as close to KSC as I can manage, and then set an alarm based on that instead. And once I'm actually in orbit, Closest Distance seems to work splendidly...so again, I'm guessing I may be trying to get it to do things it's not designed to do. Anyhow, thanks once more for this great mod, and for being so generous with your time in answering questions and hunting down bugs.

First of all, thank you for this essential mod. I've been using it through many versions of KSP. I'm just now getting around to exploring some of the newer features, and am having difficulty with launch rendezvous. I'm on the ground at KSC, and targeting a craft in an equatorial 74km orbit. KAC is offering to set a Launch Ascent alarm for 5 1/2 hours from now. I then tried switching to Closest Approach Alarm, and it's offering to set me one for 4 orbits (35 1/2 minutes) hence, where it says the distance will be 106 km...or if I force it to search just one orbit, it gives me what looks like an appropriate time of 5 1/2 minutes, but tells me the distance will be 321 km. Am I not understanding what I'm seeing and what I am supposed to do? Is there some conflict somewhere? (I'm running the 32-bit Windows version of KSP. Installed plugins are BTSM, Deadly Reentry, KAC, ARP, PreciseNode, Chatterer, RCS Sound Effects, and Rover Wheel Sound Effects.)

The eventful Dingo program has now run its course; time for a report. I completed Tier 3 on Day 1, 28m elapsed, with 38,293 funds and 71 science. That was enough science to unlock one Tier 4 node, and I began with Science Tech because I always make acquiring new instruments a priority. After lifting my first kerbal into the air, I then unlocked General Construction, so I could build a small monster to put into orbit. The posts immediately upthread show how those decisions worked out for me, at least at first. (I still do think my technology choices would have been good ones, if I hadn't been playing this particular challenge. It was easy enough to earn enough science to unlock Flight Control...I just couldn't do it if I still wanted the Spudnik points.) Spudnik was looking impossible...I started churning contracts hoping that would bail me out...I ran out of performable contracts, and was kindly informed that my mad plan would never pan out anyhow...and then I returned to the task of trying to hurl an RCS-less Dingo into something resembling orbit. The end result can be seen in the next installment of my annotated slideshow: Tier 4 is now complete, on Day 1, 2h 23m elapsed. All modifier points were claimed: Tier 4 - "Spudnik" (3) - Survivor I (1) - Biome Hunter II (2) 99,820 funds and 129 science are in the bank. I'm going to evaluate the options in more detail this time before unlocking my first node in Tier 5. If I choose poorly, I'll be facing a science bottleneck, since I've already gathered all the science that can be gathered without a) returning kerbals or goo safely from space, leaving Kerbin's SOI, or c) unlocking new instruments.

Rats...foiled! That's what I get for playing a well-designed career mode. Thanks much for the heads-up. I'm going to go watch some baseball and meditate on just how long I'm going to keep banging my head against the wall trying to get my RCS-less Dingo 3 into orbit before giving up on the Spudnik points and moving on. (For those of you keeping score at home...the former Dingo 2 was renumbered when its mission was postponed in favor of the Dingo 2K, a kerballed craft that got Bill beyond 30,000m and home again to clear another contract. I must say, those creaky capsule sound effects were a nice touch when he got up there...Bill wasn't the only one who started to look a bit worried.)

I'm working on the Spudnik goal, and may have made a little bitty huge mistake that's going to render it impossible. The two nodes I chose to unlock were Science Tech and General Construction. It's been a struggle to slap enough delta-v on my Dingo 2 rocket to get it into orbit, but that seems the solvable part of the problem...the likely-insolvable part is that without Flight Control, I can't keep the rocket pointed prograde for its circularization burn. There may be a way out, but it might be considered cheaty. One of the part test contracts I've had on hand since the start of the Dingo program is for the RCS Fuel Tank. Maybe if I complete enough other contracts, one will turn up for the RCS Thruster Block as well. I've already slapped some fins on my Bandicoot 2 and used it to run suborbital tests on the Modular Girder Adapter and Illuminator Mk1, which bled small amounts of money; next up is a suborbital test for the LV-T15, which will require dusting off the Coelacanth 1 and be more expensive. Will I get lucky and get the test I want before running out of funds? Or, even if I do, would it not be a valid attempt at Spudnik, because I'd be using parts from Flight Control while having two other nodes unlocked? (The rules, having been written before contracts were put in, do not seem to cover this question.)

