Most Ridiculous Transfers

[A35K]

So I was doing a crew transfer from my Mun and Minmus bases, and after picking up the Kerbals from Mun, I decided that I did NOT want to wait the several days required to get to Minmus. So I did this maneuvre:

I thought, instead of going around Kerbin, why not go over it? So I did this 1000m/s maneuvre from the Mun, which as you can see put me in a polar trajectory over Kerbin, reaching Minmus in 8 hours, on the other side of Kerbin SoI! Now, since I was using one of those ridiculously efficient Plasma Thrusters from Interstellar (powered by 15GW of electrcity), I was able to burn even more over Kerbin reaching Minmus in less than 6 hours!

Here is my SSTO over Kerbin's North Pole:

So has anyone ever done or thought of doing something similar? I figured 1000m/s is perfectly reasonable even with non OP rockets (even though you have to spend another 1000 to slow down...). If you have done, where? Have you had one of those moments where you just decided 'I'm not waiting that long!' and did some inefficient maneuver to get there faster? Basically, this is a thread for you to post the most ridiculous transfers you made (not a challenge, so no rules)!

[Nich]

No nothing I have in kerbin's SOI has 2k dv unless it is leaving kerbins SOI

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Munar gravity assist to reach Duna... by accident. Need I say more?

[richfiles]

I had a 32000 ∆v transfer stage for my first Duna mission. Crew cabin was slightly offset (the MK3 cockpit), and I had the bright idea of EVAing to collect science™. I did not use any type of advanced capture maneuvers, and the vessel was BIG... It was multiple launched strings of Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tanks, docked to a hub, and tugged with a ring of NERV engines at the front hub, with the crew cabin attached in the middle. A set of retrograde engines allowed deceleration without turning the vessel (the vessel was WAY too big and floppy for a push design, so engines were at the center), I left the rockets at full throttle, but with no active control, SAS dropped and the imbalance of the ship caused it to start spinning wildly and began to drift off course, ejecting my EVAed Kerbal. I had to switch to the ship to regain control, and prevent self deconstruction of the whole thing. By the time I was stable, my Kerbal was so far out, she had to be selected from the map view, cause i couldn't press [ or ] to toggle to her. She was a couple Km out. I EVA'd her back and boarded. Got my darn EVA report at least. Continued the burn (with SAS keeping the ship stable) My orbit was not well circularized, but that was okay. I snagged an Ike encounter, and used Ike to help bring myself under control. I love the range of NERVs, but it pays to have some backup REAL thrust for emergencies. I did not have that.

Edited January 28, 2016 by richfiles

[Bev7787]

I had a Mun-Minmus-Mun transfer once

[Evanitis]

I often get the most spectacular trajectory constellations around Jool's moons... but I never did screens of that.

Though yesterday I started a career with KSC placed on Laythe, so I guess I'll have better ones soon. This was my return trajectory after from the first orbital flight without nodes unlocked. Fully accidental, I was already planning to send a rescue that I didn't need afterall.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Evanitis

[Hannu2]

Why that is ridiculous trajectory? Near Hohmann orbits are used (both in KSP and in real life) only because DV is so expensive. They are very long and very slow transfers which are typically possible after long waiting. If you have huge DV reserves there is no reason to use slow low energy orbits.

Fastest orbits are always hyperbolas around center body. When speed is increased they approach straight lines from departure body to target body, which is very intuitive. Shortest and fastest route between two points is a straight line. Gravity can be considered as a small perturbation in such trajectories.

My most ridiculous trajectories are those in which map view does not show encounter with Jool's moon until there is couple of hours to encounter. (I do no understand why Squad never fix such stupid bug, it has been at least from 0.18) They lead to more or less desperate correction burns. Sometimes I have forgot to put life supplies when I have sent manned craft to Minmus and I have noticed it after TMI burn. I have had to make a rescue maneuver. I have also sent small flyby probes to OPM planets with significantly faster routes than minimum dv, however, I do not see any ridiculous in that..

