The Ultimate Challenge (Originally by Just Jim)

[Gaarst]

And I was searching for things to do in the stock game to take a pause from RSS...

I'll give it a shot!

Sorry if this has already been asked, but are we allowed to visit the bodies not in the order specified? (I'd like to ditch the Eve lander as fast as I can).

[IncongruousGoat]

23 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

And I was searching for things to do in the stock game to take a pause from RSS...

I'll give it a shot!

Sorry if this has already been asked, but are we allowed to visit the bodies not in the order specified? (I'd like to ditch the Eve lander as fast as I can).

Yeah, you can visit the bodies in any order that you want. Heck, you don't even need to complete the contract to complete the challenge. The contract turns out to be tricky to complete, since you need to land the same vessel on every single planet-which presents some... difficulties... where Eve is concerned.

Best of luck to you.

[Gaarst]

9 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Yeah, you can visit the bodies in any order that you want. Heck, you don't even need to complete the contract to complete the challenge. The contract turns out to be tricky to complete, since you need to land the same vessel on every single planet-which presents some... difficulties... where Eve is concerned.

Best of luck to you.

I'm probably going to do "land the same Kerbal" on each body from a single launch. But I'll probably use different landers for different bodies., which is why I want to do Eve first, so that I don't have to haul the dedicated lander to Eeloo and back.

[-DDD-]

Hi! My attempt is here:

 

[qwewew]

Hi, I have a couple of questions to anyone kind enough to answer:

I'm currently about a 3rd of the way through completing this but I started before I was aware of done of the guidance in this thread - would my entry still count if I could show screen caps of my landings on all bodies, even if I don't actually complete the contract?

Also I was planning on sending a 'booster' ship to meet me at Eve. I would still use the same lander but would attach a single use booster to get it into Eve orbit. Does this break  the 'single ship' rule?

Finally, does version used matter? I'm on 1.2 and only using a handful of basic mods (KAS, mechjeb etc) but would probably avoid going to 1.3 right away in case it broke any of them.

Thanks OP maintaining this awesome challenge! I came to this forum a long time ago and was inspired but only recently got to the point where I felt confident enough to give it a go!

Edit: ok after paying more attention I can see completing the contract is not essential and multiple refuelling missions is a no no... I think I might restart. Having major problems on Tylo anyway with my current build.

 

Edited April 16, 2017 by qwewew

[Kergarin]

Here it is. My second grand tour 

 

[Nefrums]

I love the eve landing with the catching the lander and docking the large ships while suborbital!

[Kergarin]

4 hours ago, Nefrums said:

I love the eve landing with the catching the lander and docking the large ships while suborbital!

Thanks 

 

@Stratzenblitz75 was the first to do suborbital docking at Eve using three vessels and no ISRU.  https://youtu.be/MTkObR6-Bs8

I originally planned to use my Eve SSTO for this tour, but due to the atmospheric changes in 1.2.2 this would have become insanely large. 

To keep a decent size and quick refuelling, I changed it to this suborbital lander, and therefore balanced the orbiter between the agility to catch the lander and having enough dV to reach Gilly. So I was able to do the suborbital docking plus escape by 2 vessels and mining at Gilly.

 

[Nefrums]

I've never done a grand tour so I thought that I try to do one.  Landing the same ship on all planets with only stock parts and without isru is actually pretty hard.

Here is a teaser:

 

Plan is to split the ship in two in LKO and do the inner planets first and then return to the rest of the ship and do the outer planets. The same MK1 landing can will touch down on all planets, to complete the contract.

Flight plan:   Kerbin->Eve->Moho->Kerbin->Jool->Eeloo->Dres->Duna->Kerbin.

Mods used: KER, Time Control (faster time warp), Precise Node, Minimum Ambient Lighting (to avoid problem with dark screenshots)

Edited May 24, 2017 by Nefrums

[JacobJHC]

On 5/22/2017 at 6:55 PM, Nefrums said:

Flight plan:   Kerbin->Eve->Moho->Kerbin->Jool->Eeloo->Dress->Duna->Kerbin.

Dress? Like this one? 

[Nefrums]

Yes, what else could I have meant? 

Any "flight plan" involving a dress is a good one!

 

In an unrelated update, I found out that the eve lander did actually work!

(It was inspired by one @Foxster made)

Edited May 24, 2017 by Nefrums

[wibou7]

On 2017-05-22 at 6:55 PM, Nefrums said:

Plan is to split the ship in two in LKO and do the inner planets first and then return to the rest of the ship and do the outer planets. The same MK1 landing can will touch down on all planets, to complete the contract.

Flight plan:   Kerbin->Eve->Moho->Kerbin->Jool->Eeloo->Dres->Duna->Kerbin.

Mods used: KER, Time Control (faster time warp), Precise Node, Minimum Ambient Lighting (to avoid problem with dark screenshots)

I'm curious on the reasons why Dress and Duna are so far at the end instead of the typical Duna -> Dres -> Jool -> Eeloo?

Did you find a nice tranfer window, did you want to shed some mass at Jool first or is it simply to reduce velocity on the way back to Kerbin?

