[1.2.2] The Earhart Challenge

Flamingo · August 12, 2016

Big thanks to @Cunjo Carl for bringing this challenge up to date!

Amelia Earhart was an American pilot who tried to fly around the world in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra-plane. Unfortunately, she crashed her plane, and was never found. The Earhart Challenge is following in her footsteps (without the crashing hopefully though).
The challenge primarily takes place on Laythe, one of the five moons of Jool, and the only other planet than Kerbin with an atmosphere containing oxygen. This brings the opportunity to use jet engines.
The challenge is an opportunity to get a look around on Laythe. You have 10 islands, one of them harder to get to plant a flag on than the other. When you visit an island you must plant a flag to points.
The challenge has two modes, "Realistic mode" where you must launch from Kerbin get too Laythe and get back to orbit to finish your challenge. My recommended crafts here are:
a big tug to bring you out there,
a plane to fly around and plant the flags
and a lander that you use to get back into orbit after finishing
And "Casual mode" where you can use Hyperedit to get to a specific position on Laythe and then fly from there if you don't feel like doing the whole interplanetary travel. My recommended craft for casual mode is a plane so you can get around on Laythe and plant all the flags.

How to use Hyperedit in the spoiler and download link below:
Get it here

Spoiler

Press on the H in the right side of the screen to open Hyperedit.

Select "Ship lander".

Fill out the Lat, Lon and Alt with the numbers as shown in the picture above.

Press select to select the body you want to land on and choose Laythe.

Press on the landing button highlighted with orange above, and not the land here button.

You will land around here on the side of a hill, if you have a seaplane change the Lon one or two degrees up or down. Sometimes you explode when landing, if this happens just revert and try again.

Rules:

You should plant a flag at every island you want points for.
But if you want points for island number 7, you must visit and plant a flag on 6, 5, 4...
It doesn't matter in what order you visit them, as long as you visit everything up till the number you finish on.
You can use two (realistic) or one (casual) launches to make the ship.
Eg. one launch for a rocket to push you out there, and one launch for a plane.
The mods allowed are:
Mechjeb
KER
Mk IV Spaceplane Systems (only the fuselage parts and the docking ports, so no engines, intakes, structural parts or RCS)
You can also use mods that don't bring an advantage like Remote Tech or TAC...
Hyperedit (Casual mode only of course)
Partclipping is not allowed and no debug menu. (you can clip engines, liquid fuel tanks, and intakes into wings tho')
You are allowed to use ISRU to refuel your craft.
Your craft must carry at least four kerbals.
You can not lose anyone on the way, and if you choose to land back at kerbin you should also land them all.

Point system:

Island points:
The islands are in the hidden "box" further below with pictures. This here is only the names of the islands and the number of points they each assure you by planting a flag on them.

The easy one: 100p
The where to land?: 200p
The slightly harder one: 300p
The Australia: 400p
The Chinese dragon-ish one: 500p
The bumpy runway: 600p
The New Zealand: 700p
The high(run)way: 800p
The tiny one: 900p
The you can't see it without zooming one: 1000p +425p for an actual landing at the island

Bonus points:

500p for using a boat to reach all the islands. (no flying, no driving, only sailing)
300p for only using two Juno engines and two small intakes to power yourself on Laythe.
100p for using a seaplane.
This means that your plane can't have any landing gear, except if it is an SSTO.
If you plan to leave Kerbin on landing gear, you must decouple your landing gear before entering Laythe's atmosphere.
This also means that you will either have to swim to land with a kerbal or bring a small boat.
700p for using one SSTO for everything. (Realistic mode only)
600p for returning all kerbals back to Kerbin. (Realistic mode only)

Multipliers and dividers:
This is to get more difference and better competition between the people trying.
p=price
fs=final score
s=score (all your points added together)
P=parts

Realistic mode:
Your score minus the square root of the price of your craft(s) combined: s-√p=fs
Let's say I' got a score of 3500 and one of my ships cost 200,000, while the other one costs 500,000 my equation would be: 3500-√700,000=2663.34

Casual mode:
You shall minus your score with the number of parts times 2.5: s-P*2.5=fs
Lets say I have a score of 600 after visiting the first three islands and my craft uses 58 parts this means my equation would look like this: 600-58*2.5=455

Images:
The images are helping me to see if you have done what you needed to do. And a classic rule on the forum is "No pics, no clicks", so if you want just a little applause, you will help yourself by inserting pictures.

