notasurgeon

Thanks for the quick replies! Don't the GUIs from those mods hide themselves along with the other stuff when you switch to map mode? Is there a way to keep them visible or am I remembering things incorrectly?

Ever since I discovered how to show the nav-ball in map mode, I do pretty much everything except taking off and docking there. My only complaint is that I have to flip back to ship view in order to see how close my current stage is to running out of fuel. Is it possible to view fuel levels in map mode? I don't mind using mods if necessary, although I'd prefer to keep my game as stock as possible.

You should make it of Kerbin, not Earth

Eagle, Kerbin, and Anchor

Is there a good way to use mnodes to do interplanetary transfers without using mods or an IRL protractor to time the launch? I can't sit in a 70 km orbit for 6 months waiting for my target to line up.

I just installed Kethane with 0.19.1, and although the scanner seems to work I don't have any kind of in-game displays that show me where the deposits are. The .pngs in the Kethane PluginData folder get drawn on, but nothing in game that I can find. Any ideas?

Here's my submission. I don't know if this is big enough for you, but it should be able to get three Kerbals almost anywhere with some good piloting.

The largest ship I've ever gotten into orbit had 400 parts and ended up with about 170t in orbit. Poor computer could barely handle it. I'm also curious how you got 367t up there.

For these types of challenges, I think it might be nice to put some sort of upper limit like number of parts or ship mass so that people with older computers can still participate.

Fuel lines are fun! There's so much more I can do now that I understand how they work

This is the fourth in my line of ships attempting to reach Tylo. The first two crashed at speeds far exceeding the speed of sound on impact, having plenty of fuel to begin with but too little thrust and too much mass to use it efficiently while landing. The third ship in the line landed safely, but it was almost 400 parts and after seeing what it actually took to land there I had an epiphany. This fourth version represents a radical re-design that accomplishes almost everything Tylo III did, but with far less fuel and only 145 parts. I'm not sure if it can manage a return-trip from Duna without any modifications (it does come with parachutes), but that's my next goal.

After wasting all that fuel and having so much left over on the last attempt I started over with a smaller capsule, a substantially smaller transfer stage, and a bunch of asparagus-staged aerospikes with boosters to get off Kerbin. I think my biggest problem was that I had plenty of fuel (I think I got there with over 6,000 dV left with Tylo II), but most of it was getting wasted fighting gravity and not enough was actually being used to slow me down. Shrinking the landers and adding thrust to them had a major payoff. Tylo I - 326 parts. Arrived with tons of fuel left, but failed to land due to insufficient thrust-to-weight ratio. Tylo II - 328 parts. Arrived with even more fuel, but still wasted most of it fighting gravity and crashed into the surface killing all aboard. Tylo III - 397 parts. Arrived with so much fuel that a glitch forced me to abandon about 2 2m tanks worth in space, yet still landed successfully. Tylo IV - 145 parts. Significant improvement, and I can launch this one without my computer slowing to 0.5 FPS. With some minor modifications I think this one might easily be able to return from Duna.

Ah, sorry I should have posted a stock version. Protractor, Mechjeb, and Engineer redux.

I forgot to add one

Success! My interplanetary stage was way too big, apparently. When I decelerated to do my course adjustments as I entered Jool's SoI, two of my NERVAs broke off and I had to eject about 5,000 dV of fuel and just use the lander stage. Now I'm sitting on the surface of Tylo with 2,700 dV remaining in the lander. Next goal, miniaturization!