Returned from Eve - now what?

[kurja]

As the title says, I've managed a successful manned, 'capsuled' ascent from Eve. But - but, now what? I'm not really interested in say building huge stations or such just for sake of doing it, so I'm looking at new challenges. I haven't really used mods before apart from kerbal engineer, so what would you recommend? I'm thinking of "real solar system mod", but what goes well with that - a mod that adds a better aerodynamic model, is that the "FAR" mod? Deadly re-entry mod? Should I get new non-stock parts to go with those, and what else..? Please advice! =D

[barrenwaste]

Have you tried building stables of other crafts and pushing the boundries in search of the limits of their capabilities? For example, boats. For another, what is the fastest speed you can achieve, both in atmo and out with a probe. How fast can you go, while remaining stable, with a rover? How accurate can you build your replicas without resorting to mods? What is the smallest ship you can get to duna and back? Have you redesigned it to make it even smaller? Have you managed to Eva from the Mun to Kerbal orbit? How many Kerbals can you get airborne at one time with a single ship? What is the longest flight you can achieve without making an infiniglider?

[Tassyr]

Land on Laythe and return. I never could figure it out myself; I can get there, but I can't get home.

[kurja]

barrenwaste - building smaller and smaller is what I do anyway, isn't that like the first commandment of rocket building Speed records aren't really for me in this game...

Tassyr - Laythe? Hm, I think I've never landed a kerbal there. But is that really supposed to be more difficult than returning from Eve?

Can anyone acquainted with mods comment on the mods I mentioned?

[Demon_82]

The real sized Kerbin mod actually is being developed to provide a reallistic experience, having in mind the use of FAR, DR, and some plugins more that provide real fuel capacity and other things like that, they state what plugins in their main thread. I've not tried it yet, but it seems to be a whole different harder game, using reallistic ships they had issues at first even getting into orbit, may be the challenge you need now

[celem]

You are correct in that FAR is the improved atmospheric model. That and deadly re-entry will effectively mean redesigning the majority of your craft to meet the new physics.

These 2 mods will probably add a lot of 'replayability'.

When it comes to adding non-stock parts, you may find that the authors of these 2 mods have recommendations of their own. I would say that things like fairings are going to be essential to streamline your payloads, i'm not actually certain if FAR comes with such. You might want to look at b9 aerospace if in-atmosphere is your thing. For rocket parts to play with I often use NovaPunch, though its quite a bulky package (you can always trim some of the un-needed parts)

Theres also a mod floating around that adds several more planets out past eeloo, they are particularly tricky to get to and explore and add further 'eve-return' level challenges. I forget the exact name of this mod, but the main new planet added is called sentaur and you can probably fish it up with a forum search

[magnemoe]

barrenwaste - building smaller and smaller is what I do anyway, isn't that like the first commandment of rocket building Speed records aren't really for me in this game...

Tassyr - Laythe? Hm, I think I've never landed a kerbal there. But is that really supposed to be more difficult than returning from Eve?

Can anyone acquainted with mods comment on the mods I mentioned?

Laythe is far easier than Eve, now an grand tour with one ship takes some planning, I made a 666 ton ship on pad who was able to land on all planets and moons except Jool.

[Danish_Savage]

What about Tylo. Its basically er reversed Eve. Eve is easy to land on and unforgiving during takeoff, while landing on Tylo.... Well, its hard.

[jsfalconero]

If you've never been to Laythe it's worth a go. I'm currently working on an SSTO seaplane to take to Laythe then return after a water landing. It's not challenging from a dV stanpoint but the craft design is crazy hard. Seaplanes are hard, SSTO seaplanes are harder, SSTO seaplanes capable of safely landing on Laythe may be impossible. I'm surely going to find out though

[espenrik]

Build a bigger Eve return vehicle. Maybe capable to take off from lower elevation.

That's what I went for after I did the "normal" Eve ascent. This time a 3 man capsule... Doubt it will make it from sea level, but maybe from 1km.

Stock + mechjeb and docking cam.

[Richy teh space man]

What about Tylo. Its basically er reversed Eve. Eve is easy to land on and unforgiving during takeoff, while landing on Tylo.... Well, its hard.

This. Tylo is very difficult to land safely on, but easier then Eve to take off from due to lack of atmosphere. (So long as you have enough fuel left).

[magnemoe]

This. Tylo is very difficult to land safely on, but easier then Eve to take off from due to lack of atmosphere. (So long as you have enough fuel left).

Eve is an building challenge if you can land and take of from Kerbin with an premade lander you can do it on Eve to, Tylo is an piloting challenge.