Realistic mode:

You must have a picture of your craft(s) at the launchpad or runway before launching them.
You must have a picture of your craft(s) going up through the atmosphere.
You must have a picture of your craft trajectory out to Jool.
You must have a picture of your craft on the island or next to it before you plant a flag.
You must have a picture of a kerbal standing next to the flag.
A picture of you in orbit around Laythe after you've planted all the flags you want.
You must have a picture of your kerbals standing back at kerbin (if you chose to go back)

Casual mode:

You must have a picture of your craft at the launchpad or runway before Hypereditting them.
You must have an image of the place you land after Hypereditting.
You must have a picture of your craft on the island or next to it before you plant a flag.
You must have a picture of a kerbal standing next to the flag.

The islands you can land on to get points:

Spoiler

The easy one

The where to land?

The slightly harder one

The Australia

U4XmZnm.png?1 The Chinese dragon-ish one

The bumpy runway

The New Zealand

The high(run)way

The tiny one

The you can't see it without zooming one

1

Somewhere at every island, there is a "flag" like this to help you with guidance while flying. (except for "The tiny one". Here the flag is on a northern island, so it won't disturb your landings)

Savefile here
Just create a folder and place the "persistent. sfs " file inside. Place the folder in your saves folder, start the game and fly!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Leaderboards:
There will be two leaderboards, one for all the people who are used to doing interplanetary travels and know how everything works. And one for all the people who might just have reached Minmus, or maybe even Duna.
If you are one of the people who can do this with your hands tied on your back (or not), you can get on the "Realistic mode" leaderboard. If you just wanna try and see how everything will work out, you can get on the "Casual mode" leaderboard.

Realistic mode:

The King:

2.

3.

4.

5.

Casual mode:

The Lord:

2.

3.

4.

5.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Flamingo

Baybrawler · August 16, 2016

At the start of the page I would say mention where this challenge takes place and a basic summary of it (between history and rule start). Also, creating two leaderboards, one for people that get their craft there legit and others for people who struggle to go interplanetary and just want to participate. Finally making it possible to get more point spread such as weight of the craft (lighter is better) and/or price of the aircraft and rocket. Good overall idea though, I just don't want to see someone come in, take all the points possible to get, then nobody participates because there is no way to beat them, people love challenge and being able to win. I would love to see this become a popular challenge and think it has some good potential.

Flamingo · August 16, 2016

11 hours ago, Baybrawler said:

At the start of the page I would say mention where this challenge takes place and a basic summary of it (between history and rule start). Also, creating two leaderboards, one for people that get their craft there legit and others for people who struggle to go interplanetary and just want to participate. Finally making it possible to get more point spread such as weight of the craft (lighter is better) and/or price of the aircraft and rocket. Good overall idea though, I just don't want to see someone come in, take all the points possible to get, then nobody participates because there is no way to beat them, people love challenge and being able to win. I would love to see this become a popular challenge and think it has some good potential.

THANK YOU!!!

This was exactly the kind of replies i was hoping for. I really think the ideas you have are brilliant. Since this post didn't have much activity, i figured out that it was to hard, i was so close to delete and come up with something else. But the idea of a leaderboard with Hyperedit or so, and a leaderboard with the whole trip is good like the other things.

DoctorDavinci · August 16, 2016

Questions - Where are we starting, where are the islands we are supposed to visit

And some explanation on what these are supposed to represent would help forum users understand

Quote

Pointsystem:

Islandpoints:

The easy one:    100p

The where to land?:   200p

The slightly harder one: 300p

The Australia:   400p

The Chinese dragon-ish one: 500p

The bumpy runway: 600p

The New Zealand: 700p

The high(run)way: 800p

The tiny one: 900p

The you can't see it without zooming one: 1000p +425p for an actual landing at the island

Some clarification would help ... I recommend reading the following:

Edited August 16, 2016 by DoctorDavinci

Baybrawler · August 16, 2016

You could make navigation easier by adding in waypoint markers that you placed onto laythe. A great challenge that uses this idea is The Polar Charter Challenge, I would look to that for some ideas.

Flamingo · August 16, 2016

Right now im editing everything and i'll release it later today

zolotiyeruki · August 16, 2016

4 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Questions - Where are we starting, where are the islands we are supposed to visit

And some explanation on what these are supposed to represent would help forum users understand

If you check the spoiler tag at the end of his post, it illustrates the destination islands.

4 hours ago, Baybrawler said:

You could make navigation easier by adding in waypoint markers that you placed onto laythe. A great challenge that uses this idea is The Polar Charter Challenge, I would look to that for some ideas.

