Search the Community

A disastrous disco-themed Take Your Kids to Work Day has resulted in the destruction of all the solar panels stored at Kerbal Space Center! With a high-profile launch coming up too quickly to make new ones, and the entire ground crew boogieing down with the sudden plethora of disco balls, it's up to one unwilling Kerbal to drive out to the stockpile kept at the second Space Center at Baikerbanur, over 2,000 kilometers away! The challenge is, on the surface, simple: Build a car or other wheeled vehicle and drive from KSC to Baikerbanur (also called "KSC 2," "Inland Space Center," or "Inland KSC"), which is located at 20° 39′ 26″ N, 146° 25′ 14″ W. (Don't worry, I've included a map in this post, second picture in my demonstration run - it's at the end of the red line). (ADDENDUM: Thanks to help from @James Kerman, I now have a straight-line distance estimate of 763,962 m, though that is mostly over water. I'll try to work out the great-circle distance over the next couple days). However, it wouldn't be a challenge without some rules. Your vehicle must: Use fuel cells (and thus liquid oxidizer/liquid fuel) as a power source. Use said fuel cells as a power source for the majority of the trip. Remain on land for the majority of the trip (limited water crossing is allowed). Drive the complete distance from KSC to Baikerbanur. Have at least one Kerbal on board. Your vehicle may: Use another source of propulsion for crossing bodies of water (i.e., jet engines). Use batteries to store electric charge. Use a command chair or a command pod of your choice (command chairs are encouraged!) Use mod parts (though nothing horribly unrealistic, like a fuel cell that converts 0.00001 units of fuel and oxidizer into 10000 units of electric charge), though see below. Refuel, though see below. Drop parts off along the way, like spent propellant tanks or unneeded pontoons. Your vehicle may not: Use RTGs, solar panels, or related parts as a power source. Collect parts along the way (i.e., pick up a pontoon set that was "left behind" at the shoreline). Use another vehicle as assistance (i.e., dropped from a plane or sailed on a boat). Transfer your Kerbal to another vehicle (i.e., tag-teaming halfway there). Reloading (F5/F9) is, of course, totally acceptable, but you get major props if you manage to do this all in one shot. Required proof is limited to a nice and friendly Imgur album. The start/finish line is considered to be the launch pad at both KSC and Baikerbanur, though leaving from the runway at KSC is fine as well. There are two main categories to be judged: Stock and Modded. Vehicles built entirely out of stock parts, though in a save that features mods that don't otherwise alter the behavior of stock parts (i.e., Trajectories, SVE, texture replacements, the like) are considered to be Stock. There are, likewise, two ways to win in this challenge: Time Trial and Starting Mass. Time Trial is exactly what it says on the tin - have the fastest possible drive time from KSC to Baikerbanur. The current record is 1 day (6 hours) 34 minutes 25 seconds. Refueling is not allowed for Time Trial contestants. Starting Mass hopefuls simply have to have the lowest mass car, as given in the VAB/SPH readout. The current record is 6.026 tons. Refueling is allowed for Starting Mass contestants, whether by actually going to a "gas station" landed beforehand or using an ore refinery. Savefile edits for refueling are not allowed. Rule Tweak: I'm really, really impressed with the mass of the cars so far, so I'm bending the rules a bit (for now) and judging all entrants against one another by starting mass in addition to how fast they make the run. Extraplanetary Kerbball Runs (driving 2,000 km or more across another planet) are welcome, and will be judged as their own category. Below is my demonstration run, to show that this is possible - albeit just barely! https://imgur.com/a/eRk8d Below is the leaderboard, which I'll try to update as soon as I can: Time Trial (Stock) Urus28: 3 hr 59 m 27 s Marschig: 5 hr 6 m 39 s DoctorDavinci: 6 h 34 m 25 s Azimech: 6 h 35 m 17 s - - Starting Mass (Stock) Marschig: 3.150 t Azimech: 4.270 t DoctorDavinci: 5.866 t Urus28: 13.897 t - - Time Trial (Modded) - - - - - - - - - - Starting Mass (Modded) - - - - - - - - - - Safe Driving!