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

[goldenpsp]

Yeah I read that there, I mean, what does it change in gameplay, especially on Kerbin and Laythe? Is it easier or harder, does it mean more fuel or less, etc...

Ah, I see what you are getting at.

Well it mostly comes down to the mach effects. FAR has it and NEAR doesn't Otherwise the rocket design and flying are pretty similar. I have, in my limited experience, found most of the differences being with planes vs rockets. If flown properly FAR actually saves more fuel than NEAR.

With FAR, your drag coefficient increases to a peak at Mach 1 and then drops off, so as you go faster your aerodynamic drag actually decreases. With NEAR you don't get this benefit.

However, fly at to high a mach at low altitude and you'll probably rip your wings off.

Like I said, with rockets I haven't noticed this to be a huge issue, as most people will limit their acceleration at low altitude, as going to fast in the beginning just wastes fuel, so you are unlikely to get your rocket going too fast at a low altitude.

Otherwise they act the same, you have to build aerodynamically. You have to do a proper gravity turn (no going straight up to 10km and pop over 45deg).

Realistically they are close enough I could switch to far to do the challenge. I just prefer NEAR most of the time and like to keep my mod list the same throughout a given save.

[Ziv]

I think I did it !

My way :

- One taking off from KSC.

- Trip to Jool all together.

- Plant 5 flags at the same moment.

- Go back all together.

- No external seat.

I did not try to make any science because I finished my science tree in my previous attempt (In fact I took science data from Tylo but forgot those in the Tylo ship ).

I did not use any docking.

My addons :

- MechJeb2

- SelectRoot

- ActionGroupManager

The taking off : 2744,427 tons.

1 Tylo heavy lander on the bottom. Its engine will help during the taking off.

2 planes the drop parts when going in orbit.

2 rocket landers, made for Vall, but with 2 parachutes, they are able to land on Laythe if needed.

2 Mini ion landers.

Each lander drop its empty parts and engine, in order to become a little ion ship. I will have 7 of them in the end.

And of course, a mother ship with 1 cupola and 1 hitchhiker using 2 nuclear engines.

Because I forgot to put sepratrons on one side of the big solid boosters, I find out that it was a good idea to make them turn on themselves (I had many problems during the launch breaking some of the engines of the Tylo lander).

I also had problems when separating the tanks of the orbiter, I put the decoupler near the center and structural stuff touched the Tylos lander fuel tank so that it exploded during my first launch... 5 crew members dead. Decoupling those parts engine cut is far more secured and worked.

Then came the Jool push, I had some problem with the tubes between the fuel tanks and fixed it manually and I burnt far more fuel than I expected. I start worrying about the trip back.

http://imgur.com/a/5MM0I

Jool System entry and Laythe landing.

Aerobraking in the green atmosphere, go near Laythe, and drop a plane there.

There I encounter a first problem, the rocket engines of the plane does not work before the wings are drop. Thus I was not able to correct the trajectory in order to go down in the Laythe atmosphere. I had to modify the trajectory of the mother ship, drop the second plane, and fix the trajectory again in order to avoid Laythe with the mother Ship. The first plan will be used to land on Pol.

One Kerbal landed ! I started playing in the gravity field in order to pass near Tylo and dropped the heavy lander.

http://imgur.com/a/arShq

Others landings

The landing on Tylo was, as expected, hard and fuel consuming but it end up without breaking essential stuff and I should be able to take off. The first plane had no problem to go to Pol. I then go back to the mother ship. It is very low on fuel...

I launched the 2 mini landers, one is going to Bop, the other will fly as a backup.

Lots of gravity playing later in order to join Vall at low speed, I also made a long burn witht eh mother ship to improve that.

I dropped the lander, took all the fuel of the second one to the mother ship tanks and drop it as another backup ion ship.

Vall landing was easy, the hard part was to make it keeping enough fuel in order to be able to go back from Vall to the mother ship, and then having the mother ship able to go back to Kerbin.

And the last landing happened on Bop.

http://imgur.com/a/JLqD2

Time to plant the flags !

And now, we will try to go back !

The plane worked well on Laythe, even having a tube problem linking the rocket fuel tanks, it was able to go fast with the jet engine, orbit using the rocket engines, and go back to the mother ship with the ion engines.

