The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge - 1.0 to 1.3

[JacobJHC]

Update #2

The Joolius Caesar V has entered elliptical Laythe orbit. I think I over-engineered the mission as I still have 200 mps left in my launch stage, which is still attached.

[septemberWaves]

So is Near Future Electrical allowed now? I think I remember it being banned in the past, but I don't see it on the new list of prohibited mods.

Not that I need it for what I want to try in 1.2. I have a new idea for a M.O.L.E.-based Jool 5 that will mostly use early technology, and hopefully it'll be small enough compared to my previous ideas that I'll be able to actually accomplish it rather than finding a huge critical flaw in the late testing stages.

[DustInTheWind]

@sdj64, I'm currently trying a grand tour. A refueling mission was launched concurrently with the main ship, and my mother ship was refueled in Tylo orbit. I've landed on the Joolian moons, Eeloo, and Dres, but I'm down to 5000 dV after Dres. I could finish the grand tour, but would need to send more parts and fuel to Duna and Eve. Would this disqualify me? if so, I can fork my save and return to Kerbin. I'm trying to knock this out with the Ultimate Challenge in the same go, so forking my save is not a big issue.

[sdj64]

4 hours ago, DustInTheWind said:

@sdj64, I'm currently trying a grand tour. A refueling mission was launched concurrently with the main ship, and my mother ship was refueled in Tylo orbit. I've landed on the Joolian moons, Eeloo, and Dres, but I'm down to 5000 dV after Dres. I could finish the grand tour, but would need to send more parts and fuel to Duna and Eve. Would this disqualify me? if so, I can fork my save and return to Kerbin. I'm trying to knock this out with the Ultimate Challenge in the same go, so forking my save is not a big issue.

You should fork your save if you depend on more parts and refueling later on.  Someone actually did this before, doing the Ultimate Challenge but forking their save to complete the Jool 5 as well.

 

17 hours ago, eloquentJane said:

So is Near Future Electrical allowed now? I think I remember it being banned in the past, but I don't see it on the new list of prohibited mods.

Not that I need it for what I want to try in 1.2. I have a new idea for a M.O.L.E.-based Jool 5 that will mostly use early technology, and hopefully it'll be small enough compared to my previous ideas that I'll be able to actually accomplish it rather than finding a huge critical flaw in the late testing stages.

Yes, many mods are allowed now that were once banned.

[DustInTheWind]

Thanks for the head's up @sdj64...

Jool 5 in 1.2 complete: Level 1, modded.

Informational Mods used: MJ, KER, DPAI, Precise Node 

Parts Mods: Modular Fuel Tanks, Near Future Spacecraft (for the low-profile lander engine, and 5-way RCS blocks), and the Official 1.25M parts pack for the pretty new Mk1 Pod. ( @Porkjet really knocked it out of the park on this one)

Jeb did this really long mission all on his lonesome. (Okay, the folks at KSC helped build the ships)

Two launches: Mothership with landers, and a tanker. 

Total cost: 1,670,784 funds at launch and -627,270 for completing a contract to plant a flag on Eeloo, for a total cost of 1,043,514.

Total dV: I really tried to track this, but transferring fuel to the nuke lander five times made this difficult. Plus, I might have forgotten to track for Pol and Bop since it was late at night....

Albums: ARGH!!!    Imgur put everything out of order AFTER I spent two hours getting everything in order

Launch, Joolian moons, Eeloo, and Dres.     

Dres to Kerbin

Albums are back in order...

This was fun once I figured out what I was doing wrong on Laythe on my previous attempt (Don't enter the atmosphere too shallow). I could have easily done it without the refueling tanker if I had skipped Eeloo and Dres...

 

Edited October 31, 2016 by DustInTheWind
Imgur album update

[JessShadowheart]

Hey everyone,

I decided to try my hand on a Jool 5 mission and here is the outcome:

6 Kerbals went to jool and some quickloads later returned to Kerbin safe and sound.

Mods used: Mechjeb and GravityTurn (another ascend guidance).

Some pictures of the trip can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/Hv9yu

I guess this qualifyes as a level 3 entry to the chalenge.

 

 

[JacobJHC]

1 hour ago, JessShadowheart said:

Hey everyone,

I decided to try my hand on a Jool 5 mission and here is the outcome:

6 Kerbals went to jool and some quickloads later returned to Kerbin safe and sound.

Mods used: Mechjeb and GravityTurn (another ascend guidance).

Some pictures of the trip can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/Hv9yu

I guess this qualifyes as a level 3 entry to the chalenge.

 

 

Very nice, I liked the nuclear plane thing to get them back to Kerbin and land. At first I thought it was the Laythe lander lol.

[sdj64]

@DustInTheWind Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1!  I like your mothership design and your multipurpose nuclear lander.  Good luck on the rest of your grand tour.

 

@JessShadowheart Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3!  Thanks for choosing the Jool 5 challenge for your first KSP Forum post!  The divide and conquer strategy was creative but led to a confusing imgur album, but I think I understand everything that happened.  There are no pictures of the various landers returning to the nuclear plane, but it's clear they have enough delta V to do it.

