Moho, Dres, Eeloo... No Atmosphere, No Moons, No Game

[CalMacDa]

I had a ship, prepared to get all they way out to dres, and I didn't add a back up docking port... The engines couldn't fire. they were getting blocked! I tried repositioning the lander but I just had to give up on the mission...

[Rocket Farmer]

Eeloo is my favourite for sentimental reasons. My first mun mission was a debacle that left poor Jeb stranded on the surface. After a much more rigerous design phase bringing excel to bear I designed a great rescue mission that easilyuk brought Jeb home.

After some pencilling I realized that that design was good enough to land a Kerbal on Eeloo and return. So my 1st trip outside of Kerbin SOI was sending Jeb to Eeloo and back. Still my most epic mission even after visiting all of the planet's especially as I did it without knowing how to rendezvous.

So much learned in that mission and it can eyes how epically large the game was.

[CalMacDa]

Went to, landed on, and returned from Eeloo and Dres, but only crossed the SoI of Moho due to poor transfers. I could definitely land and return if I wanted to, but I just don't feel like it.

Moho is really tough with transfers

[skrit manfrat]

Dres doesn't exist

attempt no landing there

[GeorgeG]

Inspired by this thread, I finally flew a mission to Dres. It was the only planet I'd not landed on.

Made up a lander using the Mk2 cockpit, and using some .625 meter tanks thanks to "tweakscale" scaling down some FL-T800 tanks to 50%.

Most importantly, made up a "flying rover" named Grasshopper, to be used for flying thru and exploring the canyon, plus a crater farther away. It used micro landing struts mounted to deploy horizontally, to help keep it from tipping over if it landed on a steep slope.

More pics in the album below.

- GeorgeG

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[CalMacDa]

Mk2? Why? Why would you do that? makes no sense

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Mk2? Why? Why would you do that? makes no sense

Bodies without atmospheres make no sense. Moons make no sense. Mk2 cockpits make no sense. For heaven's sake, open you mind man

[Hannu]

Mk2? Why? Why would you do that? makes no sense

What is the problem? He made an interesting mission by the way he felt good. There is never sense in computer gaming. It is entertainment.

[GeorgeG]

I_Killed_Jeb and Hannu, thanks for the comments.

Mk2? Why? Why would you do that? makes no sense

Because some people go nuts when others use MOD pods instead of stock? Now is there a subculture to that, some having a problem with using a STOCK part in a creative way such as a cockpit for anything that is not a "plane"?

Wow, if you do not like my use of a Mk2 Cockpit, you will absolutely hate the way I used the old original mK3 cockpit for my favorite workhorse lander, named Synchronicity. See my earlier message (message #51, page 6), the mission albums for Eeloo and Moho starred that lander (my favorite design), and also used it in a complex mission to Eve (it did not land on Eve but did lots of other stuff plus Gilly).

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/105885-Moho-Dres-Eeloo-No-Atmosphere-No-Moons-No-Game?p=1646229&viewfull=1#post1646229

When I started playing KSP in version .16, the Mk3 pod weighed 1 ton, carrying 3 Kerbals. That was the absolutely lightest way to fly 3 Kerbals inside a pod, not much more than using a single Kerbal Mk-1 pod.

By .18 the mass was increased to 3.5 tons. But the Mk1-2 Command pod weighed 4 tons, so it was still 1/2 ton lighter to carry 3 Kerbals. And even the new Mk3 pod weighs less than the Mk1-2 pod.

Also I am a big space shuttle fan, so I liked the look. And for piloting, the black "belly" side and white upper side makes it easier to see the roll orientation than for anything else. And…. it even looks more realistic (to me, which is all that counts) when used as a lander because the windows make more sense for a crew member to look out of to see the surface for landing than any of the other pods.

An exception is the recent Mk2 Cockpit upgrade……. that also looks worthy. The "lander can" is nice… but the field of view out of that one little window is almost a joke. And the Mk2 cockpit weighs 6/10 ton less than the Mk2 Lander Can pod.