The Vall lander worked also very well, the problem with it was the lack of fuel for braking to its target and land.

Tylo lander was almost able to go to the mother ship without using the ion engines !

The way back from Pol was also easy.

Going back from Bop was difficult. The angle of Bop orbit was different to the mother ship one, and I burnt all the xenon without being able to join the mother ship. I used one of the backup ship, came to it breaking one of its solar panel, pickup the Kerbal and managed to have it go back to the mother ship.

Every one is happy to go back to better living conditions !

And now the fly back to Kerbing, I had 2k DV and needed 1.5k !

When I landed, I figured out the cupola was not put in right position, the pilot had to jump to the ground

http://imgur.com/a/PHsXq

Pamynx: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 3!

Nice one with the simultaneous flag planting, I don't remember too much mission like this. I also liked as your landers became little ion powered pod at the end, that's a cool idea! And also smart because this way you will have a lot of dV with your last stage. That was strange that you brought 2 more spare ion-landers and that's funny that you had to use one of them as a rescue pod. Nice saving of a Kerbal life!

I also liked your Pol lander, very unique.

And this picture is awesome! I always like views from the Cupola!

That's a cool mission with nice ion ideas, thank you for participating!

[James_Eh]

Going to give this a try

What I got so far.... I sorta went with the go BIG or go home approach (Full Kerbal Mode Active)

Mass on Kerbin launch pad 16000 tons, Lifted to orbit just waiting on fuel for Jool transfer

Good Lord. And here I was worried about my monster of an entry. Which was also named "Go Big or go Home", but...

[bobcook]

Good Lord. And here I was worried about my monster of an entry. Which was also named "Go Big or go Home", but...

My mission was named "Go Big and and Get Back Home" - it was definitely big, and I definitely wanted to get everyone home safely. But it looked positively small when compared to the monster created by Gravaar. Wow. Impressively huge.

[Ziv]

Ah, I see what you are getting at.

Well it mostly comes down to the mach effects. FAR has it and NEAR doesn't Otherwise the rocket design and flying are pretty similar. I have, in my limited experience, found most of the differences being with planes vs rockets. If flown properly FAR actually saves more fuel than NEAR.

With FAR, your drag coefficient increases to a peak at Mach 1 and then drops off, so as you go faster your aerodynamic drag actually decreases. With NEAR you don't get this benefit.

However, fly at to high a mach at low altitude and you'll probably rip your wings off.

Like I said, with rockets I haven't noticed this to be a huge issue, as most people will limit their acceleration at low altitude, as going to fast in the beginning just wastes fuel, so you are unlikely to get your rocket going too fast at a low altitude.

Otherwise they act the same, you have to build aerodynamically. You have to do a proper gravity turn (no going straight up to 10km and pop over 45deg).

Realistically they are close enough I could switch to far to do the challenge. I just prefer NEAR most of the time and like to keep my mod list the same throughout a given save.

All right, I have allowed NEAR too.

[Ziv]

Going to give this a try

What I got so far.... I sorta went with the go BIG or go home approach (Full Kerbal Mode Active)

Mass on Kerbin launch pad 16000 tons, Lifted to orbit just waiting on fuel for Jool transfer

http://imgur.com/a/JJyS0

BTW, after seeing some if these giant ships, I'm thinking about a new rule like "your ship can't be wider as the launch pad"...

[Pamynx]

Pamynx: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 3!

Nice one with the simultaneous flag planting, I don't remember too much mission like this. I also liked as your landers became little ion powered pod at the end, that's a cool idea! And also smart because this way you will have a lot of dV with your last stage. That was strange that you brought 2 more spare ion-landers and that's funny that you had to use one of them as a rescue pod. Nice saving of a Kerbal life!

I also liked your Pol lander, very unique.

And this picture is awesome! I always like views from the Cupola!

That's a cool mission with nice ion ideas, thank you for participating!

What was supposed to happen :

Ion-landers 1 & 2 : Bop and Pol

Plane 1 : Laythe

Plane 2 : Spare

Lander 1 : Vall

Lander 2 : Spare

Heavy lander : Tylo

I added a plane and a lander to balance the rocket and have some backup. This was usefull, as everytime, something goes wrong

Plane 1 : Unable to correct its way to Laythe, recycled and gone to Pol.

