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

[Ziv]

Not sure why all the fuss about mobile labs. Did the rules change recently? I used the Mobile Lab more than a month ago (not for my low mass entry, but my original one), and it was accepted as Jeb level. If you look at my pictures, I sent the lab on the shuttle to crash on Tylo, so I could finish with zero debris left in orbit. If I kept the lab with my ship I probably would have had enough fuel to make it back home, but I still wouldn't be able to land the lab. I had a similar plan as Zeppelin, leaving my mothership in orbit at the end and landing the Kerbals and the science by storing it in the pods.

I did ask about it then, and you said it was okay.

Ahh, I just realized I've made a mistake and didn't notice that you didn't bring back five of each scientific instrument (one per moon) NOR the Lab. But no worries because it was not in the first 0.23 additional rule that it has to be landed back at Kerbin, because it was so soon that I didn't know about science transferring between pods and thought it should be brought back to count for the science points...

Anyway, I will rewrite that section soon to be more clear. The main thing: the science lab is needed to be landed back at Kerbin with all the science inside. That's the safest way for the samples, and it will need an intensive cleaning before the next mission too.

[SSSPutnik]

Landing back at Kerbin isn't that hard, its just a matter of having a ship that is actually designed to make a landing. (Ie whack a bunch of chutes on it).

The Deltav requirements are pretty low.

[JedTech]

I'm just going to continue the mission and hope that I can attach a few dozen parachutes to safely land my mothership when it ges back home.

[Jasonden]

This gave me a chance to try out a big gravity assist I've worked out for a grand tour I want to try

Totally. Awesome. That 500m/s dV that you saved on the way out with the gravity assist makes all the difference. Most impressive!

BTW, you seem to have reproduced the Galileo VEEGA trajectory (as EKKGA in Kerbal-land, of course).

[SSSPutnik]

Got my base ship design done for Kethane version.

Main ship will land on each moon and refuel using Kethane.

(Laythe may be tricky, might save it till last).

When finished, 5 of crew will return with Kethane sample to Kerbin in ion powered craft. Rest of craft becomes a mobile orbital base.

I've used LLL heavily, but believe I could make the same ship with stock parts.

Now to add bits like probes and maybe a rover.

Ziv: Do probes and Jool penetrator count if playing in Sandbox mode?

Edited March 4, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[zeppelinmage]

Finished Bop and Pol tonight, just bringing the ship home now. Going to get as much done as possible before I pass out; hopefully I'll at least be able to get the ship to/near Kerbin.

[SSSPutnik]

Yay! Sounds like an epic mission Zepplinmage.

[Fellow314]

I've been flicking through these, and these are all awesome!

Thanks guys.

[Norcurion]

I have finally completed my Jool-5 Challenge with aim for Jeb-Level

It seems anachronistic with all those minimal weight trys, but i wanted to max out the use of the Lab.

I have collected 24849 Science Points (17.898 from returned Samples from the Jool System, 5846 from Kerbol Orbit, Duna Ike and Minimus returns and 1105 from Crew Reports)

The main figures of the Mission:

- Stock + Mechjeb

- 8 Kerbals in 2 Hitchhickers (5 Lander Pilots, two Science Lab Crew, one for Coffee)

- landed on Tylo, Laythe, Vall, Bop, Pool, Duna, Ike and Minimus

- Assembled with 4 Lauches + one Crew Launch

- 3000 Tonns combined on pad, 300 in Parking orbit (~605x605)

- No Refuel Mission

- Reusable, refittable Lander

Construction:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Mission Design:

1) Gravity Assist direct into Laythe atmosphere, orbit around Laythe.

2) Lander+Tug --> Tylo, landing

3) Lander+Tug --> Laythe

4) Lander Refit, landing

5) Mothership ---> Orbit between Bop and Pol

6) Lander+Tug ---> Val, landing

7) Lander+Tug ---> Mothership

8) 6+7 Repeated for Bop + Pol

9) Whole Ship ---> Burn out of Jool SOI

10) Whole Ship ---> SOI Duna

11) Landing on Ike, Duna

12) Lab jettison

13) Whole Ship ---> SOI Kerbin

14) Landing on Minimus

15) Return to Kerbin, Low Orbit

16) Landing of Return ship, Lander to be recovered later

Science Design:

2 sets on the tug, 1 set on the lander and two aditional sets on two atmo probes.

