Vall Exploration Challenge [SPOILERS: Duna/Vall]

[700NitroXpress]

There should probably be bonuses for precision landings too. Landing super close to the target LZ, and landing the kerbals back at the KSC. Have point reductions for any kerbals that are KIA. Maybe a bonus for apollo landings on Vall. Lander unit is expendable after the Vall surface missions are complete.

Anyone who copies another persons craft voids there submissions.

Edited November 9, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[700NitroXpress]

Ok so here is my Prelaunch weights for my craft that I'm sending on this epic journey. This entry is for hard mode, read the PS entry at the bottom for full details.

Craft 1: Mothership - 391 parts, 153.75 tons

Craft 2: Supply Ship - 244 parts, 164.24 tons

Subtotals: Parts, 635 / Weight, 317.99 tons

Subtract the 9 launch clamps which each weigh 0.1 tons (These do affect the Prelaunch weight values)

Grand totals: Parts 624 / Weight, 317.90 tons

I use the exact same lifter to lift both ships into LKO, no jet engines were used.

I'm documenting everything that's happening during the journey with screenshots. Both of these craft are untested, once they get off the ground and into LKO, they're officially on the mission and I'm not making any changes to them. So this is challenge completed or Bust!

Mothership Crew: 19 Kerbals on board.

Flight Crew: Capt. Jebediah, Cdr. Bob, Lt. Mundo

Ship's Cook: Sidely

Janitor: Newvey

Security Chief: Kenmore

Security Staff: Billy-Bobbart, Johnley

Weapons Officer: Gus

Data Analyst: Franklin

Chief Scientist: Jenzer

Science Crew: Fredming, Adming, Ellock, Fredzon

Ship's Reporter: Kelson

Ship's Engineers: Jeddous, Johndorf, Mitrod

PS: I'm using no mods at all what so ever, and no third party information. This means no perfect launch windows or anything like that, no maps, Nothing. I'm only using the pictures that were posted for the original challenge and the coordinates to find the easter egg site. I've never landed on Vall yet or flown to Vall. I have flown to Jool and landed on Laythe once, but didn't make a return journey. The reason Bill isn't on the flight crew is because he is captain of my Duna Command Center base.

Edited November 9, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[Death Engineering]

Well technically any rover has to make it to the surface somehow, so by definition it is a lander too. And a lander isn't defined by its legs, it can just as easily land on girders or fuel tanks or even the engine if it's really gentle. Personally I would consider it to have been a rover the entire time, or alternatively it is a rover at the time the score is actually being tallied.

However that does raise another question. If a piece seperates from a lander, and that piece matches the SMART requirements too, does it count? Some specifics scenarios I can think of are:

1. A Pathfinder like craft deploys a SMART rover after landing, but the lander still retains all the parts needed to count as SMART lander. (Sojourner +5, Carl Sagan Memorial Station +5)

2. A manned lander leaves behind a SMART rover or lander. For example the Apollo missions left behind a SMART lander in the form of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. A kerbal might go a step farther and put it on wheels.

3. A larger SMART lander deploys multiple smaller SMART landers, either after touching down (perhaps using some ballistic cannon like a decoupler to fling them) or spreading them during final descent.

In my opinion #3 opens a lot of difficulty. I would clarify the rules for SMART rovers and landers to add this: A SMART rover/lander is only scored if it has moved at least 2.5km away from any other SMART rover/lander. So in scenario #1 the rover could drive far enough away from the base station to count, in #2 it immediately counts, and in #3 the only way to make them count is if it lands and then flings the sub-landers more then 2.5km one at a time. Optionally the distance could be increased up to 9km without interfering with the other rules, though it would be more work to drive rovers that far.

These are some really good points to bring up. These scenarios are exactly where the challenge is designed to test the engineering and creative design skills. However, as you alluded, there is considerable room for excessive exploitation. A tweak to the surface-deployed SMART probes is in order. Thanks for the idea!

[capi3101]

Good question, but unless it decouples into two separate SMART spacecraft, then it scores as one.

I figured as much. Had to try, right? Calls for a change of plan...

Been trying to figure out how to get out there; so far my attempts to solicit a flat delta-V target for Vall for the transfer stage from the KSP community have met with the usual "well, here's my craft, it's more awesome than yours" responses. I suppose the whole point of a challenge is the fact that you can do it however you wish and it's supposed to be, you know, challenging. Still...

