No Contracts Challenge

[xendelaar]

Introduction

 

I’m writing this mission report to take part in a very neat challenge that was posted on the forum earlier by @Superfluous J. In this challenge, I start a (normal) career game. The goal is to upgrade all the facilities without the help of any contracts. I’m only allowed to receive income from World firsts achievements.

Mission Goal

Upgrade all facilities in a normal career game without accepting any contracts.

Additional rulez:

• -          Normal career game
• -          No science lab or ground experiments
• -          ISRU are allowed
• -          No cheating (except for testing stuff on other planets)
• -          No strategies

MODS:

• -          Engineering Redux
• -          Transfer window calculator
• -          Time clock
• -          Waypoint manager (didn’t use it, but it is installed)
• -          Mechjeb 2 (didn’t use it, but it is installed)
• -          Visual mods

Approach

I will try to visit every celestial body only ones and try to make the ships as cheap as possible. I will avoid biome hopping, except on Minmus, because it’s easy to grab science from there early on.

 

Pre calculations

According to @Cunjo Carlcalculations, there is  over 7,848,608 funds available on World first achievements.
Upgrading all buildings costs 7,135,000 funds
This means I have a total budget of: 713,608 funds available for Ships to visit 14 celestial bodies
That is 45,875 funds per planet. It aint much, but if I can get the crafts back to kerbin I should be able to get a nice refund for them.

 

The missions:

I didn't keep track of the World first achievements on and around kerbin, so I will skip that part and move on to the more interesting missions.

*** Building upgrades: Launch pad LVL2: 75,000 funds***

Mission 1: Mun

-          Expenses:           17,585 on a simple lander and return ship
-          Gains:                   263,000
-          Ship refund:      forgot to write this down
-          Profits:                 244,615-ish
-          Science:               664 points

Mission report: nothing interesting to report. Just got to the Mun, got as many science as I could get from one biome and got back to Kerbin. Don’t know why I got so much first world income on this mission. Perhaps I wrote it down wrong? Or it's because It was my first time in high space?

 

 

Spoiler

Here you see the craft thats trying to get into orbit. I used SRB's becease the where cheap. In retrospect i should have gone with SSTO...

Mission 2: Minmus
-          Expenses:           28,895 on a ship with enough delta v to visit most biomes
-          Gains:                   103,425
-          Ship refund:      4,753  (this was a very excrementsty landing (read: far away from the KSC))
-          Profits:                 79.283
-          Science:               3412 points

Mission report: just hopped most of the biomes to grab all the science so I could unlock most of the important parts to build better ships.

 

Spoiler

almost a copy of the Mun lander, but with more delta v for biome hopping. I really like those new large SRB's! I've never used them before!

 

*** Upgraded Mission control and trackingstation to LVL2: 225,000

Mission 3: Gilly
-          Expenses:           28,895 to build the ship
-          Gains:                   849,725 funds for getting in orbit of the sun, eve and gilly and back
-          Ship refund:      7,818
-          Profit:                   828,648
-          Science:               3343 points

Mission report:

I figured I do Gilly in a separate mission because landing on Eve would require a bit more advanced parts and stuff. since moving on Gilly is almost cheap as free, I visited most biomes. since you can't timewarp, it is really boring though...

 

Spoiler

here is a picture of the Gilly lander.

*** Upgraded R&D, Tracking station and VAB: 1,239,000 ****

Mission 4: Duna and Ike

-          Expenses:           75,812 to build the ship
-          Gains:                   799,806
-          Ship refund:      39,746
-          Profit:                   763,740
-          Science:               9287 points

Mission report:

This was my first mission where I realized I had to land my ships closer to the space centre if I wanted to finish this challenge. The crafts will get more expensive as we further away from home.

