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Maxed Rockets, the aerospike is a nuisance, will hardly ever go on craft properly but you might be able to use it on a tricoupler by connecting it to a small tank first and then alt select to copy and connect the whole assembly to the tricoupler x3, failing that, a full 400L tank. GL

The take off has to start with horizontal movement, any distance, after that you go where you want. Thanks for your latest v17 contribution Foursch. Delta Wing IV took the v17 maximalist record and your precise landing on the runway deserves an advanced pilot precision award. Vulcan took the v17 altitudinalist record and both won the K Prize fair and square. Very robust looking craft and clearly effective. Welcome back to the guest list aka the roll of honour. zekes, thanks for your mission report and well done on getting Zokesia Precision Lifter 4 off the ground and into Mün orbit. This earned you the worthy kosmokerbal commendation and a return to the roll of honour. souza thanks for your challenge mission records well done on getting Nexus SSTO 2 into orbit and the engineer is fine, see rules above. You have won the prestigious K Prize and earned yourself a place on the guest list to the party at the Dog and Booster, aka the roll of honour. RadiationKing, thanks for your mission description and screenshot log. The tags you are looking for are... [spoiler="mission"] close with [/spoiler] 10:1 is an impressive glide for a spaceplane and your dogged determination and precise landing have earned you an advanced pilot precision award. I hope you know that you can use 4x timewarp in atmosphere now! (Also in space under thrust with [ALT] + [.] but beware the shakes.) Congratulations on making an SSTO craft and flying the K Prize mission successfully.

Thanks antiquark, I am sure all participants are glad to know that readers like yourself are finding their designs interesting and helpful. Which brings me to the successful K Prize mission report from Klilidiplomus with the Sky Guardian. Thanks very much for your screenshot record of the mission which clearly shows a successful mission (your word is good enough here... but we can can see the parts list on the left anyway ) including a precise landing on runway 27 (seaward end of runway 9) complete with cockpit screenshots of the unpowered fuel-free land-it-or-lose-it approach. Did you use a joystick? The craft does have impressive gliding ability and seems to have responded well to your direction. Congratulations on winning the K Prize and welcome to the guest list aka the roll of honour. G Addict, do you want me the enter that on the roll or will you get screenies?

Archangel Lucifer, thanks for the Maverick mission report. Maverick has avian lines reminiscent of your White Raven craft, though it is a lot smaller and yet has a large 3 Kerbal cockpit integrated which reminds me a little of the tadpole look of the U.F.O. series SHADO moon shuttle craft. kepicness, thanks for entering your spaceplane into the K Prize challenge and well done on integrating the NERVA engine into it. That is a tricky engine which doubles the dv value of any fuel it can use in space but halves it below about 3000m on Kerbin and weighs 2.25 tons, as much as a full 400L tank, these are the difficulties you overcame. In theory it could be the key to raising the range of spaceplanes in v17. I note with interest that you placed the engine quite far forwards in the craft which must have helped with controlling the ship by shifting the center of mass forwards when the tanks were empty. So thanks for a groundbreaking mission which all can benefit from and congratulations on winning the K-Prize. Suzaku, they keep getting smaller! You have taken the tanks down to 3x400L, which is the minimum for a no frills aerospike rocket to orbit and lifted an additional pair of turbofan engines and wings, good going! (And food for thought.) What's more you landed it so it qualifies as a K-Prize winner. So the question is ... can bsalis land that 11.1 ton design ... ? However if we had docking and off planet fuel economy (as one hopes the campaign might one day include) it would be an economical transfer vehicle to a low orbit rendezvous.

