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

Astrofox · January 20, 2015

I was wondering If I could use FASA for the mini solar panels and Sounding Rockets for the radial probe the pack has now. This would mean that I would be able to place a small satellite around each moon in the system, just to say that I was there.

Frozen_Heart · January 21, 2015

Are Kethane scanner satellites allowed in the challenge? I'm beginning to eye up the Jool V and it would be useful if I could drop them off while I'm there.

This would just be the scanners. No refuelling involved.

Ziv · January 21, 2015

Yes, it's all right if you don't use other Kethane parts!

- - - Updated - - -

redsh: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Jebediah's Level!

I really liked your double plane solution for Laythe, and your Tylo rover was epic too! And that's a lot of science points! Well done!

ps: sorry for the slow review time!

- - - Updated - - -

Hi! Nice grand tour! Yeah, the upfront refueling tank could be on the verge of the rules but otherwise every Grand Tour is a long and hard mission what I really appreciate, so

Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 1 with a GRAND TOUR! :cool:

- - - Updated - - -

Xannari Ferrows: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge on Level 2!

HA! It was not in the original rules that the Kerbals have to sit in a capsule for the interplanetary travel, I guess you were the first one to exploit this! Especially with "old" rocket parts only, I really liked that! (But from now the rules says they need to be in a Capsule!)

Really nice lander solution, and this way you had PLENTY of dV too for your crazy maneuvers, and for that suicide free-falling landing at Tylo, haha!

Nice one, thank you for participating!

- - - Updated - - -

missions still under review:

astrobond

Jouni

HANNIBALLA

lirg03 · January 21, 2015

Hi Ziv,

Thank you very much for your time reviewing my mission! It was fun to plan and fly such a challenging mission. The Jool-5 Challenge is one of the best managed challenges of all

Thunderous Echo · January 21, 2015

What about me? I submitted this a bit ago:

Whirligig Girl · January 21, 2015

I'm going to try attempting this on-stream tomorrow while on painkillers from the dentist. Should be interesting.

Xannari Ferrows · January 22, 2015

Heh. I guess this is what happens when you read the rules! You find things to do that seems strange. Or at least in my case, that always happens. Plus, I'll probably be coming back in the near future to do this again, except I wont leave my Kerbals out in seats.

During the Tylo landing, here's actually what I was thinking: "Gotta be efficient. ...Efficient? Come on, we've got tons of it! Just drop on down!" Okay maybe not word for word, but that's the general gist.

Thank you for approving my submission, and I'll see you... sometime!

megatiger78 · January 25, 2015

thinking of adding this to the itneary of my grand tour:

2508FB4EF1E519493C9D1D760E9D57F0AC546C06

jaddbo · January 25, 2015

so yea, i am re-trying this, and, as usual, i am going overkill!

just a little

http://imgur.com/a/G0pfa

trevize1138 · January 26, 2015

I was told to post this here:

Thunderous Echo · January 26, 2015

How the heck did you make this image?: http://i.imgur.com/fKhjaJI.png

Good job, trevize1138!

trevize1138 · January 26, 2015

Ha! It just happened when I was playing around with maneuver nodes. I'd seen others post images similar to that where the patched conics just seem to go crazy and I knew I had to grab a shot of it when it finally happened to me.

sdj64 · January 27, 2015

Nice job, trevize! I like the clean look and low part count. Internal cargo bays are great.

Himynameisjake · January 28, 2015

Getting very close to the final design of my rover to end all rovers. AND DID I MENTION IT'S 100% STOCK? This little guy can combine with a wimpy little plane to capture all non-asteroid science in the Kerbol system except for flying low records at Eve (I'll only be able to get one biome's worth of flying low unless I drastically modify the design).

While it doesn't get the top speeds in 4x that I'd like it to (averages about 16m/s safely in 3x), it gets the player anywhere they'd like to be. Idiot-proof, even mechjeb can land this thing without any advanced flight path, simple suicide burns get you down to the surface of Tylo. Able to "hop" up in the air for flying low data on Laythe and Duna, and fly from the equator to the poles of both, hunting down every last bit of science is no problem. I can launch myself off bumps on Eve in attempts to get flying low data, but it's proven a bit dangerous. I've considered a little lander to drag around by the claw for Eve, not really certain how I want to approach it. Now I just need to finalize a tug and the plane (and possibly a small hopper for Eve) for my grand tour, and I'm ready to go.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Himynameisjake

Himynameisjake · January 28, 2015

I much more efficiently finished my upper atmosphere plane in one sitting, this is designed to capture the science data of Jool (low and upper atmosphere, and the upper atmospheric data from Eve, Laythe, and Duna, while the rover is grabbing data on the ground.

