The Eve return mission is too tedious

[magnemoe]

This isn't mine, but I think it is proof that an Eve return is the endgame challenge for mere mortals, but the true challenge is stock Jool ascent.

Note: This was hyperedited to Jool, so no one has yet learned how to get it there from Kerbin stock.

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How to get it to Jool? Launch from Kerbin into LKO, wait for Jool window and send it to Jool, that thing is single stage to Jool.

Refill, You might want to put some packs of LV-N on it to save fuel during the Jool transfer and refill it in LKO to. Framerate during the docking for refueling would not be impressive.

I might want to try this challenge Landing Jeb on Jool using balloons and doing an 100 ton from LKO grand tour i'm open for new challenges.

[Respawn]

yeh the challenge of a "there and back again" eve return mission is the planning it takes.

I made a minimalist challenge entry for the "Smallest-Craft-to-Various-Milestones" challenge. (eve return).

Going there, landing and getting back is not that hard when you've been playing for a while.

I think Eve is an excellent planet to challenge your self on, so i hope it stays as it is.

That Jool "lander" awesome concept, but looks very inefficient.

hm.. Seems like a fun challenge to try and optimize though..

"sub-suface" sample return in 0.22? ..sounds like a plan. XD

Edited September 11, 2013 by Respawn
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[MrPopcup]

I did takeoff fron eve, it was hard to but really worth it, I took off 2km higher than sea level, but anyway, yes that happened to me in other missions ( engines breaking with no reason ) , the solution is not to make Eve easier, but to add multiple saves.

[rkman]

The eve return mission is diffucult to the point where fun is lost.

From your story i got the impression the cause of the problem with that mission is that engines fell off (presumably due to a bug in KSP which is not specific to Eve).

Edited September 11, 2013 by rkman

[Kerbart]

Ok, guys your comments returned my appetite to the game. I build up much stable and easy to control >50 tonn Eve return lander with seat with 11000 dv I guess as long as get at least some elevation I can get to orbit or just use the jetpack of kerbonaut for the remaning dv the lander is fully ladder capapble so I'm going for the flag. All unnesesary stuff is jettisoned upon engine burn to for assend. I know it's far more than many of you did here like 8 tonn lander to Eve is still beyong me. But I think I will run this mission with this one. It's already in the kerbin orbit wating for the nuclear booster stage to arrive. I also going to reuse the poor remains of my old lander that get damaged by kraken and stuck at Eve orbit. Since it still have quite a lot of fuel and working docking port I'm goint to use at as refuel station and do the resque mission for the brave Bob Kerbin.

I'm glad you got inspired again. Overcoming challenges is part of the fun!

Imagine Gene Kranz, at the Apollo 13 mission, once he found out about the incompatible air scrubbers between the LEM and the command module, had thrown his hands in the air and cried “that's it! I'm tired of this ####. First the explosion, now this... Guys, I propose we just scrap this mission and start over again. Boys, turn off those monitors and go home early today for a long weekend. You deserved it. Bob, when does Apollo 14 launch?â€Â

[Ittiz]

This isn't mine, but I think it is proof that an Eve return is the endgame challenge for mere mortals, but the true challenge is stock Jool ascent.

Note: This was hyperedited to Jool, so no one has yet learned how to get it there from Kerbin stock.

This is just proof KSP is super easy compared to real life. Jool has almost exactly the same physical characteristics as Venus IRL and today we launch from a planet even bigger than that (Earth).

Here are the stats:

Jool | Venus

Diameter: 6,000km | 6,051.8km

Mass: 4.2332635×10^24 kg | 4.8676×10^24 kg

Gravity: 7.85 m/s^2 | 8.87 m/s^2

Escape V: 9,704.43 m/s | 10,360 m/s

Density: 4,678.7834 kg/m^3 | 5,243 kg/m^3

Surface P: 15 atm | 92 atm

Sources are KSP wiki and Wikipedia.