The lander and the tug sets to be recycled by the lab after every moon

Jool and every Moon:

Goo, Sc. Junior, and Gravity Scan in High Orbit with Tug

Goo, Sc. Junior, Temperature, Gravity Scan in Low Orbit with Tug

On the Surfaces: All potential scans+samples with Lander

Aditional: Laythe in high and Low Atmosphere: Scan with Noseprobe, Goo, Science Jr, Temp, Atmo and Grav with atmospheric Science Pod's

---> >100 Science Items

Mission Screenshots (aaaaalot pictures... only about 1/8 of the Screenshots i made. I spare you some details, especially of docking procedures and countless Science windows, as it repeats 1000 times over. If you want to see something, ask)

Some of them are with the HUD turned off... That is not to hide Mechjeb use or cheats but for the beauty of the shot - i use mechjeb a lot and do not hide it )

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Hope i met all criteria for jeb level and thank you for this awesome challenge Ziv!

(and excuse my english, im not native speaking and this was to much text divided in too many parts to proofread it with openoffice)

Edited March 4, 2014 by Norcurion

[SSSPutnik]

That's a really nice config Norcurion. Well done.

Aww, you spelt Surface wrong in the main ship description Sorry no mission completion due to spelling "****" !

Edited March 4, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[Norcurion]

Thank you!

Aww -.- there will be many language bugs

But that specific one was more of a typo... I changed it

Edited March 4, 2014 by Norcurion

[zeppelinmage]

Done! I posted a mission report here.

Submitting this for Jebediah level. Ziv, I did manage to land that lab, so we're good to go.

Total mission length: 1267 days

Science collected: 7238.7

[Kasuha]

Congratulations!

Just a few remarks:

- Some pictures are pitch black to me. It's a good idea to pay attention to sufficient light in the scene when you're making screenshots.

- When you're deorbiting anything bigger than just a pod, always pack a drogue chute or a few. Things stop breaking if you use them. And there was more than enough room for them on that lab deorbiter.

- When you had that unbalanced payload, you could have tweaked throttle of your nuclear engines to balance it out. That might have allowed you to run at greater overall thrust than if you were just compensating it with torque.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Kasuha

[SSSPutnik]

Wow Zepplinmage you finally completed the mission, really well done.

Good pics too, they have a lot of humour in them.

The Tylo lander looks similar to the one I made, glad to have helped with ideas!

Are you going to do the Kethane version?

[zeppelinmage]

Congratulations!

Just a few remarks:

- Some pictures are pitch black to me. It's a good idea to pay attention to sufficient light in the scene when you're making screenshots.

- When you're deorbiting anything bigger than just a pod, always pack a drogue chute or a few. Things stop breaking if you use them. And there was more than enough room for them on that lab deorbiter.

- When you had that unbalanced payload, you could have tweaked throttle of your nuclear engines to balance it out. That might have allowed you to run at greater overall thrust than if you were just compensating it with torque.

- Yeah, the pics look fine on my laptop, but I understand some may not be able to see them well. (my phone, for example, shows them as black.) In the future I'll do my best to take them in "daylight"... I'm pretty bad at remembering to mount lights on my stuff.

- True. Of course, I didn't think of drogues until I was already in orbit and docked. I had limited time last night and didn't want to go though another round of VAB and basically start over again.

- I'm terrible at guessing where the thrust limit should be... and since you have to be at 100% thrust all the time for the limiters to work, it wasn't really a solution I considered. The extended burn times worked fine, they were just very time consuming.

Wow Zepplinmage you finally completed the mission, really well done.

Good pics too, they have a lot of humour in them.

The Tylo lander looks similar to the one I made, glad to have helped with ideas!

Are you going to do the Kethane version?

Thanks! I did take a lot of cues form what others had done here - some great ideas in this thread!

I'm not planning a Kethane version. I'm still enjoying Stock; not really considering game-changing mods quite yet.

[SSSPutnik]

Fair enough. I use a fair few mods but avoid unbalanced parts or struts that could hold a collapsing star up.

Seriously considering replicating my Kethane version ship with stock parts instead of LLL ones. They just look so good though.

Its 100t sans probes, still unsure about adding rovers.

[Ziv]

I have finally completed my Jool-5 Challenge with aim for Jeb-Level

It seems anachronistic with all those minimal weight trys, but i wanted to max out the use of the Lab.

