The Munar Crusade

[Dafni]

Okay then, here´s my entry for the Munar Crusade. The mission plan was simple enough, assemble a surface base in munar orbit and land it in one piece. We assigned Bill for the enigneering work and Valentina to pilot the heavy lander. Plus 8 scientists to crew the base.

All the orbital tug work as well as some scouting was done by Bill in his somewhat aged version of the PuffPuff, originally by @Cupcake... The heavy dropship I built for this mission was obviously also inspired by him.

I used the Kerbal Planetary Base mod, KIS/KAS to remove some docking ports, and MechJeb. I use MJ strictly for the numbers, no autopiloting at all. All maneuvers are done manually.

The mission consisted of four launches:

1) two habitat elements and some crew

2) a lab and a greenhouse

3) the center section of the base and some crew, as well as Bill and his trusty old PuffPuff dropship

4) Valentina and her heavy-duty dropship.

 

In the VAB the payloads look like this

 

Strapped on top of the insanely overpowered Herkules III lifter. Why save on fuel, right?

 

A typical launch, nothing special

 

This is Bill and his cargo getting to orbit

 

Here we have Valentina and her dropship on the pad

 

Bill and his cargo arriving at the Mun. The lifter was indeed so overpowered, the orbital insertion stage lasted all the way to the Mun

 

The 2 hab modules arrive at the meeting point in munar orbit

 

Bill EVAs into his PuffPuff (sorry no pics) and immediately gets to work, ferrying the modules over and docking them to the center piece. My favorite part of the mission. The PuffPuff makes it so easy and fun, thank you @Cupcake...

 

The lab and the greenhouse arrived, this time the meeting was in lower orbit. Bill gets to work again, assembling the base.

 

to be continued

 

 

Edited December 20, 2015 by Dafni

[Dafni]

it goes on (maybe somebody can merge the posts?)

The base completed in munar orbit!

 

Now enter Valentina and hear heavy duty dropship, the Crusader

 

Crusader docking to the base assembly

 

Docked! And looking good. Now the crew can get some snacks and some well deserved rest in munar orbit

 

After a quick nap Bill has to jump out to go scouting for a landing site. The orbit is adjusted, some fuel transfer and the insertion stage is decoupled.

 

Bill is descending towards the surface, looking for a convenient landing site. After doing his job he goes for a bit of a joyride. He enjoys cruising around close to the surface at a lazy 100m/s, what great fun this little dropship is.

 

Meanwhile Valentina is descending the base, mindful of the fuel she goes for the conservative approach.

 

Landed!

 

With his last few drops of fuel, Bill returns to the landing site for the big meet-up at the crusaders base

 

There they are, crusading

 

 

Now they get to work, taking samples, checking the base. Bill removes all the docking ports and strut connectors and suchlike

 

The finished crusaders base, in all its glory

The scientists are hard at work now, and I wish I could say Bill and Val are on their trip home, but alas, they are waiting for a rescue mission to bring them fuel for their dropships, or better yet a ISRU unit... but that is another story.

 

Hope you enjoyed reading my little mission

Edited December 20, 2015 by Dafni

[Ehco Corrallo]

9 hours ago, Dafni said:

There they are, crusading  

 

This is beautiful. Excellent camera work by the way. You get some serious bonus points for using dropships: "'cause dropships are cool." I was really impressed by your dropship design; can you post the .craft file? I'd love to use it for my own mission (if that's alright). This was an incredibly photogenic mission overall. I'll tally up your score and add you to the Board of Crusaders. 

Dafni's Score:

2x multiplier for 2 dropships,

10 Kerbals,

4 Launches,

3x multiplier for an original dropship design,

6 docking ports,

And 2 modules with big windows,

For a total of 132 possible follow-up missions. 

Edited December 20, 2015 by Ehco Corrallo

[Dafni]

Thank you! Yeah, dropships are cool indeed.

I never posted a craft file, but I could indeed release the Crusader on here. It needs some more polishing though. Some minor things I want to change.

BTW, make that 4 launches (not all were pictured, but I mentioned them at the beginning) and 10 kerbals (8 scientists plus Val and Bill).

cheers

Daf

[Yakky]

The Cow that Jumped Over the Mun

Some time ago, in what I consider to be one of the best KSP missions of all time, a user named Phredd Pewter sent a giant cow named Bessie to the Mun.  I'm not sure if Bessie ever successfully landed there, but she certainly got close.  I can't think of a more appropriate entry for this challenge.  (Repost of Phredd's Imgur album below.)

