Diary of a hard career

[MarkusF]

After messing up some things in my las career (mostly forgetting to check for new "World's first" contracts when arriving at other planets) I decided to start a new one, and posting about its progression.

Maybe some new players might be interested in the designs, especially the early rockets, like the first orbiter, or the first vehicle for a mun fly-by.

I play on Hard settings, but I allow quickloading and reverting.

The mods I have installed are:

InFlightWaypoints (to see waypoints for survey contracts not only in map mode)

KerbalEngineer

MechJeb (at some point in the career I'm getting too lazy to execute all manouver nodes by myself. In addition, the manouver node editor helps you to set them up with more precision. And of course the ascent guidance, but as this one comes with "Unmanned Tech", we will have to do a lot of launches manually, as science points are rare at the beginning of a hard career.)

TranferWindowPlaner (To see the launch windows to other planets)

KerbalAlarmClock (To keep track of the launch windows and or vessels)

So, it all starts with our first vessel , named "Hopper-1", based on the RT-5 "Flea" Solid Rocket Booster. We could also gather some science at the runway and on the launchpad first and start with the RT-10 "Hammer", but then I would feel sorry for the guy at SQUAD, who designed the "Flea", if I never use it at all.

Info for new players: Right click on the engine when in the VAB and set its thrust limiter to about 20, so we get a TWR of about 1.7 at lift off. A longer, weaker acceleration should be more efficient than a short strong one, due to the drag.

Oh, and don't forget to get the contracts "Launch your first vessel" and "Gather scientific data from Kerbin"

We don't have to activate SAS on this one, just launch it, rotate it a few degrees to the east and it will fly a nice curve on its own.

While in flight, we use one of the two goo containers, and take a crew report. After splashdown in the water to the east, we take another crew report, run the second goo experiment and take an eva report while flying over the water (hanging on the capsules), and one in the water (or standing on the vessel).

For new players: As we already have a crew report stored in our capsule, we have to do an eva, take the data out of the capsule and store it there again, then we can do a new one. Same goes for the EVA reports. Take one while hanging on the capsule, store it in the capsule, then you can take a second one while standing on the capsule.

This diary might become more interesting, when we start designing vessels for tourist contracts around Mun and Minmus and vessels for interplanetary travels.

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Time for our second vessel:

As we spent our research points, we now have the more powerful RT-10 "Hammer" engine (don't forget to set its thrust limiter for a TWR of about 1.7) and the materials lab, we can launch or second vessel named "Hopper-2".

One materials lab for flight in lower atmosphere, one for being in the water. This time we take the crew report "in-flight", that we missed the last time. So as we took one above "Shores" with the Hopper-1, we take one above "Water" now.

Same procedure as last time, we launch without SAS and tilt it to the east by about 15° and let it fly on its own.

This flight we reached an altitude record of 7,500m, a distance of 11km from KSC and a speed record of over 300m/s.

Let's make it bigger: As we're gathering more and more science we can create a vessel "Hopper-3" based on the BACC "Thumper" Engine now. We have a materials lab and a goo container on board, hopefully we reach an altitude of more than 18km, so that we can take high atmosphere samples, as well as a crew report from up there. Notice the single goo container on the right? It actually creates an imbalance which forces our vessel into a curve to the east on its own. However, during the flight we had to do some minor inputs to keep it from turning too fast, otherwise we would have missed the upper atmosphere (18km) by a few hundred meters.

Using this vessel we've set a speed record of 450m/s, a land distance of 28km, an altitude record of 11.5km and gathered some upper atomosphere science as well.

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Having 34.5 science right now, we're 9.5 science points short of getting access to the LV909 "Terrier" engine, so let's do some science at the launchpad and on the runway. One EVA report while "flying" over shores (hanging on the capsule) and one EVA report on the ground, as well as a materials lab and goo experiment for both the runway and the launchpad.

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As we could now build an orbiter, able to achieve an apoapsis of more than 250km (high orbit) we need an heat shield to protect our materials labs during reentry, however we need more science points to get acces to that technology. Right now we have 10.1 science points available, and we would need 15. So we could either build a small hopper, flying to the grassland in the west or the shores in the south, or we could explore the KSC buildings. However, I'd like to do those things in one run, as soon as we have the wheels from the "Aviation" science node, so we just create another vessel leaving the atmosphere (above 70km) without going into orbit. The slower velocity during reentry should protect our materials lab below our capsule and give us enough science for the heat-shield.

As always we take off without SAS, and let the vessel turn by itself due to the single goo container, but activate SAS this time after we turned about 15° to the east, so we get a high altitude with a low horizontal velocity.

[MarkusF]

Time to launch into a stable orbit:

Our vessel is based on a LV-T30 "Reliant" engine in the first and a LV-909 "Terrier" in the second stage. In addition we have an heatshield below our materials lab.

A hint for beginners: Try to fly a nice curve into orbit, an apoapsis of about 30km when pointing 45° up seems to be a good number. Try to point horizontal when reaching an apoapsis of 60km.