Using MechJeb btw is within the rules but landing your craft intact is definitely a requirement for winning the K Prize and the kudos goals, not a requirement for the gate crashers list though Archangel Lucifer, Space Wing is a powerful looking machine with a kind of muscular elegance which would not seem out of place in a SciFi movie. I was particularly intrigued by the creative use of the conical extensions and RCS jets to assist with zero G manoevures. Must have taken quite a bit or work to get all the engines balanced. It is certainly the heaviest to date in v17 and also the highest orbit yet seen, the evidence is clear that your mission is the current maximalist and altitudinalist record holder so congratulations on a holding the clean sweep of all three records for approx 13 hours and 19 minutes, that was until Suzaku made a successful bid for the minimalist record, see below! Thanks to EndlessWaves for measuring the weight of Space Wing at 89.38 tons. Hooligan Labs, thanks very much for your latest bouncy (in a different way) mission report video. That was a very careful landing for such a big craft, however did you check the periapsis was above 70km during the flight? I went through your video, frame by frame at some points and checked every time there was a periapsis reading and also took craft velocity for both apoapsese (where the climb indicator goes to zero) and plugged them into the KSP calculator for eliptical orbits and came out with a PE about 65km every time. So unless you know different and you cut part of the flight out of the vid, which has a precedent btw, I have a sneaky feeling you might not have made an orbit which was completely in space. So I have tried to devise a suitably good humoured new caption for the gate crashers list for now and will revise it if you say that you made orbit or make another attempt successfully. I am certain that you can do it with that craft if you so choose because AP was high enough at 90km and FYI there was room for greater efficiency in the lift off (because straight up then across is not quite the most efficient path to orbit IMHO) so I hope you try again and win the K Prize. Suzaku, thanks very much for your screeny record of your minimalist record mission. You took the K-17 design down to 4 x 400L tanks undercutting the previous record holder, Archangel Lucifer's Widowmaker which had tanks numbering 5.5 x 400L. You needed fewer wing parts as a result and also upped the ante by dropping ASAS and going with mechjeb which is within the rules and a valid way to cut weight. In this way as your screenshot clearly shows, you were able to make orbit and with a successful landing became the rightful holder of the minimalist record in v17... for now! Congratulations. (re K Prize, I will carry on for now then, np )

Yes he made the smart moves, the polar orbit departure is clever to help with catching Eve but not essential, the staging of the ascent rocket was optimal, dropping stacks in pairs and not in bunches of six and the landing site cut the size of craft he needed by at least half. Props to that pilot, makes me wonder why I was being such a dumbass... I think I was just fed up of stages not being ejected properly and colliding with the ship all the time so I wanted fewer separations.

Good challenge, I am using the stats of Apotheosist's craft to try and design a lander that can actually make it off the surface so I would say it had been worthwhile. So far I have made two attempts, both failed and the first got to 6,000m and the second to 20,000m so I have got a long way to go. Will be interested to read other people's attempts. I can tell you that this thing failed.

What can I say bsalis, the Avenger (or should that be the new Avenger!?) is a technological marvel and I am glad you have managed to construct such an advanced craft in complete accordance with the rules as you so rightly say. It is also possible to detect a small amount of horizontal travel in the vertical take off which, given that you have checked the rules, I am assuming was the initial vector of the craft, which is also a rule kept, so you rightly deserve your v17 K-Prize and an advanced pilot precision award for landing with all wheels on the runway, while your craft is the largest to date in v17 and wins the maximalist record from G Addict, so congratulations for winning that as well. Your mission & craft also deserve a special mention for such a slick use of robotics so I have mentioned the VTOL capability in the roll of honour. Thanks for your report and thanks also for your thanks

Thank sal_vager for unlocking the thread which somehow locked itself due to some kind of vBulletin glitch (perhaps it was triggered by passing page#20). While there are Kerbal pilots who dare to fly above the sky and wish to publish their mission reports, there should be a K Prize to honour their achievements, the adventure continues... Speaking of which thanks G Addict for your latest report on the flight of 'Bifurcator XN' which clearly made orbit albeit unexpectedly and a serendipitous reentry which permitted an unpowered landing on flat terrain outside KSC, demonstrating gliding flight as a strength of the design as well as the skill of the pilot in using it to good effect. Undoubtedly a deserving K Prize winner and by a further stroke of good fortune the current maximalist record holder. Welcome back to the guest list in v17. Thanks also sloth for your complete mission report for the successful K Prize orbital flight of the stripped down Daedalus K. Its faultlessly precise landing on the KSC runway with a small amount of fuel remaining surely earned the respect of all spaceplane pilots everywhere and qualifies for the special kudos of an advanced pilot precision award. Congratulations and welcome to the K Prize roll of honour, (aka "the guest list", for the party at the Dog and Booster). After some deliberation (totting up parts on back of envelope) Archangel Lucifer has been awarded the minimalist record in v17 for the efficient design of the 'Widowmaker'. zekes, Hooligan Labs, bsalis and all good luck with your R&D!

