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2688.69, sir. edit: such a score would be decisive on splitting tables

You are missing the natural logarithm before (1+TWR). So it is the natural logarithm of 4.59 (that is 1.52something). Low TWR crafts (under 1) must have a chance to compete. I am already thinking about splitting the table - difficult to find a common scale for "apples" and "bananas". You are "top of the crop" anyway and free to submit a new entry if you wish so.

@Thor Wotansen: Well done, practice makes you perfect. Your score is 1536.07. By the way, we will refer to it as "a viking craft". The drakkar sails to the first place.

The formula is exactly like you wrote. I still feel that high TWR crafts have got a little edge but it is a lot less biased. Moreover I am really interested in high TWR crafts - that is why I did not want to completely rule out mammoths and vectors: I would be really interested to see a 3 mammoth powered craft that could get to orbit with fuel to spare and get back to KSC.

@Firemetal: Thank you very much for your entry, based on the new "ln" rule your score should be 887.05 [ln(1.23)*4285]. I enjoyed a lot your mission, I love when I get in trouble. Deltas can be a pain in... a foot while reentering. Largest crew to date, honorable mention. Good job. @Thor Wotansen: Alas I can not admit this one at the moment. The theoretical score is high. Just give it another try.

Yep, I had the same "feeling" about TWR - the logarithm will work better and it is now the rule that will be applied. You are the king of the lab. Thank you. I will amend the table accordingly. @ABalazs: thank you very much for your entry - following the new "ln" rule you are now on top of the table with 1490.22 points. Nice shot. I am pleased you are enjoying the challenge.

Well, this is a case I did not think about while setting up rules - however points will be calculated separately for the different engine sets (the way @tseitsei89 described above fits perfectly - thanks mate) The purpose of the challenge is to evaluate the best compromise in terms of "range vs. raw power (with an eye to utility)". I am of course open to any suggestion on how we could improve and refine the score system. So, @Eidahlil, at the moment I do not have enough data to calculate a consistent score: I can see you have maybe 4 seconds left of rapier propulsion and one ion engine. I can assume the twr of the "ion only" is around 0.02. So the aggregated score may be calculated as follows: (50m/s * 1.72) + (17504m/s * 0.02) = 86 + 350.08 = 436.08 Thank you very much for your entry. If you want you can provide further flight informations to better refine your score or you could submit a new entry to improve your current standing (unlimited entries are allowed).

Thank you for your entry. A very good one to warm up the challenge. I classified it under the "stock" list, if I am right your score is 725 * 3.48 = 2523. Well done, @Hodari. EDIT - sorry for the rule change, but it was a necessary amendment. Your new score is 1087.22

Well then, it's been a while since I submitted my first "K-prize" craft and it's been a while since I read my first "very big and fundamental" argument on how a winged SSTO should be built. So now it is my time (my first time indeed) to propose a challenge. This is a "stockish" challenge - MJ, KER and stuff like that is allowed. B9 and similar "part adding" mods are not exactly allowed but they will have a different roll of honor because I am very "including". "Da Challenge" You must build a winged SSTO. (it should take off horizontally from the landing strip) It must be powered by no more than 3 "standard" engines. (vernors, puffs and RCS are free for all) Your craft must be able to take off from Kerbin and reach a 150x150 orbit. It must be able to get back home. You must provide "proof of landing" (everybody usually does, but you know, for the sake of the challenge) Anything that has got a Mammoth, Vector, Rhino, Twin Boar or Mainsail goes in the Passionfruit table. Anything with a TWR lower than 1 goes in the banana table, anything with a TWR higher than 1 goes in the raspberry table. Score will be calculated as follows: (ln(1+TWR)*dV) - TWR and delta-v referring to the craft in a 150x150 orbit, only the engines providing vacuum propulsion will be taken into account - KER/MJ are encouraged due to the lack of in game data - remaining fuel might be taken into account if your faith forbids the use of any kind of in-game help of sort. For KER users, the data of interest is displayed under the name of "Surface TWR". Crew will be used as a "playoff" - same scoring crafts will "face off" on crew capacity. We expect comfortable crew lodgings, so "chairs" are not encouraged and will account for just 0.33 the crew number during this challenge. Docking capability is encouraged and it is going to account as a second "playoff". There are different lists based on TWR: lower than 1 will fit in the "Team Banana" while higher than 1 will be listed under the "Team Raspberry". Staging is forbidden - anything that goes up needs to get back down. Everybody will receive a feedback on his/her entry. Do not think your craft is not worth a submission even if it is "lacking" in your eyes - it may be a breakthrough for somebody else. Cheaters, if discovered of course, will be banned from the challenge. Messing around with the configuration files is bad. Photoshopping random numbers on a pic is even worse and it is not good for your ego either. (I've seen things you people wouldn't even believe...) So, please, gentlemen (or gentle attack helicopter) - on your marks and thank you for reading. Sample/example (wrong in many ways, but that is the kerbal way to provide an example) (Score: ln(1 + 0.52)*3325 = 1392.21 points) - Team Banana, for the records. Standings: "Stock-ish - Team Banana" 1) tseitsei89 - 1741.52 points (3282m/s - 0.70TWR - 1 pilot) ***1 rap + 2 nukes*** 2) AeroGav - 1353.87 points (3639m/s - 0.45TWR - 3 crew, docking port available but missing operative capability) ***1 rap + 2 nukes*** 3) Firemetal - 887.05 points (4285m/s - 0.23TWR - 5 crew, no docking) ***2 raps + 1 nuke*** "Stock-ish - Team Raspberry" 1) tseitsei89 - 2606.23 points (1880m/s - 3.00TWR - 1 pilot) ***2 rapiers + Skipper*** 2) Thor Wotansen - 2074.58 points (1936m/s - 1.92TWR - 1 Pilot) ***3 rapiers*** 3) ABalazs - 1490.22 points (1271 m/s - 2.23TWR - 3 crew, dockable) ***3 rapiers*** 4) Thor Wotansen - 1159.57 points (1008m/s - 2.16TWR - 3 crew, dockable) ***3 rapiers*** 5) Hodari - 1087.23 points (725 m/s - 3.48TWR - 1 pilot, dockable) ***2 rapiers*** 6) qzgy - 515.98 points (500m/s - 1.80TWR - 7 crew, dockable) ***3 rapiers*** *** Payload *** "Stock-ish - Team Passionfruit" 1) tseitsei89 - 3864.92 points (1995m/s - 5.94TWR - 1 pilot) *** 3 mammoths *** 2) Eidahlil - 3125 points (1357m/s - 9.01TWR - no crew/tech demo) *** 2 raps + 1 mammoth *** 3) Foamyesque - 740.21 points (348m/s - 7.39TWR - 20 crew, dockable) *** 3 vectors *** *** Largest crew *** Thanks again to all the entrants.

