The Versatility Marathon Challenge

[700NitroXpress]

That was an epic mission Sensi, your rover did snap in half so I'll take 25 points off for that, but everything else looks good. Well done!

[Sirine]

That was an epic mission Sensi, your rover did snap in half so I'll take 25 points off for that, but everything else looks good. Well done!

I have no ideal that the mission could be done...skipping mission in between...Well, if thats the case, I will officially request 700NitroXpress to clearly stated on 1st thread about what mission has been perform.

Example:-

Leaderboard:

1. Sensi ___________ 1260 (Mission 1, 4)

2. Sirine ___________ 1065 (Mission 1,2)

3. TML ____________ 980 (Mission 1,2,3)

4. Finwen __________ 875 (...

5. Hodo ____________ 580 (...

6. mhoram __________ 435 (...

7. Death Engineering __ 255 (...

[700NitroXpress]

I think the leaderboards are accurate now, if I didn't list a mission for someone and you've completed it, let me know.

Sirine: I would prefer if they weren't done out of order, but everyone has to do mission 1 and the shakedown run first. After that, it's acceptable to do them in whatever order you want.

Edited February 24, 2014 by 700NitroXpress

[Finwen]

On the leaderbord a small correction

4. Finwen __________ 875 (Mission 1, 2) i did mission 3 also.

I am slowly preparing for Mission 4 and i think my mission will be a little smaller compared to Senseis

[700NitroXpress]

My Mission 2 is finally completed, all four Kerbals are back home safely and now I'm preparing for Mission 3. I'll do my point write ups later. Here's the images from the mission, I added descriptions this time.

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[Sensi]

Nicely done Nitro. That's one cleverly built Eve lifter. You should update your score on the leaderboard.

Finwen, looking forward to your mission 4 submission. Size doesn't matter

That said...

Mission 2 (option 3) completed

One thing's sure : I won't miss Eve's deep gravity well and thick soup of an atmosphere. Getting the science station crew back to the coreship was one of the most difficult things I've done so far. Using Kethane turbines helped a lot getting above most of Eve's atmosphere. The only problem with these engines is that they flame out if you go supersonic.

So, all went to plan except that

- I couldn't store the science experiments retrieved from science station into the rescue ship.

- Two struts on the coreship have broken due to a minor Kraken attack. The ship is still space worthy, but it would be nice if we might land our coreship back at KSC to do some maintenance, from time to time.

Scores

Mission completed option 3 : 400 points

Send down a 4 Kerbals science team and retrieve them : 100 points

Land your rescue pod within 1 km of the science package's landing : 50 points

Eat your vegetables : 5 points

Master of aerodynamics : 3 x 10 = 30 points

I know what I need : 25 points

Bring the Gang along for the ride : 4 x 10 = 40 points

Home Sweet Home : 4 x 5 = 20 points

Total : 670 points

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Edited March 2, 2014 by Sensi
Bad at english

[700NitroXpress]

Sensi, what's the stats of those Kethane turbines? Compared to aerospikes?

[Sensi]

You can't compare an air breathing engine and a rocket engine. Their TWR and ISP are quite different. The KT weighs 1.75 t for 20 t of thrust and has an ISP of 2300 ASL.

[Hodo]

Sensi, what's the stats of those Kethane turbines? Compared to aerospikes?

They are really quite weak compared to aerospikes.

[700NitroXpress]

They are really quite weak compared to aerospikes.

Alright then, I would just prefer if stock engines are used. If not, provide me with the engine stats so I can make sure that there isn't an unfair advantage in using the mod engine.

[Sensi]

Will do next time (I thought you knew the stats of the KT as you had ok'd the Kethane mod)

Mission 3 option 1 completed

The real difficulty of this mission was dV management. Using this Launch Window Planner made it possible to complete the mission with around 10 km/s dV worth of fuel. I had to attach 4 more jumbos to the coreship due to the payload mass and plan an aggressive return trajectory without matching planes, with a huge aerobraking at the end (4400 m/s -> 2400 m/s).

And next time I go to Moho, I'll add a lot more lights on the landers. Fortunately, I had plenty of fuel to hover and pick up good landing zones.

Scores

Option 1 mission completion : 300 points

Land a science team at both science gear location : 100 points

Set up multiple actuators, one at each location : 100 points

Set up actuators and science gear at both poles, the target LZ, and the opposite side of the planet relative to the target LZ, 4 actuators total : 200 points

Eat your vegetables : 5 points

Master of aerodynamics : 8 x 10 = 80 points

I know what I need : 25 points

Jet engines are for planes : 5 points

Bring the Gang along for the ride : 4 x 10 = 40 points

Home Sweet Home : 4 x 5 = 20 points

Total : 875 points

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Fly safe.

Sensi.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Sensi

[Hodo]

Alright then, I would just prefer if stock engines are used. If not, provide me with the engine stats so I can make sure that there isn't an unfair advantage in using the mod engine.

The Tordial Aerospike has these ratings.

175kn of thrust

390vac ISP / 388 Atmo ISP

and weighs in at 1.75tons

The Kethane Turbine

200kn of thrust

is a jet engine so requires air and kethane Atmo ISP is 2300.

and weighs 1.75tons.

It is also useless above a certain speed.

[700NitroXpress]

Hodo, thanks for the stats, those engines are fine then. I used a lot of the 215 power engines and aerospikes on my lander and it looks like we used roughly the same fuel.

Sensi, I'm reviewing the Mission 3 you posted. After you've completed mission 5, I'll post a new mission for everyone.

[Finwen]

I finally started Mission 4.

I decided to make a small rover just above 4tons but ended up with a modified version of my Eve rover av 20t I added Kethane mod so i added a drill to the rober.

With a steel plate heat shield it gained a few extra tons.

MY core ship could take it to duna without problem. and the heat shield worked fine during the aerobraking and i could go into low Duna orbit without problem, but then the problems started....

The heat shield worked fine as heat shield but the designers forgot that it also blocked the rovers rocket engines. Jebediah in the core ship quickly made a plan and i he docked the coreship with the rover. Jebadiah then braked the core ship so it went for orbit insertion at the right spot, undocked the rover and then brought core ship back to stable Duna orbit.

The rover was now going down to the surface. The heat shield protected the rover and the heatshield separated without problems after deployment of the parachutes.

The landing was hard and all except one tire got a flat Malbree Kerman fixed those easy....

During a "fast" testdrive Malbree made a big jump and all 4 rocked engines on the rover was damaged so now the rover is truly stranded just as the mission says

Recovery operation will follow in a future part

[Sensi]

A truly kerbalesque mission debut, Finwen. Good luck with your recovery operation

Nitro, I would like to start mission 5 but you have to de-hibernate first and finish reviewing my mission 3 from last week.

I also would like to know your opinion about my suggestion to allow players to do some "maintenance" to their coreship when necessary. S**t happens sometimes, especially during a long campaign-like challenge like this one, be it Kraken attacks damaging the ship but not destroying it (e.g. in my case : missing struts after getting out of time-warp, perhaps because of wobbly attachments when I engaged time-warp), or because of pilot errors tearing off or destroying a part in a collision, etc. You could ask for a before and after maintenance screenshot to check that the "repaired ship" is the same as the original one.

I know this request doesn't exactly fit in the rule "7. Attack of the Kraken - You provide proof that the Kraken ate your ship = Free ship from Kerbin", but it would give some breathing room to players who don't like to F9 for anything else than a game crash and would add a nice little RP touch to the challenge.

[700NitroXpress]

Hey guys, sorry I've been absent for so long. Dark Souls II has claimed another soul... also got Planetary Annihilation and Titanfall, so my Kerbal adventures have been put on hold for a bit. I should be done reviewing things this week. So far Sensi, your mission 3 looks good so far. As for maintenance of your ship, if the game caused an error that resulted in your ship missing struts or something breaking, then you can fix it at will. However, pilot error causing a collision is on you and will cost you points -25 points for each time you need to repair your ship due to collisions.

Finwen your mission 4 is looking epic so far.

[Finwen]

I added 2 more Mods for this mission. Kerbal attachemnt system and Kethane.

To recover my rover i did build a sky crane but i am unsure if the hook can hold the heavy roover (i haven ot researched magnets yet) so i added a steel plattform for the roover to rest on. After some test i had a version that could SSTO to orbit and even go to duna without refueling.

Launching Sky Crane 3.

Reached LKO and i have jettisoned the extra jet engines.

Going to Duna.

Leaving core ship and sky crane is breaking for landing on Duna.

Close to ground and very low on fuel!!!!

Due to limitations for the sky crane i had to land on a low altitude location so the rover had a 35 km trip to make. and going down 3 km in altitude. Me and my son had driven the cars several evenings before for fun so it want close to original landing spot.

Filling up Sky crane ship for return flight.

To be continued....

[Finwen]

Mission done. Pictures and briefing later

[700NitroXpress]

Sensi, your mission 3 score has been added, nicely done.

Finwen your pics are looking epic, waiting for the rest.

Leaderboards are updated

[Finwen]

Mission 4 complete with image gallery.

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Marlbree was a "little" skeptical of the rescue ship but it was his only choice.

After he had refueled the rescue ship he drove the rover onto the platform and secured the rover with 1 fuel line so it would not fall off the platform.

Liftoff. It was stable at liftoff and was no problem at all to g o straight up. I decided to do a turn very lite to have time if i encountered problems. At 100 km i stopped for circulation burn and immediately i had bug problems. The rover bounced all over the place and made the rescue ship to wobble allot. But after allot of work i reached a stable Duna orbit. This problems wasted allot of my fuel to.

After docking with the core ship i came up with the bright idea to secure the rover with 2 fuel lines so it would be a little more stable The best solution would be to dock the rover at front of my core ship but I didn't think of it.....

The wild ascent from Duna wasted allot of the fuel and now we had little fuel to reach Kerbin. Jebediah thought it would be possible so we left Duna and made a transitburn for Kerbin. After transitburn i only had around 150 dv left. Aerobraking gave me a arbit around duna and a few more orbits with less aerobraking to cirulize the orbit.

Nw we had a low orbit but only 106dV left.

We did send up a refueling ship to refuel the rescue ship. But Marlbree on the rover thought the strutural integrity on the ship could be less then stellar so we decided to land the rescueship without the rover.

The landing of the rescue ship went without problem until it was a few km above KSC. Then it suddenly started to selfdisintigrate. Losing engine after engine and then bigger parts broke of. About 100m above land the remain ended with a big explosion....

Tho bring down the rover we designed a small vessel with a heat shield to dock with the rover. Plan worked fine except that the vessel didn't had solar panels and did run out if power......

My trusty core ship brought the rover to the heat shield vessel and after the rover docked to heat shield ship we was ready to land.

Heat shield worked fine. Maybe outer parts of the tires got little hot

After undocking the shield at low altitude the rover landed very close to the runway......

Possible score:

Mission completion 250 points

Rover landed at KSC 100 points:

Littering the system - 5 points

Eat your vegetables - Launch a craft or attachment into orbit without asparagus staging = +5 points

Bring the Gang along for the ride - = +3*10 points

Edited March 23, 2014 by Finwen

[Sensi]

Securing attachments with fuel lines is a bold engineering idea, and the fireworks over KSC to announce the return of the Duna mission made for a great Disney-like happy ending

[Finwen]

Bold or a desperate engineering idea... Thats the question...

Disney like fireworks over KSC should give some bonus points too i think

[700NitroXpress]

So the new update is out, can our ships hold up and still be versatile enough to handle the new challenges with space rocks?

Any ideas on what you guys would like to try?

[Finwen]

A space rock mission could be interesting. But first i will work on mission 5. I am soon ready to launch. Just need to send up a few more things.

[Quiana]

Hi, first post here as I've decided to give this challenge a try. I'm currently in the design phase for the core vessel and had a question regarding a mod-related engine. Is the large nuclear engine from the KSPX considered balanced enough? It seems just about at the same balance as the smaller stock nuke, with a smidge more thrust to the weight. If not, I'll probably design around smaller engine clusters then.

Specs:

Stock - 2.25 tons for 60 thrust at 800 ISP in vacuum

KSPX Large Nuke - 5.0 tons for 150 thrust at 800 ISP in vacuum