Final boss mission

[Theolain]

After my last mission to Moho, land with science and Kerbals and return (the deltaV to slowdown at Moho was insane), I decided my next stop would be Eve as that was the next launch window and is the next planet in. I probably don't have the tech for it, but I am trying to land with science and Kerbals and return. The main tech needed that I am missing is the inflatable heat shield or even the largest std one, and most of my designs are based around mitigating this. This will actually be my first atmospheric landing and lift off from playing nearly 440hrs, I am probably nuts for trying it, especially from reading up the difficulty of ascent and the thickness of atmosphere.

I am trying out different parts in sandbox, so as to not have to cheat in career, or risk my precious Kerbals (I am fine sacrificing them in sandbox). In my trials I am cheating things to orbit, or whatever place I need to be to test out various parts. So far I am around 2 weeks or so of casual playing. For now, I will just add my old and current designs with a little bit on each.

My current progress is, I have a lander with science that can land and take off with a success of around 25%. (Low, I know)

I am currently still optimizing this part. The Poodles are just to de-orbit when cheating into Eve orbit. The heat shield arrangement is 1. to keep me stable in Eve atmosphere and 2. to protect my final stage terrier from going boom on descent. When in lower atmosphere, it does some interesting wiggling about. This like most of my screenshots is a slightly older version, but it is still mostly the same.

I have an interplanetary stage with enough deltaV to get me there (and back when the lander is ditched). Though I have not tested this yet with my current version of lander. Std interplanetary type stage?

This is an earlier version of both the lander and the interplanetary stage, but I don't seem to have a more recent screenshot. The 2 pods are so I can take a scientist with me to reset experiments in Eve space.

I have also managed to get the full thing into Kerbin orbit. No screenshot of this, but I dare say it looks like any other std heavy lifter. It did look like it was going to cost 600k to launch the monstrosity. 

I am closeish to the full mission and it is looking possible, but really difficult (and expensive).

I cant find many screenshots of my failures, but here is my first attempt of something that would escape Eve. I gave this up pretty quickly as it was too heavy and SRBs don't seem like they are a good idea to haul to Eve, lots of research after this failure. which lead to my current design.

 

Extras, I met my first real Kraken last night, due to issues dumping my top heat shield I quick saved under parachute power, when I reloaded, things started accelerating randomly. I tried to stage to see if this would sort it, and parts ended up heading out of the solar system at 10milion+ m/s.

Bonus pictures of my Moho crafts.

 

I will try and keep this updated and detail my trials and tribulations to be able to achieve it in my career save. I do not want any advice yet (unless I ask for it) as I like to work things out myself and research myself (Hope I don't offend anyone here, I know you are all awesome helpful people). Once I am done, any advice or constructive criticism for a try in the future will be welcome, or even learning for future missions. Wish me luck!

Edit: I totally forgot to add that I am not using mods, I didn't use them even when deltaV wasn't calculated and made a nice spreadsheet to calculate for me. I want to add the graphics mods some time, but I am happy with struggling with the various game play struggles... especially with some of the quality of life changes since I last played.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Theolain

[Vanamonde]

How's it going? I still have not managed to return from Eve. 

[KerballingSmasher]

17 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

How's it going? I still have not managed to return from Eve. 

Shewt, I've never even made it TO Eve!