Caveman my Nano-crystalline Diamond attempt

[ffx]

No struts = wobble

Edited March 9, 2021 by ffx

[king of nowhere]

11 hours ago, ffx said:

The ship have a ton of modules, hope the Kraken spare you from its tentacles @paul_c
yes the kraken is a squid 

it's nowhere near as complicated as my DREAM BIG, which sported about 15 docked shuttles and 1300 parts. and it was riddled with bugs, but none of them was fatal, so he should be fine.

which makes me think, your ship needs a cool name now. Given how it was assembled, I suggest "Frankenstein 1"

[paul_c]

So, after flying up the last fuel module, and checking contracts again, I've now officially run out of excuses to put off the interplanetary trip. So....I used:

https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/#/Kerbin/82/Duna/100/false/optimal/false/4/201

to find out the ideal transfer window, its better than trying to measure the angle of planets with a protractor pressed up against the monitor screen (which works quite well for Mun!) And time warped forwards. Then prepared the various tanks in the order to burn their fuel and eject:

And I started my burn for Duna. I did it over 2 orbits, it turns out not too bad, there was little/no wobble due to my experience last time with a wobbly craft, but the TWR was only around 0.1 (in Kerbin). The patterns are the resultant orbits of the various debris, it took about 5 fuel tanks to leave Kerbin SOI:

Not bad, it looks vaguely right:

But after a correction burn, missed......

Plan A was to burn to kick up the Pe beyond Duna, but keep the orbit close enough it will encounter anywhere on it once the craft is near enough:

Eventually after about 3 1/2 orbits I was captured by Duna:

Didn't want to go splat into it though....so I did a radial out burn, to raise the Pe. Fortunately my inclination won't encounter Ike, which just causes trouble:

Duna high, low and high atmosphere science gathered. The Science Jr and Goo is pinged off once used and data transferred:

Due to my rough & ready Caveman approach, I think fuel will be tight later on, so I've used the 'antenna modules' fuel early on and will ping them off too, since they weigh 70kg per aerial (x16) of dead weight. Because they're in the middle, the undocking is more involved, I need to split the thing in two and then use A & D keys while approaching to 'bat' the empty module out the way:

My random approach technique had resulted in a backwards Duna orbit. Since I was going to Ike anyway.....I thought I'd just change inclination to ~180deg, raise the Ap and then wait......

Ike is so big its inevitable I'd capture it, just that I'm now "paying" for the retrograde Duna orbit with a big dV correction to capture the Ike orbit. But its better than nothing:

Weirdly, despite a reasonable Ap I 'fell out' of Ike orbit first time! So I did a small tweak in the resulting Duna orbit and recaptured about 5 'Ike months' later. Now I'm here, I'll leave the station in Ike orbit and use the lander to visit the surface. I'll try a 'single' science module first (I need to visit 3 biomes for the science) so a little more in-flight rearranging is done, to put the module onto the nose of the lander. Its resulting dV is 1360m/s which should be enough for an Ike landing and re-orbit/re-dock.

I have no idea if I have enough fuel to get home, but I will keep going until I actually run out of it, blow up/crash, or return with all the science. Its do or die now. If I don't complete the challenge, so be it, I tried!!!

[ffx]

you can send a duna rescue misson made of a lot of fuel modules and 2 command modules and one engine module for Jeb and Val to the curret ship 

Edited March 10, 2021 by ffx

[paul_c]

Well, with not enough money, no more pilots, and (bizarrely) the contracts of "science from space/surface of Mun/Minmus/Kerbin" completely drying up too, it would be difficult!

[JAFO]

11 hours ago, ffx said:

you can send a duna rescue misson made of a lot of fuel modules and 2 command modules and one engine module for Jeb and Val to the curret ship 

Given that both pilots are at Duna, it would have to be a drone craft. And given that the best antenna tech available to cavemen is the HG-5, mid-course corrections are, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

 

13 hours ago, paul_c said:

Its do or die now. If I don't complete the challenge, so be it, I tried!!!

Bravo! Go for it! You're looking good from where we stand...

