Kerbal Space Program

No, it was just one mission each. I've never tried a dual Mun/Minmus mission, though I heard it's more fuel efficient to go to Minmus first.

Radials attached to radials is not a good idea unless it's a very small portion of the inner radial's mass.

Oh and I also run NovaPunch on basically everything. Did I mention that?

Antilogic said:

I can maintain a stable launch system pretty well with just a single mainsail and 2m tanks, and one ring of 1m tanks or SRBs. I can't get multiple layers to work right, though. Do you attach the second ring to the first exclusively, or to the 2m core rocket somehow?

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Have you ever thought of just stacking SRB's right under the liquid boosters, maybe one or two deep?

MoreEpicThanYou said:

No, it was just one mission each. I've never tried a dual Mun/Minmus mission, though I heard it's more fuel efficient to go to Minmus first.

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I haven't checked but that would be my suspicion as well.

Are 3x 1600L and 1x 3200L tanks w/ 1 poodle engine and 3 vernier thrusters enough for a Duna landing?

That raises another question: do you guys put more than one thruster on the landing craft/final phase for landing on the moons?

I find a lone poodle is good enough for getting around the Kerbin system:

The Poodle and verniers are the least efficient engines there are :|

I was going more for the lightest 2m-wide engine. Does it significantly affect stability to tack 1-m engines on a 2-m fuel tank?

The "Duna Bomber" series of rockets is up and running. Heavy launch system is working now--4 mainsails and 9 SRBs in the first stage.

I added verniers to my lander because I don't know if a poodle is enough to get off Duna with a 3200L tank.

Antilogic -
A poodle is all you need for low gravity planets and moons, but I don't know about the bigger planets.

Also, on the KSP forums, they say the nosecones only add mass and actually create more drag. Thry aren't fully implemented so they don't work as advertised just yet. Ditching them is probably advisable.

Asparagus staging! Instant performance boost for current designs, hell yeah!

There's also a mod that simulates much more realistic aerodynamics and makes nosecones work in your favor. Also kills infiniglide bug for planes.

Had to brag a little--after a harrowing 248 day journey (because we missed the target the first time and had to make late-adjustments to intercept it on the other damned side of the solar system), three of my kerbonauts have landed on Duna!



The lander used is a simplified version of the old heavy lander. Used to have additional fuel tanks strapped on the side, jettisoned as per ASP-LP (Antilogic Standard Planet-Littering Procedure) on the descent to Duna. However, I burned up so much fuel in my course corrections I don't think I have enough gas left to get to Kerbin (I'm down to 480 L in the core tank, all side tanks are full). Can't quite tell from this angle, but each of the nuclear thruster columns were capped with big parachutes to aide in the descent--made this landing a lot easier.

Because of my somewhat awkward transfer, I came in over the north pole and was able to land near the southern polar ice cap. At least I can justify leaving my kerbals with some water while they wait for rescue. The lander is maybe a centimeter away from that glacial transition formation in the center, hard to see in this screenshot.



EDIT: Oh, and I'd love to hear some of the vets give feedback on the lander--I'm looking to do a redesign of Dunabomber V for Eve as well as round trips, and those nukes probably won't cut it, especially in Eve's thick atmosphere.

Damn you Antilogic! You beat me by a day!

I tried to get Duna yesterday but the alignment was off so I missed it. I pushed on and actually managed to get to Jool. I'm trapped in a very high orbit without fuel and my orbit is so high that I don't even have any interesting screenies to show for it.

I have a question for you: Are 3 NERVA's enough to lift off duna?

Some comments on your lander:

It's very similar to the setup I use but I have 3 1600L tanks instead of the little ones and a single poodle to push it around (I ditched the Verniers altogether, they weren't worth the huge fuel cost and if I drop the side tanks and/or use a lot of parachutes, I'm fairly certain the poodle can land me on Duna - don't know if it will get me off the ground again though).

Unless you have a compelling reason to do so, I would ditch the RCS's and the RCS tank altogether. If they are for controlling the stack on the initial liftoff of Kerbin and orbital insertion, then I'd just put them all on the stack itself and not on the lander. That's just a lot of mass to be carrying around for marginal or no benefit unless I'm missing something.