Lander 2 : Dried up its tank so that mother ship could go back home and left as a trash can in space.

And indeed, have a ship able to drop everything and become a mini ion-pod with tons of DV is very usefull

BTW, after seeing some if these giant ships, I'm thinking about a new rule like "your ship can't be wider as the launch pad"...

But this is the "Kerbal Style", moar boosters !

Pamynx, with a badge in his signature !

Edited September 1, 2014 by Pamynx

[Ziv]

Pamynx: Oh, I see now how you did the sorting of the landers. Yeah, symmetry is important.

I guess you are the first to choose that small badge!

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

BTW, after seeing some if these giant ships, I'm thinking about a new rule like "your ship can't be wider as the launch pad"...

So how would that work with the "As many launches to LKO as you like" and putting your ship together in orbit?

I think it would give an adavantage to those who decide to build in LKO over those who want to launch a single ship... I really do think it's time you posted a new "Hard Mode" thread, where you get to be as brutal as you like!

IMO, you seem to have lost sight of the first thing under rules - "Given the size of this challenge, everybody is a winner and saves the Kerbal Space Program who executes this successfully."

I'm not trying to use this as an argument to get my first entry somewhere on the first post, just a reminder of what you intended when making this challenge... which is a good old time ago now! And I'm sure a "Hard Mode" version would bring many of the previous entrants to the original Jool 5

[Ziv]

Nooo, I was just kidding, everybody can build as big ships as they like... or can. (Don't get me wrong: this is not a new sub-challenge! )

Edited September 1, 2014 by Ziv

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Nooo, I was just kidding, everybody can build as big ships as they like... or can. (Don't get me wrong: this is not a new sub-challenge! )

Phew! But then maybe make a "Super-Hard" sub-challenge maybe? Then you would get to be as harsh as you like, without detracting from the main chalenge... mwahaha

[Pamynx]

Bah there is the short description of what you did in your entry, what is harder ?

- 1 single launch.

- A ship as small as possible.

- Plant 5 flags at the same time.

- No external seats.

- Use a mod do take account of ressources.

- Use a deadly reentry mod

There are several way of paying a visit to the 5 moon of Jool in a hard way

What is your "Super-Hard" definition ?

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Bah there is the short description of what you did in your entry, what is harder ?

- 1 single launch.

- A ship as small as possible.

- Plant 5 flags at the same time.

- No external seats.

- Use a mod do take account of ressources.

- Use a deadly reentry mod

There are several way of paying a visit to the 5 moon of Jool in a hard way

What is your "Super-Hard" definition ?

Doesn't matter what my definition is; It's up to Ziv!

But ideas have been thrown around, such as no Refueling, no Ions, no Nukes, must take x amount of HHSC's to fit x amount of Kerbals comfortably, cannot be built in orbit, and so on... So the idea is there, it's just up to someone to go ahead with it

[Pamynx]

It is also up to you, set up your own hard way and make the challenge your way !

[Ziv]

I think this challenge is hard enough already on every level.... there were some people who wanted it the more hard way, they used FAR, DRE, brought more lander than needed, did extra science, probes, or went to other bodies too in the same mission.

And if you want more, there's the JOOL-5 Jebediah + Grand Tour level, I can't really think of any harder mission than that in the Kerbal Space Program.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Ziv

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

It is also up to you, set up your own hard way and make the challenge your way !

I did, then I restarted my save when .24 came out and it's kinda faded away a bit now

Fair one Ziv, I have to admit I've found it hard enough already!

[parzr]

I think this challenge is hard enough already on every level.... there were some people who wanted it the more hard way, they used FAR, DRE, brought more lander than needed, did extra science, probes, or went to other bodies too in the same mission.

And if you want more, there's the JOOL-5 Jebediah + Grand Tour level, I can't really think of any harder mission than that in the Kerbal Space Program.

Well, I'm an engenear more than a pilot so I've come up with my own double Jeb in one mission with no refueling still IP, my part count is broken up enough now to be manageable but now I'm playing with managing a fleet

http://imgur.com/a/49sht#0

Budgetary constraints could be fun too. But Ziv already puts a lot into maintaining his challenge, I'm reluctant to even propose some modification.

