Haya! how do I take off from the purple planet?

[Groot]

after spending a few decades in space, my kernels have managed to land on the purple planet one orbit in from Kerbin, but my lander only got like 50 meters off the ground. Sure I used some of it's fuel and the return stage's fuel to get there so never expected successful return but it still seemed like an impossible task given how high the low orbit is. Is it even possible?

[Wabbit]

In this community, Eve (the purple planet) has quite a reputation for swallowing poor kerbals and their ships whole. Many who land on Eve never see Kerbin again.

Yes, it is very hard to escape eve, but with choice mods for alternative methods (nothing cheaty) such as airships or propellors, or by having a good launch technique, you can do it!

[bdito]

It's certainly doable but it's the hardest planet to leave. You need around 12,000 deltaV just to get into orbit from sea level. You need about 9,000 if you're starting from the top of one of its mountains.

[dryer_lint]

One does not simply take off from Eve.

Erm. Sorry. But yeah, as others have said, an Eve ascent is one of the biggest challenges of the game. The atmosphere is even thicker than Kerbin's, and you need fuel to get back home as well (almost all Eve ascents dock to a transfer ship in orbit though).

From what I've heard (I'm a noob so Eve ascents sound insane to me), you should generally pack as little weight as possible. Yes, this means putting Kerbals on external chairs. Some ascents use the EVA fuel to get into orbit and dock. Still though, these should give you an idea of how

of a community challenge it is.

[Captain Sierra]

after spending a few decades in space, my kernels have managed to land on the purple planet one orbit in from Kerbin, but my lander only got like 50 meters off the ground. Sure I used some of it's fuel and the return stage's fuel to get there so never expected successful return but it still seemed like an impossible task given how high the low orbit is. Is it even possible?

One does not simply take off from Eve.

(in the words of Nikola7007)

Eve has the highest gravity of any planet and the highest, thickest atmosphere of any landable planet (except Jool but it is a gas giant). Taking off from Eve is probably the hardest single-planet mission you can accomplish in KSP. Unless you are a craft design wizard and/or a really really fast learner, those kerbals ain't coming back any time soon.

[Pecan]

I am not a noob but I've still never tried to launch from Eve. There are a lot of other things I want to do first, but it is doable.

Regardless of whether you decide to try or not, here are the things you need to know:

deltaV - a deltaV map tells you how much velocity-change (think 'fuel') is required to land on or orbit from a planet or moon and how much to go from there to somewhere else. As has been said, you need around 12,000m/s (12km/s) to get to orbit from Eve 'sea'-level. A normal launch from Kerbin needs around 4,500m/s, so you can see how challenging Eve is.

TWR - None of that helps if your engines don't have enough thrust (think 'power') to lift the vehicle off the ground in the first place. Thrust to Weight Ratio (weight of ship / power of engines) recommended for Kerbin launch is usually 1.6 - 1.8, for Eve it's 2.

Isp - Specific Impulse (think 'fuel-efficiency') is shown for each engine in the VAB/SPH. The higher the Isp of an engine the less mass of fuel it will need for a given deltaV. Generally that means the higher Isp the better but really good ones tend to be heavy and have low thrust, so you need to balance engine-mass versus fuel-mass.

To put it simply;

That means you need a huge amount of fuel (deltaV)

And a lot of thrust against that hard gravity.

So the most efficient engines you can get.

These things are important to know for rocket design anyway, so remember:

It's pretty easy to work-out TWR and the Isp just comes from VAB/SPH stats. For deltaV you either need the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation or, a lot easier, install the Kerbal Engineer Redux, VOID or MechJeb mod.

[GoSlash27]

Building an Eve ascent vehicle isn't difficult. It's just a matter of low payload and enough DV.

Building an Eve ascent vehicle that you can land safely on the surface, OTOH... *That's* hard. Especially if you're trying to keep the weight down.

Best I managed without resorting to physics exploiting was 52 tonnes.

Best,

-Slashy