The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge - 1.0 to 1.3

[Nefrums]

On 2016-04-28 at 0:38 AM, sdj64 said:

First things first... @Nefrums, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1 with a low mass of 12.51 tons!  Great entry and improvement on your previous entry in 1.0.5.  You and the other low-mass contenders really have the design down to a science.  I'm tempted to try it with a tiny LFO Vall lander instead of ions, which would save on batteries and maybe get away with just one ion engine.  That may need more fuel for the Rapier to circularize though.

Thanks!

I have tried a tiny LF lander for val, but the problem with that is that it get heavier than using the same ion lander for all the small moons. You could maybe reuse the Vall lander as last stage of a Tylo lander,

 

[Nefrums]

I think I figured out how to do this challenge with only 3 engines. 

[Barefoot Friar]

I had said I was going to do this in 1.0.4, but real life got in the way.  I'm about to start building and testing my Tylo lander in 1.1.2 to try again.  I've got a good idea for Laythe, too, that I like better than the one I have now.  I am probably going to do a full blog with mission reports as part of this.

Is there anything else I need to do before I go rocketing off into the wild blue yonder?

 

[Tangle]

Wait, what does that first post say? Mainly use only the mods in red? Okay!

 

Stay tuned... 

Edited May 5, 2016 by Tangle

[JacobJHC]

For the grand tour option can I have the ship launch and drag an eve lander then come back and dock to Jool landers it left? It would be only one launch I would just go back to Kerbin with the main ship to redock to what I left there.

[Barefoot Friar]

Question about a mod:

May I please use NecroBones' Lithobrake Exploration Technologies?  I am specifically interested in the ladders, though the landing legs are nice, too.

Thanks for the help.

[Crazy-Engineer]

1 hour ago, Barefoot Friar said:

Question about a mod:

May I please use NecroBones' Lithobrake Exploration Technologies?  I am specifically interested in the ladders, though the landing legs are nice, too.

Thanks for the help.

This could prove useful for huge eve landers.
Also what about Ven's Stock Part Revamp? its basically stock

Edited May 6, 2016 by Crazy-Engineer

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Still curious as to why we aren't allowed a refueling mission while ISRU is in effect. Even mining missions can get stranded, ya know?

[Crazy-Engineer]

Fully stock Tylo SSTO on paper, haven't had the time to test it yet in 1.1.x but works in 1.0.5 from an ASL of above 4km

Note: the only mod used by THIS lander is Ven's Stock Part Revamp which re-textures stock parts.

[Barefoot Friar]

1.1.2 is crashing way, way too often to be useable, and I'm getting so frustrated that it's no fun anymore. I'm going to go back to 1.0.5 until the devs fix it.

If I cannot submit my entry in 1.0.5, then I will still have the satisfaction of having done it myself. And actually it will be more challenging since I was counting on using the new 10m heatshields for aerobraking.

Also, I'm still waiting on an answer to whether or not I can use NecroBones' Lithobraking Exploration Technologies mod. (Linked above in my previous post.) Anyone?

Edited May 10, 2016 by Barefoot Friar

[Nefrums]

18 hours ago, Barefoot Friar said:

1.1.2 is crashing way, way too often to be useable, and I'm getting so frustrated that it's no fun anymore. I'm going to go back to 1.0.5 until the devs fix it.

If I cannot submit my entry in 1.0.5, then I will still have the satisfaction of having done it myself. And actually it will be more challenging since I was counting on using the new 10m heatshields for aerobraking.

Also, I'm still waiting on an answer to whether or not I can use NecroBones' Lithobraking Exploration Technologies mod. (Linked above in my previous post.) Anyone?

strange I don't experience that 1.1.2 creches a lot, I have had 2 caches in 20+ hours. Might be mod related.

You'll probably have to wait with the rules question until @sdj64 gets back from his trip on may 20.

 

 

On 2016-05-08 at 10:48 AM, Crazy-Engineer said:

Fully stock Tylo SSTO on paper, haven't had the time to test it yet in 1.1.x but works in 1.0.5 from an ASL of above 4km

 Nice lander,  I think you might get better performance with more twr and less dV.