Happy to be aboard. I don't know whether I'll complete this challenge before or after KSP 1.0 is released , but at least I'm underway and having fun so far. I've flown four missions and got through the first three tiers, picking up all modifier points: Tier 1 - "Ahh, balance.. I get it now" (1) Tier 2 - "Bird's eye view" (2) Tier 3 - "Taking it slow" (3) - Biome Hunter I (1) The trickiest mission by far was the third (and second at Tier 2), Bandicoot 2. The mass limits started biting for the first time, and balance was a bear. I found myself with a battery and a barometer on opposite sides of the rocket, and it's hard to line that sort of thing up precisely--the symmetry settings won't help of course if you're placing different parts, and these two in particular are just a bit different in size and shape. I placed them as best I could, then kept shifting the thermometer around on top of the probe core until the tipping sideways in flight was minimized. I got it in the end; but if I weren't allowing myself to revert to the VAB in this career, I surely would have run out of money long before finding the right balance. Here's the annotated slideshow for the first three tiers: (It may not be reasonable or sanity-preserving to document every completed mission in the later tiers; but I like recording things, and for now at least it's more enjoyable than it is burdensome.) And now I'm thinking about how I'm going to tackle Spudnik. (A lot of thinking goes on when you're playing BTSM. I like that.)

I'm off and running: completed Tiers 1-3, achieving all goals, on four missions. BTSM is indeed a different game...and a lot of fun, breathing new life into career mode. There's still time to tell me not to use PreciseNode and/or Alternate Resource Panel--as mentioned in my edited post upthread--if they're not suitable for this challenge (or not suitable for the "I don't need a slide rule" bonus), as they haven't done anything for me yet. I could use a clarification about the Spudnik goal. Since the GRAVMAX is the only science item unlocked in Tier 3, "all Tier 3 orbital science" is just a gravity scan, yes? (And it doesn't matter if one or both biomes were already done when I completed "Biome Hunter I", does it?) Hearing about the first few tiers probably isn't all that exciting to BTSM veterans, but it was certainly intriguing for me when playing it, so I'll file a progress report soon.

Decisions, decisions. (remainder of original thinking-out-loud post snipped; update follows) Okay, I think I've got it sorted. I'll go for the full career experience, because I've discovered I won't have to choose difficulty settings like in stock 0.25 career mode (and thereby torture myself, both in overthinking the choices, and in putting up with the kamakaze decisions that I'm liable to make), and because FlowerChild says "if you aren't intending to go beyond tech 8 (at least before I do), it's probably the better experience", and because it will become the only option anyway once the highest tech levels are balanced. I'm also going to sacrifice the two points that "Purist" offers over "I don't need a slide rule", because I'd rather include the mods FlowerChild took the trouble to recommend (so long as they're both permissible for this challenge)...and also, after glancing at other entries in this thread I'm pretty sure I don't want to do without Kerbal Alarm Clock. I'm going to do without any big visual mods for now though, as I have no idea what I'd choose even if I weren't afraid of courting memory problems and other crash/bug situations. Here's the proposed mod lineup then, so long as all are acceptable: Better Than Starting Manned + Deadly Reentry (of course) PreciseNode (as recommended by FlowerChild) Chatterer (as recommended by FlowerChild; audio effects only) Kerbal Alarm Clock (used for OP submission) Alternate Resource Panel RCS Sounds (audio and visual effects only) Rover Wheel Sounds (audio effects only) To my eyes, all are no-brainers except for Alternate Resource Panel and PreciseNode. Would these both be permissible? The former stretches the "basically, only visual effect mods are permitted in-flight" principle a bit, but I've seen it highly recommended in several places in the BTSM thread (at least once with FlowerChild's encouragement). The latter may do a bit more than stretch the principle, but I'm proposing to include it because it is a recommended part of the BTSM experience. And I'd consider both to be much more akin to Kerbal Alarm Clock than to, say, MechJeb in their effect on gameplay. (If they both are okay, then I presume I would still get credit for not using any "engineering" mods, since neither one does anything in the VAB.) Whew. That's a lot of learning about BTSM (while trying to avoid gameplay spoilers as much as possible) and mod-browsing and decision-making under my belt now. Tomorrow night it will be time to fire it all up and get started.

