666lumberjack

The goal of this challenge is simple; place as heavy a payload as possible into LKO. 1.0 Aerodynamics have had a huge impact on wide lift vehicle designs, so it's not entirely clear what the best design for carrying those ultra-large payloads is. The rules are also simple: Stock KSP, no gameplay-altering addons/mods The final payload must be in one piece, and must be in a stable orbit of at least 70x70km. Maximum one launch. The payload may not contribute in any significant way to the rocket - no fuel, reaction wheels or RCS tanks. You may give it a probe core, but nothing else. It's recommended that you use bundles of full ore tanks for compactness, but this is not mandatory. You may attach to the payload in multiple places as long as all illegal parts are detached before final payload mass is calculated. Any design or concept you can think of within the above guidelines is allowed. Shoot for something massive and inefficient or something mildly enormous with a great payload fraction - whichever you think is best. Entries must provide screenshots of mass on the pad and final mass, plus video/screenshots from in between - enough to make it clear how your craft is functioning. I will be putting together some kind of leaderboard for the best entries. Good Luck!

It's a tough one. I did eventually end up with something that worked, 9.7km/s of delta-v in 40.2t. It lands on Thud just fine with Mechjeb's translatron as you guessed. Unfortunately the landing autopilot can't seem to cope with the ridiculous gravity and mountainous terrain so i'll struggle to make the descent any more efficient, but I never intended to return anyway. I'm actually working a tour of the whole Sentar system, hence the rather tight mass budget for the Thud landing stage. I'm using two landers total, one for Thud which is single-use, staged and cannot return, and one for everywhere else which is single-stage and refueled after each landing. It was also quite challenging to design because the balance between a slow, efficient atmospheric ascent vehicle Skelton and Erin require and what is essentially a Tylo landing on Ringle in a single vehicle is a tough one. The full Sentar stage is 270t, with another 900t in the two parts of the transfer stage. Working out the final few teething problems with the launcher I'm using to put 450t parts into space is the only thing holding me back now but i've made good progress and I think I'm 8 struts away from success, assuming something else doesn't crop up when I fix the issue I have now. I'm actually really curious to know what whoever does the first planet-factory-enabled grand tour has to use to make it a possibility. It has to be at least 50km/s of delta-v to do everything. The only way I can see that being met within the constraints of not crashing the game is to use Ion engines and a bunch of mini vehicles to do some of the more taxing transfers like Ablate and Moho and having the main body of the ship do Eve -> Jool -> Sentar, with sub-craft making all the other landings and transfers. Still gotta be a couple of thousand tons in LKOat a minimum. I guess it would depend on how far you could minaturize the Thud stage, I think with a couple of optimizatiosn to my design - namely bambaragus staging and a reduction in TWR for the lower stages where I'm not in the final descent yet - I could see a land and return vehice in 55-60t. Eve stage is realistically another 20t minimum even with excellent optimization and some jetpacking, and it's not like those are the only tough landings. Overall, a seriously, seriously difficult challenge. I'm a long way off try that one, that's for sure!

I have a request I'd like to make (if you take requests that is). I require a lander with at least 10-11km/s delta-v, preferably towards the higher end, a kerbin thrust to weight ratio of 4 minimum on any and all stages and a maximum mass of 40t. It requires 1 kerbal as payload and ideally a docking port, but that may be too much. I have KW Rocketry available if you require it.

Hey, thanks for the work on this awesome mod! I have two questions: 1. How involved is the process of adding new fuels/oxidizers? I'm hoping I just need to mess around with the .cfg files, but I'd really appreciate any guidance you give here. I'd like to implement a Hydrogen+Lithium fuel with higher mass than H2, greater specific impulse and a faster boil-off rate and a Fluorine Oxidizer with heavier tanks, better Isp and very slightly faster boil-off. Assuming I can figure out the way you have the .cfg files set up, of course. I've also considered adding Methane and Propane as fuels, again assuming I can figure things out. I found a great paper from this German guy which outlines a whole bunch of fuel/oxidizer combos, so theoretically I could add a bunch of them in. 2. You don't specify a license in the OP - I presume I'm ok to modify the files for personal use, but what about distribution if people are interested? I understand if you'd prefer that I don't; it's your mod after all.

Attempt 2 was successful! I built a pretty simple 2-stage gantry-based rocket using parts from the Deep Space, Gantry and NovaPunch packs (but no Ion engines or anything like that, that'd be cheating...) and basically burned straight up in a rough experiment. Upon running out of fuel at approx. 24.7km/s, I found myself on a solar escape trajectory with a very very very low periapsis... I'm not certain, but I believe I max have actually flown through the sun... but I accidentally toggled 100000x speed at the wrong moment so I can't be sure... currently at 1.7 trillion metres above the sun and steadily climbing - it's almost impossible to actually see any part of the system from this altitudeand the orbital map is either glithced and not showing any lines or working and not showing any lines... I'm not sure which! If anyone is insterested I did take a few screenshots of the thing... would be happy to post them provided people are actually interested! I'm honestly suprised at this result... the rocket I used isn't even named because it was intended purely as an experiment... it just happened to end up achieving the exact thing I'd been trying to do with more refined designs! EDIT: The Explorator 21, a refinement of my previous design, just ran out of fuel at 102000m/s... I don't appear to be seeing the Kraken at all either. I'm honestly astonished how easy this was to launch - I literally engaged sas, ignited the solid boosters, detached them and activated the liquid engines at full thrust and lefft it about 50 minutes to use up all the fuel... solar escape in no time! The solar escape trajectory appears to be broken in the orbital map for me though - it's 68y, 35d and 3h away and that time never decreases...

I am currently attempting to build a rocket capable of escaping the Kerban system, and I wondered if anyone else had attempted this and if so whether they had any tips to share? My current intention is to transfer to Solar orbit with as much fuel as possible and then angle the craft outwards and continuously accelerate until I find myself upon an escape trajectory... probably not the most efficient way to do this but bear with me I'm new . I've run a couple of test flights using segaprophet's Scarab HLS, but it seems like I end up with my orbital map flickering between a very elliptical orbit and solar escape every couple of seconds... my Solar Periapsis is currently ~8000000000m, and i've been in the same situation the last 2 billion metres, so it doesn't seem like my continued boosting is actually helping things... I could be wrong, however. Any thoughts are appreciated.