I have collected 24849 Science Points (17.898 from returned Samples from the Jool System, 5846 from Kerbol Orbit, Duna Ike and Minimus returns and 1105 from Crew Reports)

The main figures of the Mission:

- Stock + Mechjeb

- 8 Kerbals in 2 Hitchhickers (5 Lander Pilots, two Science Lab Crew, one for Coffee)

- landed on Tylo, Laythe, Vall, Bop, Pool, Duna, Ike and Minimus

- Assembled with 4 Lauches + one Crew Launch

- 3000 Tonns combined on pad, 300 in Parking orbit (~605x605)

- No Refuel Mission

- Reusable, refittable Lander

http://i.imgur.com/NOZjzKh.jpg

Construction:

http://imgur.com/a/j1TsR

Mission Design:

1) Gravity Assist direct into Laythe atmosphere, orbit around Laythe.

2) Lander+Tug --> Tylo, landing

3) Lander+Tug --> Laythe

4) Lander Refit, landing

5) Mothership ---> Orbit between Bop and Pol

6) Lander+Tug ---> Val, landing

7) Lander+Tug ---> Mothership

8) 6+7 Repeated for Bop + Pol

9) Whole Ship ---> Burn out of Jool SOI

10) Whole Ship ---> SOI Duna

11) Landing on Ike, Duna

12) Lab jettison

13) Whole Ship ---> SOI Kerbin

14) Landing on Minimus

15) Return to Kerbin, Low Orbit

16) Landing of Return ship, Lander to be recovered later

Science Design:

2 sets on the tug, 1 set on the lander and two aditional sets on two atmo probes.

The lander and the tug sets to be recycled by the lab after every moon

Jool and every Moon:

Goo, Sc. Junior, and Gravity Scan in High Orbit with Tug

Goo, Sc. Junior, Temperature, Gravity Scan in Low Orbit with Tug

On the Surfaces: All potential scans+samples with Lander

Aditional: Laythe in high and Low Atmosphere: Scan with Noseprobe, Goo, Science Jr, Temp, Atmo and Grav with atmospheric Science Pod's

---> >100 Science Items

Mission Screenshots (aaaaalot pictures... only about 1/8 of the Screenshots i made. I spare you some details, especially of docking procedures and countless Science windows, as it repeats 1000 times over. If you want to see something, ask)

Some of them are with the HUD turned off... That is not to hide Mechjeb use or cheats but for the beauty of the shot - i use mechjeb a lot and do not hide it )

http://imgur.com/a/NiKw8

Hope i met all criteria for jeb level and thank you for this awesome challenge Ziv!

(and excuse my english, im not native speaking and this was to much text divided in too many parts to proofread it with openoffice)

Norcurion: Congratulation, you have finished the JOOL-5 mission! Absolutely epic mission with a lot of nice solutions! I really liked your 8 Kerbals Crew Transfer Vehicle, the changeable landing gears, the refittable lander, and especially the little plane at Laythe flying to the land for samples! Very well planned solutions!

By the way for Vall and so you shouldn't have landing legs, the struts would be enough, but it's more elegant like this.

And the Ike, Duna and Minmus landing is awesome too. Impressive mission!

I see you didn't land the science instruments or the Mobile Lab back to Kerbin. I know you started your mission before the clarification about this rule so I don't want to ruin this awesome mission because of this... I already forced poor zeppelinmage to finish his mission with landing the Mobile Lab (he made an awesome solution for that )...

So your mission is absolutely accepted az Jeb's level because of its well-planning, complex and cool solutions but if you want to go for 100% then bring your Mobile Lab back and land it on Kerbin!

Otherwise absolutely impressive mission, thanks for participating!

[SSSPutnik]

Ziv: On Kethane mission, can we get points for probes and Jool penetrator even if playing in Sandbox mode?

[Ziv]

Done! I posted a mission report here.

Submitting this for Jebediah level. Ziv, I did manage to land that lab, so we're good to go.

Total mission length: 1267 days

Science collected: 7238.7

zeppelinmage: Congratulation, you have finished the JOOL-5 mission on Jebediah's Level! At first, sorry for forcing the Mobile Lab to be landed back at Kerbin! Your solutions for this was awesome!! I really liked it, looked very cool. Thank you for the cooperation.

