100,000 Funds, How Far Can I Go?

[Ultimate Steve]

Hello everyone, Ultimate Steve here again with a new idea/challenge of sorts. Here is the gist:

• Start with 100,000 funds, kept track of with a spreadsheet
• Recover craft at any location on Kerbin for full funds value
• Recovered fuel is worth zero (if you accidentally fill a pod with monoprop and use none of it that doesn't count though). This means no mining for profit, and when landing, use it or lose it!
• Science mode with default difficulty settings to not have to deal with the variable recovery cost and accidental funds injections from world firsts, and so that facilities start fully upgraded
• Unsure how I'll handle offworld ISRU use yet.

So, with these constraints, I attempted to land on as many worlds as possible.

After some runway and launch pad science (which burned no fuel and were fully recovered, so no funds loss), I built the Apogee, designed to get a lot of science from low altitude, high altitude, space, and a nearby biome:

It landed safely, and the craft was fully recovered. Due to fuel burn, I now had 99,725 funds left.

Next up was the Apogee Mission 2 (M2), which repeated the mission profile but with 3 science jr bays on board.

Landing was rather spicy as I couldn't turn sideways for more drag or I'd probably nosedive into the ground, but I also had to generate drag to slow down in time for the chute to pop out!

In the ending, however, I landed safely, and acquired more science.

I'm not completely sure why the numbers don't match up exactly, but they are close enough, and I ended up with 99358 funds remaining after this mission.

Until now it has been mostly normal boring career stuff, but the next mission was designed with long term goals in mind.

This is the Baumgartner, a reusable launch system and space tug. It cost 19,881 funds to launch, putting us down to 79,477 funds.

The first stage, which looks like a core and booster system but is just one piece, gets the spacecraft almost all the way to orbit. It was intended to be all the way but we were a few m/s short.

The payload is separated and provides the last few m/s itself.

While it was intended to land in the water, the Baumgartner's first stage lands successfully on land, gently tipping itself over.

The booster recovery recovered 10686 funds, restoring our budget to 90,163 funds.

The space tug portion of the mission plots a Mun flyby/gravity assist to get out to Minmus.

Science is obtained from the flyby - the onboard experiments include a Mystery goo that Bob can reset as he is a scientist, a thermometer, a barometer, and the crew related science experiments.

After the Mun flyby, Minmus is landed on, and a landing site that is very close to four biomes is targeted to enable good biome hopping.

I ended up flying to another two biomes for a total of six, but the last one was very borderline and stretched my fuel reserves to near the breaking point.

The battery was running fairly low at this point, too low to do a sideways oriented aerobraking, so several passes of a tumbling aerobrake were done.

The tug, with all of the experiments, an experiment capsule, the terrier engine, a small docking port, and mere drops of fuel, is left behind in LKO. The orbit is so low that the impulse of the decoupler is enough to de-orbit the capsule.

Minmus biome hopping is very overpowered!

Recovery netted another 1057 funds taking our total to 90163 funds. However this isn't as bad as it looks, as much of the deficit still exists as on-orbit assets. I intend to leverage these assets to travel to many low gravity bodies and get enough science to properly explore some of the more difficult worlds.

[Ultimate Steve]

Part 2, short update, to the Mun!

I took all that science and unlocked Rapier engines, to get stuff to orbit with as little fuel burn as possible, and I also unlocked some other stuff. Unfortunately, I forgot landing gear, and by the time I noticed, I only had enough science to afford the awful kind of landing gear!

This is the Clementine, or Clementine M1, an SSTO. It carries enough fuel to refuel the Baumgartner space tug, and supplies to outfit it for further exploration. Notably, it carries some small fuel tanks in those service bays, as its Delta-V is currently just barely not enough to go to the Mun and back.

It costs 25,850 funds, leaving us with 65,370 in the bank, but a large chunk of that is the seismometer and magnetometer - science experiments are surprisingly expensive! These experiments will be reused until we have all or enough of the tech tree unlocked, and then they will be returned to Kerbin to recoup their cost.

Ascent is basically 20 degrees up and then go prograde once arbitrarily fast. @camacju has gotten me hooked on MechJeb and I don't think I can go back to doing things the normal way, it is amazing I was able to resist for around 10 years before taking the plunge! Atmospheric flight is night and day with and without Smart A.S.S.

The wings are minimal but have a 5 degree angle of incidence.

Approaching target.

