(OLD) The Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge:land Kerbals on all moons and return in one big mission

[SSSPutnik]

If you read rules, its pretty clear what is allowed or not.

You can do orbital construction as long as the ship leaves Kerbals orbit as a single unit.

Most read that it must stay a single unit till it reaches Jool SoI.

Launching with empty tanks are fuelling in Kerbin orbit is fine.

You must use stock for the first challenge unless explicitly allowed in the rules.

On one mission I used stock equivalent parts BUT I had Kethane scanners on board, this got me put in the Freestyle category despite them being dead weight.

You can enter any mods in Freestyle unless they are obviously cheaty.

The Kethane variant allows more mods.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

KAS makes the mission free-style...

Ah... there goes my idea of using KAS to get the behemoth fuel tanker to hold together until rendezvous with my mothership in orbit around Laythe...

So now I've gone and installed it, I will not use it to complete the mission - please disqualify me if you notice any docked vessels being magically strutted together! (or at least demote me to the free-style group...)

Edited May 25, 2014 by Cmdr. Arn1e

[Patupi]

Well, it looks like I'll have to use the lander on Bop. The Kerbals have enough EVA RCS to get down to Bop's surface and back with 200 dV left over... but the probes haven't quite got enough RCS to make it back to orbit. They've got 50 units and need about 30 to get to the surface and nearly that again to get back up. I suppose I could try for another Mothership rescue from a ballistic arc, but I really don't want to try that again. I just hope it doesn't use up too much fuel in the lander for this.

[James_Eh]

#%!%%* !!!!

Frigging game! I was going nicely, launched a science probe from Tylo base, but I forgot to switch control.

So I hit F9 and... Base and ground pylons are gone!

AltF4. Restart and still gone

I think its a KAS bug.

But, I did refuel before this thankfully. I had 1 Kerbal in the base. This leaves 4 stranded on the surface. (The lander can only carry 3).

So, I have visual evidence of landing and base deployment and flag raising, and before and after pics of the missing base.

Does the missing crewman count as dead? Or is he just keeping the Kraken company? I am unwilling to revert to my previous backup, hours of gameplay between them.

I do have a spare base. Considering landing again and saving the four on the surface.

I have enough fuel to land again and only Pol left.

Did your Kerbals do something karmically bad en route to Jool? I'm starting to get a bad feeling about the mission!

[kookoo_gr]

Testing a few lander designs for the ultimate challenge with funny results. This is a multi-task lander, landed??? at Laythe

[Patupi]

Well, I'm nearly back, but getting a return from Jool was more awkward than usual. Is Alarm Clock's transfer window calculator perfect? I was using that, got within 7 days of the window, and couldn't get even close on any maneuver node. In the end I had to loop around the Sun, back out to Jool's orbit, then fine tune the orbit to get another intercept on the next pass. Weird. I'm not quite there yet, but it looks like the whole mission will take 11 years! I'll let you know when those aged Kerbals get back home safe!

[Kasuha]

Okay, I made it. Spaceplane (SSTO by heart but a lot of parts were dropped during the mission), all horizontal landings and takeoffs (though some at ridiculous speeds). I have too many pictures so I'll have to make a selection and upload an album but for now, here's what took off and what made it back.

[Patupi]

OK, last landing, and the trip home. Basically, MISSION ACHIEVED! YAY!

The landing on Bop went pretty well. I thought I was rather low on fuel, looked into having the four Kerbals EVA down to the surface (which was actually doable), and sending a probe down on it's RCS jets (which wasn't. Didn't have enough Monopropellant for the trip back up). I did ponder whether to send them down like that anyway and pull the science from the probe and bring it up, but in the end I went with the lander anyway. It left me close to the line on fuel, but seemed to be OK.

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Then the trip home. Had some difficulty getting a good transit path from Bop orbit back to Kerbin, and ended up looping around the sun yet again, right out to Jool orbit before returning and getting an intercept with Kerbin. Once home, since I'd dumped the lander, I had to send up a ship to bring the science back... oh yeah, and the crew too

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And 10189 science? Better than I expected!

So, mods used:Alarm clock, MechJeb, Ship Manifest, Action Group Manager, TAC Fuel Balancer, and Editor Extensions.

