The "Duna Extended Research Program (DERP)"

[Death Engineering]

18 minutes ago, XpertKerbalKSP said:

Oh, also it would take a LOT of effort to pull off something like that. I'd have to construct the Hermes in space and send up suply ships to mars at the same time. Then Id send up my crew and get them on board Hermes to mars and then do the Mars orbit insertion and then land in the Duna Decent Vehichle and then wait for the launch window and then launch in the Duna Ascent Vehichle and then dock with Hermes and the go back and send suplies for Ares 2 at the same time.

Se how that was the longest sentence in the world?

With a suitably efficient launcher and plenty of kerbs, I could see how a mission like you are describing could have a high potential for good scoring success provided that you are able to hit 5 biomes for the surface samples and get the aerodynamic science. You may also want to manufacture your Duna ascent and Kerbin return fuel on Duna or Ike.

[PacThePhoenix]

1 hour ago, XpertKerbalKSP said:

Oh, also it would take a LOT of effort to pull off something like that. I'd have to construct the Hermes in space and send up suply ships to mars at the same time. Then Id send up my crew and get them on board Hermes to mars and then do the Mars orbit insertion and then land in the Duna Decent Vehichle and then wait for the launch window and then launch in the Duna Ascent Vehichle and then dock with Hermes and the go back and send suplies for Ares 2 at the same time.

Se how that was the longest sentence in the world?

Exactly. An accurate Ares mission recreation would be quite difficult to pull off. I'll probably be able to cut down on the amount of pre-supply missions by loading up each launch (gotta love the glorious game engine we are provided with). As for the Hermes, who needs it? XD. I could probably get away with sending the crew up with the DAV if I pack enough fuel space. In the end, would it be 1:1 Martian remake? No, but it'll surely (and by that I mean hopefully) get the job done !

[sdj64]

Finally got my mission setup for the first transfer window.  Going with a smaller crew of 4 for the first window, and flying a faster trajectory has reduced the large and costly life support requirement.  The miner will double as the interplanetary transfer stage, ensuring that the program will never need a refueling mission.

Just a few more questions before I go-

For the atmospheric science do you need the atmosphere science module, or will any flying science suffice?

Do the shuttles have to stay in position permanently to count for points, or can I use the shuttle to take the crew home? (no crew will be on Duna when the shuttle leaves)

Do the points for Kerbals landing and orbiting add?  For example if a Kerbal went into Duna orbit, then landed on Duna, then landed on Ike, then went home, does that count for 7 points?

 

 

[Death Engineering]

1 hour ago, sdj64 said:

Finally got my mission setup for the first transfer window.  Going with a smaller crew of 4 for the first window, and flying a faster trajectory has reduced the large and costly life support requirement.  The miner will double as the interplanetary transfer stage, ensuring that the program will never need a refueling mission.

Just a few more questions before I go-

For the atmospheric science do you need the atmosphere science module, or will any flying science suffice?

Do the shuttles have to stay in position permanently to count for points, or can I use the shuttle to take the crew home? (no crew will be on Duna when the shuttle leaves)

Do the points for Kerbals landing and orbiting add?  For example if a Kerbal went into Duna orbit, then landed on Duna, then landed on Ike, then went home, does that count for 7 points?

 

 

Atmospheric science is acquired using the Atmospheric Fluid Spectro-Variometer.

The SHUTTLE does not have to stay in position - it only needs to have the ability to land and return to orbit from whatever body (Ike/Duna) you are scoring for. Same SHUTTLE cannot score for both bodies.

Your hypothetical Kerbal would earn 7 points in that scenario.

[Jasonden]

On 2/19/2016 at 0:48 PM, Death Engineering said:

This means that any parts that are recovered but are not used again in a mission will not count in the recovered funds.

Although it produces a (somewhat) adverse affect on my recently completed mission (pics soon!), I like this change.  It encourages reusable if you go for a long-term program (i.e., "Extended Research") and suitably accounts for shorter programs.

