Eve science grab challenge

[KincaidFrankMF]

We all know how hard it is to take off from Eve, so collecting most of its science means multiple ultra optimised, highly expensive landings or else endless driving about in a rover... right?

So here's the challenge: without using a rover (or anything like), take off from Kerbin exactly once, enter Eve's atmosphere (deorbit) exactly once, and leave its atmosphere again exactly once... with a manned craft capable of collecting science from every... single... biome... on the entire planet. All in one mission.

Some part of that craft (it doesn't have to be an SSTO or anything) has to return to Kerbin with the science and crew.

You don't have to bring a scanning arm, given they're designed for rovers, but bonus points if you do.

No using mods that would actually help (i.e., visual mods etc. are fine, but nothing cheaty).

I'll consider it a success if your vessel is clearly capable of completing the challenge, even if you get bored before actually circumnavigating lol But the most science gathered wins.

Yes, it can be done.

[KincaidFrankMF]

Actually, to make this one a bit more accessible, let's just say "as much science as possible" following the rules above. But for maximum points, you know what to do...

[DennisB]

18 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

enter Eve's atmosphere (deorbit) exactly once, and leave its atmosphere again exactly once...

Is it allowed to leave back something in orbit and dock with it after leaving the atmosphere?

[KincaidFrankMF]

3 hours ago, DennisB said:

Is it allowed to leave back something in orbit and dock with it after leaving the atmosphere?

Absolutely. But once you leave the atmosphere, there's no going back.

[DennisB]

What difficulty settings are to be used? I've reached a point, where it could matter.

 

Because I'm new to KSP, it takes a bit more to design the vehicles, because I do most of it for the first time. Till now, I did only the caveman challenge, so I use advanced technology for the first time, and I've never landed somewhere else than on Kerbin (I made only a Mun orbit and a small visit outside of Kerbin SOI).

The first task was to make an airplane, which works on Eve in theory. To make it a bit more realistic, I made the tests on Kerbin. My first plane was simply too weak, very unstable and fragile at landing, the second one didn't work, but the third one was OK, still a little unstable, but much better than the first one.

Then came the Eve ascent rocket. The delta V map shocked me at first with the value of 8k, but during the building I had more trouble to reach a TWR>1. My first rocket had a very complex engine constellation, and I had the fear, that they will break in Eve's atmosphere, and during the tests at Kerbin with the transfer stage, it was buggy too. I don't know, if it was, because of the high number of engines, but I tried to make it more simple, so I ended up with much fewer and bigger engines.

Now I'm at the point, where I have to attach the plane to the rocket. I watched several videos and read several threads, until I understood, how to reroot parts and make subassemblies. I wanted to build a transport container for the plane, because it doesn't fit into the standard Mk3 container wit the wings attached. I made the wings foldable anyway to reduce the size. But my container wasn't stable. I tried also a fairing, but it made a massive destruction, when deployed on the ground.

Yesterday I was close to giving up. To give my motivation a chance to rebuild, I used the cheat menu to test my vehicles on Eve. The rocket was as expected. Started at a height of 2500m I reached orbit with the 3rd stage almost full with fuel, so I think, it could work also starting from sea level. My plane was better than expected. It was much more stable than on Kerbin (thicker air), it needs only a little adjustment to make landings safer.

Now I have two choices. Try further to make a stable container (I have an idea), or transport the equipment unprotected (I saw videos on YouTube, so it should be possible). In the second case I could change the concept of my plane to get really safe landings, because without a container, the plane size doesn't matter so much, but I'd have to design some kind of landing legs for my massive rocket, because my original plan was to use the container(s) for ground stability.

[KincaidFrankMF]

Hey, sorry for the late reply - didn't see your post. 

First off, you've picked a very difficult challenge, given you're new to the game! So don't be discouraged if you're finding it tough - it is. It's one of the harder things I've done in the game (but also by far the most rewarding, which is why I wanted to encourage people to try it). There's a reason no one else has managed it yet lol

Re. difficulty, I tend to go with Hard, but then tweak it to allow reverts & quickloading. No idea if that's the community standard, but it's what I do. I definitely use the cheat menu to test vehicles, so no worries there.

Eve was the first planet I visited after the Mun, too - talk about jumping in at the deep end. But I went for a much simpler mission back then, just trying to land & take off any old how. That's honestly hard enough when you're new... Eve is a beast.

Really cool reading your progress - I'm biting my knuckles here to avoid giving spoilers!

Just a suggestion, but you could try pausing the challenge at this point, and try building something just to land on Eve - get to grips with interplanetary navigation etc., and get a feel for Eve? Then come back to your challenge craft after? Just to smooth out the difficulty curve a bit.

[DennisB]

15 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

try building something just to land on Eve - get to grips with interplanetary navigation etc., and get a feel for Eve?

I made it already on Saturday.

16 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Really cool reading your progress - I'm biting my knuckles here to avoid giving spoilers!

Why? Are there similarities to your attempt?

 

I knew, this wouldn't be easy, but a challenge should be challenging .

I redesigned my plane yesterday, now I can safely land on easy terrain, and it has another benefit too. Hopefully I won't need reloading, but good to know, it's allowed.

[KincaidFrankMF]

35 minutes ago, DennisB said:

Why? Are there similarities to your attempt?

Some, though you're definitely going your own way.

I want to know how you've designed the plane, that's key...

[DennisB]

3 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

I want to know how you've designed the plane, that's key...

Hopefully, you will see it soon (or later).

[s_gamer101]

On 4/16/2023 at 8:27 AM, DennisB said:

What difficulty settings are to be used?

Normal is the standard. If a challenge doesn't state anything else, I always assume it's normal.

Playing KSP on a difficulty that doesn't allow quickloads and revert flights is just a bad experience and no fun at all, because on complex missions there's almost always a point where you have to quickload or restart the entire mission (which would be really annoying if you already spent weeks on the mission). I don't really understand why difficulty modes without quicksaver even exist or why anyone would play them (unless one really wants to suffer for some reason).

On 4/16/2023 at 8:27 AM, DennisB said:

I made the wings foldable anyway to reduce the size.

How did you do that? When I try to make foldable wings, they are always too whobbly or even fall of completely.

On 4/16/2023 at 8:27 AM, DennisB said:

I tried also a fairing, but it made a massive destruction, when deployed on the ground.

Maybe that could be fixed, I've seen other players use fairings as containers to land something on Eve and safely deploying it at the surface.

[DennisB]

2 hours ago, s_gamer101 said:

How did you do that? When I try to make foldable wings, they are always too whobbly or even fall of completely.

Struts.

[DennisB]

Finally, I made the ladders on my rocket tonight. Now the crew can climb up to the command pod. It looks funny, when the kerbals doing somersaults on the ladder, where the parts aren't aligned well.

Now I have everything assembled, what I need to collect almost all science on Eve and get up to orbit after it. The return to Kerbin should be easy. The next huge task is, to get the whole thing to Eve and land it . I have a lot of thrust, I hope it will be enough to put on some huge fuel tanks and a lot of chutes. But.... who knows.

[KincaidFrankMF]

Good luck!

[DennisB]

23 hours ago, DennisB said:

 I have a lot of thrust, I hope it will be enough to put on some huge fuel tanks and a lot of chutes. But.... who knows.

It's not enough. With the transfer stage attached, I can't even reach Kerbin orbit. That rocket will be a monster or it needs a complete redesign.

If it isn't a secret, how heavy was your rocket at the launch on Kerbin?

[DennisB]

Tonight I made my first "successful" landing outside of Kerbin. The first landing attempt finished in an explosion because of 3x time warp, I'm not sure, if I had enough parachutes, and I had no fuel left. On the second attempt I landed on the night side in one piece. I couldn't see my landing place in the darkness, so I ended up on a quite steep slope. The rocket was stable after the landing, but it felt over, after I started with the surface procedures.

Anyway, there's only one thing, which I need to design, but my confidence is rising, that I can complete the mission. I still don't want to show everything, but I want to share two snapshots to rise interest.

Deorbiting at Eve

Valentina is climbing down to the surface after landing on Eve.

I

The monster behaves surprisingly well in the atmosphere. In space it's massive, I added already several reaction wheels, but still.... I have to keep it in mind.

[KincaidFrankMF]

On 4/27/2023 at 9:13 PM, DennisB said:

It's not enough. With the transfer stage attached, I can't even reach Kerbin orbit. That rocket will be a monster or it needs a complete redesign.

If it isn't a secret, how heavy was your rocket at the launch on Kerbin?

Sorry for the delay again, I keep not getting notifications - sometimes the forum tells me there's a reply and sometimes it doesn't. Nothing in my spam folder. Very frustrating!

Edit: Found the old craft. Looks like it was 875t, 301 part count - assuming I've got the right file lol But it looks about right.

Congrats on landing on Eve!

Edited May 2, 2023 by KincaidFrankMF

[KincaidFrankMF]

PS I should add, I didn't bring deployable ground science, though that should be perfectly doable (landing stuff on Eve isn't the hard part...) But personally, I just brought the old classics - thermometer, Science Jr etc, then flew them pole-to-pole and back to the equator for lift-off.