The bottom line is if you can't launch from Jool you couldn't launch from Earth either. Hence why getting into space is such a challenge.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Ittiz

[Bekiekutmoar]

I like that the celestial bodies in the Kerbol system represent a broad spectrum of gameplay-difficulties. Personally, I consider Minmus as the 'easiest' object, and Eve as the most difficult, closely followed by Moho and Tylo.

I recently designed a 45-ton lander that relied heavily on asparagus engineering and carried a one-man capsule (0,6 ton). I moved the thing to Evian orbit but then my PC died. To this day I haven't succeeded in performing a return mission from Eve (and Laythe, Tylo, Vall, Pol, Bop, Dres and Eeloo). I'll give it another try when I've installed a new GPU in my new system. Doubt KSP runs well with an onboard HD2500.

[Michael232]

Well, it sure takes a lot of time (wouldn't be much of a challenge otherwise). Finally constructed lander, I'll go with this. In fact, it should take off from the right place, but it still needs some engines for landing.

Perhaps I'll get it to the orbit tomorrow.

[PotatoOverdose]

This is just proof KSP is super easy compared to real life. Jool has almost exactly the same physical characteristics as Venus IRL and today we launch from a planet even bigger than that (Earth).

Here are the stats:

Jool | Venus

Diameter: 6,000km | 6,051.8km

Mass: 4.2332635×10^24 kg | 4.8676×10^24 kg

Gravity: 7.85 m/s^2 | 8.87 m/s^2

Escape V: 9,704.43 m/s | 10,360 m/s

Density: 4,678.7834 kg/m^3 | 5,243 kg/m^3

Surface P: 15 atm | 92 atm

Sources are KSP wiki and Wikipedia.

The bottom line is if you can't launch from Jool you couldn't launch from Earth either. Hence why getting into space is such a challenge.

While you're not wrong about real life being harder (duh), your comparison is extremely flawed. While the obstacles we have to overcome in ksp are smaller, the tools we have to do so are also less efficient. For starters, the fuel tanks we get have a lower fuel fraction compared to real life rockets. Our orange tank has a fuel fraction of 88.9%. A real orange tank, like the one on the space shuttle, has a fuel fraction of over 95% [source].

Likewise, the TWR of our engines are absolutely horrendous. The F-1 engines (most notable for ther use in the Saturn V vehicle) had a TWR of 94.1 and lifted a 3000 ton rocket. The Merlin 1D engine (used by Space X) has a TWR of 159.9 [source]. Also, the real life nuclear engine has a TWR of 1.8. Higher TWR means you need fewer engines to lift the same amount of fuel and payload, which again gives real rockets a massively improved propellant mass fraction.

Given the exponential relationships between delta V and propellant mass fraction in the tsiolkovsky rocket equation, the tremendous significance of these two points becomes apparent.

If you want to compare Jool to Venus, fine, but then you have to give the LV-T45 a TWR of 159.9 and the LV-N a TWR of 1.8. And then Jool becomes a whole lot easier:). And we haven't touched on the fact that we don't have 10 meter parts like the Saturn V, we only have 2.5m parts, and given that volume of a tank is proportional to r^3, well.....

Edited September 11, 2013 by PotatoOverdose

[Michael232]

Haha, I was as stupid as imitating "some-cool-design-I-saw-on-youtube" for my lifter. That was a good lesson, took me few days though. I'll do lifter my way and go to Eve. The engine part will still be copy though, too lazy to rebuild it and it should work anyway.

[Seyvern]

Generally agree w/ the sentiment that range of challenges is good and Eve should be left alone.

That being said, I personally think Tylo is the hardest body in the game, if one doesn't use mechjeb. The DV requirements are huge given the need for a powered decent on a near Kerbin sized gravity field, and w/o using mechjeb, doing an _efficient_ powered decent takes massive skill. (Note - i'm not a mechjeb hater - just makes powered landings alot easier)

[KerbMav]

And I will agree with you and add, that as long as it is nothing fundamental in the game which is so difficult that it can only be done with additional help, it should be left alone as the challenge it was meant to be.

