Biome Hopper Challenge (Open for v0.90!)

[Claw]

For a bit more of a challenge I decided to tackle Eeloo, so built the Krabby Combo

Oooh, nice to see an Eeloo entry. Nice job with the new design.

Added to the achievement board!

Cheers,

~Claw

[Jasonden]

Here's an entry that hits all 5 Duna biomes. It's a 'hopping rover', I suppose -- after it nabs each biome it needs to launch to dock with the orbiting lab module to reset the Goo canister. It then refuels and lands again.

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Having done this, I now think that the better solution for Duna would be to land a bigger rover at a single spot and to rove to each biome. Since 'craters' only occurs at the fringes of 'poles', you can get all 5 biomes by landing at a spot that has lowlands, midlands, and highlands all within spitting distance of the polar transition. And with a single module you can do without the dumb lab module, bring all the goo home, and do it all at a lower tech level without docking. Maybe I'll try this later on

Edited December 30, 2014 by Jasonden

[Foxster]

^{Being out of school at the moment I have been playing far too much KSP! So I decided to have one more go at this challenge and tackle Kerbin, which in a way is harder than the low gravity planets and moons.}

^{I have been working on two designs.}

^{The first was a monster where I put 8 SSTO capable ships on top of a super-heavy lifter. Then I dropped off each and set them down in each biome. After the science I took the SSTO back to orbit and landed it back at KSC - dunno why really, could have just recovered them but I got carried away. Anyway, that turned into a huge lag-monster and remains incomplete.}

^{So, the current plan is to put an SSTO on top of a lifter and boost it to orbit. Also on the lifter is 8 lander stages something like what was left behind on the moon on the Apollo missions. The SSTO is docked to one of these, it then uses that's fuel to land. After the science is done, the SSTO drops the lander and flies to orbit, where it docks with the mother ship and collects a new lander tank stage. Science is dropped off at a capsule. The SSTO then sets off again for the next biome. When all the biomes have been visit then the capsule that has the stored science detaches from the mother ship and drops to the KSC.}

^{So far I have built and tested the SSTO (uses RAPIERS) and the disposable lander. Just need to bolt it all on a super-heavy lifter and see if it flies.}

^{Wish me luck}

[Voculus]

Jasonden, good work on the Duna Biome Hopper. I've been beating my head against a wall for the past couple days trying to come up with a plane/glider design, but there's just no good way I can see to keep it light and maneuverable enough, while still allowing it to return to Kerbin with all kinds of gear on board. With that said, I've set Laythe in my sights, because I'm a spaceplane addict, and it'll fit the bill.

[Claw]

Here's an entry that hits all 5 Duna biomes.

Oh my. Sorry for the late update. Nice job with Duna! I always love EVA shots with that planet in the background.

I wasn't sure if your craft was named DoDuna1 or Duna Biome Rover, but you've been added to the achievement board! Nice work!

For Foxter and Voculus, keep it up! The boards are starting to fill in, but there's still lots of places to go.

Cheers,

~Claw

[sal_vager]

I think I'll stick this for January, good luck everyone and well done Claw

[Claw]

I think I'll stick this for January, good luck everyone and well done Claw

Woohoo!

In honor of the sticky, I was thinking about making a mission patch or badge for this challenge. Unfortunately I have very little (or maybe even negative) artistic ability. Anyone out there good at making forum badges?

Happy New Year!

~Claw

[Voculus]

OK, where to begin? I wanted to send a spaceplane to Laythe, but in order to get there and back without nukes, and without overburdening the ship, I needed infrastucture in place. The short version, is that I sent a small Karbonite refinery there to produce fuel on the ground, and also sent a no-frills fuel tank to sit in orbit, so I could fill up the gas tank on the way home. I also sent a fuel tender into Kerbin orbit to refuel before heading out. One cool sidenote: I got to use a 5m tank and an appropriately monster engine to send the orbiting gas station to the Jool system. Quite nice!