Yeah, putting different weight on the sides of the main ship can make that unbalanced, but you get over that soon with the separated orbit insertions, well done. And changing the little lander was all fine. Wow, deorbiting the empty refueling ship into Jool only with RCS could take a lot of time! Nice logistics when the landers and the ship were apart. I liked your Crew Return Vehichles too.

So, pretty nice mission with a lot of nice solutions. Thanks for participating! And for the patience.

[zeppelinmage]

Thanks Ziv. It was fun, and definitely challenging. Probably the most complex mission I'll be attempting for a while.

Kudos on the excellent challenge you have going here.

Also, for clarification on my entry on the first page... I did have mods, but only information-type. (I listed them on the mission report.)

KER, KAC, Enhanced Navball.

[Ziv]

Ziv: On Kethane mission, can we get points for probes and Jool penetrator even if playing in Sandbox mode?

Sure. (... and more characters here becaue the forum doesn't allow short answers. )

[Norcurion]

Norcurion: Congratulation, you have finished the JOOL-5 mission!

Yay finally !

So your mission is absolutely accepted az Jeb's level because of its well-planning, complex and cool solutions

thank you , i nearly had an cardiac arrest as i saw that the rules now state that the lab has to land oO after i saw zeppelinmage's impressiv solution to do so o0

Otherwise absolutely impressive mission, thanks for participating!

It was an honour Sir!

...but if you want to go for 100% then bring your Mobile Lab back and land it on Kerbin!

bringing back:

-the core science stuff : No problem:, The lander is in Kerbin orbit and has fuel for a rocket touchdown on Kerbin

-the Orbital science stuff : hmm, should be possible with some chutes docked to the tug

-the lab: It's on a ecliptical orbit between Duna and Kerbin: piece of cake

-the atmospheric probes and the science stuff on the glider, all swimming in the laythee ocean: Well that will be an interesting undertaking o0

challenge accepted! (but it will take some time;)

Edited March 5, 2014 by Norcurion

[Ziv]

Thanks Ziv. It was fun, and definitely challenging. Probably the most complex mission I'll be attempting for a while.

Kudos on the excellent challenge you have going here.

Also, for clarification on my entry on the first page... I did have mods, but only information-type. (I listed them on the mission report.)

KER, KAC, Enhanced Navball.

Thank you! Yeah, when I was finishing all the possible missions with the stock I've got this idea before being to JOOL at all. I thought it will be my last and most complex mission in the game and decided it would worth to share/challange, especially that I didn't find any source on the internet about this kind of mission, if it's possible at all... So my intention with this challenge was to make a good resource for others, too, and I'm glad it worked out well! And now you have put your part into it too!

BTW my first JOOL-5 mission planning (at Jeb's Level) was without any resource from the net and took several days on paper before I even started to build the ship in the game. And then I did a proof of concept mission to Mun and Minmus before going out to Jool. Now it looks a really basic mission with a lot of unoptimized parts but I didn't know a lot of stuff back then. But it went pretty well (except at Laythe) and it was very exciting to see the moons and land at first!!

Oh, I don't consider KER, KAC and Enhanced Navball as 'mods' because I think they should be in the stock already, they are very basic stuff. MechJeb and new parts what counts here.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

bringing back:

-the core science stuff : No problem:, The lander is in Kerbin orbit and has fuel for a rocket touchdown on Kerbin

-the Orbital science stuff : hmm, should be possible with some chutes docked to the tug

-the lab: It's on a ecliptical orbit between Duna and Kerbin: piece of cake

-the atmospheric probes and the science stuff on the glider, all swimming in the laythee ocean: Well that will be an interesting undertaking o0

challenge accepted! (but it will take some time;)

Yeah, with 0.23 I allowed the Mobile Lab and thought it will be needed to bring back all the stuff but it turned out the science can be transferred now, making it more easier... but I want Jeb's Level to remain hard as hell , so if one doesn't bring back all the science stuff, at least bring back the Mobile Lab!

LOL, you should bring back the Lab only. But if you want to collect al the stuff, well... you will definitely impress the decision makers back at KSC and the public too! Especially if you collect the parts from Laythe's ocean, as they were there for a long time. Maybe they will find living cells on it, who knows!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reports_of_Streptococcus_mitis_on_the_Moon

Edited March 5, 2014 by Ziv

[Ziv]

Ok, I have recomposed the rules for Jebediah's level, I hope they are more clear now. Please check them and if you find anything unclear then let me know!