The little lander challenge: Complete

[Guest]

7 hours ago, AHHans said:

Some more requests for clarification:

Let's shoot!

7 hours ago, AHHans said:

 

• What are valid destinations? Only the moons of planets (i.e. Gilly, Mun, Minmus, Ike, Laythe, Vall, Tylo, Bop, and Pol), or also the planets themselves?
• If planets are also valid destinations, are the following destination points correct?

Valid destinations would be moons or Jool(Jool 5 Flagship only though) or planets of approval from me (Like GRS's planet he made.) 

7 hours ago, AHHans said:

The "Be able to get to moon orbit to moon surface using one stage" requirement is not about the final, high value destination but about one of (or all???) destination(s) before that, correct?

One stage from orbit to surface. Meaning that you could head to moonn A, land in one stage, then drop stages, then head to moon B, land in one stage, etc.

7 hours ago, AHHans said:

Is is O.K. to play with CommNet disabled? I.e. having full control even if no connection to the KSC exists? (To transmit the science I would need that connection, but then I'm usually not moving through an atmosphere or be in the shadow of a planet.)

You only would technically need connection for transmitting science. But it would be nice anyway to have connection to KSC at all times. But it's your decision to have connection to KSC only when transmitting or when you are in view of Kerbin.

7 hours ago, AHHans said:

 

• If I see that correctly then the "Grand Tour" translates for the stock system to: "land on Bop, Pol, and Vall and then on Jool with either the same or a second lander"
  (Well, yes, you don't have to do it that way, but that seems the easiest way to me.)
  • What about landing in different planetary systems? E.g. on Minmus, Ike, Gilly, and Eve?

I think you got mistaken with "at least three," what it's saying is that you can't get grand tour for a gas giant for 2 moons, it needs to be a gas giant with 3+ moons and you must land on all the moons with one at least with medium size. So you have to land on all 5 moons of Jool. The easiest way to do this in my opinion is by going to the big boys first then drop the stages and then use one stage for the other three moons, and then suicide land it on Jool. Landing on different planetary systems for Grand Tour will not count. 

If you want to do a Grand tour with all of the stock solar system I will give you flagship class of the either Grand Tour or Destination Difficulty depending on how the mission plays out

[AHHans]

Hi @The Doodling Astronaut, thanks for the clarifications.

6 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

You only would technically need connection for transmitting science. But it would be nice anyway to have connection to KSC at all times.

Yes, it would be nice, and for the Mohole landing I did just that. But you cannot reasonably enter an atmosphere with an extended communotron (any communotron, but for Jool you need the big one) without having that ripped away. And biome hopping on a planet with atmosphere with limited control is hard to impossible, depending on the lander. (I usually play with "signal required for control" which means that once I retract the communotron somewhere in the Joolian system then I wouldn't have any chance of getting control of the craft back without relays.)

7 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

I think you got mistaken with "at least three," what it's saying is that you can't get grand tour for a gas giant for 2 moons, it needs to be a gas giant with 3+ moons and you must land on all the moons with one at least with medium size. So you have to land on all 5 moons of Jool. The easiest way to do this in my opinion is by going to the big boys first then drop the stages and then use one stage for the other three moons, and then suicide land it on Jool. Landing on different planetary systems for Grand Tour will not count.

O.K. But just to be clear: to get the flagship class in the stock solar system you have to do the Grand Tour of the Joolian system. Or am I missing something?

[Guest]

Yep with all five moons and one jool lander. You can't have more than two landers

Or you can do every moon in the system. That will count too.

[AHHans]

29 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Yep with all five moons and one jool lander. You can't have more than two landers

Or you can do every moon in the system. That will count too.

O.K.

After having scrapped the other design and started with a clean sheet I got another question: is having a "mothership / tanker" that takes the lander from moon to moon, but stays in orbit O.K.?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, AHHans said:

O.K.

After having scrapped the other design and started with a clean sheet I got another question: is having a "mothership / tanker" that takes the lander from moon to moon, but stays in orbit O.K.?

If there is only one lander and one mothership. You can only have two spacecraft total. But a mothership should be fine. Won't probably be in the patch though. You will need to proably use the mothership for Jool landing in order to count though...

Edited June 11, 2020 by Guest

[GRS]

Done...Arkanus hopping is so hair raising, especialy that Spare Delta V can't go too far from 1000 m/s, so i have to aim 2 close biomes in order to accomplish, which makes it harder...

[AHHans]

11 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

If there is only one lander and one mothership. You can only have two spacecraft total. But a mothership should be fine.

