Planning my first trip to EVE, tips please?

[Elok]

So I've just accepted a bunch of quest on Eve without really knowing what I was dealing with. After a quick read of the wiki, I've found out that with it's gravity and atmosphere, Eve seem to be hardest to escape than Kerbal....not good.

So I'm coming here for advice to plan a mission and to Eve and back since most Eve guide doesn't take into account the latest changes (1.0.2).

Here's my skill tree :

[-Velocity-]

With that tech tree and your probable game skill/experience level, I wouldn't bother trying to bring anyone back from the surface of Eve just yet. You probably don't NEED to drop anyone off there anyway, unless you accepted EVA report/Sample/plant flag/crew report missions.

As long as you did not accept missions that require a Kerbal to go down to the surface of Eve, you're probably better off launching a large "mother ship" with a bunch of cheap, detachable probes. Put your mothership into a polar orbit, and then launch a probe down when you line up with a temperature/pressure/seismic reading/whatever node. I've done this before, it works pretty well, and it is cost effective- you only need a small amount of fuel on each probe, and some simple instruments. It can be sometimes be difficult hitting the targets though from orbit though, you'll need to save and try again until you get it. Alternatively, you might be able to create a probe with WINGS and thus have it fly/glide to its measuring target.

However, if you absolutely have to land Kerbals on the surface, simply leave them down there until you acquire the tech and know-how to bring them back up. I'm assuming you haven't unlocked the aerospike engine yet; if you have, there might be hope. However, they nerfed the crap out of engines with 1.0.0, and it might be incredibly hard now to to bring Kerbals up from sea level (it used to be reasonably doable). You'll probably need to give your Kerbals a rover and drive them up to a high altitude launch site where you'll have an ascent vehicle waiting for them. Remember, you wouldn't even need to send the rover now, send them a rover when you send them the ascent vehicle.

Oh and if you only have like one contract that requires you to send actual Kerbals down, you can cancel it... cancelling a contract isn't that bad, usually at least.

Edited May 18, 2015 by |Velocity|

[cybersol]

Seriously, don't plan on an Eve return unless you want your whole game to become all about that single thing. But if you are still feeling machositic, from what I've read there are basically only three viable engines deep inside Eve: Aerospike, Mammoth, and to a lesser extent Mainsail.

[Oafman]

Eve is easy to get to, so I would definitely send a mission. It's a simple burn from Kerbin, given that it's SoI is so big, and you can aerobrake on arrival to save fuel for your return. The burn to depart Eve is significantly more expensive than the burn to leave Kerbin, so plan accordingly.

Don't even consider sending Kerbals to the surface. Even with the new aero, successful ascent is still very hard, at any tech level. But you could send down a probe, assuming you have the tech, to transmit data back. Don't forget a heat shield.

There is still the chance for a flag-planting ceremony though. Landing on Gilly is very simple, it has so little gravity that you can do it with RCS. Getting to Gilly from Eve orbit isn't straightforward, as it is on quite an inclined and eccentric orbit, but you'll manage it with a little thought. A good option is using a small ship to go to Gilly and land, rather than taking your whole interplanetary ship from Eve orbit.

This mission, without a Kerbal landing on Eve, will still yield a ton of science.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Oafman