 

[Nefrums]

12 hours ago, wibou7 said:

I'm curious on the reasons why Dress and Duna are so far at the end instead of the typical Duna -> Dres -> Jool -> Eeloo?

Did you find a nice tranfer window, did you want to shed some mass at Jool first or is it simply to reduce velocity on the way back to Kerbin?

 

well the dV required for the transfer is depending in on the relative distance from karbol.  doing the planets in increasing order or decreasing order is the same total dV .

Doing Jool first has the benefit of not needing to carry the heavy landers further than necessary.

I have now done all of the hard landings and hope I have enough dV to make the rest. 

Progresses so far:

 

 

  

Edited May 27, 2017 by Nefrums

[Nefrums]

And I'm done!

I did manage to complete the contract by putting the same landing can on all planets. 

ISRU was NOT used!

The star of the show was this small lander:

With its 2.1km/s dV it can land on all but 4 planets by itself, and it had various expendable attachments for Eve, Laythe, Tylo and Duna.

Full mission:

 

Edited May 29, 2017 by Nefrums

[Kergarin]

@Nefrums

Congratulations 

That's the smallest closed capsule Eve lander I have ever seen, and I think it's also the smallest no ISRU grand tour 

Did you do all the dockings just using the landers main engine? 

[Nefrums]

42 minutes ago, Kergarin said:

Did you do all the dockings just using the landers main engine? 

Yes, It is easy to dock a small agile craft like that using only one engine, you can decrease the thrust by right clicking the engine to do the precise maneuvering required.

I cannot really take credit for the eve lander as @Foxster made a very similar one. Mine is slightly heavier and but has less part count, It also have some more dV to be able to do the rendezvous and docking.

I did try to keep the size of the ship down, with the goal to be able to lift it with a single 3,5m stack.   A mammoth engine was not quire enough but a cluster of 7 vector engines could lift it.  

Edited May 29, 2017 by Nefrums

[Jetski]

On 5/29/2017 at 4:51 AM, Nefrums said:

Yes, It is easy to dock a small agile craft like that using only one engine, you can decrease the thrust by right clicking the engine to do the precise maneuvering required.

I cannot really take credit for the eve lander as @Foxster made a very similar one. Mine is slightly heavier and but has less part count, It also have some more dV to be able to do the rendezvous and docking.

I did try to keep the size of the ship down, with the goal to be able to lift it with a single 3,5m stack.   A mammoth engine was not quire enough but a cluster of 7 vector engines could lift it.  

Beautifully done @Nefrums!  elegant solutions as always

 

[sevenperforce]

On 5/29/2017 at 3:38 AM, Nefrums said:

And I'm done!

I did manage to complete the contract by putting the same landing can on all planets. 

ISRU was NOT used!

The star of the show was this small lander:

With its 2.1km/s dV it can land on all but 4 planets by itself, and it had various expendable attachments for Eve, Laythe, Tylo and Duna.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

[qzgy]

Think I'm gonna give this a shot. 2 Launches - 1 Eve lander/transfer vehicle, 1 universal lander.

 

Might run out of fuel, so a refueling mission could be in order....

[JacobJHC]

Can I have the outer planets mod installed? I think I can get all of them in the same mission.

[JacobJHC]

Ok guys, after months (I guess maybe a year or two actually) my grand tour ship is finally ready to launch. There's just one thing. It has 1600+ parts, takes my frame-rate down to 10 a minute, and only spawns sideways, or in 2 segments

Album

Anyone have any ideas on what I should do?

UPDATE: We good someone on the forum helped me out. 

Edited October 21, 2017 by JacobJHC

[Marschig]

An album from old career in version 1.0.5:

https://imgur.com/a/Q9EMz

 

[iAMtheWALRUS]

Here's my entry and album.   It's my general use cargo spaceplane with two disposable landers (lifted separately by the spaceplane, one left in LKO for a bit).  ISRU used.

The contract was completed, I swapped and carried the same MK1 capsule for each landing.  For kicks I did this as a "speed run", just over 9 Kerbal years to complete the mission. 

Game Version:  1.4.1

Mods used:

• Mechjeb
• Stock Visual Enhancements
• Environmental Visual Enhancements

Craft file:  https://kerbalx.com/kerbalspaceryan/Tiamat

Album:  https://imgur.com/a/sOuIc

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by iAMtheWALRUS

[Kergarin]

On 4.4.2018 at 9:33 PM, iAMtheWALRUS said:

Here's my entry and album.   It's my general use cargo spaceplane with two disposable landers (lifted separately by the spaceplane, one left in LKO for a bit).  ISRU used.

The contract was completed, I swapped and carried the same MK1 capsule for each landing.  For kicks I did this as a "speed run", just over 9 Kerbal years to complete the mission. 

Game Version:  1.4.1

Mods used:

• Mechjeb
• Stock Visual Enhancements
• Environmental Visual Enhancements

Craft file:  https://kerbalx.com/kerbalspaceryan/Tiamat

Album:  https://imgur.com/a/sOuIc

 

9 years??  And I thought I was fast 

[iAMtheWALRUS]

49 minutes ago, Kergarin said:

9 years??  And I thought I was fast 

Sounds like you have a new challenge for yourself .       I'm sure you could beat it, but I will admit to spending many hours on the transfer window calcs.