Bill rearranges the Baumgartner to prepare for docking, moving the docking port and science out of the service bay, and getting rid of the service bay and decoupler, which are now dead weight. These are now adrift in space, but some future SSTO with the cargo capacity can go around and grab them and recover them if we end up needing the extra ~1000 funds.

This was not an easy docking, but it was managed.

The now Upgraded Baumgartner, even going as far as to steal the Clementine's command module, departs for the Mun.

Margins for this mission aren't great, there is only enough fuel for one biome, 2 if I am really risky.

Originally I had the idea to land right on a biome border to cheese the system, but something better happened: I landed uphill about a hundred meters from a biome border, and I could literally just slide down the hill for no fuel cost!

Also, thanks to the installation of a solar panel, electric charge is no longer an issue. A reaction wheel has also been installed to help right the ship, as it has no landing legs. I did forget a battery though, and I will take one up on the next mission.

I decide not to push my luck, and return to Kerbin without going to a third biome.

After some aerobraking, the Clementine and Baumgartner are re-docked and the parts are transferred. Almost all residual fuel is transferred to the Baumgartner, leaving it with the 3 small tanks completely full and the FL-T400 almost entirely empty. The command pod is also transferred over.

The ships are undocked.

Re-entry proceeds well, which is surprising as the ship ran out of electric charge and had zero yaw authority. I did not once check dry stability, so I am very glad that the ship is stable in this configuration. As the landing gear burned off during ascent (ow, my funds!), the landing will have to be in the water.

Recovery netted 15,679 funds, leaving us with 81,049 in the bank, and a very capable, mostly complete ship in orbit, that when refueled, is capable of flying to a lot of places, depending on how liberal I want to be with gravity assists.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Part 3, and last update for tonight... Wow, I need to go to bed.

Flight 2 of the Clementine, or Clementine M2. Launch cost is 27035 funds, taking us down to 54014.

Modifications include replacing the old cockpit with a proper cockpit, replacing the old landing gear with proper landing gear, swapping the payload, and adjusting stuff to compensate for the changed parameters.

This flight was piloted by Bill Kerman. The payload was the required 180 units of liquid fuel plus whatever residuals could be managed, an EVA seat, Bob in the EVA seat, a docking port, a battery (unless that went up on the last flight I forget), and a negative gravioli detector (whoo, those are expensive).

The destination?

Gilly!

It is hoped that the sun science, the Gilly science (all of it except crew reports and surface rocks, I believe unless I'm mistaken), the upper level Eve science, the Kerbin gravioli science, and the Eve gravioli science will be enough to unlock all other parts we are likely to need.

Cool green sunrise.

Interesting transfer here. I had intended to descent to a Gilly tangent near apoapsis and then match velocity, but it ended up being far more fuel efficient to generate a tangency near periapsis and then match velocity there.

All three biomes on Gilly were hopped to, using minimal fuel, because, well, it is Gilly.

Departure was scuffed as I was eyeballing it, but this mission has a lot of fuel margin. Instead of being smart and using that fuel margin to save money, I'm instead using it to save time and sanity (which I guess is also smart).

This would never survive direct aerocapture, so the engine was used to capture into an orbit with an apoapsis at about the Mun's height, and then aerobraking proceeded from there.

Docked! Most of the residual fuel was transferred over, and the docking port was left in orbit so we don't have to keep lugging it up each time.

Bob was left in orbit as we're just going to have to lug him and the chair back up anyway. Sorry, Bob!

Overshot the runway. I really need to replace the rudder, or give this thing some actual EC generation or storage capability, as not having yaw authority is very detrimental to precision landings. The ridiculously narrow wheelbase and tendency for tail strikes don't help either.

After many, many attempts, the Clementine was put down safely.

She was worth 16444 funds in this state, putting the bank account back up to 70458.

There are roughly 24000 funds worth of assets in orbit, mostly science experiments, so we have actually used a surprisingly small amount of money, which is split between fuel usage and misc part losses (the burned off landing gear and the abandoned decoupler and service bay in orbit).

The big news, though, is that the mission generated far more science than I thought it would!

That was enough to get the tech tree to this state, and I can't really imagine using any of the parts that haven't been unlocked. For completionist's sake I will likely still bring the experiments along to the next destination, wherever it may prove to be, and afterwards I will return them to Kerbin.