PS: I like your challenge I've given up on landing a science lab on Eve and thus a grand tour.

Edited September 2, 2014 by parzr

[James_Eh]

...everybody can build as big ships as they like... or can.

Hmmmm... how tall is that VAB? <rubs hands> <injects liquid N2 into computer> <abandons ill-fated Eve operations>

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

It's tall enough for my purposes...

[Himynameisjake]

Well, I'm an engenear more than a pilot so I've come up with my own double Jeb in one mission with no refueling still IP, my part count is broken up enough now to be manageable but now I'm playing with managing a fleet

http://imgur.com/a/49sht#0

Budgetary constraints could be fun too. But Ziv already puts a lot into maintaining his challenge, I'm reluctant to even propose some modification.

PS: I like your challenge I've given up on landing a science lab on Eve and thus a grand tour.

Landing a science lab on Eve is easy. Just leave it behind.

[Himynameisjake]

I think this challenge is hard enough already on every level.... there were some people who wanted it the more hard way, they used FAR, DRE, brought more lander than needed, did extra science, probes, or went to other bodies too in the same mission.

And if you want more, there's the JOOL-5 Jebediah + Grand Tour level, I can't really think of any harder mission than that in the Kerbal Space Program.

It's sadly a lot easier with ARM and super OP ion engines, but hey, it's still quite a challenge. I'd like to do it again at some point with a lighter craft and a lower part count, I just have to get around to it. First, my "ALL THE SCIENCE" mission.

[SkyRex94]

Whooohooooo !!!! I just finished my Jool 5 Mission and it was the most complex mission yet, for me. I've made nearly 500 pictures and 3 videos at the end to proof the science points. I will start uploading and writing the mission log tommorrow, so if i'm fast you can expect another entry until tomorrow evening. I'm really happy everything worked out exactly as planned ( beside one minor issue but you'll read it in the log), the long engineering and planning really paid off.

Edited September 4, 2014 by SkyRex94

[Ziv]

SkyRex94: cool, looking forward to see it!

[Ziv]

It's sadly a lot easier with ARM and super OP ion engines, but hey, it's still quite a challenge.

Yeah, It was definitely harder when we had only the orange tanks and mainsails, the more wobbly joints and the ion engine was almost useless. Oh, and before the code optimization we had to keep our part number under 300. Good ol' times...

[SkyRex94]

Jool-5-Mission-Report

This is my official entry for the Jool-5 Mission on Jebediahs Level. First of all the statistics:

- Which game versions did you use? - 0.24.2

- What mods did you use, if any? - NavBallDockingAlignmentIndicator, MechJeb(only for Data) (and Chatterer and EVE but thats only immersion)

- How many launches was needed to start your mission from Kerbal? - only One

- How many refueling did you do during the mission, how much and where? - Zero, i actually had waaaay more fuel than needed

- Did you bring a Living Quarter (Hitch-hiker's Storage) for the guys during the long journey? - Yes... everybody was at least 'in' something

- Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? - Just a load of Science equipment

- Share the delta-V informations too, if you tracked it! - It's in the pictures

Some more Data:

Mass on Pad: just under 2000t

Crew: 7 Kerbals including Jeb Bill and Bob

Costs: Just under a million Funds

Quarters: 4 in Hitchhiker, 2 in Lab and 1 in Lander Mk1(lets pretend the one that was most annoying to the others)

Landings: 3 Kerbals per Landing

MainShip: The Aventador

Lander/Flyer: The Huayra

Tug: The Huracan

(Named after the God of Wind and two Fighting Bulls...of course)

The Mission:

After a long and testing-rich engineering and planning phase the launch day had finally come. And the KSC wanted to see something for their million funds, so this was the Mission target: Explore the Joolian System. I mean fully explore it. For Real, get all the data and everything there is to know, we don't have money and time for another mission!!!!!

With the Numbers in the KSP-Wiki i calculated that the theoretical maximum of all the Science in Jools SOI would be 25080 Science Points (without the 'recover a craft from' science) ( assuming you would bring a zillion experiments for everywhere) So i said to myself that the mission will be succesfully accomplished if the final Science is 24500 Points or higher, thats when i would call it "Got ALL the Science".

