Liquid Fuel Only Challenge!

[AngryPotato9]

2 hours ago, 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?

Wow! Now, not sure if this is possible, but do you think its possible to do a eve mission? If you use the breaking ground turboprops for a lander? Now THAT would be the ultimate challenge.  Anyway, great job on the mission!

[camacju]

That would be cool, but I don't have breaking ground so I wouldn't be able to try it. And turboprops won't work even at the top of Eve's mountains, because your only option for a gas generator is the Nerv and it doesn't produce any thrust. I think your only option would be drain valves

[The Dressian Exploder]

Idea for an Eve ascent vehicle:

 

Make something that can make it out of the upper atmosphere, and then make an absolutely massive trebuchet to yeet it up from Mount Subscribe To My Channel, to the upper atmosphere where it can then reach orbit.

[camacju]

Alternatively you could use a Nerv as an electrical generator and power a prop that way

[sturmhauke]

4 hours ago, camacju said:

Alternatively you could use a Nerv as an electrical generator and power a prop that way

Not the most efficient generator, but it might work.

[ralanboyle]

22 hours ago, AngryPotato9 said:

Wow! Now, not sure if this is possible, but do you think its possible to do a eve mission? If you use the breaking ground turboprops for a lander? Now THAT would be the ultimate challenge.  Anyway, great job on the mission!

I thought about the turbo props too but they require intake air, which isn’t available on EVE. Using Nervs to gene power for electric motors might be worth a shot. 

[AngryPotato9]

Wait, would it be possible to make a helicopter that gets spun from nerv’s, that can take off from eve?

[Lt_Duckweed]

On 12/29/2020 at 11:15 PM, AngryPotato9 said:

Wait, would it be possible to make a helicopter that gets spun from nerv’s, that can take off from eve?

Even at the top of the highest mountain on Eve Nervs produce 0 thrust, so no way to spin the props.  Unless you mean using the nerv ec to power the prop, which might work, depending on if ec scales with throttle or real thrust.

[AngryPotato9]

Ok, so, I have come up with a mission idea. A 2 way eve mission. You land on eve with props powerd by nerv electric power. Then, once on the ground, charge a battery bank, separate from your decent stage (Leaving most of the nervs used as generations behind), dropping battery’s as u go up. Then, with 1 nerv, rendezvous with a mothership and return. Think it’s possible? 

[camacju]

That's pretty much what I was thinking. ISRU+Nerv to make an electric generator so you'd only need one. Then stage batteries with a prop plane. You'd probably only need two stages of batteries before the props top out, at which point you'd light the nuclear engines and return to orbit. Not sure if I could do this challenge because I'm bad at making stock props and I don't have breaking ground, so I'd have to come up with some other way to do it.

[Arugela]

On 12/29/2020 at 12:54 AM, AngryPotato9 said:

Wow! Now, not sure if this is possible, but do you think its possible to do a eve mission? If you use the breaking ground turboprops for a lander? Now THAT would be the ultimate challenge.  Anyway, great job on the mission!

I think props make eve too easy potentialy.(haven't tried though.) I'm assuming tylo is the hardest challenge given LF props. That or the sun. And the sun is too easy if you can haul roids... Of course so is anything else.. What would define the hardest challenge?

OH, I didn't consider they needed air intakes..

Can you use the electric version if the electricity is powered by an LF engine? Or is that not LF only?

Are the previous persons talking about using nukes to mechanically power props via thrust to take off from eve?

Would Ore count as a fuel source? How primitive should it be? You could always go with the above idea and literally use the nukes to spin the propellors physically like a wind mill. Might be expensive though. Massive wings could help glide.

The only other odd propolusion I can think of is this: (not sure if it counts as electric or lithopowered.)

litho powered propulsion

Actually, can you even make thrust interact with wings to rotate them? I haven't played in too long. I forget how everything works! 8p (And I never did much with those types of machines.)

Edited January 2, 2021 by Arugela

[AngryPotato9]

20 hours ago, Arugela said:

I think props make eve too easy potentialy.(haven't tried though.) I'm assuming tylo is the hardest challenge given LF props. That or the sun. And the sun is too easy if you can haul roids... Of course so is anything else.. What would define the hardest challenge?

OH, I didn't consider they needed air intakes..

Can you use the electric version if the electricity is powered by an LF engine? Or is that not LF only?

Are the previous persons talking about using nukes to mechanically power props via thrust to take off from eve?

