Fully Reusable Career Challenge

[Kergarin]

I was starting a new career game, and got this crazy idea, to make it a litte more challenging: 

Fully Reusable Career Challenge 

Get as far as you can in career mode, while recovering every bit that you have launched! 

 

Rules: 

-no mods/cheats/config changes

(Informational mods are ok) 

-launch a new career on hard mode

(you may activate saving/reverting, but don't touch the rewards!) 

-everything you have launched must be recovered 100% intact!

-you may use boosters,  staging and everything else, as long as everything gets 100% recovered

(you may use shrouds and fairings, since they disappear in the KSP universe ) 

 

We have three levels: 

- Low Tech: no facility upgrades allowed

- Mid Tech: each facility may have one upgrade

- High Tech: all upgrades allowed

 

Hall of fame

Low Tech: 

Kergarin - Mun flyby in s pace high

Jetski - Kerbin suborbital in space high / orbit in space near Kerbin

 

Mid Tech: 

- 

High Tech: 

- 

 

Edited May 17, 2016 by Kergarin

[AeroGav]

I did a "no rockets" challenge career,  where you never launch one rocket.   Spend the first hour running around the space centre collecting EVA reports from the different buildings till you finally unlock the first aviation parts.      Finally you can start making aircraft,  eventually got into orbit with a Juno/Terrier spaceplane.  Would still have failed your challenge however, because the only way the juno/terrier could make orbit was to jettison it's landing gear after takeoff and drop the cluster of junos once they flame out.  After re-entry it would ditch in the water next to KSC.   Couldn't build true useful SSTO till i had whiplash/NERV tech.    And too right did i upgrade the buildings...  only the VAB was left untouched (and unused!)

 

[JebsDead]

Wow.  That sounds like less fun than Garbage Truck Simulator 2000.  You should try Desert Bus! 

 

[Jetski]

6 hours ago, Kergarin said:

-no facility upgrades (because else the answer would be: you could go to everywhere) 

 

This is not a good rule for this challenge.

Here's my attempt so far.  The answer to "how far can you get" is LKO.  I could do much more, except for the above rule.  No facilities upgrade basically makes this a very difficult Caveman Challenge on Hard mode, with the additional limitation of recovery.  I recovered everything so far, but the limitation of 18T and 30 parts makes it unlikely that I'll get any farther and still be able to recover all parts.  I have all the 45-level research unlocked, and 300K funds or so.  I could possibly make a Mun flyby if I got the margins razor-close, or started assembling stuff on the lawn next to the runway in 30-part modules with cranes and junk, but I think I'm not up for it.  Get rid of that single rule, and I'll show you how much further I can go   Otherwise, I'm thinking I'll drop the recovery theme, and just use this as another Caveman entry.

 

 

[Kergarin]

5 hours ago, Jetski said:

 Get rid of that single rule, and I'll show you how much further I can go  

I was unsure about that rule 

But don't you think, without that rule, the answer would be everywhere?

It's even possible to build an eve ssto if you start from a high mountain. And then recover it with an interplanetary stage.

 

6 hours ago, Jetski said:

The answer to "how far can you get" is LKO.  

 

Yes, I'm at LKO too, and suborbital to space high. But I haven't unlocked the tiny rocket parts until now.

I was thinking, a staged rocket with tiny parts could at least fly by mun.

 

8 hours ago, AeroGav said:

I did a "no rockets" challenge career,  where you never launch one rocket. 

...

Interesting challenge, too. But the beginning doesn't sound like fun 

[Jetski]

OK then, I think I'm done then.  I also did a high orbit suborbital probe for sci Jr and goo recovery, and a few more surface level missions, unlocked a 90-level node, basically I can do anything in LKO or surface, but longer shots aren't going to happen with the mass limit combined with recovery requirement.

Also, I'm super interested to see an Eve SSTO launched from Kerbin in Hard mode with no saves allowed and all parts recovered.  That would be quite an accomplishment.  To my knowledge, @astrobond is the only one to make an actual Eve SSTO, and it was hyperEdited to the perfect launch spot, and the ascent margins were razor thin (many attempts using KoS scripting).  Maybe things have changed in 1.1.2?