Back to the Mk3 cockpit, the rest of the Synchronicity lander design I built around it, the clustered Asparagus tanks, extra items carried along the sides (rovers, or mini-landers, or probes, or all the above), plus the "Forward Service Module" , I just really like the design. In version .23, I made up reproductions of the Synchronicity Landers. In the pic below, the original was like the one at the lower right. I later made a monster that had clustered 2 meter tanks, but then refined it to the design seen at the upper left. That was used in various modified forms for many missions. Then having made the reproductions, I made up a "new" one as seen in the middle which was lighter and could make use of rendezvous and docking with a transfer stage in orbit around the planet, which was not possible when I made the first one, and that I did not get into doing for planetary missions until later. So that means the version reproduced at the far left deorbited to, landed on, took off from, and returned to Kerbin from as far away as Eeloo and Moho without docking, all by itself.

However, the new Mk3 cockpit has the front attachment node offset from the rear, so the CG is affected if I put any significant mass on the nose node. So, unlike the old pod, so I can't do the Forward Service Module without needing to kludge together something on the opposing side to keep it in balance when thrusting. So that is one reason why in my recent jump from 23.0 to using .90, I made a totally new lander rather than deal with that problem. And the mass increase yet again to 3.9 tons was not fun. So by downsizing from 3 Kerbals in the Mk3 cockpit to 2 in the Mk2 cockpit, the pod mass is nearly half. Although I don't get to use the Forward Service Module feature with it.

The Mk2 cockpit lander for this Dres mission does look a lot nicer on reentry than anything else that still has tanks and engines attached to it, this new lander does not have anything hanging outside into the airflow when it re-enters nose first (well, a little bit of the landing leg footpads but that's as much as I can fold them in without sacrificing deployment span for landing).

But I'll use "real pods" too. Awhile back, in .23, I wanted to make up a totally new lander with a Nuclear engine in the center. So, that meant using two or more pods on the outside. I ended up making it into a Quad lander, with four Mk1 lander cans, which was a very efficient way to land 4 Kerbals anywhere that didn't have too much gravity (did a Mun & Minmus mission, then flew two of the Quad lander ships docked together to Duna .Both landed near each other, one staying behind as a base as it gave most of its fuel to the other lander before undocking to land, so the other Quad lander could land on Duna and have enough fuel to fly back to Kerbin).

Of course in the end, all that matters is that it works in KSP. It is the nature of KSP to make "unusual" rockets or ships. And sometimes even a pod is not the answer. My favorite design to beat a technical challenge was what i came up with to fly from Eve's surface back into stable orbit (to rendezvous with a Synchronicity ship). It did not have any pods at all. The original for the mission was able to make orbit from 2.4 km, IIRC. Later I made one that could fly from Sea level, and then much smaller ones as part of a challenge, taking off from 6.5 km mountain tops. A couple of pics of that first one below, for more pics see my Eve album listed in the message link posted above.

I'll close by saying that I get most of my enjoyment in KSP from designing and assembling the rockets. Which also sometimes includes coming up with some creative new thing to do for a specific mission, which on this one was the Grasshopper (and yet another new reuseable launch vehicle. Though I've used that basic concept before, as have others, just not with 3 meter parts since I did not have any 3 meter parts to play with till now). Now, once everything has been tested out, and I fly the "real" mission, I do enjoy that. But the real mission takes far less time than the preparation does. I spent about a month on the preparing for the Moho mission and 4- 6 weeks on working up all the goodies for the grand Eve/Gilly mission (of which the in-game flight to orbit from Eve was the smallest part, albeit the most important).

- GeorgeG

Edited January 9, 2015 by GeorgeG

[ftunk70]

I love Moho, its beautiful landscape/coloring, and its 12 biomes. It's quick and interesting to get to, using Eve gravity assists to save delta-v, and reasonably hard to land on to raise the tension. Moho could be my favorite destination. I haven't been to Dres or Eeloo yet, since I prefer the inner planets and Duna just because they are quicker to get to, although I enjoy Jool too.

This thread makes me want to try a Dres trip with a Duna flyby for an inclination assist...