As soon as the target apoapsis is reached (I usually go for 75-80km) turn off the engine an wait for approaching the apoapsis. Few seconds before reaching the apoasis burn horizontal, and watch your apoasis in the map view. If the apoapsis moves away from your vessel cut off the engine and wait for appraoching it again. If you're going to overtake the apoapsis point a little into the sky, which makes the apoapsis move ahead of your vessel again:

As we've had enough fuel on board we can get into a high orbit (>250km) to get some more science points.

At the apoapsis we burn retrograde to decrease the periapsis to about 28km for a save reentry, but not before we checked the mission control building for a "Return to Kerbin from Orbit" contract. At the beginning we need all the money we can get in a hard career.

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Now that's a precise landing after returning from orbit. A bit further an we would have a touch down right at the KSC. Touchdown was 22.2km from KSC.

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So let's go on collecting science, by unlocking "Basic Science" and fly everything again to gather themometer readings from flight above shores and water, high atmosphere, low and high orbit. For the orbit flights we also got a "Science data from space around Kerbin", as well as a "Test LV-T45 engine at launch site" contracts. As I said before, money is pretty important at the beginning, as we have quite some buildings to upgrade. We landed in the desert west of KSV this time, so we were able to get some more science data from there, temp from flight and surface, as well as the crew reports and eva reports from flight and surface of the desert, which leaves us with enough science to unlock "Stablility" and "Aviation".

Time to build a rover to visit all the KSC buildings, as well as the shore biome to the north and the grassland biome to the west. Oh and don't leave out that small stripe of tundra between the shore and grassland biomes to the north.

It's not really a rover, it's acutally an airplane without wings. This is a job for our scientist Bob, as he is able to restore the materials lab and goo container after collecting the data, so we can get everything in one run.

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Woohoo, 120.5 science points gathered.

A new "World's First" contract is available: "Fly by the Mun".

But first think about the available upgrades for the buildings:

The launch pad (150,000) would give us the chance to build bigger rockets with a mass over 18 tons.

The Astronaut complex (150,000) would allow us to do EVAs, to gather even more science points.

The Tracking station (300,000) allows us to see "patched conics", so we wouldn't be flying blind, when trying to get to the Mun. Fly by and orbit around the mun will be possible without patched conics, but we will need them in order to do rescue contracts, which will reward us with quite some money as well as a new Kerbal for free.

As we only have 410,000 available we will delay that decision as long as possible, and try a blind fly by the Mun first.

[MarkusF]

For our Mun Fly-By vessel we're aiming to have a d/v of about 5,000m/s in total. About 4,000m/s to get into Kerbin orbit, about 850m/s to get to the Mun, and 150m/s for course corrections to get back into a reentry orbit.

Our design gives us 5,035m/s according to Engineer Redux. The two "Flea" boosters are placed in order to start with a higher TWR (but only 129m/s), as the first liquid fuel stage only gives us a TWR of 1.42.

We use a launch stability enhancer on that mission (you can only see its shadow), as we got a contract to test one at launch.

We made it into orbit with 1,411m/s left, so it took us only 3,624m/s to get into orbit.

So let's wait until the Mun appears just over the horizon an burn prograde, until our orbit ends slightly below Mun's orbit. We don't want to get too close to the Mun, as we only want to do a fly-by, and don't want the Mun to change our orbit too much, as we can't see the result of the influence without patched conics.

Hmm, that's what I wanted to avoid, our orbit after leaving Mun's SOI is much more energetic than before. Thinking about it, I think I should have tried to be intercepted by the Mun at a higher point, so that the leaving vector goes just along the Mun's orbit... But luckily we've had enough fuel left to brun for a reentry on Kerbin.

Unfortunately there was no "Return to Kerbin from Mun FlyBy" contract, but only an "Orbit the Mun" one, so this is our next goal. However we should have a bit more dv for this one, as I'm not sure whether I can reproduce such a nice ascent into Kerbin orbit. For this task I'd like to use the "Poodle" and "Skipper" engines, however we're about 10 science points short of getting all the required technology. (General Construction, Heavyer Rocketry, Fuel Systems)

So let's go for another science gathering mission on Kerbin. Our targets this time are the highlands and mountains to the west, as well as the desert at the southern tip of the continent. Let's build our first airplane, and visit those places.

After the science gathering tour, this is how our tech-tree looks. Now all that's left to is is to upgrade our launchpad and we're ready for an orbit around the Mun.

We've been able to grab a "Test Rockomax brand decoupler orbiting Mun" contract, rewarding us with 23,000 in advance and 64,000 on completion, which just fits perfectly into our next mission.

The test contract together with the orbit Mun contract gives us enough money to upgrade the tracking station and astronaut complex after completing both of them, so for the launch we upgrade the Astronaut complex first, in order to do all the EVA reports over the different biomes on Kerbin before we burn for the Mun. Getting to the Mun is not that much of a problem without the patched conics, but for leaving Mun's SOI I'd like to have them, to see how our resulting Kerbin orbit will be. We can upgrade this building as well, as soon as we are in a stable Mun orbit.

