mcirish3

I don't see why not, Probably only able to do it with the external seat. but Ziv has shown that it is very possible. Mechjeb is a little more efficient but I bet Ziv's rocket could do it without mechjeb. For the record I did not use mechjeb. I am using several mods however, but they are mostly because of limitations in KSP and my PC's limitations. I am using joint reinforcement because my PC is too slow and warping can tare my ship part because it miss calculates part locations due to being overloaded. I have two texture mods to help with frame rate. But I also have the city lights and clouds mod for those impressive visuals. The only actual help aid mods are two nave ball mods. One gives the same direction indicators as the nodes do in map view and also ghosts the pro grad retro grad and node indicators. The other is only activated during docking and indicates the anti parallel relative to the ship being docked to. that is it. I took six launches to assemble my ship in low Kerbin orbit with a orbital part count of 1200+ you can see my progress so far in the album I posted above. I did have to send a refueling ship but again only because of my slow PC. I had to leave my RCS on for the whole jool transfer because I did not want to baby sit my PC for the 3+ hours it took for the burn since my PC lag was so bad. I did transfer all fuel that made it to Jool but really only needed the RCS because can't dock without it.

Layth and refueling mission completed stop Vall transfer complete stop Vall lander launched stop Pictures at end of album below stop Ship part count 793 stop

I did wable some but I am using, as I said earlier, joint reinforcement mod, which is one of the mods that let me continue this mission. I love the clouds mod, and since peeps said they did not have the ram to run the mod he made the memory reduction mod too. I have a stable orbit so yes main ship will come get it. But it did not have to since I had a refueling tanker on the way and it has already refueled the landing craft. Remember my RCS is gone on both the main ship and the lander so docking without refueling would have been very difficult. I will add pics of the refueling process once it is over. I am not to proud of that part since I was not very efficient in my fuel usage on the refueling ship as I should have been. I should have had twice as much fuel as I do. No, I don't need MechJeb, been playing this game for over a year and a half I mastered piloting a long time ago. That said I still goof up landing some times, and I had to f5 reload a lot for Layth since the land is so mountainous. It took forever to find a reasonably flat landing location. I only use mechjeb when I don't want to pilot and given the size and difficulty of this challenge I choose to go without. Besides I am playing on my original 0.22 save file in career mode, and I did all the other missions you see in my signature below without mechjeb.

Layth mission Complete. Refueling in progress. I have pics of the Layth mission at the end of the album below.

Wow impressive.

WEll Got my prob down to jool and have rendezvous with Layth and separated my first lander. Picks below. Note: Ship part count down to 916. Also want to share a glitch that happened the first time I drop the prob (Could not leave the prob after this so had to use f9 reload.) pics below the album. Very fast hu? not sure what caused this but was crazy Triplicated ship how odd. Almost like time dilation.

THought perhaps I had enough done now to share the album, so here it is.

Here are the first nine photo collages I have made. All the rest of the moon and planets to follow. Enjoy. Feel free to take them and do what you want with them. They are clickable to get full HD res.

Well I am back. I have to say it looks like some new recommendations where put in place in my absence to keep peeps from making the same mistakes I did. As some of you may remember I quit this challenge because the warp cracken had destroyed my ship. What I never said was I did have a F5 save from before the destruction so the mission was not lost just a lot of time lost due to having burned for 2+ hours before the destruction and I was frustrated at that point with a glich destroying my ship. In any case I spent the last few weeks trying out and testing various mods. In that time I have found a way to continue my mission attempt. What changed?! three mods have made all the difference for me. they are as follows. [Plugin] [0.22]Kerbal Joint Reinforcement v1.4.2 -- Properly Rigid Part Connections found here. This has reduced but not eliminated the time warp kraken hits. ( with this mode I would be able to reduce part count on future missions.) [Plugin] [0.22][Release-1-1] Active Memory Reduction Mod found here. This has greatly improved pc performance, single most influential mod in getting me to continue. [0.21] Squad Texture Reduction Pack - B9 and KW Packs also found here another small boost to pc performance. In any case you will see below that I have entered the jool system and done my first aerobraking maneuver. I am out of RCS so I do have a prob bringing more out to me. I will have to refuel RCS before the mission can continue very far. By the way glad to see so many peeps working on this challenge. Note: ship part count down to 955.

Yep, forgot to talk about that.

Well let me try to help. WElcome to KSP by the way. First off I think any one of the winners or finalists in this competition would do the trick and give you a guide on future builds.http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58037-BSC-Kerbal-X-We-have-a-winner%21 But to be honest you build does not have to be that elaborate. That said one thing you may want to learn about is Asparagus staging if you dont know about it already. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Asparagus_Staging It is the single best way to make your rocket more efficient. The second thing you want to learn about is the Hohmann transfer https://www.google.com/search?q=hohmann+transfer&oq=Homan+transfer&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.6411j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8 The Hohmann transfer is just a fancy way of saying this is the most efficient way to change orbits which is what you are doing when you head for the moon. Luckily that is easy in KSP since the maneuver node basically does that for you. All you have to do is increase the pro grade marker until the post burn orbit just crosses the orbital line of the Mun. Then pull this along your current orbit until you get an intercept. (of course I am assuming a fairly good equatorial orbit) As far as landing goes. Try not to start your burn too soon. The most efficient burn is one that brings your craft to a stop just in time to land. Of course most of us are not that good at getting it perfect. What I do is try to bring my craft a 0 horizontal speed about 3-5 km above the surface then try and gage a a last minute burn from there. I hope some of this helps. Oh for a mun burn towards the Mun just as it comes over the horizon of Kerbin when in low Kerbin orbit usually gets you a fairly efficient Mun injection. Also, this might suprise you but it takes less energy and thus less total fuel to go the Minmus and back. If you dont want to rebuild your Mun ship and lander send it to Minimus instead and get your first non Kerbin landing under your belt. Land on what looks like flat places they are frozen lakes and are very flat so your ship wont tip over easy. The Mun is very hard to find a flat place to land on so your lander there should have a wide base so it does not tip over.