Sqwazare · January 30, 2015

So here is my entry for the Jool 5 challenge.

Game Version: 0.9

Mods: KER, MechJeb, TAC fuel balancer. (Hyperedit for testing)

Number of Kerbals: 12, 4 Pilots, 4 Scientists, 4 Engineers

Launches: 6. Main ship, Refuel Mk1, Refuel Mk2, Pol-Bop lander, Refuel-Rescue, Refuel for refuel

Living quarters: All Kerbals travelled between Kerbin and Jool in Hitchiker containers and all landings were carried out in Mk1 lander cans

So having travelled to Jool and landed two Kerbals on each moon I have learnt a number of things.

1. Test everything Ã¢â‚¬â€œ I tested the Laythe lander, but didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t really do any testing on anything else. I barely managed to land on Tylo

2. Check you have all the parts you need Ã¢â‚¬â€œ I forgot a probe core and a decoupler in the main vessel

3. Make sure your decouplers function as you expect Ã¢â‚¬â€œ I probably should have been using stack seperators in a few places and it almost killed my mission as nothing worked properly post landing on my Laythe lander until I got the decoupler off the top.

4. Just because you think you might have to reload when something doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t seem to be working, take the pictures as if it does work you will probably want them

So without any further delays here is my mission.

I launched my main ship which contained my Laythe lander, my Tylo/Vall lander and my tug for getting the landers to the moons with the first launch. I had everything set up using asparagus staging but part way up I realized I would want to keep a couple of the empties or I would end up really struggling on the transfer. Luckily I had enough delta V to make this work so this launch was highly successful.

Stage 2 was to start the refuel process; the first refuel ship took up 6 Kerbodyne 7200 fuel tanks and had a little left in the fuel tanks of the upper stage. Flying this mission it seemed to me that this wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t ideal and I could do it more efficiently so for the second stage of refuelling I built my Mk2 refueler. This used a little less fuel but was an absolute pig to fly and wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t worth the effort, I also thought I better take up some extra monopropellant as I will have a number of dockings and donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t want to run out. This was unnecessary as I had massive amounts of monoprop left over. Even though I thought I had done the calculations to know how much fuel I needed to lift, it turned out that no I still need heaps more. My final fuelling mission also sent up the Pol-Bop lander as this wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t sent up initially to leave a docking port free on top for refuelling. The Pol-Bop lander brought 5 Kerbodyne 3600 tanks and did complete the refuelling. I didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t take any pictures of the docking and refuelling here, and I am not sure why I didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t.

Stage 3 was transferring to Jool and establishing orbit. I got a good transfer with a minimal wait and set off for Jool, of course the good transfer did mean a very slow transfer but sometimes it is worth it. I aerobraked hard at Jool to set myself up in orbit approximately halfway between Laythe and Vall so as to control the amount of delta V to go to each moon. In retrospect I should probably have set up between Vall and Tylo as I used a lot of fuel in transfers to Pol and Bop that would have been reduced further out.

Having established myself in orbit I sent the first landing crew out. Jeb and Bob jumped into the lander, which was already attached to the tug. The tug moved to a safe location and set up for the burn to Pol. Following a fairly uneventful trip the boys circularized at Pol and prepared the lander for descent. A fairly innocuous spot was picked from the window and the deorbit burn commenced. It was a very easy landing on Pol as there was heaps of fuel so a very slow descent was used. Aster collecting as much science as was readily available Jeb and Bob jumped back in and headed back into orbit. They then went with a minimum velocity escape from Pol (as I had got this wrong a few times I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t have any pictures of the return as I didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t know if it would work) After rendezvousing with the ship the lander docked, swapped out its crew for Dodfred and Rodsey, cleared all the science to the lab and cleaned the experiments. The lander then redocked to the tug (which was not refuelled) and headed out to Bop. Circularized on arrival at Bop and aimed for a fairly high point to land on. Landing was made at 17,495m and was one of the more difficult as Neither Dodfred nor Rodsey were a pilot so there was no SAS on the lander. After getting out and collecting science and planting a flag it was time to head back. Very straightforward ascent and circularization, rendezvous and docking. The return to the main ship was more interesting, as my escape burn was probably all wrong so there was a huge (422 m/s) burn required to match planes that I hadnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t factored in to my fuel calculations. I then had a circularization burn (257 m/s) before the rendezvous proper could start. At this stage I had a little over 1000 m/s left in the tug and I was thinking I am going to have to quickload from before going to Bop and refuel the tug, however I persevered in case I might make it, however as I wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t expecting to keep it I stopped taking pictures. Along the way I transferred all fuel from the lander to the tug to give it a little more and got fairly close to the main ship. I ran out of fuel while closing the final gap, however as I had over 1400 monopropellent I allowed it to try to finish with RCS, which was successful. I then docked the tug to the Tylo/Vall lander and the lander to the main ship.

