Caveman Style (NCD Run)

[Muetdhiver]

This is a caveman Nano Crystaline Diamond level run with Both MH&BG DLC's.

I already completed Diamond, but I wanted to try something a bit nuttier, so here comes my NCD run.

Settings are as follow :

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Rules are the usual caveman ones, no upgrades and unlock all T5 tech to complete the challenge.

It's been in the works for while now, but I'm close to reaching, and this will kick the run into high gear. The first part reports will be short & concise, after miniaturisation we'll try fun things with more detailed reports & albums. An other thing is that testing ideas for the caveman Jool5 challenge gave me new fun ideas for a caveman run, instead of repeating what I did in the diamond run. Ladder rides, on pad assembly and interplanetary cavemen will all be happening for sure !

The run diary so far has been :

NCD#1 : Science on the pad & runway, jumping for EVA's

NCD#2 : First launch

NCD#3 : Roller till termometer, then with it. Doing the trick of going just fast enough to get the flying over <biome> reports from the different KSC biomes.

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NCD#4 : Reaching Space ! with a sounding rocket, easy stuff. Then landing on the island with the landing strip for fun. Not much science (only EVA) but still a fun thing to do.

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NCD#5 : Orbit & Return. This was done with my diamond run drop tank + reliant based design.

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NCD#6 : moar rollers (completing KSC science), a few science ICBM's

NCD#7 : mun (HO), reliant drop tank design.

NCD#8 : mun (LO), reliant drop tank design.

NCD#9 : Orbital Mun Flight + Mun Polar Orbit (contract). I got two of those contracts, and it proved vers profitable as NCD funds tend to run low pretty fast.

NCD#10 : Hitting jackpot with a bobcat testing mission ! Kerbin Polar ladder ride. Bottom stage is a bobcat + 4xFLT 400's then terrier with two tanks

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Next part will be all about using the nifty bobcat engine to get to minmus and reach enough science for miniaturisation. Also cutting costs by recovering the upperstage !

After minmus, I'll do ladder rides to Minmus and Mun, then go for Duna using niffty new navigation tools made for the Community Caveman Jool5 challenge.

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Muetdhiver

[Geschosskopf]

Me like Caveman!  Ooga Booga!  I look forward to a Caveman Jool 5  

[Mr. Peabody]

Here we go again. Good luck to you!

 

[IncongruousGoat]

And so, another one takes up the challenge. Best of luck to you! NCD is a tough one.

12 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Me like Caveman!  Ooga Booga!  I look forward to a Caveman Jool 5  

The Jool 5 is a separate (community) project. You can find the thread over here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187070-community-caveman-jool-5-mission

 

[Muetdhiver]

Caveman report, missions #11 to #19

Here is what happened in short : to get enough science and funds to go to Duna, I farmed minmus a bit . With the bobcat it was nearly easy as pie ^^

NCD#11 : Minmus Orbit and return. Nothing exciting here, but a good test of my rusty caveman Minmus encouters skills

NCD#12 : Kerbol Orbit (Exiting kerbin SOI). This was really easy but it was a cheap way to grap a few science points and world's first credits.

NCD#13 : Sci Jr Roller followed by a Minmus landing mission (midlands). DV margins are good, but electricity is running on the low at the end of the mission. Losing the terrier and tank upon re-entry, but the capsule and science end up fine. Science Jr's are good, but damn are they costly. Rolling around with them and using a scientist is a nice way to get science points on the cheap without leaving the KSC. However I got bored with the KSC farming, so I tried to take a short cut : greenolith !

NCD#14 : Minmus polar orbit, trying to locate greenolith but no cigar. Very frustrating, but I'll put a constellation of octo cores around minmus to find the darn thing. Landing in highlands in spite.

NCD#15 : Science Jr Flying Low & High

NCD#16 : Science Jr Lo/Hi Kerbin Orbit. Nothing exciting, except that I recover the Jr's. All spacebucks count ! Since Valentina is still in Mun polar orbit, I complete a few survey mission to fill the coffers.

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NCD#17 : Minmus mission (greater flats). I'm starting to despise Minmus. TBH, this is inherited from the diamond run, but NCD seems worse. Let's go interplanetary ASAP

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The Minimouse minmus rocket

Ready to land

Greater flats. Still very flat ^^

A warm return. Picture taken seconds before losing the engine and tanks. Good reflexes allow to close the door and save the science !