It looks like I will need a KAS tutorial more than a tutorial for this mod lol. I think KAS has one so I will have to go read it. Thanks this discussion has been most helpful.

Ya, what he said.

KAS mod? Not sure I know that one. Will look for it. Edit:AH, Kerbal Attachment System, I have seen it, (read the description before) haven't used it. Do I need it to make a functional base? If so It should be listed as a necessary or very least recommended Mod.

Wow thanks. This will be useful but I just installed the mod and have not had time to test it. I am not however new to KSP been playing since 0.15 so am a great pilot and dont need a tutorial on how to fly and land this stuff. But what I do need is a written, or a pictorial or a video tutorial on how all this stuff goes together. I have used the Kethane mod before so I know how that works and I have looked at the parts in this mode and get how some of them work as well. But how do the different parts get hooked together. I see you have hoses running all over the place, how did you hook those up would be a good start. I have done better writing than what I am doing here so if I could get a basic explanation I probably could write a tutorial with pics once I got the system down. (don't have time to write well now my three children are causing havoc)

I Had to quit. It was actually getting boring to work with so much lag. Your right it should not be that laggy with only 1000 parts. It is my understanding that the Game is being fully optimized in the 0.23 release as the quote from Harvester below indicates. I will try again but not for two or three weeks at least. There have been so many new mods that came out or had dramatic upgrades after the 0.22 release and may of them are very good so I want try many of them out.

Well Looks like its over. I just dont have enough hours in the day to get the jool burn done, and then a time warp tore the ship apart. Me and my stupid overengineering. Not sure I have the heart to try again. at least not right now. There are so many new mods that I want to test and other challenges too. But this was fun trying I think I know what to do for the next time I try this. Thanks for letting me try.

It is going to take forever to get to Jool, still at 1075 parts and have only finished matching orbital planes. will share pics once I finally get there. congratz on the Vall landing.

OH crud, totally forgot about this challenge. How much time do I have?

Nice I have gone with a maximalist ship and you with a minimalist one hmm I wonder how your new build will fair.

This is very impressive I wish I had thought of the moon shuttle it definatly would have saved on parts. Also Could have Gone with one less medium lander. But such is life.

The little button with an 'i' on it in the map screen give status, mass of craft and parts.

INtroducing the Titus: Stats [table=width: 800, class: grid, align: center] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Parts[/td] [td]Mass (T)[/td] [td]Liquid Fuel (L)[/td] [td]Oxidizer (L)[/td] [td]Solid Fuel (dm)^3[/td] [td]Mono Propellant (L)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Launch Totals[/td] [td]4384[/td] [td]10046.75[/td] [td]709380[/td] [td]867020[/td] [td]18250[/td] [td]9600[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Kerbin Orbital Totals[/td] [td]1211[/td] [td]1202.58[/td] [td]79171[/td] [td]96765[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]6238[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]% Lost During Launch[/td] [td]72.38%[/td] [td]88.03%[/td] [td]88.84%[/td] [td]88.84%[/td] [td]100.00%[/td] [td]35.02%[/td] [/tr] [/table]

I am about to the start the docking sequence so hopefully will have pics later tonight. As for the part count I think you misinterpreted it. Those are Launch numbers not Orbital numbers. Those I will share with the pics. So NO I do not have a 4384 part ship in orbit. My PC could not handle that many parts. Lag is very bad as it is. But still functional (I think). Will have to see after I get the last part docked.

As promised here are some extra stats on my ship. Last piece is in orbit but did not have time to dock tonight so no pics yet. Crew capacity 8. Launches 6. Below are the launch stats. [table=width: 500] [tr] [td]Ship Part[/td] [td]Parts[/td] [td]Stages[/td] [td]Mass (T)[/td] [td]Electric Charge [C][/td] [td]Liquid Fuel (L)[/td] [td]Oxidizer (L)[/td] [td]Solid Fuel (dm)^3[/td] [td]Mono Propellant (L)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Main Engin X2[/td] [td] 2706[/td] [td]44[/td] [td]7496.56[/td] [td]3280[/td] [td] 550800[/td] [td]673200[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]7500[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Medium Lander X2[/td] [td]690[/td] [td]12[/td] [td]1133.16[/td] [td]8206[/td] [td]77040[/td] [td]94160[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]600[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Heavy Lander[/td] [td]483[/td] [td]10[/td] [td]748.26[/td] [td]904[/td] [td]42120[/td] [td]51480[/td] [td]13600[/td] [td]600[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Main Hub[/td] [td]505[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]668.77[/td] [td]4333[/td] [td] 39420[/td] [td]48180[/td] [td]4650[/td] [td]900[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Total[/td] [td]4384[/td] [td]79[/td] [td]10046.75[/td] [td]16723[/td] [td]709380[/td] [td]867020[/td] [td]18250[/td] [td] 9600[/td] [/tr] [/table]