Hello again, Death Engineering! Your "Duna Apollo Style" challenge furnished me with the second-best KSP experience I've ever had. (As with most players, I think, my first successful Munar landing--way back in the old 0.13.3 demo--will always hold the top spot.) I've done some looking at your Constellation challenge, but always had too little time and energy on my hands, and all the detail seemed pretty daunting. This one here looks like it might just be a decent match for the particular sort of insanity I possess. I'm still shorter on time and energy than I would like...but if you've been working on this one for months yourself, that's paradoxically comforting, as I won't feel ridiculous if I take approximately forever. And what better way to delve into the alternate vision of career gameplay that is BTSM? Also it would save me from a different sort of all-consuming insanity: sorting through the 100-odd mod threads I've subscribed to, and settling on a mere few dozen to plunk into my new 0.25 install while hoping that the combination doesn't cause my computer to explode in a big fiery ball visible from space. But I digress. Anyhow, I'm not sure exactly where I should start with this one, or how, if I should decide to attempt it. Should I dust off KSP 23.5, and plug in appropriately earlier versions of BTSM and Deadly Reentry? Or wait for further BTSM updates before starting? Or do something else? I've never played with either of those mods before. Does this challenge presume that I've played around with either or both already? The rules mention that visual-effect mods are permitted. (Are there particular ones that most people are using with BTSM with good results? I've hardly ever tried any such mods out, though I understand some of them are really nice.) I presume audio-effect ones are also fine? Oh, and how about BTSM's recommended addition of PreciseNode? So you--and some others--are really doing without Kerbal Engineer and the like? You must be much better at eyeballing ÃŽâ€v than I am...either that, or this challenge is at least somewhat forgiving of those of us who are apt to go through three or five revisions of a craft before it even makes LKO on the intended stage (or at all). Finally, are you sick of my asking questions yet?

Is there a video or forum thread for that? I don't see it. Would be curious to know how he's gotten that far. I'm trying to figure out the cheapest possible craft to achieve orbit. Not having any room for experimentation in "real" missions, I ran a couple "simulations" (i.e. tests outside career) and was still coming up 200-300 ÃŽâ€v short on my c. 6900 fund craft. Running such "simulations" seems a bit outside the spirit of career mode. (On the other hand, how else is one supposed to figure out how to hit the velocity and altitude targets for some of the parts tests?) But then, being a reasonably veteran player also messes with the game's expectations, at least at the start of career. Maybe loosening up the hardness settings a bit, and adding Kerbal Engineer Redux (I haven't installed any mods in 0.25 yet, and I'm not so veteran that I can eyeball my craft's ÃŽâ€v), would be a reasonable compromise.

Here's a question for the forum: what is the hardest Custom difficulty setting that is still playable? (Let's say "playable" means something like "possible to complete tech tree, before kerbals or self die of old age or get taken off to the loony bin.") I'm asking because when I fired up 0.25 for the first time, I started a career with all General Options set to off, and all sliders set to the most extreme settings (10% rewards, 1,000% penalties, 0 starting funds and science, -1,000 starting reputation). I've completed 9 contracts so far (some with two- or even one-figure payouts in funds), and got Jeb into space, but am not sure I'll be able to get much farther, with a current fund balance of 6,904 and few contracts available that will so much as pay for the parts--or even the fuel!--expended to complete them. And of course from the start I've only ever been one failure away from the program shutting down. (Reputation's already all the way up to -915 though. Woot?) So maybe these hardest possible settings are a bit beyond what I'm looking for in a "Most Extreme (Yet Not Totally Insanely Futile) Career Mode". Are some of the other veteran players around here getting a sense for where the outer limits of sanity might be? Or perhaps this should become a challenge? "MXKC: Most Extreme Kerbal Elimination Challenge!" Could be fun. Could also be pointlessly grindy...