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2015 by Yakky

[Ehco Corrallo]

3 hours ago, Dafni said:

BTW, make that 4 launches (not all were pictured, but I mentioned them at the beginning) and 10 kerbals (8 scientists plus Val and Bill).

Done.

3 hours ago, Yakky said:

Some time ago, in what I consider to be one of the best KSP missions of all time, a user named Phredd Pewter sent a giant cow named Bessie to the Mun.  I'm not sure if Bessie ever successfully landed there, but she certainly got close. I can't think of a more appropriate entry for this challenge.  (Repost of Phredd's Imgur album below.)

I'm slightly confused. 

Are you going to attempt this mission or are you just mentioning a worthwhile entry?

If you do try something similar I wish you the best of luck. 

[Gojira1000]

You will never know how many tries this took. And I even included more than a few of them.

Behold: Kristmas on the Mun:

 

(Also there may be a bit of F12 fuel cheatiness after orbit - the lag was so bad the refuelling mission was scrapped. You'll see why.)

 

Edited February 3, 2016 by Gojira1000

[Ehco Corrallo]

On 12/21/2015 at 4:56 PM, Gojira1000 said:

You will never know how many tries this took. And I even included more than a few of them.

Behold: Kristmas on the Mun: https://youtu.be/tN9Z-zEgjh0

(Also there may be a bit of F12 fuel cheatiness after orbit - the lag was so bad the refuelling mission was scrapped. You'll see why.)

 

Awesome. I don't feel like tallying up your score right now, but I'll add you to the Board of Crusaders. Excellent video by the way. 

(I don't mind the F12 fuel cheatiness, this mission seemed like enough of a challenge without limited fuel to deal with. Besides, you tried.) 

TSO was apt. 

Gojira1000's Score: 12 Days of Khristmas.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Ehco Corrallo

[Yakky]

On 12/20/2015 at 3:27 PM, Ehco Corrallo said:

I'm slightly confused. 

Are you going to attempt this mission or are you just mentioning a worthwhile entry?

If you do try something similar I wish you the best of luck. 

It was just commentary from the peanut gallery.  Would love to see someone do something along these lines, though!

Edited December 21, 2015 by Yakky

[Norcalplanner]

Did this one a few months ago - goal was to land a 1,000 ton ship on the Mun, sent up in a single launch. My computer finally forgave me a week ago.

Stock except for MechJeb.  Ascent was manual.  Descent used SmartASS to hold surface retrograde when coming in for a landing.

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by Norcalplanner
Forgot that I used SmartASS in MechJeb

[CrashTestDanny]

Been wanting to do something ridiculous with this mod for a while - thanks for providing the correct opportunity.  I'm calling this the Munstrocity...  60 Kerbal capacity and sent up in one harrowing launch.  She flipped not once, not twice, but thrice in her ascent.  I bolted down my steel ball bearings and rode her all the way up to 71k, completely out of fuel, so I sent a couple massive fuel tankers (thanks to SpaceY's 7m stuff) and refueled it enough to make the munar transfer and landing.  Made the FIRST! landing with about 100 delta-V to spare.  I cheated the fuel into it (but with the drills and ISRU this was strictly a matter of convenience/fun - it has the capability to refuel itself) and then took off again for my prime landing site, which I overshot by about 17km the first time (I think some of the engines were not working due to fuel starvation on the first descent).

The second landing was absolutely perfect - right in the shadow of the arch and dwarfing my earlier base as expected.

Munstrocity can hold up to 60 kerbals, contains a science lab, and holds 6k ore and about 70,600 units of LF and 86,200 units Ox.  As an added bonus, the top of each of the eight outer towers is a self-contained spaceship with about 3k deltaV when fully fueled.  A rockomax decoupler releases the tower and ignites the attached poodle and 5 kerbals can escape!  which is fortunate because the Kraken seems bent on tearing this thing apart now...

Danny

[Ehco Corrallo]

16 hours ago, Norcalplanner said:

Did this one a few months ago - goal was to land a 1,000 ton ship on the Mun, sent up in a single launch. My computer finally forgave me a week ago.

Stock except for MechJeb.  Ascent was manual.  Descent used SmartASS to hold surface retrograde when coming in for a landing.

