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

[zeppelinmage]

I've officially started. Got my drive section in orbit; the largest thing I've ever launched (250t). Took me two days just to get it up there.

The next launches should be a lot saner. Smaller/lighter payloads, easier on my laptop to handle. Hopefully I'll get the rest up and docked over the next couple days, and I'll launch for Jool probably mid-week.

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[Mesklin]

There is my entry for level 1 with minimalistic sub-challenge: start weight - 144 t on launchpad with one brave men (Bill) in old fashioned, comfortable, personal cabin

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[Ziv]

Norcurion: Ahh, I'm sorry for the Kraken Attack! Maybe you were too close to Bop (this is where it lives). Maybe you should do a revenge mission! With some save of the save files during the mission... and kill that damn Kraken!

btw I loved the landing legs of your lander! Looks good and high impact tolerance, I guess. Maybe it's weight is the only counterpart.

[Ziv]

There is my entry for level 1 with minimalistic sub-challenge: start weight - 144 t on launchpad with one brave men (Bill) in old fashioned, comfortable, personal cabin

http://imgur.com/a/Sgi0c

OMG Mesklin, doing the whole Level-1 mission with a ship which weights only 144 tons on the launch pad is AWESOME!!!

Nice lander design too.

Btw my ideas were similar: I already have my lander (nuke+mk1 too) and refuel module (58 tons together for now but may be lower later), already calculated deltaVs with a lot of margin for errors, and I was developing my launcher vehicle yesterday. I'm using Jets too, but was experimenting with RAPIERs for the main rockets which uses air in the atmosphere and jet fuel for the beginning of the journey. And booster Jets, of course. But I have some other idea too! My ship weight 180 tons on the launch pad now but still have a lot of margin for optimizing!

Hm, what is your landers dV, TWR, etc?

And what mod do you use for the little informations at the top of the screen?

Good job, thanks for participating!

Edited January 26, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

Everybody who have done the JOOL-5 mission has earned the JOOL-5 badge and may add to his/her Signature:

to do this: Settings -> Edit Signature and add this line without the spaces after the two '[' brackets:

[ URL=http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-THE-ULTIMATE-JOOL-5-CHALLENGE-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-misson][ IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Z5hSyCv.png

alternatively you can use these, designed by 8MMW:

-> http://i.imgur.com/9vfqPvi.png

http://i.imgur.com/N1bYSwC.png

Edited May 11, 2014 by Ziv

[Norcurion]

Norcurion: Ahh, I'm sorry for the Kraken Attack! Maybe you were too close to Bop (this is where it lives). Maybe you should do a revenge mission! With some save of the save files during the mission... and kill that damn Kraken!

Hmm... Beware of the Ahab Mk I Kraken! (coming soon to a planet near you!) (PS i know that ahab hunted a sperm whale)

btw I loved the landing legs of your lander! Looks good and high impact tolerance, I guess. Maybe it's weight is the only counterpart.

Actually they weight about 100 kg, just like the heavy landing feat.

they have certant advantages, like that the lander starts walking down slopes instead of tumbling over .... and 4 of them are strong enough to land a 56 ton lander with 5 m/s

[Ziv]

Yeah, nice job, creative solution! This is why I love this challenge!

[Mr.Rocket]

And what mod do you use for the little informations at the top of the screen?

Ziv, i believe that mod is VOID. It's just another information mod, i'm using it too. Either it's that or mechjeb, not sure because i don't have mechjeb

[SSSPutnik]

Mesklin, amazing job, great lander. Mind shooting me the craft file?

[Norcurion]

I need your Expert Advice.. you think that will be sufficient for the tylo landing? (from low orbit 30x30 or so)

it will have +100 dV from ditching the gear...

Edited January 26, 2014 by Norcurion

[Ziv]

Norcurion: hm, why do you have two different type of engines?

6000 m/s may be enough for Tylo but I suggest to go with 6300+ and 2+ TWR, that's 100% success (if your ladders are okay too).

Edited January 26, 2014 by Ziv

[Norcurion]

It's a pure Delta V tradeout.... with two spikes instead of the screen shot config on the 3.5 side stage you've got -100 dV, with only one spike you have +80 dV (EDIT: the spike and those lv909 are 1.5 ton vs 0.5 and 175 vs 50 Thrust - so they count as nearly one kind of engine as long you're in space in my opinion)

Damn this challenge boosts my understanding of the game, thank you alot ziv

My problem is that those extra 200 delta V would cost me about 8 tons + on the weight of the lander -.-

Edited January 26, 2014 by Norcurion
wrong numbers

[zeppelinmage]

That's a problem I saw when designing my landers as well. It's the old Tyranny of the Rocket Equation. As you get heavier, adding Delta-V becomes an exponential problem.