KSP Version: 23.5, but only used the new engines to get out of Kerbin's gravity well. Kept with the old engines for interplanetary and munar landings.

Sending four Kerbals to each moon, including Tylo. Full science from the surface (except crew report. No capsule!), though missing some from orbit (I was lazy), and not doing much in Jool orbit at all.

Mothership:

At launch=1062tons, 402parts

In orbit=203tons, 288parts

Univeral Lander:

At launch=1062tons(?!? the same? Wierd!), 169parts

In orbit=233tons, 108parts

Interplanetary Booster:

At launch=2016tons, 128parts

In orbit=624, 56parts

Interplanetary Refueler:

At launch=2552tons, 263parts

In orbit=534tons, 54parts

Went to all Moons, did science on all of them (ALL OF THEM!) and managed to get home. Did need a ship to get the crew and the science back. If needed I can dump the actual science probes back to the surface too, just didn't want to go through that six times for every landing!

Total time for the mission: 12 years 221 days! Yikes! Long trip

Edited May 26, 2014 by Patupi

[loch.ness]

That looks like an amazing mission Patupi Congrats!

[Patupi]

It'll likely be a while coming, but I'm going to try to have another go at this, but not Jebediah level. Likely 1st level just to prove I can do with with no refueling, as I'd planned this last effort of mine to be.

[SSSPutnik]

@Patupi- You may want to do a mission summary with a separate album for Ziv to check. Your pics are a bit all over the place.

Well done though!

[loch.ness]

Need to find some time to update my mission report, I've had a successful landing on Mun with my Valliant (Vall lander which stages into Bop/Pol lander) and its on course to rendevous with CSM I sent for the test pilot with more than enough fuel. There was a docking port mistake on the test CSM (it was using a junior like the Minimal prototype would have, but the Valliant uses normal docking ports.

Corrected an RCS fault on the valliant and docked one with my mothership. Its action groups are off but that isn't too big a deal, everything that ship's action groups do can be done through manual right-clicking. Docked Fuel tanks 3 and 4 and fully fueled this so far. 3/4 Laythe planes are docked to the transfer tug with the 4th waiting to launch (2 planes for Jool V 2 for the Laythe only mission).

I have fuel tanks 5 and 6, empty, in orbit waiting for their transfer window and once all of that is done I'll be ready to sent the lower core cap to seal in the ship's main core. Then its a matter of docking the other Valliant, the Tylo lander (clever name still in RnD) and fueling up the ship.

I've come to realize I care more about whether or not I can complete the mission than whether or not I get "credit" for the challenge (I'm certain I'd still qualify for a "freestyle" accomplishment). I'd love to be able to put the badge on my signature if I complete it though (if I can't do that with freestyle, I'll try again after I've got the basics down).

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

quick update; after struggling for over a week RT trying to get a decent refuelling mission/ship working, I *think* I might have cracked it... unfortunately had to drop the SSSputnik SSTO Fuel Truck plan for now, but will probably come back to that design at a later date, probably when I do my 'other' Jool 5 mission (want to see how much difference KAS will make on my wobbly wobbly vessels!)

Update... soon....

[Patupi]

@Patupi- You may want to do a mission summary with a separate album for Ziv to check. Your pics are a bit all over the place.

Well done though!

Um, I did do a mission summary text at the end, but I get what you mean about 'too many pics'. I pretty much put all the ones I took in those albums. And I tried to take as many as possible during the mission to show everything. Would a pic of the crew on the surface of each moon and the ship back at Kerbin orbit be sufficient? I didn't take a pic of every science acquisition I did, but did a shot of at least one of the science studies on each moon, and a pic of the science summary at the end.

[Kasuha]

Images from my Level-1 Jool-5 mission using spaceplane as a plane

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[Patupi]

I don't want to fill this thread up with a massive post so here's a link to a brief pic summary of my mission:

Jool-5 Summary

[Patupi]

Images from my Level-1 Jool-5 mission using spaceplane as a plane

That was incredible! Admittedly I might consider it so in part due to my abysmal record with planes Still, that must have taken a heck of a lot of planning to get the fuel right ahead of time!

[dbmorpher]

After looking at all of these completed missions I have one question.

