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Post hard images. I'll start. @AlamoVampire, I think you'll like this one.

EVE. The final boss of KSP, the challenge is to head to Eve and back with no transfer windows or maneuver nodes . If you complete this, Please comment with video or photo evidence! P.S that screenshot is not mine. One I found on Imgur.com

Hello, its my debute in this community! When i started playing KSP (1.3.1) I found some strange thing. Mk-1 Cockpit have a Gyrodine but we need to unlock it before launching any Sattelite. This means that we need to launch human in space in order to get science to unlock it before your "Sputnik" Which is seems stupid. That CAN be solved by modifications of the game but its boring yeah? When first playing i made this challenge to myself and couldn't do it because of some problems I didn't know about LV-T45 "Swivel" But in Official Missions for Making History I found myself in the same trap and when i attached RCI I thought why not to offer this Challenge for you? I think you are capable enough of this! Rules: Pardon for any mistakes i make - English isn't my first launguage Have Fun!

Hello, in this challenge you are going to do a mission similar to that of Voyager 2. Voyager 2 was an interplanetary and interstellar mission and passed through four planets of the solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) taking advantage of the positions of Jupiter and Saturn made the famous 'gravitational assistance' where Jupiter and Saturn would propel the ship to reach Uranus and Neptune and after leaving the gravitational pull of the last planet it would become an interstellar-type mission. This challenge is going to be more difficult since you will have to go through all the planets of the kerbol system(flying over) (except Eeloo) (it is not necessary to go through the moons but if you prefer you can go through them) and use the 'gravitational assistance' so that you do not spend a lot of fuel. You also have to return safely to Kerbin. The instructions are as follows: You must arm your interplanetary satellite. The maximum height for the satellite is 30 m You must arm your rocket and take it off Go through all the planets of the kerbol system (except Eeloo) using the 'gravity assist' Return safely to Kerbin Post in this post video or screenshots The rules are as follows. Visual mods allowed The use of mods that guide the ship to the destination such as (MechJeb 2 and MechJeb) is not allowed The use of the cheat menu is not allowed, if it were used they would be disqualified Refills are not allowed Greetings from Mexico