Now accurate landing on Tylo

[-RanZ-]

If you can do Eve you can do Tylo... probably with same lander

[Nao]

If you finished return trips from Moho, Tylo!, Eeloo and Eve, i think the next "level" are probably return trips from Ascension, Inaccessable and maybe some other planets i've yet to go to in "Planet Factory" mod.

[kurja]

Many thanks to everyone who posted here, I really can't remember having sent kerbals to Tylo and Laythe (probes, for sure) so I think I'll (re)visit those first, then, if I dare, plunge in the world of space flight around Earth-sized Kerbin =)

Btw who said Eve was easy to land on? This was my first entry to that world with a manned craft, and I tried maybe 4 times before I managed to land without breaking off any mission-critical parts of the ship! On the last go, just one parachute got torn off on deployment but I was able to cut one off the opposite side to keep balance, and used engines to compensate for the lost drag, ultimately destroying a couple landing legs but nothing else =D Well okay I missed the mountain I wanted to land on, ending up at an elevation of about 2km. Ascent on the other hand - well it just worked on the first go, with fuel left over.

[Kinger]

There's some neat mods that rearrange the tech trees to make them a little more realistic/challenging. They can be a little overwhelming, especially if you haven't used many mods before, but it's worth looking into if you want to give them a look.

Other than that, I'd recommend giving Kethane a look. It's a mod that adds the kethane (bet you didn't see that coming!) resource to various planets/moons throughout the solar system. You can build ships to scan for and mine kethane, which you can then process into fuel. It adds a lot to the game and gives space stations and bases a real purpose - you can set up a mining operation on Minmus, for example, then create a big ol' refueling station in Minmus' orbit that can process the kethane into usable fuel. That way you don't have to worry about spending a lot of dV getting into Kerbin's orbit, since all it'd take is a quick trip over to Minmus to refuel.

[alacrity]

I would say as far as mods go

Kethane - For really complex mission objectives and long term mission planning nothing beats it.

Remote Tech - If you like to build small with dedicated purpose Remote tech is the way to go.

New ship types - Firespitter and Hooligan labs. Discover the joys of propellers and lighter then air craft.

kOS - Programmable Flight computers

FERRAM - Realistic aerodynamics... Not sure if adds difficulty or removes it but a lot of plane pilots swear by it

Alacrity

[Martijn404]

I returned from Eve's surface at 400m altitude with a 120t lander but unfortunately, with the new landing legs, its back to the drawing board there...

Anyway my point is, landing lower on Eve's surface is increasinly harder. How low can you go?

How about returning a "Materials Bay Observation from Eve's Ocean's" to Kerbin?

Youd have to build something involving a boat, a rover, an ascent vehicle, and a way of connecting all those parts together. Enough for an evening or 2 I'd think!

[FenrirWolf]

Get into building SSTOs and VTOLs. Or SSTO VTOLs!

[El wonso]

I recommend Krag's Planet Factory mod.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I recommend Krag's Planet Factory mod.

This, or Eve return.

BACKWARDS.

Or rocket planes

[FlamedSteak]

Build a fully reusable craft, land it on Duna and return it to Kerbin.

[kurja]

Build a fully reusable craft, land it on Duna and return it to Kerbin.

Single stage interplanetary return? That would be just nasty, because... lag. Projects like that could be a lot of fun to try but flying crafts made of more than 3 hundred-ish parts just isn't very enjoyable with all that 2fps action

Been reading up about mods a bit, and remotetech seems rather interesting...

[totalitor]

........Anyway my point is, landing lower on Eve's surface is increasinly harder. How low can you go?....

Sea level! I made it.

[jsfalconero]

flying crafts made of more than 3 hundred-ish parts just isn't very enjoyable with all that 2fps action

Hmm, if it's just Duna you're aiming for I'm not sure you would need 300 parts. Granted, SSTO rockets are an absolute nightmare, but a single stage to Duna and back is very feasible. Doubly more so if docking is not considered "staging."

I would personally take the spirit of that challenge though to be a Scott Manley-esque reusable launch vehicle to assemble a transfer+lander vehicle. Transfer to Duna, Appollo style landing and return except that the Duna lander returns to Kerbin (after all, any lander capable of landing on Duna ought to be able to land on Kerbin as well) while the transfer stage remains in orbit ready to be refueled and used again!

Another fun challenge is to go for the Armada emblem -have multiple craft launch during a single transfer window. It's harder than it sounds because you have to juggle multiple ships at once and sometimes the optimum time for a given maneuver may overlap among ships.