I know that 3 parachutes can safely land a small lander (1 kerbal pod with one central 400L tank, 3 side 400L tanks and 2 engines stacked on top of one another [don't know why he did that but whatever]) by themselves. For a bigger one like the one you use, you might be able to put 3 on the tanks and then 3 around the top of the capsule and leave the one up top for the Kerbin return. This would give you 6 parachutes to slow your decent. That may even be enough since Duna's atmosphere isn't actually that much thinner than Kerbin's (not nearly as thin as Mars' - look at your atmosphere meter) and in any case should slow you down enough that you only have to use minimul thrust.

In any case, you have solid lander and you did a great job! How did you know when to burn? What was the alignment like between Kerbin and Duna when you burned?

Edit: This is too damn funny!

Okay, I just lost two posts due to expired tokens or some garbage like that. The short version:

I waited until Duna was leading Kerbin and formed nearly a 45° angle with the sun based on this calculator I found online. I started burning out of pro-grade orbit just as I passed behind Kerbin towards Duna, but a chance encounter with the Mun messed up my approach. I ended up missing Duna, overshot, and then burned again to reach Duna on the other side of the solar system. I was at the edge of Duna's SoI (the periapsis was over 20 million meters away), so I had a couple big burns to get into the orbit there.

Landing was easy, especially with a long air-brake and burning the nukes at maximum (they are efficient in the thin atmosphere). I was able to "hop" a little during the final moments of landing, so I think I could take off again, but given I only have 2,280 L of fuel I don't think I could make it to orbit, correct the orbit, burn for Kerbin, and then land. The poodle has more thrust than my 3 nukes, so I think you are in better shape so long as you have enough fuel (and those extra tanks could kill your weight). I think the exterior 1,600 L tanks are going to kill you there.

The RCS is still on my lander because I didn't know how the refit launch system would work, but given that was much more stable I can probably move the RCS down to the middle/orbital stage. I can probably take a fuel tank out of there too--my bottom stages are so powerful my Kerbin AP was around 550,000 m, so with a stronger gravity turn I should be able to get close enough with that alone.

For Eve, my parachutes will work better, as will air-braking, but my nukes will be terribly inefficient. With the higher gravity I will probably be stranded after landing unless I beef up the return system. I've got some ideas, want to test them before posting.

Antilogic said:

Okay, I just lost two posts due to expired tokens or some garbage like that. The short version:

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Tell me about it. I got the end of this post the first time and got a blue screen of death from my crappy laptop.

I waited until Duna was leading Kerbin and formed nearly a 45° angle with the sun based on this calculator I found online. I started burning out of pro-grade orbit just as I passed behind Kerbin towards Duna, but a chance encounter with the Mun messed up my approach. I ended up missing Duna, overshot, and then burned again to reach Duna on the other side of the solar system. I was at the edge of Duna's SoI (the periapsis was over 20 million meters away), so I had a couple big burns to get into the orbit there.

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Thanks for the info. Is the calculator you used a plugin or mod, or was it an online website? After reading your post, I found an online calculator that computes the angels for me.

Landing was easy, especially with a long air-brake and burning the nukes at maximum (they are efficient in the thin atmosphere). I was able to "hop" a little during the final moments of landing, so I think I could take off again, but given I only have 2,280 L of fuel I don't think I could make it to orbit, correct the orbit, burn for Kerbin, and then land. The poodle has more thrust than my 3 nukes, so I think you are in better shape so long as you have enough fuel (and those extra tanks could kill your weight). I think the exterior 1,600 L tanks are going to kill you there.

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Well the three 1600L tanks get dropped before I take off, so that wasn't much of an issue.

However, I decided to ditch that whole configuration as being too fuel-inefficient. Instead I attached 4 of the tiniest fuel tanks radially and then attached 4 NERVA's under those (the tanks are really only there to place the engines on).

This gives me an OK thrust but really good fuel efficiency. From what you said, it should be enough to get off Duna (I hope). Though it will probably not be enough to get off any bigger planets or moons or anything with a thicker atmosphere.

The RCS is still on my lander because I didn't know how the refit launch system would work, but given that was much more stable I can probably move the RCS down to the middle/orbital stage. I can probably take a fuel tank out of there too--my bottom stages are so powerful my Kerbin AP was around 550,000 m, so with a stronger gravity turn I should be able to get close enough with that alone.

