Redshift OTF

Hey no worries. I like optimisation like that. I did wonder what was getting staged at the end. Well a challenge is a challenge but I do agree with you. I like to see a light lander that is also user friendly for MechJeb and also beginners. But the building of ultra light landers has made it possible to make 30 ton landers for less able pilots and that is a good thing! Ah yes, I saw your prop assisted lander and was well impressed! If you can make a version that meets the challenge criteria that would be great to see although I think it already meets criteria 0 anyway.

20.738 tons? I never thought I would see an Eve lander go that low. I'm surprised the craft doesn't need something aerodynamic like a nose cone on top. And is the fairing collar necessary? Amazing job. Can the 20 ton barrier be beaten?

Thanks for the tips! I might swap out the radial decouplers for the small hardpoints. Hadn't used them for ages and forgot they existed until I saw you use them. I have tried the latest release of MechJeb and #663 dev version but it is still not calculating crossflow fuel correctly for me. I'll have to do more research but I can't see what I'm doing wrong. Possibly more fuel in the upper stage might work but with a flat bottom the top stage creates a fair bit of drag and a smaller upper stage means it fires higher up in the atmosphere were the drag is not much of a concern. It also allows the low drag aerospike second stage to go for longer and it is quite a performer. However, I had to use an un-optimal setup for MechJeb to stop the nose cone and pod from exploding due to over heating so maybe your idea would work better as the overheating stops when the spark final stage is fired due to the lower thrust and a bigger final stage could help and allow me to run a better ascent setup. Mono-prop was almost left in the pod but I remembered just in time.

Finally got my lander into orbit! It's not as light as some of the competition but I'm proud of 30.565 tons. It also uses MechJeb with the following settings, although I am running the mod that allows me to have MechJeb on a craft without adding the part as it generates a fair bit of drag in the final stage, (which might have killed some of my other designs). No doubt if I learned how to pilot manually it would have a fair amount of DeltaV left over in orbit. Only uses 5 Aerospikes and 2 Spark engines. Craft file if anyone wants it: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9mK0rPybNaxRW1RSnJTc0c5WG8

Impressive entries as always here! I'm liking the use of thinner parts to reduce drag. If anyone feels they have reached the limit with their landers please feel free to try category 0, forgoing the use of a command pod and using a chair in a service bay for your Kerbal. Still under 100m. I would be interested to see how low a sea-level lander can go! To make it easier to get vessels to Eve's surface I am using a combination of the in-built cheat menu to put crafts in orbit above Eve, using Hyper-edit to land them and then placing Vessel Mover to pick them up and place craft somewhere below 100m. Or if you have Hyper-edit you can use the following co-ordinates for a nice flat area near sea-level:

Awesome work there guys! 26.31 tons, that's definitely a record there. I guess the key is to ascend slowly at first and then put the craft on full power to give the top stage enough momentum to get out of the atmosphere quickly enough for the Terrier engine to do its job. I like Foxsters version of replacing the Terrier with Spark engines. I might go that route with my craft as I don't seem to be having much luck at the moment. I was also under the impression that the shock nose cones were the least draggy part to cap the end of side pods but you guys seem to be having better luck with other components. I'll have to do more research! Anyway, great stuff. Can these be beaten?

Ah, I have noticed a slight issue. Category 2 requires that you take off from an altitude of 100m or less and it looks like your ship is taking off from around 600-900m in both examples. That extra height makes quite a difference and I don't think your vessel is going to make it from under 100m. Quite an achievement though but it only satisfies Category 1 I'm afraid.

Heh, it does look a bit chopped up. Maybe I'll also get Stealth Weasel out of retirement too.

Can I submit a contender? Winged Recluse I've got 1200 fuel for 2 panthers. Is that correct? https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9mK0rPybNaxSUxsYUdQbVIycTA

Sounds interesting. Do you have a link to some pictures?

Wow, the new leader! This is most impressive and kind of looks like the one I have been working on, (but haven't had time to test yet): BTW, I count the weight after the landing gear, parachutes etc have been jettisoned but before the engines have fired. If you remove these items in the VAB, (obviously you still need them to land with), then this is the weight of the Eve lander making yours even lighter! Do you have a craft file? Great job and I will have to see if it is beatable.