This rocket will get us there:

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Look at this, Jeb's first EVA. Everyone on Kerbin is so proud of him.

[MarkusF]

Look at the first EVA in an orbit around Mun:

Jebdiah made a nice return from his first orbit around the Mun, but not before accepting a contract, asking for his return from Mun's orbit. For some reason however, he doesn't look that happy.

Gathering science around the Mun, as well as all the EVA report from Kerbin's orbit, has been quite rewarding,

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Let's go on with the next "World's First" contract, "Rendezvouz two vessels in Orbit around Kerbin".

This one goes well together with a rescue operation, so one of the two required vessels for the rendezvouz will already be in orbit.

Here's our vessel we use for this task, it's basically the same as the vessel we used for the first orbit around Kerbin, but it contains an additional "Probodobodyne OKTO" in a service bay, as well as a set of solar panels.

Launching directly to the target. Works perfect, when launching, when KSC is about 30° in front of the target.

Thanks for the rescue :-)

[MechaLynx]

Not sure if it's ok to reply to this kind of thread - if it's inappropriate I'll delete the post

Nice going - I'm doing a hard career myself at the moment (have only managed as far as a Mun flyby, next is the Mun orbit contract) and I can already see trends in how the early parts are handled. I did the same "hopper" kind of vessel (except I named them "Exploiter"s ) and just tonight did the plane runaround of KSC (nice mention of the crew report stacking trick btw, I've been playing for like 200h+ total and I didn't know that lol). I'm playing without saving and reverting (and mod-less) so I build my vessels in career and use a separate sandbox profile to test and practice on them before launching (and when a kerbal dies or is stranded I restart - so far I've restarted 3 times ).

A couple of questions: What do you think of the minor contracts? From what I can tell, you're skipping most of them, as am I. They seem to cost more than they're worth and it also seems a lot more efficient to just go for the major steps (orbits, flybys etc.). How far did you get in your previous hard careers?

By the way, that Mun flyby without patched conics is scary - I do it manually, by eyeballing the lead angle and I had no idea that it wouldn't even show me the encounter, the first time. In the two times I tried it outside of sandbox, I got a 12.5km and 16km periapsis and the first time I panicked when I left the Mun SOI and despite having enough fuel to return, I managed to waste it trying to reduce my re-entry speed and got Valentina stranded . Re-entry heating so far has no been an issue, even when entering at 3.3km/s.

Edited May 8, 2015 by MechaLynx

[MarkusF]

Not sure if it's ok to reply to this kind of thread - if it's inappropriate I'll delete the post

Of course it's okay, i've been waiting for a reply.

What do you think of the minor contracts? From what I can tell, you're skipping most of them, as am I. They seem to cost more than they're worth and it also seems a lot more efficient to just go for the major steps (orbits, flybys etc.)

I think you would always make some money, even with those minor contracts. As soon as the contracts request something like Kerbin or Mun orbit, they reward you a nice amount of money. But I try to avoid them, because they're boring to do. However, if I have to make a flight anyway, I'm trying to get some sidecontracts, which I can do on the flight.

When waiting for the Duna launch window, I think I'm gonna do some tourist contracts with a vessel capable of a Kerbin->Mun->Minmus->Kerbin tour.

How far did you get in your previous hard careers?

In my last career I had a surface outpost on Duna, a vessel that visited Ike's surface was waiting in orbit for a return window to Kerbin, a space station around Eve and a station on its way to Jool.

Here's the thread I had posted about my Duna mission: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119440-Ike-sample-return-probe.

[MechaLynx]

Nice Duna craft, looks pretty solid compared to what I usually make xD

Have you tried to recover discarded stages? I did some testing with the BACC boosters - it works, but it doesn't seem to allow recovering them. A shame, since it would help tons in hard mode to save money.

[GeneCash]

Freakin' BRAVO. I've not done career at all, other than a couple mangled abortive attempts, but this inspires me and gives me some ideas to try.

Golf clap!

[MarkusF]

Nice Duna craft, looks pretty solid compared to what I usually make xD

Have you tried to recover discarded stages? I did some testing with the BACC boosters - it works, but it doesn't seem to allow recovering them. A shame, since it would help tons in hard mode to save money.

There's a mod, that gives you money, if a discarded stage is in atmosphere and contains enough parachuts for a safe touchdown. I used it in 0.9, but I don't know whether it works in 1.0.2, and I wanted to use as few mods as possible, to see, how well a hard career progreses.

Right now, I quite like it. Back in 0.9 you had to do lots of "test in orbit" contracts, in order to make the money to upgrade your facilities, now you're pretty fine due to the large amount of money you get from the "record setting" contracts in the beginning as well as the "Worlds First" contracts. However, especially in a career with hard setting, you have to plan the technology nodes and building upgrades very well.

