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Well I guess I get to repost this insane mission

Yeah, I had it turned off around that step of the process because it was (as it's supposed to) showing a maneuver + trajectory to normally encounter the moon, which wasn't what I needed.

Yeah it's just maybe a teeny bit too far out there for a general purpose tool to include. Perhaps it could have helped the correction of the high elliptical orbit to encounter the moon, but I didn't think of that since I'm not used to the mods.

This is an asparagus type(there are so many names) staging. If I didn't have all the engines going at once, I would need an extra three frontiers and another valiant to get the similar enough thrust for each stage, that's 20 tons :oops:. If I didn't transfer fuel back, then all the stages...

Since I've just downloaded the game on steam, I can provide a pretty good number from my play time. Based on the portion of time I've spent working on this mission specifically, I think about 10 hours for everything.

I posted this in the challenge instructions forum and while it's not yet official, my testing showed that with a Jupiter assist, 12.4% payload is equivalent to the 10% minimum. And the equivalent for a full Venus Earth Earth Jupiter route (assuming no fuel waste, which I think is fair for what...

Pt. 2/2 Lunar Capture and Descent: Because of this extreme and convoluted route, the delta V needed to capture into elliptical lunar orbit is reduced from around 130 m/s to almost none, with no cost except that to time and sanity. Upon nearing the lunar periapsis, the rocket faces retrograde...

Pt. 1/2 I've recently gotten my hands on the steam version, so of course my first mission is to tackle the extreme. So now I present my 341.49 ton Moon mission in realistic mode. Rules: -Realistic mode -No cheats or glitches -No exploits such as lithobraking or atmosphere skipping -Pure Vanilla...

I've done some testing to this point. I started these tests all in LEO and tested how much of a payload I could get out of a 60 ton (including the payload) craft which consisted of one valiant powered stage and the payload. This mass was chosen because it closely matches the payload size of the...

You know what I'm going to spend a bit of time testing to try and find an actual equivalent, I'll set a minimum line for gravity assist submissions.

Uh oh, now Altair's going to have to figure out a ultra low solar orbit return for himself :)

Nice, I also recently got into realistic mode since I just bought the game on steam. Of course I almost immediately went into making low mass missions :p. I look forward to seeing what you create!

Since you've flown straight up at the right time, it's pretty easy to replicate your mission. Your screenshots of the flight (especially the one showing 137km altitude, 1329 m/s velocity, and 83% fuel) is not possible with the payload in the BP you provided, but it does exactly match if you flew...

The rocket looks pretty good, but there are a few issues: - BP editing is not allowed - The payload must be inert and 10% of the launch mass, you don't show its mass - Gravity assists are not allowed, unless you're using it to achieve significantly higher payload fractions If you want your...

Because of the gravity assist without going above ~10% payload fraction, this is currently a 2. I'll ask Mooncrasher to make the no gravity assist requirement(for 10% payload) more obvious in the instructions. I concur with QSMP's tips: aerodynamics is important, especially with high thrust...

The 10% payload fraction number is based around no gravity assists, so the use of gravity assists without going above ~10% payload fraction makes this currently a 2. For some reason this isn't very clearly written in the challenge instructions, so I'll tell Mooncrasher to make that more obvious...

Forgot about this for a while but it turns out a full bi-ecliptic transfer is FAR better for a deimos -> earth return, reducing the best case (mars at aphelion) transfer from 300 m/s to 200 m/s. Burn out to elliptical Mars orbit, reduce periapsis, then finish the transfer at periapsis.

The main points for an efficient rocket in general are: Dry mass is the enemy, get the relative size of each stage right, and get the right engines for those stages. Extra mass that isn't fuel (dry mass) is directly cutting into your payload/∆v, so cut out the unnecessary bits. For the best...

Yeah maybe you're right. Same concept, but a bi-ecliptic may indeed involve an additional burn, I'll check. I'll also check if it is even more beneficial to do an apoapsis raise -> periapsis lower -> Earth transfer (instead of periapsis lower -> Earth transfer).

The Basic Example Rocket may appear to be exactly what the name says, but it has quite a bit more performance than you would expect. So what can it do? With a good ascent, there's enough performance to go beyond LEO, so go see where you can take it. For my mission, I attempted to maximize the...

It has yet again been a long break, but school has been coming to an end. In my free time I've been working on a big project, so enjoy my no clip SLS!

An easy way to fine tune mass in vanilla is to change fuel tank fill %

Ah, I forgot that the larger ports had that connection. But yes, I have realized that I could've made a better orbiter. It's not as much of a mass saving as it looks since about .15 tons of fuel are needed to land without a parachute, but I realized I could use a fairing half to hold the docking...

I did design an optimal Venus lander that used a more normal configuration, reaching orbit where it docks with a fuel tank and heat shield left in LVO for the Earth return. Here's the comparison of the two payloads I need to take to LEO: The difference is small, (smaller than I expected before...

Simpler? Absolutely. It's using a no control approach to ascend without a probe, making it lighter than any other Venus orbiter. With no control orbit is not a viable option. The only alternative is to escape Venus entirely, which is even better than orbit because it's easier(fuel/mass wise, not...