Megastructures

[Sharpy]

Build big.

It doesn't need to be useful. It doesn't need to be fast. It needs to be big. And it must survive a minute without anything breaking.

Most tricks allowed. Tweakscale, Ubiozur's Welding, Hyperedit, any pre-existing mods, infinite fuel and so on.

Not allowed:

- making a new or modifying a preexisting mod for purpose of this challenge. (e.g if the mod didn't support Tweakscale, you can't add Tweakscale support to it)

- Gravity hack, Unbreakable joints, No crash damage, Ignore max temperature. The thing must remain structurally stable in whatever conditions it's deployed. (Kerbin gravity if spawned on Kerbin). Autostrut and Rigid Attachment allowed.

Structure must be visually continuous. Two COStruts offset by 80 meters from each other don't create a visually continuous structure. Two COStruts connected by KAS winch cable do.)

And it must be a "ship". No spawning planets (although integrating asteroids in your design is allowed)

 

Score:

Base score:

1 point per 100m of vessel size in any axis, rounded down to nearest 100m. (a vessel 400m long but thin is worth 4 points. A cube 400x400x400m is 4+4+4=12 points)

1 point per 100 ton rounded down to nearest 100 ton (asteroid mass doesn't count; fuel/resource mass does).

Bonuses:

Up to +2x score for TWR above 1 on Kerbin, 0.1 per 0.1 TWR above 1. The structure must be capable of accelerating over the whole 1min period of the challenge, and remain whole over that period.

+0.5x  if it fits whole in VAB/SPH before "deployment"; no clipping into roof, extending past hangar doors etc. Meaning KIS/KAS, Infernal Robotics, or plain old docking. In case the craft is built of multiple modules, that applies "per module", so if you dock 20 50m long modules, each of which fits inside VAB, you're eligible.

+0.1x Career mode.

+0.2x No cheat menu, no Hyperedit.

+1x (non-cumulative with above): As above, plus no Extraplanetary Launchpads, and the structure gets to space and stays there (meaning you launch it from Kerbin and and either put it in orbit or send into escape trajectory.)

+0.2x Not made at KSC. (Using Extraplanetary Launchpads, OSE Workshop or other means to make the structure happen without ever pressing VAB/SPH "Launch" button).

+0.2x Actual practical purpose.

+4x Pure Stock no cheat menu.

All bonuses are added up before applying to base score (+x4 + +x2 = +x6,  not x8.)

You may stage/lose/break parts in the initial phase or after the minute is over; the vessel must last a continuous minute without breaking though. Post screenshot from beginning and end of the challenge period. If, for one reason or another, the vessel's mass or dimensions change over that time (say, your megapyramid collapses over itself but doesn't explode), the SMALLEST values are valid.

One more requirement: KSC must remain undamaged. If your megastructure breaks the launchpad or runway, it's disqualified.

The Hangar mod provides a convenient tool displaying the craft dimensions. Although if you use other means, I'll trust you and take them. KER and MechJeb provide TWR display; you can also ballpark it by launching vertically and measuring speed at 10th second of flight, divide by 98.1 and round down to nearest tenth for your score multiplier. Stock "engineer report" (spanner icon in VAB) provides mass readout.

 

_______________________________________________________________

Leaderboard

1. @drtricky 231 points -  a flying battleship of 16170 tons.

2.  @Sharpy 26 points - 1.2km radio mast

3.

4.

5.

 

_______________________________________________________________

My entry: Radio tower.

 

88 x 136 x 1245m @ 99.6t = 0+1+12+0 = 13 points base.

 

x0.5 fit in VAB.  KAS-assembled; the "launcher" vehicle was a moderate-sized rover.

x 0.1 Career mode

x 0.2 no cheats

x 0.2 Practical purpose: Relay antenna on top reaching farther beyond Kerbin curvature.

= (0.5 + 0.1 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 1(base)) = x2 total so my score is 26 points.

 

Edited January 29, 2017 by Sharpy

[SpaceOdissey]

Cool challenge! But TweakScale is allowed?

[Jarin]

3 hours ago, SpaceOdissey said:

Cool challenge! But TweakScale is allowed?

Pretty much any construction mod is allowed. You just get a 4x score multiplier for stock.

[drtricky]

Well, I have one thing two things:

 

The USHS Majestic

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Base:

Dimensions: 123.75 x 29.43 x 91.88 = 1 + 0 + 0 = 1 point

Weight: 3073.88 tons = 30 points

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonuses:

+0.2x no cheats or hyper edit

+0.2x actual purpose: An anti-everything VTOL destroyer.

(Note: I have no idea how to calculate TWR)

 

(0.2 + 0.2) = +0.4x

For a grand total of at least 43.4 points. Can you explain to me how to calculate TWR?

 

 

Next up is the USHS Dragonfly (Unfinished but functional due to previous physics issues and lack of time)

Spoiler

 

 

 

Base:

Dimensions: 38.3 x 232.6 x 230.4 = 4 points

Weight: 16170.110 tons = 161 points

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonuses:

+0.2x for no cheats or hyperedit

+0.2x for actual purpose: Flying battleship.

