Grand tour 4, new attempt at an below 100 ton grand tour

[magnemoe]

Can I ask how you went about planning the route and the delta v requirements? Did you have to build some huge excel spreadsheet or something to track it all before building?

No, this is my fourth grand trip, the first one was very much on the feeling, using dV charts and previous experience. Grand tour 2 was an improvement, 3 failed at Eve and this worked well.

I knew my upper stage worked from the first tour, however first stage was far to heavy It was mostly hauling an orange tank and four LV-N around. Tylo lander was also far to heavy, with it downsized in grand tour 2 I found I could slim first stage and came up with the three engine nuclear aspargus.

Design process was fist to look at first stage at Tylo, it had to deliver the lander and enough fuel to refill second stage, used mechjeb in WAB and added decoplers to check that I had enough fuel over it.

I then reused the Laythe supply module from GT2 while adding an disposable lander, then the service module with the two reaction wheels and 540 liter fuel. I first thought I could keep this until Laythe.

I added the 3rd LV-N and fuel tanks as an copy of the second stage but with fuel instead of command module, this was to give trust and bring fuel for the Eve->Duna trip.

Here I did an almost fatal mistake, I must have left the LV-N on the second stage open so mechjeb added it to its calculations giving me 2000 m/s for it not the real value who was 1300 m/s, in additon I got an bug with abnormal fuel use who had me reload. However the flexibility payed off, I found I could use the second stage without the two 180 liter side tanks but using the 90 and 135 liter docking tanks, also that I could run the ship with just two engines.

The tanks below the Eve lander was adjusted so they should take me to Eve.

However the majority of the work was the Eve and Tylo landes. Lots of work to get it right, main problem was that the lander from grand tour 2 refused to work, the horizontal ladder was unstable.

No idea why this changed. I also downsized the main lander a lot, 2800 m/s was more than enough, I also moved over to the junior docking port for second stage stuff. Should have added an converter or at least an discardable large port on the balance drop tank. and added an junior on the side of the second stage else I'm petty happy with the design

[GeneralMDBK]

Well this post blew my mind, I'm still just dreaming for a grand tour.

[magnemoe]

Well this post blew my mind, I'm still just dreaming for a grand tour.

Have fun, with kethane mining its not very hard I did it back in 0.19.

Now if you are an good pilot repeat my trip without mechjeb

(to me the idea of landing on Tylo without mechjeb is surreal, I can do most stuff but not that, you has to start with an twr below 1 and things happens fast)

[SuperWeegee4000]

I, um... alright.