700NitroXpress

Your maximum payload mass is unknown, and that's part of the spirit of the entire challenge. You'll have to adapt your core craft to be able to transport different payloads of different masses to different locations. So your core craft will have to be adapted to carry different amounts of fuel, different engine loadouts. You may be required to transport a vessel that I give you the craft file for at the beginning of the mission. You can't modify the payload for a mission like that, but you can add more fuel or more engines to your core craft to transport it. If you're going for maximum points for the mission, you'll have to carefully plan what equipment you bring with you and how much fuel you'll need. As far as minimum payload mass goes, a good test would be to take a lander to the moon, land, dock back with the command ship and then take that lander back to Kerban. Then deorbit the lander, regain orbit with the core craft. Ready for refueling and the first mission. If your minimum mass of that lander was 10 tons and you got back to Kerban with 50% fuel or more, then I'd say that's a good start. The first two missions will be fairly easy enough to do, after that the missions will be more complex and the challenges will be more difficult. Or if you can go Duna and back to Kerban with 10 tons of payload and have 50 - 25% fuel, then that's also good for long term. You also want to make sure that you don't get any points subtracted from you, so if you do a test mission by yourself, check how you did with the scores that will never change section on the first post.

You build a new craft that you can attach different payloads to and use it as transportation vehicle for multiple missions. That craft has to stay in orbit unless otherwise stated by the different missions. The whole idea is to start out with a craft that you can adapt to carry all of the payloads and reuse over and over through all of the missions. If you get through a mission and complete all of the mission's challenges, then you get maximum points. After 2 weeks, there's a new mission, you can only launch up attachments and mission critical gear.

Yeah, post a picture of what you have and describe the parts in question and how they operate compared to regular parts.

Minimum Kerbals for a mission is 2 and also added to the minimum core craft requirements that I added to the rules list. Your core craft must seat at least 2 Kerbals. Some missions will require more crew or the ability to carry more crew.

Well, something like that makes me think that building an SSTO to carry your payloads into orbit would be easier then, because of the engine's capabilities. Right?

Hodo, those all seem fine to me then, as long as there's no advantage of the vehicles capabilities that couldn't otherwise be achieved with stock parts then I think those are all fine.

Yeah, but neither of us knows what the challenges are yet. Once we have someone else that submits a craft, then we'll have the first mission, which will have it's own set of challenges to achieve a higher score. So I'm going to test my craft along with you guys, but my score will be separate from the leaderboards. Missions and challenges are going to vary greatly for this and won't be just landing and returning.

You'll have to explain what those mods each do because I don't use any mods so I don't know anything about them.

Well... I think the core craft should be more of a stand alone vessel, so it has to have a command module, room for attachments and it's own engines. I know I didn't really specify those kinds of limitations, but lets say that your core craft has to be capable of going to the Mun, achieving a Low Mun orbit of about 50,000 meters and then returning to LKO, to meet the core requirements. So you need a starting command module, starting fuel supply, and starting engines. So I think your craft would need a little bit more. The core craft can never land on another planet unless the mission says it has to. So all missions that require landings will require you to attach a separate lander to your core craft. So you'll have to land, take off, then dock it back at your core craft that remains in orbit. I added some core craft basic requirements to the rules to clarify what I was looking for in a core craft. So your core craft can still be very small if you want.

Here's my core craft that I'll be using to try and see if it can handle all of the challenges. It has a lot of RCS fuel for docking to multiple things. 9 docking ports available, this allows for different engine loadouts, extra fuel, large landers, satellites, probes, and extension parts to be attached to it for various missions. With the right loadout, it can even be capable of atmospheric landing on Duna or Kerban. This is one whole ship, if I were to choose to change the engines on it, I would have to deorbit the debris and then achieve orbit again so I don't leave space junk.

Your rockets for the challenge? ^^

Well, what I do is once the empty tanks are all dropped, I can throttle down to 3/4 or less depending on the payload weight. So with light payloads I like to go about 1/4 thrust and with heavy payloads I usually go about 3/4 thrust. That way the engines use less fuel at the higher altitude and you can easily achieve orbit. At the end of the drop tanks, there's regular asparagus staging, but because you're already going at 3/4 - 1/4 thrust, the engine flameout doesn't cause sudden huge deceleration or potential structural failures. So when you're at orbital altitude, you still have the maximum thrust that you started out with, but you run it at a much lower throttle. Alternatively, you could put different smaller engines on the sides of the big ones, and just shutdown all of the mainstall engines with an action group and then switch over to the more efficient engines. Any left over fuel can be used to escape the Kerban SOI very quickly or transferred to different engines depending what's on the payload. Here's the method in practice. This is my Leviathan super max payload lifter on the bottom attached to a 144 ton payload. I'm working on improving this model some by lightening the inner engines and separating the orange tanks into two stacks of grey tanks so that way you can drop two grey's at a time and loose the excess weight quicker as you accelerate. I used the same method to lift a payload of 700 tons into orbit. If I had lost thrust at any time, it wouldn't have worked. If you want to try it for yourself, you can download the Leviathan lifer here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-vTRL2n8wvzQkEtUTBCNHpIMW8/edit?usp=sharing All you have to do is watch the fuel gauges on one orange tank at a time so you know to eject it. Just right click on the tanks in order as you drop them.

