A Proud Moment

[Kelderek]

With some help from folks on the forum today I was able to land on Tylo and return back safely to Kerbin. This marks the end of a personal goal to take Jeb, Bob, and Bill to all of the planets and moons in the Kerbol system and bring them back home safe and sound.

Some notes about the experience:

* I am playing career mode with a custom variation of normal difficulty (checkboxes match moderate, but sliders match normal).

* All three of these Kerbals: Jeb, Bob and Bill were together for each of these missions, and oftentimes I also had several others along too. None of these missions were done separately for the Kerbals, the three were always together. I did not even attempt a trip to the Mun or Minmus until I was capable of sending all 3 of these guys together. This was one of my main goals.

* All of these planets and moons were reached on separate trips, so this wasn't a grand tour with a mothership or anything like that. This was done gradually. I wish I had taken more screenshots along the way, but this little mission of mine kind of developed over time so I didn't document it much.

* Almost all of these planet and moon trips were combined with "build a surface outpost" contracts, the early missions are the main exception as I did not have the reputation for the good station contracts until I was further along. This provided the funds necessary (and lots extra too) and it added a nice bit of challenge too.

* I'm not sure why Jool isn't counting as an orbit, I've orbited it countless times on this career, but it only shows "flight". I have also planted flags on Kerbin, but that isn't much of an achievement and you don't get any XP for that so it doesn't show.

* My Eve Rocks challenge submission was a part of the overall work (see my signature).

* I will admit to cheating on one very specific occasion. I sent 9 kerbals all the way to Moho for a surface station contract (my 3 orange-suits and a few trainees). This made for a VERY hard trip due to the massive amount of DV needed just to make orbit at Moho. But I planned it all out well, or so I thought, and landed on Moho, planted 9 flags (tedious), and then left for home. My fuel ran out with about 200 m/s DV remaining on my transfer burn back to Kerbin. I did not have a good quicksave spot that I could use to maybe attempt more efficient maneuvers, and I also forgot that I could probably get a few DV from my monopropellant. So I used hyperedit to add in a tiny amount of fuel and I continued on and flew out the rest of the mission. The way I see it, I sent a whopping NINE kerbals to Moho, I should be spotted the 200m/s DV for trying a harder mission. I also chose to fly the remaining part of the mission instead of just using hyperedit to send me home. Anyway, all the rest of my missions were done by the books, so I don't feel too bad.

* Eve was the hardest body for me, followed by Moho and then Tylo. For Tylo, I had been doing my powered descents wrong and was able to correct that a bit with help today on the forum. Thanks!

* Most of these were done without refueling, but I did need to do it a couple times. Having foreseen the need for extra fuel, I had setup a fuel station at Jool before I bothered with any of Jool's moons.

* I have learned a TON doing all of these trips, but there's still a lot more left for me to learn and master. If I ever try for this again (probably in 1.0), then I will likely try to combine more of these trips together, like hitting Duna and Ike in one trip, or trying for a Jool-5 challenge.

[SkyRender]

Well done! Sounds like a proper challenge for Career mode, if it hasn't been proposed already: getting Kerbals to earn their stripes for every single body in the game. May want to search that forum for a challenge like that, and maybe make one if it doesn't exist.

[Scotius]

Congratulations. It is very impressive. I salute your dedication

[Kelderek]

Well done! Sounds like a proper challenge for Career mode, if it hasn't been proposed already: getting Kerbals to earn their stripes for every single body in the game. May want to search that forum for a challenge like that, and maybe make one if it doesn't exist.

I thought about that for sure, but either way, I failed to have proper documentation for the way most challenges are run. If I started up a new challenge it would be customary for me to provide my own submission and all I could do is show this info as it's all I have since I didn't take many screenshots. I think it would make for a good challenge there though.

[Randazzo]

This is impressive. After several careers mostly completing the exploration missions via probe, I've just started sending only 3-man pods. It's quite the challenge indeed. You should see the ridiculous thing I built to get to Tylo and land, though I haven't deployed it yet. It will have to be constructed in space as it would never get into orbit whole and fueled.

[Brotoro]

Well done. Have a kerbal snack.

[Kelderek]

This is impressive. After several careers mostly completing the exploration missions via probe, I've just started sending only 3-man pods. It's quite the challenge indeed. You should see the ridiculous thing I built to get to Tylo and land, though I haven't deployed it yet. It will have to be constructed in space as it would never get into orbit whole and fueled.

It just seemed to make the most sense to send all 3 of the orange-suits around places together in 0.90 since they are different classes. Certainly in the early part of the career it helps for leveling them up with XP. Though I have yet to find a use for the engineer, none of my missions have needed one yet, but I take Bill along just in case.

