Moho or Eeloo? Which one next?

[Johnny Wishbone]

In my playing time thus far, I've pretty much ignored the innermost and outermost bodies of the Kerbol system: Moho and Eeloo. I've never sent so much as a probe on flyby to either. Which one should I explore next?

At this point, I've done manned landings (and safe returns) from everywhere except Eve and Tylo, so I've got the skills. I just haven't had a reason or desire to visit either Moho or Eeloo until now. As I understand, the delta-v requirements for Moho landing and return are borderline astronomical (heh), and now you've also got to deal with heat management. Eeloo is more of a waiting game: wait for transfer window, and then wait forever to get there even with time warp on. Also, you need RTGs and fuel cells since solar panels are apparently worthless at that distance from Kerbol. I also understand that Eeloo is, for a lack of better way of putting it, kinda boring. Nothing really to see or do there, whereas Moho is much more interesting. So Eeloo would be the easier choice, but Moho the more fun/interesting choice.

Curious what people think; should I go to Moho, or Eeloo next?

[goldenpsp]

Eeloo of course!

[HoloYolo]

Moho is greater of an achievement to me seeing as it takes me longer to get there and it costs more fuel for me. Eeloo is now to me sorta nostalgic to me because of New Horizons and the fact that I haven't been there since March. I say Moho

[Geschosskopf]

Curious what people think; should I go to Moho, or Eeloo next?

If you don't have life support to worry about, going to Eeloo is just a long, long time coasting there and back. The transfer, capture, and landing are all routine. It's prettier than Dres but that's about it. So to make the trip worthwhile, you'll need to come up with some reason to go there other than flags and footprints. Such as the Karbonite Plus mod (Eeloo is one of the few places you can mine it). Or send a rover and circumnavigate the place--it's reasonably good rover country.

A trip to Moho, however, is far from boring. The huge dV requirement comes not from landing (Moho's gravity isn't THAT strong) but from the transfer and capture. If you don't do a good transfer, it's quite possible to enter Moho's SOI and find you need 6000-7000m/s just to capture (on top of the transfer and plane-change dV). This is what normally happens when you try to go to Moho direct from LKO like you would any other planet. It's this cost to capture that is the main trouble with Moho.

To avoid the massive capture burn cost, you can use Moccollo's Method. Another trick (which I'm currently testing myself) is to gravity brake off Eve en route to Moho, like the real probe recently did. In any case, forget normal transfer windows from calculators. Either leave Kerbin at the specific point mentioned by Maccollo and at no other, or leave on the Eve window and go to Eve first. It's going to be a longer trip than it might look just based on the distance due to the need to take the time to slow down en route one way or another, so pack a lot of food.

On top of this, since 1.x it's now HOT at Moho. If your ship already gets bothersomely hot just running the engines, expect real trouble doing long burns at Moho. It's probably a good idea to have radiators. But those don't help EVA Kerbals, who get thermal gauges as soon as they step outside.

[Mister Dilsby]

Moho is a very hard nut to crack. I've never managed it myself without cheating on fuel, and haven't tried it yet since 1.x. If you just want another ribbon, go to Eeloo. If you want an accomplishment, Moho.

[cantab]

With chemical or nuclear engines Moho is significantly more demanding. That said don't underestimate the Eeloo capture and Eeloo ejection burns if you go directly from Kerbin. A Jool assist can significantly reduce the delta-V required for those burns, at the cost of making an already long mission even longer.

If you have the patience for ion engines they are very practical for Moho, you can easily pack loads of delta-V, and the new SAS modes mean you can set your burn going then watch some TV or something. My Moho ship had so much spare I was able to stop by Gilly and Bop afterwards! Do be mindful of the duration of the Moho capture burn, you might well need to start it before even entering Moho's SOI.

[Jouni]

On top of this, since 1.x it's now HOT at Moho. If your ship already gets bothersomely hot just running the engines, expect real trouble doing long burns at Moho. It's probably a good idea to have radiators. But those don't help EVA Kerbals, who get thermal gauges as soon as they step outside.

It's a good idea to visit Moho when it's near its apoapsis, where solar radiation is about 2x less than at periapsis. I completed a Moho mission yesterday, and heating wasn't as serious problem as I expected it to be. Moho insertion burn wasn't any worse than Kerbin departure, and my kerbals were happily running around on the surface. (From Kerbin to Moho and landing and return, if someone is interested in the details.)

[Yukon0009]

The trick to Moho is extremely overbuilt ships, my Moho vessel had over 13k dV on launch. Managed to return with about 100 m/s dV left. No gravity assists involved.

[hugix]

Moho is actually quite cheap to go to if you do a off plane transfer. Make your intercept burn when Kerbin is opposite to Moho's Ascending or descending node (also happens to be Moho's ap and pe). this way your intercept point is at the node and you don't have to do a expensive plane change.

[Loerelau]

Just do both. Eelo is taking such a long time, you can do a Moho mission after you launched the Eelo one.

[mrclucks]

Just do both. Eelo is taking such a long time, you can do a Moho mission after you launched the Eelo one.

Seconded

You can go launch to eloo, wait for a window for moho, miss and orbit a few times, finally capture and land, take off, wait for a window back, miss yet again, and you'd probably still only be halfway to eloo

[Cydonian Monk]

Thirded. Go to Mohloo. You won't regret it.

[Motokid600]

I'm loving my current Eeloo land and return with TACLS. It's been an on going mission for several real life weeks now. I've got the kerbals conducting a circumnavigation with a fast rover before they go home.

Eeloo is by far my favorite planet to drive on. It's so smooth I can cruise at 100+m/s with no problems ( hacked wheels ) and knock out major distances in one sit down.

Go to Eeloo. It's an incredible place. Oh and make sure you install distant objects enhancement. The sight of ALL the inferior planets ( technically Jool is superior to Eeloo for a short time in its orbit ) from Eeloo's surface is mind blowing.

[NecroBones]

Eeloo is a good test-run for a trip to Moho, in terms of the overall delta-V requirement. Moho takes more, so if your ship can't do a round-trip to Eeloo, then it definitely can't handle Moho.

[Jett_Quasar]

My recommendation is that you start with Moho and then head out to Eeloo. They're actually on a similar orbital inclination which makes the transfer fairly easy. Bring lots of Xenon.

JR

Edited August 15, 2015 by Jolly_Roger

[Johnny Wishbone]

wow. this is a tighter race than i anticipated. thanks to everyone for their replies. i'm keeping the poll open for a bit longer to see if we can get a clear winner.

maybe i'll document the trip and post an album when i'm done so everyone can constructively criticize my designs and decisions.

[yorshee]

I would go for Eeloo first, I find it easier to get to. With Moho, because you're at perihelion you'll be travelling insanely quickly when you encounter Moho so it takes a truckload of fuel to slow down enough to get into orbit. There's no atmosphere so you can't aerobrake. With Eeloo, it just takes a relatively small amount of extra fuel to get there and get back, and since you're at aphelion when you encounter it it's easy to get into Eeloo orbit.

[CalculusWarrior]

I'd say Moho, it's a relatively interesting planet (try to toss something down the Moholes!) compared to Eeloo, plus you can work on your tan when there

Of course, you could always replicate the New Horizons flyby with an Eeloo mission.

[dudefinal]

Wow 33/33 its currrently a tie.

[Bev7787]

Eeloo. I was the tiebreaker

[magnemoe]

With chemical or nuclear engines Moho is significantly more demanding. That said don't underestimate the Eeloo capture and Eeloo ejection burns if you go directly from Kerbin. A Jool assist can significantly reduce the delta-V required for those burns, at the cost of making an already long mission even longer.

If you have the patience for ion engines they are very practical for Moho, you can easily pack loads of delta-V, and the new SAS modes mean you can set your burn going then watch some TV or something. My Moho ship had so much spare I was able to stop by Gilly and Bop afterwards! Do be mindful of the duration of the Moho capture burn, you might well need to start it before even entering Moho's SOI.

Ion is not so bad for an probe, if you just let the ion engine burn while AFK remember to enter an retrograde orbit.

Ion engines powered by solar panels tend to have poor twr in the shadow.

[klesh]

In my ~1,000 hours in this game Ive been to Moho a number of times. Never have I been to Eelo. Heck, I just got to Dres last month with a probe that had so much dV left I decided to land it for another round of science experiments.

[Geher]

Moho is actually quite cheap to go to if you do a off plane transfer. Make your intercept burn when Kerbin is opposite to Moho's Ascending or descending node (also happens to be Moho's ap and pe). this way your intercept point is at the node and you don't have to do a expensive plane change.

It's still expensive as hell if you ask me. I could never do a Moho mission without using Eve for gravity assist at least once. And on paper my ship had the deltaV requirements for doing it without gravity assist.

[Warzouz]

After exploring Duna and setting a space station around Eve, I just launched missions to Moho, Eeloo, Dres and Jool around the same time. That way, waiting for Eeloo encounter is quite active

For Moho, I just bought a miner to refuel the station. But the interstellar stage was... big.

[Renegrade]

I dunno, Moho seems like an angry space potato to me, kinda like a less-boring Dres.

Eeloo isn't incredibly exciting (and way too close to be a Pluto-equivalent*), but at least it's got those interesting canyons all about, and looks snowy/icy (of course, that would be a lot more interesting if it actually had a snowy or icy effect on the ground.. low traction, little plumes rising from boots when from landing from a jump and rooster tailing behind wheels etc). Moho is... a space spud. It's only really interesting features (I consider the mohole to be a bug) are it's somewhat higher than usual gravity and cost to go there. The heat is kinda interesting but it really doesn't have any gameplay impact on my poodle/skipper-based designs.

So, overall I'd vote for Eeloo given those two choices.

- Jupiter has a 5.2-ish AU semi-major axis. Jool has a 5.07-ish AU SMA (a close approximation). Pluto has a 39.5ish AU SMA, and Eeloo has a 6.6ish SMA (not close at all). Eeloo is actually closer than Saturn is (in scale terms - Saturn is ~9.5 AU SMA).