I use this as my standard method of super lifters. Slack tank or drop tank asparagus doesn't suffer from any deceleration from engine flameout. You can get an increasing TWR to help get really heavy stuff off the planet quickly. It also helps in transfer stages. If you have a low number of nuclear engines, you can carry the fuel in the extra small tanks with 360 liquid fuel. You just drop the empty tanks as you go and don't loose any thrust.

Looks like asparagus to me, as long as you're dropping two at a time as they run out due to fuel lines pumping the fuel into the rest.

Oh no, don't leave them all to die!

You can't use anything that starts out as a command module. So if it has an unmanned probe part or something like that on it, you have to grab what's under it. The core part can't be put into subassemblies.

This is a challenge to see how versatile of a craft you can build and how well that craft performs on different missions. The idea is to build a craft capable of handling any kind of mission you throw at it and be able to adapt your craft to the different missions. To do this challenge, you first need to build a core space craft, there are no limitations on what parts you can use. If you use modded parts, list them. Once you build your core space craft, and this can even be something on the order of size as a space station, get it into orbit. Once it's in orbit, you have to adapt your craft to each challenge and complete the challenges in the order listed in the challenges list for the mission. Some things to keep in mind are the ability to add fuel for the mission and payload you have to transport, change out the engines, possibly land the entire craft on another planet and take off again, tow an SSTO to another planet, carry multiple rovers, crew, satellites. It must be capable of refueling. It doesn't have to do all of this all at once, you will add and take away different modules over time to adapt to the different missions. Don't use the debug option for part clipping, but if you push something into a strut or something along those lines then it's fine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Announcement: Anyone can join this challenge at any time and still get scored. To do past missions, just click "Here" next to the mission and I'll give you points for mission completion. Rules: Once you get your core craft into orbit, that core craft design cannot be altered in any way. Meaning that once it's up in space, that's it. You can't return it to Kerban or revert flights. Only on challenges that specifically state that you must land on Kerban, are you ever allowed to land that craft on Kerban. No cheats or use of the debug menu is allowed at any time. No editing part files to put things in space for you or anything like that. All screenshots must show the mission time. All mods that you use have to be listed. If you use any mod other than Mech Jeb that uses some sort of flight control system, get it approved first. After you are done making your core craft, get it into orbit and submit a screenshot of it. After that screenshot is submitted, you may begin making parts for your craft for the first challenge. Your core craft is the only thing that can have attachments. For example, if you build a rover, you have to dock that rover to your core craft and the core craft has to transport it. If you build a plane, that core craft has to transport that plane. If you lift any attachment into space along with your core craft at the time of the initial launch, you must keep and maintain that attachment. For example, if you attach a standardized lander unit to your craft, that lander must go wherever the core craft goes. All mission important components that you take with you must come back with you, or be retrievable from orbit unless otherwise specified by mission parameters. When you change parts on the core craft, you must deorbit the old parts or suffer the score penalty for littering. New missions will be added once every two weeks and then the old mission will be erased. (This has changed for now until someone has completed the most recent mission) If your core craft is damaged during a mission and you manage to complete the mission and bring it back to Kerbin; you may then land it at the KSC for repairs. Then you launch the same ship back up into orbit and prepare it for the next mission. Scores from missions will be added to you on the leaderboards. Approved Mods: Mech Jeb, Engineer, KAS, Kethane, Docking Port Alignment, FAR, DRE, Precise Node, Enhanced NavBall, and everything at the top of page 56 by Darkona. Core Craft Basic Requirements: Your core craft must seat at least 2 kerbals, have it's own RCS system, have it's own fuel supply and starting engines, must be capable of recharging it's power supply, must be capable of going to Mun and orbiting at 50,000 meters and return to LKO at 75,000 meters for the first test run. The core craft will never touch a planet unless otherwise specified in the missions. You have to have a separate lander that you attach to your core craft for missions that require landings. If you lift another kerbal up to your core craft, you cannot leave that kerbal in the lander module, he has to join the rest of the crew in the core craft. Or the lander has to have an unmanned module when you dock it to your core craft. Think of your core craft as a small station of sorts. To add more crew, you have to add more to the craft. To go further, you have to add more fuel and different engines. Your core craft will need to attach different things