The Ultimate Challenge - Attempt (and success) [Preparation phase]

[Gaarst]

I'm bored by stock. After playing heavily modded RSS for over 2 years, stock KSP feels incredibly underwhelming: everything looks the same and is easy. Stack two fuels tanks: SSTO. 50t rocket build while doing something else: Moon rocket. And so on.

So I decided to do the Ultimate Challenge which is: "plant a flag on every single body of the Kerbal system (except Sun and Jool obviously) in one ship". It seems like a good landmark to say "I've completed the game, I'm never coming back to stock again".

 

I'll report my progress and eventual full mission report in this thread in details (will be very wordy) mainly so that I don't forget what I was doing (if you read it and actually enjoy doing so, then it's even better).

First, some rules or guidelines that I will stick to, giving a rough outline of what I'll be doing:

• Stock. Except KER because I'm not calculating dV for a whole Grand Tour with gravity assists by hand.
• No cheats. So no infinite fuel, no indestructible parts... because that takes away all the fun.
• Sandbox mode. So all the parts, infinite funds max level SAS and max level Kerbals. I could grind all these, but that'll save time.
• Since I need to plant a flag, I'll need a Kerbal. I'll probably take a single engineer to save on mass.
• Brand new save. This means that I won't have any station, refueler or ships waiting for me at different bodies.
• Single launch. I don't like orbital assembly because it puts severe restrictions on the design. So I'm bringing everything I need with me.
• Refueling allowed. It's terribly OP but it makes things doable.
• Landers are expendable. I'll reuse some but ditch the others.
• No command seats. Just an RP rule I like to impose myself when I play. I may break it to make my Tylo lander as light as I can, but the Kerbal will have a proper shelter everywhere else.

 

Since I just started the planning phase I don't really have any designs or definitive ideas of what I'll actually do. Though I have quite a few ideas of what the mission will look like.

The ship:

• All inclusive (since I do one launch) which means it must be able to do interplanetary transfers while carrying everything.
• I'll have a refueler. It'll probably be a "small" (a few dozen tons) refinery that will be able to land on small moons for refueling.
• I'll have a generic vacuum lander for all bodies except Eve, Tylo, Laythe and maybe Duna (depending on what mass I can save with chutes). This means it will need to have single stage landing and orbit capabilities on many bodies (the limiting one will probably be Moho or Duna since these require the most dV)
• The atmospheric lander will be in two parts. The lower stage will be used for the first part of Eve ascent and is expandable. The upper stage will be used to finish the Eve ascent and orbit, and will later be reused for Laythe ascent (and maybe Duna).
• The Tylo lander will be a Tylo lander, not much to say.
• To save on mass and parts, the Eve and Tylo landers will be empty once landed (reenter empty for Eve and use all fuel for landing on Tylo). The descent modules will therefore contain refueling equipment to fuel the craft once landed; this will remain on the planet.
• A planetary tug that will be used to move crafts around in a planetary system to avoid having to move the mothership too much.
• Nuclear propulsion for best efficiency for the mothership, probably regular chemical for the landers.
• I'll maybe carry a scanning probe to find the best places for mining for ore.
• Don't forget to put ladders on landers

The plan:

1. Take off from Kerbin with all landers empty, and mothership not fully fueled, to reduce takeoff mass as much as possible.
2. First stop Minmus. There I'll refuel the mothership completely.
3. Second stop Gilly. I'll use Gilly's low dV requirements to efficiently refuel the mothership and transfer tug.
4. Eve. I'll leave the mothership orbiting Gilly while I send the lander to Eve empty of fuel, refuel on the surface and come back to Gilly with the tug and upper atmospheric stage.
5. Gilly 2. Since I probably won't be able to refuel at Moho, I leave as much stuff as I can there before leaving for Moho to reduce fuel expenses for the Moho transfer.
6. Moho. Arrive, land with the general lander and leave.
7. Gilly 3. Come back to Gilly, pick up everything we've left before going to Moho, refuel and leave for Duna (maybe using a Kerbin gravity assist, depending on whether or not I'll be bothered waiting for a transfer).
8. Ike. I'll leave the mothership at Ike and refuel it, the tug and Duna lander there.
9. Duna. Bring the tug and lander to Duna, land there and come back.
10. Ike 2. Redock with the mothership and leave for Jool.
11. Bop. Park the ship here and prepare for the Jool landings. Refuel pretty much everything.
12. Tylo. Bring the Tylo lander there, land, refuel, get back to orbit and leave the big (and now obsolete) lander there.
13. Bop 2. Bring my Kerbal back there, refuel the tug, and prepare the Laythe lander.
14. Laythe. Bring the upper atmospheric lander there, land, and take off (I'll probably bring that one down already fueled since it's the upper stage of the Eve lander and I need to make it as light as I can), and leave the atmospheric lander there.
15. Bop 3. Refuel, take the generic lander to Vall.
16. Vall. Land, take off again and bring everything back to Bop.
17. Bop 4. Refuel the generic lander and head to Pol.
18. Pol. Land and return to Bop.
19. Bop 5. Refuel mothership and leave for Eeloo. (At this point I'll have ditched the atmospheric and Tylo landers so I'll be lighter)
20. Eeloo. Land and back to orbit. No refueling there.
21. Dres. Use a Jool gravity assist to get to Dres. Land and take off. Depending on how much dV I need to get back to Kerbin, I may or may not refuel using an asteroid there.
22. Mun. Land on the Mun last. (Probably crash the mothership there for fun since I won't need it anymore and chances are I'll hate that thing by this point).
23. Kerbin. Back home!

This plan is not definitive but I probably won't change it that much. Details will change, but this seems a good compromise and reduces the individual needs on the separate crafts as much as possible.

 

Next step is doing maths. I need to work out the specific requirements (dV and TWR mostly) for each separate vessel I'll use to be able to design them efficiently.

Then I'll design the crafts. I'll allow myself to HyperEdit them to the bodies to actually test them (especially for Eve and Tylo).

After that I will have to build the mothership to support all the individual crafts and be able to perform the interplanetary transfers I need to.

And finally I'll do the mission!

 

Suggestions and questions are of course welcome. (If you know a way to make my life easier, please tell me)

Edited February 20, 2017 by Gaarst

[xendelaar]

Sounds like a solid plan you've got there! Good luck!

My tip.. don't forget the ladders hehe. I'm also performing a Grand tour mission and I forgot the ladder on my Eve lander... DOH

[Gaarst]

1 hour ago, xendelaar said:

Sounds like a solid plan you've got there! Good luck!

My tip.. don't forget the ladders hehe. I'm also performing a Grand tour mission and I forgot the ladder on my Eve lander... DOH

Thanks for the advice, adding this to the list right now before I forget!

[IncongruousGoat]

You might want to consider mining on Pol instead of Bop, since it's closer to the plane of the other moons and has less gravity, and therefore is both easier to get to and easier to land on.

Good luck with the mission!

[Gaarst]

55 minutes ago, IncongruousGoat said:

You might want to consider mining on Pol instead of Bop, since it's closer to the plane of the other moons and has less gravity, and therefore is both easier to get to and easier to land on.

Good luck with the mission!

TBH it's been a long time since I've been to either of these moons so I don't remember the details. Thanks for the advice, I'll sort that out when making the dV estimations.