Xenoc

Finally got a chance to play with the new version (+Silisko) last night before bed. Managed a landing in the big darkspot on the mun, then back to Kerbin. Only problem was I stupidly decelerated into low Kerbin-orbit, and rather than delerating fully on my approach, I waited until I was at Perigee then circularised the orbit, before my planned descent (I wanted to see if I could land back on the launch platform). Problem being my fuel ran out just as the orbit circularised, so not enough to retroburn and land. 3 Kerbals in orbit for eternity is - I think - a fitting monument to my first succesful munar landing

Yeah, the new atmospheric model in the September release changes this challenge quite substantially. Using that method int he old version only got you to 700 ish m/s at 21,000m and 41,200 m max altitude.

I'm not sure programmers are worse, as much as they've just been able to get lazy with resources; the rampant improvement in memory and processing potential in computing have meant that higher level programming languages are used for almost everything. That results in a lack of optimisation. The example I always use in this is the game Elite; a massive sprawling universe with real physics and a consistent and functioning economy, all in 16k of memory (i.e.16,000 Bytes, as opposed to the 2,000,000,000 Bytes many games can easily eat up these days).

42,935: Full throttle until 100 m/s then down to keep the speed at that level. Full burn after 10km. 50,717: Throttle to 100 m/s, maintain that until 4 km, then maintain at 30% throttle until 15 km, 60% throttle til burnout 45,600: 75 m/s until 4km, 30% until 10 km, 50% until 15km, 100% til burnout. 48,384: 150 m/s until 10km, then just maintain the throttle at at that final level until burn. 51,460: 150 m/s until 10km then gradually ramped up to 60% thrust by 20km Tried a few variations with low burn rates at the top to try and keep thrust going until out of the atmosphere, but it never gives you a high enough final velocity to pop you up to a a good altitude. 60% thrust early on to get you up and travelling, then reduce thrust until you're in thinner atmosphere appears to be the best way forward. Keep your velocity below 150 m/s in the lower atmosphere. You need to be doing in excess of 600 m/s at 30km to stand a chance of getting over 50km. These were all without 1st stage decouplers. EDIT: 53,401 by getting to 100 m/s for the first 4km, then staying at 30% thrust until 10km, then gradually ramping up to 60% before burnout. Not sure there's much more can be squeezed out.

Of course, it occurs to me this might be more interesting as a 15 minute challenge as then there's a bit more balancing between dV and how fast you can generate that dV...

Nice runs. Finally got home to try it myself with my superheavy lifter and a few upper rocket stages. Will report back in 55 minutes EDIT: 400km, 2.3k dV, 2 stages to go EDIT 2: burnout at 800 km, 5.3k dV. Clearly not going to get anywhere near that first one. Just realised I hauled a parachute up with me too Pretty sure I could go a bit heavier on teh throttle int eh early stages, and probably strap a couple more late-stage SRBs on too... Will report on final tally in 48 mins... FINAL EDIT. 15,861km. Bums.

Nope, doesn't work; that orbit only applies for Earth, not Kearth (which has a much smaller diameter and thinner atmosphere). Kearth coms satellites would be in a much lower orbit.

OK, similar to the challenge set before by SiLo, but I much prefer a challenge with well defined boundaries and not open to abuse from ridiculous 0 fuel / massive thrust type engines. So, the challenge is: Reach the highest altitude you can in 1 hour. The only permitted parts are: Standard parts Sunday Punch's Wobbly Rockets Nova Silisko's Doughnut Research pack MTS Limited Tuned SAS modules For Kerbal Science!

Hmmmm. Interesting... To the Vehicle Assembly Building! For science! EDIT: After a highly elliptical orbit (500km apogee, 100km perigee) I fired the rocket too late. Definitely achievable (if horrifically difficult) though. Shame it takes an hour to get up and orbit before the 25 seconds of excitement ;D

Yeah, unfortunately I have no faith in SOE being able to pull it off. There's about a dozen of us from my old outfit who will no doubt still have it on pre-order the moment it's available

A few things. Dwarf Fortress, some intermittent BFBC2, up until recently the BF3 alpha, FSX, and of course World of Warcrack. Interspersed with occasional Portal 2, Tf2, Civ V and a few other bits and bobs.

Back in 2003 I started playing a very fine game called Planetside. i needed a character name, and had just finished reading some Peter F. Hamilton stuff that was repeatedly referring to xenos and xenocs. It appealed to me. Been using it ever since

Volcanologist here, although I lecture undergraduate geophysics and I spent 3 years as a science teacher

I've not managed to land on the pad yet, but I can reliably land within spitting distance of it simply by decellerating as the pad approaches over the horizon. I've done this repeatedly from 140km-ish orbits without problems. The trick is that once you've lost most of your horizontal movement use any remaing thrust to keep the vector indicator slightly ahead of the pad marker - you're going to be coming in slightly obliquely, and you need to account of the loss of lateral movement as you enter the atmosphere. Basically it comes down to practice.

I actually did this yesterday before seeing this challenge. The biggest problem I had was keeping track of the satellite to prove it was going into a stable orbit, but seeing as it separated in front of my command module, with about +10 m/s, and the capsule was in good orbit, I'll take it as a win. I'll warn you now - I take massive pleasure in over-engineering things Takeoff. All-liquid build as the height made it a little unstable for SRBs. Throttle control was necessary to stop the join at the satellite in the upper stage breaking. Reorientation of Stage 3 ready for orbital insertion after Stage 1 and 2 burn and separation. Cowling jettisoned. Reversal of attitude and jettison of payload into a fairly circular stable(ish) orbit at 140 +/- 2.5km Command module halfway through orbit. Nice stable altitude. Deorbit Landing. I assume the satellite is still merrily chucking around at about 140km