Getting stuck on Eve again!

[Technical Ben]

Just another attempt to get a Kerbal successfully to, and back from, Eve.

Hope I'm not the only one who finds Eve the most annoying to try and navigate.

And Plan "B"

Edited March 2, 2015 by Technical Ben

[basic.syntax]

That's painful. I like the mobile platform idea, but in this case it needed to use a lot of fuel to help land (more parachutes?) - that you would have wanted to use, on your way back up. Once the aerospikes were dropped, TWR and rate of climb fell with them. So I would probably reverse the engine sequence, drop lighter engine tanks first, so you can keep the good engines burning for you, longer.

I see mechjeb... which gives a ton of info in flight... I don't use that, but I have started using KER - Kerbal Engineer, to plan my EVE attempt right from the VAB. It displays a list of stages and ship's dV and TWR for each. With that you can have a good idea of how well a craft might lift on EVE, (or any selected destination,) before you get there.

[Technical Ben]

Thanks! It was painful to land on Eve too. I've had countless failed attempts with different designs before. Oh, and it never had the thrust. I retried the landing and refilling. Even with full tanks it never made over 6km.

I'd planned to give it something like 2.0 TWR when on Kerbin, with 8-9kDV and launch from the 6km mountain, but land near sea level to allow the atmosphere to assist in landing.

Some how, on Kerbin I just totally messed up the TWR in planning. Adding the battery under the stage, really close to the ground, and just not having enough wheels made it near impossible to drive it. I was never getting up the mountain. I certainly needed a new plan!

Edited March 2, 2015 by Technical Ben

[basic.syntax]

Part B attempt has a happier story.

"The Tumbler? Oh... you wouldn't be interested in that." - Lucius Fox, Batman Begins

lol

The lander can has a tiny amount of monoprop. Adding an RCS might make the difference, in some "almost to orbit" situations

[Technical Ben]

Yep. I totally forgot to empty it (as fuel tends to give better DV budget on really tight designs), which I could do in docking, but would take up more time.

I really hope I can rescue the save. KSP 0.25/0.90 just kills all the kerbals then crashes on save/load.