Edited May 16, 2016 by Jetski

[Kergarin]

Hm... We could split the challenge into several levels 

-low tech (no facility upgrades) 

-mid tech (each facility may have one upgrade) 

-high tech (all allowed) 

Therefore I would remove the extra single stage rule.

Would you then be in? 

 

I'm thinking about allowing quicksave/reverting. I just took hard mode to lower rewards.

 

Manned Mun flyby with all since experiments using reliant on first and terrier on second stage is not a problem.

I think I can land on minmus with some more testing. 

 

[Jetski]

Post pics!  I'm interested to see how you recover the reliant stage with the added parts needed (probe/chutes) and still have enough parts/dV to fly by the Mun withe science payload. I tried and was 300 dV short, but was considering a direct ascent launch might be more efficient

[Kergarin]

The Reliant stage was not the Problem. Reentry heat on the terrier stage was hard.

But it think there is much more possible.

 

 

[Jetski]

Impressive.  I had almost the same ship, but I used a heat shield to reenter, so I lost a fair amount of dV.  Aerobraking and reentering on the Terrier looks like it was much better.

[bengee777]

Question: didn't Scott manley already do something like this? But I guess this is ok because this is several versions later.

[Kergarin]

6 hours ago, Jetski said:

Impressive.  I had almost the same ship, but I used a heat shield to reenter, so I lost a fair amount of dV.  Aerobraking and reentering on the Terrier looks like it was much better.

Thanks 

Reentry without heatshield was no fun. But I wonder what your final stage looks like with engine heatshield and pod?

If I adjust the parachute settings, it would be possible to get rid of the probecore and the bay, saving some weight. 

Also I might try other engines on first stage, I think there is a lot of dV lost, because initial twr seems verry low. (I play without any mods, and have no dV or twr displays) 

 

5 hours ago, bengee777 said:

Question: didn't Scott manley already do something like this? But I guess this is ok because this is several versions later.

Sorry, I did not know about this. Do you have a link or something?

[astrobond]

20 hours ago, Jetski said:

OK then, I think I'm done then.  I also did a high orbit suborbital probe for sci Jr and goo recovery, and a few more surface level missions, unlocked a 90-level node, basically I can do anything in LKO or surface, but longer shots aren't going to happen with the mass limit combined with recovery requirement.

Also, I'm super interested to see an Eve SSTO launched from Kerbin in Hard mode with no saves allowed and all parts recovered.  That would be quite an accomplishment.  To my knowledge, @astrobond is the only one to make an actual Eve SSTO, and it was hyperEdited to the perfect launch spot, and the ascent margins were razor thin (many attempts using KoS scripting).  Maybe things have changed in 1.1.2?

Hi @Jetski and @Kergarin

I made a hard mode career in 1.0.5, i think this challenge is really hard !

For the Eve SSTO, i just played a little with my "old" Eve SSTO, and yes... things have changed in 1.1.2... xD

I had to put the biggest landing gears on the ship to avoid other landing gears explosions due to Eve gravity, the ship is comming very hot above 25km if the speed is too high, so to reach 91km i had to set my ascent path to 45°, lock the twr to 1.4 max, and the result is that i'm short of 457m/s for circularization...

Not sure i'll be able to find a way to SSTO Eve in 1.1.2 !!!

Fly safe with Valentina

[Kergarin]

Hi @astrobond 

your Eve SSTO ist the one I was referring to  really impressive work! 

Sad to hear it doesn't work anymore... Hope you are able to make it work again!

What if you adjust your ascend path to be even more steep, at the moment when speed gets to high?

Or use smaller and lighter engines, if you have to limit thrust on the big one? What about "vector" engines? They have the same efficiency.

 

Have updated the rules and splitted it into 3 levels.

I will stay on the low tech level for now, since this was initially planned as a short challenge 

But I would be impressed, if someone establishes a full wasteless space Programm! 

[bengee777]

I had commented about scott manley doing something like this in the past. So...

On ‎5‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 7:41 AM, Kergarin said:

Sorry, I did not know about this. Do you have a link or something?

So here's the link                     https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYu7z3I8tdEkj16QN9poJyRrfAugyiC7W

[Kergarin]

Thanks for the video  

That's some really impressive work! Even if it does not exactly fit this challenge, since that seems to be sandbox or late career mode, and he uses some mods. 

The main challenge here, is to do this from the beginning of a career, using just the few given parts.