mystifeid

Yeah, I know I said no more but that last landing kept eating at me. That should have been a faster time. That flight had a really bad climbout from the island runway too. Anyway Jeb put on his fireproof suit and buckled himself in once more. With engine size increased to 57% the indomitable Fat Boy managed 5:30 with 76 EC remaining. So close. A little faster and I could have stopped there. The boys pushed the plane back into the hangar and revved up the engines to 58%. Then this: 5:26 !! With 39 EC remaining. I'm starting to get a little scared about what Fat Boy can do but probably it can't do too much better. I realized that I've gone from just trying to land it to landing it after coming into a final turn at 260m/s just a couple of hundred metres back. It's very hard moving the right hand back and forth from the mouse (to keep a chase view) to the keyboard (to adjust prop pitch). Maybe setting some macros on the mouse would make it a lot easier. Nevertheless, although this is still not the perfect flight (for Fat Boy), it's getting very close to it.

After some minor tweaks to the suspension, brakes and engines - now at 56% - Jeb slides Fat Boy in at 5:34. This time Jeb has 95 EC remaining so sub-5m30s is definitely possible especially considering how less than optimal the landing at KSC is this time. Jeb has pulled off a very aggressive landing at the island runway though, which has made all the difference. But these are pretty tricky and in fact the whole flight is starting to have to be moderately perfect. The tension is getting to Jeb. Since this is now close to a minute faster than his nearest rival, that might have to be the end of it. (Unless some real competition turns up).

Wow. Engines at 55% and 260+m/s top speed in level flight. Finished at 5:38 with 48 EC remaining.

Couple more tips. Make the turn into final to the island runway slightly below or at the height of the runway. And if you are aiming to land near the end of the KSC runway, make the turn into final above about 150m - below this height it's very hard to see the runway as you are approaching and even harder judging when to make the turn. These two things alone can save a lot of time. Best time now at 5:44. Still in Fat Boy. It's interesting that in my last video above I still had 49 units of EC after coming to a stop. In that attempt the engine size was set to 50% in the hangar. So I've been increasing the engine size 1% at a time and going faster each time. Now with engine size at 54% my time is at 5:44 and I still have 39 units of EC remaining. Time to try 55%. (Why have EC remaining ? Because increasing prop pitch is very effective at reducing speed.)

It has been a surprise to find how much more efficient the ducted prop blades seem to be compared to the conventional ones. Is that just me? Or is that a thing now? Remember that prop speed challenge? Top speeds around 300m/s ? Here is Fat Boy sans ore in a slight but steady climb. 323m/s !! Makes you wonder what's possible now.

Not necessarily - I think it depends on the wing loading. Look at how slowly and easily @ralanboyle is able to land nearly twice as much ore compared to me. Top speed is important - probably something around 250m/s is needed for 6 minutes - but so is power or how quickly you can accelerate to top speed. After that, the precision of the flight is everything. How smoothly you can change prop pitch especially while taking off and landing. How quickly you can land and come to a stop. (When I started I cursed using a tail dragger because of the terrible braking but I soon got used to skidding and realized it was probably an advantage). I've had a lot of fun with this challenge so thank you.

I don't get it. He's playing the game his way and inviting you to do the same. If you don't want to do that then that's fine but when half the game doesn't make sense, arguing about semantics seems like a bizarre and futile exercise. It is no wonder that the OP has chosen the name "DigitalDread". Welcome to the forums btw @DigitalDread - I think your boat is pretty cool.

This. Also Val. On both, long-ish downhill slopes make it easy to keep purely wheel driven rovers at over 100m/s for nail biting lengths of time although risk increases exponentially at anything over 80-90m/s. With a little rocket assist the large craters on Moho and of course the polar icecaps on Kerbin are also excellent. But Tylo - the equator is like one big long race track with the odd minefield thrown in for good measure.

I doubt that. Probably has a life and has to juggle that with a KSP addiction. I was pretty happy too. Now 5m 30s would really be something ... I already have a 5:53 but it's not enough of an improvement. Think it's time for a redesign - something seems to be missing. Oh yeah. Moar engines!

Jeb slides to a stop at 5:56 in "Fat Boy" and is pretty sure he can go faster.

Jagged this the first time I tried recording it but you can be the judge of whether it is acceptable. Came to a stop at KSC after 7:04. With so much weight, the landings are damn tricky. Plane is called "Nuthin Special".

Turn off "terrain scatters" in the graphics section of the game settings.

It's been a few months and things might have changed but I got Eve to work by impacting 91 tons at 8km distance from the sensor. The craft comes down at floaty speeds and left to itself registers a negligible impact. What made it work was staging a few radial S3 tanks (with attached Rhinos) at 100m altitude.

Using w7 - had UI at 100% but navball at 90% and the same blank altimeter. Increasing navball size to 95% or more makes altimeter reappear. (Res 1920x1080)

If you assign thrust limit to the main throttle keys the same thing happens to a rocket engine. Try assigning to custom axis groups and then using fine control (caps-lock). You will be surprised at the difference.

Apparently not. Try using custom axis groups for rpm limit, torque limit and propeller pitch. Then you can do what you want.

Do you have rpm limit assigned to the main throttle keys? This is the only way I can reproduce this behaviour. It does not appear to be a bug since by default we launch at full throttle. The rpm limit slider bounces after dragging because the throttle is maxed. But the throttle keys work - ie the throttle controls the sliders but not vice versa. Interesting that I have only one plane left with anything assigned to the main throttle keys - normally nothing is assigned to these keys and this is just one more reason not to do it. (Along with fine control not working with the throttle keys)

Out of about twenty aircraft, this happens to just one - a single engine plane. The rest have the rpm limit applied on launch. With the single engine plane, if I replace the engine the rpm limit is then applied in launch. If I use just two parts - a pod and an engine - the rpm limit is applied on launch. So far I've tried quite a few things but haven't been able to reproduce it.

Alt + F4 - if you're using Windows.

Given the name of the rocket and the parts used, I'm assuming that you are in an early career and have not yet researched General Construction and therefore do not yet have access to either struts or autostruts. If that is the case, try placing another three fins on the thumpers - one apiece and low down. After launching an almost identical (except for the three parachutes which I don't recognize) rocket this helped to stabilize the roll not long after starting the gravity turn.

Is the rocket wobbling at all - as a result of starting a gravity turn?

Although this challenge closed a long time ago, you could still use the race section of the Dessert Derby as a yardstick for what 'fast' is. The course basically just has a start line near the Dessert runway and a finish at the temple with the course taking in varied terrain (and it looks like the savefile is still available for download). Possibly, due to limited participation, we're still not seeing what 'really fast' is, but it may help as a useful test. (And for the record, in the race section, I'm happy finishing second to Katateochi any day of the week)

So that would take 90% of the fun out of it for me. It doesn't really make sense to me that you are unwilling to spend a minute to rebind the rover keys yet are happy to spend how long ? to do something that imho can't be done. And just because a rover is stable on Kerbin ... my big rovers are impossible to flip on the flat on Kerbin when using wheel power but on Vall for example, that is far from the case. Anyway, good luck with it.

I see. Unfortunately autostruts will only pass through robotic parts (and be effective) when they are locked. Is there nothimg you can do to stop the movement before locking? Perhaps toggling prop deployment off, then locking, then toggling prop deployment back on?

Why is this difficult? Are you using an action group key to toggle locking? Have you tried grandparent autostruts for the nacelles?