Will this mod need updating for 0.25, or is it still fine?

"Recover all parts near this craft" could be helpful...that's a good idea. The question of mixing craft together could be addressed by either allowing the creation of multi-craft missions, or allowing craft to be transferred from one mission to another. That might require more organization or management than some players would like though.

After finishing a mission in 0.24, one thing I find myself wanting to know is how much money the mission gained or cost me. As things now stand, I have to make careful notes (before, during, and after), and add everything up myself, in order to have more than a very rough guess as to the answer. This is not optimal, and leads me to thoughts about end-of-mission more broadly. Part of the problem is that the end-of-mission screen reports funds gained from recovered parts, but says nothing about either part costs or rewards from completed contracts. I would expect it to be fairly straightforward to add some or all of this information to the existing end-of-mission summary for version 0.25. But another part of the problem is that missions sometimes come home in more than one piece (or break into more than one piece upon landing...I've, er, heard that this happens to other people sometimes, never me of course). A more thorough revision of mission tracking and logic would allow this issue to be addressed, providing those of us who love data and archives with much better records...and it could streamline the end of some missions for everyone. (I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets tired of going back and forth to the Tracking Center to recover multiple bits of the same craft, including kerbals who may have left the cabin but not been able to get back in.) Here's how I'd do it. When a craft is sent to the launchpad or runway, the mission would be named (the user wouldn't have to enter one--it could default to the craft name, with a sequential number added if it is not the first mission undertaken with that craft). Everything that happens to that craft (including separated parts thereof) would be logged in a mission report, viewable at will both during and after the mission: flight events, financials, science, flags planted, etc. When some part of that craft returns to Kerbin, the "Recover" feature would offer two options: recover just this part, or recover all parts. The latter option would end the mission, and close out the mission report, which would be displayed, and then archived back at Mission Control. Of course, all parts might not be recoverable at that point--some might still be off-world, or the whole mission may have suffered a catastrophic failure. In this case, when the recover all parts option was selected, all unrecoverable parts would be declared abandoned and flagged as debris. - - - Updated - - - This approach to mission tracking could be further expanded in future versions, to include mission planning and scheduling and preparation (in addition to the current building and flying stages). I can't speak for anyone else, but I would personally be thrilled if Mission Control had a calendar I could place missions on, if I could develop my list of objectives or even my flight plan in-game, if I had to plan for adequate time for rocket construction and testing and crew training, and so forth. This is an ambitious idea--possibly unrealistically ambitious for this game, I don't know--but I mention it because this is how a real fully-featured "space program simulator" should feel, in my view. Would this take away from the slap-some-stuff-together-and-see-what-happens aspect of the game? Yes...but that's what Sandbox Mode is for, isn't it? Or perhaps even within Career Mode, the R&D department could be expanded to accommodate experiments and tests outside the context of full-dress missions.

I'm surprised if this is an out-of-memory bug, because I can't remember experiencing it in my modded game...only in my unmodded one. (Though I only ever played 23.5 unmodded. Did the addition of ARM cause vastly more memory-eating than before? Or maybe the problem is that the claw bugged my career save? ARM was fun, but buggy as all get out...)

Since this thread is still alive, I'm going to go ahead and bug you about the leaderboard. A couple of missions appear to have been left off of it. (I noticed because one of them is mine!) Thanks again for the challenge...and thanks to the players who keep playing it. We've seen some creative and awesome things happen in this thread!

