Scarecrow88

Despite having visited the majority of bodies in the system, all flown manually, I'll not consider myself good at this game until I've been able to put a manned lander on Eve, and got them back to Kerbin safely.

The same way that anyone north of the arctic circle sleeps in the summer time; during daylight hours.

Mike, I'm glad you got it to work eventually. Strange about the name, because when I tried it following your initial post, I put the save file in a game called something completely different, and as already stated didn't have a problem. Have added you to the Leaderboard. p.s. You do realise that you could have swapped to the tracking station to pick the crew shuttle buggy, and driven it remotely to pick the boys up, which would have saved you a bit of time.

Quite a few more answers in this thread which pretty much asked the same question.

Had a thought that maybe some of the mods I have installed may have affected the save file, even though none of the craft within the challenge carry any mod components. However, I uninstalled all my mods from the game and still had no problem loading. I'm sorry, but I have run out of ideas as to what it might be that is giving you this error.

Well you can, you just have to use a lander that can make it back to Kerbin. What it does is knock on the head Apollo style missions that use a pure lander that gets left behind, which I thought would have gained you a lot of science. It would appear that there is no science to be gained from how you complete a mission, which is a shame.

Mike, I am not sure what the problem might be. I just downloaded the file from the Dropbox location, using the link you listed in your post, copied it into a new game save file, overwriting the one that had already been created, and it loaded fine. I have no idea if it might be a Steam thing, as my version of the game came from the store, but it too is v 0.22.0.351, so I am at a loss to explain why it isn't working for you. If you want to pm me your email address, I could try sending you the persistent file directly, but it should be exactly the same as the file you have downloaded from Dropbox. If anyone else is able to offer any suggestions as to what the problem might be, I would be happy to hear them.

I've found that the secret to landing planes lies in the design. The easier it is to fly, the easier it becomes to line it up for a landing.

Yes you can, but the point is that you shouldn't have to. At the moment all the missions I had planned involving landers have been put on hold until this problem is fixed.

As there will be no science reward for rescuing abandoned craft or de-orbiting junk etc., why not just set yourself those goals within Sandbox mode?

Just to confirm for anyone else who may be thinking of doing this challenge, there are now 2 files available for download. The original is still available for anyone who may be still running v0.21.1. The second file has been updated to make it fully compatible for v0.22. Please note that the original file will not work properly in v0.22 due to the changes that have been made to the scenery around KSC and the island airfield. Also the new landing legs have caused a few problems with the craft within the challenge that use them, so they too have been tweaked so that the new legs aren't causing a problem.

I think a structured path that Career mode offers is probably of more use to someone who is new to the game, and probably presents more of a challenge to an inexperienced player. It won't take an experienced player long to tick all the boxes so, apart from a few new extra parts, and a revamped KSC, Career mode probably won't offer much extra for a seasoned player.

I struggle a little to understand why someone would want to do this. As far as I am concerned, Sandbox and Career are distinctly different games and give the player the opportunity to play two styles of KSP. Want a bit of fun with no restrictions or thought process with regard to where your actions take you, play Sandbox style. Want something with a bit more structure to give purpose to each of your flights, play Career. Why would you want to mix the two, unless you are really impatient and want to 'cheat' your way through the Career tech tree? With the game as it currently stands, it's not an either/or situation; you can play both.

The new pneumatic landing legs have been causing me problems too, with things falling over as the legs compress. Hope they can have a look at this and make a small patch to fix it.

Restructered my challenge, because changes to the scenery around the space centre and island airfield meant that some things parked there needed to be relocated, and loads of craft had to be fixed because anything fitted with landing legs was now sitting on it's tail.

Dragonfly A simple to fly, but nimble personal transport aircraft. For pics and download link, see separate thread. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53386-Dragonfly

Are you sure you didn't misread that post as 3 lunches?

Useful as a personal transport vehicle, Dragonfly is an easy to fly, but very manoeuvreable aircraft. Can be flown with SAS for very stable flying, or SAS can be turned off for a plane that is still easy to fly but with slightly quicker responses. For best performance, the roll keys (Q and E) should be used in preference to the yaw keys (A and D) for turning, just like the real thing. Downside: Due to the high wing area, this plane can be difficult to land, as it just wants to stay airborne. Anything more than being gently eased on to the runway will result in a bounce that puts the craft back in the air, so whilst being easy to fly, it will test your landing abilities. Still from animated gif, showing that the tower flyby is actually being performed in the inverted position. That's how easy this plane is to fly. Dragonfly Craft File

Haven't done much in .22 yet, but like the feeling of desolation that is now evident on the island airfield, as well as the view from the island tower, though Jeb complained about how many stairs there were to climb. Personally, I also like that you can now recover a craft once it has landed without having to go back to the tracking station to do it. Neat touch.

Fun challenge. I was amazed at how controllable my craft was. Think I am going to add a couple of control surfaces and add it to my fleet. Vanilla Craft Category Craft name: X-Wing Greased Lightning 2 pts Bee's Knees 30 pts (That was the fun part - buzzing the various buildings) High Flyer 30 pts Seat of Your Pants 30 pts Nailed it 30 pts Total: 122 pts Not a particularly high score, but at least I didn't lose any points. Craft File for anyone who would like to try it.

Xiphos I really hope you enjoy it. I had fun putting it together, and everyone who has played it so far seem to have had a good time. Look forward to hearing how you do.

If there's no gravity in space, why does everything travel in a curved line, and what stops all those planets and moons whizzing off to the outer edges of the universe?

Some nice ideas there. I haven't thought about a second challenge yet, but if I do it will definitely be something similar. I had a look at the weekly report, but it doesn't seem to be the place that would accept a submission to promote a forum challenge. I did think about including puzzles on the plaques, but for this one decided I wanted it to be about playing the game rather than puzzle solving ability. I've never used MechJeb so have no idea how it works, or how to place a docking port so that MJ would struggle. I understand from forum posts though that docking is not a strongpoint with MJ so I don't think it should really be a problem to keep docking ports accessible. Another way to possibly discourage MJ use would be to create the challenge as a scenario, and prevent access to the VAB. None of my craft have MJ fitted but if someone wanted to cheat, I understand they could create a small MJ fitted module that could be docked to one of my craft. Having said that, it seems to be a lot of effort to gain any advantage that MJ could give you. The fuel transfer could be a good idea. If you can get the balance right, having very little fuel left wouldn't prevent a player from completing that part of the challenge, but saving fuel and having more to use will enable you to go a lot faster, or take a shortcut or something.

I am glad you enjoyed it, as that was my principal aim, to set a challenge that people would find fun. Yes I used hyperedit to set some of it up. It would have been possible to set it up without, but would have taken a lot, lot longer. All testing was done without though. Basically I just ran through as a player would, reading the plaques and flying the craft in exactly the same way, to make sure that it all worked and flowed together properly. Have added your time to the Leaderboard. I am surprised you ran out of fuel on that one, although I admit it doesn't have an over abundance if your rendezvous doesn't go smoothly. I did equip it with more RCS than it really needs, so I guessed you used that too. Either way, I am glad that Jeb was able to make it to the station and trust that he is OK to continue? Hope you are continuing and, if you complete the challenge, post up the required screenshots and I will add you to the Leaderboard too.

Thank you mcirish. Feedback like this is much appreciated, and I am glad that the challenge is achieving my goals when setting it - that anyone who tries it should have fun whilst doing so. I'll look in to submitting it for KSP weekly as you suggest, as I have no idea what their criteria is for such submissions.