Where have you never been?

[r4pt0r]

Vacuum is an advantage in the design phase for Tylo, nukes let you pack in a lot of dV. Eve is definitely tougher design wise.

Is a Tylo decent plausible for 2 nukes and a lander can? im asking for a friend you know...

[NecroBones]

Is a Tylo decent plausible for 2 nukes and a lander can? im asking for a friend you know...

There are some successful designs out there. I was never comfortable doing it that way with my piloting skills, personally. When you start dealing with TWRs near 1, the margin of error is quite small. For example, somewhere on the forum a while back, I saw a design that had a Tylo-relative TWR that started out less than 1, and would just start to tick above 1 at the point of landing. Now that's some careful planning.

The easiest method to construct and fly, IMHO, is an asparagus or drop-tank design with chemical rockets that give you a decent TWR. But it will of course be larger and less efficient.

[Red Iron Crown]

Is a Tylo decent plausible for 2 nukes and a lander can? im asking for a friend you know...

I haven't tried that particular combination, but preliminary calculations look like marginal TWR with 6km/s dV in a single stage. Would be easier in multiple stages or with another engine.

[Kasuha]

Is a Tylo decent plausible for 2 nukes and a lander can? im asking for a friend you know...

It is, some time ago I managed to land on Tylo and launch back to orbit using such lander of someone's design but it was quite a challenge to keep the fuel usage low enough to finish the task, its low TWR meant I was losing a lot of fuel on keeping my altitude until I clear the horizontal velocity. So I would probably go for more thrust.

The easiest method to construct and fly, IMHO, is an asparagus or drop-tank design with chemical rockets that give you a decent TWR. But it will of course be larger and less efficient.

Drop tank yes, but asparagus is very, very bad idea for a lander. Ironically, I learned that on Tylo.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Kasuha

[Red Iron Crown]

Drop tank yes, but asparagus is very, very bad idea for a lander. Ironically, I learned that on Tylo.

? I've had good experiences with asparagus or onion staged Tylo ships, just have to be careful about landing gear placement. I have fallen into the trap of staging away landing gear on the descent.

[cantab]

Asparagus setups tend to lose TWR as they drop stages. I can see why that would be bad on a lander. It's mitigated by designs that use a more powerful core engine though.

[Red Iron Crown]

I forget that most people use the same land/tank combo for the center stage of their asparaguses. I usually use a more powerful engine or less fuel to keep TWR about the same.

[Kasuha]

? I've had good experiences with asparagus or onion staged Tylo ships, just have to be careful about landing gear placement. I have fallen into the trap of staging away landing gear on the descent.

Technically, drop tanks are kind of asparagus staging where you drop tanks with infinitesimally small engines. But if I assume "asparagus" means dropping identical stages consisting of a tank and an engine, then asparagus staging means the ship gradually loses TWR because the payload stays the same and there's just fewer engines to push it. That means you either have way too much TWR when you start, or you don't have enough when you're getting near the landing point.

Asparagus staging is great for ascent phase where you need a lot of TWR initially and gradually less as you're getting to orbit. For landing, you need your TWR to increase, not decrease.

[Red Iron Crown]

Ah, differing definitions of asparagus. I think of asparagus as any arrangement that draws all fuel from two tanks at a time before staging them away; I tune the TWR change as needed by making the core stage different from the asparagus ring. For my Tylo designs I've had a higher TWR core stage so that overall TWR increases after staging. I definitely agree that a falling TWR is a Bad Idea for descent stages.

[NecroBones]

Yes, I never thought of Asparagus as requiring identical stages. I don't see any problem with using smaller engines on the outer stages, and gaining TWR as they stage off, as a reverse of what you would do for ascent.

[TYRT]

Never landed on jool's surface, lol

[Idrryl]

I've been on every single celestial body in Kerbol at least twice

[Rocketscience101]

Moho, Eve, Dres, and Eloo.

[James_Eh]

Gilly. Too impatient.

[Liowen]

Never landed on jool's surface, lol

I crashed into Jool's surface, well under it actually....

[MisterDoubleSevens]

Anywhere outside Kerbin's SOI that isn't Duna.

[cantab]

I have now been to Duna, but I'm 0/2 on walking away from the "landing".

[Fleb]

I have only been to the Kerbin system and Duna, I want to save the others for when the game is classed as done. I spend most of my time playing these days making silly spaceplanes.

[[email protected]]

I've visited every body in the system, although I haven't yet landed anything on Moho or Tylo, and haven't done a manned return for Eve, Vall, Bop, and Pol-but have visited each with probes (including probes that could return from pol, bop, and vall).

[LoganMalone]

I've never navigated the riverbeds on Kerbin. I long to find their genesis and navigate to their river deltas. I've been to the top of a lot of mountains and inside old volcanoes or impact crater sights.

[JDCollie]

I take a very conservative approach overall ( I often play with Remote Tech, which encourages a lot of infrastructure developement before expanding. ) I've been to Jool, but none of it's moons, and I've never reached Dres or Moho. ( I flew by Moho once, but my approach was terrible so I lacked the dV to enter orbit. )

[Creeperchair]

For me, the game usually crashes before my craft can. I built a stock-part craft which would have dropped a lander with monopropellant descent engines and the large landing legs, which then would drop a rover, like a Skycrane that lands intact. There was a light lander built around a Mk I lander can, with PB Ion engines, linear RCS thrusters and probe landing legs. There were 4 small probes which were deployed in orbit, with 4 seperatrons to give them varying orbits. I have 1-2 in Duna orbit. The rest are in solar orbit. The lander pair didn't have anywhere near enough monopropellant to separate and land properly or safely. It did land 'safely' while docked. I also have performed a 600 m Mün flyby, with 100% more lithobraking. I now realize I have safely landed on Duna, but not on the Mün.

[Cuky]

I just today went out of Kerbin SOI for the first time. My unmanned probe is going to orbit the Sun with very low periapsis so I can take some science data from there. I am now close to my Moho window where I will send an unmanned lander to gather some science from there. I had the technology for trips out of Kerbin SOI for quite some time now, but I just wasn't brave enough.

[KevinW42]

Manned, I have only been to Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, Gilly, Duna, Ike, and Vall (all have had at least one successful return). I have never sent anything at all to Moho, Dres, Tylo, Bop, Pol, or Eeloo.

[SorryDave]

I have orbited the inner planets with Kerbals. I also have landed Kerbals on the Mun, Minmus, and Duna.

I have not sent any vehicle beyond Duna, but this will soon change.