Part of me wants to use ion engines extensively for the rest of the challenge, but I am unsure if they would be worth it as xenon, which is not recoverable, is 4 funds per unit, meaning a standard xenon tank is 1620 funds in just xenon alone! Alas, it is still likely the easiest way to do Moho without resorting to a bajillion gravity assists.

I will probably grab the service bay and re-attach it to the Baumgartner and create a Duna lander that way. Not sure what the best way to get it there is, but after Duna, the only destinations that cannot be done with ions are Tylo, Laythe, and Eve.

I'm not that worried about Tylo, but for Laythe and Eve I'd likely need to do stock props and those tend to be bulky, and I don't really feel in the mood for them, so a different solution may be employed. Not sure which one though.

[kurgut]

That's a neat challenge idea ! well done  

And, I just tought about something... I actually think Bradley might have just accidentally and retroactively beated you and all others possible challengers, without knowing about the challenge...
His crafts are very, very cheap... compared to what they do, since he goes very, very far...... Am I'm pretty sure the first 2 launches are within the 100k funds range..

Cheers

Edited May 23, 2023 by kurgut

[Ultimate Steve]

4 hours ago, kurgut said:

That's a neat challenge idea ! well done  

And, I just tought about something... I actually think Bradley might have just accidentally and retroactively beated you and all others possible challengers, without knowing about the challenge...
His crafts are very, very cheap... compared to what they do, since he goes very, very far...... Am I'm pretty sure the first 2 launches are within the 100k funds range..

Cheers

I don't think so, actually, as so many of his craft are expended. Not factoring in reusability he would be in the lead though. He is focusing on launch count rather than cost.

Just the first stage engines alone on his second rocket are worth more than my total funds burn to date when counting my orbital assets. Granted, the second rocket is also capable of going to many more places that we never saw because no episode 3 as far as I can tell.

 

In other news, I've decided to do Eve next, my logic being that as the big landers have to be expended, it is wise to do them as soon as possible as they will cost the most and I won't be recovering the full cost. Like, if the mission costs 70k and I recover 50k of that, I should do it ASAP so I still have enough to start the mission, and it will hopefully leave me with enough to do the other missions.

[Ultimate Steve]

Update, finally found part 3 of Brad's series and it is very impressive. Finishing the tech tree in 2 launches with craft that cheap is a feat I will probably never match. I will however reiterate that my goal here is not to finish the tech tree, but to land on and return from everywhere.

[Ultimate Steve]

Part 4, Eve!

I did forget to mention that I have been using the debug menu to get around a setting I wish I had changed, I forget what the setting is but it is the one that allows you to plot maneuver nodes and such if you don't have a pilot on board. I could just change that difficulty setting but I keep forgetting to.

That won't affect today's mission, however, as for such a ballsy mission, we need the man, the myth, the legend himself: Jebediah Kerman.

We will also need a significantly beefier spaceplane. This is the Elutheria, named because I am naming my craft in alphabetical order and I needed something that starts with E. It is capable of carrying a payload of 6-8 tons in the nose section as long as it is significantly aerodynamic. I would have added angle of incidence but I completely forgot.

The payload is called Darmstadtium, after an element on the periodic table. It stood out to me because after doing a test on my knowledge of the elements, it was one of the few I had never heard of, and I resolved to never forget it again!

This launch cost 41,207 funds, putting us down to 29,251.

Once in orbit, the fairing is separated to reveal the Eve ascent vehicle Darmstadtium (which the spellchecker doesn't even recognize as a word!). Far lighter designs are possible, and I suspect those lighter designs would be cheaper than what I have here, but they also require a ton of babysitting. I in no way claim that this 10,000 fund machine is the cheapest way off of Eve, but it almost couldn't be simpler, just point and shoot and let the margin do the rest.

The non reusable fairing does hurt a little, though.

Bill transfers the winglets over to a more reasonable location on the Elutheria so that it isn't unstable for re enetry and landing.

Re entry and landing proceeds normally, with the caveat that it was weirdly unstable, likely due to the dihedral on the winglets (EVA construction tool wouldn't let me place them on straight), mismatch between the winglets, or possibly the fact that there is no longer a nose cone.

Recovery netted 31,043 funds, putting us back up to 60,294.

However, we still need a way to get it to Eve.

On the second flight of the Elutheria, we will do just that. It looks incredibly goofy and for that I have no defense. It is incredibly goofy.

The launch cost 37,835 funds, and the payload, containing Jebediah Kerman, is called Fantastique.