This contains my entry for the Caveman Challenge 1.12 (it's about completing the tech tree without upgrading buildings) Below I will explain my missions and strategy to accomplish the "Nano-crystalline Diamond" (or NCD) level of the Caveman Challenge, it is the absolute hardest setting in stock KSP. It is just career mode with the following limitations No upgrading any buildings Custom difficulty, every slider on the lowest/harshest setting 10% rewards for science , funds , reputation Max 120% re-entry heating 0 starting funds ...you get the idea, it is ridiculously difficult the first time you see it (Details can be found on the Caveman challenge topic) You win when all Tier 1-5 tech tree nodes have been unlocked Strategy Green Monoliths are easter eggs that spawn in random locations (1 for each planet/moon). Discovering them on location will unlock a random available tech tree node The most recent challenge rules allow the usage of these "available" tech nodes in-game are defined by having their parent node(s) already unlocked, but Green Monoliths don't care about building level limitation (they can potentially unlock Tier 6+ tech nodes without you upgrading the R&D building) The Tier 5 nodes cost 90 each, and there are 3 Grenoliths in the Kerbin system nearby. Holding out until we unlocked all Tier 4 techs, means that we can save ourselves getting 270 Holding onto contracts for the parts they provide for testing, gives us some usage of those parts, at the expense of holding 1 contract slot closed Use small steps instead of leaps to reduce risk. Funds, kerbal lives, contract slots are all things that can end NCD runs if they run out Lessons learned Green Monoliths are not shortcuts to skipping science. In Caveman mode, it takes as much time to detect anomalies (and visit all of them), than it takes to just go and collect science on Mun The Minmus Grenolith was the easiest: There is only 1 other anomaly on Minmus, so spotting the Grenolith is simple Mun/Kerbin have lots of easter eggs, which look identical on the Kerbnet detection system. If you are not familiar with the easter eggs on Kerbin and Mun, be prepared to visit 5-15 locations on each before getting that Grenolith The random tech might not be Tier 5 (helping achieve the Caveman challenge). It could be a Tier 6, which sounds great, unless it is something like "Command Modules", "Adv. Fuel Systems", "Heavier Rocketry"(what are you supposed to to with a Mainsail? ) "Rover" ships work great on Minmus! 4 Wheels are enough to farm 100% Minmus science in a short time frame (possibly faster than preparing launcher for hop landers) Mun, not so great. It needs more wheels, reaction wheels, solar panels and batteries to keep up with the higher gravity Robotics on an "Engineer Van" can hoist a ladder some +10 m up into the air Build rockets in the VAB that are over part count, then remove the small bits (science equipment, batteries, antennae, ...) and click launch From the Runway (or before the main rocket was built), launch an Engineer Van containing all the missing parts, and Bill (engineer), and maybe Valentina to help assist with the heavier parts Ride out to the launchpad, hoist them up and add the missing parts Launchpad construction vehicles can be built with a rectangular wing as the base, it save on part count, allowing for more wheels HG-5 antenna (a little retractably relay dish) is vastly superior to the Communitron-16. The HG-5 is heavier, but has enough range out at Minmus, and even connects to other relays better because of the improved strength (try it out here: ksp-visual-calculator.blaarkies.com) Before you start your own challenge run The Caveman Challenge (on normal) is fun, it pushes you to accomplish what seems impossible to 90% of KSP players The NCD level is different; it is a commitment, expect to play it for 40+ hours, doing 100+ launches You need to be sure that you know how to launch on a shoestring budget Be sure to understand the career system 100% How does science work, where to find extra science that is not immediately obvious (KSC micro-biomes) Which contracts are best for funds, how to get around bad contracts Be comfortable with the CommNet system; losing signal of an unmanned probe launching eastward, or behind Mun, or out at Minmus, are real issues you need to consider with every launch Correction burns halfway en route to Minmus can become difficult because of this There is a tool for this : ksp-visual-calculator.blaarkies.com How much DV is required to move around the Kerbin system (and possibly Duna/Eve) You will be building rockets that cannot be refueled, and they won't be "cheap" relative to the amount of funds that you have; they need enough DV to complete at least part of their mission You won't have fancy colorful patched-conics orbital trajectories. Returning from Mun low-orbit, means escaping Mun at a certain angle, at a certain velocity; do you know what those are before the burn starts? Piloting skills; you will be landing planes on Kerbin, probes on Mun, and possibly Bob (scientist) on Minmus while he is hanging onto a ladder. Any landing needs to be easy to you because you won't have proper SAS for most of these landings Breaking things on landing could bust the whole mission and bankrupt your space program NCD is arguably 10x harder than Normal difficulty, since you only get 1/10 of the rewards, but profits aren't that simple. The difference between contract reward and launch cost determines how difficult it is, making it potentially even harder If any of the previous points had you thinking too long, it is best to try the easier levels first and see how you like it Topaz[Hard] goes by much quicker than this, and introduces a fair bit of the challenges faced here There are levels between Hard and NCD if you feel confident in your skills After completing any level of Caveman Challenge, you realize how overbudget we have been building craft for simple missions all along Screenshots The Start See the Diamond run for tips on how to get going with 0 funds Starting important tip: Don't throw darts above 30km ! They tend to dive down, nose first at the speed of sound. You can't control them, and parachutes don't work at those speeds There are many solutions, I chose to pick a "test the decoupler" contract and use the part for my own needs for a while We need to build a backup supply of funds, we need it to unscrew ourselves if a launch fails. Grab 2 contracts that have a high chance of succeeding (things like "test parachute at 5km", or "test thing on launchpad"). Then do a tiny launch where you hop the vehicle onto some KSC buildings. The primary objective is making funds, so complete the contracts and recover the entire craft. The secondary objective is getting science to unlock new tools. The first 10 launches from KSC will probably all yield some science. Once we unlock more science equipment, we need to do this again. Remember