- - - Updated - - -

Reading the posts here, no one seems to like Dres very much. I was thinking about Dawn's arrival at Ceres in two months... Maybe Squad could get some inspiration there to improve Dres?

Otherwise, I think maybe Dres and Laythe could swap positions in the Kerbal system?

[MarvinKitFox]

I've got to Dres, ONCE, so that I can say I've done it.

At all other times I mentally rename it as "Dross", and ignore it.

Eeloo is fun, as the wildly inclined/eccentric orbit makes for interesting encounters. It is also ideally placed (if you are patient) to use a slingshot past Jool for both approach and leaving.

MoHo, of course, is the a-hole of the whole system. It is down in a deep, dark pit of gravity. Plus the orbit is also inclined *and* extremely eccentric, so it makes for a very nice challenge destination.

Dres is.... well,.... it is that thing that makes the circle in space that tells you your Jool-bound ship is halfway there.

That. Is. It.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe Squad could get some inspiration there to improve Dres?

Let them make a nice movie about a rogue planet entering the system, Impacting Dres, and leaving behind a massive asteroid belt.

Make some missions there you HAVE TO deflect incoming asteroids or die.

Imagine a nice small-meteor shower peppering the KSC buildings to rubble, and the warning that "there are 3 BIG ones on the way, too"

Now doesn't that sound like a better use of Dross? Erm, Dres?

[Flayer]

I would love to see Dres get an atmosphere of sorts, maybe a really low (20 km) but very dense atmosphere or something odd, you know. Just to keep it interesting. And Eeloo could be maybe a bunch of moon-sized bodies (Like 5 Gilly/Minmus-sized moons). They could all have varying orbits around Kerbol (at similar distance as Eeloo) or, if you wanna go really crazy, some kind of interloping mutual kind of orbit (like a cluster of massive asteroids).

As you can probably tell, I am an expert in these sort of things.

I should add that I have been to neither of these bodies in about 1,000 hours of gameplay.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Flayer

[John FX]

And don't forget that a big part of getting to Eeloo is avoiding Jool, which often likes getting in the way.

I once went to Eeloo by accident. I planned to go to Jool, warped past my aerobrake and then found myself on a 'buck rogers' orbit that took me far out of the system (on an orbit about 1.5 times further out than Eeloo) and almost perfectly intercepted Eeloo as it crosses the orbit of Jool.

Took about 17 years...

Myself I am with the OP. Sure they are hard to reach but when you get there you sort of go 'Oh, is that it?'

Maybe if there were more unique features on each planet there would be more reason to visit them all?

In our system Mars has huge mountains (and a hidden underground dead civilisation but Sshhh), A mercury day lasts for two mercury years and Pluto has 5 moons, some very small that would be interesting to visit while pluto itself is a kuiper belt object and forms a binary system with Charon.

They all have unique features that would interest scientists unlike the generic potato blobs we have in the game. Like a few people I have been everywhere but I seldom return to Dres, Eeloo or Moho. Eve has Gilly which is fun to try to walk on. Duna has a thin atmosphere and is fun to aerobrake into. Jool is huge with interesting moons. Kerbin is very easy to get to and has a couple of moons with more difference than a lot of the rest of the system.

Moho, Dres and Eeloo? Not so much...

They all need something to make them a bit different from each other so a player would want to return. It smacks of 'unfinished game' at the moment, which is understandable.

If they stay smacking of 'unfinished game' until release then that is not understandable and is a bit of a poor show.

[Nitrous Oxide]

They all need something to make them a bit different from each other so a player would want to return. It smacks of 'unfinished game' at the moment, which is understandable.

If they stay smacking of 'unfinished game' until release then that is not understandable and is a bit of a poor show.

I fear you might be on to something...

Dres at the very least, should be completely remade to be a Ceres analogue including random asteroids like around Kerbin. Oh and Eeloo needs at least one moon.

[CalMacDa]

I fear you might be on to something...

Dres at the very least, should be completely remade to be a Ceres analogue including random asteroids like around Kerbin. Oh and Eeloo needs at least one moon.

Ceres though is essentially just a big asteroid, and too many asteroids could cause issues, but I am all for an asteroid belt.