[Death Engineering]

Just now, Jasonden said:

Although it produces a (somewhat) adverse affect on my recently completed mission (pics soon!), I like this change.  It encourages reusable if you go for a long-term program (i.e., "Extended Research") and suitably accounts for shorter programs.

Thanks for your understanding.   

[Jasonden]

Okay, new result!  50 total Kerbals landed on Duna across the 3 launch windows.  Final score:  1197, on the back of 216 points and a cost of  2,397,030.

This was completed before the new rule change.  I had 4 boosters by the end, w4hich I would have used in expendable mode with higher mass to orbit had I known that I couldn't reuse them -- but no big deal, this came out pretty good regardless.

 

PS:  re-scoring my simple duna trip without reuse gives a score of 3966 instead.

[Enginerdy]

Fantastic. I love your shuttles, that has to be a fun ride back to orbit.

[Jasonden]

20 minutes ago, Enginerdy said:

Fantastic. I love your shuttles, that has to be a fun ride back to orbit.

Funner than their landings, where all of the Kerbals are facing backwards, hurtling toward the surface at 600 m/s without being able to see their approaching doom   This thought actually had occurred to me while flying the missions . . .

[DBowman]

Here is my entry: DERP Interrupted

I thought to:

• minimize my cost and time by using cheap parts, standardization of design, reuse, and minimal craft
• maximize my score through prestige and by 'science-ing the sh*t out of Duna'

I went with:

• TAC-LS; I like it being real-ish, and @TaranisElsu did his homework on the consumption / production rates.
• simple core and boosters; the boosters land pretty close to KSC, the core circularizes and then lands at KSC.
• maxing a single VAB; the 26 day rollout would be used start building payload, then the recovered booster parts would be used to complete the vehicle
• each payload was a transfer stage, Duna descent/ascent propellant, and a reusable SSTO one man lander.

In the end I sent only two landers to Duna, both in the first window. Things went wrong but there was enough contingency propellant and improvised landings at biome boundaries to get more science per landing and achieve almost all the program goals. Even so the fickle public got bored and Kongress shut down the program. They didn't even build the Kerbin-LKO shuttle that was supposed to get the boys down, however dedicated brainstorming from the remaining skeleton crew came up with a procedure for doing a recoverable Kerbin EDL in the Duna landers - but only just.

score:
Prestige: 7
+2 two Kerbals landed on Duna before Y2 D40
+1 one Kerbal landed on Ike before Y2 D40
+3 all the above back home safe before Y4 D80
+1 flag on Duna above 7000 m
+0 Bill misread the checklist and landed above 8000 m on Ike

Science: 25
+5 Atmosphere Science from 5 Duna Biomes
+10 surface samples from 5 Duna bimomes
+10 surface samples from 5 Ike biomes

Survivability: 11
+2 Kerbals in Duna orbit
+6 Kerbals landed on Duna
+3 Bill on Ike

total = 33

Costs:
+73288.00 Jeb's DERP ReLander I 
-10752.88 booster recovery
-10731.31 booster recovery
-15663.19 core recovery
+74649.00 Bill's DERP ReLander II
+02194.50 simulations
=112984.12

Final Score 804.478 = 112984.12 / 33^sqrt(2) (140.444)

 

[Death Engineering]

On 2/28/2016 at 6:12 PM, Jasonden said:

Okay, new result!  50 total Kerbals landed on Duna across the 3 launch windows.  Final score:  1197, on the back of 216 points and a cost of  2,397,030.

Fantastic.

 

1 hour ago, DBowman said:

Here is my entry: DERP Interrupted

I thought to:

• minimize my cost and time by using cheap parts, standardization of design, reuse, and minimal craft
• maximize my score through prestige and by 'science-ing the sh*t out of Duna'

I went with:

• TAC-LS; I like it being real-ish, and @TaranisElsu did his homework on the consumption / production rates.
• simple core and boosters; the boosters land pretty close to KSC, the core circularizes and then lands at KSC.
• maxing a single VAB; the 26 day rollout would be used start building payload, then the recovered booster parts would be used to complete the vehicle
• each payload was a transfer stage, Duna descent/ascent propellant, and a reusable SSTO one man lander.