So many inventive ways to accomplish this mission! I love Chacabuco's rover with the enclosed cabin (it never remotely entered my mind to build one that way...will have to give it a try now), and big imaginary bonus points for making a heatshield. And the picture showing all of Patupi's rovers was really something ("yo dawg, I heard you like rovers, so I put a rover in your rover..."); it looks like Duna is about to be taken over by an infestation of mini-rovers. A good challenge, inspiring creative and diverse solutions...this is KSP at its best.

Presenting Apollo K-Extended, a continuation of the Apollo K project undertaken for the "Duna Apollo Style" challenge. In the spirit of this new challenge, I adapted my Apollo K-R design to create the Apollo K-X, reusing large chunks of the previous spacecraft, and avoiding unnecessary changes. The bottom two stages, in fact, are completely unchanged from the Apollo K-R mission. Here's what has changed: * A new third stage has been added. (More delta-v was needed of course, but the craft now also adheres more closely to the requested mission profile for this challenge, and to the real-world Apollo design: unlike the earlier Apollo K missions, Apollo K-X is three stages to orbit.) * In the payload, the single, engineless Apollo K subsatellite has become a pair of subsatellites powered by LV-1s, and they are mounted on the Command Module instead of below the Munar (now Dunar) Module. * To better accommodate the subsatellites, the Command Module's monopropellant tanks have been tucked inside the Advanced SAS module; also, a pair of FL-T100 fuel tanks have been slipped inside the decoupler, to provide additional delta-v for interplanetary return. (It does not require part clipping or any other sort of sorcery to place things inside SAS and decoupler rings in the VAB...just a careful and patient hand.) * The Apollo K rover has been radically redesigned for greater stability...and also for better durability on those occasions when stability fails. A pair of them are packed for the journey instead of just one; and they do not remain mounted below the Dunar Module for landing, as the single rover did before, but are instead remounted radially in-flight. * The change in rover mounting led to the bottom of the Dunar Module being rebuilt, and to the shifting of some side-attached parts to accommodate new docking ports; but the biggest change to the lander is the addition of parachutes. Lots of parachutes. (And with them, more weight...so the central ascent engine has been changed from a 48-7S to an LV-909.) * A new module, the polar probe, has been built from scratch. It is designed to separate from the main mission upon entering Duna SOI, collect a sample from the icecap, and then return to Kerbin independently. * Finally, most of the structural panels in the fairing have been replaced with wing connectors, to help compensate for the heavier payload. (I think this also brought the part count down slightly...and every little bit helps, as the twin rovers add up to a lot of parts.) Construction and testing took place in my main installation of KSP 0.21.1, where I've installed various mods--but no modded parts were used on the final craft, nor were mods used to build anything that couldn't also be built in an unmodded game (if a bit more laboriously), nor was part clipping turned on. Space programs interested in examining the Apollo K-X more closely, and perhaps taking it for a spin themselves, can find the craft file here. For flying the mission I used a new, unmodded installation of KSP 0.21.1, into which the required save file and my completed craft were copied. There was one reload from a quicksave, as detailed over in the challenge thread; no actual flight maneuvers were ever repeated, however, nor were the debug console or debug/cheat menu opened at any point. This time, the mission report has been assembled into two annotated Imgur albums. PART I: PART II: This mission achieved all goals set for the challenge, earning the theoretical maximum of 283 points, plus 3 points for a second rover, plus 34 points for arrival on Day 95...for a grand total of 320 points. Many thanks to Death Engineering for this wonderful challenge--I've had ever so much fun, and there's a real sense of achievement in completing a challenge like this too. (Thanks once again to Xeldrak as well, for creating the original challenge that led to this one.) And now I think I'm going to take a break from playing until 0.22 comes out. Whew.

Some cool new stuff...great! But the wreath has gone missing for me again. Can't even see it as an option on the ribbon creation screen this time.