But now let's get back to the game, I actually played further yesterday, but I haven't posted the screenshots yet.

So after Jeb finished the "Rendevouz two vessels in Orbit" contract, the "World's First" commiteee decided, that it would be time for the first landing on the mun in Kerbal's history.

Back in the 0.9 days, i usually used a probe for the first mun landing, but as we also got a "place flag on the mun" contract, Jeb volunteers to set foot on the Mun. Actually, we were able to grab seven contracts, which we should be able to fullfill on our trip to the Mun.

Here's our rocket, the guys at KSC designed to fullfill this task. Unfortunately we couldn't upgrade our VAB yet, so we are still limited to 30 parts, which forces us to cut some corners. For example, our landing vessel only contains three landing legs instead of four, three tailfins instead of four, only two solar panels, only three strut connectors to connect the thin upper part to the lower part and so on. Our vessel is not really a beauty, but it will do the job.

Unfortunately, i feared, that we could run low on fuel, as we "only" had our final landing stage left when we circulized our orbit around the Mun, so Jeb didn't want to take the risk of running out of fuel, in order to do the inclination change for the survey contract we gathered.

In order to save some fuel for the descent, Jeb decided to land on a high elevation, right to the east of the Farside Crater. (Or East Farside Crater? I'm not sure which one it is, but it's the one with the canyon to the North)

Jeb reduced the periapsis as low as possible, und burned retrograde for the final touchdown, when he orbited the surface with an altitude of less than 400 meters above the surface, and landed at an elevation of 3925m above "sea level".

Unfortunately, Jeb was so occupied by the experience of walking on the Mun and running all those scientific experiments, that he forgot to take a selfie outside his lander, so this is all he got back from there.

Luckily, our high landing spot together with the fuel saving descent left us with enough fuel, to launch into the correct inclination, to take the survey crew report, in order to fullfill all of our 7 contracts.

Next stop: Minmus!

Actually, it's not a stop, it's just a flyby, but we're planning our vessel to have enough fuel, to make it into orbit, in case the "World's first" comittee wants us to orbit it right after the flyby.

Here's the vessel we use for this task, giving us a total delta-v of 4,999m/s. 3600 planned for orbiting kerbin, 950m/s for the intercepting orbit with Minmus, leaving us with about 450m/s to get into Minmus orbit and back to Kerbin, in case we get that contract. Two Material bays (SC-9001 Science Jr., especially new players often ask what a materials bay is, as the name had been changed some time ago) and too goo containers, so can run both, high and low orbit experiments.

That trip had been rather boring, so Jeb had been sleeping most of the time, and was very disappointed when word reached him, that the "World's First" committee wants to see the first docking procedure in space instead of an orbit around Minmus. Instead of letting someone else do this back at Kerbin, while he travels towards Minmus's periapsis, Jeb insisted to be part of the vessel docking procedure, so he returned back home. However, some people say, that his launch into Kerbin's orbit was so inefficient this time, that he wouldn't have had enough fuel to get into orbit and back to Kerbin afterwards anyway...

So now, Jeb and Valentina will have their first contract in which they have to work together as a team. The folks at KSC developed a special docking vessel with thrusters mounted to the side of the main structure, so that a docking port could be placed to the bottom of the crew capsule. Here's the design they came up with:

Meeting in orbit was a pretty easy task, but the first vessel reached orbit with only 68m/s of fuel left, so the decision was made to give Valentina's vessel two additional fuel tanks above the thrusters, in case she has to change her orbit to rendezvouz with Jeb.

Things are going pretty well, and finally the "World's First" guys want us to orbit Minmus, so it's time to get there, using the same vessel Jeb used for the flyby, but without the science experiments.

While Jeb had been orbiting Minmus, Valentina decided to check out the top of the VAB. There are rumors, that there are landing spots for verticaly launching and landing airplanes, even though our engineers have no idea how this could even be possible. The only thing launching verticaly are rockets, and they are not meant to be used for atmospheric flights, the scientists said.

So the next task will be to land on Minmus, together with the side contracts of planting a flag and bringing back scientific data, but not before Valentina wants to check out some rumors about some kind of ancient structure in the deserts of Kerbin. (Don't worry, I won't post the picture in this thread, but only a link to it, so you can decide yourself, whether you want to see it or discover it by yourself)

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Valentina ist still searching for the ancient structure...

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Found it!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439518545

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439518587

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=439518630

[MarkusF]

As we were able to upgrade our VAB and are able to use more than 30 parts, we're able to construct rockets nearly without restrictions.

So here is our vessel, which will bring Jeb to the surface of Minmus:

The descent/ascent thrusters have been moved to the side of the rocket, so that our lander will be shorter, and by this more stable on landing.

Our science equipment (Materials bay and Goo container) will be decoupled when we launch form Minmus surface, this saves us about 150m/s of fuel in the ascent.

