The Ultimate Jool 5 Challenge - 1.0 to 1.3

[Kerolyov]

17 hours ago, sdj64 said:

You can cut out planning maneuvers, as long as you have some footage of executing them.  Also if it's clear where you're going, such as during a long timewarp or on an easy landing on Bop, Pol, or Vall, the middle of that can be cut out.  But any time fuel is tight, piloting is difficult, or the sequence of actions is confusing should obviously stay in your video.

@sdj64 thanks. What about tweaking burns of a couple of dV and rendevous (it's a multi-part ship), include in full?

[sdj64]

10 minutes ago, Kerolyov said:

@sdj64 thanks. What about tweaking burns of a couple of dV and rendevous (it's a multi-part ship), include in full?

you don't have to include all of the tiny burns.  Especially if the resource window is open it will be easy to see fuel differences.

[Kerolyov]

 

Here (finally!) is my entry for the 1st Level of the Jool 5 Challenge:

KSP Version: 1.2.2 Windows 64bit (with comms turned off)

Kerbals: 1 - Valentina Kerman

Launches: 1

Refuelling: No

Mods

Visual Mods:

• Scatterer
• Planetshine
• DistantObject

Info Mods:

• Kerbal Engineer Redux
• Precise Node
• Better Burn Time
• Trajectories
• Navyfish Docking Port Alignment Indicator
• Landing Height
• Kerbal Alarm Clock
• Transfer Window Planner

Build mods:

• RCS Build Aid

Auto-Pilot Mods:

• GravityTurn
• Vertical Velocity Controller
• Horizontal Landing Aid (installed but not used on this mission)

 

The Mission Consists of 4 main parts:-

1. Laythe space plane (will be abandoned in Laythe orbit after landing there)
2. Fuel tank unit - this is used to store the fuel needed for upcoming landings and burns.  Will always be in high orbit. The outer tanks can be dropped when empty, has both mixed and liquid only tanks. Has a probe core for independent control.
3. Drive unit with two nuclear engines.  Used for most of the main burns and also used to start off some of the landing descents. Waits in low orbit for the lander.  Returns to Kerbin and abandoned in Kerbin orbit.  Alsio had probe core for independent control.
4. Lander this has drop tanks for Tylo and will land on the remaining three moons without the extra tanks.  Also the lander can will return to Kerbin

 

My ship on the launch pad was 1357 tonnes and cost 788,847 roots and had a launch TWR of 1.8

dV left after reaching LKO was 5447 m/s (vacuum) and mass of 268 tonnes

The Tylo lander had 6125 m/s dV (vacuum) and the fully fuelled lander without the Tylo droptanks was 2751 m/s dV

 

Been a blast doing this mission.  Hope to attempt levels two and three soon!

Edited July 24, 2017 by Kerolyov
Typo correction

[sdj64]

@Kerolyov Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1!  I liked the separate drive unit and fuel section, it was an innovative and efficient choice.  Your video was great, one of the best I've seen in striking a balance between being exciting to watch and informative to judge.

[Kerolyov]

11 hours ago, sdj64 said:

@Kerolyov Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1!  I liked the separate drive unit and fuel section, it was an innovative and efficient choice.  Your video was great, one of the best I've seen in striking a balance between being exciting to watch and informative to judge.

Thanks @sdj64 I'm happy to know my editing worked out as was thinking I hadn't cut enough out, if I get time I might upload a second shorter version for more general consumption.

As for the mission I felt I still have a lot to learn in timing my gravity assists as couldn't find a Tylo assist to both capture at Jool and get me into a Laythe orbit without too much dV expenditure to circularise at Laythe, in the end the short burn at periapsis of the Tylo assist and a second burn to get rendevous with Laythe were the most efficient solution I could come up with. 

Second thing I struggled with was the transfer from Vall to Bop, my fuel unit was in the high orbit and so that fixed my ejection angle and couldn't find an easy direct burn solution and had to first do small escape burn then do expensive plane change and then do transfer burn to get there, luckily I had over-engineered the amount of dV  on my ship so had more than enough but think there is probably a better solution.  If anyone has any tips on getting a more efficient Vall to Bop transfer I'd love to hear how you do it.

Final thing to note is my Laythe aerobrakes had to be done in stages to avoid burning up, this ws learnt the hard way and was glad I had saved just before I started the Laythe descent!

[Alchemist]

5 hours ago, Kerolyov said:

Second thing I struggled with was the transfer from Vall to Bop, my fuel unit was in the high orbit and so that fixed my ejection angle and couldn't find an easy direct burn solution and had to first do small escape burn then do expensive plane change and then do transfer burn to get there, luckily I had over-engineered the amount of dV  on my ship so had more than enough but think there is probably a better solution.  If anyone has any tips on getting a more efficient Vall to Bop transfer I'd love to hear how you do it.