Final Score 804.478 = 112984.12 / 33^sqrt(2) (140.444)

 

Another excellent mission!

Both of you scored far better than my tests or final 'OP' submission.. very humbling!

Thanks for trying out the challenge.  

[Nich]

Wow incredibly small Duna lander.  Very impressive

[DBowman]

On 2/28/2016 at 10:12 AM, Jasonden said:

Okay, new result!  50 total Kerbals landed on Duna across the 3 launch windows.

Oh man, monster effort; the 'quad in one' boosters are a great idea, I like the use of solid motors on the Duna landings, and Duna village - score and aesthetics!

[Death Engineering]

Is 50 kerbals the "bubble" where score and costs meet? Can this be done cheaper or with more kerbals to max the score? Can another mod, maybe utilizing an airship to hit the 5 biomes on Duna, make the trip more cost-effective?

Or maybe is there a way to go nuts and forego the early landing Prestige points and focus on building a massive effort in LKO biding your time until the second or even third Duna window?

Just musing..   

Really enjoyed reading the mission reports so far.    

 

[Jasonden]

1 hour ago, Death Engineering said:

Is 50 kerbals the "bubble" where score and costs meet? Can this be done cheaper or with more kerbals to max the score? Can another mod, maybe utilizing an airship to hit the 5 biomes on Duna, make the trip more cost-effective?

Something that I could/should have done to improve the score a lot would have been to carry a little extra fuel, and then take a bit of a tour to land the Kerbals on Ike.  This "touch-and-go" landing on Ike could have added 150 points for low marginal cost given that most of the effort and cost is dedicated to getting to the Duna/Ike system in the first place. . .

[NeilC]

DE, thanks so much for resurrecting this challenge! My Duna InSitu mission for the original was the most fun I've had with KSP by far. I actually haven't played much for a year or so, and both KSP and its mods have come a long way since then. I'm looking forward to this, should be a blast.

I'm developing a mission using the latest versions of USI Life Support, KCT, and Stage Recovery. After looking through RoverDude's impressive mod collection I've also decided to install the Exploration Pack and MKS Lite. I've started planning the first transfer window to get the early prestige points, and I'd like your opinion on this Duna lander/ascent vehicle with respect to balance. You've specified no "cheaty" mods - do you think this design with the MKS Lite/Exploration combination gives an unfair advantage?

I haven't tested this design at all, but with minor tweaks I think the concept will survive landing. It meets the letter of your "KERBAL HAB" definition: once expanded it can hold 7 kerbals, has an antenna and power generation, and has a mod science lab. However, it can only support 3 on descent - is that an issue? For the 2nd and 3rd transfer windows I think I will shuttle kerbals LDO-> HABs and back in an SSTO spaceplane, refueled on the ground.

Still very much a work in progress, but before I go any further on this concept I wanted to get some feedback on what these mods seem to be letting me get away with. 6.5t dry launch mass and 38.5k cost just feels... low... for a Duna hab that can also do in-situ refueling.

What do you think, DE? Jasonden, DBowman, Enginerdy - how does this compare to what you guys were flying? Note that I'm using the higher supply consumption from latest USI life support too, so our missions won't be strictly comparable no matter what.

Tanks are full to show delta-v of ascent stage, should be capable of rendezvous with plane change to anything in LDO without trouble.

 

 

Tanks are dry, so this shows the intended 6.5t launch/landing mass. HAB is ready to start refilling them with the ore drill / Comm-Lab converter combo. Powered by the 0.625m nuke reactor and cooled by a hilariously large radiator panel. I don't think I truly need this much cooling, but it will let me refine at full speed and the 0.25t weight balanced the drill perfectly.

