That’s impressive.
and this was all still with the 30 part limit VAB? Amazing!
@Canem 30 part limit in VAB, yes, but docking was used, and I upgraded R&D to unlock fuel transfer and partially refuel before originally leaving Kerbin orbit. I didn’t write it down, but I think roughly 30 parts made it to Eve SOI.
I brought a science lab to Eve orbit and dwarfed the science points of the previous mission. Then a spacewalk and rendezvous was requested around Mun. That paid to develop a liquid fuel tanker (prior to that I had some liquid + ox tankers), put a relay into orbit of Mun, and refuel the ship from the previous Eve mission. [Both the primary pair of docking ports and a secondary pair bugged and wouldn’t release the crew vessel from the science lab nor the science Jr, so I used a tool to edit the save and unbug the docking ports.] Now the mission is to enter Eve atmo, land on ground on Eve, and splash down on Eve. First, I’m experimenting with combining jet and rocket technology.
Two things to observe about the results:
- Somehow both wings were lost during flight. I’m not sure if I pulled up too hard or what.
- I’ve never seen a ship partially tear apart like this. Sure, I’ve seen elastic deformation. Sure, I’ve seen parts completely come off. In this case, the connection between the inline cockpit and the service bay seems to have bent but not broken.
After the wings were lost, splash down was successful without additional lost parts. This was an automated test flight, so the cockpit was unoccupied. Does that qualify as great landing?
If there’s nobody to walk away from it, was it even a good landing? 
What? You want someone to walk away AND be able to reuse the plane? As to reusing the plane after losing the wings… previous editions didn’t have wings… I’ve been playing with new designs. So far disposable boosters are still beating jets for getting nukes to space, but the combination of fuel tank and wing is intriguing.
Cross-linking from the 3D printing thread: The State Of FDM 3D Printing, according to me - #58 by SirDrew
That’s a really good idea! I should have kid[0] make some designs with the kit and try to launch them. I think we need to unlock the -64 RocketMax tank still, but that’s not hard.
Massive stack-o-boom.
Also, regarding previous conversations on the “half height 1.25m tank and Terrier” vs the full tank, wow, that’s way less dV difference than I’d expected! Twice the tank for something like 30% more dV.
I was thinking there was a reasonable Mun lander scenario where the dV actually decreased with the larger tanks. Maybe the TWR dropped below 1.0 requiring more engine, but I’m not seeing it now.
30% isn’t great, but it isn’t too bad as long as you aren’t making up for it by burning upper stages when the launch stage fails to deliver the extra weight.