O.K. Calling it a "mothership" wasn't the best choice of words. I don't plan to give it a probe core, or any other form of control. What I'm think of has all the other parts of a ship (a big fuel tank, the big engine for interplanetary and orbit-to-orbit transfers, a docking port to connect to the lander, additional solar panels to recharge the batteries on the lander, the heat shield for the Jool aerobrake, and probably more) but won't be able to do anything without the lander attached to it.

Another idea would be an (even more) modular lander: still only one probe core but several parts that can be attached to it to adjust to the conditions on the current destination.

11 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Won't probably be in the patch though.

That's fine. My suggestion would be anyhow to use the version from the screenshot that you like best.

[GRS]

Call it "Fuel supply"...heheheh...

[GRS]

@The Doodling Astronaut

Album here.

Also, if it count as a Flagship, tell me if you need a better Arkanus pic, i guess...

[AHHans]

27 minutes ago, GRS said:

Call it "Fuel supply"...heheheh...

That was the original idea. But then I noticed that I need a better engine (I'm not going to use three spark's for interplanetary transfers!), and a place to store the heat-shield, and why do I carry around the heavy solar panels if I only recharge in orbit anyhow...

[Guest]

Congrats @GRS, it qualifies for Hard Destination for Flagship Class. In fact if you where able to go to Minmus you would have been able to get the first one and score 80 points. But you know your destination is probably going to be the most difficult one. At 210 that gets you second place. But seriously I am impressed very much by your submission! Congrats! Patch will be available soon!

[GRS]

Yeah, still, Arkanus is too grumpy that i "barely" managed to do it, if i went to Minmus, a lot may be spent, killing my chance to finish Arkanus in 2 Biomes, best Delta V count i can make was 14500 m/s, but 2nd Place isn't too bad...

Also, try saying "Stupid dense" instead of "Tylo sized"

[Guest]

EDIT: Top was chopped off so it was fixed

Edited June 12, 2020 by Guest

[Guest]

The following form can help me decide round 3. So spend some time to fill it out if you will

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMTmmqCLeOCe-gnwep3edckI-ol1xjD43Yi71gA5qFV71aWQ/viewform

[Guest]

Might be too early to say this, but round 3 is going to have rovers, gliders, and mini-helicopters

[Space Nerd]

I guess I have to scrap this idea, as building a cheap tylo lander that can carry the laythe lander and the transfer stage is too hard.

[AHHans]

2 hours ago, Space Nerd said:

I'm going to build a lander that goes to both tylo and laythe, do the lander has to land on tylo on 1 stage to get flagship class?

Ha... haha... haahaaaha... haaaaaaaaaaaa... *collapses into hysterical laughter*

I just spent the night wracking my brain on how to get my re-configurable, ion-, spark-engine hybrid monstrosity to be in budget while also adding the needed delta-Vee. (I'm still not sure if that can be done, but I'm not yet ready to call it quits)

You did notice that to get flagship class in the stock system you either have to do a Jool 6 (land on all Joolian moons, and on Jool itself - although the latter can be a separate lander) or land on all 9 moons in the stock system? (See the discussion between me and @The Doodling Astronaut in the last few days.)

11 minutes ago, Space Nerd said:

I guess I have to scrap this idea, as building a cheap tylo lander that can carry the laythe lander and the transfer stage is too hard.

Well, my idea was to have the fuel for the Laythe part in a separate tanker that remains in orbit.

[Space Nerd]

I thought laythe has 90 points.

[AHHans]

1 minute ago, Space Nerd said:

I thought laythe has 90 points.

So did I ... a week ago.

[Space Nerd]

Only the gas giant can have a separate lander?

I thought of building 2 landers for tylo and laythe since I can have 2 spacecrafts.

(All attached to a transfer stage, so there's no mothership)

(This is probably not allowed but I want to be sure)

Edited June 13, 2020 by Space Nerd

[AHHans]

1 hour ago, Space Nerd said:

Only the gas giant can have a separate lander?

That's how I understood it.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, AHHans said:

So did I ... a week ago.

 

9 hours ago, Space Nerd said:

I thought laythe has 90 points.

Laythe scores 60 points from my math. Gosh, I thought only one or two of you guys would do flagship, not 5 of you... Then I would have thought more on the flagship...

Edited June 13, 2020 by Guest

[AHHans]

14 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Gosh, I thought only one or two of you guys would do flagship, not 5 of you...

Why would you think that? When you are flying in space, of course you'll reach for the stars!

[Space Nerd]

Is a 2.5 m rocket with 1.25 m boosters considered "huge"?

Or I need to post a photo?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Space Nerd said:

Is a 2.5 m rocket with 1.25 m boosters considered "huge"?

Or I need to post a photo?

No. Boosters will be included comes from someone who might make some kind of rocket that has side boosters instead of vertical staging. So in this case no.