 

For a grand total of at least 231 points.

Edited January 29, 2017 by drtricky

[Sharpy]

3 hours ago, drtricky said:

Well, I have one thing two things:

 

The USHS Majestic

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

Base:

Dimensions: 123.75 x 29.43 x 91.88 = 1 + 0 + 0 = 1 point

Weight: 3073.88 tons = 30 points

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonuses:

+0.2x no cheats or hyper edit

+0.2x actual purpose: An anti-everything VTOL destroyer.

(Note: I have no idea how to calculate TWR)

 

(0.2 + 0.2) = +0.4x

For a grand total of at least 43.4 points. Can you explain to me how to calculate TWR?

 

 

Next up is the USHS Dragonfly (Unfinished but functional due to previous physics issues and lack of time)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Base:

Dimensions: 38.3 x 232.6 x 230.4 = 4 points

Weight: 16170.110 tons = 161 points

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonuses:

+0.2x for no cheats or hyperedit

+0.2x for actual purpose: Flying battleship.

 

For a grand total of at least 231 points.

If it's VTOL, then it does have TWR>1 certainly. KER and Mechjeb can display these. Or you can ballpark it: take off vertically at max thrust and continue the vertical thrust for 10 seconds since take-off, read your speed when clock ticks 10s since lift-off and divide by 98.1.

Round that down to nearest 0.1 - that will be your score multiplier, or add 1 for the actual TWR value. (a craft at TWR=2 will be moving 98.1m/s straight up 10s after lift-off; TWR=1.1 will be at 9.81m/s.)

Mid-flight, you'll need KER or MJ for the readout.

Adding you with current score, but give me the adjusted number and I'll fix it.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Sharpy

[Sharpy]

9 hours ago, SpaceOdissey said:

Cool challenge! But TweakScale is allowed?

Tweakscale is not omnipotent. It can do much, but in most cases 400% is all you can do. Some stock parts can be scaled more - but then there's the "no breaking KSC" rule Which in case of 20m profile parts becomes increasingly difficult.

At certain point even launch clamps become powerless.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Sharpy

[Mycroft]

Ok so this looks like a cool challenge but I do have one question. What about the KSP glitch that breaks the runway/pad if your craft is heavy enough, no matter how far off the ground you are. It was confirmed to be a glitch but apparently isn't high priority on the fix list. So basically because of your rule that the KSC must remain undamaged, doesn't that mean that there is an arbitrary limit on how big a craft you can submit? I'm a little confused here.

Other than that one small thing, this looks like a great challenge!

[Sharpy]

30 minutes ago, Mycroft said:

Ok so this looks like a cool challenge but I do have one question. What about the KSP glitch that breaks the runway/pad if your craft is heavy enough, no matter how far off the ground you are. It was confirmed to be a glitch but apparently isn't high priority on the fix list. So basically because of your rule that the KSC must remain undamaged, doesn't that mean that there is an arbitrary limit on how big a craft you can submit? I'm a little confused here.

Other than that one small thing, this looks like a great challenge!

Yes, this is an intentional limit - designed primarily to prevent dumping 6000 tweakscaled LLL's Ballasts in one spot, and calling it a day.  Building HEAVY is easy. Building BIG is much harder. You'll need your megastructure to distribute mass over a large area, or be considerably lighter than it would be "naturally" and so on. Or you'll need to modularize. Or you'll need to build off-KSC.

Generally, when building big, glitches are your bane. I'm looking forward to submitters posting new interesting ways of working around them - as they are bound to encounter them.

 

ps. in the past, I built a megapyramid of a side of good 20km. Through the right scaling of elements, I managed to save the launchpad, as it simply didn't touch it at any point. Unfortunately, R&D didn't fare as well.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Sharpy

[Mycroft]

8 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

Yes, this is an intentional limit - designed primarily to prevent dumping 6000 tweakscaled LLL's Ballasts in one spot, and calling it a day.  Building HEAVY is easy. Building BIG is much harder. You'll need your megastructure to distribute mass over a large area, or be considerably lighter than it would be "naturally" and so on. Or you'll need to modularize. Or you'll need to build off-KSC.

Generally, when building big, glitches are your bane. I'm looking forward to submitters posting new interesting ways of working around them - as they are bound to encounter them.

Cool! I don't use Tweakscale as a general policy, so big and heavy go  hand in hand for me. I would like to make a submission at some point, and I have a work around, but I was wondering what your perspective is. That glitch is an old rival of mine, and I have learned to live with it. I will be posting one of my 300m, >100 kiloton space battleships at some point here. Made with B9 HX and no Tweakscale.  

Cool challenge, and it's right up my ally! I love it!

Oh and no it doesn't fit in any building. The booster just barely fits inside the SPH.  

[Sharpy]

2 minutes ago, Mycroft said:

Oh and no it doesn't fit in any building. The booster just barely fits inside the SPH.  

Definitely post a how-to along with the submission!