So the costs of everything needed to make this mission happen are as follows:

Refinery: 188,112

Fuel Tender: 74,042

Orbital Gas Station: 246,700

Laythe Surveyor Spaceplane: 295,921 (recovered)

Total cost: 508,854

The really cool part was (so I thought) is that there were no wheels on the spaceplane! It floated on lo-fi's anti-grav repulsors, and would anchor itself to the ground with KAS winches. It was a bit of a bear to stop precicely, but I had the option of flying at Mach 1.1 just over the water's surface, or I could take it way up for sub orbital hops. The problems started when I saved my game, while the ship was attached via fuel pipe to the Karbonite refinery, and also moored to the beach with grappling hooks. This caused some bad joojoo, and all my attempts to unhook the fuel pipe led to a flying Kerbal, and a broken ship. Over and over, no matter what I tried. At that point, I hadn't gathered any science, so I nuked the old plane, and Hyper-edited a new plane with regular landing gear in it's exact place. Wasn't too happy with that, but there's the full disclosure.

Laythe supposedly has five biomes, but in actuality, there are only four. The Crescent Bay is a myth.

I tried something a bit funky with the design, using B9 procedural wings, and SABRE engines. The cargobays were stuffed with science gear, and a couple of KAS winches, which ultimately were not needed. The rest of the hull was stock.

OK, too many words. Now here are too many pictures!

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Edited January 2, 2015 by Voculus

[Superfluous J]

OK, too many words. No here are too many pictures!

Instead of:

[noparse]http://imgur.com/a/H5Rjm#0[/noparse]

Do:

[noparse]

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[/noparse]

And you'll get:

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[Foxster]

Well, as promised, one last go at this challenge.

Decided to do Kerbin...but in a slightly different way.

Still within the rules (I hope) of using a single launch, I made a dummy ship and attached 8 orbit-capable ships with science landers. I decoupled each ship, launched them all to orbit and then landed them at 8 biomes. Kinda used a mothership that never left the ground .

Here's the 100% stock craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lojm10qpij4iy02/Kerbin%20explorer%201.craft?dl=0

And the photos: http://s395.photobucket.com/user/FoxMouldy/slideshow/Kerbin%20biomes

PS: It can be a teensy weensy bit laggy when first launched from the VAB

Edited January 1, 2015 by Foxster

[Voculus]

Foxy, I have to admit that when I saw your pic of the ship tipped over in the water, I thought to myself, "Where is your octo strut god now?!"

[Foxster]

Foxy, I have to admit that when I saw your pic of the ship tipped over in the water, I thought to myself, "Where is your octo strut god now?!"

lol

Kinda am a bit of a octo strut freak. They allow for a wider base compared to landing struts, so less chance of tipping, and they weigh zero. Does up the part count a bit though

Edited January 1, 2015 by Foxster

[Claw]

I wanted to send a spaceplane to Laythe...

At that point, I hadn't gathered any science, so I nuked the old plane, and Hyper-edited a new plane with regular landing gear in it's exact place.

Awesome ship! I can accept that, since you flew the first one there. It's supposed to be fun and not miserable! You've been added to the front page, again!

Well, as promised, one last go at this challenge. ...

Still within the rules (I hope) of using a single launch, I made a dummy ship and attached 8 orbit-capable ships with science landers.

Hmm...Not exactly what I had in mind... I was imagining something different for orbital drop pods, but this works too. I did intend on seeing other people's wacky contraptions and you definitely delivered! Nice job, you've been added to the front page, also again!

Cheers!

~Claw

[Jasonden]

I wasn't sure if your craft was named DoDuna1 or Duna Biome Rover

Yeah, funny thing I had called it Duna Biome Rover in the game. But then later on when I hit that 'craters' biome and realized a more efficient way to do it I came up with the new name that I could later append with a '2' for a possible forthcoming entry. Stay tuned

[Voculus]

I've been toying with the idea of making a colossal mothership that can deposit six manned science pods on the surface of Moho. Even then, there are still twelve biomes on Moho! On top of that, the science landers need to be ableto get back into orbit, and dock with the mothership. It'll have to be huge. It's going to take every bit of my Kerbal prowess to pull off, but I have a good feeling!

[Claw]

No need to redock. Just EVA over the kerbals with the goods.

Hop-Hop-Hop!

[Leibniz]

Here is a low-tech, low-cost mission to 6 Minmus biomes.

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I designed it in my normal-mode career game before I upgraded the VAB or launch pad or R&D, so there were some hard constraints I had work around.