Since you are here @Foxster I will share what I came up with. You advised me that quad couplers were really draggy in another thread and I should try and use something else. Using the Show Aero in Action Menus option, (or whatever it is called), does indeed show quad couplers are very draggy however, when I attached fuel tanks radially to a part that normally has low drag it becomes just as draggy as a quad coupler. It seems the game adds on extra drag to any part that has other parts added to it radially. One exception to this is the Big S Wing Strakes. If you add these to a craft and add parts radially unto the Strakes the game doesn't add extra drag to the craft and you can save up to 50% drag on some builds. Anyway, just thought I would share. Reducing drag on an Eve lander could be as useful as making a low drag SSTO for getting to Low Kerbin Orbit.

I didn't realise this challenge was still active so well done on continuing with it! Also I must admit at the time @Foxster had made some great Eve landers in another thread that I honestly didn't think could be beaten however since my experiments with the Most DeltaV for an SSTO challenge I have come up with some unique ways to reduce drag so I think improvements can be made. I will see what I can come up with.

Have you got a download for the 2.5m side pod versions? I have been testing many SSTO's for a version that can get to Eeloo and back and would like to see the numbers on yours. Are you aware of the new Aero GUI in this version of KSP? Alt f12 gives you a cool GUI and gives you the option to get a drag number in the menu of each part you are using by right clicking on it. My current best craft has 1 Rapier per 40 tons and I wondered if you had bettered that.

Very true. I had to manually stage it though as Mechjeb couldn't compute when this was needed, I used the default flight path so it's probably not an optimal flight and I had to manually circularise so this craft could definitely get to orbit without Mechjeb if I had a faster computer. It was just so slow. Yours looks like it is almost there, perhaps use a central stage similar to mine get that extra push. One thing I noticed was the Puff engines get 90% of their thrust and isp at 10k meters so they are more powerful than they initially look. Anyway, congrats!

So... I did it. I don't know why I did it, this was challenge bait imho, but I did it anyway. Except I didn't do it as I used Mechjeb to control the craft and the challenge stated no mods. But then the challenge wasn't valid as the challenger didn't provide his own craft so it's my challenge now and I say Mechjeb is allowed. Mwahahahaha. 812 parts used. 494 tons. I called it Otto as in Orange Tank To Orbit. Thanks to @shirtandtieler as I saw his numbers and thought, that actually seems do-able. Completely impractical but do-able. And my design is far from optimal so I think this could be made into a low as possible part number or weight challenge. I can supply the craft file if really needed. Literally 10 seconds after you.

@kcs123 Thanks for the detailed reply! You know, I never even thought of kOS as an option. I've seen it a bit in some videos but I thought it was just a simple way to carry out a bunch of instructions, not to actually write programs in. I will have a look at it. I have a bit of coding experience from 16 years ago and what little I did I was quite good at so maybe I can come up with something. My motto when writing a program was to do something very simple, get that right and then continually add to it.

Wow, thanks! I will have a look around, (and probably get confused and give up).

Silly question, but is it easy to make a mod? I always fancied making an autopilot mod that could auto land a plane on the runway at a press of a button but I have no idea if I have any kind of skills to do it.

It will show you the Delta V of whatever engines are activated.

Nice one! I'm looking forward to it. You could always use the latest dev version of Mechjeb as that is showing Delta V correctly now.

I have re-created this in a stock install of the game so it is not Mechjebs fault. It tends to happen on manoeuvre nodes used for interplanetary transfers, specifically nodes created in the far future, in a low orbit around a planet, (haven't tried moons), so it is more likely to be encountered when a player uses Mechjebs interplanetary transfer node creator. I re-created this in stock by alt f12-ing a craft to Eeloo, creating a highly eccentric orbit, (10km periapsis & 100,000km apoapsis), warping the craft to apoapsis, placing a manoeuvre node on the periapsis and adding some prograde burn to the node to give it a value. The Delta V will jump around a lot and steadily increase over time. Can someone move this to the stock technical support forum or do I need to create a new post there?

I've managed to re-create the problem and it seems to be happening with nodes set in the far future i.e. over a years time. I will try and re-create the problem on a clean version of the game and report back.

I've checked and there are no engines or RCS firing or phantom forces affecting the craft as the periapsis and apoapsis are rock solid unchanging. The manoeuvre node doesn't even change, it's just the Delta V number slowly increasing, for small or big burns. I suspect it might be Mechjeb or Kerbal Alarm clock causing the problem as I just changed/added them so I'll do some tests. I don't have the OP's second problem so he will have to answer that one. Thanks for the reply though!

I too am getting the same thing. I'm just sitting there and the Delta V of the node is slowly increasing for no reason.