**EDIT: I honestly have no idea what's going on with imgur albums /KSP forums right now... I've created an album and set it public. It's at https://imgur.com/a/c0WTZ and I hit the "i" in the top right and entered c0WTZ... and it's broken. Reverted to image links instead. If anyone can help, much appreciated.

Edited March 5, 2016 by NeilC
imgur issues

[Nich]

Ya that is definitely lite.  Stock would be 9.5t with no solar panels, radiators, landing gear.  Is that a .0625m converter?

[NeilC]

2 hours ago, Nich said:

Ya that is definitely lite.  Stock would be 9.5t with no solar panels, radiators, landing gear.  Is that a .0625m converter?

It's a 0.625m nuclear reactor, provides 30/sec charge from a very tiny amount of enriched uranium. Low mass, but very high cost - 3,220 for the reactor, and I have the converter filled with 0.4/2.0 units to get the fuel cost down from 1700ish to only a couple hundred. It's about the same, in weight and cost and power generation, as 20 3x2 solar panels. There's also a radial ore tank on there that's about 0.625m.

The resource converter is actually part of the Comm lab, the yellow box opposite side of the hab module and not shown very well in my pics. This is the module that feels a bit overpowered - it's a science lab, it's an antenna, and it's an ore->fuel/ox/monoprop converter, and it weighs 0.75t.  Granted it's very inefficient, power hungry and a total pig on Ore - 5.5 ore for about 1 unit LF/O. But just the fact that it converts at all means I can launch this dry and fill after landing, saving 2t launch mass and thus a bunch of Tsiolkovsky cost.

[Death Engineering]

On 3/5/2016 at 0:27 AM, NeilC said:

DE, thanks so much for resurrecting this challenge! My Duna InSitu mission for the original was the most fun I've had with KSP by far. I actually haven't played much for a year or so, and both KSP and its mods have come a long way since then. I'm looking forward to this, should be a blast.

Hi NeilC.. I totally get that. Having done the DPOMAC three times I agree that this kind of long-term mission is where I enjoy KSP the most. Following your DPOMAC entry was great. Welcome to the challenge!  

MKS/OKS with USI-LS is not cheaty as the life-support requirements have ramped up from the 1.08/kerbal day consumption to, what is it.. 16 something? Also I suspect habitation will factor in, at least in regards to the trip there and back.

I did not realize that the MK-V lab could also clean experiments, which the description does not mention (as much as I appreciate RD's mods, the lack of documentation often leaves me scratching my head..). That said, I did just roll a test bed out to the launch pad with the MK-V lab and was able to clean experiments with no scientists on board so it fits the requirements of a lab, and supporting less than 6 kerbs on descent does not break the KERBAL HAB definition - carry on!  

For comparison, using the stock MPL, my Duna hab was 18.8t at a cost of 60564. It was not by any means optimized for mass or cost but could support 6 kerbs on the surface for several hundred days. Using the stock MPL and a "skinny" design, a KERBAL HAB could be built for around 17800 funds and 7.5t.

One of the things I struggled with when designing the challenge was whether or not to include a scoring factor for 'kerbal days' on Duna/Ike. In the end as you know, there is none. The reason I did not elect for including a score based on time spent on the surface was that in the original DPOMAC, my kerbs plunked down on the surface for the duration of their life support then came home - no real exploration/science was done.

In order to try and encourage staying on the surface for some kind of duration, the multiple biome goals were left open to interpretation - multiple landings or a surface roving adventure or a combination. Perhaps I should have weighted things differently, but as this point I'm not about to make any changes like that.

As you've already noted, the inclusion of Kolonization parts puts your entry into its own class, which is totally fine. I hope your entry continues to come together and encourages others to use MKS/OKS as that is really the most effective way to accomplish the KERBAL HAB goals.

Looking forward to more!  

[NeilC]

I'm still working through various design concepts, having tons of fun. I'm pretty sure I will ditch the refuel-on-Duna concept above since it doesn't scale well - it's actually only 2t of fuel, vs 0.75t of drilling equipment + a whole bunch of added cost. I also did a trial landing and didn't happen to strike Ore, stranding me on the surface... not worth the risk.