Presenting Apollo K-Extended, a continuation of the Apollo K project which I had undertaken for the "Doing it Apollo style" challenge. In the spirit of this new challenge, I adapted my previous Apollo K design to create the Apollo K-X, reusing large chunks of the original spacecraft, and avoiding unnecessary changes. The bottom two stages, in fact, are completely unchanged from the last Apollo K Mun mission. Here's what has changed: * A new third stage has been added. (More delta-v was needed of course, but the craft now also adheres more closely to the requested mission profile for this challenge, and to the real-world Apollo design: unlike the earlier Apollo K missions, Apollo K-X is three stages to orbit.) * In the payload, the single, engineless Apollo K subsatellite has become a pair of subsatellites powered by LV-1s, and they are mounted on the Command Module instead of below the Munar (now Dunar) Module. * To better accommodate the subsatellites, the Command Module's monopropellant tanks have been tucked inside the Advanced SAS module; also, a pair of FL-T100 fuel tanks have been slipped inside the decoupler, to provide additional delta-v for interplanetary return. (It does not require part clipping or any other sort of sorcery to place things inside SAS and decoupler rings in the VAB...just a careful and patient hand.) * The Apollo K rover has been radically redesigned for greater stability...and also for better durability on those occasions when stability fails. A pair of them are packed for the journey instead of just one; and they do not remain mounted below the Dunar Module for landing, as the single rover did before, but are instead remounted radially in-flight. * The change in rover mounting led to the bottom of the Dunar Module being rebuilt, and to the shifting of some side-attached parts to accommodate new docking ports; but the biggest change to the lander is the addition of parachutes. Lots of parachutes. (And with them, more weight...so the central ascent engine has been changed from a 48-7S to an LV-909.) * A new module, the polar probe, has been built from scratch. It is designed to separate from the main mission upon entering Duna SOI, collect a sample from the icecap, and then return to Kerbin independently. * Finally, most of the structural panels in the fairing have been replaced with wing connectors, to help compensate for the heavier payload. (I think this also brought the part count down slightly...and every little bit helps, as the twin rovers add up to a lot of parts.) Construction and testing took place in my main installation of KSP 0.21.1, where I've installed various mods--but no modded parts were used on the final craft, nor were mods used to build anything that couldn't also be built in an unmodded game (if a bit more laboriously), nor was part clipping turned on. Space programs interested in examining the Apollo K-X more closely, and perhaps taking it for a spin themselves, can find the craft file here. For flying the mission I used a new, unmodded installation of KSP 0.21.1, into which the required save file and my completed craft were copied. (Was the save file supposed to be cued up at the beginning of Day 54? When I started it up, after the game had converted it to 0.21 format, the Tracking Center clock was just minutes from the end of Day 54.) There was one reload from a quicksave, as described a few posts earlier in this thread; no actual flight maneuvers were ever repeated, however, nor were the debug console or debug/cheat menu opened at any point. I've assembled the mission report into two annotated Imgur albums. (Hadn't tried using Imgur before, but it seemed worth a go, since it's how all the cool kids share their challenge screenshots around here. Unless they're über-cool kids, like Tigrou with the really spiffy video reports over on the original "Doing it Apollo style" thread...do check those out if you haven't seen them yet.) PART I: PART II: This mission achieved all goals set for the challenge (unless I've overlooked something, but I don't think I have), earning the theoretical maximum of 283 points, plus 3 points for a second rover, plus 34 points for arrival on Day 95...for a grand total of 320 points. Many thanks to Death Engineering for this wonderful challenge--I've had ever so much fun, and there's a real sense of achievement in completing a challenge like this too. (Thanks once again to Xeldrak as well, for creating the original challenge that led to this one.) And now I think I'm going to take a break from playing until 0.22 comes out. Whew.

My goodness, Tigrou. Beautifully designed spacecraft, beautifully executed mission, beautifully composed video...truly an entry to be proud of. (And how in the world did you make a rover so small, yet still so driveable on the 0.21 Mun?) Wish I could hire you to document my next mission!