Rhomphaia

Well, I guess everyone is busy with 0.22, shame I won't be able to get it 'till tomorrow at the earliest. Congrats to the all the finalists. As it stands my vote still goes to MiniMatt for the reasons already stated.

I split my judgement across four categories 1.Looks & Build - Where I considered how much I liked the looks, how well it looked as a "Stock Craft", how complex was the build and did it demonstrate any good examples of building techniques. 2.Action Groups & Description 3.Basic Lander functionality - here my testing was not extensive and I mostly had to take it as read that the functions on offer worked as intended. 4."Super Heavy" capabilities - where I examined the TWR and delta V and crew capacity of the craft. In the case of Delta V too much was as bad as too little for me. I feel that a stock craft should encourage new players to build rather than giving them a craft that can do everything straight out of the box I initially intended to post a table of all my results, but particularly in categories 1 and 3 things were so close at the top, I would have had to subdivide them into several different categories to provide any meaningful info. For Looks & Build though I do feel the UFO 1 deserves a special mention. While it may not have looked as "stock" as the other contenders in this category it was certainly distinctive and while the clipping may have been a bit excessive, I felt that a new player would find it more educational than overwhelming. Heavy Lander X really hit the nail on the head for the "Super Heavy" category, with its TWR and delta V almost exactly at the targets I was looking for, perhaps a few more crew spaces would have been good. It was a bit lacking in basic lander functionality though. If the action groups and the description had lined up it would have aced that category as well. As it was it tied with the CRUEL which was slightly let down by not having the parachutes in an action group. One of the Strongest contenders for Basic functionality was the Gonzalez Light Heavyweight IIa hitting almost all the notes I was looking for here (Ladder just wasn't funky enough though). It was no slouch in the other categories either. A bit low on thrust but the Delta V was good, and an excellent crew capacity. Description was perhaps a bit minimal, but at least there was one, still would prefer 'Chutes in an action group... Build was simple and fairly elegant and the looks while perhaps a bit plain, fit well as a "stock craft" All in all I felt it was the best all-round performer. So my vote goes to MiniMatt

GusTurbo you forgot to remove an engineer redux part from your build before submission - a real shame 'cause the Heavy was looking good apart from that.

If I am still in time, them I would like to change my entry to the Heavy Multi-role Lander More delta V, more thrust, more crew, still no gallery. .craft file

Got a potential replacement for my entry. Needs RCS and structural reinforcement, Should probably be able to get some flight trials run tomorrow, so if there's still time I will put up the craft file.

.craft file Sorry, no action shots this time. hopefully I will be home for the next one.

Well here I am stuck for two weeks without a computer that can reasonably run KSP. Got a couple of designs that might nearly qualify. Will probably just give one a polish and post an entry tomorrow. Any judging I do is mostly going to be based on maths and aesthetics.

There is the support and bugs subforum. read the bug reporting guidelines stickied there before you post. For now though I have found that if you quit the flight scene after you repack the parachutes, then select the ship from the tracking station again, then the bug doesn't occur .

And here I thought being stuck with a computer that makes a slideshow of even the simplest of crafts was entirely bad... I tested your theory with a mechjeb info window showing the drag coeficient of the craft and (thanks to a frame rate of 2 per second) can indeed confirm that on a second deployment there is a momentary spike to the fully deployed drag before the normal partial deployment values reassert themselves. The question now would be what happens if you leave them unpacked until you get to orbit?

If you are talking about Mun surface though, the fact that it is tidally locked, means that as long as you picked the right launch site, then timing would be irrelevant.

Not sure why your fuel lines don't attach to the adapters.

It would be possible... Launch point on Mun is going to be critical though. Edit:Scratch that... Read Base instead of ship

Nothing different about the physics, but there is a difference in your lander after you decouple the rover. If you were traveling at the same speed when you opened the parachutes, they are going to cause a more severe deceleration on a lighter craft. Best bet would be to not deploy them all at once, and maybe use some of the drogues.

In the VAB at the top left is the action group icon {middle one of the three blue icons), clicking that will hide the parts list and replace it with the action group list. First you select the action group you want to edit in the first panel, The second panel is the list of actions in the group. Click any part on the build which has groupable actions. A list of the actions will appear in the third panel, Click the ones you want to add to the action group. you can remove actions by clicking them in the second panel. Action groups 0-9 are activated in flight by pressing the corresponding number key. Abort is backspace. Brakes, gears, lights, RCS, SAS and stage will fire whenever you press the key for them. I would not bother with those much, though If you have a rover that tends to flip under heavy braking, then removing the brakes on its front wheels from the brakes group is a help. One thing to note is that parts added with symmetry will always be selected together when grouping. but if you later try to reposition those parts, then only one part will remain in the action group, so best save setting up the groups 'till the end of the build and double check them if you make any later edits.

Ok then, using the nav ball try pointing directly at the prograde marker, oriented parallel to the horizon, then pitch up until pointed directly at the sky, fire up the engines carefully until the retrograde marker lines up, now you are moving straight down, just point at and parallel to the horizon and control your descent

Hard to see from the screenshot but it looks like you have a remote guidance unit between the reaction wheels and the RCS tank, if you do then right click on that and select "control from here"

Actually there is something different in your design. Your docking ports are stack attached to the fuel tanks on the engine pods whereas the OPs docking ports are radial children of the fuel tank. Fuel can only flow radially from parent to child. So in your design the tanks in the stack can feed the engine, but the forward radial tanks cannot since they can't feed fuel back into the main stack. The OP's design should not need many fuel lines, on the engine modules running from one set of docking ports to the fuel tank should do it. Assuming of course that docked ports behave the same as assembled ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ℯ

IIRC there is actually a mod called "action groups on the fly". which would be your best bet. No idea myself how well it works though.

Well on the subject of the super heavy lander, My personal opinion is that since we already have a two stage lander, this one should be reusable. With that in mind I think that a Kerbin SSTO would be a bit over powered, The upper limit of performance I would be looking for is a one way trip from orbit to surface of all solid bodies, with a possibility of return from all except Kerbin, Tylo or Eve. Anything more would feel over powered for a stock craft, but too much less wouldn't fit the name "Super Heavy". Land and return on Vall would be the bare minimum I would expect. Starting from Munar orbit, land and then return to Kerbins surface would be good.

Rocket exhaust only damages parts that it impacts directly, there is no real radiation modeled.

Symmetry follows the axis of the root part of the craft. I would suggest root part selector to change the root to something on the main stack http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43208-0-21-1-Aug12-SelectRoot-Let-another-part-be-root-now-with-less-restrictions

It is actually the orange tank that is the problem there. Parts dissapate heat into the parts connected to them. But I think it applies only in a stack or radially parent to child, but not child to parent. Since your rear engines are on a longer stack there are more parts to dissipate the heat. In the case of the orange tank, It is just to long for the game engine to detect the connection, so there is no heat dissipation.

Mouse up to the top of the map view, there is a drop down bar up there. Works just the same as the tracking station.

Congrats Giggleplex, A close run final there. The Podium finishers flying in formation