James_Eh

No, not at all. They were pure stock, made with that flat shoebox-shaped core thingy with wheels on it. I'm sure they had some "official" mass in the physics engine. I had used the exact same design on many other bodies. At the time I put it down to the very low gravity on Minmus and the fact that I was on a big skating rink...

So I'm wondering if anybody else has ever seen this phenomenon: It was probably back in 0.21 or so. I landed on the flats of Minmus with a pair of wee rovers attached to docking ports. I undocked the first one, immediately made a bad mistake, and it blew up. No worries, I had a spare. So I undocked the second one, and it behaved exactly as if it was in a 2-dimensional orbit around the lander. The docking clamps seemed to be acting as a gravitational point source. I had to "orbit" the lander a whole pile of times, always pointing at a 90 degree angle to where the lander was sitting (lander kept skittering around on the ice) until I hit some kind of a threshold (I assume it was a certain distance from the docking clamps?) I was then able to proceed to drive in a very easy and controlled manner across the plain. So it wasn't a steering issue... (The lander, which was fairly substantial as I recall, fell over sideways as I "escaped".) (Then I blew up the second one with yet another ill-conceived course adjustment...) Maybe this belongs in the "Boy are docking ports strong" thread... Hope I didn't post it there before... Oh and yah, I also HATE rovers.

Well, thanks to all for the advice. I used Kashua's suggestion of a normal burn to twist my orbit into an encounter, but I didn't manage to do it completely correctly and only generated a small pathetic chord through the teeny sphere I was aiming for. At least we DID manage to hang on in Gillyspace to do some science. To magnemoe directly above, yep - nuts I didn't think about the fact that it would be cheaper to meet it way out at the far end. Doubly frustrating since I went to a lot of effort to match at peri. During my brief stay in the SOI (and before, when I was trying to sort out what to do next...) I was a bit taken aback at the dV required to create an orbit, and yah something like 750 m/s seemed to be the ongoing theme, and since I had something like 10 seconds worth of SOI time and a rapidly dwindling fuel load, I elected to skip the Gilly landing. Then I crashed at Eve. Then I tried to make a little plane to fly to the Island Airport for science, and broke it. Repeatedly. Yet another fun evening of KSP. This whole FAR / science tree thing has reminded me that I have lots of stuff still to learn...

Welp, I have to say thank you for this mod. I have been KSPing for quite a while now and finally bit the bullet and installed FAR with a new 24.2 install. Wow, I haven't blowed up this many rockets in a LONG time. Courtesy of this forum I knew it was something I had to try, but had not anticipated just what a game-changing experience it would be. I am actually looking forward to the challenge of ascents now, since I often experience the aforementioned "blowed up" phenomenon when I screw up...

Righto, will proceed as planned tomorrow once my computer stops melting. (I must have done something terrible, it's decided to crash in a very odd way.) Will mark as answered tomorrow assuming nothing goes horribly wronorwonnwwzqzdaqzx... Fendleton - agreed. I don't even want to be bothered with landing, just want to get close enough for science. And rep for your sig - we broke out a VIC-20 last month and both kids have been amusing themselves with GOTOs and POKEs...

I don't know why, been playing for quite a while, have never gone to Gilly. (Mainly because I felt I didn't have the patience for the landing process.) But I have decided for the first time ever (in 24.2, only took me like 7 versions to dip my toe in) to try the science tree thingy. Plus FAR (first time). And was thoroughly enjoying the experience, despite all the blowed up rockets and landers. (I miss my MJ/KER info panels though. A lot.) Now, in the name of SCIENCE (plus a contract), I have to get there. I feel I did everything right. I oh-so-gently aerobraked (grrr FAR) at Eve enough times to set my AP right up against Gilly's orbit, then waited. As expected, in a relatively short period of time I came up with this approach. Man, I was so proud of managing to get my inclination matched up... (See below. Sorry, I really had trouble with the angles to get the text for the separation untangled from the orbital info.) AND I CAN'T MAKE IT ANY BETTER!! I can not generate a little "encounter bubble" despite my best efforts with the nodes. Since the SOI is barely over 100 km, do I have to wait until closest approach and then treat it like a rendezvous??? (My current plan is to time warp to the triangles, then drive straight at the target which I hope I will be able to see onscreen by then. I'll bet that's a non-optimal plan.)

