Kethane Ironman Challenge

[Lions]

Iron Man Challenge Part A

This challenge is all about visiting all planets and moons in one trip, so you have to have a big pair of KerBalls to join . You have to use the Kethane mod to get fuel and resources from all moons and planets you land on, you may NOT launch a refuel Ship from Kerbin.

If you only use the Kethane mod you will get the Ironman achievement. When you use any other mods to aid you, you will only be a contender . (Subassembly Loader and Kerbal Engineer Redux is fine!)

**NB** This is **Part A** of this challenge. The ship you use can be assembled out of many parts, and you may leave and drop parts on planets if you choose to. Just make sure the Ship and all parts that is not dropped makes the full journey. You may have different landers' all docked on a mother ship to use for different planets.

--**Rules:**--

--You may use as many ships as you want, it must go on one trip. You are allowed to drop and leave parts behind if it makes it easier to liftoff Eve and Lythe.

--You have to take the exact route supplied below

--Only Kethane mod will earn you Ironman Status, Contender status to these who uses other mods (Sub-assembly Loader and Kerbal Engineer Redux is fine!)

--No other vessels may be used to refuel these two ships, only use the Kethane mod for refueling.

--**ROUTE TO TAKE:**--

----->Kerbin ----->> Mun

----->Mun ----->> Minmus

----->Minmus---->> Duna

----->Duna ----->> Ike

We will stop at Ike, please make sure you have landed and refueled and is in Ike orbit, we will continue from there to **Part B**.

Iron Man Challenge Part B

--**ROUTE TO TAKE:**--

----->Ike ----->> Dres

----->Dres------>> Pol

----->Pol------->> Bop

----->Bop------>> Tylo

----->Tylo------>> Vall

----->Val------->> Laythe

----->Eloo------>> Moho

----->Moho----->> Gilly

----->Gilly------>> Eve

If you can leave Eve and go back to Kerbin.....You are the Golden Iron Man!!!

That the end of the challenge!!! good luck

You have to post a pic of every planet you reach. Keep HUD open so we can see what you have been mining

Also post a pick when you done off all the flags you planted, please make sure to start a new game so that you only have 2 ships and flags in game.

--**Images**--

Javascript is disabled. View full album

--**Side Notes**--

Sorry for the extra pictures in Album, but you get the picture

If you need any help or tips, i will help you. I will upload the save file if you want to go check out my setup. (i will only do this via Email )

--**Kerbalnaughts On Voyage**--

1. SkyRender

2. Lions (that's me )

3. MarkoeZ

4. Accelerando

5. Pbhead

6.

--**Ironman Kerbalnaughts **--

-SkyRender

-Pbhead

Edited October 5, 2013 by Lions
Added Contenders

[WafflesToo]

Sounds tedious... but in a good way

I may need to attempt this. Are we only allowed to bring one lander with us? Or can we bring several so they can be optimized for different planets?

[Lions]

Well, That is a good question.... the thing is, this is an ironman challenge, one lander, that can land on all moons and planets, and also leave. When you have more landers and you can finish the challenge you will only be a contender and not a Ironman!! . I suggest just try and make one lander that does it all, challenge yourself.

PS.. it took me a month(because i am noob) to get the ultimate lander that can mine/land/dock/Liftoff. GOOD LUCK!

Edited September 14, 2013 by Lions

[SkyRender]

Unless you include Eve in this challenge, it's not especially difficult to do. Now if you DO include Eve, then you have a properly hard challenge on your hands. Almost unreasonably so should there be no Kethane deposits at higher elevations...

[Death Engineering]

Lifting fuel you have no plans to burn from Eve?!? Ouch...

[SkyRender]

I can assure you, any challenge involving an SSTO from Eve will fail. Eve's gravity alone is too high to ever allow for an SSTO launch with stock parts, and that's before you factor in the atmosphere. I think some rules in regards to KSP's own little hell we call Eve are in order for this challenge.

[Captain Sierra]

Yeah, if Eve and Tylo (not particularly difficult but any lander built for Tylo is well beyond overkill anywhere else) are excluded this isn't that hard. I have purpose built kethane prospecting landers. It would take more than one trip to refuel the mothership but still, very doable as my heavy one has the dV to land, refuel itself, tank up on kethane, and return to orbit and dock.

[Lions]

I did not include Eve yet, as i mentioned this is only Part A of the challenge, you can only partake with Part B if you done Part A. So stop saying this is not challenging and do it!! I want to see you do it, i want to say you are an Ironman!

[Captain Sierra]

Fine. maybe I can make this one of my weekend livestreams.

[Lions]

Fine. maybe I can make this one of my weekend livestreams.

Cool! i will definitely check it out then

[British_Rover]

I actually building up to something like this a while ago. I wanted to do a grand tour minus Eve and have a large, 150 plus ton, lander that should lander every where but Eve. Having a problem with the mother ship I want to use though as my spherical tanks keep exploding.