Edited March 10, 2021 by JAFO

[paul_c]

After a little bit of shuffling around modules, Jeb has prepared the lander, undocked and is heading for the surface of Ike..."You know that's not Ike, Jeb?"..."Its okay I'm doing the retro burn, I'm facing the wrong way"......glad he knows what he's doing!:

1st task is to achieve a low orbit:

Landing on Ike, and its gravitational acceleration, is somewhere between Mun and Minmus, in difficulty:

Landing done, science gathered, due to the short time taken we can launch straight away onto the same plane as the station:

Achieve a nice stable orbit after take off, then push the Ap up to intercept, then tweak the plane and push the Pe up to nearly-the-same and wait for the rendezvous. The station is in a circular orbit, which makes things easier:

Jeb brought back an almost-full 'small' fuel tank which was part of the science module but doesn't have a docking port on the end. So it needed to be ejected before his docking. I brought the speeds down very low, pinged it off and then docked Jeb. It seems a shame to waste it, so Val (with the double-ended docking ports) can go retrieve it:

Its a bit of a nightmare, it feels like chasing your tail when its a 'debris' module with no SAS or stabilisation etc but she got it eventually:

Docking backwards isn't so bad. You target it as normal, set your speed to say 0.5m/s, then turn rearwards and use small corrections to keep it on track. So Val's white command module has the extra fuel, which will come in handy:

Jeb's off again to Ike. This is his ship with double science module and extra fuel:

Despite careful planning, I landed in the same biome! And the same on the first hop! The shades of grey don't seem to correlate that well with biomes, once the sunlight is lighting it or not; Ike is much less well mapped than Mun or Minmus; and I'm unfamiliar so I don't really recognise stuff that well. Eventually, I hopped to something other than Midlands (to Lowlands):

I'm short on fuel so I'll need to orbit but there are 3 more fuel modules on the station so I have enough for another trip. Its a partial success. In fact, I didn't achieve the station's orbit and ran out, so the station will need to come down and dock with Jeb and sort him out. 3rd surface trip, I'll need to 100% hit a new biome, so I think I'll just go for poles.

[king of nowhere]

10 hours ago, paul_c said:

I'm short on fuel so I'll need to orbit but there are 3 more fuel modules on the station so I have enough for another trip. Its a partial success. In fact, I didn't achieve the station's orbit and ran out, so the station will need to come down and dock with Jeb and sort him out. 3rd surface trip, I'll need to 100% hit a new biome, so I think I'll just go for poles.

Is your rocket capable of turning upright if it falls on a side? because in that case you may be able to use it as a roller and move around without using fuel.

also, if you bring back your astronauts, you will be able to save money and give it another try eventually

 

EDIT: also, why can't you send bill/bob for a rescue mission? lack of a pilot simply means you cannot create manuever nodes, which in your case is irrelevant. did i miss a post where they died?

Edited March 10, 2021 by king of nowhere

[paul_c]

15 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

EDIT: also, why can't you send bill/bob for a rescue mission? lack of a pilot simply means you cannot create manuever nodes, which in your case is irrelevant. did i miss a post where they died?

Lack of pilot AND out of comms range means no control. Well, very little.

-------------------------

Anyway.....onwards and downwards...to the South:

It cost a lot of fuel to make the plane changes but I needed it! Don't want to land in the Midlands AGAIN!

So with all the science gathered, its time to go home. It makes sense to rearrange the modules in a pointy straight line, so each can be used while burning then I'll turn backwards and ping it off. Val enquires "why am I 2nd? Shouldn't I be last, with Jeb???":

I don't want my brain to explode with complications like trying to eject for Kerbin, coming out of an inclined eccentric Ike orbit, so I'm going to be boring and play it safe. So, Ike --> Duna:

Not a bad 1st try 'returning' to Duna orbit:

 

[paul_c]

Kerbin return burn done, and a correction, looks about right?:

Missed though.....quite badly:

So, the orbit is changed to mimic Kerbin's, but lower (but within the SOI) so its shorter and in theory I should catch up and intercept:

Looking at it this way, makes it appear closer.....not long now Jeb:

Yay! An intercept! Its slightly inclined too, so weird accidental Mun/Minmus encounters either:

I have loads of fuel left, so its worth making the rendezvous with the "recovery" module easy...so lower it to a nice LKO and also change the inclination to roughly equatorial:

I could take on these contracts, transmit the crew reports, then do it again!:

Jettisoning the extra fuel tank to mate with the recovery module:

And, an uneventful re-entry:

Plenty of science earned:

However it is STILL not enough - I suspected as much - I am 17.3 short. I know there's an amount of "mopping up" I can do with eg Mun crew reports, Science Jr from other Kerbin biomes, and hopefully some contracts will earn 1 or 2 science points too.

[Blaarkies]

1 hour ago, paul_c said:

However it is STILL not enough - I suspected as much - I am 17.3 short. I know there's an amount of "mopping up" I can do with eg Mun crew reports, Science Jr from other Kerbin biomes, and hopefully some contracts will earn 1 or 2 science points too.