The second stage, based on a "Poodle" engine has been decoupled with some fuel left, when we reached a Periapsis of about 40km during the circulization of the orbit, so we avoid to having debris in Kerbin orbit.

We decided to land at Minmus's borth pole. We're gonna visit the other biomes later with a scientist, so we can hop from Biome to Biome and restore our scientific equipment.

Lighting up there is not that good, especially as Jeb wanted a selfie with Kerbin in the background.

Our next task: Fly by the Sun

Actually, we only have to leave Kerbin's SOI and return right back to it. I'd like to take at least Jeb, Bill and Bob with me, as leaving Kerbin's SOI is the only way to get a three star ranking for them.

There's also a task to construct a 5 Person Station in Sun's orbit, let's see if we're able to construct one, which we can lift into orbit. However, we don't have the MainSail engine available yet, so liftoff weight is an issue here.

Okay... Forget what I just said, we also don't have access to the MK1-2 Pod yet and we're 100,000 short of upgrading our research facility, so let's find some comtracts giving a lot of money.

Plan is now, to construct a vehicle with a hitchhiker container, so we're able to carry 4 persons on a roundtrip Kerbin->Mun->Minmus->Kerbin, and fill remaining space with rescued Kerbals from orbits around Mun and Minmus. However we have to take care, not to accept contracts requiring tourist to land on Mun or Minmus, as we don't have a 2 Kerbal lander yet.

[MarkusF]

Okay, so here's my "Kerbin Sightseeing Vessel", but as we didn't find any good tourist contracts we ended up with two rescue operations in Mun and two in Minmus orbit, which are just as good. Let's hope for some scientists, as we're gonna need them later for our science stations, and hiring them is very very expensive.

Actually, this is not the final design. Before launching I realized, that i forgot four additional radial mounted parachutes as well as four solar panels. The langing legs are very important, as the hitchhker module has a crash tolerance of only 6m/s. It has a total fuel amount if 6,222m/s, 3554 of them in the last stage.

The heatshield's ablator has been reduced from 800 to 80 in order to stay within the 160t limit of our launchpad. Let's just hope it will be enough.

Okay, let's start the journey, first picking up the two lost guys from Mun orbit. (Don't forget to mark their vessels as "Debris" before abandoning them if you want them to be around as debris without showing up all the time as "ships")

One of those poor guys is in a rather low, one in a higher orbit. Luckily their going in the same direction, so there's no need for a 180° turn.

Let's plan our orbit injection, so that we're gonna meet with the inner one after one orbit around Mun.

Wohoo, thanks for the rescue. Unfortunately it's not a scientist but a pilot.

Let's plan an interception orbit for the second guy:

And go for Minmus afterwards:

Great, those guys are on a nearly identical orbit close to each other. Let's plan the orbit injection to meet with the one in front. Remember: You are slower in a higher orbit (longer orbital period) and faster in a lower one. As they are in such a low orbit we can easily "slow down" by increasing our apoapsis, but we can't "get faster", as we won't be able to lower our orbit anymore. Therefor go for the one ahead, then increase our orbit so the otherone will catch up with us:

And slightly increase our orbit to meet up with the last one:

Before setting a return course to Kerbin:

Welcome back to Kerbin:

We rescued three pilots and one engineer, no scientists...

Oh, about the ablator we reduced to 80 before the launch: We ended up with 0.12 of them left. Yes, 0.12. I'm not sure, but as far as I know 0 ablator would not mean that the heat-shield is destroyed, but its temperatur would start rising. Anyway, now we can upgrade the research facility as well as the launch pad, so we can increase the ablator for future launches.

[MarkusF]

So, there are a few more thinks we did now:

We rescued three more Kerbals from low Kerbin orbits, and got one scientist. So we have one to put into our solar science station we're gonna put into a solar orbit. I don't want to put Bob into it, as we might need him to go with a science station/outpost to Duna.

Even though we were able to update or research facility, we were short on science points to unlock technologies. We still need the extendable solar panels and larger batteries for our solar science station. Science stations need a lot of energy... Therefore we have to make another trip to Minmus:

This time Bob will go on the trip. We updated the Vessel we used for our first Minmus landing with two more of the very small fuel tanks and added a SAS capable probe core as well.

Sending Bob there, we can hop from Biome to Biome and restore the materials lab and goo container after collecting the data.

Oh oh, Bob isn't that experienced with lower gravity, so he bumped his head into the lander and made it tip over. Luckily the command pod has enough torque to turn it back up again.

But Bob has still been very successfull, all the flags you can see have been placed by him. Bob visited and ran all science experiments in the biomes: Lowlands, Midlands, Slopes, Flats and lesser Flats.

It actually was very very successfull, he gathered 1494.3 science points!

[MechaLynx]

Wow the craft you've made are remarkably similar to my own (most of them) - it seems career mode funnels designs pretty tightly, at least in these beginning stages. My tourist craft is exactly the same, except I have double the fuel in the first liquid stage and a service bay between the command pod and adaptor (and I don't have the landing legs either).