[Norcurion]

And i know i could make the lander lighter with ease... but it is reconfigurable and able to land on all other bodys (with some 8 tons or so addons for laythe) - so i spare a lot of mass that i otherwise would have to blast to jool...

That's a problem I saw when designing my landers as well. It's the old Tyranny of the Rocket Equation. As you get heavier, adding Delta-V becomes an exponential problem.

Yeah when you need Delta V... lower the mass of the payload

EDIT: Removed 6 struts and 4 RCS Thruster and replaced the rcs tanks with some with better mass/load ratio... Bäm! 80 dV more

Edited January 26, 2014 by Norcurion

[Ziv]

I usually don't bring RCS for my lander, I prefer ASAS. And for docking sometimes I don't need RCS at all but if yes my main ship has it.

[Norcurion]

Water landing has a phase of about 2-3 seconds where you want to have RCS when the chutes get cut and the ship splashes down... having R/T glowing is very useful ....

And when the Jet engines run hot while starting there is also a moment where the rocket wants to go crazy... And while landing on tylo it has nearly only aerospikes, so no thrust vectoring from the engines...

but otherwise i don't use em on landers either

[Ziv]

Yeah, I see... good point!

[Mobjack]

Mobjack: Congratulations, you have finished the JOOL-5 Challenge at Jebediah's Level! (At first I had some concern about science because you have to bring back all the science instruments (or every science data if you bring a Mobile Lab) and I saw you had points only for the surface samples, and the others were transmitted. But I saw you had all the instruments back with the five landers so I can accept it.)

I really enjoyed your big mess back at Vall! Going in opposite directions, lol! That's dangerous, didn't you know!?!? And it was a really lovely scene as one of your lander tugs the other one.

Btw for most efficiency I think you should have left the main ship somewhere between Vall and Tylo, and that way the landers wouldn't have wasted dVs for going back to orbit around Vall and leaving it again (as weight on the main ship). But otherwise nice solutions, good job!

I have more screenshots of collected science if you really wanted it, but I thought it would be redundant. I showed my first and last lander collections so you can get an idea.

Yeah having a parking orbit between Vall and Tylo would probably have been more efficient, but it didn't require that much dV from entering and leaving Vall to begin with. The biggest advantage of that strategy would be that I wouldn't have entered into the orbits in the wrong directions . My mind got confused about which way I was going towards the end.

Anyways, towards the end of the mission, I was so sick of docking. I started to become envious of those highly modular designs with mechjeb. That could be a more efficient way or maybe a combination of strategies would be best.

[SSSPutnik]

I love how in this game you can float a multi ton craft on four tyres.

[Mesklin]

I need your Expert Advice.. you think that will be sufficient for the tylo landing? (from low orbit 30x30 or so)

it will have +100 dV from ditching the gear...

Looks like this craft has enough dV for Tylo, but I recommend you land from more low orbit, maybe 30x8 km will be good and start landing in periapsis, maintain vertical speed -20...-30 m/s in landing time and you will have smooth landing

[Norcurion]

Looks like this craft has enough dV for Tylo, but I recommend you land from more low orbit, maybe 30x8 km will be good and start landing in periapsis, maintain vertical speed -20...-30 m/s in landing time and you will have smooth landing

Thank you!

[SSSPutnik]

Oops, the Osperus 2 has completed the Jool system tour OK. All moons landed on and a few Kethane probes dropped off. All crew relaxing in Jacuzzi.

However, cannot complete mission, well maybe if I was super patient. Mission control forgot we had to land crew back at Kerbin. Now I do have a one man lander attached, but there are seven crew.

Oopsy!

I may try extending the lander ladder and EVAing the 6 others OK onto the ladder. And re-entering...

Can you have more than one guy on a ladder?

Otherwise, yes I can get back to Kerbin orbit. 3500dV remaining, no refueling done.

[Ziv]

hehe... bad luck! I think the guys would fall down from the ladder when the parachutes open... maybe send an orbital rescue ship.

[Kasuha]

Oops, the Osperus 2 has completed the Jool system tour OK. All moons landed on and a few Kethane probes dropped off. All crew relaxing in Jacuzzi.

However, cannot complete mission, well maybe if I was super patient. Mission control forgot we had to land crew back at Kerbin. Now I do have a one man lander attached, but there are seven crew.

Oopsy!

I may try extending the lander ladder and EVAing the 6 others OK onto the ladder. And re-entering...

Can you have more than one guy on a ladder?

Otherwise, yes I can get back to Kerbin orbit. 3500dV remaining, no refueling done.

Maybe you could set the lander's chutes to open at 50 m and rely on that and lithobraking. If you got something to put below your living quarters to cushion the impact.

[SSSPutnik]

Hmmm.. I can see much F9ing... Good idea Kasuha.