[KerbalKore]

@sdj64 you may want to add alcubiere warp drive mod to prohibited mods. 

[JessShadowheart]

Hey again,

7 hours ago, sdj64 said:

 

@JessShadowheart Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3!  Thanks for choosing the Jool 5 challenge for your first KSP Forum post!  The divide and conquer strategy was creative but led to a confusing imgur album, but I think I understand everything that happened.  There are no pictures of the various landers returning to the nuclear plane, but it's clear they have enough delta V to do it.

 

@sdj64 You are right the album didn't turn out to be easy to read.

So for all those that want a little extra information about it I will give a mission description here (I will try to do it in the same order as the images).

• First step was to launch a giant vehicle into space. The Faring around the Tylo lander and the return plane was wide enough to also shield the other 4 siedes of the ship (i.e. the other landers) on ascend.
• The ship consists of the following:
  • 3 landers for Val, Bop and Pol (3 times same lander design, one is sitting on a bit of extra fuel which balances the weight of the Laythe plane).
  • A plane to land on Laythe
  • A plane which will return the Crew home
  • A "big" Tylo lander
• Ship flyes to Jool and does a giant extra orbit (because someone forgot to set up another maneuver node).
• Then a highly excentric Tylo orbit is established.
• After shuffeling the Kerbals and the leftover fuel around the ship splits apart. The bottom units of the Val, Bop and Pol Landers are discarded, the return plane stays in the current orbit.
• Bop, Pol and Val landers go to the respective moons.
• The Laythe plane still sitting on the engine of the main ship (and its return device) get send to Laythe. A little mixup made it neccesarry to change the Laythe orbit from a 180° inclination to a 0° before lowering the orbit. Then the return device was left in a low orbit and the plane was moved into the athmosphere as the last act of the engine and fuel tank from the starting ship. Flag is planted on Val and the plane manages to reach the return device. Some pilot errors later the return device is left in a Tylo orbit with a few dVs left and needs to wait for a close aproach of the return ship. So the rest of the mission comences.
• Tylo lander is brought into a low orbit by another fuel tank and engine of the starting ship. The lander does its thing. At the end of the descent the 3 major fuel tanks have to be jettisoned, otherwise twr would be to low to make a safe landing. Ascent is pretty uneventfull, so is meeting the return plane.
• Landing on Val Bop and Pol are uneventfull and the return is easy. Sidenote:
  • You can see the delta V stats for the last stage of every ascend vessel in the picture where the Laythe plane meets the return device.
  • The landers have a little design flaw. The bottom tank is the root part, which makes the deltaVs for the last stage not show up correctly and also messes with maneuver nodes when staging..
• After the Kerbals that have returned from Bop, Pol and Val have met the return plane, the poor soul that returned from Laythe still needs to get there. After expanding the last dVs of the return device and a little maneuvering of the return plane, the eva pack is used to travel the last few km to the return plane.
• Return plane leaves Tylo orbit, does a gravity assist with Laythe and gets parked in a Jool orbit (closer to Jool than Laythe).
• At the next transfer window the return plane starts its long voyage home.
• Back at Kerbin 1500dV allow the ship to enter an highly excentric orbit.
• A little retrograde thrust at apoapsis lowers the periapsis to about 60 km so breaking can be done over a couple of orbits instead of all at once.
• finaly the plane descends and makes a water landing (propably could have made a landing at the spaceport, but it was to late in the evening )

[DerekL1963]

@sdj64 - all done!  Log thread here!

[JessShadowheart]

@DerekL1963 : A nice Mission you flew there. The massive scale got me thinking about doing a jebs Level entry.

[JacobJHC]

11 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

@sdj64 - all done!  Log thread here!

Great job. I really liked your landers for Tylo and Laythe. They were large, yet basic and the Tylo one on it's own just looked powerful. Welcome to the Jool 5 completionist club.

[IncongruousGoat]

Hello! This challenge was just so much fun I had to do it again, albeit this time on Level 3.

May I present: Project Ganymede II, now with 1/3 the parts, 1/4 the mass, 1/2 the cost, and 133.7% the panache!

Imgur album is here: http://imgur.com/a/E8RY4

I took the divide and conquer approach, although I deviated from what seems to be the norm by parking my mothership in low Vall orbit, instead of the usual elliptical Tylo orbit. I justify this by a: the ease of reaching low Vall orbit, the ease of rendezvous, and most of all the ease of securing the Vall landing. You know, the one that's often squeezed in sideways in most missions? Plus, it allowed me to balance the Tylo transfer stage and Laythe transfer stage on the way to Jool, making construction and piloting that much easier.

Admittedly, the nature of a divide-and-conquer mission is such that the mission gets a bit hard to follow, especially at the point when I'm flying three of the legs at once. See, people, this is what happens when you try and be clever.

The mission was done in a fresh sandbox save

Total cost:345, 032

Part count: 249

Mass at launch: 546.529 t

Payload mass: 109.409 t

Mission duration: 9y 330d

[JacobJHC]

@IncongruousGoat Excellent mission. I like your small nerv powered boosters that moved the landers, I have also experimented with booster like that. I also liked your ion craft. Good job on your second submission, in fact my second is halfway done. Cheers.

