chengong

full stock: 401 part module = 4010 points 400 science modeuls = 120000 points total = 124,010 points

shameless bump

all these "challenges" that don't have any challenge in them.... You can also land on the mun with tier 0. and that engine is in no way overpowered, you don't even know which parts are overpowered and you think you can open up a challenge?

yea maybe it was 0.8t, I don't remember because I quickly did it in 5 minutes. Also why I had two tiny tanks, just in case I don't get the perfect launch first time around. The secret is that dv counter is not entirely accurate when you do things like physics wrap, and fire engines at extremely low thrust just to turn because you have no torque. Contrary to poplar belief, the atmosphere ends at 69,000m not 70,000.

if that's what you meant then why did you also make the same mistake in the votes? 0.7t

below 20 tones is incredibly easy, try 2 tones instead.

ok, so it's like who can press F1 at the most opportunistic moment contest? BTW the Navball G isn't showing a different number, it's just lagging behind because of the smoothing algorithm. Also this plane is partially jet powered. I got higher Gs without time control.

110G = 2200p 108m = 92p Mach 2.0 = 20p Total = 2312p

Let's not forget that this is a game so the need for multiple people to work on one mission is negated by the fact that functional mechanics of component parts are already done for you, and many many other simplifications. Otherwise KSP ot Call of Duty and all other game would be pretty pointless. The same goes for avionics and navigation aids.

No SSTO is useful for deliverer cargo to orbit because you never need to deliver cargo to orbit. And all designs are safe with the revert button.

Seems like you already dictated 20 out of 30 pots we can have, why not just make a precision landing challenge instead? This has to be one of the most painful booring challenges I have ever done, the driving takes FOREVER and there's NO CHALLENGE WHAT SO EVER. Just BOORING GRINDDDDDD. Slingshot with any moon/Planet: 20p each x20 Duna orbit: 5p Land within 500 meters of the landing zone: 1p Reach the research zone: 5p Total = 411 Points

define "best" the stock turbo jet is OP enough to make SSTOs easily, blindfolded, so I don't quite understand this.

I'm sorry but a quick notepad edit is not an add-on.

When a challenge requires me to use an OP mod to get full points, I just ignore it.

Because mechjeb you could attach to your ship and gain additional benefits. Where as if you used RLA engines you no longer have stock engines with you. if you had a craft made with RLA engines instead of su-74s then you craft would have less performance. But if you have a craft and attach a mechjeb box to it, it doesn't loose any power. I'm sorry but it just doesn't turn me on, When I look at it I'm like, who cares? why should I be able to do that? It lacks epicness. You can't just say "make it entertaining", that's like saying, "make it good!". This is a game so obviously good is entertaining and vice versa. The problem is HOW you make it entertaining.

yea the small engines are not bad but they're also really long. I just had the impression that the larger engines are stupid heavy while Novapunch engines are lighter with equal performances. Having mechjeb does not prevent you from also using the stock navball tools so it can't possibly be less than 2 in power rating. Plus mechjeb is a tool and you have to use it intelligently, so you're not going to let it fly a spaceplane into orbit for you because you know it sucks at it. however you can let it do a landing and it will start firing engines at the last possible second, and save more fuel than you doing it manually. For me Mechjeb is most useful at planning burns, which you can then tweak manually which is a lot faster than doing it manually from start. Short burns can also be carried out by Mechjeb with great precision, although it won't do longer ones for your ion missions. Again it's a tool and you have to use it right instead of expecting it to do everything for you. I tend to be lazy and use auto dock for example. It may not be as efficient as manual but you always have the option to have it hold the ship in the proper direction while you do the docking translations, so helpful when you don't have a ship with balanced RCS, which is kind of annoying to have to do without mods like RCS build aid.