Tylo was definitely a hard one at first, I had to learn some new tactics to get my landing right. I love how each body in the system poses a different challenge: some are hard to land on (Tylo), some are hard to get into orbit (Moho), some are hard to leave (Eve).

[AlexinTokyo]

That is seriously impressive.

Well done you. Have some rep and a beverage of your choice.

[SkyRender]

I thought about that for sure, but either way, I failed to have proper documentation for the way most challenges are run. If I started up a new challenge it would be customary for me to provide my own submission and all I could do is show this info as it's all I have since I didn't take many screenshots. I think it would make for a good challenge there though.

You have roughly enough documentation just with your Kerbals' stats, seeing as the only way to get numbers like that otherwise is to hack the save file. And it wouldn't be hard to prove that you didn't do that just by providing your save file, because it would be nightmarishly hard to fake those stats with all of the required evidence. Seriously, the number of hacked-in flags that would require alone would take almost more effort than just doing the real deal yourself. I say go for it. If you want some ideas on how to set the challenge up, just PM me; I'm pretty good at figuring out rule systems for this sort of thing.

[AbacusWizard]

I'm not sure why Jool isn't counting as an orbit, I've orbited it countless times on this career, but it only shows "flight".

I'm not entirely sure but I think "flying" on a non-Kerbin body counts as higher experience than "orbiting," because getting down into the atmosphere is a greater achievement than merely getting into orbit (aerobraking notwithstanding).

[Umlüx]

now go and plant a flag on the sun!

[Kelderek]

You have roughly enough documentation just with your Kerbals' stats, seeing as the only way to get numbers like that otherwise is to hack the save file. And it wouldn't be hard to prove that you didn't do that just by providing your save file, because it would be nightmarishly hard to fake those stats with all of the required evidence. Seriously, the number of hacked-in flags that would require alone would take almost more effort than just doing the real deal yourself. I say go for it. If you want some ideas on how to set the challenge up, just PM me; I'm pretty good at figuring out rule systems for this sort of thing.

Ok, well I'll think about that some. To be honest this whole thing has left me a bit exhausted and drained, so if I do make a challenge it might not be until 1.0 hits. When I realized that I was only a few bodies short of visiting them all, I pretty much hunkered down and forced myself to finish those last few missions. Now that I've done that, I can spend some time goofing around with some wonky ship designs or maybe try practicing more spaceplane stuff (which I really suck at).

I'm not entirely sure but I think "flying" on a non-Kerbin body counts as higher experience than "orbiting," because getting down into the atmosphere is a greater achievement than merely getting into orbit (aerobraking notwithstanding).

I guess this makes sense. Flags on Kerbin are easy to do so it makes sense that the XP window would show orbit as the highest thing achieved. If you get to another body I can see how doing those things in reverse would lead to more XP, hence planting a flag somewhere else becomes the highest thing.

[merendel]

I still find it amusing that flag on eve is only 13 while the jool moons are 20. Sure its really easy to get there and plant the flag but its a hundred times harder to get them back agian so it counts than flying out to Bop and back.

[Renegrade]

now go and plant a flag on the sun!

Unfortunately, KSP doesn't model the 'night side of the sun' properly yet. I'm hoping that will be a feature of KSP 1.0, so that we can recreate that daring North Korean mission

[Kerano]

Congratulations! An impressive effort. I'd be interested to see a screenshot of your Eve return vehicle - even just in the hangar if you don't have one in flight.

I recently hit 99,999,999 funds in career mode, which was a proud moment for me. My own Jeb, Bill and Bob haven't yet got the flag XP from Eve and Tylo though. The Tylo mission is actually on its way, but Eve is still in the planning stages.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Kerano

[Delrey]

What Tylo tips helped you? What were you doing wrong exactly?

[Kerano]

Not OP, but these tips helped me to make more efficient Tylo landings.

[Kelderek]

Congratulations! An impressive effort. I'd be interested to see a screenshot of your Eve return vehicle - even just in the hangar if you don't have one in flight.

I recently hit 99,999,999 funds in career mode, which was a proud moment for me. My own Jeb, Bill and Bob haven't yet got the flag XP from Eve and Tylo though. The Tylo mission is actually on its way, but Eve is still in the planning stages.

If you click on my signature Eve Rocks image, it should take you right to my mission report with lots of details for how I did that mission.

I'm only at about 22,000,000 funds in my career, but that is mostly just doing these trips to all of the bodies in the system. So you can see the net gain that I had after unlocking all my tech tree, as well as upgrading my facilities.

What Tylo tips helped you? What were you doing wrong exactly?

My powered descent was all messed up and I was using about 1000m/s more DV than I should have as a result. I didn't have a ton of experience with powered descents, at least not ones on high gravity bodies. Here's a link for the thread where I asked for some help.