Kerbin Eco Challenge: How far on 100 fuel?

[Kermunmus]

@Sivonen It could be many things, like nosecone type, jet engine, cruising altitude, average speed, and such like that. My attempt is a joke and it was just used to demonstrate but you need to have it balanced. Screenshots would help 

[Sivonen]

Basically I'm wondering why the drag of the inline pod is about 2.5 times the mk1 pod's drag.

 

Oh and in both cases the speed and alt are in the same range, 630/13000, and the pitch of the craft is 0 degrees.

[Aetharan]

Well, the best that I can say (given that I've been focusing on experimentation more than math) is that the fairing-based nosecone has been a core element in what success I've managed.  Similarly, the degree to which the nosecone and wings are tilted against your direction of travel during cruise makes a difference.  My most successful flights have kept the core of the plane straight, cruised at 0º pitch, and had the wings between 2.5º and 4º depending on the total wing-load.  I've been fighting for the last week with wing configurations in an attempt to increase my cruising speed without sacrificing too much altitude to keep a Panther burning under 0.02 fuel/sec, with my biggest struggle being that most attempts start suffering momentary flame-outs every few seconds once I get under 70% fuel remaining.

Edit:  My experimentation has shown that a cruise speed of 650+ (preferably 660+) and a cruise altitude of 13,500+ both seriously improve efficiency with a Panther.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Aetharan

[JoeNapalm]

On 5/29/2017 at 6:14 AM, Aetharan said:

And now I'm driving myself crazy, because my winning entry in the Lightest Craft to Orbit thread actually had 100 LFO total on board: two filled Oscar-Bs and a Mk0 Liquid Fuel Fuselage at 40% full.  If it hadn't been based around a command seat, I'd just re-submit that here.  Instead, I'm struggling to replicate the feat with the much heavier/draggier pod options available in stock.

Edit:  For my second entry, I built a plane.  Max altitude: 25,874m Ground distance covered: 1,774,301m.  Score is thus 2,033.041.  I didn't manage to screencap while I was at the flight's peak altitude, but that information is included in the final screenshot.

 

I don't grok the command module requirement, really.

The goal is to be green. Bicycles are the greenest of the green. Bicycles don't have command pods.

Ergo, command pods are not green!

My logic is unassailable!

 

-Jn-

[Kermunmus]

But you see, bicycles are very bad at crossing the ocean, and the water severly hurts any boat's fuel economy. Then, of course, with a command seat you are being blasted with 500 mph winds at 10,000 m above the ground. This is the only way! 

[Aetharan]

The requirement to have a pressurized command pod just makes it more of a challenge.  It's certainly fun trying to beat my own score, at the very least.  I'm still fighting to break 9,000.

[Sivonen]

I took screenshots to show the difference between MK1 pod and MK1 inline pod drag readings. HUGE differences! I messed up with the the numbers earlier, it's actually something like 0.15 vs. 2.2.

Also Aetharan, is it that you aim to use 0.02 fuel/sec? As you see, I'm only using 0.011 at the beginning of the cruise... Same speeds and altitudes, but you fly waaaay farther.

Where is the difference....?

[Aetharan]

If I understood what was happening, I would share that understanding.

Edit: I will note that I get much better numbers on attempts during which I refuse to employ physics warp.  Not sure why, but it's a data point.  I've had one attempt which claimed to be in the air for over an hour at 660+ m/s, above 13.5 km, but had only covered 2.5 Mm by the half-fuel point in the flight.  It made zero sense whatsoever.  My current attempt, even without warping, has flown just a few hundred meters higher than my seventh entry, 1 m/s faster, but also only covered 2,538,062m ground distance by the half-fuel mark.  The only reason it's still flying is that it has 9 minutes more fuel remaining than said entry at the same fuel level.