You could look for a green monolith to finish up the tree  (maybe EVA reports in LKO could even be enough)

[ffx]

If you can Ike you can Gilly

Edited March 12, 2021 by ffx

[Jacke]

10 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

You could look for a green monolith to finish up the tree...

...and if the Green Monolith unlocks a Tier 6 tech node....

[JAFO]

35 minutes ago, ffx said:

If you can Ike you can Gilly

That's a lot of work for just 17.3 science points.

[ffx]

s

Edited March 12, 2021 by ffx

[paul_c]

I'm not too worried about completion - the finishing line is most definitely in sight now. The interplanetary mission was always going to be the most risky, and now Jeb (and the science) are back, no worries.

I've done some quick sums and its completable, the main science-earning areas are:

1. Science Jr results from Kerbin biomes (I'd never even done Grasslands!) (0.75 per biome)
2. "Satellite in Mun orbit" contracts (1 per contract - often 2 contracts can be done with 1 launch/vehicle)
3. Crew reports from Mun high/low/surface (about 5 1st trip; 2.3 subsequent trips - I can do extra Goo readings too).

I've worked out the cost per science point. All are 1 launch, so similar there:

1. SJ readings from Kerbin.....................£16,000/science
2. Mun sat contracts.................................£6000/science
3. 1st Mun crew trip..................................£2357/science
3b. subsequent Mun crew trips............£5020/science

The 1st Mun crew trip would gather crew report high/low/1 surface biome. The subsequent would only be further science from surface/landings in another biome. It might be possible to do a "hop" to another biome, but I think fuel is limiting. I have 3x astronauts left, and need to do 3 trips; 2 if I do more Mun satellite contracts. Since the contracts are flowing in, I'll focus on them for now, then send a crewed trip last. It is a non-return trip, although of course once The Caveman Challenge is complete, it means I could upgrade stuff and send a rescue mission, if I wanted to. Rescuing off of Mun's surface is a bit easier than rescuing Val!!!

[paul_c]

Some Science Jr trips to local biomes (grasslands, highlands, desert), 0.75 points each:

Highlands slope:

A long range version was built too. Not quite orbital speeds, but re-entry is still marginal. First try crashed and burned; second try uses more fuel and does a retro burn:

Mun satellite contracts like this:

I still have the knack of a Mun intercept:

1st ever crewed mission to surface of the Mun! Its a one way trip though, I only just made it on the fuel (it ran out about 8m above the surface!):

4.8 science points to go.....

[paul_c]

2 more contracts came my way. One was on the Mun, the other Minmus, so I did the Mun one (note the retrograde orbit), then left Mun......

That's the theory (vaguely), but in practice it was a dog's breakfast. I adjusted the orbit to Ap=46.3 to intercept Minmus and it was many many orbits before Minmus came round and was close enough. But I had a ton of fuel and timewarp.

So.....2.8 more points to go. A crew report from Mun high space and a crew report from almost any landed biome will do it. We chose Bob, because if it fails, I have Jeb left who is a pilot (so could save weight with no probe core etc). I forgot Bob's fear of heights though. In fact, he vomited while climbing the launch tower (stepladder....this is Caveman) to get into the rocket. Weight saving, I guess. It was only the 5th step though. So we sent out for some powerful horse tranquilisers, that did the job. Because it as a fairing, he'll not even know until 40km altitude anyway.....

A nice intercept:

Not long now Bob:

Landed safely! And settled it onto the surface. Not much fuel left though!

Bob's staying on the Mun and his transmission crept us over the line:

Complete with 0.2 spare! Phew!

 

[Single stage to ocean]

Poor poor bob.

[paul_c]

I know.....its Val I feel sorry for, she's orbiting the sun and its somewhat unchanging. 

In theory, now the challenge is complete I could do an upgrade or two and try launch rescue missions to retrieve Bob and Val (I suspect Bob is easier!) but I've been enjoying a return to my 1st career, with fresh eyes. In that, its on normal settings and its ~1200 game hours in, so the tech tree is pretty much complete and £66m in the bank too.

But its made me approach rocket design and flying with new ideas, no longer am I sticking on everything including the kitchen sink, I am using a "less is more" philosophy and keeping the upper stage(s) light, properly planning things like solar panels, batteries, etc. And the flying is more precise and confident too - I'm flying most ascents completely manually; and doing complex interplanetary stuff I might never have had the confidence to try before.

I can thoroughly recommend The Caveman Challenge to give a fresh approach to KSP.

[Single stage to ocean]

I'm not intrested in the caveman challenge as im designing a grand tour kerbalism ship, but might be nice at some point.

You theoretically could save bob by doing a super low orbit.

On rails, you can't collide into things.