The Tylo/Vall lander was crewed up with Wehrsen and Lemvis and was ready to go once the tug was refuelled. The transfer to Tylo was fairly easy, but the circularisation burn at Tylo took a fair bit of fuel (730+ m/s). After having saved in orbit I then spent a large number of attempts to land on Tylo. Again I ran into the problem of lack of confidence in success resulting in fewer than ideal pictures. After 10 attempts I was able to impact Tylo at a speed that did not result in an explosion, I was however falling over on the bounce. I finally worked out the right position for the burns and stuck the lander to the surface of Tylo. What it wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t was a pretty landing and the craft was on a 15Ã‚Â° lean, luckily it was a stable lean so the crew disembarked, collected their science and planted their flag. Then with a lot of hope flowing they attempted to get back to orbit, as they had less fuel left than planned (only 2744 m/s). Having established a low apoapsis (30 km) the circularization burn was planned and showed there was sufficient fuel, which was a major relief. While retracting the landing gear I discovered the impact had been sufficient to make one of the legs immobile. I then rendezvoused the tug and docked it to the lander and towed it on back to the main ship. After docking, transferring science, cleaning out the experiments and swapping Dodfred and Robsey for Thomfal and Wehrbert we set off for Vall. The transfer to Vall was very easy and with a full fuel load in the tug I didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t even think about the need to document it properly. The transfer and refinement put me on track for a polar orbit with only 236.5 m/s required to form the desired orbit. Undocked the lander from the tug burnt for deorbit and proceeded to land on Vall. Again the science, moonwalk and flag followed by ascent. Rendezvous and docking were carried out by the lander as there were huge fuel reserves. The tug then dragged the lander back to the main ship. The tug then docked back to the main ship, the experiments were transferred to the lab, the crew returned to their quarters and the experiments cleaned incase a second Vall landing was to take place.

The ship was then readied for sending the Laythe lander out, at this stage it was discovered that you canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t dock through a decoupler, and it was also noticed that I had missed two parts from the main ship. There was supposed to be a probe core to allow the main ship to return by itself and there should have been a decoupler to allow the Hitchikers to separate so they were guaranteed an easy landing. At this stage I also didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t know how much delta V would be available to the main ship as the Laythe lander was still attached and quite heavy. It was decided to launch a rescue/refuel mission to make sure the main ship could return. The rescue ship was simple, 4 radially docked nuclear engines with probe cores attached to enough rocket to get it close enough to the main ship. Once in orbit I decided to refuel the lowest stage to maximise available delta V so a refuel for the refuel was launched. I then planned the transfer at the lowest fuel usage window. Part way to the transfer window I decided with how much delta V I have I can use a faster sub optimum transfer and get there much sooner so the plan was changed and 800 m/s extra was spent to shorten the transfer by more than 250 days. Once in Jools SOI I adjusted the orbit to get a Laythe encounter inbound. I set up for aerocapture at Laythe and for little fuel got myself into a 100 km orbit. I then sent the main ship to Laythe to meet up with the refuel. The refuel then rendezvoused with the main ship and each engine was docked to the main ship.