[A35K]

Well, it's "ridiculous" in the sense that not many transfers from Mun to Minmus end up being 2000m/s! Actually when I was over Kerbin I accelerated another km/s, so my total capture burn at Minmus was around 3.5km/s. Thankfully with 15GW it only takes a few minutes. By the way, if anyone starts getting bored of KSP, the Interstellar mod is one of the best things to get. When you unlock the OP engines, you can pretty much disregard any of that "orbital mechanics" stuff and burn until all your trajectories are straight lines. And when I was trying to rendezvous with my Mun Space Station on this mission, I would have had to wait a few orbits, but I just reversed the orbital direction, and then flipped it around again when near the station! According to Mechjeb, the total dV spent throughout the whole mission was 30km/s (just for a Kerbin>Mun>Minmus>Kerbin trip).

[Evanitis]

Today's best:

I haven't the slightest clue what's going on on this one.

[moogoob]

3 hours ago, Evanitis said:

Today's best:

I haven't the slightest clue what's going on on this one.

You might have an alternate patched conics display mode active - the default connects all the trajectories, that one seems to be moon-centric.

The closest I've come to a "crazy" trajectory also involves Jool. I launched a mission, but didn't want to wait for a true hohmann transfer so did a higher-energy one instead - maybe an extra 500 to 1000 m/s ejection from Kerbin. What was crazy is that my fuel reserves were too low to both capture AND hit both of Jool's outer two moons once the extra energy was taken into account. So, I asked in the advice forum and got "do a Tylo slingshot!". En route, I learned how and executed said slingshot from all the way out between Dres and Duna's orbits, winding up with a final total capture AND plane change burn of UNDER 1000 m/s, and from a high-energy transfer too.

Low energy transfers don't even need a burn if you use Tylo effectively.

So, not all that crazy but at the time I thought it was so.

[KerikBalm]

12 hours ago, Evanitis said:

Though yesterday I started a career with KSC placed on Laythe, so I guess I'll have better ones soon.

What mod is that? it sounds pretty interesting. I've wanted a Duna KSC, so one could pretend its sort of an "exodus" program, but laythe starts sound fun too.

[cantab]

[Evanitis]

37 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

What mod is that? it sounds pretty interesting. I've wanted a Duna KSC, so one could pretend its sort of an "exodus" program, but laythe starts sound fun too.

Alien Space Programs. There's a Duna and Eve version too.

[Snark]

Did Kerbin to Eve in 8 days once (that's eight Kerbin days, i.e. 48 hours) with a purely-stock ship.  Lots of xenon drop tanks.

This was in 0.90, so reentry heating wasn't a thing and I didn't have to worry about decelerating on arrival.  Just slammed right into Eve's atmosphere at several dozen kilometers per second.  It was ... dramatic.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Snark

[Hysterrics]

Once when I was entering orbit around Duna on my Ike mission, I caught a ribbion like encounter. Very odd. Didn't get a screenshot, but it was pretty cool.

[Scotius]

Once, i got a ship to Duna expending only 200 m\s dV. All thanks to a perfect, lucky Mun slingshot. One of my proudest moments

[richfiles]

How did this double post? Oh well... I'll change this to... Hmm... I've never been to Jool. I'm saving anything beyond Eve and Duna for after I finish my hardware controller. I also plan to install Outer Planets Mod, so I'll have even more reason to enjoy crazy Jool assisted slingshots to the likes of Sarnus and Plock! Using REAL instruments, no less! 

Edited January 28, 2016 by richfiles

[richfiles]

23 hours ago, Evanitis said:

I often get the most spectacular trajectory constellations around Jool's moons... but I never did screens of that.

Though yesterday I started a career with KSC placed on Laythe, so I guess I'll have better ones soon. This was my return trajectory after from the first orbital flight without nodes unlocked. Fully accidental, I was already planning to send a rescue that I didn't need after all.

That pic... Evanitis ♡ Jool and it's moons. 

I've never even considered any type of "near future" engine mods... Anyone with a mod can spend funds, beam 1.21 Gigawatts into space with a nuclear powered microwave beam, and pull straight line power thrusts. Unf. 