 

Spoiler

Here is the Duna Ike lander on the launpad

and here it's on Duna

 

<Mission 5: Dress
-          Expenses:           77,042 to build the ship
-          Gains:                   320,317
-          Ship refund:      24,900
-          Profit:                   268,175
-          Science:               1483 points

Mission report:

Getting to Dress was a very pleasant experience. I hardly ever go there.

 

Spoiler

Here's the Dress lander ship. I used one stage to get into orbit so I could save money retrieving this part.

 

 

*** Upgraded launch pad to lvl3: 282,000***

Mission 6: Eve
-          Expenses:           286,318 to build the helicopter rocket
-          Gains:                   260,480
-          Ship refund:      130,029
-          Profit:                   130,451
-          Science:               1164 points

Mission report:

This was a very interesting mission. I built a 30 tonnes lander with helicopter blades that would land on Eve and get back into orbit using a helicopter mode to get out of the soup and the switch over to a rocket to get into orbit.
It took me several reloads to get into orbit, but eventually it was a success. A profit was only feasible if I would land the returnship close to the KSC.. as I did. I had to leave a lot of equipment on Eve to make the craft more efficient.

 

Spoiler

This is the Eve lander, jus leaving the launpad

 

This is the craft in helicopter mode

and here is it in rocket mode

 

Mission 7: Jool 5

-          Expenses:           243,751
-          Gains:                   2,920,000
-          Ship refund:      158,080
-          Profit:                   2,834,329
-          Science:               I forgot to record this, I think something like 1,000 points?

Mission report

I really hoped I would have enough credits by now to upgrade the R&D facilities to tier 3… unfortunately, I didn’t.. I wanted to build a ISRU craft that could do all missions from here on out, including Jool-5, Eeloo and Moho..
Since I was not able to unlock the drilling equipment, I decided to just do a tier 2 level Jool 5 mission instead, which was quite a refreshing challenge!

I made 3 specific landers:
1. A laythe lander (delta v budget 3500 m/s)
2. A tylo lander (delta v budget 4500 m/s)
3. A small lander for Vall, Bop and Pol (delta v budget 4000 m/s)

I strapped them on to a nuke tug and send it into space with a huge one stage rocket, that I would later land near the KSC to get a ~93% refund!
I slowed the craft down using Tylo’s gravitational field and went straight to Laythe. Landing a rocket on without wings and control surfaces was a bit of a challenge. I had to redo the landing several times, but I finally found a nice spot to plant a flag.
After planting the flag I flew back into space to rendezvous with the nuke tug. I discarded the Laythe lander and went on to my next mark: Vall
For Vall I used the smallest vessel. I landed the craft, planted a flag and got back into orbit and docked with the nuke tug.
After that, I went to Tylo, where I used the dedicated lander to get to the ground. I planted a flag, took a surface sample and went back into orbit to dock with the other space craft. I transferred the last remaining drops of fuel in the nuke tug and then discarded the Tylo lander.

Next stop was Bop and finally I visited Pol.

Now it was time to go home.. I set course to Kerbin and realized I forgot to bring parachutes to land the craft on Kerbin. So I whipped up a dockable SSTO parachute ship that would later dock with the Nuke Tug.

Docking the parachute to the nuke tug was pretty easy and even the landing went very smooth: I landed 30 km from the KSC!

 

Spoiler

here you can see the nuke tug with all its landers

landing on laythe

Landing on Vall

landing on tylo

Landing on Bop (I gave the flag the wrong name... DOH)

Landing on Pol

docking nuke tug near kerbin with parachute ship

landing ship 30 clicks east from KSC

*** Upgraded VAB to lvl3: 845,000***

*** Upgraded Admin building to lvl3: 563,000***
*** Upgraded mission control to lvl3: 150,000***
*** Upgraded Astronaut complex to lvl3: 282,000***
*** Upgraded R&D complex to lvl3: 1,690,000***

 

 

Overview

According to my calculations I can earn 7,848,608 funds from World first contracts
Upgrading all buildings costs me 7,135,000 funds.
This leaves me with a budget of 713,608 to get to all planets. Below you find a overview with all celestial bodies I visited, together with the expensis it took to get me there:

Mission #	Body	Mission status	Ship Price	Budget Remaining
0	Start	completed	0	713.608
1	Mun	completed	17.585	696.023
2	Minmus	completed	24.142	671.881
3	Gilly	completed	21.077	650.804
4a	Duna	completed	36.066	614.738
4b	Ike	completed	-	614.738
5	Dres	completed	52.142	562.596
6	Eve	completed	130.451	432.145
7	Jool 5	completed	85.671	346.474
8	Eeloo	scheduled	?	346.474
9	Moho	scheduled	?	346.474

 

 I only have two more missions to go and have 346k funds to spend. I think I will manage If I can bring most of the parts back to the KSC in one piece!

Edited May 11, 2020 by xendelaar
Added some links and references

[Superfluous J]

Very cool! Lots to like here, never seen an Eve helicopter before, I love it! What was sticking out of the fairing on launch from Kerbin though? Looks like structural pieces with nosecones but I can't figure out why you'd need them. I personally hope to skip on the Eve landing in my 2nd attempt, as (like you point out) getting a profit out of it can be a bit of a chore.

I know the Pol/Bop confusion only too well. I'm never sure which one I'm on until I go into map mode or check recent science reports.

[xendelaar]

9 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

Very cool! Lots to like here, never seen an Eve helicopter before, I love it! What was sticking out of the fairing on launch from Kerbin though? Looks like structural pieces with nosecones but I can't figure out why you'd need them. I personally hope to skip on the Eve landing in my 2nd attempt, as (like you point out) getting a profit out of it can be a bit of a chore.

I know the Pol/Bop confusion only too well. I'm never sure which one I'm on until I go into map mode or check recent science reports.

Holy crap, you actually read my report haha. I am genuinely impressed! The thing sticking out of the fairing is a heatshield. I use it to keep the pointy end prograde when I’m entering the atmosphere on Eve. Well.. It keeps  the craft from spinning, really. It is a bit of cheaty to let things stick out of the fairing, but I didn’t have enough science to unlock the huge fairing and flying the thing without a fairing would have been a drag (pun intended).

I did film the Eve mission and the Jool-5 mission. Maybe I’ll whip up an timelapse of them if I feel like it.. It just takes sooo much time to make a videoclip and since they’re long, they generally tend to be boring for viewers. I’ll stop complaining now.

I understand why you want to skip the Eve mission! It was my most expensive mission to date! If you land most of your used vessels near the KSC (for refunds) I don’t think you would need to go there. I found out too late that I should have gone with single stage to orbit lifters, right from the start. The lifters that haul the ships into orbit are in many cases the most expensive parts of the mission (>50% of the costs). But you probably already knew this.

After I’ve finished the challenge I will check your entry and those from others. I really wanted step in blindly so I could make my own mistakes and discover the true nature of the challenge myself.

Lol, Pol and Bop are two of a kind huh! Even though the rocks on Pol are unique on its own. My first plan was to go to Pol first, because it was closer to tylo, but I then figured out it would cost me less DV if I would go to Pol first and then visit Bop. So when I landed on Bop, I still had Pol in my mind haha.

Anyway, thanks for reading this wall of text, and I can’t wait to see your second entry!

PS. I do not think it’s cheating if you use a mod to get all the science from the KSC biomes. It’s completely irrelevant to the challenge and it’s literally just there, laying to be grabbed by a 100% refundable craft/car.

Edited May 11, 2020 by xendelaar
words are hard

[theJesuit]

This is great and an awesome challenge.

I would have thought one way to lesson expense may be to have a single dedicated interplanetary booster as soon as you have unlocked docking ports but as you say the most expensive part of the mission is the kerbin launch so refueling missions wouldn't necessarily make it so without much grind and expensive launchers for the fuel.  I guess also making SSTO and return for refueling but that also increases the grind.