Try switching off ASAS and timewarping 5x briefly if it will let you, else save and reload (F5 - F9) which should fix spin, (though be warned reload causes the fuel tanks to show full when they are not). Allegedly the Kraken laid a few eggs and one wonders if any hatched!

Laythe itself is an easter egg seeing as it is phonetically named after the start planet in Elite... right on commander!!

Thanks for ruining my day!

Do you think perhaps the angular figure appears to represent two angles consistent with the kind of angles which specify interplanetary transfers of the kind given by Olex's "Interactive illustrated interplanetary guide and calculator for KSP 0.17"? http://ksp.olex.biz/

Well played Czman007. Jet packs are fun!

I can tell you that turbofan engines dont work on Eve, if that's any help ...

I fly seat of pants style, after getting 0.17 it took me hours and hours to make rockets that didnt fall apart and then learn how to hit the planet SOIs judging by eye. I can understand someone getting frustrated with all the preparation and R&D you have to do to get a mission to work but on the other hand when I did get Jool intercept finally I was cheering for five minutes solid!

You would be welcome to take control Suzaku, it only remains to decide if that is what you would like to do.

Thanks Archangel, the struts help. Widomaker is an interesting design, I see you have optimised the forward control surfaces for weight and balanced lift characteristics and also used the avionics package for ASAS. Will have to try that. You have certainly won your wings in the v17 K Prize as well as an advanced pilot precision award. Henge, your entry in 16 is updated to include the remarkable oinker! (O1-NKR) Which has a very innovative wing with a space stationy look to it. Only viable as an SSTO in 16 though I am guessing... unless you know different! Well done on what looks to have been a very tricky landing!! Gossy thanks very much for your mission report for Falcon 3, a very worthwhile first post if I may say so. I see the dodgy BB caused you to double post, I can understand that having had a lot of trouble with it lately but again it seems better this morning, hope it stays that way. Falcon 3 has an impressive wing area neatly fitted around the essential engines. The fuel management is clearly efficient and allowed you to reach orbit with only 6x 400L tanks with plenty to spare. The return to Kerbin was very precise and the large wing allowed you to glide in to land unpowered on the KSC runway, quite a feat which fully deserves the honour of an advanced pilot precision award. Congratulations on completing the K Prize mission, welcome to the guest list (aka roll of honour). Suzaku, I think its right to be cautious and if you have other commitments it is responsible not to take on more than you can comfortably handle. As I said, I am willing to carry on with the K Prize but am also willing to surrender it to a bigger project if that would be better for all concerned. I do think the people who want a challenge involving mods and cargo drops etc would enjoy having a dedicated challenge thread but obviously that depends on someone being willing to admin the thread. Though on the other hand one can organise challenges as self administering, if the rules detail requirements for proof, each report becomes self evident and noone need arbitrate but that means no roll of honour which is something I think people quite enjoy.

unk Tantor umgawa 3 Kerbal capsule to Duna and back, to KSC terrain, stock only. Used three accelerating slingshots and two decelerating slingshots, four aero braking manoevures including two reentries. With a small retrograde adjustment the first slinghot trajectory allowed a second slingshot from Mün and saved some of fuel. After a standard deceleration in Duna SOI a braking slingshot ahead of Ike dropped the ship in a little closer to Duna. A small adjustment to periapsis allowed an aerobraking manoevure at 15km. The landing trajectory was flat to take advantage of aerobraking again. Very pretty, the boys like orange, matches their jumpsuits. Also the yellow sky sets of the radioactive hazard logos nicely. Took off again using atomic rockets as per... Second slingshot form Ike was near perfect, gave a big boost to retrograde manoevures about half the necessary reduction of PE. After retro burn and coast to PE at Kerbin altitude on the other side of Kerbol, a retro burn made intercept with Kerbin. After corrections the intercept was technically a braking slingshot and aerobraking manoevure (at 38km) in one. A little tweaking of orbits and patience allowed an aerobraking assisted powered landing at KSC, the fuel ran out about 1m above the ground, I kid you not! Without the slingshots and aerobraking it would not have been possible to land under power. But there was a parachute and capsule decoupler backup, just in case.

