Planning my first interplanetary mission. Suggestions/tips?

[CkGordon]

So I have the next couple days off from work and wanted to do something amazing. I've landed on the Mun a few times and was thinking about Minmus but not only does it look intimidating with all of its hills but I think I'm ready to take it to the next level and place feet on the surface of another world, not just a moon. I'm at a toss up between Duna and Eve at the moment. Duna looks kind of fun but everytime I look at Eve I'm memorized by its beauty. I guess it comes down to which one is easiest to reach and land on without complex math or mods (currently playing vanilla except for ISA MapSat)? Which one takes the least amount of fuel to just "wing it" and is the easiest to intercept and land on? Also can anybody offer up any helpful tips and suggestions that a noob like me should know before exploding out of my atmosphere and rocketing towards my first interplanetary voyage? I have no problems with making it a 1 way trip atleast until my skills have advanced enough to rescue them at a future date and my kerbalnauts know the risk. Plus, only the crazies will still climb on my rockets after all the explosions...

[Richy teh space man]

If you've done the Mun a few times you'll find Minmus to be easy, for one thing the gravity is lower, I'd suggest you do that as a warm up exercise before taking on other planets

That said..

Eve is easier to intercept and easy to land on especially if you use parachutes, returning to orbit from the surface is hard though. Duna is more trickier to intercept due its smaller soi but easier to return to orbit from - landing may be more difficult as parachutes alone won't cut it imo

[Accelerando]

Duna and Eve are about the same in terms of propellant required to reach them (although you will need to do more normal/antinormal burning to intercept its orbit), but the thick Evotian atmosphere will allow you a bit more leeway in designing one-way landers as you will need less parachutes to slow down. Building a returnable vehicle is another story, though. If you're not looking to land people on there for good, Duna is a better bet. It also requires less correctional burning from Kerbin orbit IIRC, as long as your starting orbital inclination is near 0º.

As for rocket design, your basic interplanetary bus (orbiter) only needs 1 long 2m propellant tank and a nuclear engine to get 3 kerbals to the planet's orbit, whether it be Eve, Duna, or Jool, or any of their moons. A basic lander might perhaps be:

Command pod

Half-length 2m tank

LV-T30/T45 engine

Landing Legs

(optional RCS)

-----

Half-length 2m tank

LV-N

[Companion]

if this is your first interplanary flight I suggest getting Mechjeb, its useful

[CkGordon]

If you've done the Mun a few times you'll find Minmus to be easy, for one thing the gravity is lower, I'd suggest you do that as a warm up exercise before taking on other planets

That said..

Eve is easier to intercept and easy to land on especially if you use parachutes, returning to orbit from the surface is hard though. Duna is more trickier to intercept due its smaller soi but easier to return to orbit from - landing may be more difficult as parachutes alone won't cut it imo

Do you only need parachutes for Eve to slow down enough to land a lander on it? Or a combination of a parachute and some small engine? If all I had was a parachute would it break into pieces, explode, or tip over once I touched the ground? Also you're probably right I should make a quick mission to Minmus and back just for the practice and knowledge that I can.

Duna and Eve are about the same in terms of propellant required to reach them (although you will need to do more normal/antinormal burning to intercept its orbit), but the thick Evotian atmosphere will allow you a bit more leeway in designing one-way landers as you will need less parachutes to slow down. Building a returnable vehicle is another story, though. If you're not looking to land people on there for good, Duna is a better bet. It also requires less correctional burning from Kerbin orbit IIRC, as long as your starting orbital inclination is near 0º.

As for rocket design, your basic interplanetary bus (orbiter) only needs 1 long 2m propellant tank and a nuclear engine to get 3 kerbals to the planet's orbit, whether it be Eve, Duna, or Jool, or any of their moons. A basic lander might perhaps be:

Command pod

Half-length 2m tank

LV-T30/T45 engine

Landing Legs

(optional RCS)

-----

Half-length 2m tank

LV-N

Wow that's WAY smaller than the beast I was designing lol! I was trying to bring as much fuel as possible without making myself too heavy to take off because otherwise I just KNOW I'll manage to run out of gas and crash into the sun or something...

if this is your first interplanary flight I suggest getting Mechjeb, its useful

Isn't that the autopilot mod? I like the challenge of flying myself and want to practice so I can get good at it.

[bitbucket]

In my experience, MechJeb can't handle transfer calculations to smaller orbits worth a damn, but it does transfers to larger orbits almost spot-on.