to it: Fuel, engines, core pieces for more crew or more attachment points, landers, SSTO's, satellites, probes, rovers. Sometimes the attachment craft will be made for you and you have to attach them and use them for the different missions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There will be some different scores that you can go for in different missions, mission parameters will vary from mission to mission. Scores that will never change are these: 1. Total Mission failure - Your craft was destroyed during a mission = -250 points 2. Bodybags piled high - Your crew was killed during a mission = -50 points per crew member killed 3. Littering the system - You left space junk floating around in space = -5 points per whole part (a fuel tank with other stuff on it is one whole part) 4. We're gonna need a bigger boat - You didn't bring enough fuel to fully complete the mission = -25 points 5. Stuck in the mud - Your lander can't get back into orbit after landing on another planet = -10 points 6. Lonely rover - Your rover can't get back into orbit or is otherwise unretrievable = -5 points 7. Attack of the Kraken - You provide proof that the Kraken ate your ship = Free ship from Kerban 8. Eat your vegetables - Launch a craft or attachment into orbit without asparagus staging = +5 points 9. Master of aerodynamics - Use an SSTO to carry the attachment payloads into orbit to be docked with your core ship = +10 points per attachment (attachment mass must be 10 tons or greater) 10. Shuttle Missions - Use a space shuttle to carry attachments to your craft in orbit, the shuttle must land at the KSC runway = +50 points per shuttle mission successfully completed (payload mass must be 15 tons or greater) limit 100 points per KSC HQ mission 11. I know what I need - Complete a full mission without detaching any parts other than the mission critical ones = +25 points 12. Jet engines are for planes - Don't use jet engines to lift anything into space unless that jet engine is on an aircraft = +5 points 13. Bring the Gang along for the ride - For each additional Kerbal brought on a mission and returned to Kerban Orbit after the mission is complete (All Kerbals must be in a pod, external command seats not allowed) = +10 points 14. Back to the drawing board - Your core craft is unable to adapt to the mission and you have to make a different one = -25% of your total points 15. Home Sweet Home - Each Kerbal that's in Bring the Gang along for the ride, arrives safely back at the KSC within the light colored grass area (2 Kerbals must remain on board the core craft) = +5 points per Kerbal 16. NASA knows best - Use NASA style launch vehicles to get all of your mission payloads into orbit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:NASA_space_launch_vehicles) = +100 points per KSC HQ mission (Not included on Mission 01) Other than that, all submissions after the core craft need to have a screenshot or video of the pre-mission loadout on the core craft, a during mission screenshot, and a post mission screenshot. Additional screenshots may be required depending on mission parameters. The weekly mission will be posted below and the leaderboards will be updated regularly. For everyone that wants to join this challenge, you can join at any time, you just have to complete the missions in order from the past missions to the current one if you want a competitive score. All past missions will be archived so just ask for the details. Good luck and see how versatile a craft you can build! Any questions or comments please post below. The new weekly mission will be posted every Friday. Mission 01: Exploring the Neighborhood (Archived Here) Mission 02: Strange Energy Readings (Archived Here) Look at the Eve images: Here Mission 03: Seismic Testing (Archived Here) Look at Moho images: Here Mission 04: Stranded Rover (Archived Here) Look at Duna images: Here Mission 05: Touchdown (Archived Here) Mission 06: (Fixing Archive, please wait) From Kerbal Space Command HQ: Kerbals: Well done on your Duna mission! Mission 07: Deep Space Communications Available To further establish our deep space communications network, we're going to need to get a satellite out to Eeloo. This satellite is going to need at least 8 lard solar arrays to keep it powered since Eeloo is so far away from the sun. We're also going to need a much larger dish than our standard sized dishes. Once you have a satellite that is large enough to handle deep space communications, launch it into orbit and dock it with your ship. Then it's off to Eeloo. Get this satellite into an equatorial orbit. Once the satellite is deployed and in position, head down to the surface with a lander and survey the LZ and take some samples, bring those samples back to the KSC when you're done at Eeloo. Mission Completion: 500 points Deploy two satellites, one in equatorial and one in polar orbit: 200 points Perform landings on both poles and the equator: 100 points Use satellites that double as space stations: 200 points (must have a kerbal stationed on it, one hitch hiker pod, it's own liquid fuel and engines for station keeping, minimum weight 100 tons) Eeloo: Creator's Score: 0 Leaderboard: 1. Sensi ___________ 5915 (Mission 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) 2. Finwen __________ 2245 (Mission 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 3. Sirine ___________ 1065 (Mission 1, 2) 4. TML ____________ 980 (Mission 1, 2, 3) 5. Hodo ____________ 580 (Mission 1, 2) 6. mhoram __________ 435 (Mission 1) 7. Death Engineering __ 255 (Mission 1)

