Liquid Fuel Only Challenge!

[carppc]

nope

[Single stage to ocean]

this is dead

[camacju]

What was the point of that?

[camacju]

Well I'll add something else to this thread because why not. SSTO to Eeloo and back. I didn't bother with gravity assists on the way to Eeloo because the challenge was not to use any. This makes it more of a design and planning challenge which I need practice with anyway.

 

In VAB

On runway

Nuke turns on at 1500m/s and I point prograde the rest of the way to orbit

In orbit with a lot of delta-v remaining. This craft could probably be good for an orbital relay race also, it could do at least six orbits by itself.

Periapsis kick burns

Large escape burn. This is higher than normal because I want to do a bi-elliptic transfer to Eeloo, to save fuel.

Intercept burn

Eeloo orbit

Descent

Landed

Ascent

In orbit

kerbin transfer

Aerobraking. The kerbal is shielded by the air intake

Landed

[Kerbal Productions]

super easy! i can do this if I can!

[AtomicTech]

On 12/26/2020 at 8:50 PM, sturmhauke said:

Landing on Eve isn't the problem, it's getting back to space. The pressure is going to drive the Nerv's thrust close to 0.

Well, there's nothing against using Propellors in the rules!

[xendelaar]

On 12/29/2020 at 4:40 AM, camacju said:

Okay, I landed on all five of Jool's moons using only liquid fuel. Note that on the Laythe landing I composited multiple takes because of me forgetting to record stuff. The lander obviously can orbit even from sea level.

167 parts in total, 17 rapiers, 10 nuclear engines, 0 oxidizer

Also - I have absolutely no idea how the lander survived (mostly) intact at the Kerbin landing. The docking port must have absorbed the initial impact somehow?

awesome mission! enjoyed watching your video! really inspiring

[AngryPotato9]

On 3/24/2021 at 7:13 AM, Atomic Engineer said:

Well, there's nothing against using Propellors in the rules!

the electric props technically use electric energy as a propelent, so thats a no go. and the other props, the turboprops need intake air, so no eve . 

[vyznev]

On 2/5/2021 at 9:02 PM, camacju said:

Why don't you just use sandbox mode

Edit: Also if you really want to do career or science mode it's definitely possible to unlock the liquid fuel tanks without ever using SRB or LF+Ox engines. You just have to be clever about it

LF-only career definitely seems doable. I'd say something like this general plan should work:

1. Grab enough science from the launchpad (and/or the runway) to unlock the thermometer and the barometer. (FWIW, you can just get the required 20 science in a single launch of a capsule with two goo canisters if you make sure to get a crew report, an EVA report both on the ground and while jumping, and grab the data from one goo canister while on EVA and recover the kerbal and the capsule separately.)
2. Collect EVA reports and temperature and pressure samples from enough KSC mini-biomes to unlock the Aviation node (which has the Juno engine, air intakes, LF tanks and plane wheels). Normally you'd do this with a science roller, but for this challenge I'd consider that a form of electric propulsion, and thus not allowed (since we have no permitted way of generating electric charge from LF yet). But in KSP 1.11 you can instead send two kerbals — a scientist and an engineer — on an EVA walk carrying the science instruments in their inventory. In each biome, the engineer will place the instruments on the ground and the scientist will run the experiments and collect the data. Remember to get an EVA report from each biome too. (One kerbal can collect a report from the other, allowing multiple EVA reports without returning to the vessel.)
3. Once you have the Juno and some wheels, build a jet-powered science car and get more science (crew reports, goo samples, any EVA reports and temperature and pressure data you didn't get before) from KSC. This'll let you unlock the Science Jr. and a bunch more plane parts.
4. Launch a plane to get a bunch of milestones and unlock survey and part testing contracts. Grind those for cash while collecting science from different biomes on Kerbin. Also remember to get materials science from all the KSC biomes.
5. Eventually you should hopefully have enough science to unlock the nuke engine. Then you can get to orbit and continue from there.

In fact, I've already done this up to the "launch a plane" part, so I have proof that the "KSC walkabout" strategy works. The only real issue (besides the general slowness and tedium, which physics warp helps with somewhat) that I've noticed is that getting temperature and pressure readings from most of the building sub-biomes (like "VAB Main Building" etc.) doesn't work because the collision mesh is glitchy and the instruments just fall through and disappear. But fortunately you can get more than enough science just from the biomes that do work.

(Also, if you quicksave and reload while a kerbal is standing right next to the VAB building, they can apparently teleport to the VAB roof. This would've been more useful if I'd remembered to level them up so that they could actually use their parachute to get safely down again. But at least it did give me a milestone achievement for exceeding a velocity of 80 m/s. Considering that kerbals normally waddle at less than 2 m/s, that's pretty impressive. )