DE, can you clarify the OP regarding module re-use? I seem to recall reading a clarification somewhere in this thread, but I wasn't able to find it again.Specifically:

- There are prestige points for orbiting SCIENCE LABs around Duna & Ike. Must these be separate LABs, or can I re-use the same LAB hardware?

           -If I can re-use, what are the orbit rules? Would this LAB flight plan achieve both goals: Aerobrake into Duna capture, orbit once, Ike intercept and burn to capture around Ike.  What if I didn't complete a full orbit before the next SOI, eg Duna aerocapture into Ike intercept without a full orbit around Duna?

           -Similarly, there are points for orbiting SHUTTLEs around Duna/Ike. Can I meet both requirements with 1 shuttle? What if I take 3 shuttles - do I get 3x the points, one for each shuttle?

- There are prestige points for HAB landings in all 5 biomes. Must these be separate HABs, or can I liftoff/rove and re-use the same HAB to capture all 5 (or 10) biomes?

 

More pics soon!

[Death Engineering]

Hi @NeilC. I can't stand this forum's reply/quote mechanism so here goes my kludge:

"- There are prestige points for orbiting SCIENCE LABs around Duna & Ike. Must these be separate LABs, or can I re-use the same LAB hardware?"

To score for both LABs, you must have separate craft. They can be identical, but there must be two of them (one for each body)

"-Similarly, there are points for orbiting SHUTTLEs around Duna/Ike. Can I meet both requirements with 1 shuttle? What if I take 3 shuttles - do I get 3x the points, one for each shuttle?"

Same deal, I'm afraid.. to score for Duna and Ike SHUTTLEs, there needs to be one around each body. There is no scoring benefit to have more than one around each body.

"- There are prestige points for HAB landings in all 5 biomes. Must these be separate HABs, or can I liftoff/rove and re-use the same HAB to capture all 5 (or 10) biomes?"

Scoring of the 'prestige' points for HABs on Duna and Ike is separate from the 'science/biome' points - HAB points need one separate HAB for each biome, but you can get the 'science/biome' points with a single (or multiple) landers and rove.

Hope that helps    

[NeilC]

Perfectly clear now, thanks!

[Death Engineering]

15 hours ago, NeilC said:

DE, can you clarify the OP regarding module re-use?

 

In case there was another concern regarding reuse/recovery I wanted to clarify how the cost of recovered parts factors in: Only parts which are going to be reused to build another craft, or craft which are going to be relaunched, can be counted as credits towards your score. IOW, after the space program is over, leftover parts and recovered parts that are not reused do not count as funds credits. (without this clarification, the score could technically be reduced to 0 or NAN).

I've used the history of Canada's 'Avro Arrow' as the analog to this rule: "Let's throw a ton of money into building all this lovely hardware. Oh wait, this just in.. okay, we're not going to use them. Should we sell them? Nah.. chop them up and off to the landfill they go!"

[sdj64]

After several failures to understand KCT, forgetting of parts, rockets wet-noodling, and "what on earth am I doing" moments, the DERP program is finally under way.  First launch is the supplies launch, including the base, scan sat, claw rover, and life support module.  The crew is launching in a few days, and I already realized that I forgot the probe core on the second stage of their reusable rocket...

Relevant Mods: IFI life support, Planetary Base Systems, Fuel Tanks Plus, SpaceY, Kerbal Engineer.

KCT settings: 0.4, 0.4 in the VAB.

Accounting so far: buy 2nd launch pad (100000), 3 simulations of the payload launch (462 x3), 2 of the shuttle+miner (417 x2), launch of payload (137020), recovery of first stage (-5249) = 233991

 

 

 

[The Space Core]

Ah hell, I took a hiatus and this challenge has already grown so much. Unfortunately I am still having mod troubles, and the installer you suggest does not work, due to me being forced to use a mac system. If any mac users in this forum could help me out with getting all of the mods in place that would be great otherwise I'm keen to observe.