Boooooring! The challenge of KSP, for me, is to actually try to use the physics to fly my missions, and not brute force things. I DO rather enjoy over engineering my ships... I sent what amounts to a massive fuel station and a reusable lander to Duna and Ike to basically get ALL the biomes in a single trip. Strategic hops, conjunctions where multiple biomes sit near one another, etc. It was a very fun mission. I burned half my remaining leftover fuel for a mighty fast transfer back to Kerbin. A near straight line. I almost biffed the capture. Sure, I powered back, but my recklessness could have cost me the science for EVERY SINGLE BIOME OF THE ENTIRE DUNA SYSTEM. I had my final lander... an MK3 "shuttle" cockpit that would hold all 4 crew (my two Scientists, Engineer, and Pilot, plus a rescue I managed to snag on the way out), spammed with radial parachutes, and some radial rocket motors... had it perform a MechJeb guided landing near the KSC, and I used the motors and the last of my fuel to power land it on the VAB helipad.

Sadly, i do not have screenshots of the Duna transfer... It was rather bland. Trip there was a normal Hohman transfer. Trip back was a literal power drive. I burned half my fuel, failed to realize that the nature of my burn was having my burn not only to arrest my travel, but to then reverse myself into catching up with Kerbin. It worked, just. I just barely got captured into an orbit, and used aerobraking to bring myself down. This was in 0.90, before reentry heat. I'd rather not try stunts like that again. With reentry heat, I would have lost my crew. Fancy multi slingshot orbits seem to be the most entertaining option, to be honest! 

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by richfiles

[GoSlash27]

Mr. KrakBadger goes to Eve.

http://s52.photobucket.com/user/GoSlash27/slideshow/KSP/KrakBadger

Best,
-Slashy

 

[Warzouz]

@GoSlash27, your ship has no fuel ?

For my part, I don't have screenshots, but I did a test mission few weeks ago (here). When it was time to return, it was late, I wanted to get back before bed, It seemed I missed the window. But I was eager to return home.

The Jool SOI escape burn was not that bad, but arriving at Kerbin SOI, I was already around 5000m/s. This speed would incease up to nearly 7000m/s when touching the atmoshpere (with only 1600m/s of fuel). Even if the ship had a big heatshield, I failed to slowdown. I tried several approaches, but the only one that didn't destroyed my ship didn't capture me.

Well renetry was not part of the test. The mission was a success even if the crew didn't survived ;D

 

[GoSlash27]

15 minutes ago, Warzouz said:

@GoSlash27, your ship has no fuel ?

Warzouz,

Had. This was from back when infinigliders and kraken drives were still a thing, so fuel wasn't necessary.

Best,
-Slashy

[Evanitis]

Daily report from the Laythe Space Program:

I can't get bored for going around with random assists.

[Warzouz]

Yes, Tylo and Laythe SOI are hard to miss (even Vall is). It's a very nice place to explore though. I hope there will be anohter gaz giant with a subsystem in KSP 1.2/1.3

[A35K]

6 hours ago, richfiles said:

That pic... Evanitis ♡ Jool and it's moons. 

I've never even considered any type of "near future" engine mods... Anyone with a mod can spend funds, beam 1.21 Gigawatts into space with a nuclear powered microwave beam, and pull straight line power thrusts. Unf. 

 

Well, I tend to do a bit of both. You see, most of the Interstellar reactors require somewhat frequent maintenance (refueling, reprocessing, etc.), so you can't just send a bunch of reactors to Jool to have beamed power if you don't have the infrastructure to maintain them. So most of my long range interplanetary ships have onboard reactors, which while still very efficient provide rather lower TWR, so gravity assists and "traditional" orbital maneuvers are still useful. (Until you unlock antimatter and warp drives, then you've gone full sci-fi). 

 

17 hours ago, cantab said:

Did you use any mods for this?! How long was the burn, and how fast were you traveling?

[cantab]

On 28/01/2016 at 4:06 PM, A35K said:

Did you use any mods for this?! How long was the burn, and how fast were you traveling?

Near Future Technologies for souped-up ion engines with "only" 3200 s Isp and nuclear reactors to power them. The transfer block used asparagus staging and maintained a TWR of 0.5 or so. Launch to leaving Kerbin's SOI was 2 hours 45 minutes and I was still doing the ejection burn at that point, it was about 3 hours game time total. (And probably more wall time because of lag). I don't know the speed when I finished the ejection burn, but I hit Jool's atmosphere at 40 km/s and pulled 155 gees in the aerocapture.

Oh, and the payload was a 65-ton boat. [url=https://flic.kr/p/oGGiYs]the spacecraft what did it.

Dang, I miss when this game didn't have re-entry heating