NCD#18 : Minmus (again). Unlock miniaturisation. Now we are entering into serious business with orbital assembly.

NCD#19 : SciJr in Mun Orbit, Mun landing and return. First orbital assembly with the tankard A design (3T of fuel, delivered by stayputnik). Rendez-vous using a Stayputnik is not excactly fun, but it's an acquired taste I suppose. Landing goes without problems, return is also a walk in the park. We need to move the next level.

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Drop tanks and sacrificial science Jr's. Science box will pick the results.

Rendez-vous and assembly. Bonus : we have an active relay in LKO (dropped Core+bat+antena) for a few months !

Using the remaining fuel from the drop tank to de-orbit.

Landing and sciencing !

Earth-rise take off. Always nice

Something went wrong (no power left), but not too wrong.

Recovering the vessel including the engine.

Mission results. We need more science, but we have all we need for Duna, save a few spacebucks. Valentina will keep surveying Mun for a little while.

Next post will be Duna craft assembly and Mun/Minmus polar ladder rides to collect all the biomes EVA's !

 

[Muetdhiver]

Mission #20 part A :

Duna expedition assembly. The ship is simple, FLT400 with a capsule and a 1.25 bay filled with science and batteries (since we don't have solar panels). On top of it, two level of drop tanks, including science Jr's and goo's that we will let go during Duna aerobraking. Flight plan is done 100% with custom python scripts. That means getting the launch window, and the nav guidance for the correction burns to get the encounter.

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Ejection burn calculations.

The Duna vessel in the VAB

Middle tank and science, hell to fly from the wobblyness.

Ejection from Kerbin. Likely not very precise (ejection angle set by the eyeball mk1), however we'll correct it along the way.

 

The navigation is done as follows : time of departure is noted, and two other points on the Kerbol orbit are taken with their time, altitude and speed. We assume zero inclination, and create a dummy orbit at with informations from point one. The eccentricity is computed from Ap and Pe, mean anomaly at epoch is set to zero at T1, arg Pe is also set to 0, SMA is set to it's value. We then backpropagate to the lauch date, and use the fact that we were at kerbin position at that time to compute the true anomaly at epoch and the Arg Pe for the "real" orbit. Once it's done, we propagate forward to point 2, which is used as a control. We then solve the lambert problem from point 2 to Duna, and execute the correction burn. We propagate the corrected orbit to a third point and check that everything is on track. Finally, when we reach the ascending node for Duna, we do a manual inclination correction, using the good old eyeball

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Correction burn calculation, error for point 2 is very low, so this should prove okay.

Manual inclination correction by eye using the map. This is iffy, but I have no way of determining the inclination and Long of Asc Node with caveman informations.

Next post : Ladder rides to Mun and Minmus as well as picking up stones for souvenirs and science !

Edited September 19, 2019 by Muetdhiver

[Muetdhiver]

Missions #21 & #22 : Ladder rides to Minmus and Mun polar orbit to collect all biomes.

Minmus goes first. The plan is to attempt a landing if possible, but not taking too many risks. Lauch goes smoothly.

As does the rendez-vous with the "Tankard" tender. The Jr's are here to complete minmus high/low orbit, then ditch them. It is at this point that I realise that bob could have cleaned up the experiments. Oh well...

Minmus transfer is okay, but not great. Collecting bob used quite a bit of the Jetpack RCS fuel, but not a crazy amount. I need to get better at this.

Bob is having a blast floating arround for days. We finaly get the slope EVA and then I decide to abort the landing. Fuel will be too low. Next time I guess Bob goes in the capsule and we get back home

The onion capsule is an amazing piece of hardware. The 20 units of ablator seems to do miracles and gets barely used up. Incredible.

The science returns are really nice. We are close to 90, which could open a new T5 node. But I have other ideas. Instead, I'm going to do the same mission with Mun and then unlock construction and aeronautics for the landing gears.

The Mun mission is repeat :

Ladder riding is finicky but not very hard. At least for Mun and Minmus. With 129 science I can unlock the techs for on pad assembly. The objective is to build that :

To get Bob to the surface of minmus with an extra refueling in LKO. Things will not go to plan...

 

Edited September 29, 2019 by Muetdhiver