Use Tylo. If you arrange a slingshot around plane intersection - it's a very cheap way to make a major plane change (and in this case raise orbit as well). BTW, in the cases of having to use a specific ejection angle due to your parking orbit, it is also possible to arrange a slingshot off the very body you started from (after an orbit or two... sometimes even in half an orbit), if you couldn't find a better solution

5 hours ago, Kerolyov said:

Final thing to note is my Laythe aerobrakes had to be done in stages to avoid burning up, this ws learnt the hard way and was glad I had saved just before I started the Laythe descent!

Yeah, Laythe's upper atmosphere is such a brick wall. Cuts off quickly at the edge but just below that it's almost as draggy as on Kerbin at the same altitudes. Although I faced quite the opposite problem - wanted to lower orbit in several passes, barely avoided falling all the way down to surface on the first

[jonny]

It took me a long time, but I finally came to the point where i could start my Jool 5 mission in my Caveman Evolved plus Munless Night career.
I just Upgraded the R&D center and had very low funds. therefore i am going for the low cost/mass sub-challenge.

KSP 1.3 Linux 64bit

Mods:

[x] Science!
BetterTimeWarpContinued
KAC
KER
Precise Node
RCS Build Aid

The vessel is a SSTO which costs 94452 and has a wet mass of 43.588t

https://imgur.com/a/B0A1n

Edited January 4, 2018 by jonny

[SSSPutnik]

Wow, great to see this challenge is still going, did it way back in 0.23

Cheers all.

[MiffedStarfish]

You know what, I might actually give this a go. I've been doing to much combat recently, and I need a change before I get back to blowing things up spectacularly. I'm thinking a large mothership made out of Mk3 parts, with a hangar made out of 2 mk3 cargo bays next to each other open to create one big space. Two sections, assembled in orbit, with refuelling craft to fill the tanks before departing. Give me a week or so to discover this design is impractical, and I'll report back.  

[Xyphos]

@sdj64 - I did it on Hard, mission report is found here: 

 

 

Does this mean I get an "Expert" status?

Edited July 30, 2017 by Xyphos

[JacobJHC]

On 7/24/2017 at 5:14 PM, jonny said:

It took me a long time, but I finally came to the point where i could start my Jool 5 mission in my Caveman Evolved plus Munless Night career.

Damn that was impressive. Good Job.

[Alchemist]

The last 2 moons I had to visit... and anomalies.

 

At least these shuttles need no atmosphere for horizontal takeoff

Funnily enough, there was a very cheap option to get back to Pol, yet I managed to leave so much fuel up there that we had no trouble flying to Bop in a rather straightforward way

 

And then, this time with a proper slingshot, HRO-M flies to Vall

And looks like it still got half the delta v still in the tanks

 

Probably, this shuttle will return to Bop to top off the fuel and then both ships will fly back to Kerbin together

[sdj64]

@jonny Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1!  Your plane was lightweight and cheap, earning you the top spot in both low cost and low mass!  It was also very part count efficient for a Jool 5 mission.  I thought the nuke on the nose was a unique choice, and I liked the yaw maneuver leaving Kerbin.  You were pretty close to Level 2, but that Tylo lander would probably have to be much bigger to carry 2 Kerbals.

 

@Xyphos Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 1!  There is no official reward for hard mode, but your piloting was certainly expert-level.  I can see how your decisions both in the design and the execution were focused on safety - maneuvers, parachute landing and vertical takeoff on Laythe, high delta-v on Tylo, excess battery capacity on the ion lander - to ensure confidence despite the lack of quicksaves.  If you ever do the challenge again, you misread the refueling rule.  You are allowed unlimited refueling from your own ship, and the refueling mission is a separate launch from Kerbin meant to allow you to rescue a ship that has run out!  Very informative video as well, thank you for the captions that explained all the complex maneuvers.

 

Sorry for the delay in judging these.

Edited August 2, 2017 by sdj64

[Alchemist]

And here I go with the conclusion of my mission with the shuttles

KSP version: 1.2.2
Level 3, ISRU (took 3 mining rigs, left 2 on Laythe), but no nukes
mods: only kOS, and I didn't even use it for flying

Launches: 2   (2 shuttles)
Landers: 2 shuttles (4 crew each)
Return to KSC: 2 shuttles
Additional vessels (all carried by the same shuttle): hydrofoil/hydroplane (circumnavigated Laythe and left there), mobile mining base (left on Laythe), 2 mapsats (for Laythe and Tylo)

 

Full report here:

 

[sdj64]

I have really let this go too long, my apologies.

@Alchemist Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 3!  I was impressed by the strategy to complete the mission with two almost identically sized vehicles, and it was interesting to see the subtle differences between the two shuttles for their different roles.  The HRO has some amazing capabilities and and proved to be capable of the toughest landings both in and out of atmosphere.  Congratulations also for your completion of the Elcano and Shuttle Challenges!

[magnamonyx]

Thread seems a little slow. I'm working on my own mission now, but work is making it slow.

I've looked all over and I can't seem to find a good delta-V reference that includes the mission total for getting to Jool and all his moons, probably because it varies so much with gravity assists and aerocapture. I'm trying to ballpark it at around 10,000 m/s for the whole mission (the ship is frighteningly large) plus some smaller values for landers. Am I overestimating or is that about right for a 1,000 ton+ craft?