[700NitroXpress]

Been trying to figure out how to get out there; so far my attempts to solicit a flat delta-V target for Vall for the transfer stage from the KSP community have met with the usual "well, here's my craft, it's more awesome than yours" responses. I suppose the whole point of a challenge is the fact that you can do it however you wish and it's supposed to be, you know, challenging. Still...

There's a better response for you in your thread now, if you still have questions, I'll help if I can.

[Death Engineering]

Some really great feedback on this challenge today! Thanks, all.

New way to earn points:

• A real 'stick and rudder' kerbal: Complete the challenge with no flight assist mods. Any mod that has the ability to provide active control, whether or not it is used, is not permitted +5.
  

Tweak for SMART landers/rovers which have the ability to deploy SMART probes/rovers:

• SMART rovers: Score for each SMART rovers landed on Vall +5. *
  
• SMART landers: Score for each SMART landers landed on Vall +5. *
  

*

Any SMART rover/probe that relies on another spacecraft to land on Vall must be deployed at least 2.0km from its "parent" craft and any other SMART rover/probe.

Minor tweak to "This means something" and "We could use a shower":

• This means something: Discover an anomaly on Vall, land <100m from it and place a flag there +10.
  
  Altered rule slightly to explicitly state that a precision landing is required.

  
  

• We could use a shower: Score for every kerbal who earns "Floating in a tin can" and lands safely at Kerbin +2.
  
  Increased from +1 to +2; the original intent was to provide a total of +5 for any kerbal who lands on Vall and makes it back to Kerbin. Too bad I can't add...

  
  

Bonus: Bragging rights for getting all the references in the 'scoring' titles (not all of them are)

Edited November 9, 2013 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

Ok so here is my Prelaunch weights for my craft that I'm sending on this epic journey. This entry is for hard mode, read the PS entry at the bottom for full details.

This is looking great! Does that total mass include the launcher which gets your payload to LKO?

[700NitroXpress]

This is looking great! Does that total mass include the launcher which gets your payload to LKO?

No, this is the prelaunch weight of just the payload itself sitting on the launch pad. Which would be the weight of the payload in space after it's been lifted to LKO.

Here is ship one, the mothership with a lander attached to it.

Here is ship two, the supply ship, with a refit engine.

Edited November 10, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[Death Engineering]

Also, how do you want submissions to be handled?

Photo log, video, write up.. anything that highlights your mission. For science, I'm just noting my before-mission points and after-mission points. There's probably better ways to track the science.

That's a lot of Mk.1 command pods and landing legs, there!

[700NitroXpress]

Photo log, video, write up.. anything that highlights your mission. For science, I'm just noting my before-mission points and after-mission points. There's probably better ways to track the science.

That's a lot of Mk.1 command pods and landing legs, there!

Alright sweet, I have lots of photos of every major event that's happening. I also like to show my entire fuel gauge stats. What you see with all of the MK. 1 pods is capable of landing on Kerban all on it's own without ripping apart. I'm going to try my hardest to land it right next to the space center on the first try. Getting all 19 kerbals down to the surface of Vall will also be challenging due to fuel consumption, but we'll see today.

[Toastie_Buns]

I only unlocked nukes last night. Should I go ahead and max out the tech tree first, or just go? Might be really interesting to just go, what with the Skipper being the most powerful engine I have available.

Strike that - my initial plans call for RTGs and they're a final tier tech. Going to have to do some more Mün missions, looks like.

I want to go on record as saying Skippers are awesome engines. You can do it, mang. I assembled an admittedly terrible ship in orbit using just skips.

I had the idea of a skipper booster stage that would eject a nuke ship from kerbins orbit. Turns out, big ships are like boats are require ALOT of monoprop or reaction force.

But the whole thing was assembled in orbit with landers, satellites and a bunch of docked science packages for the landers/sats to grab at will, with something like 6 orange tanks boosted by skips and 6 huge silvers with nukes. It was...horrifying. But a good proof of concept on the lifting ability of Skippers. Some rockets don't have to be fast.

[capi3101]

I've used a combination of a Skipper with four LV-T30s set radially on the bottom of Tail Connectors as a Mainsail substitute - it'd actually be a superior combination if it didn't weigh so much more (slightly more thrust, much improved Isp).

Yeah, I love Skippers too. Part count matters for me, though; trust me on that one.