 

3 hours ago, CrashTestDanny said:

Been wanting to do something ridiculous with this mod for a while - thanks for providing the correct opportunity.  I'm calling this the Munstrocity...  60 Kerbal capacity and sent up in one harrowing launch.  She flipped not once, not twice, but thrice in her ascent.  I bolted down my steel ball bearings and rode her all the way up to 71k, completely out of fuel, so I sent a couple massive fuel tankers (thanks to SpaceY's 7m stuff) and refueled it enough to make the munar transfer and landing.  Made the FIRST! landing with about 100 delta-V to spare.  I cheated the fuel into it (but with the drills and ISRU this was strictly a matter of convenience/fun - it has the capability to refuel itself) and then took off again for my prime landing site, which I overshot by about 17km the first time (I think some of the engines were not working due to fuel starvation on the first descent).

The second landing was absolutely perfect - right in the shadow of the arch and dwarfing my earlier base as expected.

Munstrocity can hold up to 60 kerbals, contains a science lab, and holds 6k ore and about 70,600 units of LF and 86,200 units Ox.  As an added bonus, the top of each of the eight outer towers is a self-contained spaceship with about 3k deltaV when fully fueled.  A rockomax decoupler releases the tower and ignites the attached poodle and 5 kerbals can escape!  which is fortunate because the Kraken seems bent on tearing this thing apart now...

Danny

Fantastic, both of you. I set up this challenge more out of simple curiosity than anything else: "How far will someone take this?" I now know just how far it's possible to take a Mun mission. There are too many entries in too little time to do a full score tally, but I'll still keep the ridiculous totals. 

Norcalplanner's Score: 2,204,622.6 Pounds of Awesome. 

CrashTestDanny's Score: 60 Stranded Vacationing Scientists. 

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by Ehco Corrallo
Discovered a missing apostrophe. (God save us!)

[NuclearNut]

The the God Emperor of Kerbalkind is most pleased by your choice of mission.  He demanded that the crusade be conducted at once.  

(success will come once I can get my new monitor and graphics card fully functional)

[Vigelius]

On 20/12/2015 at 8:03 PM, Yakky said:

The Cow that Jumped Over the Mun

Some time ago, in what I consider to be one of the best KSP missions of all time, a user named Phredd Pewter sent a giant cow named Bessie to the Mun.  I'm not sure if Bessie ever successfully landed there, but she certainly got close.  I can't think of a more appropriate entry for this challenge.  

 

This made me laugh, hard. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

[KerbalCorgi]

I'm doing a freeplay in KSP and currently working on my satellite network, but then I plan to send TONS of stuff over- probes, orbiters, colonies, refueling stations, etc., etc.

[PointySideUp]

Here is my all stock parts submission for the munar crusade, shhh!  its a secret mission..

 

Edited January 13, 2016 by PointySideUp
msg edit

[Ehco Corrallo]

I love it. 

Nice sleek designs you got there, and good camera work as well. The presentation overall was flawless. I love the table too; brilliant. 

You're going straight to the Board of Crusaders. 

Pointy Side Up's Score: 16 Birthday Candles 

 

Edited January 13, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo

[Ehco Corrallo]

Everyone who's taken part in this challenge has gone far and beyond the call of duty. You've done thing with really large rockets that I couldn't even dream about being ambitious enough to plan. I've seen bases and dropships and ordinance-driven takeovers and giant rockets and science stations and giant rockets and toolbox themed shuttle missions and also giant rockets. 

Mostly the giant rockets thing ; ) 

Thank you everyone. 

[Ehco Corrallo]

Guess what? I finally got around to making an entry!

Here it is: 

I themed it after a viral infection of the Mun, partially because I'm still angry at the Mun for being difficult to get to when I was still a tender noob, mostly because that's what the landers ended up looking like. 

The general goal was instead of landing one gigantic ship, I would land a very large number of smaller ships. I started with on design, which would deploy twelve landers in a single trip, but shoddy engineering killed that, and a bizarrely tall design that would carry six in a single trip. Eventually I scaled back to something that my reasonably limited engineering skill could manage properly. (The larger designs also consisted of hundreds of parts. KSP doesn't like ships made from hundreds of parts). The long story short: I sent four ships carrying two landers each. 

In the end the mission was relatively easy, but incredibly fun. This is the launch vehicle I used (sans fairing). It's not terribly large or extravagant, but it has large fins with the Australian Air Force symbol on them, because I could put the Australian Air Force symbol on them. The game didn't crash even once while I was using this design (unlike the horribly, horribly bloated, terribly, terribly designed launch vehicles I built previously) and I didn't have any trouble carrying the payload into to orbit and over to Kerbin's faithful (if sadistic) satellite. 

And here are all four ships, arrived at the Mun and ready to land (eight ships land, but four go to the Mun). They were in the shape of a trinity before the last ship arrived. 

Here's the second stage coasting over the surface of the Mun with its two virus cargo. 