[MarkusF]

Next step: Fly by the sun. In addtion we accepted a contract to put a station into a solar orbit.

As we only have one Scientist except for Bob, named Caldous Kerman, he will be joined by an engineer, so he won't be alone in the station.

The return vehicle (Mk1-2 capsule) is manned by Jeb, Bill, and Bob in order to get a three star rating.

First some pictures from the launch. The fuel distribution works as follow: The lower center engine is fueled by the lower outer ones. The upper outer ones are fueled by the center lower tank (they ignite at about 8km altitude, where the Poodles already have nearly the ISP as the Skippers). The upper center one is fueled by the upper outer ones.

About the stages:

First stage (center lower MainSail + outer lower Skippers): 1202m/s, TWR 1.44

Second Stage (center lower MainSail + outer upper Poodles): 979m/s, TWR: 1.71

Third stage (all three upper Poodles): 1873m/s, TWR: 1.00

Forth stage (center upper Poodle): 2019m/s, TWR: 0.71

So you can see, during the ascent into orbit(stages 1-3) we always have a TWR > 1. Even though two skippers are replaced by two poodles after the first stage the TWR will still be 1.7 at stage separation, but we're using the more fuel efficient and have less engine weight using Poodle engines instead of skippers.

Now the more important part about the mission: As we don't want the Kerbals to be in the station up there forever, we set a new orbit, which brings the station back into Kerbin's SOI after 3 years. We can then launch a vessel to pick the guys up.

HINT: By default, the map view only shows the closest encounter for the next orbit. If you want to see later ones, just place a manouver node somewhere (in the picture it's the one in the upper left) and set it not for the next orbit, but for a later one. The two small buttons on the bottom, when you right click a node are actually "one orbit earlier" and "one orbit later")

After decoupling the station in that orbit it's time to get back home. Let's plan a return using a Mun slingshot to get a reentry course at Kerbin:

HINT: As above, placing additional dummy manouver nodes helps a lot when planing the slingshot. When being still outside of Kerbin's SOI, the map view wouldn't show us our planned orbit after leaving Mun's SOI. By placing a dummy manouver node into the path within Mun's SOI (the red one in the picture) you can force the map view to project the path ahead of leaving the SOI.

Worked pretty well, even though we will have to make a minor course correction when we're in Mun's SOI, in order to get a higher Kerbin periapsis of about 28km.

[MarkusF]

As our last missions took a lot of time, the launch window for Duna comes closer and closer. Right now, we're 80 days away from the perfect time, but if we're willing to spend 200m/s extra, the launch window actuelly starts in about 40 and ends in about 120 days.

The plan for Duna is as follows:

Launch an unmanned probe to Ike, able to land on the surface and return to Kerbin (We have the explore Ike contract)

Launch a surface outpost for Duna (We have a surface outpost contract, as well as a Duna flyby contract. We should get a orbiting and maybe a landing on Duna contract after we fullfill the flyby)

Optional, depending on whether we can get enough money until the launch window arrives:

Launch a return vessel for one of the guys at the Duna surface outpost.

Launch an experimental Glider, able to do some atmospheric flying on Duna. (I've never done something like that ever before, so no idea whether it works)

Maybe a rover for our Duna outpost, in case the glider doesn't really work.

However, we're gonna have to unlock some more technologies for the Duna mission...

In order to get some science points (and get some money as well), we want to place a surface outpost on the Mun (we have a contract for one). Best location would be the crater with the canyon to the north. Landing right at the spot where the crater and canyon meet should put us into a spot where we have access to a large number of biomes. However, in order to build a rover capable of reaching the other biomes we need at least the "Field Science" technology, requiring 300 science points, 210 are available right now. Large solar arrays and large batteries would also be nice for the science outpost, costing another 300 science points. And, if possible, we should unlock "Electronics" to get access to the seismic accelerometer.

So to get the science points required for our outpost and rover, we're first gonna do a landing on the Mun at the Northern Basin biome.

We should also try to get some more scientists, as the only one we have right now is Bob, but we should have two for the Duna mission and at least one for the Mun outpost.

Am I the only one who thinks, that the hiring costs for new Kerbals are a bit too high?

Just for the fun of it, we designed a two stage Mun lander this time, where one part stays in orbit, while the other one goes for a Mun landing, here are some screenshots from the launch:

See those lights we added to our lander? I have no idea whether the norther basin will be in the dark right when we arrive, so better have some to help us at the landing.

[MarkusF]

Landing at the Northern Basin has been fine, even though we ran into a slight problem with our electric charge. Remember to bring some batteries with you when landing in the dark, especially if you have something like MechJeb attached to your vessel, which constantly drains energy.

Separating the two vessels in Mun orbit:

Decoupling the lower fuel tank short before touchdown, doing the final descent on the ascent fuel. Those lights prove to be very useful.

