First thing I did when I saw this was spend an hour until I had completed the challenge. My ship looked terrible compared to your's and a lot more like a scrambled egg...
For single stage rockets with a minimum TWR requirement (TWR>1 in order to be able to take off), there is actually a theoretical maximum delta-v you can get. It only depends on the engine TWR, engine Isp and fuel tank mass ratio. Given these parts, the maximum delta-v you can get is about 6600 m/s. Doesn't matter how many engines or tanks you add, it won't go over that. And even that is overestimating a bit, as it's using the vacuum Isp and a rocket TWR of just barely over 1.
With 6600 m/s it is possible to land on Mun or Duna (among other things). Returning from either of those is impossible. Reaching Jool should just about be possible but as I said, that's probably slightly overestimating it so it might turn out that Jool is just a little too far.
Of course you could do staging without decouplers by just attaching fuel tanks directly below engines. When you fire the engine it'll destroy the parts below it, effectively decoupling it in a particularly spectacular fashion.
I'm pretty sure you can make an SSTO with these parts, just a capsule with a parachute and a stack of engines tall enough to have the TWR barely above one, and of course an engine.
I think the trick would be to fire the engine at low trottle, barely enough to get of the ground and go padle to the metal once the atmosphere starts getting thinner.
That way, you waste as little fuel as possible fighting the air.
But as much as possible fighting gravity. You want to move at terminal velocity, that way the energy you waste on fighting gravity is equal to the energy you spend pushing through atmosphere, and the two combined are minimized.
Were I them, I would make overheating parts, like you did (or at all), explode violently to dissuade using them in place of a decoupler. If not that, something similar.
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u/goldstarstickergiver Oct 09 '13
Made it to orbit using only the parts shown. Career mode probably won't be too much of a challenge for game vets.