Due to the draggy nature of the payload, we had trouble getting all the way to a rendezvous. The spaceplane had about 30m/s left and we were flying past the target at about 30m/s. To leave enough fuel for de-orbit, it was decided to allow the Fantastique to complete the rendezvous by itself.

And, docked! Jebediah will now proceed to Eve.

After a transfer, Jeb captures into an elliptical Eve orbit.

Near apoapsis, the inclination is corrected from about 40 degrees to about 11 degrees, the most we can efficiently do. Periapsis is adjusted, and the aerobraking passes commence.

Initially I was going to barely clip the atmosphere and go sideways for maximum surface area, but it turns out I could go a lot lower hiding behind the heat shield. Perplexingly, the parachute held up to the heat.

This is where a large chain of goofs started, I forgot de orbit motors for the payload, so I resorted to centrifugal separation, which put my periapsis down to about 80 kilometers. As a result, my landing site was pretty random.

I didn't have any pics of the successful re entry so here is a pic of one where, after the docking port burned off, the control point switched from MechJeb to the vertically seated Kerbal and it tried to steer 90 degrees.

Unfortunately, due to me forgetting de orbit motors, the descent happened on the night side above water. I had planned for a land landing, but I was under the assumption that water would also work.

The parachute sets us down nicely. Unfortunately, we are too far up for Jeb to actually get out... But hey, close enough.

We also don't have any electrical generation capability, as that costs money. As the MechJeb unit uses power, we cannot stay on the surface for very long.

I did quicksave and timewarp ahead to see a cool sunrise, though.

At this point I am sorry to tell you that this challenge has lost its legitimacy. As it turns out, jettisoning the heat shield causes Jebediah to launch out of his EVA seat and he cannot get back in.

More distressingly, it turns out that ducted fans do not work underwater. Not even reduced thrust, they don't produce thrust at all.

Instead of redoing the whole mission I elected to use a few seconds of hack gravity to jettison the heat shield safely and get out of the water.

After that, it was back to normal gravity, and Jebediah began his battery powered ascent.

I actually messed up here, as I was distracted by laughing at an AI generated version of Obama singing a Gloryhammer song. I realized that I had passed my apogee and was falling at about 50m/s, so I immediately fired the booster.

So, some Delta-V was lost, but this mission has tons of margin.

The ascent profile is launch straight up to get out of the atmosphere with the hammer.

Then, the upper stage burns mostly sideways once the drag is minimal and gets almost all of the way to orbit.

Weirdly I had some issues where neither SAS or Mechjeb could keep it pointed straight, so I had to manually fly it, and I got the inclination wrong and wasted a lot of fuel trying to correct it, but we still ended up almost in orbit.

The EVA jetpack was used for the final push to orbit and to complete the rendezvous.

At that point, we plotted a burn back home, but due to our inclination, we had to wait around four years for a window we had sufficient propellant for.

Capture was done entirely via aerobraking, and adjustments to inclination and periapsis were done near apoapsis with the main engine.

After several passes, I arrived back at the Elutheria, with the intent to re-dock and land. However, well... For some reason I thought the Elutheria had a docking port. Surprise, it doesn't! So I left Jeb and the Fantastique in orbit, and landed Bill.

I did not move the winglets for this one, to see if I (Mechjeb) could fly it, fully expecting to have to quickload.

Due to many factors, I significantly undershot the landing site.

I probably could have made it to the foothills on the west side of the mountains, but I decided to conduct a water landing for safety. Remember, this thing has that blunt nose and is about as aerodynamic as a brick.

Smart A.S.S. is doing a great job at keeping this unstable aircraft straight. After leveling out, I gradually adjusted the pitch setting to stall just as I hit the water going about 30-40m/s.

A

And with that, a successful low cost mission to Eve and back! The recovery gained 30,743 funds, for a total balance of 53,202 funds. We did expend at least ten thousand in parts alone for the Eve lander, not counting the fuel to get both modules up there and to get to Eve and back, so this is our first major non recoverable expense of the challenge. However, it must be remembered that there is a significant amount of stuff in orbit we can either refuel and use again (Darmstadtium and Baumgartner), or recover once we don't need it any more (the stupidly expensive science experiments).

No idea what I'm doing next, but what is likely to be the most expensive landing has been completed!

Probably going to be Jool-5 or Duna or Moho next depending on what I feel like.