[magnemoe]

Generally agree w/ the sentiment that range of challenges is good and Eve should be left alone.

That being said, I personally think Tylo is the hardest body in the game, if one doesn't use mechjeb. The DV requirements are huge given the need for a powered decent on a near Kerbin sized gravity field, and w/o using mechjeb, doing an _efficient_ powered decent takes massive skill. (Note - i'm not a mechjeb hater - just makes powered landings alot easier)

I pretty much agree here, the Eve lander is mainly an building issue and landing on the right high spot, takeoff is not so hard except that you has to start circulate early to avoid dipping down into the atmosphere if your upper stage has low TWR but this is no different than using an nuclear upper stage to circulate on Kerbin.

[sephirotic]

For example, the smallest possible two man Eve lander could be built to under 20 tons using a range of tricks like extensive asparagus staging (including vertical asparagus via radial engines) and using ladder/command chair instead of pod.

I think using ladders or seats is a very cheaty way to do a mission to Eve, it has some validities, tough, of course, but makes it much easier.

A proper command pod mission can´t be done with less than 150 tons for a low altitude launch (less than 1000m) I think the real changes lays on lauching from sea level.

With a command pod, you can do Eve ascent in under 40 tons: http://imgur.com/a/piTkF#0

Ow, 40 tons is even less with a command pod than i would expect for this height. However, i noticed you used Mechjeb with makes things much easier, since landing precisely on those mountains is a pain in the ass tough due to difficult on precise aerobraking, and having a perfect ascent trajectory is also difficult, any mistakes in the ascent profile and you may lose 50, or even 100m/s of d/v.

By the way a SRB? That thing is very inefficient.

I've recently made a full Eve-return mission at low altitude on video, i think all parts of the missions are challenging, the landing is particularly annoying with such a large ascent vehicle since the surface of eve is very irregular and any slope may make the thing tip over.

You can check my attempt here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/46553-Full-stock-mission-to-Eve-AND-BACK!

I think it currents holds the lowest altitude-launch-orbit-capable-with-eve-ascent-vehicle-with-pod ever designed since the nerf of the aerospikes.

I plan making a full mission log in english for this mission, already finished it in my native language.

That being said, I personally think Tylo is the hardest body in the game, if one doesn't use mechjeb. The DV requirements are huge given the need for a powered decent on a near Kerbin sized gravity field, and w/o using mechjeb, doing an _efficient_ powered decent takes massive skill. (Note - i'm not a mechjeb hater - just makes powered landings alot easier)

I disagree. Recently i made stock mission to both of this bodies with one and two kerbals. I did got surprised by the very large amount of d/v needed for LANDING on tylo, and the burn all the way to jool took a while but was something i was already more than experienced. The eve mission was more complex and by far the hardest, specially the design stage. But then again, if designing a ascent vehicle from 6km altitude, then it may be even lighter than the Tylo lander.

but near the limits of possibility to ascent from sea level (I do not know has anyone made it).

I did it! (well, actually the only test i did with it was around 150 meters high) And with a pod design, not seats! A improved variant of the ship from the previous video, here a sneak peek:

By the way, i didn´t use MJ on the mission because i think it also kinda of cheats the difficult process of landing and ascending, but i used for this SS because Kerbal engineer don´t track D/V properly. Also, 12,100m/s is an conservative number, since i also use part of the remaining RCS for pushing the upper ascents further away from the surface, so i'd say it's a 12,500d/v vehicle.

And for a curiosity, whiy i think switching a command pod for a seat is cheaty:

A bonus of 3500m/s of D/v on the same design.

In fact i think i could pretty much as well just put two ladders on the sides of the command pod of this design and transfor it in a 3-kerbal return vehicle.