[IncongruousGoat]

1 hour ago, JacobJHC said:

@IncongruousGoat Excellent mission. I like your small nerv powered boosters that moved the landers, I have also experimented with booster like that. I also liked your ion craft. Good job on your second submission, in fact my second is halfway done. Cheers.

Thanks! I'm considering adapting those small boosters into some sort of super-re-configurable modular interplanetary transfer system. Maybe once I get around to finally doing an extensive colonization project.

Oh, and best of luck with your attempt. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

[DerekL1963]

17 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Hello! This challenge was just so much fun I had to do it again, albeit this time on Level 3.

Nice!  Still waiting on the ruling on my first, but considering Jeb's Level as the goal of my upcoming Science mode campaign.

Curious as to why you didn't use Kerbal Alarm Clock to keep track of everything though.

[IncongruousGoat]

Just now, DerekL1963 said:

Nice!  Still waiting on the ruling on my first, but considering Jeb's Level as the goal of my upcoming Science mode campaign.

Curious as to why you didn't use Kerbal Alarm Clock to keep track of everything though.

As far as I know, it hasn't been updated yet. Then again, the entirety of my looking consists of a quick scan of CKAN. The grand majority of my KSP experience is with a stock install, so that's what I gravitate towards. This is also the reason I did it without KER and/or MechJeb, or anything else for that matter.

[sdj64]

@DerekL1963 Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 2!  I like the rugged and relatively low part count designs.  Sorry for the delay, I had lots of stuff going on this week.

@IncongruousGoat Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3!  Your design is impressively small and I see some inspiration from previous low-mass challenge entries in your landers.  I like the transfer stages on your Tylo and Laythe landers, and that they were balanced despite looking very asymmetric.

 

 

@Bill the Kerbal I have added warp drives to the banned mod list, good catch.

[DerekL1963]

Just now, sdj64 said:

 Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 2!  I like the rugged and relatively low part count designs.  Sorry for the delay, I had lots of stuff going on this week.

Thanks!  I figured it was something like that, my earlier comment wasn't meant to imply anything other than simply "I was waiting", I hope you didn't take it otherwise.

[IncongruousGoat]

1 hour ago, sdj64 said:

@IncongruousGoat Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3!  Your design is impressively small and I see some inspiration from previous low-mass challenge entries in your landers.  I like the transfer stages on your Tylo and Laythe landers, and that they were balanced despite looking very asymmetric.

Honestly, I haven't looked at the low-mass ones, other than Nefrums' (which are a bit hard to draw inspiration from due to their degree of sophistication). The Tylo lander is something I put together months ago for a mission that never flew, and the Laythe one was just built with the parameters of A: Use jet engines (RAPIER) and B: don't mass much more than 5t (the mass of the Tylo lander) for balance reasons.
I guess I've just practiced building low-mass landers enough that I can do it fairly well.

[KerbalKore]

4 hours ago, sdj64 said:

 

@Bill the Kerbal I have added warp drives to the banned mod list, good catch.

. Thanks.

 

[-DDD-]

Hi! I'm trying the level 1 for the first time, Is it ok to disable the CommNetwork?

Edited November 5, 2016 by -DDD-

[JacobJHC]

I finally finished my second submission  and I didn't use a single strut.

My video is currently missing, I made a few typos and want to fix them before I submit it. I will update this post when I complete it later today.

- Which game versions did you use? I used KSP version 1.2
- What mods did you use, if any? I used the mods Texture Replacer (for the spacesuits), Trajectories (for aerobraking predictions), Kebral Engineer Redux (For delta-v information), Hangar Extender (big ship needs a big VAB) and TimeControl (Timewarping 50-something years took way to long for my attention span)
- How many Kerbals are on the mission? I brought 5 Kerbals, Halman (who came in my level 1 submission back in 1.0.5), Valentina, Obbert and his best friend Archibald and the new recruit Sigcia Kerman.
- How many launches were needed to start your mission from Kerbin? The mission only needed 1 launch.
- How much did your mission cost? 1593157 Funds was the craft's cost.
- Did you needed a refueling mission? No refueling missions were needed, in fact I brought enough fuel to go to Eeloo and maybe a few other destinations but my attention span said no, besides I have a grand tour to get ready for.
- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc?  Not really, no. Well I left 4 partially fueled fuel drop tanks in elliptical Laythe orbit but I don't think that counts.

In regards to the no strut thing, this mission was also done to show just how powerful autostrut is. I think there should be a small mass penalty, perhaps each connection to another part equals the mass of 1 strut and so on. I do not think it should be removed because, let's be honest, my frame-rate needs it, especially for the grand tour mission I am planning.

Edited November 7, 2016 by JacobJHC

[DustInTheWind]

On 11/5/2016 at 0:33 PM, -DDD- said:

Hi! I'm trying the level 1 for the first time, Is it ok to disable the CommNetwork?

It should be since saves that existed before 1.2 do not have CommNet.