[700NitroXpress]

I've used a combination of a Skipper with four LV-T30s set radially on the bottom of Tail Connectors as a Mainsail substitute - it'd actually be a superior combination if it didn't weigh so much more (slightly more thrust, much improved Isp).

Yeah, I love Skippers too. Part count matters for me, though; trust me on that one.

If you use radial mounted engines on a 720 fuel tank with a skipper on the bottom, you'll get insane amounts of power out it in career mode. Use that with a combination of radial slack tanks on asparagus staging and you'll have an early super lifter in career mode.

[700NitroXpress]

The Kraken attacked my supply ship!!!

[Death Engineering]

The Kraken attacked my supply ship!!!

Mac'n'cheese.. what a drag! Can you re-launch it and recover or is it a total do-over?

[700NitroXpress]

Mac'n'cheese.. what a drag! Can you re-launch it and recover or is it a total do-over?

Luckily I only lost one fuel tank which throws off the center of mass and makes it harder to fly, but I'm going to continue the mission. The other thing is, it seriously compromised my staging that I had set up so I'm going to have to do it manually for a while. There's no re-launching or do-overs during challenges, you have to work with what cards you're dealt, just like in Apollo 13. This makes my mission more challenging now because I have less fuel than I had planned on.

As you can see hear, something's missing. It just decided it wants to fall off and almost destroy my ship. This shot was taken later on during the flight so I could angle it at the sun.

However, I was able to reach my mothership and successfully dock it.

And even with a compromised ship, I was able to maintain fuel symmetry and now the crew is in orbit around Vall searching for the mythical landing zone. Judging by the coordinates it's somewhere close to the south pole, but I haven't located it yet, it might be on the dark side. Working on achieving a polar orbit now.

Mission Log:

Vall polar orbit achieved, ship fuel symmetry stabilized. We are a go for landing. Target LZ located and locked in. Cpt. Jeb will attempt the first landing and survey the area.

Edited November 11, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[capi3101]

That's an impressive looking boat. Good luck, Krakens suck (got double Kraken'd last night over on the Constellation Challenge myself).

[700NitroXpress]

Yeah, the thing wasn't using physical time warp either so after a set amount of time it just decides to fall off. Mission is still a go tho.

Public service announcement for all those that use command seats, remember to switch to the unmanned pod and select control from here after your kerbal gets in it, if your craft has one.

Edited November 12, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[700NitroXpress]

First landing on Vall!!!

I think I got pretty close for my first attempt. 206.3 meters from the radius of the anomaly.

Jeb is the first to set foot on vall and the first to plant a flag right in the center of the anomaly.

[700NitroXpress]

After Jeb's initial survey of the target LZ, he discovered the anomaly in the photo's and radioed back to the mothership. "LZ is clear bring'er in!"

Bob - "Rodger that, mothership is on the way!"

The mothership has landed!!!

Smile for the camera boys!

Leaving Vall and Jool behind.

That looks good enough...

Good, we will land on land and not water.

We don't need those.

Reverse thrusters depleted, parachutes deployed!

Mission Complete.

Edited November 13, 2013 by 700NitroXpress

[Death Engineering]

Death Engineering Presents...

[Vall Exploration Challege - "Done with Duna, we're volitant on Vall!" - Episode 1]

In the first entry to the Vall Exploration Challenge:

• Bill and Jeb get ahold of the "secret" photos
  
• Bob is still dry-witted
  
• Ludlong has his way with a new Vall Landing Module
  

[700NitroXpress]

What's all in that thing? It looks cool, but what can it do?

[Death Engineering]

It is a "typical" two stage Apollo-style LM that seats 4 kerbals. For "science", it has four mini-labs, four goo-canisters and some of the small instruments. I don't use KER, so we're doing it the Kerbal way ("that should be enough fuel").

[Death Engineering]

Mission Complete.

What a totally epic mission! Well done!

[700NitroXpress]

What a totally epic mission! Well done!

Yeah, even minus the 360 liquid fuel tank, I had enough to put the ship on a direct collision course with Kerban, and still have two engines to help brake for the landing. All other fuel tanks were completely depleted. I almost thought that the parachutes would rip the ship apart, but she held together and I let out out a sigh of relief.

All 19 kerbals made it to the ground safely. Even though if wasn't at the KSC, they're all happy to be alive.