The biggest problem with stock only I think is still accessibility. I had to make an entire copy of the game that is stock only so I can do these challenges without having to remove various mods. If you want pristine stock communities you really should head over to Reddit where people do grand tours on pure stock and calculate Dv with Excel. Also some of the stock only entries are just insane exploit fests, like intake spamming to the point you can run jet engines at 50km. And keep in mind that design limitations such as stock only, only forces original ideas IF THERE IS ONE. Being a game with limited number of parts, there are a very finite number of possible designs out there, so no, you cannot always have new ideas. usually the best idea has already been tried, you just have to take it further than everyone else to win.

Actually, I just wanted to make a thread about how to make successful challenges, because there are way too many challenges that has potential but ultimately are ruined because the OP makes some easily avoidable mistakes. Challenges primarily come in two types, and they obviously have different design goals so you will have to keep in mind which on are you going for: The Challenge challenge What I mean by this is that the challenge simply has one goal and anyone who complete said goal is considered a winner. The best example of this type of challenge would be: The Ultimate Jool-5 Challenge:land Kerbals on all moons and return in one big mission Now let's take a look at what makes this challenge great: It has to be epic. Epic means something we see and be like, man I wish I could do that! and not some random task like jumping from one ladder to another, which might be difficult but it's just boring nobody cares if you could do it or not. After all, it has to be something people WANT to be able to do, for them to even have a go at it. It should be somewhat difficult. Not as strong of a requirement, because there are some really easy challenges that are apparently still very popular, like the K-prize, circumnavigation and machinebird. However when you do a challenge the difficulty usually should come from engineering and not piloting skills, for two reasons. The first one being that this game is primarily an engineering game and not Flight Simulator X. Second being since each person has their own crafts, it's never a fair competition. Unless of course you make a craft for people to use and do not allow any custom crafts. But that kind of defeats the purpose of the game so I have yet to see a successful challenge done that way. Have some different levels of difficulty. This is mostly because you want an epic, difficult challenge for hard core players. But you also want more entries and not scare everyone off so that the post doesn't just sink to the bottom. You do this by having different levels of difficulty. This also makes the hard core entries feel more epic as an added bonus. If you look at the weekly Reddit challenges they pretty much all do these three important things. The competition challenge Basically this is the challenge with a scoring system and a leader board, and a way to win the challenge. I would say this is more difficult to establish since any challenge challenge can be converted into one of these by adding a good scoring system to the mix. Therefore this kind of challenge actually has all the prerequisites of the first type, with added complexity: Scoring system. It has to reward what the challenge is ABOUT, and not anything else. Or else you end up in an uncomfortable position where someone submits an entry that earns huge points but isn't really what you wanted your challenge to be. Some of you might know me for doing that. Low cost Launcher The challenge above an example of a structured scoring system that doesn't focus on what the challenge is about. So you have a challenge for "low cost" but then your scoring system rewards crew capacity instead of you know, low cost? Well that's just asking for trouble isn't it? Now you have no choice but to either change the rules or resort to that "spirit of the challenge" thing, which is ultimately a get out of jail for free card for bad challenges, as good challenges never seemed to need it. Variety of solutions. This means that the challenge should (potentially) have a variety of solutions, and not just, who can spam the most number of speratrons onto a probe core. Whenever you have a challenge about spamming parts, you have a big problem. Not only is it unfair to those with no access to super computers. It's just unfun even when you do spam the most. There are certain types of challenge that are especially prone to spamming part. Things that involve speed and jet engines (intakes) for the most part. Challenges that involve lowest mass or part count to some simple goal such as lowest mass to orbit, are especially bad because when you only have three or five parts, and there are only three or five parts to choose from. People will quickly find the absolute optimal solution and kill the challenge. Mods. While it may be tempting to either allow all mods or disallow all mods. Neither is a good choice here. Allowing all mods gives you entries with magic engines with infinite fuel and insane thrust. Not allowing any mods, well most people who don't do any modding are probably on Reddit. For convenience, I'll just put up a table here listing the fairness of the most popular mods. Mods will have a power rating from 1 to 5 where 2 is STOCK. Some mods will have 0 which stands for mods that add entirely different functionality to the game and not just variety of parts. [TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"] [TR] [TD]STOCK parts[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Infiniglide/Ladder power/Kraken drive[/TD] [TD]4[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]B9 Aerospace[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]KW Rocketry[/TD] [TD]2+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Nova Punch[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]FASA[/TD] [TD]3+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]FAR[/TD] [TD]3?