EVE--how to?

[tavert]

@CoriW, is your KER window showing Eve TWR or Kerbin TWR? Either way you need more engines per fuel tank.

Here's my rough take on this. http://i.imgur.com/LjuIiZL.jpg Still needs chutes, ladder, landing gear, struts, winglets, etc.

[tomf]

Birrhan - do you know the mass fraction of your rocket? I have a 2 man sea level Eve launch vehicle that comes in at 456 tonnes to launch a final in orbit mass of 2.25 tonnes. A total of 12072 delta-v. The start mass does include the parachutes, legs etc required for the landing which are ditched at the start of the ascent.

I spent ages tweaking the staging and engine choice in excel so I would be impressed/annoyed if anyone can get that much delta-v with a significantly better payload fraction on eve.

The ship is currently en route to eve, but I did test it with hyper edit so I am pretty confident that it will work. Whether the interplanetary stage has enough to get the Kerbals home again, we will have to wait and see.

Edited May 17, 2013 by tomf

[CoriW]

@CoriW, is your KER window showing Eve TWR or Kerbin TWR? Either way you need more engines per fuel tank.

Here's my rough take on this. http://i.imgur.com/LjuIiZL.jpg Still needs chutes, ladder, landing gear, struts, winglets, etc.

At first the TWR was showing Kerbin, that has now been fixed, the TWR on Eve is 1.54 for the first stage, 1.06 for the second, followed by 0.97, 0.96, 0.96, 0.94, and 0.90 by the rest of the stages. I'm going to go ahead and hyper edit this thing to Eve for now and see if it is actually able to do a landing and launch or not. (As for getting this thing to Eve legit, that's a whole different story all together.)

Also, when I first undertook this design process, I started with a very similar design as yours, but by the time I figured out a configuration that would get me close to enough DeltaV, the ship was way too wide, so I used the same amount of fuel and engines that was on my "wide" design and changed it to use the 1.25m tanks.

[birrhan]

It's called a "hint". It's something people give you when you're better off figuring out the specifics for yourself, but when they want to put you on the right track towards a successful attempt. KSP is all about learning how to do things, and this is what we call a teachable moment. You've obviously learned how to construct a rocket, get your current mass, get your total delta-V, and so on, so you can do it without us handing you a perfect design. As long as the stage in question isn't activated until you're above 15000m or so (where the nuke's ISP reaches 500), the only reason to use the less efficient engines is if you still need the high thrust, so you should be able to figure out for yourself exactly which stages should be using those engines.

I didn't ask for a hint, I asked for a spoiler. Please stop patronizing me. I asked a very pointed question, you're ignoring it, so be it. You have that right, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

For the record, after, oh, 100 hours of tinkering on just Eve, I effing give up--and I believe that is warranted. I cannot get a craft to eve with sufficient dv to get off the surface, and when I get close the parachutes rip free because it's aspargussed 6 ways to sunday. On the plus side, I'm also finding a clever trick with vertical asparagusing and two aerospikes that give in the neighborhood of 3500-4000 dv on the last stage, which kind of beats the crap out of anything the LVNs can offer, for a weight of less than 20 tons. So much for the sanctity of NERVA. But then, I don't have a frame of reference for atmospheric conditions getting out of Eve, and at what altitude I can drop high thrust engines. The rest.... is where I need the help. I would really like to see if it's possible to get 10,000 dv with TWR >1.2 for each stage (out of atmo at least) for less than 200 tons. I can get a 200 ton lander into orbit, with room to spare.

Are you familiar with pedagogies? I learn visually. I need to see the picture of what you're talking about. No more socratic method. No more teacher/student. I've logged 370 hours in 2 months on this game. It is all encompassing. moreso, I have a fair grasp of things. Enough so that I am asking this as a peer, not a student. Just work with me. or don't, but at least don't patronize.

[Khrissetti]

Does the FTL egg still work in the newest updates?

http://imgur.com/a/UuQm1

[birrhan]

Thanks to everyone, tavert amd CoriW in particular, for the insight and suggestions. I like the weight on the X3--very curious to try it out. Gonna have to be a bit though. Thank you.

[Francesco]

At first the TWR was showing Kerbin, that has now been fixed, the TWR on Eve is 1.54 for the first stage, 1.06 for the second, followed by 0.97, 0.96, 0.96, 0.94, and 0.90 by the rest of the stages.

TWR < 1 on Eve? you're asking for trouble

[Truga]

TWR < 1 on Eve? you're asking for trouble

This. Today I'm going to land my lander thingy on eve. My average TWR is something like 1.8, and I'm still worried about getting back...

[CoriW]

TWR < 1 on Eve? you're asking for trouble

And trouble I got... So when I finally figured out how hyperedit worked I got my ship over to Eve and tried to do a soft landing with the parachutes, that worked out well as I didn't get below 54m/s and got smashed into a million pieces when I finally arrived at the ground. xD

So since that didn't work I went ahead and just used hyperedit to land it on Eve, so I could see if it would take off or not... All was going reasonably well, I started at 600m, and was ascending at a decent pace, that is until I got to around 3600m and staged... All in all, I started a slow plummet back towards eve at a whopping 10m/s then after about half my fuel at around 800m I started to climb again! But that didn't last long as right when I staged it sent me plummeting back towards Eve once again! xD

Well... Atleast Jeb was happy.

As a note though I've never actually dealt with Eve before... I knew the gravity was really strong but I mean... IT IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS! I AM NEVER TOUCHING EVE AGAIN! xD

EDIT: And a total of about 8 hours working on a solution to Eve... Success!

I've tested it for landing and launch capability, and it fits the bill for both. For landing you'll need the parachutes as well as some thrust just before you reach the ground (Parachutes are action groups 1 and 2). You'll also have to make sure you have a way to refuel while on the surface, and execute a perfect launch because the DeltaV is just barely enough to reach orbit

Craft file: Click Here

Edited May 17, 2013 by CoriW

[Flanders]

http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1eieb4/i_present_the_long_and_convoluted_rescue_of_orbas/

Guy on ksp subreddit posted this... Three-man capsule and successfull rescue of stranded kerbal!

[birrhan]

As a note though I've never actually dealt with Eve before... I knew the gravity was really strong but I mean... IT IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS! I AM NEVER TOUCHING EVE AGAIN! xD

EDIT: And a total of about 8 hours working on a solution to Eve... Success!

I believe that's the mantra of the kerbal rocket builder: "I am never touching (planetary body or orbital maneuver) again!", which immediately precedes a breakthrough. Jeb knows I've done it.

was this from Eve sea level?

Would slapping on 10 or so SRBs help?

[CoriW]

I believe that's the mantra of the kerbal rocket builder: "I am never touching (planetary body or orbital maneuver) again!", which immediately precedes a breakthrough. Jeb knows I've done it.

was this from Eve sea level?

Would slapping on 10 or so SRBs help?

This was from about 400 meters or so above Sea level, it looked like the lowest place to land at the time. As for the SRBs, I don't think they would actually do much... The ship has reached that "Critical Mass" where the thrust from the added rockets barely counteracts the weight of the fuel in any way whatsoever.