[Lions]

Me... Drifting above Ike...waiting for fwends to join the challenge :'(

[SkyRender]

So I figured, why not? Here's the first leg of the journey.

This is the lander plus the first half of the interplanetary stage of the Kethocentric. The lander has ~3450dV, which is enough to land on Tylo with a slight margin and (more importantly) enough to get back into space from Tylo once refueled on the surface. No way it's going to be making round-trip tours of Tylo, in short! A single jaunt down won't be an issue, however.

The Kethocentric gets to orbit just fine, though the thrust has to be kept below 1.8 G's or the engine will break off. Clamp-o-Tron Sr. docking ports, gotta love 'em...

Here you can see the ship after it's attained orbit and fanned out its solar panels like an exotic dancer. The Kethocentric lander is almost exclusively solar-powered, with only a single RTG. The mothership itself has no RTGs and will rely on the drive stage coming up shortly for solar power production.

Before that, though, the engine that brought Kethocentric up into orbit needs to be sent back to Kerbin. Its meager fuel resources are all but completely drained, then it is decoupled and deorbited with its pitiful remaining 9 liters of fuel.

The second and final launch of this expedition is the Kethocentric drive stage. Powered by 4 LV-N engines, it allows the completed contraption to get an impressive-for-nuclear-thrusters 0.2 G's of acceleration. It also gives the lander-plus-mothership combo a healthy 5,500dV, more than enough for any IP operation in this run.

The Kethocentric drive meets up with its parent craft in low-Kerbin orbit, having performed a daring semi-re-entry into the upper atmosphere to catch up with it.

At last the two craft are one, and Kethocentric is complete! It may not look like your typical idea of a space ark, but trust me, this puppy's going places.

The first place it's going, naturally, is the Mun! Since it's starting out at less than a full tank (it would be silly to do otherwise), it gets better than 0.2 G's of acceleration and actually manages to only need a 5-minute burn.

Serendipity strikes on the way in, as the Kethocentric spots a huge Kethane deposit on the day side! It later spots a second huge deposit that will be in daylight within a few hours, meaning we can make as many trips down as we'd like if we really want to refill the whole mothership.

Capture around the Mun goes smoothly, as expected. Kethocentric is very slow to maneuver, but it fortunately has quite a good stock of RCS (by my standards), so it shouldn't run into any major issues.

Once the mothership is safely in a stable 10x12KM orbit, the Kerbals all unload from the Hitchhiker and climb into the seats on board the lander. We're going down to the surface!

Landing was a little rough (gravity this low and engines this powerful rarely turn out to be a good combo), but it only took a tiny bit of RCS to make it work out. Jeb happily planted the flag for the group.

Speaking of, the four of them also posed for a group shot in front of their first conquest!

After a few hours (mostly it took so long because Kerbin trolled the Mun and eclipsed it for a bit), the lander is all set to head back up into space. Just waiting for the mothership to arrive, really. Once that's done, it's off to Minmus!

[Lions]

@SkyRender Wel done good Sir, you have a nice setup here. I hope Duna wont be a problem It looks like it will do just fine

[SkyRender]

The second leg of the journey begins with the return to the Kethocentric mothership.

What fuel was mined is pumped straight into the tanks, so that the lander can alight on Minmus without all that extra mass. Said lander's engines also get shut off at this point, for obvious reasons.

The Kerbal crew, not wanting to spend the next week exposed to vacuum, also hightail it back into the Hitchhiker.

It's a very short burn to get to Minmus from here, but as I alluded to, the timing is such that they won't arrive for almost 7 and a half days.

One of the nice things about intercepts in the Kerbin system is that they're very easy to do with pinpoint precision.

A last look at Kerbin, Mun, and the sun before we time accelerate our way to the Minmus encounter and do various adjustments to our orbit.

Circularizing proves to be no problem, and the timing is such that I can even do a plane change correction. Only problem: I came in around Minmus backwards...

Again, luck is with me! A Kethane deposit shows up right along the dawn side of the planet.

Not wanting to have to fly west (even though on Minmus it's not really a big deal), I did what we in the trade call "one hell of a U-turn" and flipped the whole ship to go east instead.

Since it is Minmus, the cost to my fuel reserves to do this maneuver was titchy. I still haven't even used up all of the fuel I mined up from the Mun!

One very easy landing later, Bob gets to plant the flag this time.

And of course, everyone posed for the obligatory group shot. The Mun and Kerbin were serendipitously in the background at the time, making it all the more photogenic.

Once again topping off the tanks, the lander finishes its mining and prepares to re-intercept the Kethocentric mothership. There will be at least one more mining trip this time, as our next destination is none other than Duna, and that will take some fuel to pull off. But that is for the next update.

[Lions]

I have a huge Kethane tank on my lander, so it only takes 1 trip to refuel. So that is nice . Well done so far

[SkyRender]

And now, on to the Red Planet.

Intercepting with the mothership is no issue, of course. I love extremely low gravity.

It 's pretty clear that two trips won't really be necessary, but I went ahead and made a second one anyway.