I have a working lander now with just over 4k dV + 600 dV from EVA. 

[Barefoot Friar]

1 hour ago, Nefrums said:

strange I don't experience that 1.1.2 creches a lot, I have had 2 caches in 20+ hours. Might be mod related.

You'll probably have to wait with the rules question until @sdj64 gets back from his trip on may 20.

I apologize. I didn't catch that he was away.

As for the crashing, it may be mod related, but my unscientific testing doesn't seem to bear that out. I started with a completely bare inststall and worked from there, with no results. But this isn't the thread for that, so I may go post on the support thread.

[Crazy-Engineer]

2 hours ago, Nefrums said:

Nice lander,  I think you might get better performance with more twr and less dV.

I have a working lander now with just over 4k dV + 600 dV from EVA. 

Well tats one way to go but I like to keep them kerbals inside pods while doing orbital maneuvers and such

I wonder if I can re-use the tylo lander for the rest of the joolian moons (except laythe)? would the TWR be OP?

[Nefrums]

2 hours ago, Crazy-Engineer said:

Well tats one way to go but I like to keep them kerbals inside pods while doing orbital maneuvers and such

I wonder if I can re-use the tylo lander for the rest of the joolian moons (except laythe)? would the TWR be OP?

 

More twr is always better!

You might be able to use it for all the joolian moons, if you add some chutes on decouplers and do Laythe first.

Try adding 2 or 4 aerospikes and see if it makes landing on tylo easier. The increased twr might make up for the loss in dV. It will certainly make Laythe easier.

[Crazy-Engineer]

I have a SSTO plane  for laythe

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Crazy-Engineer said:

I wonder if I can re-use the tylo lander for the rest of the joolian moons (except laythe)? would the TWR be OP?

The TWR of your Tylo lander would be high for Vall, and ridiculous for Pol and Bop. However, I'm pretty sure if you park in high Tylo orbit, you can do all 3 of those moons with your stageable Tylo lander just coming back to the mothership each time to refuel. You may even be able to do Pol and Bop in one go. And all you need do is thrust limit the engines to reasonable levels. It's technically "bringing more engine than you need" but that's better than bringing an entire other lander all the way to Jool.

When I'm done with my ISRU-fueled Grand Tour, I'm thinking of doing another Non-ISRU Jool-5 in the post-1.0 world and trying to do all 5 moons with a single lander. The trick, as you parenthetically alluded to, is Laythe

Edited May 11, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[regex]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

trying to do all 5 moons with a single lander. The trick, as you parenthetically alluded to, is Laythe

One word: Trajectories.  Everything else is just extra mass.  That would be my strategy, anyway.

Tylo and Laythe are on my bucket list of unfinished stock/vanilla stuff, I think I might try this one out.

Edited May 11, 2016 by regex

[Nefrums]

5,4k dV  should be enough to do all three in one go.  But note that it is relay hard to return and dock with a chip that is in a high elliptic orbit around another moon.  You will have to get the intercept just right to avoid spending lots and lots of dV to match orbits.

Laythe is the hardest to take of from when not using air breathing engines. But as you can land with chutes you have all of the fuel left for the ascent. 

 

I have made no less then three more attempts at this challenge since my last entry, I just cant stop trying to improve my designs. 

First failed on Vall, second on Laythe, the third had way to much fuel.

I just managed to get another ship to LKO after like 20 attempts.    Now lets se if I can move it from LKO to Laythe orbit for 1050 m/s dV at 0,03 twr...

[Mesklin]

 

 

20 hours ago, Nefrums said:

I just managed to get another ship to LKO after like 20 attempts.    Now lets se if I can move it from LKO to Laythe orbit for 1050 m/s dV at 0,03 twr...

I am pretty sure you are using one ion engine, only one question: what is start weight of your ship? I am also prepared ship with less then 11t, between us, it looks like Jool obsession.