[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]NEAR[/TD] [TD]3+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Kethane[/TD] [TD]4[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]RLA Stocklike[/TD] [TD]1?[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]MechJeb autopilot functions[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]dynamic strut mods[/TD] [TD]2+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Propeller mods[/TD] [TD]2+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Advanced Jet Engine[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]realistic fuels and engine configs[/TD] [TD]4[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Hot air balloons[/TD] [TD]4+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]realistic reentry, life support, part failure[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Near Future packs[/TD] [TD]3+[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]FTmN and Atomic Age, other NTR[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]KAS[/TD] [TD]0[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]That awesome mini shuttle mod[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Interstellar[/TD] [TD]4?[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Impossible Innovations[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]HyperEdit[/TD] [TD]5+[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Please suggest for additions and changes. Ultimately, allowing Mods is for the convenience and fun of people who want to participate in the challenge, and not about your own convenience. Some people don't want to install mods just to enter the challenge because it's either required or allowed but super OP. Neither do people want to uninstall mods just so they could entry the challenge. So you have to make sure that you allow as many mods as possible, without breaking balance. if that means you have to do research on and try out certain mods, I suggest that you do and not just disallow it because you don't know what it does. Neither should you allow certain mods just because you like it and you don't want to give it up. I would say for most challenges, tier 3 mod will be the highest you will allow. Some of these things are clearly better than stock like the B9 crew cabins compared to stock crew cabins. So if you have a challenge about crew capacity you certainly want to address that. Tier 4 mods are questionably powerful and probably should never be allowed unless the challenge is entirely about using that mod, which is ill advised to begin with because not many people will have that mod, whatever it might be. Anyone allowing tier 5 for anything other than setting up your challenge, is probably insane. FAR although makes atmospheric flight less tolerant. It also significantly reduces drag, reducing the required Delta V to orbit from 4,500 to 3,500. Which is a huge advantage in of it self. However since the jet engines are nerfed, on top of the more delicate design requirements, spaceplanes are more difficult with FAR. if you have an interplanetary challenge this is probably not a big deal. But make sure you address it for any atmospheric challenges. And yes, some mods are actually underpowered. Like RLA stock-like, at least its engines. You can beat all of them with the su-74s, which is an incredibly overpowered stock engine. So OP in fact, some challenges are just begging for everyone to spam this engine as much as they can. On Part clipping I think the biggest problem with clipping, is the tiny strut, and not really clipping itself. Also this is more of a problem with intakes more than anything else. So if you're not having an intake spam competition, you probably don't need to worry about this.

It's not often in real life because nobody can do it by him/her self. I can do it by my self in the game, there is no comparison. How often do astronauts execute burns by themselves? never! Then why didn't you allow mechjeb? How often do astronauts fly in rockets designed by armatures? never! Then why didn't you require a Ph.D in engineering to even qualify for this challenge?

I have a better idea, how about a challenge to see if one can swim to the island runway?

Where is the challenge? Making up for people who didn't do their job?

Let me guess, OP is using a pirated version of the game. So he updates simply by overwriting the game folder, which doesn't delete the old parts, that's why he is able to use them in his "0.90" version.

My 1 million fund how-to-do-challenges tutorial example rocket would net -10 points for reaching orbit with docking-capability -large docking port = +5points -5 points for manned Vessels -2 points per additional kerbal aboard X432 884 Points. Best -Chen

No mods except the one I have, because I'm too lazy to download new ones, and I don't want to give up the advantage of the one I already have!

Except that Orion is more reasonable than perpetual motion and violation of Newton's second law of motion. Are they allowed or are they not allowed? You're not making a whole lot of sense.