to unlock tools first (the parts we need to make funds), everything leading up to placing satellites in orbit will help, science equipment comes second here. Do small hops, nothing dangerous. After about 15+ of these we will have most KSC science grabbed for this level and some backup funds as insurance. Go for orbit when ready, but that won't mean you are done with the KSC yet...there is still lots to be done down there "Science Rollers" can easily be "driven" by using the trim controls (actually designed for aircraft). Turn off SAS. Hold down `left Alt` and press `q`. You should see the Roll control indicator move (bottom left of screen). But unlike when we control it with the keyboard (making the indicators max out on each key press), this trim will gently feather it to roll very slowly You can release Alt now. This works for all controls (roll, yaw, pitch) and even translation controls (i, j, k, l, keys for RCS stuff, but i bound my rover wheel controls to them as well). Later you can make rover wheel "lead-footed" so that they keep driving forward without you there If things get out of hand, just turn on SAS (it nullifies these trim values). You can also reset trim with `left Alt + X` Always check to spot this one. A Terrier test contract is gold at this point, we can keep the contract (uncompleted) for 401 Kerbin days if we want, without any penalty. We don't have a Terrier part yet, but they will be extremely useful on the orbital craft we just built moments ago. Keep this golden contract until we are ready to unlock our own Terrier part (meaning we also have to be careful about locking up a contract slot with this), but we can always complete it at-launchpad if we ever get into trouble at least. With a Terrier onboard, it becomes much easier reaching Mun and Minmus, where we find a lot of extra science in orbit. This part gets a bit repetitive, because we might not have all the science equipment unlocked yet, meaning we have to go back later again. But since it is all orbital stuff, we will definitely be going through this region again anyway where we can scoop up left over science. Once we are ready in terms of technology (farm all the easy science near KSC to help unlock unmanned rocket parts) we can start using probes for everything. They are cheaper, it hurts less when they are lost, and we can leave them in orbit to provide a benefit. Forget about the Communitron 16 for these, the HG-5 High Gain antenna is so much more powerful, and it provides relay. The idea with these will be to: build a relay communications network for future launches scan Kerbin/Mun/Minmus for anomolies and mark them as navigation points provide in orbit probes that can transmit science for contracts if we ever hit a dead end for funds At first, some probes won't have solar panels. That is fine, they will relay comm signals as long as they had power the last time you checked them (if you ignore them for 100 years, they will still be functional relay sats, but if you go and control the craft personally, it will shut off). These craft will mostly help launches of newer and better craft. Every launch should be accompanied by enough contracts to cover the launch cost. If we can't pull this off, we need to do silly launch pad contracts to make up the funds that we will need. The satellite contracts can payout 7 000 - 13 000 which cover the launch cost unless the craft has many science experiments onboard. A 2nd contract is pure profit at this point, allowing us to leave a relay/kerbnet probe in orbit somewhere. We will need little bits of science from everywhere possible. This one is dangerous, and the payoff isn't even great, but i wanted some EVA flying science. I strapped Jeb into this...thing, let it launch and then parachute Jeb down to find some more science, somewhere. The S2 roverwheel part is also pretty important, for clearing up the rest of the KSC science. We can get this via a contract for free, but later on it will also be useful for roving Minmus. It is worth researching, but other things are more critical. Remember the hidden science. Some of these sound ridiculous, but they exist. "Landed at Kerbin's water"...gives a new meaning to ships finding land. There are many versions of these going on in game, like "Splashed down at Kerbin's Deserts" is obviously a craft floating in an oasis, but in the end they all give unique science that might not have been collected before. Before landing anywhere other than Kerbin, remember to go get the contract for those. It is usually worth a lot of funds, and sometimes 1. This part is all about the delicate balance of funds, science, and monoliths. Every satellite needs funding to launch, so we will have to find some contract mission that fits together nicely (2 satellite contracts around Minmus is a great start). Then we can determine what kind of science we gain while being there (maybe a landing is possible, or maybe it is better to leave a relay in orbit) Don't be surprised after doing 10+ of these missions just for Minmus, we need to be thorough. Before solar panels, keep an eye on the EC supply (leave the craft before that empties out). Once the we solar panels, we can do a full KerbNet scan of where we are orbiting and mark those anomolies. Anomalies on Minmus are easy: It has 1 black monolith (gives us a tiny bit of funds for discovering it), and 1 green monolith (unlocks a new tech for free) It is worthwhile detecting all anomalies now, even if we don't visit/discover them (that might unlock some lowly T2/T3/T4 techs). Once we unlock the last T4 tech with science points, we can discover these anomalies for a guaranteed T5+ tech. After the very long science collection missions, once we have all the critical parts unlocked, we can unlock the lowest tier nodes in order to hunt monoliths on Kerbin. Don't try that without planes, Kerbin has far too many anomalies to do a rocket launch for each. We will find many false positives. These ground stations show up as anomalies, and they are actually easy to spot as long as you keep an eye on the mountain peaks. Sometimes you get lucky finding an easter egg outside of the savegame A well designed plane can easily get past the poles, even to Badlands. Finally made it to Woomerang. This won't unlock the launch site (since difficulty settings disable it), but the same discovery of Cove or Island Airfield will allow you to launch from them. After a lot of struggling on Kerbin, i decided to go get the Minmus monolith instead. They don't need Kerbals close by, only a controlled craft in physics range (some 2.3 km). Maybe this works with debris as well if the camera is tracking them. At some point, we need larger launch vehicles. With docking ports unlocked, we can add boosters afterwards, on top of the full 18t limit. To build these forklifts, it help using a wing segment as the base structure. ...more to come, look at the Screenshots in the meanwhile