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That's quite an impressive launcher! I worked on a new asparagus-staging launcher yesterday. I got all the way to the end and was adding struts, then I misclicked and deattached the radially mounted stacks. When I reattached them, ALL of the staging and fuel lines were out of whack, to the point where I have to start over.

I wish you could 'lock in' the current configuration so that when you go to add struts or fuel lines and stuff, you can't misclick and take the whole thing apart on accident.

For Eve, my parachutes will work better, as will air-braking, but my nukes will be terribly inefficient. With the higher gravity I will probably be stranded after landing unless I beef up the return system. I've got some ideas, want to test them before posting.

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I've got 7 parachutes for the Duna landing, so I hope I don't need to fire my engines at all. For an Eve landing, I won't need as many.

From what I can tell, getting to Eve and back is one of the hardest things to do in the game with stock parts and without mods or hacks. I've seen many posters say it's pretty much impossible in the stock game until we get new stuff in .18. Getting there is easy enough, but getting off again and back home is extremely difficult. Good luck!

I actually landed (sort of) on Eve. My friend lost control of his rocket and it got put in an orbit around the sun roughly in Eve's orbit. After tweaking the orbit a bit and letting it run on 10000x for about an hour, I finally got a collision vector. I managed to get within the atmosphere, but for some reason my parachute refused to deploy (no idea why).

So as I was hurtling toward the ground, I decided to eject my Kerbals because I had seen online that they can sometimes survive a reentry. I got the first one out, but the pod crashed before I could eject the other two. The one Kerbal actually did survive reentry and the fall and now he's stuck on Eve, just walking around.

Let me know if you manage to get your Duna lander off the ground!

Edit for undeniable coolness:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/28018-Cube-Star-Battleship

hobbsyoyo said:

Thanks for the info. Is the calculator you used a plugin or mod, or was it an online website? After reading your post, I found an online calculator that computes the angels for me.

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Oops, thought I put the link in my prior post. It's at ksp.olex.biz.

Well the three 1600L tanks get dropped before I take off, so that wasn't much of an issue.

However, I decided to ditch that whole configuration as being too fuel-inefficient. Instead I attached 4 of the tiniest fuel tanks radially and then attached 4 NERVA's under those (the tanks are really only there to place the engines on).

This gives me an OK thrust but really good fuel efficiency. From what you said, it should be enough to get off Duna (I hope). Though it will probably not be enough to get off any bigger planets or moons or anything with a thicker atmosphere.

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It'd still be an issue on the descent, but that poodle has pretty good thrust so I think you would be fine. I was trying to put 3 nukes and 3 aerospikes on a total of 6 exterior tanks, but for some reason the game won't let me put more than 2 aerospikes per rocket. That sucks.

That's quite an impressive launcher! I worked on a new asparagus-staging launcher yesterday. I got all the way to the end and was adding struts, then I misclicked and deattached the radially mounted stacks. When I reattached them, ALL of the staging and fuel lines were out of whack, to the point where I have to start over.

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It has 7 mainsails and 18 SRBs, and a crazy number of struts to hold it together. Wayyy too much power.

I wish you could 'lock in' the current configuration so that when you go to add struts or fuel lines and stuff, you can't misclick and take the whole thing apart on accident.

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I end up saving after each modification that went well, and reloading if I mess it up. Haven't gone to asparagus myself yet, still doing the onion launcher.

I've got 7 parachutes for the Duna landing, so I hope I don't need to fire my engines at all. For an Eve landing, I won't need as many.

From what I can tell, getting to Eve and back is one of the hardest things to do in the game with stock parts and without mods or hacks. I've seen many posters say it's pretty much impossible in the stock game until we get new stuff in .18. Getting there is easy enough, but getting off again and back home is extremely difficult. Good luck!

I actually landed (sort of) on Eve. My friend lost control of his rocket and it got put in an orbit around the sun roughly in Eve's orbit. After tweaking the orbit a bit and letting it run on 10000x for about an hour, I finally got a collision vector. I managed to get within the atmosphere, but for some reason my parachute refused to deploy (no idea why).