Agreed! Plant a flag on each island and name each flag with the name of the island and # of points.

DoctorDavinci · August 16, 2016

1 minute ago, zolotiyeruki said:

If you check the spoiler tag at the end of his post, it illustrates the destination islands.

That is a recent addition to the OP ... It wasn't there when I originally posted my comment

Flamingo · August 16, 2016

4 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

If you check the spoiler tag at the end of his post, it illustrates the destination islands.

Agreed! Plant a flag on each island and name each flag with the name of the island and # of points.

4 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Questions - Where are we starting, where are the islands we are supposed to visit

And some explanation on what these are supposed to represent would help forum users understand

Some clarification would help ... I recommend reading the following:

Zolotiyeruki is right, i have made i little flag somewhere on every island, but the images was already there, if they weren't it would've been impossible.

Quote

4 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

If you check the spoiler tag at the end of his post, it illustrates the destination islands.

That is a recent addition to the OP ... It wasn't there when I originally posted my comment

Like this

They've been there the whole time

Edited August 16, 2016 by Flamingo

Cunjo Carl · August 23, 2016

I've got a 2 Juno seaplane I've been wanting to toy with more, and landing on Laythe happens to be my bane. I'll give it a go! Because it's KSP, my seaplane has regular landing gear too, so I think I'll try actually landing on as many islands as I can for the sake of amusement (forgoing the seaplane bonus). Even if I can't land on one, it sounds fun to land at sea and roll up onto the island like some kind of amphibious tour boat. Also, I totally want the landing-on-the-tiny-island-you-can't-see bonus points! I'm guessing it's hard, but hey, challenge is about the striving.

Very well laid-out challenge by the way, @Flamingo. I appreciate the use of square roots in the scoring to balance the challenge, and props for taking the time to get good lighting on the Laythe pictures and giving us names for those littered spats of sand Laythe calls islands! I'm not bitter, do I sound bitter? Totally not bitter about having crashed on Laythe like 50 times. Cheers!

EDIT: Mind if I bring along payloads that don't count towards the parts- like little rovers and things?

Edited August 23, 2016 by Cunjo Carl

Flamingo · August 23, 2016

5 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

I've got a 2 Juno seaplane I've been wanting to toy with more, and landing on Laythe happens to be my bane. I'll give it a go! Because it's KSP, my seaplane has regular landing gear too, so I think I'll try actually landing on as many islands as I can for the sake of amusement (forgoing the seaplane bonus). Even if I can't land on one, it sounds fun to land at sea and roll up onto the island like some kind of amphibious tour boat. Also, I totally want the landing-on-the-tiny-island-you-can't-see bonus points! I'm guessing it's hard, but hey, challenge is about the striving.

Very well laid-out challenge by the way, @Flamingo. I appreciate the use of square roots in the scoring to balance the challenge, and props for taking the time to get good lighting on the Laythe pictures and giving us names for those littered spats of sand Laythe calls islands! I'm not bitter, do I sound bitter? Totally not bitter about having crashed on Laythe like 50 times. Cheers!

EDIT: Mind if I bring along payloads that don't count towards the parts- like little rovers and things?

Im looking forward to seeing what you will come up with!

Thank you for the nice words, and you can bring something like that if you want, i'll be fine.

Good luck

Cunjo Carl · April 28, 2017

It's been a long time! Last year, my journey in The Earhart Challenge was cut halfway by a nasty illness, and when I finally recovered a few months later a KSP version update had borked the original save file (made with hyperedit)! So I tinkered on other things... and plotted a return. To my great fortune, @Flamingo was still around and happy to host the challenge, so I put together a mission to reset the original flags and rekindle the challenge for others to try. It's a pretty sweet one, to drag me back half a year later!

It's like a mini circumnavigation with the interesting points all crammed together close, and some entertaining cartography and navigation. Not sure which islands to visit? Plot 'em on a map and plan it out!

The original mission was a 2-Juno 4-seater, which hauled several separable little two-seater planes and ladder drive rovers. The idea was to fly around and explore each island on the mission, and explore the ocean floor with the rovers, which were designed to sink. The mission was fully proofed and ready for launch- see the equipment testing and original crew within.

Spoiler

The mission's pilot, Melbrett Kerman tries out the ladder drive rover, which allows exploration of the Laythe inner seas. It can pick up quite a bit of speed, despite only having an ant engine's vac thrust. An important facet, the rover has the ability to maintain and alter its own tilt and bearing using the Simon Says glitch, I'll post a link for if anyone asks! This makes it much easier to go straight and fast, even underwater!

