HOC

Nice stories! They\'re an enjoyable read- keep it up.

Nice log there PakledHostage, I might well try to recreate your mission just simply because it\'d be one of the most advanced mission I\'d have ever done. Thanks! Also, that\'s a brilliantly minimalistic rocket you have there! How well does it handle without sas or rcs of any kind?

Wow, you guys are getting there much faster than I can! What\'s your secret?

Thank God I have finally found you and your wonderful writings, I\'ve been trawling through the forum for so long looking for a piece of fan Fiction that is actually written well. Congratulations to you, good sir. Now go, go and make more of this wonderful tale so I might feast my eyes once more! (Okay, that might\'ve been a bit excessive... but seriously- it\'s great and a very enjoyable read )

That\'s a nice looking plane there Joost, surprisingly NOT minimalistic as I\'ve come to expect good planes for this challenge to be... well done!

Oh wow, this looks great. You know what we need after this, guys? Submarine ROCKET LAUNCH SYSTEM 8) (I\'m serious, something like a Trident Missile would be an incredible achievement to make- but I\'m guessing that with the way water is currently it might not be plausible...)

Okay, there we are, challenge completed! I used my Shoot For The Moon launch and orbit stages to get your lander to the Mun... Lost a leg! They really are rickety aren\'t they? The lander works, and it works well enough, but I think most people will agree that it\'s too... over-built. You\'ve got four landing engines, where you\'ll only need 3 at the max; a Mun \'ascent\' stage and a Kerbin return stage where you only really need the return stage. My usual lander design uses one orbiter engine, one fuel tank and 6 landing legs (I hate those legs so much that the only way to justify using them is to smack on far too many 8) ) So yeah, a little constructive criticism there- hopefully.

An inverted tri-coupler! Brilliant! I can\'t believe that I had never thought of it myself... Thank you

Paint.NET \'s \'oil painting\' effect creates images exactly like this one... I\'m guessing that\'s what you used? I personally prefer the \'Ink Sketch\' effect, it\'s incredible!

Nice! An enjoyable read

Hey, this is a pretty cool challenge! I\'ll have to have a go at some point However, it\'s gonna involve a lot of precision and planning so I\'ll have to practice my ship rendezvous before I do...

That\'s a great site to use, and no there isn\'t really any preferred way to time it. Nice time! Yeah, I\'m fairly sure my CM would\'ve been a ball of plasma when they hit the atmosphere too! Bothering to return with the crew alive realistically takes far too much extra time.

My time is 16 minutes and 26 seconds As displayed by this handy video here...

Time is becoming ever more valuable, as the keen, kerbling Kerbonaughts realise the massive, magnificent multitude of ships to build, celestial bodies to conquer and challenges to partake in... With that in mind, Shoot For The Mun Enterprises proudly presents HOCgaming\'s first challenge: Land on the Mun and return to Kerbin as fast as possible, as measured in Real Life seconds taken Wait, what? We find this idea interesting due to the decision making necessary to achieve a fast round trip. Not measured in GAME time, but in REAL LIFE time. For example, a larger orbit will take the Kerbal pilots longer to complete, but yields a faster warp speed to the player. Piloting the whole mission in 2x speed will have a huge impact on the end time, but much needed accuracy will be sacrificed. Of course, providing evidence for claimed times is going to be unreliable- so we\'ve decided to post this one with good faith in you guys. This leads us onto the rules: First off, mission flight time begins at Lift Off. Meaning fast forwarding pre-mission in order to launch at a time when the mun is in an optimal position is encouraged! 1: No mods are allowed, apart from the simple and not game changing ones such as MechJeb and Decoupler Shrouds. Any mod that has an impact on ship speed or fuel capacity is strictly forbidden. 2: Landing on the Mun is classed as coming to a complete stop on the Mun\'s surface for at least 10 REAL LIFE seconds, with no engines of any kind being active during that time. 3: Three images are required: First the ship on the pad before Lift Off; Second the ship planted firmly at rest on the Mun; Lastly the mission end overview, with the command module at rest on Kerbin and the crew INTACT (aka alive, intact just sounds cooler). The absolute best way to prove your claimed time is accurate is to provide video evidence, but we obviously can\'t expect everyone to do so. Please, don\'t hesitate to share your strategies with the rest of us mere mortals! If you have a particular trick in order to save time I\'m sure we\'d all be interested to hear it. And that... is about it. Good Luck, fellow Kerbonaughts! LEADER BOARD: 1st: Optical9090 - 00:12:53.30 2nd: HOCgaming - 00:16:26

Damn, this has spoilt Arches for me as well Ah well... Frickin\' arches though, that\'s incredible!

Ah, DAMMIT! I just had another shot at it, and got within 10kms of KSC2 when I stupidly decided to fly fully manually, lost control of the damn ship and it plunged into the ground. Looks like the time would\'ve been around 23:50....

Woah, that\'s weird, they aren\'t showing up for me anymore... let me try and fix that... By the way, antbin, well done on the time! You say 15.5km cruising altitude seems to be optimal? I\'m really looking for a good altitude to try and maintain for my next run... EDIT: Okay, Images should be working now! (I\'m using imgur)

Alright! First flight results are in: I arrived on KSC2 campus at 25:23 (by campus I mean I was within 100m of the VAB, and was flying low enough for someone to plausibly toss out a package and have it survive). HOWEVER, as you can see, I failed the landing when I reached for Print Screen and so the crew didn\'t survive. Which sucks.... Something to note: Fuel ran out at 20:41 so I had to try and glide as fast as I could to get that time. I feel that with some re-runs and a change in cruising altitude (I maintained around 14kms throughout) I\'ll be able to make it there just as the fuel runs out. The ship, in its current form, is only fitted with one fuel tank. (I will be entering into the fuel efficiency one as well, antbin, with some major modifications ) The Pics: I used empty fuselages as take-off feet. (They detached as soon as the engine was running enough to lift the ship) Eeeek! Out of fuel! Mission success! Sort of... I will be flying again later today, hopefully with great results! If anyone could recommend some modifications to the ship it\'d be a great help Thanks guys.

*Ahem* people! So, have we decided for ourselves what the optimum altitude for this flight is then? I\'m just about to try it for myself, and after reading the past replies it seems a lot of people are maintaining around 13kms for the majority of the flight... so I guess I\'ll go for that! Wish me luck, fellow kerbonaughts!

Uh huh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56OmrLkn6DM Hope this helps some peeps! Merry Christmas!

LOL has never been more literal. Well done, an extremely enjoyable read!

A simple 4 tank liquid engine with 5 boosters attached to the body (as the first stage) via radial decouplers works easily. SAS modules on each one and you're good to go As a side-note, that's also my simplest orbiter design.