[Nefrums]

2 hours ago, Mesklin said:

I am pretty sure you are using one ion engine, only one question: what is start weight of your ship? I am also prepared ship with less then 11t, between us, it looks like Jool obsession.

It is clearly jool obsession.

How far have you come in your attempt

I don't have a fully working ship right now, but I think the three engine design could work.  I never actually managed to land on vall but it should be possible. 

The first ship was below 11 t, but that failed Vall, when I fixed the ion lander it could no longer complete the circulation burn on Laythe..

I have learned a lot over the attempts,

• Optimal ejection time from Kerbin is around y2d155 01:25 at a 2 degrees to prograde. then flying LKO->Muun->Eve->Kerbin->Kerbin->Tylo->Laythe  I think this in theory could be done for just over 1k dV.
• You need more air intakes than you think. I discovered that with two radial ramp intakes the Rapier dropped to 60% in the later stages of the ascent, above 15km.  You can see this by right clicking the Rapier and looking at "requirements met".
• Oscar-B is the best nosecone above 10 km. 
• Fairings are heavy, but it is worth extra mass to make the fairings more pointy.
• Spark outperforms Ant on Tylo in all my tests. => twr > dV

 

Fun fact: I'm over 200 on the quick save counter in a save crated in 1.1.2 for the Jool 5 attempts

Edited May 13, 2016 by Nefrums

[Kertech]

About to attempt this for the first time (once my eve mission is done (this could take a while) ) Any tips for a joolian newbie (despite a year and a half of playing ksp!)?

[Nefrums]

1 hour ago, Kertech said:

About to attempt this for the first time (once my eve mission is done (this could take a while) ) Any tips for a joolian newbie (despite a year and a half of playing ksp!)?

Lots but to keep it simple.

1. Make sure your landers work before starting. Hyperedit is good for testing them.
2. Bring lots of dV
3. Aerobrake at Laythe when arriving at jool.  Try to intercept Laythe close to your jool Pe.  Use the inflatable heatshield and keep it for the return trip where it will help with aerobraking at Kerbin.
4. Use Airbreathing engins on Laythe.
5. Have a tug to bring your tylo lander to low tylo orbit and leave your mothership in a high eliptic orbit.   As going from high to low tylo orbit is ~800dV. It saves a lot of fuel to not drag your entire mothership down to low tylo orbit
6. Make a Vall lander and reuse it for bop and pol.
7. Keep landers as small as possible.
8. Do Laythe and Tylo first so you can discard the heavy landers so you don't need to drag them around the jool system.

[Mesklin]

9 hours ago, Nefrums said:

How far have you come in your attempt

Not so far in my second attempt, I finished second Kerbin flyby - my ship hit Jool SOI and now time to hit Tylo SOI by the right way.

In my first try I successfully landed on Laythe (after my first "super" flyby's travel) and then founded very bad thing: my ion bike does not have enough batteries for achieve Laythe orbit (arrgh ).

 

[Nefrums]

26 minutes ago, Mesklin said:

Not so far in my second attempt, I finished second Kerbin flyby - my ship hit Jool SOI and now time to hit Tylo SOI by the right way.

In my first try I successfully landed on Laythe (after my first "super" flyby's travel) and then founded very bad thing: my ion bike does not have enough batteries for achieve Laythe orbit (arrgh ).

 

This is exactly what happened in my seccond atempt! I spent some time trying to tweak the ion scooter to be able to both land on vall and circulate on Laythe. The simple and lightest solution i found was to instead bring another 50kg of LF for the Rapier on Laythe.

I just set a new personal record 1024.5 m/s for LKO to Laythe orbit!

Edited May 13, 2016 by Nefrums

[Crazy-Engineer]

The most challenging part for me is tat i have this NO Littering extraterrestrial planets thing, so i almost always go for SSTO's
I always like a challenging gameplay, dark souls 3 anyone?
And as for completing the challenge both ways (ISRU and Non-ISRU) does tat mean u get to keep 2 badges?