As we were running low on electric charge, we couldn't wait for the right time to launch directly to a rendezvous with our orbiter. Remember: No electric charge -> no reaction wheels and Valentina didn't want to depend on that little RCS fuel we have stored in our capsule. So she decided to launch into an orbit, which will bring her to a rendezvouz after three orbits around the Mun.

Remember that you can set a dummy manouver node for a later orbit, in order to see not only the closest approach with the target for the next orbit, but also for some orbits later.

And let's head back to Kerbin:

But it didn't bring us nearly enough science points as we were hoping for. So it seems we have to do another trip to Minmus. In addition we took three rescue contracts, one in Kerbin orbit, two around Minmus, which means we have to modify our Hitchhiker vessel to also contain a Minmus lander for a single Kerbal.

[MarkusF]

A lot of things happened in the last few days. First there was a trip to Minmus. I don't want to talk too much about it, but let me just tell you I created a 2-part vessel, where 1 part stayed in orbit while a 2-Kerbal lander went down for Minmus. The lander has then been left behind in an equatorial orbit around Minmus, in order to use it again in the future.

Because of the service bay's high crash tolerance, we decided that there was no need for landing legs:

Next mission was to create a surface outpost on Mun. We created a two-part outpost, which had to be assembled into the correct configuration in Mun orbit. Here's a picture of the outpost during the cruise:

The part to the right has to be turned by 90° and then docked to the part with the science lab.

But as a science outpost without a rover wouldn't be complete, let's send one up there. Unfortunately we didn't have 2.5m fairings available yet, so we had to do it without. It had been a horrible launch into Kerbin orbit. Even though we centered the rover's connection point right below the center of mass, the slightly off center of drag was causing a lot of problems. But actually it somehow worked and we got it to our Mun outpost:

Now we had to get Jeb and one scientist, as well as the scientific data, back to Kerbin. Let me just tell you, that it has been one of my worst misisions ever. Just like on Minmus before, we used a combination of a Mun orbiter and a 2-Kerbal Mun lander.

Everything was fine, until I wanted to checked whether my staging is correct for the parachutes, short before diving into Kerbin's atmosphere. Damn, someone at VAB forgot to put them onto the vessel. Luckily we had about 500m/s of fuel left to get into a slightly eccentric and highly inclined Kerbin orbit. Okay, first a rescue mission to bring the two Kerbals back to Kerbin. Like so often, when meeting up with our lost vessel, I realized that I forgot to keep two seats empty for the guys from the Mun to board the vessel... Ok, let's send another vessel. Everything was fine, until we realized that we forgot the bring the science data with us. Must still be in Kerbin orbit, so let's get up there again. When meeting with the vessel... ... ... No science data... Oh no, it's still in the Mun lander in Mun orbit, so I had to fly there again, to get the data back to Kerbin.

But now something more interesting: The beginning of the launch window for Duna is only a few days away, so we designed the "Return to Kerbin"-probe for Ike, as well as a Duna surface outpost.

First the Ike probe:

This whole part will make the return and land back on Kerbin later. The upper part, above the docking nodes, will land on Ike and return to the rest afterwards.

This is the vessel which brings the probe to Ike and later back to Kerbin:

And now our Duna outpost:

First, let me show you a picture of the return vessel to get Jeb back to Kerbin. It will be mounted on top of the oupost during launch, cruise and reentry, and will be decoupled short before landing to touchdown on its own close to the outpost:

Next the outpost itself:

Note that all science experiments are available twice, so that we can get a copy of all experiments when "flying" in low atmosphere. One copy to transmit right after touchdown, and one copy for Jeb to bring back later.

In the upper atmosphere we're still able to do EVA's, so we can get the data out of the experiments, so that they're available later for low atmosphere.

As we want to send more stuff towards Duna later, the outpost already contains some liquid fuel and oxidizer as well as some RCS fuel. I have no idea about how many parachuts will be required, so let's just take a lot of them with us. We also added some small engines, in case we have to slow down the descent for touchdown.

And here's the launcher, which will bring our outpost, as well as Jeb's return vehicle to Duna:

(Total partcount: 255)

Oh, and here's a screenshot of how it will look until we decouple the two parts in lower atmosphere:

[MarkusF]

Let me update you on my Duna surface outpost mission. The mission has been pretty successfull, even though I was wrong about the elevation of the designated landing area. I thought, that the dark areas on Duna are all lowlands, but it seems they have higher elevations within them. It was a struggle to run all required science experiments in lower atmosphere in addition with deploying the chutes and decoupling the return vessel, before crashing into the terrain. The return vessel's chutes had been set to fully deploy a bit higher then the oupost's, so that it gets some distance. Unfortunately, it ended up a bit too far away (2km), but the outpost's six 24-77 engines had a TWR of slighly above 1, so that I've been able to relocate the oupost to the return vessel.

Due to the high elevation of the landing site (3km) our outpost came down pretty fast, which broke the landing legs on the back. Those legs seem to be a bit shortened now, but they still work.

