RickRastardly

I think the challenge here is the docking side of things with ion engines, so I'm assuming the items you want to dock are already in orbit before the timer starts? Also the OP should be posting his or hers best result.

I've recommended this game to someone with a degree in Rocketry, and his reply was that he already plays it. nuff said.

I rarely reuse a launch platform, the exception was when I have different modules for the same mission to get into LKO.

.... nope, I have a calculator in my start menu, much easier.

Noticed that to, bit of a coincidence.

I've rather enjoyed my play through the career mode, made me come up with some inventive designs etc and has even made what would have been mundane things in sandbox such as sending a probe to Duna a huge achievement. In sandbox I would have just send a manned mission straight to the red planet, but because you want to make sure you can bring back your kerbal, I first sent a probe out with the relevant scientific equipment and tested what will be my interplanetary prime mover for the manned mission, I know I could have done this in sandbox, but having limited parts available gives it that extra something.

I've often been tempted to build two large ships and put them in opposite orbits, just to see what would happen, I'd imagine it would be an excellent technical feat to get them to connect at a closing speed of over 4200m/s

Exactly so the measurement must be in time, therefore I think Eve wins by simply the time it would take to jump to every star system, visit every station and asteroid field. I played EvE from 2004 to 2010 and i doubt i visited every star system, but then i never tried If you then count the time it takes to do everything possible within the game, then i think Eve would win that as well.

No.... but I love the metaphor

There are planets in our own solar system that are impossible to return from, (almost all of them and the rest are only returnable in theory) and they aren't pointless to visit.

Sort of, Docking has just been introduced, however when I came to attach something onto my new space station I realised I had connected the port the wrong way round, so nothing could dock with it. I decided to decommission the Space station, however it had no fuel to deorbit it. My solution was to retro-nudge it using another spacecraft. This was working nicely, but I got bored and as I increased thrust, something broke off the Space station. The pusher craft that I was using to slow the orbit of the space station then went right through the middle of my poor space station creating a MASSIVE debris field orbiting Kerbin.

Fair points

I'm pretty sure parachutes pre-date early sub orbital spaceflight.

Unfortunately I have no pictures but in a previous version of KSP (0.18 I think) I did manage to land a space plane onto Eve without to much trouble. Getting back into orbit again though was an impossibility, because you cant use air breathing engines on Eve there doesn't appear to be any advantage in using a space plane to achieve orbit again than you are using a dirty great big lander vehicle. If you were going to do this it you could glide down full of fuel then get back into orbit using stages like a normal rocket. An SSTO (which a lot of people seem to be thinking about) on Eve would be impossible methinks.

well said. that is all.

I think the question is though is how much Delta V it takes to break out of the suns influence, or even if its possible. The one thought in my head is that you just get an orbit around the sun that so close to 0 that's it is essentially 0, but because the game wont allow it, your still technically inside the suns influence. This is of course assuming the Kraken doesn't eat your save file.

This has inspired me to create some sort of Voyager style probe, slingshot past Jool and carry on going.

This! After building a few SSTOs, going back to using normal rockets seems like a huge waste of resources but unfortunately I'm not quite good enough yet to get significant payloads into space using an SSTOs. for me getting an SSTO into orbit manned by 3 Kerbals was a huge achievement.

its mind blowing to think when the light left that galaxy on its journey to earth man hadn't even evolved. I love photos of other galaxies.

How, in gods name did you get that into orbit around kerbin!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23779561 If you read the report it says that the water used to continue to cool the damaged fuel rods and thus needs to be stored. I get that. But why rather than storing ever more radioactive water, why cant they re-use it? Surely they only need to wait until the water cools down then re-use it...... obviously I'm missing something, but it is a bit weird. Also the leaking radioactive water situation leaking into the worlds sea sort of scares the hell out of me a little bit, despite the fact that I live on the other side of the planet.

Nice one Zarakon, maybe my second attempt will get a perfect score

That was fun No dead Kerbals = 300 Docking = 35 stock = 50 total 385 points My tactic, rather than just to intercept it like you would any other vehicle in orbit was to just get a really high AP (way above moon orbit) and just hover there waiting for the stranded vehicle to come into range and match speed. Tried to make a sort of lander craft as you can see but didn't have enough fuel left to slow down when the parachutes opened so the whole thing ripped apart, thankfuly I thought of this already and moved Jeb etc to the rescue vehicle. but other than that it was successful

Sounds like a fun challenge, will definitely give this a go once the scenario is setup

Adapted a Space Plane I originally made for lols hence its strange tri-plane appearance! However I decided to adapt it due to its lack of any clipping and its high lift. I present the Fokker Branson. 120Km orbit = 50 points land on runway = 15 (Space plane overshot runway and ditched ) um I ditched unpowered so... 5? Total 65 or 70 I may tinker for a higher score later on, maybe crack the space plan unpowered landing.