The whole main ship with Laythe lander still attached dropped its periapsis to enable the lander to hit a clear point in the Sagen sea. After transferring out the last of the fuel in Laythes flotation tanks the main ship was undocked, turned around and burnt to lift its periapsis above the atmosphere. The laythe lander then proceeded down into the sea on parachutes, which given that there were many were staged to open at various altitudes to minimise the stress on the lander. Following a safe landing the boys (Jonbas and Elger) went for a swim in the sea, and collected the science. They were very disappointed to discover you cannot take seismic readings in the sea but had to make do with what their instruments offered. After jettisoning some parachutes (5T worth) they ascended. The ascent was odd as KER was saying I was still splashed down. I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t know what caused this but it was a major problem for me. I got into orbit easily enough but I was still splashed down, so there was no time warp available nor could I rendezvous, and because I was moving over land I couldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t change vessel. I tried getting the guys out and then rendezvousing with them, but it just kept crashing the game when I tried to take both out. Eventually while feeling extremely frustrated I decided to try to control from the docking port to see if it would recognise that as not splashed down. When I did this it offered me to undock the decoupler, how a decoupler can be docked I donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t know, but this was the magic I needed, I was now recognised as in orbit. I then rendezvoused the main ship and spacewalked the guys and their experiments to the main ship. Docking wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t an option as there were no free docking ports and I had forgotten the RCS ports on the lander.

Having successfully landed on every moon and returned with science it was time to head home. I moved the main ship to a circular orbit at around Bops altitude. I then brought the tug and landers (which had two of the crew inside in case I had wanted to do an extra landing) to meet up with the main ship. I disconnected an engine to free up a docking port, transferred the crew from the the Pol-Bop lander to the Tylo/Vall lander and all the fuel from the Pol-Bop lander too. I then docked the tug and lander filled up the main ship to max fuel,transferred the crew to their quarters, undocked the tug, redocked the engine and we were ready to head home. I nice early transfer window was available, so the journey home started only 34 days later. 1 course refinement after a year put me on a good course for setting up an aerocapture at Kerbin. I set up my aerobraking periapsis andgot a reasonable aerocapture, though the apoapsis was higher than desired, so I merely raised periapsis instead of circularizing. I then circularized at periapsis to give a 150 km circular orbit. When I had done a few orbits a landing window opened up (large patch of water in the sun). My deorbit burn had me passing over KSC on the way down which gave the crew their first decent view of home in about 6 years. Landing was primarily by parachute with a small burn to ensure a safe landing speed.

18648.9 science points were returned along with the 12 crewmembers who were now well experienced.

Hopefully this will satisfy all the requirements for this challenge (what level I am not sure, I was aiming for a Jebediahs level but not sure if I hit everything needed)

ShadowZone · January 30, 2015

A preview of coming attractions. May I present: Joolishka, my craft of choice to conquer Jool and its moons.

Hope to get challenge done over the course of the weekend. Wish me luck!

The plan: Launch this to LKO, refill the penultimate stage, transfer to Jool, grab a lot of science, return to Kerbin, land science lab and crew module, profit.

problemecium · January 30, 2015

I uh, just realized that it'd be a good idea to have my in-progress mission posted here so the judge(s) can review it and let me know if I start doing something illegal so I can fix it BEFORE I go all the way to Jool ^^;

Thunderous Echo · January 30, 2015

All those kerbals in their stations are coming back, right?

problemecium · January 30, 2015

Well eventually. The stations are intended to be permanent installations, but there's no reason not to send up a relief crew later and bring them back if they get homesick.

Admittedly I am slightly concerned about this issue, so if Ziv could find a minute to come comment on it I'd like to know if I can get away with just bringing back the "main" five, at least keeping the spirit of the rule by not stranding anybody.

I suppose if worse comes to worst I can send a flotilla with one ship being the Challenge ship and the other bringing the crews for the stations.

Edited January 30, 2015 by parameciumkid

Ziv · January 31, 2015

Well, if you have one ship with all the landers and crew required for the given level and that ship is capable to bring back the main crew (who landed on the moons) to Kerbin without external assistance then it's all right.

You can bring additional stuff and Kerbals and leave them in the Joolian System, you can send other ships and they can interact each other if they don't help the main crew with the main goals.

- - - Updated - - -

OMG, this looks like a really awesome hybrid multi-purpose science base!!! :cool:

- - - Updated - - -

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sorry guys for being so slow, I have very little free time these weeks and I feel bad about the missions still waiting for a review.

What do you think, is there a way to "crowdsourcing" this? I will have some time on Sunday or Monday night to check if it works.

I was thinking if any of you have some free time and feel the mood the check these missions in-depth then send me a message with something like this:

astrobond's mission

the mission seems good and within the rules, no cheating. (checking this needs the most time and is the biggest help for me)

Highlights:

1. huge 45000 tons rocket with 4521 part counts

2. some Kerbals were left behind along the way, they've been picked up later

3. accidentally get into orbit around Dres at first, instead of Jool

etc...so just short highlights, not long details. That's all.