This contains my entry for the Caveman Challenge 1.11 (its about completing the tech tree without upgrading buildings) Below I will explain my missions and strategy to accomplish this. The "Diamond" level of the Caveman Challenge is just career mode with the following limitations No upgrading any buildings Custom difficulty Every slider on the lowest/harshest setting Except for science gains at 20% Details can be found on the Caveman challenge topic You win when all Tier 5 tech tree nodes have been unlocked That sounds simple enough, but so many advanced features are linked to building upgrades Kerbals cannot EVA in flight, no flags No fuel transfers No orbital trajectory predictions, or maneuver nodes Launch mass, height, and part count No quick saves/reverts In short, if you think you got the hang of KSP by now because you have done Eve accent missions, or low dv transfers via slingshots, this challenge might put a bite back into the game! I'll try to organize all the images in an imgur/google-drive album, with minimal pictures here to have an easier reading experience. Simply open up the album in a separate window to view the entirety of it. Overall strategy goals (which inevitably fails, but it guides well enough) Get some surplus funds in the bank. Enough funds so that the next launch won't bankrupt you if when it fails Unlock all the science experiments. One thorough clean sweep over the KSC is easier than going back many times This is not entirely possible though, since you need science to get science experiments Missions that cannot be 100% recovered, cost funds. Unless they are offset with contracts, or world first records Hopping a Flea booster around the KSC is almost free Dropped stages on the way to orbit are expensive Unlock the high ISP Terrier engine. This makes Mun/Minmus missions reliable and easy Post construction for Minmus biome hopping Docking fuels pods in orbit. Got a manned capsule with ~6000m/s dv. Interplanetary travel is still difficult, but it now has a big safety margin (?) Stranded engineer in orbit . Rather put a scientist in EVA orbit, they can re-use heavy science pods (engineers aren't much more useful than dockings ports already are...for in this situation though) (?) Docking boosters onto hanging rockets on the launch pad. Works wonders, less effort than 2x launches, and results in almost 3x payload to LKO (without needing more probe cores, so it becomes cheaper than 2x launches) (?) An engineer with many assistants could build Spark-engine-boosters Lessons learned Research tech nodes very carefully. Docking ports and Juno engine(with the basic aircraft wheels) were essential to my missions, but Rover wheels only got used once Nodes with science parts obviously bring in more science Adding Thumper boosters to launch vehicles reduces cost per ton of payload, since you can double the payload, but don't have to double the controlling probe core Caveman comms can reach the Mun, so early probe landings are an easier way of getting science Minmus comms might be possible after many satellite contracts Docking without RCS is obviously harder, but don't overcomplicate it with weird designs Kerbals can EVA infinitely by moving their EVA pack into/out of containers The Start Album 1 The settings: So we start out with zero funds, zero science, and zero negative 1000 reputation That's fine, well make money after the first launch, unless we can't launch without any funds! What we do is...roll the dice. If you are lucky, you will get 2 contracts which give 600+ funds in advance. We then use that to launch the first business vehicle (getting funds is the top priority now, science we will only be taken if its free) Be extremely careful when clicking to accept contracts: Miss-clicking the red decline button will cost you probably all the funds you have (some have a penalties of like -90 000) Accepting a contract that you are not ready to complete yet, can become a heavy ball-and-chain on your space program Some contracts cannot even be declined Declining contracts are expensive 1 less slot for active contracts in flight make it difficult to be profitable in launches Lucky enough with those funds, I "launched" this...thing. There was hope that pressing spacebar with that empty booster would count towards the "launch first vessel" contract (spoiler, it doesn't) Now take crew reports, EVA the kerbal since we are landed and take EVA reports as well. Shove those EVA reports into the capsule to take new reports. An easy EVA report here, is to climb on top of the capsule and jump off! When in mid air, click the "EVA Report" button. After that, run up to the Crawlerway towards the KSC buildings. The Crawlerway gives another EVA report. Run back to the capsule, drop the EVA report, and run down to the beach. There's more EVA reports there, as well as some "World First Contracts" on the way (thanks to one of the masters of this challenge for pointing out that trick) This nets a total of...a puny amount of science. Need a tiny bit more for the first tech node. Make a simple hopper rocket on the runway, launch it towards the KSC and collect the science. Do not use decouplers on the Flea booster...rather land it together with the capsule to get the recovery funds back. Remember to make a habit of removing the Kerbal inventory items, and also any ablator in the heatshields (if you are carrying those). Once we have 5 science, we unlock the tech node with the thermometer science part. Getting new science opportunities is very important here, but science itself takes 2nd priority (it will make sense in a minute). Dropping spent contracts Album 2 I'm still stuck with that "Escape atmosphere" contract, taking up a valuable slot of the total 2 slots we have for contracts. To cash in on it, we launch...a thing! Its simple really, get the capsule up to +70km, but also safely back down, or risk having 1 kerbal less. It is tempting to do this before unlocking decouplers, but its not worth the risk. Even a Flea booster on the back of a capsule can be enough to flip it, into a really aerodynamically stable orientation. Those dart too quickly into the ground for parachutes to even open up. So add a decoupler between the capsule and the Flea (but point the decoupler downwards to save some recovery cost). The Hammer booster can be hot-staged: no decoupler used, just fire up the Flea right before the Hammer is empty (when it has about 1 second of fuel left, or 100m/s dv in the readings). It is important to catch this earlier rather than later (a late burn will cause the Hammer to not explode off the craft as soon as it should, while blocking the Flea's thrust) Get some science on the way up. In this launch science experiments can be done when Landed, and in low atmosphere (-30km?), and