Edited September 17, 2013 by sephirotic

[Temstar]

I think using ladders or seats is a very cheaty way to do a mission to Eve, it has some validities, tough, of course, but makes it much easier.

This is mostly true. Though "open air" landers are not unheard of in real life. In fact there were proposals to use the Gemini spacecraft as the mothership to take a tiny "open-air" lander to the moon as an Apollo shortcut to beat the Soviets:

And then there was this:

A spacecraft that could best be described as a "rocket powered witch's broom" built out of parts salvaged from taking apart the LEM in the event that the LEM ascent engine failed to ignite and the moonwalkers need a way to get back into orbit to the safety of the CSM.

I think the real changes lays on launching from sea level.

I agree that the most interesting part of Eve, both from a scientific and from a resource gathering point of view is the oceans. However that doesn't mean the challenge is to launch from Eve's sea level. You could just as well have a lander that can sprout wheels after landing. Drive to the beach, then drive uphill to the launch site before turning. Alternatively you could land a separate rover that serve as the transport for crew between the mountain top launch complex and the water, on the same mission as the lander if you want a challenge.

Using rovers to both go to the ocean and mountain is a very clever piece of mission planning and should be encouraged instead of treated as if it was "cheating the Eve challenge" in some ways.

[sephirotic]

This is mostly true. Though "open air" landers are not unheard of in real life. In fact there were proposals to use the Gemini spacecraft as the mothership to take a tiny "open-air" lander to the moon as an Apollo shortcut to beat the Soviets

Ah, yes, of course it is a possible design, but not on an body with thick atmosphere.

Using rovers to both go to the ocean and mountain is a very clever piece of mission planning and should be encouraged instead of treated as if it was "cheating the Eve challenge" in some ways.

I also agree, in fact in my mission to Eve i did use a rover for doing SCIENCE and exploring the surface of Eve, however, since I aerobraked without a calculation (like MJ) to do a more challenging mission, i landed quite far away from the rover, and without cruise control on stock wheels, traveling nearly 70kms manually with it was prohibitive boring, so i didn´t use the rover manned.

[Temstar]

and without cruise control on stock wheels

Actually there is. Just use the aircraft trim control in translation docking mode to set the bias to always "pedal to the metal" and just point your rover in the direction you want to go and then turn on SAS. Eve is easy driving. I let SAS drive my rover 40km to the ocean and then 50km up hills to the launch vehicle.

[sephirotic]

Actually there is. Just use the aircraft trim control in translation docking mode to set the bias to always "pedal to the metal" and just point your rover in the direction you want to go and then turn on SAS. Eve is easy driving. I let SAS drive my rover 40km to the ocean and then 50km up hills to the launch vehicle.

Oh my god, i didn´t know about that and i've being playing since version 0.15! I guess there is always something new to learn!

I guess is because i never used trim features since i like to play on the xbox controller and hardly touch the keyboard otherwise than for action control.

[mellojoe]

I honestly wish that the two closest planets were the easier ones to manuever around. I love going to Jool and all the moons, but it is so far out that I waste so much time of my life just time-warping ... and waiting .... and waiting ....

I do a lot of stuff around the Mun and Minmus simply because of the time constraints. I don't get a lot of time to game, and I don't want to waste that sitting around in time-warp. I've done several Duna missions because of this as well. I would love to do more Eve missions since it is so close, but it becomes quite a challenge to do anything other than strand kerbals there. And I'm not too fond of putting kerbalnauts in places I can't get them home. I've brought every single one home so far (other than my Eve prison, but that was for a challenge), and I don't want to intentionally strand anyone yet.

[tavert]

I think using ladders or seats is a very cheaty way to do a mission to Eve, it has some validities, tough, of course, but makes it much easier.

A proper command pod mission can´t be done with less than 150 tons for a low altitude launch (less than 1000m) I think the real changes lays on lauching from sea level.