[DennisB]

3 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Edit: Found the old craft. Looks like it was 875t, 301 part count - assuming I've got the right file lol But it looks about right.

Mine has more mass, and at the end it will have more parts fur sure. A few days ago I was over 1700t, but at the last weekend I reduced it to a little over 1000t, because I don't need so much fuel for the Eve transfer, so I could also reduce the booster size. At the moment I'm thinking about the return stage, and I have some technical issues, where I'm not sure, is it a bug, or do I something wrong.

2 hours ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

PS I should add, I didn't bring deployable ground science, though that should be perfectly doable (landing stuff on Eve isn't the hard part...) But personally, I just brought the old classics - thermometer, Science Jr etc, then flew them pole-to-pole and back to the equator for lift-off.

I put the surface experiments onboard over a week ago .

[KincaidFrankMF]

3 hours ago, DennisB said:

Mine has more mass, and at the end it will have more parts fur sure. A few days ago I was over 1700t, but at the last weekend I reduced it to a little over 1000t, because I don't need so much fuel for the Eve transfer, so I could also reduce the booster size. At the moment I'm thinking about the return stage, and I have some technical issues, where I'm not sure, is it a bug, or do I something wrong.

I put the surface experiments onboard over a week ago .

Well, the most science wins, so you can go one better than me 

What's the bug? I ran into a bug myself on that mission - not fatal, but very nearly. I'm hoping they've fixed it by now, as I made my run a couple of years ago.

[DennisB]

1 hour ago, KincaidFrankMF said:

Well, the most science wins, so you can go one better than me 

What's the bug? I ran into a bug myself on that mission - not fatal, but very nearly. I'm hoping they've fixed it by now, as I made my run a couple of years ago.

In theory, I can collect all possible science data, except of 3, if I can get all biomes.

I saw the first bug very early, then I thought, it was because I has too many engines. But at last weekend it happened again. I wanted to use larger fuel tanks and place 7 engines on it with an engine plate. I don't know, if it happens only with the nuclear engines or with all engines, but in my case, the engines made flames, noise, they consumed fuel, but didn't give any thrust. Now I have two smaller tanks with the quad adapter, and everything is fine. The second thing, where I'm not sure is, why my hydraulic cylinders don't get power. Is it, because they're mounted on a structure element, or is it, because the fuel tank, where the structure element is mounted, is attached to another fuel tank directly and not by a decoupler, or is it simply a bug.

[KincaidFrankMF]

16 minutes ago, DennisB said:

I saw the first bug very early, then I thought, it was because I has too many engines. But at last weekend it happened again. I wanted to use larger fuel tanks and place 7 engines on it with an engine plate. I don't know, if it happens only with the nuclear engines or with all engines, but in my case, the engines made flames, noise, they consumed fuel, but didn't give any thrust. Now I have two smaller tanks with the quad adapter, and everything is fine. The second thing, where I'm not sure is, why my hydraulic cylinders don't get power. Is it, because they're mounted on a structure element, or is it, because the fuel tank, where the structure element is mounted, is attached to another fuel tank directly and not by a decoupler, or is it simply a bug.

Oh strange! Haven't run into either of those myself (though to be fair, I've never used hydraulic cylinders). Hope you can work around it!

[DennisB]

I don't understand this. Today the hydraulic cylinders work in the same arrangement, where they didn't work 2 days ago.

After I put together everything, I wanted to start the (hopefully) final test. But I noticed already at Kerbin escape, that the nuclear engines are still buggy. With the quad adapter they don't have zero thrust anymore, but they don't have the thrust, what they should have. It seems, they all consumes fuel, but only one of them producing thrust. On the paper I have TWR=0,35, but my acceleration is far behind it. I burned 1200m/s from the tank, and got 300m/s from the maneuver.

I think, I have two choices now. Put on many small fuel tanks with one nuclear engine on each, which doesn't look good, or redesign the rocket for normal rocket engines only.

[DennisB]

I've solved the thrust issue . Now, it starts to be exciting.

With a working rocket, I can now focus on the other elements of the mission, like maneuvers. But at first, I need more fuel, to get to Eve.

[KincaidFrankMF]

Good luck!

[DennisB]

Today I made my first interplanetary journey, but I still need more fuel. Probably my transfer and booster stages need a redesign.

I had the hope, that the probe core alone is enough to connect to a relay in orbit, but it isn't. Let's see, if I can attach an appropriate antenna to my airplane, because I'd like to use KerbNet to find the biomes. But probably I have to make it oldschool with paper maps, which would lower the chance of get everything.