THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP: (deprecated thread, real mission starts soonish)

[Watermel00n]

On 9/6/2015 at 9:57 AM, Whirligig Girl said:

Alternis Kerbol Rekerjiggered is the re-release of the classic v0.23 mod for KSP: Alternis Kerbol. It grabs and re-arranges the solar system bodies to create something new. Almost all bodies have been changed somehow, be it in a large way or a small way. Alternis Kerbol was one of the first planet packs, using its own plugin to change the planets, before even Planet Factory Creator Edition was released and while RSS couldn't do much more than resize Kerbin. Under those conditions, it did a damn fine job.

Here's the list of changes, as true as possible to the original Alternis Kerbol mod with plenty of extra improvements to the previously stock bodies:

Changes

• Jool: Moved to Kerbin's original orbital position, blu-ified.
• Bop: Turned into a tiny little subsatellite of Kerbin.
• Pol: Inclination lowered, made into a lumpy rubble pile.
• Kerbin: Now orbits Jool at the same place Tylo used to. New terrain.
• Eve: Yellow, ringed, and shrunk to 670km radius, 1.12 G.
• Laythe: Redone entirely, now a jungle moon with varied terrain, more land, and trees. (Panspermia's a heckuva thing.)
• Minmus: Orbits Jool beneath Laythe, now 29km in radius (from 60), and deep reddish orange.
• Tylo: Orbits the sun a bit past Duna's original orbit, radius increased to 1103 km and surface gravity is 4g, plus an atmosphere no more than 80% the density of Kerbin's.
• Duna: Orbits Tylo, completely new terrain.
• Moho: Orbit moved inward and made more eccentric, turned red and given a hot atmosphere and the, well, original Mohole. (New)
• Gilly: Small comet, shrunk to 8.5km radius. Renamed to Gillian's Comet. (Comet tails with Kopernicus Expansion)
• Ike: Fat comet, shrunk to 17.5km radius. Renamed to Isaac's Comet. (Comet tails with Kopernicus Expansion)
• Mun: Relocated to Jool orbit, replacing Vall, enlarged to 257km radius. New terrain.
• Vall: Now orbits Eeloo, shrunk to 99.8 km radius. Totally new terrain.
• Eeloo: Moved outward, increased to ~500 km radius, less eccentric and inclined orbit. Totally new terrain.
• Dres: First moon of Tylo. New, heavily cratered terrain.
• Lighting: Ambient light now nonexistent in space Sun is slightly reddish-yellow and casts a harsh, warmer light.
• Sun: Shrunk to 75000km, gravity increased to keep planetary speeds the same. 
• General: Most orbits have at least some inclination and eccentricity now, as opposed to being perfect circles like the Kerbin system. All atmospheres are defined realistically using OhioBob's calculator.
• Science: Science configs have been made for all modified bodies, and many bodies have modified science multipliers.
• Mods: Compatibility for PlanetShine, Kopernicus Expansion Rekerjiggered, Distant Object Enhancement, Outer Planets Mod, Kronometer, and Principia, and Environmental Visual Enhancements. All supported in the main download (you no longer need to download a separate config pack for clouds or scatterer, as previous versions required.)

Pictures

Alternis Kerbol is one of the oldest planet packs in KSP history. It does many humorous  things to the Kerbol Star System, such as making Kerbin and Laythe orbit Jool and basically changing up the kerbolar system. However, due to these changes, there are a few design challenges.

1. Tylo

With its massive gravity of 4 gees and almost negligible atmosphere, Tylo requires almost 8 km/s of delta-v to land. The only way I could get my lander to work was with a small isru kit installed to refuel the smaller return section. When fully fuelled, the lander weighs of 4 megatons. Furthermore, it is hard to refuel on Tylo's moons, Duna and Dres, due to their distance from Tylo and slightly high gravity.

2. The comets

Ike and gilly have been turned into comets, meaning I actually have to land on them. This requires an insane amount of time, meaning I need ion engines. Thus, I designed the CometHater, a 2 kerbal spacecraft with ion engines.

3. Eve

Actually, Eve has been nerfed to be just slightly harder to go than Laythe. Which means I can design a Standard Lander!

some preview images

Spoiler

Tylo lander (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh)

Mothership with Omnilanders and CometHater

Refuellable Tanker (2 versions; one with wolfhounds and one with rhinos)

Now, what is the flight plan?

The journey will begin with the launch of 4 tankers (2 with rhinos) to land and fuel up on Kerbin's submoon Bop. The Tylo lander and Mothership will also be launched to Bop to refuel. When everything is fueled up, the spacecrafts leave in two groups to Tylo: the Mothership with one transfer stage tanker and a standard tanker, and the same for the Tylo Lander. This is done to reduce part count. Once in orbit, excess fuel in the transfer tankers are transferred to the Tylo lander to fuel that up. (if there isn't enough fuel, I think the transfer stage can attempt a landing on Dres.) Once done, the Mothership continues with the journey as usual.

Edited February 5 by Watermel00n

[Kerbalsaurus]

I’m unfamiliar with the “big four”.

[Watermel00n]

1 hour ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

I’m unfamiliar with the “big four”.

What's a big four? (this is still very unfinished work, I'll work on it tommorrow)

[Kerbalsaurus]

18 minutes ago, Watermel00n said:

What's a big four? (this is still very unfinished work, I'll work on it tommorrow)

Oh, I misread "Grand Tour" as "Big Four". Sorry about that.

[Watermel00n]

Heavily edited the OP.

[Watermel00n]

Completely redesigned the Eve lander. The ladder system is really janky though...

[Watermel00n]

Tested a new tank variant with increased fuel-to-orbit by scrapping the mining unit and increasing the size of the launch vehicle.

It will take about 3 launches to fully fuel the Tylo Lander and bring it to tylo.