30 parts => 1 wheel should be enough

18 tonnes => use jets because they have ridiculous ISP as a first stage (I measured it at 32000s at sea level, see also here and here)

<100 science tech => no powered wheels, no turbojets, no docking ports, lots of goo, no worries

Craft name: Minmus Flea

Stock (plus Kerbal Alarm Clock, Chatterer, In Flight Waypoints, Texture Replacer, Environmental Visual Enhancements, Active Texture Management, Raster Prop Monitor)

Minmus, 6 biomes

Cost 18,748

Science Tier 5

[Niknack]

Craft Name: Science Project

Non-Stock

Celestial Body: Kerbin, Mun, Minmus, Ike, Bop, & Pol

# of Biomes: 50

Kerbin: 9

Mun: 15

Minmus:9

Ike: 8

Bop: 5

Pol: 4

Cost of Mission (including RCS Refueling ship): 2,617,894

http://imgur.com/a/

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#1

I realized after the fact that EVA reports from the surface where not required. Not Including the surface samples, this little mission would have gave roughly 14,000 Science. In hindsight, I wish I had performed this mission in science mode and not sandbox mode to see exactly how much.

Also, On one of the moons, maybe Minmus, when I transferred data in orbit a message saying it could not transfer some data appeared. I'm not sure what happened, but it caused 5 units of data to go missing. So, only 200 (160 without EVA's) units of science where on board after mission instead of 205, plus the 9 landers around Kerbin amounting to 45 (36 without EVA's)

I was really hoping to do Gilly. The engineer who forgot to add parachutes is getting fired, that's for sure!

[Claw]

Here is a low-tech, low-cost mission to 6 Minmus biomes.

That's a great little ship! And pretty cheap for as much as you did. Personally I've left my career mode VAB at Tier 1 also just to see what it forces me into.

Nice job, you've been added to the front page!

I did want to double check though, were any of your mods needed for flight? You have several, and they don't look like they were used or are needed, but I wanted to make sure.

Cheers,

~Claw

[Claw]

Craft Name: Science Project

This is really amazing. I expected I would see something like this eventually, but wow!

I actually haven't added you to the front page yet, because this seems like it needs a new category. It doesn't quite fit into the layout I currently have...So I'm going to have to think about how to put this in a proper place.

No worries on the exact science count. I left that out as a scoring factor so that people wouldn't focus on any particular celestial body for the sake of score.

Also, I see you have MJ. Did you actually use MJ for any of this? My rules are a little loose in this department, in that I didn't want to force people to uninstall mods as long as they aren't being used for the mission. If you used it, that's fine too. Just double checking to make sure it gets annotated correctly.

Nicely done, and welcome to the forums!

Cheers,

~Claw

[Foxster]

I've been toying with the idea of making a colossal mothership that can deposit six manned science pods on the surface of Moho. Even then, there are still twelve biomes on Moho! On top of that, the science landers need to be ableto get back into orbit, and dock with the mothership. It'll have to be huge. It's going to take every bit of my Kerbal prowess to pull off, but I have a good feeling!

I've toyed with something similar but for Eve.

Turned into a nightmare! I managed to make the lightest possible Eve lifter I could and then bolted four of them (max I could possibly think I could manage to lift) and then found I couldn't get the thing off Kerbin, no matter how big a lifter I used .

Moho has much lower gravity though. I haven't tried it but I'd have thought you could cover at least a few biomes with one hopper, then take it back to orbit. No?

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I see you have MJ. Did you actually use MJ for any of this? My rules are a little loose in this department, in that I didn't want to force people to uninstall mods as long as they aren't being used for the mission. If you used it, that's fine too. Just double checking to make sure it gets annotated correctly.

I wonder if it might be an idea to permit MJ and still get included in the stock category? Some of these missions are unbearably difficult/time-consuming to fly without it. Doesn't alter the craft at all, unlike the the other parts mods, which could include almost any kind of OP parts.

[Leibniz]

I used the alarm clock to stop me time warping through maneuver nodes and SoI changes. The rest were just cosmetic for this trip.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

So, it took a little while to make the flight, and then a much bigger while to get these images curated and uploaded, but here they are, the Sky Princess and the Sky Princess Tier 5 (TAC-LS, Firespitter instead of USI, Hooligan Labs), visiting all nine biomes (in 0.25).