Hope you do an edited video!

Peace.

[xendelaar]

7 hours ago, theJesuit said:

This is great and an awesome challenge.

I would have thought one way to lesson expense may be to have a single dedicated interplanetary booster as soon as you have unlocked docking ports but as you say the most expensive part of the mission is the kerbin launch so refueling missions wouldn't necessarily make it so without much grind and expensive launchers for the fuel.  I guess also making SSTO and return for refueling but that also increases the grind.

Hope you do an edited video!

Peace.

To be honest I didn't this mission quite through when I started it. I just winged a bit and thought it would be very easy to go to all planets with 700,000 funds. allong the way I found that i could have saved a lot more funds if I had a dedicated tug orbiting space. Also SSTO are a godsend for this challenge.

I also made several bad upgrade decisions, if I could have gotten the tier 3 R&D upgrade before my JOOL5 mission, I could have saved a lot of funds with an  IRSU refiner ship.. ah well... could have-should-have-would-have...

I'm glad I'm still able to finish the challenge with my current budget. 

Thanks for the comment. I will think about making 3 video's : 

1. the eve mission

2. the jool 5 mission

3. the Eeloo to Moho mission

 

[xendelaar]

Here is the last mission report in which I tell the tale of my travels to Eeloo and Moho.
For my last mission I decided to go with a single stage ISRU vessel.
 

Mission 8: Eeloo and Moho

 

• -          Expenses:           200,952
• -          Gains:                   1,310,400
• -          Ship refund:      166,067
• -          Profit:                   1,275,515
• -          Science:               1656

The weight of the ship was approximately 35 tonnes and had a DV budget of 5800 m/s.

With delta v budget I’m not able to go from Eeloo to Moho in one go, so I had to refuel at several locations. Here is my flight plan:

Kerbin-> Eeloo
Eeloo -> Minmus
Minus -> Gilly
Gilly -> Moho
Moho -> Gilly
Gilly -> Kerbin

Mission report:

I launched the 35 tonne payload into orbit using an single stage craft, which I later recovered at 97% refund.

Spoiler

Next, I travelled to Eeloo without any trouble.

Spoiler

I performed a recource scan and found that most of the planet contained enough ore to refill the tanks. So I landed the craft near the equator and filled her up with fuel.

When the tanks were filled, I flew towards Minmus to refuel the craft again.

Spoiler

From there I went to Gilly to refuel again! Moho is a very expensive place to go to!

Spoiler

And finally I was able to travel to Moho. Here I planted a flag and refuled again. I only had 500 m/s of DV left when I landed.

After that, I went back to Gilly to refuel again and from there we headed towards KErbin. Here I parked the vessel in a 300 km orbit and waited to rendezvous with the  parachute tug to come pick the craft up.

Spoiler

Here you see the parachute tug hooked onto the spacecraft

Spoiler

Here you see it landing near the KSC

Spoiler

With Jeb back at home and all crafts retrieved, I upgraded the rest of the facilities and discovered I had enough funds to do so!

I still have some money left! It was an incredible challenge I want to thank @Superfluous J for setting it up! I had a blast doing it! If I've got the time, I will make short compilations of the last three entries.

 

Mission #	Body	Mission status	Ship Price	Budget Remaining
0	Start	completed	0	713.608
1	Mun	completed	17.585	696.023
2	Minmus	completed	24.142	671.881
3	Gilly	completed	21.077	650.804
4a	Duna	completed	36.066	614.738
4b	Ike	completed	-	614.738
5	Dres	completed	52.142	562.596
6	Eve	completed	130.451	432.145
7	Jool 5	completed	85.671	346.474
<New Entry> 8	Eeloo	Completed	34,885	311,589*
<New Entry> 8	Moho	Completed	-	311,589   *

* I notice my real remaining budget (245,710) is much lower than my calculated remaining budget... I guess I forgot to complete several achievements..

Edited May 12, 2020 by xendelaar