The outpost in Kerbin orbit:

Arriving at Duna:

Preparing for the descent:

Now let's wait for our Ike probe to arrive at Duna's SOI.

[MarkusF]

After a bit of timewarping, the Ike probe arrived at the Duna system, so we're ready to plan the manouvers required to get us into a stable Ike orbit.

We wouldn't even have to do a burn in Ike's SOI, as our path gets us caught into a stable Ike orbit on its own. However, I will increase our speed at the green node by about 1m/s, as we're having a fly by contract for Ike right now and we wouldn't have a chance to get a "Orbit Ike" contract afterwards otherwise.

Note that the green Node is set for +2 orbits, as Ike is on the other side of the system when we arrive.

- - - Updated - - -

If anyone is actually reading my thread, I'd be happy to get some feedback :-D

[MarkusF]

Here are some pictures from the Ike landing:

Decoupling the lander in orbit:

[jake9039]

looks cool!

[MarkusF]

While Jeb is waiting on Duna for the launch window back to Kerbin, he decided it would be nice to fly to Ike, in order to plant a flag.

Actually, I want Jeb to seet foot onto every body in the system, so it would be a waste of time to fly him back to Kerbin and back to Ike, later. But as his return vessel wouldn't be able to make a detour via Ike surface, we have to send him another lander, so he can board it in Ike orbit. Later he can dock to the return vessel for the Ike probe and use it for a return to Kerbin, as there would be no need to return the unmanned Ike lander, as Jeb can just grab the science report.

However, the next launch window to Duna will be long after the launch window for the return trip. In order to send a vessel which will arrive before the return launch window, it must have at least 5400m/s for Kerbin ejection and Duna injection. It might be a bit less, as we're not going into a low Duna, but an Ike orbit, but to be safe we just bring a bit more fuel. So here it is, the "Ike Lander Express Delivery", having a dv of 5,800m/s in the cruise stage:

[MarkusF]

Next stop: Eve and Gilly!

The following missions are planned:

• Two orbital survey scanners, one for Eve, one for Gilly
  
• An orbital science station including 1500 units of Monopropellant fuel (in order to fullfill a station contract)
  
• An unmanned Eve lander
  
• An unmanned Gilly lander
  

The two survey scanners will launch at the beginning of the launch window, each one in its own rocket:

The station, as well as the two landers will launch together in a rocket, at the perfect time within the launch window.

First the Eve lander. Before going all the way down to Eve's surface, it will first slightly touch the upper atmosphere and bring the experiment reports then back to the station. After that it will land on the surface and transmit all the collected data from lower atmosphere and surface.

Next is the Gilly lander. It will fly from the station to Gilly and transmit all science from high and low orbit as well as from the surface directly to Kerbin.

Last but not least the orbital station itself. Nothing special, but a lot of weight due to the two large Monopropellant tanks:

And here's the rocket which brings the two landers and the station to Eve. I removed the fairings, so you can see the rocket configuration. Oh and ignore the two structural pylons mounted slightly above the nuclear engines, I have a contract asking me to test them in Eve orbit.

[MarkusF]

Our orbital survey scanners have arrived at Eve. The one supposed to scan Eve is already in its final orbit, the one for Gilly is waiting in a high Eve orbit for an interception with Gilly. This one has to wait anyway, as we don't have the "Explore Gilly" contract yet, so we don't want to get into Gilly's SOI right now. In order to get that contract, we're gonna have to fullfill one of our already accepted three star contracts, which can be done as soon as the station arrives.

[MarkusF]

By now, our station has arrived in Eve orbit, too. First we launched the Eve lander, lowered its periapsis a few hundred meters into Eve's atmosphere, returned it back to the station to retrieve the upper atmosphere experiments, before we've landed it on Eve's surface:

We've separated the cruise thrusters while at full throttle facing retrograde, so they've burned up in Eve's atmosphere.

Decoupling the Eve lander:

Valentina's return vessel has also arrived at the station with a replacement pilot.

Unfortunately, the "Explore Gilly" contract hasn't appeared yet, even though there are two 3-star contracts available. I checked the savegame, we haven't had an encounter with Gilly yet, and we can trigger the explore contract via the Debug console... Maybe we just need a higher reputation, in order to trigger another exploration contract, so let's do some other contracts now. Oh but first about the current schedule:

• In 220 days Jeb's return capsule will arrive at Duna's SOI
  
• In 270 days: Launch window Duna->Kerbin
  
• In 300 days: Launch window Kerbin->Jool
  
• In 330 days: Launch window Kerbin->Duna
  
• In 430 days: Launch window Kerbin->Eve
  
• In 1 year, 40 days: Launch window Eve->Kerbin
  

For the next launch-window to Duna, we accepted a contract asking for fly bys of Mun, Minmus, Duna and Ike using a single vessel, so we started an ion propulsion based probe, fly by Mun and Minmus and put it into a high Kerbin orbit until the launch window for Duna.