Fixed that for you, because you can join in too. I have been trying to farm out the K Prize to someone else for about 10 pages now but noone seems to want to take the plunge. We (or you) could set up completely separate challenge threads for v17 or we could try to share a spaceplane theme through separate but related threads or we could set up a thread which runs a kind of "school of spaceplane" set of challenges which start with the K Prize as the simplest get more advanced and each challenge admin taking a post at the beginning of the thread to admin the different missions.

The old patcher was broken, constantly redownloading itself. I had a buch of old files in the patcher so I downloaded the new patcher and deleted the old one then the new patcher told me I had to download the whole game, which I did. So I expect this is why the bandwidth is choked, everyone is having to DL the whole game. Whether this is what Squad intended or not I cant say but this is what is happening.

Thanks Sean, flexes like a snake without fore and aft struts and kept on blowing the rear engine on take off and landing until they were added, creating the diamond shape which echos the wings, hence the name! Must say the "center of" assists help a lot with design. Agree NERVA presents many possibilities, plus it has a big radiohazard decal on the side, always looks good in screenies!

I have managed to throw this little kite together and get it to orbit and land intact in v17. It is not as easy now the fuel bug is gone though getting this message onto the BB proved to be a bigger obstacle! All the downloading was taxing the servers. Seems fixed now though.

Short answer = redo. Long answer = Yes I agree there is a problem in v16 and its not just the aerospikes IMHO, landing anywhere on Kerbin outside the KSC is a nightmare and even on flat KSC terrain including the runway you can never quite be sure what will sink into the ground or when the collision surface for Kerbin which supports the wheels (sometimes) will be so far below the visible surface that it causes unavoidable collisions between the plane parts and the visible surface, which, despite the wheels ability to ignore it, causes other parts' destruction. Also I have noticed that craft tend to flex on touchdown. So it is particularly tricky to land in v16, though the fuel bug which is also in v16 means it is easier to visit the moons. So a case of what we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts, what else can one do but try? (If one is in the mood...) It is possible to land most craft if one finds a nice spot and makes a very gentle final descent to touchdown, but on some craft the placement of the wheels and touchdown angle is also a factor in preventing accidental part removal! IMHO the whole spaceplane thing is about having a reusable craft, so that is why landing intact is an important part of the challenge. What determines whether a potentially reusable craft and pilot deserve kudos is what the pilot can get the craft to do between making orbit and a successful return to Kerbin. Which means that while an orbit of Kerbin and safe landing will win the K Prize and place on the roll of honour, to win the highly sought after astrokerbal distinction requires a landing on either Mün or Minmus followed by an intact landing on Kerbin. I hope that seems fair. So if you lost the save then ... have another go! Its fun after all. Go for it!

Thanks very much for the mission reports Foursh, If your fist mission was not convincing enough I think you did amazingly well to take the maximalist crown from Endless Waves' Prancing Pony, which was around the 300 mark, so congratulations on that. You said Space plane 3 could return from Minmus and I believe you, but the question I have to ask is whether Space plane 3 did actually return to Kerbin and land safely? If so you would deserve the ultimate K Prize exploration kudos of an Astrokerbal Distinction, not to be sneezed at I think you'd agree! In any case well done on completing the mission in such style and welcome to the K Prize party. btw I am familiar with the plane eating habits of Kerbin terrain for sure and it looks like your screeny caught it just in time, before everything fell apart! Archangel Lucifer, in answer to your question, no, I have kept it simple and the kudos goals are separate, I have enough trouble keeping up with those! Its just the kind of thing that deserves its own challenge thread really... why dont you make that? Hooligan labs, I like your octopus a lot and thanks very much for a great video which gets to the point and shows off the capabilities of the very purposeful looking Cat Bus 4, but even as I am thanking you for that I am sorry to have to point out that both bottom engines were knocked off and exploded when you landed on Kerbin, luckily noone was injured however you must not have realised that brave attempt though it was it does break one of the cardinal rules of the K Prize that you have to land the craft intact to have a 100% reusable craft. Which leaves me with the troubling task of describing to the bouncers why someone of your undoubted standing in the community is on the gate crashers list! Sorry if you have a save you could reload and try the landing again. Your word will be good enough and then you would be entitled to the kudos your otherwise excellent piloting skills certainly deserve.