Butterfly net landing system

[suicidejunkie]

As far as I am aware, there is no speed limit for grabbing on to ladders.

This leads me to a fascinating idea / challenge:

1) Construct a surface base on any airless body, composed of a large structure covered strategically in ladders.

Note: for reliability, have sets of ladders just like aircraft carriers have multiple arresting cables in case the first one doesn't grab.  Clipping them together into one giant ladder should help a lot.

2) Have a Kerbal in orbit, with PE > 0

3) Press / madly hammer the F key with proper timing to grab the ladder and deorbit the Kerbal.

4) Points are proportional to the surface gravity of the body.  (Gilly and Minmus are restricted to participation ribbons since the EVA pack alone is more than sufficient there.)

[Guest]

I might try.

[Human Person]

Hmm, but is it possible?

[goduranus]

According to the forum rules, the challenge starter should do it first to prove that it is feasible.

I think the margin of error for grabbing is way too small for this to happen.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, goduranus said:

According to the forum rules, the challenge starter should do it first to prove that it is feasible.

I think the margin of error for grabbing is way too small for this to happen.

But then it would really be a challenge.

[suicidejunkie]

On 14/06/2017 at 4:07 PM, goduranus said:

According to the forum rules, the challenge starter should do it first to prove that it is feasible.

I think the margin of error for grabbing is way too small for this to happen.

I'm definitely trying this when I get back to my PC in a couple days, but I wanted to write this one down so I wouldn't forget.

 

KerbalKatcher Mk1 and 2 were destroyed by the Kraken

Mk3 had mostly-vertical ladders and Jeb failed to exist close enough to the ladders as he went by.

Mk4 had a long row of mostly-horizontal ladders, and with hyperediting Val into a 11.85m orbit across the flats of minmus, I got things lined up but only one frame of contact with the ladder.

Installing Better Time Warp, and trying again at 0.1x speed, Val was able to get the (F) grab prompt.  Mashing F got her to put her jetpack controls away on the first pass.

On the second pass, she rotated to match the ladder orientation without using the jetpack.

On the third pass, nothing happened.

On the fourth, the universe imploded and Kerbin decided to stop orbiting the sun.

 

Edited June 19, 2017 by suicidejunkie