Bumps prove to be a bit of an issue, typically causing instant explosion of the rover. Watching all the clouds, Melbrett?

Mission commander and backup pilot Alicca Kerman takes the mini 2-seater for a spin. Scientist Chadby Kerman doesn't enjoy being the counterweight, however the decoupler tailfin proves to be a huge success! ^_^

Chadby only closes his eyes for a moment, and Alicca dissapears! With uncharacteristic grace under fire, he wrestles control of the zippy little plane (well, half of the zippy little plane) and crashes at a 'safe' speed. Where was Alicca?

It was v1.1, so after bouncing off the ground it took a half minute for all her limbs to stop jittering and flinging about! It was pretty goofy, but I'm glad she made it ok.

The crew tries out their mission in simulation, flying the Laythe Liasser. The plane is exceptionally low drag, and powered by only 2 little Junos. Meanwhile the huge, pretilted wings allowed for low-speed (short distance) landing and take-off. In addition to the four attached two-seater planes shown, three ladder drive rovers and a host of science equipment is stored in the fuselage storage bays.

Chadby much prefers the flight in simulation, which visits the three intertwined lakes of "The slightly harder one" island. There's a spot between them where you can look around to see all 3 of the lakes cradled in the mountains of that little valley. It's a quite pretty KSP destination.

To renew the flag save file for v1.2, I decided to make a fresh file and plant the flags as part of the journey. I started with the Laythe Liasser's design and replaced the exploration tools with 12 structural-panel flags based on @Flamingo's original design. These flags were heavy, but even trickier they were very draggy! Laythe Liasser's two little Junos just weren't cutting it for thrust, so I swapped them out with a Wheesley, which performed admirably. I wonder how a whiplash would have done? .

The entry level of this challenge is designed to be run using hyperedit (or cheat equivalent) to zip to the Laythean surface so the play can focus on plane design and exploration, but I happen to be a heavy lifter aficionado, so I strapped a pair of the newly built planes to my "light" lifter. The launch was COMPLETELY WITHOUT INCIDENT , and the crew has promised not to wander out for donuts and coffee during a launch sequence next time. In the spoiler below, I've ~~redacted~~ abridged the mission report to show a few key pieces from the journey's first legs.

Spoiler

Despite only needing one plane with 10 flags, a pair of the updated Laythe Liassers with a combined 24 mission flags sit atop a suite of deorbitting rockets. Have I over engineered this much? Me? Never! :lol:

Reentry went great! Without landing, the plane separated from its rockets, and 'sped' its way along to the first landing site, "The Bumpy Runway" Island. The fuel consumption was significantly higher than I expected, so I opted to drop half of the flags and run the mission in 2 segments using both planes.

Standing on the first flag, pilot Ronson Kerman nearly got the hero pose perfect! Shoulders relaxed, chin set with a gentle smile, eyes staring out to the horizon.... Pity that drink straw got in the way. (it's actually the front cockpit showing through from interior view mode)

Yay toys!

As the mission progressed, it became clear there was pleeeenty of fuel, so I took it easy and enjoyed the view.

Spoiler

This was a sight I was waiting for. The Kerbals finally made it to the 3 entwined lakes of "Slightly Harder One" Island. I put the flag right in the middle!

Sometimes I forget... how pretty stock KSP can be.

Laythe's sky is a busy place. That's Vall up there!

The fist plane completed its mission of planting 6 flags with nearly half of its fuel left over to play around with. I can't believe I dropped the other flags! Well, that's the way judgement calls go sometimes. Time to bring down the next flight! I caught a nice shot of the deorbitting:

Spoiler

That complicated little tug worked great as a deorbiter! While it decoupled just fine from the plane, the plane itself had some troubles disengaging from its mounting brace, which blocked the engine's thrust! Fortunately, a nosedive and a sharp pull up shook it off. No mission's complete without a little excitement I suppose!

I also managed to snag a shot from the rear cockpit of a "Jool-set", before heading to the farside of Laythe, where Jool becomes out of view. Taken from "The Slightly Harder One" Island.

Around to the other side comes the "Jool-rise" on the final island "The Bumpy High(run)way".

This is the general gist of spotting an island, finding something cool on it, and then hopping out of the plane to take a dopey selfie.

So, if you'll accept this as a light-hearted call to action, whether it be 1 island or 10, go build a plane and check out the beautiful things that be!

Edited April 28, 2017 by Cunjo Carl

[1.2.2] The Earhart Challenge

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