Sent a 2-Kerbal Lander Can land/ascent vehicle to Eve, planned to ascend from sea level. (Yah, I know... But I really thought I had 13,000 dV...) Transfer to Eve went OK, although VERY SLOWLY and with great attention paid to the bendy Sr Docking Port... Alas, we ran into major overheating issues with the 44 (!!!) aerospikes and only managed to get to 60 km altitude before having to give up. Macvin and Matt will be purple for a while, but at least we managed to balance on landing and the RTGs will supply energy to the SAS wheel as it spins ever-faster to hold up the remains of the craft... Wish I had taken a picture of the lander floating in the purple sea, it looked like a castle...

Guess where I am going? (Hint - purple) (Yah the first one is a bit dodgy... 400T landers are hard to drive)

^^ Yep. Good grief. Hope you had that floating around in your head vs just making it up on the spot... Else I feel shame.

So, with my nearly 400 T Eve lander (nickname THUMP) having completed Kerbin testing, I began wrestling with the idea that somehow I had to get the damn thing into orbit, along with a drive section sufficient to get to and from Eve, plus detach and deorbit at Eve (really, I need every drop of that fuel to be with me upon landing, can't waste it on the deorbit burn). It is of course a heavily staged contraption, keeping Eve TWR >1.4 (avg 1.7). My 15 yr-old son (who excels at planes and really fast rovers, but leaves the rocketry to me) suggested that I just launch it as is from Kerbin, but not stage off any parts. Then refuel in orbit. Rather than build some kind of MASSIVE lifter for it. I felt he was crazy. To prove it I stuck a docking port onto the side, and launched. As stages depleted, my hands kept twitching towards the space bar, but I desisted. <Sigh.> Am now at 100 kM circular orbit, sending up fuel SSTOs. I lose again, but win in the sense that the kid is better than me...

Hmmmm... how tall is that VAB? <rubs hands> <injects liquid N2 into computer> <abandons ill-fated Eve operations>

Good Lord. And here I was worried about my monster of an entry. Which was also named "Go Big or go Home", but...

This is a very neat challenge. I enjoyed the writeup and pix immensely. Think I will give it a pass because I don't have the patience at the moment to install the mods I would need, but I would have given it a run if I already had them. Well, and also because I have been beating my brains out at Eve for the past while already trying to do a 4-Kerbals-in-a-hitchhiker landing/ascent from sea level without using any of the 23.5 parts (except for the interplanetary drive) and I'm getting rather tired of purple, plus tired of results looking much like your picture #5... PS - nice to find someone else with the same kind of quirky writeup and picture commenting style as I use ...

Don't worry OP - some of us get the sarcasm. (That's one seriously luxurious 4K module though, must have a swimming pool and bowling alley at that weight.)

Yep. So terribly many Kerbals have plummeted to their deaths under my control due to the proximity of those two buttons...

Gilly. Too impatient.

Very very poorly...

Why did I find this as funny as I did??? <Can't breathe... Laughing...>

Well, today I found myself whistling an Aaron Neville song... I'm not too proud of that.. But also I had a beer!!!

@Pyro : "Sluggish Mark Two" is going to be the name of every ship I ever build ever again. Just 'cause.

You characters are fantastic. Lots of fun here. I am stuck in Detroit on business all of this week and have just now managed to convince my work laptop to allow me to log in to the forums, and I miss my rockets very much (game is on home system), but I will make an effort tomorrow to create a proper leaderboard and do all of that other stuff that comes with challenges. PS - Despite the craziness of the Hammerhead (and the, um, crowded LKO space which it inhabits), it looks like Sensei is currently in 1st.

Nope, never mind, this is very wrong and I take it back...

Hmmm... now I realize that this challenge is a bit flawed. I had assumed that LV-N's would need to be part of the ascent phase, but since that is clearly not the case, this just becomes a contest to see who can get the most fuel into orbit with 1 LV-N attached. Chalk it up to my lack of practice with the 23.5 parts...

<sniff> It's lovely! I suppose I should throw my current entry in. I couldn't stay away from the 23.5 engine due to the massive TWR. But the 2.5m tanks have a better fuel:mass ratio, so I wound up with this. 4036 dV left to play with!

Think we are talking past each other. AP can increase while vertical velocity is decreasing. Maybe I need to go back and read more carefully. My point was, during the last stages of ascent (say > 35kM Kerbin surface) a TWR of <1 is sufficient, and usually desirable. Sorry if I muddied the waters with a derailer.