Would Ore count as a fuel source? How primitive should it be? You could always go with the above idea and literally use the nukes to spin the propellors physically like a wind mill. Might be expensive though. Massive wings could help glide.

The only other odd propolusion I can think of is this: (not sure if it counts as electric or lithopowered.)

litho powered propulsion

Actually, can you even make thrust interact with wings to rotate them? I haven't played in too long. I forget how everything works! 8p (And I never did much with those types of machines.)

Using props, as long as the ele power came from a nerv is fine

[camacju]

On 1/2/2021 at 3:21 AM, Arugela said:

Would Ore count as a fuel source? How primitive should it be? You could always go with the above idea and literally use the nukes to spin the propellors physically like a wind mill. Might be expensive though. Massive wings could help glide.

If ore is converted to LF only when used I think it should count. Also what you're describing is a turborocket design (I think), which won't work at Eve surface because the Nerv doesn't generate enough thrust. I think that Nerv powered electric props are the only way to go here.

[kspnerd122]

Are mods allowed？

Or 1 RTG(for power, you cant run props on it, not enough).

[Bej Kerman]

On 12/27/2020 at 2:06 AM, camacju said:

Eve and Tylo are probably not gonna be landable, same with Jool
Actually you might be able to land on Tylo with nerv only but that'll be pretty hard

I might try to do that

 

Bradley Whistance did both.

[camacju]

When? I'm pretty sure he didn't do Eve with Nerv only. Same with Tylo

[KC3QJA]

Make my submission exempt from the "leaderboards", but I actually made it to Dres' orbit with a clocked Nerv engine with infinite propellant on. 

Times:
Made it out of Kerbin's atmosphere at 7000 m/s in 20 seconds
Made it to Dres at 250000 m/s in 40 days?
Orbited Dres at ~300 m/s in 45 days?

I don't have any photographs, apologies.

[AngryPotato9]

On 1/4/2021 at 1:53 PM, kspnerd122 said:

Are mods allowed？

Or 1 RTG(for power, you cant run props on it, not enough).

No mods that improve/make the challenge easier. However, cosmetic part packs, that add things like landing gear and antenna are fine.

and a rtg wouldn’t be allowed because it is technically nuclear powerd, not liquid fuel. However, using the alternator of a nerv would be allowed 

[kspnerd122]

The issue is that if you are using a probe, you can run out of power, I say we are allowed to have an RTG, but we cant run anything off it(so if u use RTG, No Propellors)

Solar panels should be allowed, again, to recharge batteries during timewarp, because of the No RTGs/solar panels rule, it pretty much excludes people who may want to use probes

[dnbattley]

56 minutes ago, kspnerd122 said:

The issue is that if you are using a probe, you can run out of power, I say we are allowed to have an RTG, but we cant run anything off it(so if u use RTG, No Propellors)

Solar panels should be allowed, again, to recharge batteries during timewarp, because of the No RTGs/solar panels rule, it pretty much excludes people who may want to use probes

It's customary for the challenger to have final say on these sorts of things, but to address your specific issue of probe cores and power, it would be feasible to simply hibernate the probe core until needed, and if a recharge is needed fire full throttle (which can still be done outside comms range, even though you lose partial thrust control ability). If you really wanted, you could deliberately obstruct the engines so that they don't provide any thrust while doing this.

[camacju]

I used solar panels for my liquid fuel Jool 5 mission since I wasn't using electric props. I think that for the spirit of the challenge, any electricity used for propulsion has to be generated with a Nerv, but any electricity not used for propulsion doesn't need to.

[kspnerd122]

THATS WHAT I MEANT

I JUST NEED IT FOR THE PROBES AND THE POWAH, I DONT NEED IT FOR PROPULSION

[AngryPotato9]

14 hours ago, camacju said:

I used solar panels for my liquid fuel Jool 5 mission since I wasn't using electric props. I think that for the spirit of the challenge, any electricity used for propulsion has to be generated with a Nerv, but any electricity not used for propulsion doesn't need to.

I agree with this

[kspnerd122]

Thx

It helps

[Mephisto81]

I might have a little craft for this:
https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XS-07-Myrmidon-Liquid-Fuel-only-SSTO-to-Mun-and-Duna

Took it from Kerbin to the Mun and Duna and back to Kerbin.


To orbit!

Fly me to the Mun...

A flag! On the Mun!

A nice day in the dessert. Hope they don't have sandworms on Duna...

More pictures in the Imgur gallery:
https://imgur.com/a/inJNYvH

-Mephisto-

(Fly Safe and prosper, or something like that)