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Tallying up the cost of the resources they expended (food, water and enriched uranium), the mission costs are: 40.6 funds (39.7 from enriched uranium, 0.9 from food, 0.001 from water) for the Sky Princess, and 1.3 (mostly from food) for the Sky Princess Tier 5. Why the difference in life support costs? Because the pilot of the Sky Princess could get out (thanks to the ladder, and to the probe core -- the probe core, by the way, was attached to be a control reference point, as I had to roll the command pod a little to put the hatch on top), and could hop back into the lab for processing data, the Sky Princess only needs two crew, while the Sky Princess Tier 5 needs a full-time pilot plus two for the lab. You need about 56 or 23 thousand funds to launch either mission (respectively), but most of that is recovered. I could have been much more efficient with both missions, the original Sky Princess especially, but I had it follow the Tier 5 as a possible rescue vessel (it had 3 spare seats) and the Tier 5 was limited to flying during the daytime only. I was also juggling a few other missions whose critical maneuvers could not be delayed, so the crews sometimes had to take a day off.

I didn't think to plant flags at the landing sites until I was about halfway through, but the route was to head north to catch the water, shore, and grasslands a little ways away from KSC, then west to the highlands and mountains, further west to the desert, north to the tundra and ice caps, and then south again (completing the "great circle") to the Badlands. At least, that was my thinking starting out. The Tier 5 Sky Princess had a maximum ceiling of ~1500 meters with the envelope at 100% buoyancy, and could be coaxed to ~1700 meters with body lift at full speed, but I was really worried that I might not actually get high enough to reach the "mountain" biome. You can see that I did, but it was a near thing. In any case, I still had to take multiple extended detours around mountain ranges and islands (which the original Sky Princess cleared with ease, with a ceiling upwards of 5 km). A couple times, I thought I had found passes, but had to turn around and backtrack. I was probably tensest during the trip to the badlands -- I figured that I could take the Tier 5 through the equatorial river valley rather than swing way north and east to avoid the mountains, but this required some tricky flying to avoid the sides. Fortunately, I had toggle-reverse-thrust bound to the brakes action group, so the Tier 5 could stop on a dime (no way could I have done this with the original -- but I didn't have to, since that one could fly over anything).

There was also the struggle of disembarking -- apparently, ladders are stupendously advanced technology to the Kerbals, so the only way to leave was through the bottom hatch of the lab (and the cockpit, but then there would be no way to get back in), but the lab hung too close to the ground to be used when landed, so I had to put a Kerbal on the ladder, land, and then get off. Fortunately, there was enough clearance to get back on the ladder without having to put the airship off the ground. (You'll see a couple of images depicting that in the Tier 5 mission record.)

Here are some extra pictures, including the reunion at the end of the mission, a bad water landing (that lab is fragile), the Sky Princess's speed record (a top speed of 136.1 m/s, or Mach 0.4, with the engines at full throttle and hitting RCS-forward -- I actually set the engines a little higher than the CM so that they would counter the pitch-up moment at high speeds), a couple of flybys (I had thought that Distant Object Enhancement would let me see the Sky Princess from outside of physics distance, but maybe that only works for things in orbit), travel through the river valley, and a few shots I thought looked pretty (EVE + AVP Interstellar).

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EDIT: I've got something similar in mind for Eve -- not originally intended as a biome hopper, but it will function as one. Those of you who follow space news will know what I mean when I say "HAVOC"...

Edited January 4, 2015 by Kerbas_ad_astra
A final note...

[Niknack]

This is really amazing. I expected I would see something like this eventually, but wow!

I actually haven't added you to the front page yet, because this seems like it needs a new category. It doesn't quite fit into the layout I currently have...So I'm going to have to think about how to put this in a proper place.

No worries on the exact science count. I left that out as a scoring factor so that people wouldn't focus on any particular celestial body for the sake of score.

Also, I see you have MJ. Did you actually use MJ for any of this? My rules are a little loose in this department, in that I didn't want to force people to uninstall mods as long as they aren't being used for the mission. If you used it, that's fine too. Just double checking to make sure it gets annotated correctly.

Nicely done, and welcome to the forums!

Cheers,

~Claw

Thanks Claw!

I did use MJ for pretty much everything, except for the landings. For some reason, MJ was treating all the moons like it was accounting for aerobraking or something.

Also which i forgot to mention, was my use of Kerbal Joint Reinforcement.

Decide what you will. I had a lot of fun on this mission and fun sharing

[Foxster]

There must be a better way to do Eve...

Basically its two Eve land-and-return-to-orbit ships on top of a very big lifter.

100% stock craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d3vewwop1744q2n/Eve%20new%20lifter%208.craft?dl=0

Mission report photos: http://s395.photobucket.com/user/FoxMouldy/slideshow/Eve

Obviously this doesn't scale. I couldn't even get three landers off the pad.

So, I need some input on another (stock) way to tackle Eve.