Ow, 40 tons is even less with a command pod than i would expect for this height. However, i noticed you used Mechjeb with makes things much easier, since landing precisely on those mountains is a pain in the ass tough due to difficult on precise aerobraking, and having a perfect ascent trajectory is also difficult, any mistakes in the ascent profile and you may lose 50, or even 100m/s of d/v.

By the way a SRB? That thing is very inefficient.

Jason Patterson did an Eve round trip with demo parts that landed at a pretty low altitude IIRC, I believe the ascent vehicle was somewhere in the 100-150 ton range.

Eh, MechJeb is just a timesaver for this mission. Enough quickloads and you can land close enough to your target, and ascent just takes practice.

The SRB has a low Isp, but a great TWR. For short stages with high payload and high TWR, it can be your best option: http://imgur.com/a/x4dIn#54

And mounting some liquid-fuel tanks that feed the rest of your engines and drop with the SRB's provides a nice dV boost, it ends up being about the same stage mass with better thrust and more dV than adding another liquid-fuel and aerospike stage. You don't really need to have high Isp on your first few stages that you throw away after very short burn times.

I disagree. Recently i made stock mission to both of this bodies with one and two kerbals. I did got surprised by the very large amount of d/v needed for LANDING on tylo, and the burn all the way to jool took a while but was something i was already more than experienced. The eve mission was more complex and by far the hardest, specially the design stage. But then again, if designing a ascent vehicle from 6km altitude, then it may be even lighter than the Tylo lander.

You can get away with some surprisingly small Tylo landers, just a couple of tons, if you go the seat route. The landing is harder to fly without an atmosphere slowing you down, but remember you don't always have to point retrograde. It's more efficient to come in from a very low altitude and keep your vertical speed as low as possible by pointing higher than retrograde.

I agree that the most interesting part of Eve, both from a scientific and from a resource gathering point of view is the oceans. However that doesn't mean the challenge is to launch from Eve's sea level. You could just as well have a lander that can sprout wheels after landing. Drive to the beach, then drive uphill to the launch site before turning. Alternatively you could land a separate rover that serve as the transport for crew between the mountain top launch complex and the water, on the same mission as the lander if you want a challenge.

Using rovers to both go to the ocean and mountain is a very clever piece of mission planning and should be encouraged instead of treated as if it was "cheating the Eve challenge" in some ways.

I agree. I used basically every other trick in the book to make this as small as possible, but there's no reason you can't scale this up for a more reasonable design.

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Edited September 18, 2013 by tavert

[sephirotic]

Eh, MechJeb is just a timesaver for this mission. Enough quickloads and you can land close enough to your target, and ascent just takes practice.

I do use mechjeb sometimes when i'm lazy, but when doing such "audacious" missions, it kinda beats the point of the challenge to me. External ladders instead of pods, landing at the highest possible mountain with mechjeb so you can sub-engineer stuff... Might as well just use hyperedit to put your vessel perfectly where you want and save the trouble.

But hey, if you are having fun... that's what matter.

Tough i was never particularly found of the new vibe of "achievements" in modern games, i think for KSP, it would make a lot of sense.

Edited September 18, 2013 by sephirotic

[FlamedSteak]

I don't know if you guys are familiar with the ambiguously gay duo but......Hi there Chris and Gary

[fenderzilla]

your computer might have previous versions of the quicksaves... right-click "quicksave.sfs" and click properties, then previous versions.

[Padishar]

A bit unlikely after 14 months...

[metl]

I don't mean to criticize everyone's Eve returns, especially since i haven't ever even tried, but if you use hyper-edit to test the craft before ever attempting it, are you really a KSP expert? Maybe it really is harder than I could imagine, plus the time investment for failures would have to be quite high, but using hyper-edit to do it just seems... wrong. But like I said, I've yet to even try so please don't think I am knocking those that can do it.