Ziv

EPIC. No1.

Himynameisjake: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Jebediah's level and, by the way, you have finished a GRAND TOUR too!! This is just unbelievable! Absolutely impressive mission planning and executing! I really loved the "Rocket backpack" last stages, and the smart mission planning that your orbital-tugs (Hermes and its twin) had a chair on it for emergency solutions as it was needed at Eve. I also loved as you used Hermes for interpalentary travels (like to Dres). For me, it was strange that you put the mothership around Laythe instead letting it in orbit around Jool. Was it because of the limited dV of the Laythe lander? To be honest sometimes I lost the tracking of the modules, I would love to see some kind of a "module mission map" with different colors for the different modules during the mission, that would be great!! And so I would be able to understand the whole mission in one. This definitely was the most complex and complete mission what I have seen so far. Absolutely No1, congratulations!

At Kethane mode Expedition style it is permitted, yes.

Hehe, the Munar orbit assembly was never asked before, sounds fun! Yes, why not? The only thing that you have to go from Kerbin to Jool with one ship only. Only emergency refueling missions are allowed but they doesn't shine in the hall of fame... And part-clipping is not allowed, sorry. I also love to experiment with a lot of stuff but for the JOOL-5 mission, please keep it real. Do it as a real mission to make it more exciting! Edit: I saw your planes and they are amazing! But they are far too unreal for the mission. But I'm not against planes, if you find a good non-clipping solution!

Himynameisjake: it's just awesome if you really did a Grand Tour without refueling... I can't wait to see your designs and solutions!

Congratulation, very nice, clean and effective design!

Himynameisjake wants to do a Grand Tour without refueling...

Yeah, you're right, I mixed up the pictures with a failed run, thanks for noticing it! I changed those two pictures to the right ones. Thank you for the challenge, I really enjoy this one! I might give it an other, more clean shot. May I give you an advice to link the number of the post to the names on the leaderboard? That would make it easy to see the entries to this challenge and would make it worth more. Also, you are invited to my Jool-5 challenge... if you have a lot of free time.

after a lot of experiments finally I made it to orbit! I used some "tricks", mentioned in the image description. I'm not fully glad with the result because I used droppable fuel tanks and so this is not a true SSTO and also the in-line Ion Engines made it feel cheaty a little bit. Also, the front-back facing solar panels doesn't give you a good aerodynamical performance (in reality, but in KSP it's okay ) and the front part of the ship is "levitating" because the big ASAS doesn't have visible parts there... I was thinking about making it somewhat more real but it would cost too much weight, which is crucial. Anyway, I managed to get into orbit with ion engines only so it's not so bad for the first time!

Alchemist, those videos were pretty cool, especially with the Vall landings on the top of the "Stonehenge"! And this reusable lander sounds good too! I'm looking forward to your JOOL-5 mission summary!

Hi again Mesklin, wow, what a low-mass Kethane SSTO!!! Congratulation, you have finished the JOOL-5 Kethane Challenge, in two levels at the same time! I liked the idea to help the jet with rockets at the beginning... and the wings, parachutes, rover possibilities, mining, etc... really cool, unique-looking little SSTO, well done! PS: I think Jeb needs a new hairdresser!

Yeah, for satellites it was cool but if you added only a little weight they became very boring...

I was thinking since a long time that stronger/bigger engines are needed into the stock, so I welcome this and they are allowed for the challenge (with version indication). And the 4x thrust for the ions make them useful somewhat...

dualmaster: thanks for sharing your attempt, it's useful anyway! I was experimenting with the spaceplane solution too, but I hated to build (otherwise) rockets in the SPH... and lately gave up on my attempt too... Edit: I really liked your idea with the staged ship aerobraking into different moons. Nice one!

And don't forget that you will need about 1000dV to get a low orbit around Tylo after you entered it's SOI. You can choose to use your main ship for this (much more fuel), an orbital tug (best) or the lander itself (may be good too). So I think 4000 dV is better to design for. For a landing... if you want to go back, then it's an other 2500-3300 to orbit, and an other 900-1000 to High Orbit.

Hi Pex-Corrh, welcome to the Challenge! The basic challenges (1-2-3-Jeb) are for almost-stock for better comparability so the Interstellar is definitely "cheating". We already had some discussion about this and I've decided to stick to the stock or only very similar mods (NovaPunch without the nuke engines, etc). So it's a really hard mission on all levels. Also double check the rules (for Jeb's level: one Kerbal pilot one landing on each moon, you need to bring back the Science Lab or if you don't bring a Lab then all the science instruments, so no transmitting, etc...) So if you want to be an official contender then don't use any other part mods. Or if you would like to go with mods then go for it, and I will link your mission to the Mixed Solution section.

hehe... but creative idea anyway!!

wow, what does that mean? Hm well yeah, why not? To a length still realistic....

Yeah, a roving base is a creative solution, absolutely accepted!

Hi! Yeah, I saw your mission and I really liked it! Sorry, I thought it's not possible without refueling/cheating but with balloons at Eve and the interstellar engine they made it possible (80'000 m/s DeltaV, hahh... too easy for a grand tour too ). Well planning, well designed crafts, really epic mission, congratulations! You are welcome in the JOOL-5 Challenge if you give it a try. But it's a stock only for the main challenges (NovaPunch may be used except the radial nuke engines from it), or you can use some other mods for the Kethane one, but they have to be realistic to the original stock parts.

Single launch??! And did you use hyperedit to refuel? I'm the host at the JOOL-5 challenge and even that is very hard to achieve with one launch...! So I'm very curious about your images, looking forward to it!!

Hi, thank you for your idea, I think you should start a new challenge for this and link it to here. I love to experiment with new world mods, but my experience is that if your challenge needs installing mods it will seriously reduce the number of people interested in it. And otherwise this JOOL-5 challenge here is already very complex with a lot of levels and versions so maintaining it is already a serious work, I wouldn't have time for this mod too. So I suggest you to start a challenge for your idea, link it here, and I will definitely be interested in taking a look at it, and very possibly participating too!

Awesome designs and fun stuff there! Your Kerbals are really reckless! I wonder what other circumstances will it drive them into!? Keep us updated!!

Okay, I saw you were sad that I moved Corsby out of the atmosphere, so I have rescued him from the atmosphere, with a parachute! all the pictures: http://imgur.com/a/Z1ZTx

There was a 3-Kerbal Pod stranded in a strange orbit, with a strangely closed hatch... who did that? And why? What a mystery! Anyway, I went and rescued them, maybe they will be able to tell more! all the pictures: http://imgur.com/a/3NBU6