How do you get the angles so perfect?!?

When I do my burn I just follow the protractor mod although normally I get "unintended relativity shifts" which result in me losing a lot of fuel in recorrection burns.

Also if you need to do multiple burns to escape kerbin how do calculate that?

[Kasuha]

That was incredible! Admittedly I might consider it so in part due to my abysmal record with planes Still, that must have taken a heck of a lot of planning to get the fuel right ahead of time!

Thanks

I did not plan much, I "just" tested what was needed - Tylo takeoff (leaving plane almost empty, meaning two FL-T800 tanks were needed), then I built the Tylo landing rig (sizing and balancing it was a real chore). Then I tested the plane can visit all other moons just on its own fuel (but no return to Kerbin) so I figured I need a bit of extra. Then I tested how much is needed to get it on transfer trajectory from Kerbin and finally I found a rig that can get it to orbit using number of trials and errors. I discovered rules for intake air distribution among engines (and how to prevent flameout) in the process.

After looking at all of these completed missions I have one question.

How do you get the angles so perfect?!?

I follow the burn marker for the first half of the burn, then I leave the ship pointed the same way for the rest of the time, ignoring what the marker or dv gauge tells me and watching the SOI escape (real vs maneuver). If the real starts going clearly in wrong direction I stop the burn and either manually burn corrections (putting the markers one on top of the other and showing the same time), or prepare correction maneuver.

Usually some small correction is needed after that anyway but that's often in single m/s.

Also if you need to do multiple burns to escape kerbin how do calculate that?

I prepare complete transfer burn, perform whatever needed, then delete the maneuver and prepare another.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Kasuha

[SSSPutnik]

unfortunately had to drop the SSSputnik SSTO Fuel Truck plan for now, but will probably come back to that design at a later date

What, what what!? Can I see a pic anyway?

Here is my vanishing base trick. (See sequence from image #72)

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Edited May 27, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Mission Report updated! Including the craft suggested by SSSPutnik and 8MMW... Link in my sig...

[SSSPutnik]

Well I sent rescue mission to Tylo, all good, they have a base now and a replacement crewman!

Refuelled and docked back at main ship. Parked one lander in orbit around Tylo and impacted a tug.

Poll left now. And I need to grab a Kethane sample somehow if possible.

[OgreMagi]

hmm was checking the rules and I have a few questions.

1. I havnet played the research/science part of Kerbal space program. so how do you account for the science points if you haven't played the science ?

2. no nukes ??? see there is a huge point reduction for using nukes ( even the LVN isn't all that good) but the cryptic part it is ok to use a nuke if the isp is less than 800? there are a few mods that have them but they are a bit munchy,

A. the LNV 40 nuclear rocket. thrust 40 newtons, isp 770, mass 1.52, I can use 4 of them and get the same close to the same amount of thrust as a LNV.

B. The LVN 14, 14 newtons of thrust, isp 765, mass 0.5 useful on probes and space planes.

3. living quarters, I have a rover I will use that uses a shuttle cockpit , one that uses a spacestation cupolua, and several based on fighter cockpits? so just checking I could be able to use them as living spaces?

I am in the building stages but if I can use Nuke rockets that have less than a isp of 800 and use standard fuel ( oxidizer and fuel) then my job is much easier.

Edited May 30, 2014 by OgreMagi
new information

[SSSPutnik]

You only get a penalty for nukes on the Kethane variant I believe?

For Science points - You either need to play this in career mode, or, where its the Kethane variant, you need to have a probe with all the required parts and show it functioning.

Ie Jool penetrator probe should have an antenna, power, one or more science instruments and a screenshot of it doing stuff.

Living quarters, any pod or cockpit is OK, hitchhiker modules are great. A command seat isn't. Use common sense. Hiding people in airlocks is not allowed.

[Stratzenblitz75]

Hello, I'd like to enter my Kerbol system grand tour for this challenge: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81429-Sigma-Mission-Kerbol-System-Grand-Tour%21

Game version is 0.23.5

It was done in sandbox in one launch and with no refueling.

No additional equipment was carried along, just Jeb and his flags.

Only 1 mod was used: Kerbal engineer, otherwise it is completely stock.