in high atmosphere (-70km), and again in space. You will have to choose which ones you want, since you can't carry them all without more science containers. The landing happened in the mountains (yeah fresh science! but, dangerous steep slopes) I couldn't get the capsule to stay put without SAS on (in order to EVA the Kerbal). So i decided to not risk getting outside for a tumble The craft name in the mission debriefing explained the entire purpose of this launch. This got lots of useful science, and even some funds, but the best part is it opened up the extra contract slot! Eternal balance, science vs funds Album 3 What follows is a bit of a grind to get enough funds for bigger missions. If done thoughtfully, you can also get science along the way. Go get some contracts that specialize in simple tests: Test on launch pad Test parachutes at less than 10km (just check that the speed range is attainable) Haul parts up to altitude Anything that you can do while hopping around the KSC will fit. Then just aim for a different KSC buildings each time Its not a ton of science, but it adds up soon enough Orbit Kerbin Album 4 We got a contract and word first records to fund this mission - getting into Kerbin orbit. Building under the strict limitations, I found an interesting bit of info: The Reliant engine is better than the Swivel engine under some circumstances. That sounds plausible, but here I found that even when the vast majority of engine usage happens in a vacuum, the Reliant (with a worse vacuum Isp) still beats the Swivel in terms of dv (and of course thrust as well). This is due to the Reliant having less mass than the Swivel. It misses out on gimbaling though, but that's not necessary for this craft being well balanced and in space most of the time. This effect is very apparent when comparing a Terrier engine to a Spark engine, on a single 2t fuel tank. They almost break even at that mass (depending on the payload of course), but unless lots of thrust is needed, you are better off with the Spark since it has less mass for the previous stages to push around. Pretty typical launch. This shape is very aerodynamic, so get that trajectory flat quite early. A trick I use to know if my launch is going well: Open up that orbit info tab (purple button, bottom left corner of the screen) Keep the Apoapsis minus current altitude to less than 10km apoapsis= ~37km, altitude= ~30km, apoapsis - altitude = ~7km, (which is less than 10km) This works well for the part of the launch where your speed is between 500m/s - 2000m/s At the launch pad, the results of this is obviously bogus Near final orbit, its not that useful anymore So when that difference gets greater that 10km, i ease up on the throttle. Below 10km, and i throttle up a bit This is probably TWR dependent, so make that "10km" threshold whatever works best Got into a safe (but ugly) orbit, its fine, its +90% successful if you could measure that. What now? Don't deorbit yet, listen to the music and stuff, but more importantly press escape, go to the contracts building. Check if they have a new contract, like "Return to Kerbin from orbit". Its free money! We have been using fuel very sparingly and efficiently up until now (either it costs funds, or we need it to make orbit, always an excuse). Now, that fuel is going to be crashing into Kerbin, might as well use it while you got it. Use as much as you need for a reentry close to the KSC Caveman diamond rules set the reentry heat to 120%. I have never tried that before, this was my first time. I was afraid Jeb couldn't take the heat, so I packed a heatshield (empty out that ablator though, its just extra mass). After this reentry, I know its not that harsh at all. Gentle reentries could survive without one I think. Got near perfect reentry profile that landed me just beyond the tip of the runway. Also congratulations Jeb on that promotion! Challenge the Mun Album 5 At this point, I wanted to do that Mun contract, but didn't have the Terrier engine. Without it, even a stripped down command pod vessel could barely reach the Mun. I tried to attain the extra science needed with the famous KSC roller! It failed miserably, the Materials bay I added in the center exploded after exceeding 6m/s. So i added sturdy...wheels?. That wasn't controllable at all. I did some more KSC hops, maybe I could source the little bit of science needed locally. That didn't seem like the easier way I knew that if i could just do 1 Mun flyby, I would get loads of science and cash. Im going to say Jeb convinced me to do it, and that it was out of my hands, but we are launching for a Mun flyby! We are using a similar design as the first orbit vessel (didn't get enough science for new parts, so it feels a bit like the middle ages over here). Same trick as before, the Reliant engine actually performs slightly better as a vacuum engine here. Get into a nice orbit. To intercept the Mun: Draw a vertical line through Kerbin Measure the angle from the top, clockwise towards the Mun If that angle is 45°, its time to do that trans-munar injection burn When your craft is at the bottom of that vertical line, just burn prograde When your Apoapsis touches the Mun's orbital line, stop burning I think 55° is slightly better, but its hard enough measuring this by eye so we all just say 45. In hindsight, don't set the trajectory beyond the Mun, rather let it barely touch the Mun's SOI to be safe. Running on fumes! Good thing the calculations were correct, there is still fuel left. If all goes well, it will be enough fuel to get back to Kerbin. Got a dangerous intercept here. Try burning towards the "other" radial () marker, that should push our orbit so that we don't get a slingshot into interplanetary space. That Earth Kerbin-rise never gets old "If all goes well"...I jinxed it by saying This could be really bad, we don't have enough fuel to change much about the orbit, we don't have fancy upgrades that show us predictions about encounters...Jeb's fate is pretty much locked into whatever the Mun wants to do with this now. After lots and lots of slingshots, the Mun finally messed up while toying with Jeb. This ended up on a trajectory somewhat past Minmus, we have a chance to hit the atmosphere with this tiny bit of fuel! At Apoapsis, check the orbit velocity and compare that to the total dv in the craft. If you can cancel most of that orbital velocity, you will be falling almost straight down to Kerbin, hopefully drowning some of that excess kinetic energy into Kerbin's atmosphere. Remember to drop the bottom half of the craft earlier rather than later, tumbling head first is something i have not tested yet. Landed at a pretty crater Enough science for the all important Terrier engine, this was quite stressful ... More to come!

This challenge is based off an idea I had and I wondered if it was possible. It's obviously possible, but I lack skills. So here's the challenge: NORMAL MODE: Start up a Career game, then go to either the VAB or SPH, and with ONLY the beginning (Tier 1) parts, make a vessel and fly it to Duna. EXPERT MODE: Same, but fly the rocket to Laythe. Good luck and have fun! P.S. videos pls EDIT: After realizing what the tier 1 parts really are, I've made the challenge do it with tiers 1 and 2.

Hi can any one recommend any mods to enhance my current career save mods I already have include all MkS/usi including ls, opm, kis/kas, pathfinder, scansat, planets shine, eve, extra solar, scatterer, chatterer, all near future, svt, dpai, doe, planetary base, kerbal engineer kac, sep, d magic, ferram and too many others to name off the top of my head have over 3000 hours looking for complicated mods to further build up my colonies or other planet or systems that will not conflict with the ones i already have any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Currently using version 4.3

I want to know what was your hardest mission in KSP. An mission in that something not planned happened, and that have great chances of gone wrong, but in the end you managed to fulfill it sucessfully. My hardest mission was an probe that i sended to Eve, the Kernera 2. I not prepared the probe to make an aerocapture to orbit Eve, so i braked with an engine. I orbited Eve, but i wanted to low pretty much the orbit to get an safe athimospheric entry. But i overestimated the amount of fuel nedded, and i didn't have enough fuel to low my orbit. So i lowered my periapsis to below Eve's athimosphere, and started to aerobrake to low my orbit. But this operation was pretty long. I make at least 30 passages by the athimophere, and this number didn't was bigger because of 2 time warp bugs that lowered my apoapsis of 78.000 km to 20.000 km. And besides that, all the ablator of the heat shield of the probe gone during the entries, so i had to rotate desesperally the probe during the final entry, to dissipate the heat. But the final reentry was a sucess. The ship fulfilled his mission of land in one of the Eve's oceans (but very close to a island), and i gathered many science points with the entries. And you, what was you hardest mission in KSP?

Hey guys, I've been playing for a couple months now (stock 1.3, no mods), and lately I have decided to tackle the hard mode (or at least the beginning thereof)... Obviously, the biggest issue with this mode (default difficulty settings) lays in the "200% fundings" modifier that makes buildings evolution extremely costly, when you get just 60% of the rewards from your contracts. I got quite inspired by Virgin Galactic and spaceX plans to fly lay people to space for a few (million) bucks, and decided to try and milk the VIP/Tourists suborbital contract till I get enough to upgrade a few buildings (Mission control, VAB, tracking station and launchpad). Interestingly enough it turned quite well and our witty engineers came up with a design that allows me to get 40,000 every 2 minutes (from launchpad to recovery), with minimal intervention (only the first 30 seconds of the 2 minutes, almost a fire & forget! ). Introducing... the Vomit Comet (ta-daaaablurglupblooaaarg!) Basically, all you need is: - To enable physics warp *4 if not already done (allows you to complete the mission in under 2 minutes by warping to *4 just after launching) - Do the 2 first contracts and get enough science and money for the parts and to upgrade the mission control - Take but DO NOT DO THE ORBIT MISSION - Then just build the rocket and get all dem juicy suborbital contracts!!! (just warp to next day if you don't have any left; they will respawn as long as the first orbit hasn't been achieved) Now ,for the fun part: - Get your most stupid pilot in the ship (only takes him activating 2 stages) - Slam 4 tourists in the caske - the first class - Go to the launchpad, max throttle, sas on.... - Launch and immediately warp to *4 DO NOT TOUCH THE CONTROLS - After less than 30 seconds, your SRB should run out of fuel; activate the 2nd stage (sometimes results in a magnificent SRB explosion) - Go do some stuff for 1:30 min, or get all sweaty seeing the Vomit Rocket getting on a lithobraking trajectory - Recover - ??? - Profit! (40k funds and quite some rep) - repeat Once you get used to it, you should be able to milk 10k a minute, including the time spent to check contracts and warp to the next day... The trick of this design is to return the whole second stage, the first stage being only a SRB and a decoupler ... Allows for a 4.5k refund on the < 6k spent on the rocket; more than 75% refund! (can't get closer to an SSTO). But wait there's more to it! The swivel engine balances the rocket and acts as a heatshield during aerobraking, allowing for a nearly automated functionning (launch and press space for stage 2). Almost SSTO, almost automated, high fundings return for a smooth ealy hard game... Enjoy guys! (and feel free to comment and post better designs) -- Zorz

I just got an idea for a weird shuttle challenge You are allowed to use mods and add-ons, Just mention them below your post -The challenge Build the Soviet Buran shuttle and the US Nasa Shuttle Then connect the orbiters with some bars, struts or docking ports side by side something like this: https://imgur.com/jtcc5Qw Launch them together with their own launch system into kerbin low orbit If you succeed in doing that, Try to reenter and land with both connected, Go kerbal crazy!! -Bonus If you wish to take it a step further, Try doing the challenge with 15 Ton payload on both shuttles, to orbit and back. If you succeed, you gain 5 Points. -See how far you get in the challenge, if you get above 200,000m in orbit and land in the runway in reentry you get 2 points each and if you landed everything safely you get 5 points Post Pictures and videos, Links are allowed