Mostly so I could show off my landing skills.

Like a boss.

The sun almost set on me before I finished! But fortunately, it did not have the upper hand this day.

Back up to the Kethocentric mothership for one more refuel...

We're not absolutely topped off, but this is actually kind of overkill for Duna as it is. So we're leaving now.

Conventional wisdom says you should return to LKO orbit before doing interplanetary transfers, but sod that.

I'll just take the slightly longer path to Duna. They'll still get there just fine, it'll just be about 100 days later than a more efficient transfer would get them there. Didn't even use much fuel getting that encounter...

Trimming encounters is oh-so-critical. Although the keen-eyed will notice that, yet again, I have managed to put the damn thing in a retrograde orbit...

Oh well. Aerobraking is surprisingly flame-free; this was as deep as it got, and there wasn't even a hint of heating. I am disappointed.

Circularizing at 60KMish, and running that scan for sweet, sweet Kethane.

Duna, as it transpires, is not as generous on its equator as the Mun or Minmus were. But it does at least give me a workable deposit. That's still 900% more Kethane than I'll be needing!

Landing is... interesting when you're retrograde around Duna. Due to the speed of the planet's spin, you can actually pinpoint your landing before you enter the atmosphere and pretty much land exactly where you aimed for.

Anyway, it's Bill's turn to put up the flag.

And as usual, everyone gets to pose for the group photo.

Topping off the tanks, the lander will re-dock with the mothership and head for Ike next. Should be fun!

[SkyRender]

May as well get the last part of this challenge's first segment done, right?

Re-attaining orbit to intercept with the mothership is not a big problem. What is a big problem is that not much of the fuel used to get back to the mothership is left...

It gets transferred anyway. Our next destination is a lightweight, so it won't matter that Duna was basically a loss.

We're off to Ike!

This time I managed to get into a proper prograde orbit, even. And almost perfectly equatorial, because that's absurdly easy to do with a moon that has zero inclination from its parent body.

Unfortunately, all of the Kethane deposits are currently on the night side. Very fortunately, the night side is not the one currently facing Duna (Duna and Ike are 1:1 tidally locked, meaning Ike is eternally eclipsed by Duna on one portion of the surface and vice versa), and Ike's rotation is relatively swift. So it will only prolong things slightly.

Landing was easy, and Newgee got to plant that flag.

These group photos will look great in the album when they get back to Kerbin, I'm sure.

Topping things up, the Kethocentric lander is all set to re-intercept the mothership and get on with the journey. And so it will, just as soon as the rest of the journey's course is defined!

[WafflesToo]

... (not particularly difficult but any lander built for Tylo is well beyond overkill anywhere else)...

Yeah, that's why I was asking out we could bring multiple landers along...

Although now I'm thinking about maybe using a modular lander so I'm not waiting massive amounts of fuel setting my Tylo lander down on Minmus XD

[SkyRender]

Yeah, that's why I was asking out we could bring multiple landers along...

Although now I'm thinking about maybe using a modular lander so I'm not waiting massive amounts of fuel setting my Tylo lander down on Minmus XD

Having taken up the challenge, I can tell you from experience that the fuel losses for low-gravity planets are not particularly significant even with such a heavy lander. And besides, there's no sanctions concerning how many trips you can take down to refuel or how long you spend getting your mining done, so there's little point in worrying over it. Don't overcomplicate things unnecessarily!

[Lions]

Well Done SkyRender!!! You are our First IronMan

PS. Please keep your save, we will continue with Part B soon, lets see if any one else can complete this

Edited September 16, 2013 by Lions

[MarkoeZ]

Aarrrrrgggghhhh...

Built a mothership (read many tanks and engines), built a decent kethane miner/lander, coupled the two in kerbin orbit, and even recorded it all for possible youtube posting.

Then i realized i forgot a critical component.... The actual kethane drill..... And no docking port left alas...

Gonna try again...

And a question: Will we be landing on planets/moons with an atmosphere? in that case my lander might need a bit of a boost.

[SkyRender]

Aarrrrrgggghhhh...

Built a mothership (read many tanks and engines), built a decent kethane miner/lander, coupled the two in kerbin orbit, and even recorded it all for possible youtube posting.

Then i realized i forgot a critical component.... The actual kethane drill..... And no docking port left alas...

Gonna try again...

And a question: Will we be landing on planets/moons with an atmosphere? in that case my lander might need a bit of a boost.

Well you already have to land on Duna, so there's precedent for adding parachutes as it is. Basically, I would say the best bet is to design something that can land on Laythe and that can return from Tylo starting with a full tank. That covers the two biggest "problem" bodies that aren't Eve.

[Lions]

Well we will be landing on most moons and planets. Jool and Kerbal will be left out

[MarkoeZ]

aaah ok, somehow i completely missed duna while reading, srry :S

Gonna try the lander on duna first then before i try the full challenge, pretty sure it can handle the moons.

Some pics so far:

Launching the lander:

Lander connected to mothership: