The Versatility Marathon Challenge

[Sensi]

My core ship is full stock, except a few heavy struts from KW Rocketry. The wobbling and disintegration happen 2 out of 3 times, not always. A clone of this ship launched from KSC doesn't seem to have the problem, only the one in LKO. So, I managed to hyperedit it back to KSC and replace it with a copy from the VAB. I'll see if it's really stable now...

[Finwen]

Landed with 3 rovers without big problems... One rover did overshoot the target with 67 km but my 5 year old son had a fun time to drive it back to the base...

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To the left a garage with 1 small rover in it. And just behind the garage is the science lab module. In the middle a small rover and to the right is my core ship with lander module.

I though that the lander would need to assist the core ship to orbit but with less then full fuel onboard the core ship it just had the TWR ratio to liftoff by itself (image 2).

Now the core ships orbits around Duna waiting for transfer window to Kerbin. Plenty of fuel left so it will be an easy trip home. More images later and a full debrief than i arrive at Kerbin.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Finwen

[Quiana]

*SNIP IMGUR*

Helpful thing for IMGUR albums Finwen, use the {IMGUR}<ALBUM # HERE, EX dRJKL>{/IMGUR} tag and your album will be more forum-friendly.

As a side-note, you made a 'lander' much like I'm planning when I eventually get to mission five. I'm still doing planning on mission one, I've almost got all the vessels ready to lift to resupply/prepare. I've also been doing the math on the EVE and, considering I have yet to visit anything outside of the Kerbin SOI, I'm hesitant to try a manned landing on EVE for mission two. I may give it a shot though, considering this challenge is the first one to encourage me to think big.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Quiana
Missed a /

[Finwen]

Helpful thing for IMGUR albums Finwen, use the {IMGUR}<ALBUM # HERE, EX dRJKL>{/IMGUR} tag and your album will be more forum-friendly.

Thanks i made a test and forgot to edit back....

As a side-note, you made a 'lander' much like I'm planning when I eventually get to mission five. I'm still doing planning on mission one, I've almost got all the vessels ready to lift to resupply/prepare. I've also been doing the math on the EVE and, considering I have yet to visit anything outside of the Kerbin SOI, I'm hesitant to try a manned landing on EVE for mission two. I may give it a shot though, considering this challenge is the first one to encourage me to think big.

Have a preview:

http://imgur.com/a/AXuAb

Before this missions I had never been to another planet with a maned mission. Fun challenges and i learned allot during the process. Looking forward to see your missions and your satellites looks nice.

[700NitroXpress]

As a side-note, you made a 'lander' much like I'm planning when I eventually get to mission five. I'm still doing planning on mission one, I've almost got all the vessels ready to lift to resupply/prepare. I've also been doing the math on the EVE and, considering I have yet to visit anything outside of the Kerbin SOI, I'm hesitant to try a manned landing on EVE for mission two. I may give it a shot though, considering this challenge is the first one to encourage me to think big.

Before attempting Eve, look at what others have done for the mission. Seni's is on page 49 and mine is on page 48. A manned Eve lander can really push your designs and your computer to the limits.

[Quiana]

Before attempting Eve, look at what others have done for the mission. Seni's is on page 49 and mine is on page 48. A manned Eve lander can really push your designs and your computer to the limits.

I'll take a look, I saw those monster landers, I know EVE requires around 10,900 or so delta-v to lift from that island based on my calculations and some charts. As it is, I think my computer wouldn't be the issue with the EVE mission. Moreso the pilot's design skills.

Before this missions I had never been to another planet with a maned mission. Fun challenges and i learned allot during the process. Looking forward to see your missions and your satellites looks nice.

I appreciate the compliment, considering I spent probably more time designing them specifically than I did on their lifter vessel. PS: They are very precisely 1.26 tons, I fiddled with them to get everything to fit on that exact size (I could have had them MUCH lighter and still met all requirements, but it has to be 1.25 weight for the mission).

EDIT: I wonder if the changes from FAR would reduce that delta-V any... hmm. I need to send an unmanned test lander out there to check after mission one.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Quiana
I like to think

[700NitroXpress]

Finally, my mission 3 is ready to launch. Not sure how stable this thing is going to be, but hopefully I have enough fuel and nothing flies apart.

Note to self: update personal scores.

This is the worst flexing I've ever seen and the vessel still holds it together, it makes me uncomfortable just looking at it go back and forth like this. Ever time I'm expecting it to snap.

Edited April 9, 2014 by 700NitroXpress

[Quiana]

I had frustrating progress today on getting the core vessel ready for mission one. After four failed launches of the engine pods, I determined that FAR and the procedural fairings were not playing nicely, and it took me most of the night to get the two behaving well. I did manage to get the lander unit lifted and docked to the core vessel. Tomorrow, I get the refueling mission and engine pods sent up. Though I may need to redesign the engine pod delivery rocket due to the tendency to swing back and forth within its payload fairing. Additional braces might shore that up, but will make for much, much more interesting docking due to it being tight already.

Current progress:

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[Finwen]

This is the worst flexing I've ever seen and the vessel still holds it together, it makes me uncomfortable just looking at it go back and forth like this. Ever time I'm expecting it to snap.

Ouch. Thats make my Duna rover lifting plattform stable

I hope it holds together all thr way to Moho....

[700NitroXpress]

My Moho mission is going well so far. The ship held together all the way to Moho, but I was out of fuel so I had to launch 2 refueling missions before deploying the equipment and the landers. Here is the current progress. First landing on the other side of the planet is complete, fuel levels look good to achieve orbit again.

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[Finwen]

Mission 5 debrief:

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Mission 5 completed without problems. It was a smooth mission compared to the others

I started with construction of a lift/lander to help my Core ship to land and ascent from Duna.

I reused my big 20t Rover from Mission 4. och docked it to the core ship.

Launch the Duna lander ship and docked it to core ship.

After that i constructed a small lighter car. My 5 year old son helped with construction and named it Johannes car 2. Lanched and docked at a temporary spot.

We diced to use 2 cars so we did build and adapter to hold 2 vars at the end of the ship.

Launch the adapter and then the 3rd rover (Johannes car 3 no image of this launch)

I did build a small garage for one of the small rovers. Little woobly at launch but it worked

After that 0.23.5 was released so i constructed a new fuel module with the new big fuel tank. And i got an idea to reuse it later as a part for future Duna space station so i added 4 large and 4 medium docking ports. My NASA style launcher could only lift it empty....

After that i created a science lab and after liftof it was time to assembly my Duna ship with all modules at the right spot.

Time to refuel the ship and i did experiment with some of the new engines and made SLS launcher lookalike..

After a test fire with the Duna lander stage with more thrust i decided that using those make the ship instable so i ended up using the core ships weaker engine. Core ship was at front so it was draging all modules so it was very stable but the buurn to Duna took over 2 hours of real time.

At duna i did a shallow aerobrake and i needed to burn with my engines some to go into orbit.

I used Dunas atmosphere again to circularize the orbit nut ended up close to Ike so i had do dive deeper into dunas atmosphere to avoid Ike....

After reaching a stable orbit it was time to deploy all parts.

All 3 rovers had a heat shield each with deorbit engines.

First i landed the big rover and landed it without problems.

Second rover i did over shot the landing spot allot and landed it 67km away.....

But my son had a fun time driving it for an hour

3rd rover landed closer. Just under 1 km away.

Then i landed the garage module. Missed the spot with over 1 km but the rover could move to the garage And a small rover did fit into it too.

I managed to land the science lab realy close to the garage.

Now it was time to land the core ship. I didn design it to land but with the duna lander module i had extra thrust and landing legs. I had plenty of fuel so i didn't use the parashutes. Managed to land close to the garage to without wasting to much fuel.

The plan was to use the lander stage to aid the core ship to low Duna orbit. But i found it that with the core ship not fully fueled it could lift of by itself!

It still had plenty of fuel to reach orbit and then go home to Kerbin.

No refueling needed.

Only debris i had was the big fuel tank that i ended up as a core module for DSS (Duna space station)

Possible score:

Mission Completion: 500 points

Land a rover and a rover garage: 200 points

Land 2 rovers: 100 points

Land a science module of at least 6 tons: 50 points

Littering the system -5 point (fuel mode that became DSS)

Jet engines are for planes 5 points

Bring the Gang along for the ride 4*10 = 40 points. 5 Kerbals on core ship. all 5 returned to orbit.

NASA knows best 8 launched with Delta IV lookalike lifter.

Big Rover

Core ship Lander/Lifter

Small rover 1 (johannes car 2)

Small rover 2 (johannes car 3)

Adapter to hold 2 rovers

Garage

Fuel tank (empty)

Science lab

8*100 points.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Finwen

[700NitroXpress]

Alright guys, I've got a tasty one for for mission 6, coming soon. Finwen, I'm going through your mission report tonight. No Imgur?

[Finwen]

I had some problems with imgur but i solved it:

Looking forward to mission 6

Edited April 17, 2014 by Finwen

[700NitroXpress]

Leaderboards have been updated. Mission 6 should be up on Tuesday, I'm testing a few things with it at the moment.

[Finwen]

Leaderboards have been updated. Mission 6 should be up on Tuesday, I'm testing a few things with it at the moment.

The wait is long But i got time to build a new lifter (NASA Style) with 100t to LKO capacity.

Will mission 6 be hole in one? Fill a Mohole with asteroids

[700NitroXpress]

Mission 6 is up. Basically you need to build a rover and an SSTO and shield them from re-entry either by encasing them in a protective box, or have a shield that protects them as the enter the atmosphere. You drop the rover first, go exploring, then on the other side of the planet you drop the air ship and fly the distance over to the rover. You can go over the poles or you can go along the equator, your choice.

[Finwen]

I am inexperienced with planes in Kerbal but this challenge will make me allot better on building planes

I did allot of experiments yesterday and i got a bright(stupid) idea och building a VTOL plane in F35 style with a jet engine at front and possibility to turn the engines downward.

With some practices and right angle on engines it was easy to lift off vertically.

The big problems was to go from vertical flight to normal flight.

It almost always ended up like this...

If i had an option to control the thrust on front engine separately then it would be possible to go to normal flight easier.

It was a nice idea but i will rebuild it with some easier way to control it

[700NitroXpress]

If i had an option to control the thrust on front engine separately then it would be possible to go to normal flight easier.

It was a nice idea but i will rebuild it with some easier way to control it

You can kind of control the thrust on the front engine separately with the tweakable in the SPH. Right click on it in the SPH and you want to set the engine thrust limiter to something other than 100 until the aircraft acts right.

[Finwen]

I have no problem to lift of vertically but the problem is then i turn the engines from down position to backwards. Its very hard to fast enough control thrust on the forward engine to balance it. It was a cool idea.

I have constructed a new experimental plane called M52 (the one with thrust vectoring was M51). It has 2 downward mounted jet engines on the wings pointed down close to mass-centrum. I can easy lift of vertically with M52 and then turn on aft engines to pick up speed. After i have enough speed i can turn off the lift engines. After that i made it to orbit without problems with plenty of fuel to spare.

I have no idea how it will work on Laythe and my only atmospheric experience on Laythe is one aero braking with a small probe. Does it have enough fuel for Laythe mission? I guess it does but maybe i will add more margin.

I will refine my prototype tonight and then do a test flight to my space station and back to Kerbin.

[700NitroXpress]

Well laythe has less atmosphere than kerbin, less gravity, and I think it's smaller. Also, you only have to travel half the planet distance to the target LZ, so this should cut down on the overall fuel you need to carry. I'm trying to modify one of my planes for the mission, although I'm not doing a VTOL design. Instead, I'm doing standard landing, I have retro rockets to stop quickly once the wheels touch the ground so hopefully I'll be good.

[Darkona]

Nitro, can we have a list of approved mods/mod parts that can be used in the first post? I have a bunch of mods installed and would like to know which parts not to use, or which mods to uninstall. I like my game balanced overall but things can be different for this challenge.

Edit: I will happily provide a list of my mods with some explanation, both to see if they can work out and to tell other players of them in case they don't know them and see if they want to use them.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Darkona

[700NitroXpress]

Nitro, can we have a list of approved mods/mod parts that can be used in the first post? I have a bunch of mods installed and would like to know which parts not to use, or which mods to uninstall. I like my game balanced overall but things can be different for this challenge.

Edit: I will happily provide a list of my mods with some explanation, both to see if they can work out and to tell other players of them in case they don't know them and see if they want to use them.

Yeah, get that list with the descriptions so I know what you have. Right now I believe I've seen Mech Jeb, Engineer, Deadly re-entry, Kethane (not sure about advantages or disadvantages of this), FAR (maybe, I forgot what this is), protractor, docking assistant, and all mod parts are fine as long as they don't provide an unfair advantage over stock. So no fuel tanks that hold excessive fuel, or multi types of fuel, no mod engines that don't have a stock counter part, and I think mod struts are okay. I play all stock so I don't have a lot of knowledge about the mods.

[Hodo]

All FAR does is fix the aerodynamics in KSP so they don't react like a childs toy in water. It is advantage for anyone who understands how planes and rockets are supposed to work, not how they work in KSP.

[Quiana]

All FAR does is fix the aerodynamics in KSP so they don't react like a childs toy in water. It is advantage for anyone who understands how planes and rockets are supposed to work, not how they work in KSP.

It can also punish rockets with poor weight balance. To me it really should be a stock thing and I do hope that Squad corrects aerodynamics at some point. It also teaches you the slight benefits of a little weight on one side of the rocket to create a natural inclination to a gravity turn. It's almost majestic when you create a rocket that's balances just right so it slowly starts a turn as it gets up towards speed and keeps a gentle turning motion without any stick input (I fly joystick so I tend to actually feel like I'm flying it).

[700NitroXpress]

Ok, so FAR is fine to use then. What mods am I not addressing?