Build A Grounded base on every planet and moon (Except jool and Kerbin) in career mode! each base has to have at least 5 kerbals on it at all times, and it has to be a permanent base. they have to be at least 50 meters long and 10 meters high, and a width of 20 meters Cairojack, If you're reading this, This is NOT a single launch Challenge NO CHEATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kerbalkind has always been ambitious. But now let us take it to the next level. I propose a craft that can take off from the KSC, Orbit once around Kerbol with a maximum altitude of 1000 Kilometers, refuel, and then land by the KSC to be recovered. One of each type of crewmember is required. Also, you are required to land every piece of your ship(except for the booster stages). You can refuel on an asteroid or a planet. It doesn't matter. But here comes the kicker. You have to do it in maximum gravity and show that you are not using any other cheats.

Honestly, this mode strikes me as almost impossible given the sheer amount of contract grinding and the expensive base upgrades. I can't get to orbit on the default launch pad and I'm just not used to not having maneuvers to work with. I always seem short on money and science. Does anyone have any choice advice or suggestions on how to have a successful run at it? is there something extra I need to do re: Management Strategies or am I just not good enough for hard mode? The only career mode tutorials I've seen are either not hard mode or don't have the 1.2 science trees. I find some of the surveying contracts to be extremely aggravating, especially the ones that happen BELOW a certain altitude, because it feels almost impossible to point a rocket there and reach it. I don't even get the sightseeing ones, am I expected to put a civvie in the cockpit? Some of those contract rewards don't even seem to be worth the money cost in putting them into action.

this challenge is where you land a base on the mun using only stock parts, I've always wondered why you can't build and launch a spacecraft from another planet or moon. the challenge is to launch a base (several launches allowed) to the mun or minmus that has all the basic parts of a rocket and a way to assemble them however you like, then build a rocket on the kerbin moon of your choice, then launch and retrieve it on kerbin. even better, make several rockets and do the same thing. good luck

Announcement: everyone who participates in this challenge will be featured on my channel on July 21th. I hope you had fun building Hello, for this challenge, you need to make a flying craft that doesn't have anything on the outside. Reply to me using a download link. RULES (Because why not): 1. NO CHEATS!!!! 2. Have to be flyable 3. Use as much parts as you want, there no restriction on what parts you can use. Tip: use cargo containers My Flying Brick(It failed): https://mega.nz/#!5RgDQBLS!WNDt9r_lA8FBhEQXv2x-r7aDwqE4GddzJorQTiAoGbQ Video: My youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdk5mWg965AGK_LmYsFOaFw

while making a save file on custom (harder than hard) i though of the question in the title. so like craft designed in hard are designed for it, making it work better in easy, not vice versa

The Kerbals have decided that landing on planets is not the way to go, after a horrifying Eve "Landing" that resulted in the death of 3 crew. Now after the successful PR campaign saying "flybys are better", the public is clamoring for a mission to have as many flybys as possible. Your task is to send a manned mission to have lots of flybys Of course some flybys are cooler than others, scoring is as follows Mun: 5 points Minmus: 10 points Duna: 15 points, 5 BP (bonus points) for upper atmosphere, 10 BP for lower atomsphere Ike: 5 points Dres: one point for visiting the fake "planet" Eve: 10 points, 10 BP for upper atmosphere, 20 BP for lower atmosphere Gilly:10 points Jool: 30 points, 20 BP for upper atmosphere, 40 BP for lower atmosphere For each of the moons of Jool, 10 points, no extra points for going in Laythe's atmosphere. All five Joolian moon flybys gets you 20 bonus points. You can have 2 launches for building your rocket, one for fueling it in orbit, and one to have ferry your kerbals down from KO to Kerbin NO ALT 12, MODS, beside mechjeb, and ker, OR K-DRIVES RANKS Space Wimp: get 15 or below points ---------------------------------------------- Cosmos Queen: get at lest 30 points ---------------------------------------------- Flyby Master: get at lest 100 points ---------------------------------------------- MAXIMUM FLYBY MASTER Get all 261 points --------------------------------------------- Good luck

Hello there, fellow Kerbonauts. Long time lurker, first time poster, I decided that there aren't enough LPs / guides / career logs for KSP hard difficulty (diary of a hard career being a notable exception). I believe that the "hard" difficulty mode is a good environment to learn efficient mission planning, since the scarcity of resources makes it unfeasible to solve everything with Asparagus motherships. Therefore I'm gonna bless, curse or just annoy you with a log of my attempts to tackle said career mode: Since I'm both storing the images on my own server and trying to freshen up my web design skills, I would very much like to tell the story there at rlange.info/kspbeyond/, if you don't mind. I would intend this thread for discussion, feedback and, of course, announcing & linking new chapters. That being said, there really isn't much more to tell - Just have a look and a laugh as I stumble my way to space. Until then, fly straight, foyrkopp