Here's the decent burn for one of the ships. All of the decent burns are exactly the same so just imagine this eight times over. Nice view from this altitude. 

The first landing didn't go too well, but it went better than the second landing, which I botched horribly and destroyed. 

The second landing site. Much flatter.

The fourth lander came down in a beautiful canyon, just as the sun was going down. 

The fifth lander came down in the same plain as the second did. The lander can ran dry of electricity on the way down, and the reaction wheels stopped working. It was a little nerve wracking, but the lander set down safely. 

The sixth lander came down in the same plain as the fifth and second did. No issues with the landing. 

The seventh lander put down in the east crater. It almost tipped, but after a number of moments of nail-biting, it settled out nicely. 

All seven landers, in a nice neat line across the face of the Mun. 

The only real hitch was that the tug drained fuel from the landers. In the end though, they still had enough fuel to get down to the surface safely. It's possible I'll do a follow up mission and send a rover down the line of landers to do a check up on the pilots. We'll see...

Ehco Corrallo's Score: One botched landing. 

Edited January 14, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo

[sdj64]

My submission to the Munar Crusade - first career Mun mission in SKY, with 5x rescale sizes and 7x rescale distances.  Still confined to the 90 science level maximum, this was my first major science gathering expedition outside of Kerbin orbit.  Only non-stock parts are the Bollard engines from Ven's Stock Revamp (for their lower tech level for a 2.5m engine) and a crew cabin, and some fuel tanks from Fuel Tanks Plus.  KER was unlocked by tracking station upgrade halfway through.  Returned over 1200 science!

 

 

[Ehco Corrallo]

5 hours ago, sdj64 said:

My submission to the Munar Crusade - first career Mun mission in SKY, with 5x rescale sizes and 7x rescale distances.  Still confined to the 90 science level maximum, this was my first major science gathering expedition outside of Kerbin orbit.  Only non-stock parts are the Bollard engines from Ven's Stock Revamp (for their lower tech level for a 2.5m engine) and a crew cabin, and some fuel tanks from Fuel Tanks Plus.  KER was unlocked by tracking station upgrade halfway through.  Returned over 1200 science!

There's no good way to say this: That doesn't count. If you look at any other submission but mine (which I feel ashamed of and have vowed to expand) you'll see extravagant, unnecessary, and thoroughly over the top mission plans. I hate to say it, but a there-and-back science gathering mission doesn't cut it. While I'm aware you undertook the mission in a rescaled solar system, this challenge is more about creativity than difficulty. Congratulations on the successful trip, but regrettably, I can't accept this entry to this challenge. I hope you understand where I'm coming from. 

[Ehco Corrallo]

I wasn't quite comfortable with my submission, because I though it was hugely underweight. So I've decided that It'll be a three (possibly four) phase conquest of the Munar surface. I made four more launches and sent down another 8 landers to act as scout stations. I now have a reasonable grasp of the Mun's topology. I'll be sending an assault wave next. Dropships probably. 

I have a lot of landers on the Mun now. 

EDIT: Well, the save broke while I was prototyping dropships. Bummer. I'll leave it at 8 missions and 15 landings unless someone says something along the lines of: "You suck! You started a challenge about doing something interesting and you did something boring instead! Do something interesting!" Or unless I say something along the lines of: "That sucked! I started a challenge about doing something interesting and did something boring instead! Boring is the opposite of interesting and creative and exorbitant! Finish the challenge properly!" 

EDIT PART TWO: Ignore that bit up there. The save is fine apparently, and the Great Crusade is resumed! Into the breach!

Edited January 16, 2016 by Ehco Corrallo
Unbroke the save?

[superstrijder15]

wow! You managed to land something that long compared to its width. All landers i make are twice as wide as they are high or just flip...

[Ehco Corrallo]

2 hours ago, superstrijder15 said:

wow! You managed to land something that long compared to its width. All landers i make are twice as wide as they are high or just flip...

Well, I did botch a few of the landings...

Otherwise though, they worked pretty well. I've actually landed 2 more ships since the last post, and they both came down nice as can be. The one difficulty was figuring out the yaw and pitch when I wanted to maneuver to a better landing site. I wasn't terribly careful about my landing sites, and I came down in a few really nasty craters. 

[EvermoreAlpaca]

Bill makes space profitable!  

 

Launches with tanks mostly empty, 314 tons at launch

Flies to the Mun, refuels with ISRU on the surface.  842 tons at launch from the Mun

Lands on Kerbin with 677 tons remaining, cashing a net profit from the fuel returned!

Edited February 2, 2016 by EvermoreAlpaca