To assign action groups, click on the tab next to the parts tab on the top left of the screen close to the center. It will be blue. Once you click on it, click on any part on your ship that you can perform an action on. Like your solar arrays. If the part you clicked on has symmetry, it will group all of the parts for you. Then on the action group tab, you can select what action you want to perform. When you click on custom 1 - 0 it assigns that action group for 1-0 on the num pad on your keyboard. For your solar panels, click on custom 1, then click on the solar panels, then click on toggle on the action group tab. And that's it. When you press 1 on your keyboard, it will deploy and retract all of the solar panels at the same time.

Yeah, that answers it.

Yeah, the nose cones only have 0.03 mass and 0.2 drag so I thought they would be fine. I might make those changes and go again a little later. Adding all of those 48-7S engines would suck because of the particle effect rendering on each one, that rocket would take an hour to get into orbit. It's already running at like 5 FPS. Whenever I use the smaller decouplers I get structural failures so this model works well with the larger ones. I think my major change will be cutting down on the fuel just a bit.

So this is my ship build for this challenge. I went with a traditional rocket style look. This thing flies perfectly straight and is very nimble in space without any RCS. The RCS components are on the lander which is tucked away inside a fairing. Once at Mun, the bottom half of the rocket ejects downward and reveals the lander. The lander is capable of landing on its own and achieving orbit again with the assistance of the RCS thrusters. It also has the ability to dock with the top piece which acts as a deorbit and landing engine. Once the fuel is depleted, you just undock it and use the lander's regular engines to finish the landing. Capable of slowing down for a landing at high velocities. 400 m/s at 4000 meter altitude safe limit for Mun high speed landing. Once done on Mun, the player doesn't have to redock with the command ship. You have the option to space walk and then the command ship will take you home. Comes equipped with emergency parachutes. The first set of parachutes deploy and remain attached down to 800 meters and then you eject them and deploy the second set. The second set of parachutes finishes the landing. Only 3 action groups. If a new player doesn't want to dock, they can instead get rid of the lander and use the deorbit engine to deorbit the main command module and land it instead. So this ship can scale with the skill of the player that's flying it. Good for docking practice in orbit too. It can be used in many different ways for landings and has more than enough fuel to get the job done. Download the Atlas V here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-vTRL2n8wvzSThLQWFWaDctNFU/edit?usp=sharing Watch a first try test run to Mun and back to Kerban. WARNING SPOILERS FOR MUN

So, I want to start by saying that this darn thing made my computer angry with me, but it did the job. Also, this is a refueling station so even tho there's RCS tanks on the station, there are no engines or RCS ports on the station so it complies with the rules. This is the Ultra Max MK-I refueling station. Ultra Max on the launchpad. Prelaunch weight: 4585.51 tons 1736 Parts Ultra Max in flight. Next image is duel stage separation. Third image is orbital altitude stage separation. Orbit achieved with a little fuel to spare. Second image is of the orbit and pre-separation weight. Launch stage final separation complete, utilities deployed. Second image shows the final payload weight post-separation. The top stage is the payload stage, and there's a dead stage with only launch clamps in it that never really get's activated because they hold the decoupler plates in place at the time of launch. Payload Fraction: 15.33% 7 Stages

You have to either get your plane into orbit with a regular rocket, or your plane has to have retrograde engines. The moon has very low gravity so when the wheels hit the ground, they're not going to be very useful, but if you have reverse thrust as well as down force, you can stop. If your plane has an RCS system, you can use the translation controls to push the plane into the ground so the wheels get more traction. Then fire the retros and you'll stop. Here's my design that I'm sending to Duna, it has retrograde thrusters to help it stop so it can land on the moon and on worlds with no atmosphere. To refuel your plane in orbit, you need an orbital station of sorts to dock with and refuel it. Something like this, maybe smaller, but you get the idea. Notice the plane docked to my docking station for refueling in orbit.

Very cool, I need to make a dropship at some point.

Yeah, it's super cool, I like it. I just really like making planes like the SR-71 for around Kerban, but going to Duna, I have to downsize and make SSTO's with rocket propulsion only. So lightweight compact designs like that one are inspiring for me for planes that need to operate on other planets.