ThePsuedoMonkey

You can quicksave though (F5), which will not be overwritten with autosaves.

I just pack 'em into an archive file

Challenge #22 Complete Kerbals lost: 0 Ships lost: 2 Joolian event ETA: 183 days Dockings w/o RCS: too many The link rover has met up with the engineers aboard Shiva station and are currently enjoying a game of canasta while their ship is resupplied (Shepmore is pretty good at it). The Dionysus and the LRA have been taxied West of KSC, out of physics range, and recycling crews have been dispatched to the two destroyed ships. We have just discovered that we failed to scout the Joolian system before we sent the brave Jenlorf upon his quest to conquer it! In order to prevent this in the future, we have developed a magnificently reusable spaceplane for deploying small probes. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to create an ultra-lightweight recon/communications probe with at least 2000 delta-V, which attaches to the front of the Manticore (replaces the dummy weight seen below) and deliver it into low orbit. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6828vVl_-ZodW9ESVhnWU9JRms/edit?usp=sharing It has been tested with that 0.3T cone and had 700 dV leftover on the rockets from my shakedown (upon landing), so it can probably handle at least twice that much mass. Action Groups are 1=turbojet, 2=rockets, 3=inner intakes, 4=ladders, 5/6 = lateral/rotational RCS ports. The Manticore is also capable of single-crew transfer, due to the integrated computer systems. The deluxe model includes the dorsal floodlight!

Eve's gravity is pretty strong, so strong that my Kerbals disintegrate if they so much as jump on it.

You really need to design an SSTO around the payload you want to deliver. All of my successful SSTO designs have been spaceplanes that deliver small probes (<1 ton) before returning to KSC. For those, I keep my CoL a bit behind the CoM to balance between allowing a steep liftoff angle and a stable re-entry flight. The most difficult part is determining the appropriate amount of lift, which I pretty much just experiment with.

We're gonna need a lot of gas to refuel all these planes!

What I like to do is put a set of quads at the center of mass and a set of linear ones as far from it as possible, which will also let you isolate your translation and rotational maneuvers from each other by putting those in different action groups.

I was thinking it should continue its original mission of going to the Jool system now that it has a full tank.

It probably falls short of how much VTOL ability you were looking for, but its great at staying on the ground!

Challenge #19 Completed Kerbals Lost: 0 Refueling Missions: 3 Muns landed upon: 1 The Kerbotel doesn't seem to have much VTOL capability, but I wasn't able to do much else with the design. It's mainly for roving. There are currently two connected modules behind the VAB, with our valiant refuelers on board. It's really not all that impressive, but I did manage to keep the part count fairly reasonable. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6828vVl_-Zoc1dPZzZCUUFieUU/edit?usp=sharing By now, Jenlorf must be pretty bored on the Soyuz, so I challenge someone to put it on a Kerbal forward escape trajectory!

If they are stranded for a long time (a year?) I say we pretend they ran out of supplies and end the flight, otherwise we save ALL the Kerbals!

I agree with getting the KSP store version, as the Steam version doesn't opt-out of the Steam DRM. It's not a big enough deal to complain about, but I wouldn't have gone that route if I knew that beforehand.

I need to remember to put lights on things...

Sitrep: The tanker and the Soyuz have docked with Shiva Station. I challenge someone to put the Delta Probe on a stable Minmus orbit, and de-orbit the supplies module probe! https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6828vVl_-ZoLWdGbVNrNC1td0E/edit?usp=sharing I was expecting the tanker to use the triple docks, but the single one seemed to work just fine.

I think this thread should be strictly stock only, even though I enjoy mods. If mods will be implemented in one of these, we should begin a thread to sort-of-vote on which ones to include and bundle them into a single download for convenience, as well as allowing tweaking for balance, removal of redundant items, and maybe adding some scaled stock parts. I would definitely contribute to such an undertaking!

The fastest I safely went on a rover was on the minmus Ion challenge, 180 m/s (orbital velocity on minmus)

Not quite the fastest, but 380 is pretty close!

I will usually switch focus to the other vessel once I've come in close, then rotate it so the docking port directly faces the other, switch back to the docking ship and accelerate a bit: voila!

I put it up now, but it reads as 3 minutes older on my computer

The link worked for, me... What's missing?

Does it still speed up like that with ASAS off?

Correct; I'm hoping that's a reasonably short challenge, since I'm on the edge of my seat too! (this was an awesome idea, hawk!)

No worries, man! The picture is the station node and its lifter, which should be at the launchpad. It does not need to be docked to anything just yet, but you are correct about my intent being to dock an orange tank to it and then using that to refuel the Soyuz. Looks like I forgot the link too: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6828vVl_-ZoSEdqakVfajZjTTg&usp=sharing

Rest assured bulletrhli, I have been working on it!

We have the Soyuz in a 200km orbit, but I needed to use 1/3 of the fuel intended for the transfer to get there. Therefore, I challenge someone to bring the primary node of Shiva Station to orbit (I believe 6 toggles lateral RCS and 7 toggles rotational RCS ports), and then (only) design a lifter to bring it an orange fuel tank and our three elite refueling kerbals from the Dionysus! https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6828vVl_-ZoSEdqakVfajZjTTg&usp=sharing I've also taken the liberty of ending the abandoned refueler and the Delta Class "calculations assist module" flights, and moving the planes south of the tracking station. The part count of the Soyuz was through the roof, so it took me quite a while to get it out of atmo (also, staging groups were a little messed up ).