That would be awesome if you could help me with this!!!

The more mission you check the more help it will be for me!

missions still waiting for review:

HANNIBALLA (low-mass)

trevize1138 (may lack of photo number to really check the orbits/fuels)

Sqwazare

Let's see if this works!

raygundan · January 31, 2015

One more for the pile, Ziv... I feel bad piling this on just after you asked for help looking through the submissions!

I used my Cormorant reusable SSTO to carry the Minnow interplanetary vehicle to orbit. Built and flown in .90, and the only mod used is MechJeb.

Craft file for download

Highlights:

* The whole thing fits cleanly in a cargo bay

* Jeb and Bill fly the Cormorant to LKO while Bob, Lorim, Nelfin, Elbald, and Borvey go to Jool

* It actually worked!

* 83 tons on the runway

* SSTO lifter and one pod fully recovered

Low points:

* The Kraken was ever-present. I've never had this many game issues before... but despite them all, everybody made it home.

* I accidentally attached the last few Xenon drop tanks to the wrong thing, forcing a change in the planned order in which I visited the moons to use the fuel

Mission Summary:

Five kerbals on five moons, making this an entry for Level 3, but with a launch weight of 83.217t, it's light enough to be #11 in the Low Mass Contender list! Can an entry be considered for both categories?

Jeb and Bill: flew Cormorant to LKO

Bob: landed on Laythe

Lorim: landed on Vall

Nelfin: landed on Bop

Elbald: landed on Pol

Borvey: landed on Tylo

Everybody: landed back on Kerbin, safe and sound, despite repeatedly meeting the Kraken*.

Without further ado... the exhaustive album of the trip!

*Kraken stuff: I had five corrupted savegame files that couldn't be recovered-- when loaded, they all did insane things. One would load without any of the parts originally surface-attached to the command pods. Three different times, I had a bug where an undocking pod would suddenly catapult away from the ship 90 degrees from the docking port, the port would fly in a different direction, and small parts would remain in their original position by the main vessel, attached to nothing but unmovable. And once, a few of the SSTO's parts would detect collisions with the ground and explode (wing, tailfin, intakes) while the plane was still 100m in the air. The fuel lines on the Vall lander got corrupted somehow when the subassembly was placed in the cargo bay, so I managed the fuel manually during the flight. The lander pod would spin in small circles if you tried to use SAS to hold it still, but only when not attached to lift stages... it managed to make it despite this, but I wish I knew why. Near the end, a bug that caused the ship to disintegrate when undocking meant that all the kerbals had to be spacewalked back to the SSTO and the second pod and 4-man can had to be left in orbit. The original intent was to land with the entire Minnow back in the cargo bay, and I'm really glad I thought to put enough seats in the SSTO for everybody just in case. I've had nothing but good luck until now with KSP... I guess it was time for me to meet the Kraken. But despite the Krakens... everybody got home alive, with the mission accomplished!

Edited January 31, 2015 by raygundan
added version and mod used

Cmdr. Arn1e · January 31, 2015

I feel the need to apologise... as much as I love KSP and this challenge in particular, I've gone and got Elite: Dangerous!

I feel kinda dirty, or something... heh, wierd how that works, isn't it!

I will still be along to answer questions or give bits of advice if anyone wants them, but between my stupidly over-abundant games collection, increased work hours, pet snakes, friends and family, I don't think I currently have time to help out with the judging side of things... but I'm sure others who can spare the time will be along very shortly to lend a hand

Oh, and expect a new entry from me 'at some point'... no, not even 'soon' I'm afraid :sealed:

And Raygundan; I had that a couple of times too, but before I had got my career save to the point where I could make the attempt! Over-ambitious moon bases scuppered me :huh:

problemecium · January 31, 2015

Sweet, this is exactly what I hoped to hear!

Ziv · February 3, 2015

Hi again, now I have some time to check the missions! I've got zero helping PM about the missions waiting for review... but it was only some days ago so maybe it was just too soon. Anyway, now I'll review as much missions as I can.

But I have decided to close the JOOL-5 Challenge for new entries until I'll have more time

(if I will ever continue this challenge)...

Edited February 3, 2015 by Ziv

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

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Join the conversation