So as I was hurtling toward the ground, I decided to eject my Kerbals because I had seen online that they can sometimes survive a reentry. I got the first one out, but the pod crashed before I could eject the other two. The one Kerbal actually did survive reentry and the fall and now he's stuck on Eve, just walking around.

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Awesome.

Sounds like you had a space kraken damage your ship, or the stage that you fired didn't have the parachutes (i.e. they were all above the lander stage). You have a living kerbal on Eve, though, that's a first. I'm on my way there with my refit lander (side note: my rocket tends to explode on the pad if the RCS is relocated down).

Fair warning: be prepped to fire those engines. Parachutes are nice, but the atmosphere is still thin enough on Duna I was descending fast, and the slow down from 0 to 3 chutes doesn't lead me to believe my lander would be perfectly fine with 6 (although it would have been easier).

I'm also not a fan of the overlapping parachute graphics and general screwiness of having so many parachutes packed in a small space--maybe they will fix that in the next patch.

Let me know if you manage to get your Duna lander off the ground!

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I'm just leaving my kerbals on Duna for now. My last mission was a 20-day trip circling the Mun with the big lander lander looking for arches and munoliths, but I haven't found any yet.

One picture says it all, Hobbs:


The three parachutes, with a last-minute burn near the surface, was more than enough for landing on Eve. I have about a half-tank in the center left, and full on the external tanks.

I'm getting a Soviet lead over ya.

Hahaha you are, except I already got to Eve - one Kerbal counts!. But I highly doubt that lander will be taking off again. And I'm in orbit around Jool.

Seriously, I had some thoughts on how to go about building an Eve lander that is return-capable:

From a design perspective:
I think the key here is to use Kerbin as an Eve analogue for testing. While Eve has a thicker atmosphere, it also has less gravity. So I consider Kerbal a decent (and highly convenient) place to test landers.

I would focus on building a lander that can achieve Kerbin orbit on it's own. I'd construct the lander and save it separately when you have tested it and it is capable of getting to orbit with enough fuel for a transfer to Kerbin. Then, I'd focus on building a launcher capable of getting it into LKO and saving it separately as well so if it doesn't work, you can always go back to the lander file and start over without having to rebuild the lander.

On the lander itself:
I think the small SRB's are going to be the only thing capable of getting a lander off of Eve. I would use just one NERVA for interplanetary transfer, but a ring of maybe 8 small SRB's around it. I would use as small of a tank for the NERVA as necessary since you won't need a ton of fuel, but going smaller than a 1600L tank may not give you enough space to radially attach enough SRB's, so that's something that will have to be played with. I would attach parachutes to all of the SRB's so that no burns are necessary on the decent to save fuel. To be really effective, but a parachute or two on the top of the lander that deploy first that will bring the whole lander perpendicular to the surface before deploying the rest - this will cut down on wobbling considerably after deployment.

I would asparagus-stage the SRB's. While they obviously can't cross-feed fuel, I would set it up so that two SRB's fire and then are ejected from the lander when they burn out and another two are activated. This will make most efficient use of the SRB's as they won't all be firing in the dense atmosphere and you'll be shedding weight as you go along. I don't know whether or not this will work - but it will at least give you a bit of control over your ascent profile because you can adjust your heading between firings. Trying to change heading while 8 SRB's are firing is very difficult.

Of course, if that isn't enough to get you to LKO (I wouldn't launch till you can have done this), then maybe you could add a second stage of SRB's under the first one, maybe have that whole stack fire at once just to blast you up to altitude.

The real challenge I see is trying to make a launcher than can lift this whole thing at once. That's going to be tough.

I guess an alternative to this would be to use a 3200L tank with a mainsail under it for the off planet boost along with radial mounted NERVAs for the transfer stage.

I'll play around and post anything that works.

I gave up on interplanetary landing missions, but wait until .18 comes out and I build my badass interplanetary MotthaShip.

MoreEpicThanYou said:

I gave up on interplanetary landing missions, but wait until .18 comes out and I build my badass interplanetary MotthaShip.

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Why did you give up?

I've been focusing so hard on the new features of .18 that I've been ignoring .17. The entire KSP forums is doing the same thing.