Feet are hinged. Do not worry, they will be facing the right way when you land.

A cool one indeed. (both the bug and the rover)

If you are looking for a way to read on screen the time to apoapsis, time to suicide burn and so on you can try with MechJeb. MJ is like a swiss knife, jack of all trades.

What Slashy said is especially true about "roll", the slider is limited to 45 for the craft in the pic I posted.

KSP loves "leverage" related to CoM. You must take this into account too. It is easy to spot if you experiment with "T" tails.

Hi, this is my last crew ferry. 2 rapiers, 3 nukes, LF only, pilot + 4 tourists. 67t at take off. Cheers.

Following are just my personal opinions based on my experience; I do not wish to start a classical kerbal debate on planes - You need a few positive angle of attack for your wings and you could ditch a few "dead weight" like the whiplash pair. Maybe find a place in the bay for the solars too. You actually have more intakes than needed as @fourfa wrote above, but they are pretty light, tough and overall a good choice as nosecones. You may try to reconfigure your craft to get rid of the canards, they are comfortable but draggy. You might want to substitute the Mk2 decoupler with a random 1.25 adapter + tail connector - the decoupler is really draggy and moving the rapiers at the end of the Mk1 nacelles will move your CoM toward the centre of the craft, making way for an easier canard disposal. In my experience a couple of rapiers are enough to push up more than 65t with ease. I hope you can get through, the design is really cool. Good luck. Cheers.

This should be written in huge capital blocks on top of the forums.

My vote goes to LF only - And it seems to me I follow a very similar pattern - This one weights 31t at take off and I've got 1 rap and 2 nukes, so it fits.

If you play a career that is exactly the way it develops - you start w/o any of the superpowers you will get further down the tech tree, so you must be at least a "skilled pilot" to get there. It is more "science based" than "experience based".

It seems to me you are speaking about the mighty MechJeb. It does exactly what you are asking for. (and it provides several other features, kinda like the swiss knife of mods)

I did not have the chance to try yet in 1.2.1, however that possible profile ascent smells SSTOish.

So now my fiery mistress is just "kerbin on steroids"?

The "jet" science rover is actually pretty useful - you can gather around 300 points if you check all of KSC biomes (default settings, no accelerometer, no gravioli). Do not forget you can collect the data and reset the instruments - you do not really need to carry around 100 thermometers. Mun and Minmus are however the best places to farm for science - an early simple Mun landing (w/o terrain samples, single biome) can generate science in excess of 600 points. Required techs are even less than what you need to build the jet rover. If by chance you are using Porkjet's part overhaul, the new 303 engine makes a Mun landing viable in the very early stages of a career (day 7). Both Mun and Minmus routes can be easily "eyeballed" w/o maneuver nodes, you might find interesting strategies if you check the old @GoSlash27 "caveman challenge". Good luck.

First of all: @TheCardinal: YOU ARE A SQUAD PUPPET! I know that it might seem a little bit off topic but is anybody here aware of who is Johnny Turbo? Yesterday I made up my mind, thinking that it was better to simply move on and wait for my Football Manager yearly dose to settle my pain. Then I thought to myself "well then, a whole team moving... What would you do if you are ManU and Leicester won the league last year?" I would hire them all off course. Could this just be a sign that "Somebody" is starting to work on a new project based on KSP experience? Could this hypotetical project be KSP 2.0? Could FTE be that company and Johnny Turbo be that "somebody"? They already state on their site that they are currently "co-developing" KSP 1.1 ("Turbo" charged, of course).

To be honest a lot of people around here did not buy a finished game but rather funded an idea. At least this was the way it was. Nobody complains if the status quo is changing. Just, could anybody man up and tell us?