So the Mission Plan: Getting at least three(3) Science Reports of every Experiment from every Situation (with two exceptions: Only two ScienceJr. at Laythe Flying and only two Science Jr. at Laythe Ocean) and return them home. Yes this includes a suborbital Jool flight. To prevent accidently transmitting Science i just didn't installed any Antennas on the ship

Launch:

After last checks of the ladders the mission began. And immediatly 1600t where burned to bring the Aventador into Orbit. The burn to Jool needed around 2000m/s, just as expected.

Arriving:

Entering Jools atmosphere led to a little surprise: There seems to be a small window for 'upper atmosphere' Science during aerobraking, although you're not suborbital. It is waay lower than the Atmosphere Border but there is a small window, and i took the opportunity. Parking in eccentric Orbit, detaching the Huayra and the Huracan. Braking close to Jool with the Huracan and drop the Huayra into the atmosphere. I tested the best way of doing this several times during planning, if interested in details ask for them. flying Suborbital in Jools atmosphere, collecting Science fast and accelerating the hell outa there again. Docking back with the Huracan in Low Jool Orbit and then returning to the Aventador. Dropping the MainSideTanks.

Laythe:

Aerobrake and again a lucky strike with upper atmo science, which actually saved me an extra flight of the Huayra. Landing on Laythe at a Coast, there was the only real minor problem during the mission: I discovered the Struts to hold the Wings were asymetrical, speaking one side was missing, i think some issue during the assembly of all the subassemblies. Result was that the Left Wing was wobbly as hell and it was really hard to fly. But it was possible so the mission could continue. Doing Science, driving into water, doing Science, back to shore and Launch back to the Aventador. Dropping the Jet and the Wings on the way.

Tylo:

Getting cheap to Tylo, parking in highly eccentric orbit. Braking closer with the Huracan, the Huayra and the Tylo-Addon. Landing the Huayra with the Tylo-Addon, getting Science, starting again.

Vall:

Landing just with the Huayra and this was the only time where i really had to look at the Fuel. barely got back into Orbit, collected the Huayra with the Huracan and flewn back to the Aventador in its parking Orbit.

Bop:

After some orbits i could get to Bop really cheap. And Bop is easy.

Pol:

Cheap Transit due to good Bop-Pol Position. And Pol was easy too.

After that i had over 350 Reports and a hole load of Fuel left. That ship might actually be able to pull of some kind of Grand Tour but that was not the Mission Target. (And with already 350 Reports i didn't wanted to calculate the differences at the end to get the Jool-SOI Science;) ) So i've done another Pol Landing collecting more Reports. And then i setted up another close Tylo, close Jool and close Laythe flyby to get even more Reports (around 5-6 per Experiment).

Leaving Jool with slingshot and 383 Reports.

Flying to Kerbin and spending the rest of the Fuel (over 5000m/s) to brake the Interplanetary Speed down. Landing with high speed reentry, with the Lab, the Hitchhiker and the Mk1 Lander Can.

7 Crew Members where happy and alive.Clicking on Recovery...

Result 25361,7 Science Points. But that included 330 Points from accomplished Contracts. Subtracting that leads to the final Number:

25031,7 Science Points

from Jools SOI alone and in one Single Trip.

Further Down you'll find a proof-Video and a Video from the Science archives showing i really got nearly ALL of the Jool-Science, and its more than 24500 so i could say:

Mission Accomplished

(that might actually be a new science record ?)

But now the pictures:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Mechjeb DeltaV doesn't like complex Ships with Docking Ports, but i've made DeltaV Pictures of every detached modules too before first firing. I hope i got enough DeltaV and Fuel pictures so you(Ziv) can track down the consumption. If i forgot some important moment i could give you the original Craft-File so you can recreate each Situation and see that everything was possible. Just PM me if needed.

Proof that all the Science was from Jools SOI:

Turn on higher Quality and/or Fullscreen if its not readable

And the Science Archive after the Mission:

So I hope you enjoy this Report. The Aventador was really efficient. I flew everything myself so with MechJeb flying you could probably save even more fuel. You can ask any Questions about the flying or the Ship-Design or methods of collecting many Experiments if interested, i'm open to share my experiences.

Cheers

SkyRex94

Edited September 4, 2014 by SkyRex94