OHNO IT'S MY FIRST MISSION TO MOHO There comes a time in everyone's KSP career when they consider their first mission to Moho. Extensive forum browsing normally ensues and I certainly partook in much reading of outlandish stories about insane delta-V requirements, but also good solid advice such as perhaps try a flyby first, always a good idea to start small etc. Once I'd read all of the requirements I fully understood what I needed to do and designed a modest mission to Moho, to get my eye in so to speak. This therefore is my "Ohno it's my first mission to Moho" mission report, and with that in mind let's check out the small probe that will make the journey to Moho: If you didn't get it from the picture let me fill you in that this is clearly no small probe. I genuinely started out with the best intentions, but as the wish list for "doing Moho" grew I decided that I required the following to say that I had effectively "done" Moho: 1) Lander: Clearly why bother unless we are actually going for boots on the ground (and returning them safely) Room for 2 Kerbals 24-77 "Twitch" liquid fuel descent stage O-10 "Puff" mono-propellant ascent stage 2) Orbital outpost: If we are going we are going big and I'm pretty confident I don't want to be sending any more than 1 rocket if I don't have to. Room for 24 in emergencies, but otherwise built to handle 6-12 in spacious living conditions Radiator due to proximity to Kerbol Junior and Senior Docking port adapters for full expandability Science module, short and long range communication capability 3) Return vehicle and habitat: Yes, it's a pretty long mission, so the crew needs somewhere to play cards and also to return safely if at all possible. Supports a crew of three with extended living space Also functions as orbital utility vehicle Much ablation - High speed returns If you still don't get a picture of the scale of this absurdity then let's cover off some basic facts on the mission with my mission factoids section: Tall - 50.2 meters to be precise. Not the tallest out there but nearly the height of the VAB and certainly long enough to experience massive noodling Wide - Almost exactly 25 meters each way. It's both long and very chubby Heavy - Four thousand five hundred tonnes, and seven hundred kilos (snacks). the trans Moho injection vehicle and payload alone are over 800 tonnes Computer crushing - 608 parts on the launch pad. Could be worse but it's not friendly. Luckily Gerty 3000 is up to the job Expensive - 1,659,692 things. Now as with many (every) one of my missions, I didn't just start with the perfect rocket (or end with it) and there were many, many, many design iterations that preceded what I thought might actually be able to leave the launch pad without hailing the Kraken or destroying KSC. This resulted in some rather fervent explosions. Some were even eager enough to end my KSP session is a molten pool of memory dribbling from my pc case, but onward I gallivanted through failure after failure secure in the knowledge that the escape tower would hurtle the crew far away from the all consuming rage of nearly twenty stacks of S3 KS-25 "Mammoth" driven fury. Let's have a quick browse through some of the more memorable failures: 1) THE "YEAH, NO MATE" 2) THE "ILLUSIONIST" 3) THE "NOTHING TO SEE HERE, QUITE LITERALLY" Post these brazen and runaway series of successful launches (honestly 3 of nearly 20 shown) I decided that I needed to do a few things. Firstly I needed to completely remove and reroute the fuel lines. Something wasn't flowing correctly and the rocket drifted considerably off course as a result. Secondly I needed to completely re-do all the strutting due to the rocket frequently eating itself on the way to orbit. Lastly I needed to appease the Kraken. Luckily I'd already done this nigh on 20 times already so all I did was cross my fingers and hope to Gene Kerman that everything went smoothly. Let's see if it did with the first launch of the final iteration of the Moho Ohno: Wow so that actually worked, and worked well. A good 4 days of working, reverting, reworking went into making this thing a success. The worrying thing is that while I had total oversight of the Delta-V stats during construction I actually never looked at it. I had no idea this thing would reach orbit, and I still have no idea at all whether it will reach, and or return from Moho. It's going to be a nail biting mission for sure. Follow me over the next few updates to see how the mission goes, and as ever I am open to questions, comments, criticism, or commitment to the KSC asylum for bad mission planners. SM

We have probably all built a mother ship before but have you ever sent one up whole? Challenge Easy Launch a mother ship up with at least 32 crew capacity. Launch the ship in one piece. No mods (except hanger extenders). Escape pods for all crew. All science equipment. No refueling. Ship alone has to be over 30 tons. Medium Launch a mother ship up with at least 64 crew capacity. Launch the ship in one piece. No mods (except hanger extenders). Escape pods for all crew. All science equipment. No refueling. Ship alone has to be over 60 tons. Only liquid fuel and oxidizer for launch. Hard Launch a mother ship up with at least 100 crew capacity. Launch the ship in one piece. No mods (except hanger extenders). Escape pods for all crew. All science equipment. No refueling. Ship alone has to be over 90 tons. Only solid fuel for launch. Good Luck!

Hey guys, I have a major challenge for you guys, you guys must get the Sido Urania pack, and land on every planet(Not Jool or Urania), and moons, and safely land back on kerbin(Space Stations, IRSU, and any other fueling method other than cheating is allowed). Be sure to bring back pic's from your big adventure. Oh, and any other mod is allowed(except Hyperedit, and other planet mods)