[JacobJHC]

6 minutes ago, magnamonyx said:

Thread seems a little slow. I'm working on my own mission now, but work is making it slow.

I've looked all over and I can't seem to find a good delta-V reference that includes the mission total for getting to Jool and all his moons, probably because it varies so much with gravity assists and aerocapture. I'm trying to ballpark it at around 10,000 m/s for the whole mission (the ship is frighteningly large) plus some smaller values for landers. Am I overestimating or is that about right for a 1,000 ton+ craft?

10,000 seems like a safe value with quite a bit of wiggle room if you use gravity assists to capture in Jool orbit. I can't wait to see your 1,000+ ton craft, it sounds amazing.

[magnamonyx]

Is this considered clipping?

Just kidding, just wanted to give you an idea of the size of this thing. The mission is in full swing and I'll be posting it as soon as I can!

[IncongruousGoat]

Seems I've done it again. I'm back with a level 2 submission, with a bit of a twist. Like a couple of other people, I've been doing the Caveman Extended challenge, and thought it was a good opportunity to do a Jool 5. The result of this, of course, is a limited tech tree, including nothing in any node worth more than 500 science. So, while I did have nuclear engines, I didn't have any jet engines worth mentioning, no 3.75m parts, no ion engines, no ISRU (although I wouldn't have used that anyways), and no long-range antennae, which means no probe control. Despite these limits, and a couple of unforeseen hijinks, the mission went well, accomplishing all of its intended goals.

Album: https://imgur.com/a/HVhL4

This was done on version 1.3. The only mods installed were visuals.

Edited September 16, 2017 by IncongruousGoat
Never mind, everything's okay

[sdj64]

@IncongruousGoat Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Level 2!  The modular crew and science pod seemed to work well, and I liked the 3 way symmetry and cage-like construction of your mothership that allowed you to keep your center of mass in line when removing each lander.  Yet another well-executed Jool 5, you now have one for each of the levels 1, 2, and 3!

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

Been wanting to do a Jool 5 for a while. Had to do it my way, so it took a bit of work. Used my favorite command module, the Mk1-2. During testing I realized that, since I built a separate lander for each moon, all I would have to do is bring along a couple more Kerbals and I would technically complete a Jool 5 on level 1, 2, and 3 (as well as an extremely low-scoring Jebediah's level: grabbed soil samples at each moon, but didn't bring any science equipment). There are 5 different landers, with at least 2 Kerbals landing on each moon, and at least one Kerbal (Jeb) and one ship (the Mk1-2) landing on all 5 moons. Not sure if that counts or not, but anyway.

Stats are as follows:

1389 parts

10,446.93 tons

3,382,211 bucks

If there's a highest cost highest mass award, I think I've got it in the bag.

Single launch. No ISRU or refueling. No nukes, ion, or jet engines. No command seats or part clipping of any kind. No mods (unless you count KAC).

 

 

Full album is below. As this was my first time using imgur, I think setting up the album took as long as the mission itself.

 

https://imgur.com/a/Yog1d

 

Anyway hope you dig it. It was a lot of fun, but I'm kinda glad to have it finished. I really wanna bring the Mk1-2 to Eve and back next.

 

[sdj64]

@Cpt Kerbalkrunch Congratulations, you have completed the Jool 5 Challenge on Jeb's Level!  The mission actually seems fairly efficient, given the constraints of the heavy pod and lack of nuclear propulsion.  The swappable pod was an effective strategy for this mission profile, and I don't think anyone has done 5 kerbals and 3 per landing before. Your 1510 Science points puts you in second place!  ...Jeb's level is not very popular these days.

I look forward to your proposed Eve mission.  Given that you're using the same Mk1-2 pod for every landing, I might recommend you try The Ultimate Challenge - with Jool and Eve done, you'll have all the hard landings out of the way!

Edited October 8, 2017 by sdj64

[Nucleartaxi]

@sdj64 I'm currently working on my own Jool 5 mission where I'm trying to use the minimum number of engines possible. I was wondering if using command seats are allowed because that would help a lot with designing the craft, especially on tylo.

[sdj64]

26 minutes ago, Nucleartaxi said:

@sdj64 I'm currently working on my own Jool 5 mission where I'm trying to use the minimum number of engines possible. I was wondering if using command seats are allowed because that would help a lot with designing the craft, especially on tylo.

Command seats are allowed, but every Kerbal on the mission must sit in a pod or cabin while in the Sun's SOI.  A Tylo lander with just seats is fine.  (rule 5)

FYI, the smallest number of engines used in a Jool 5 mission so far (without ISRU) is 3:  a Rapier, a Spark, and a Dawn.  With ISRU, it has been done with just 1 mammoth!

[qzgy]

3 minutes ago, sdj64 said:

FYI, the smallest number of engines used in a Jool 5 mission so far (without ISRU) is 3:  a Rapier, a Spark, and a Dawn.  With ISRU, it has been done with just 1 mammoth!

Holy crap. Do you have a link to the mission report for the first one? I'm curious to see how it went.