Edit 2: Another flubbed water landing, but that doesn't really matter.  This plane flew, on average, about 200m higher than my best entry so far.  Roughly the same cruise speed.  Maintained powered flight for 7:15 longer, running out of fuel at 54º 42' 17" W, having covered almost 12º more around a higher great circle than said entry.  At the moment it ran out of fuel, it reported 6,413,795m ground distance covered.  Over a Mm shy of that attempt.  I flew higher, slightly faster, and longer.  I went farther around the planet.  Still I did worse.  I officially give up-- none of this makes sense.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Aetharan

[Sivonen]

2 hours ago, Aetharan said:

I will note that I get much better numbers on attempts during which I refuse to employ physics warp.  

Umm... So you fly them in real time? A million hours per test flight? 

[Aetharan]

5 minutes ago, Sivonen said:

Umm... So you fly them in real time? A million hours per test flight? 

Real time still means under two hours for a complete flight, and most of my test-flights end around 5-8 minutes in when I hit equilibrium and have the design's cruise altitude / velocity.

[Sivonen]

I have over one day mission times. Not trying. 

[Sivonen]

I'm giving up. Well done, Aetharan.  My final score is in the post above.

 

Alt 15464

Distance 6497934

 

[Kermunmus]

Ok I would say this is the end of the challenge, good job to everyone who participated! Your prize can be this icon I quickly made (if you really want it, also you miiiggghhht want to resize ). If you want more economics there is a similar challenge, that as of now, is going. Say goodbye everyone 

 

Edited June 9, 2017 by LazySoUseHyperedit

[DualDesertEagle]

As far as I can see I wouldn't have stood a chance with my notorious 1.02 install anyway. I can build quite deent planes but most of the time their fuel consumption is what I care about the least, so I have close to 0 expierience with how far I get with x fuel on board.

[NewtSoup]

I'm late to the game and I realise the scoring is done but this looked fun and I thought I'd play anyway.

This is my first attempt - a powered glider - 1/3 throttle in a gentle climb and hold and then a gentle 10 degree glide down before splashdown ( nothing broke )

An initial score of 762, I was stuck with only tier 3 tech in career mode.  I realise I could have gone sandbox but I thought I'd try anyway.  Pretty sure I can improve on this though as I didn't fly it anywhere near as well as I could have ( I left it to it's own devices for a half an hour at one point )

( how do I make the images smaller in preview?)

Edited June 14, 2017 by NewtSoup
Resize images to be "not in your face"

[sumghai]

1 hour ago, NewtSoup said:

( how do I make the images smaller in preview?)

If you go back to editing your post, double click on each image, and there should be options to set the display dimensions. Make sure you maintain the aspect ratio so that the images don't come out wonky.

Also, reducing the display dimensions does not change the actual dimensions of the original image, so your pictures won't load any faster.

[NewtSoup]

Thanks, and that's ok.  I didn't need the images to be altered, just for the forum post to not be so "splat"   What you said was exactly the answer I was looking for.

[DualDesertEagle]

12 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

I'm late to the game and I realise the scoring is done but this looked fun and I thought I'd play anyway.

This is my first attempt - a powered glider - 1/3 throttle in a gentle climb and hold and then a gentle 10 degree glide down before splashdown ( nothing broke )

An initial score of 762, I was stuck with only tier 3 tech in career mode.  I realise I could have gone sandbox but I thought I'd try anyway.  Pretty sure I can improve on this though as I didn't fly it anywhere near as well as I could have ( I left it to it's own devices for a half an hour at one point )

( how do I make the images smaller in preview?)

10 degrees? Seems like a pretty steep dive for a glider to me. And I've been flying gliders for a while. I would tr, again at a shallower angle (if KSP's gliders don't actually need such high angles to maintain their airspeed.)

Edited June 15, 2017 by DualDesertEagle

[NewtSoup]

5 Degrees I meant to say.  Its hard to get finer with keypresses.

[DualDesertEagle]

3 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

5 Degrees I meant to say.  Its hard to get finer with keypresses.

SAS off, trim the sucker, let it glide on by itself and get back to the controls when it's approaching splash- / touchdown

[NewtSoup]

8 minutes ago, DualDesertEagle said:

SAS off, trim the sucker, let it glide on by itself and get back to the controls when it's approaching splash- / touchdown

I had no idea you could trim the controls.  I've found out how now.  Thanks.