Stock Payload Fraction Challenge: 1.0.5 Edition

[RuBisCO]

I'm sort of disappointed with 1.0.3/4, dispite the reduced isp of the the air breathing engines we can manage better performance. Also I got a rush pushing parts to red hot and nearly exploding them during a launch regime, I can't seem to get anything to heat up like that now yet getting airspeed of 1300 m/s below 20 km! If I got speeds like that in 1.0.2 my intakes, pre-coolers and engines would explode. Either that or pre-coolers work insanely better now.

Just watched Nao video, dispite the speeds he gets nothing goes beyond yellow. Not that I'm disrespecting what you did Nao that was superb, I "bend the knee" to you, but the new setting are just not as challanging as before.

Maybe they need an aerodynamics/thermal difficulty level slider? Then some of us can play at "Feel the Burn" mode?

[Nao]

I'm sort of disappointed with 1.0.3/4, dispite the reduced isp of the the air breathing engines we can manage better performance. Also I got a rush pushing parts to red hot and nearly exploding them during a launch regime, I can't seem to get anything to heat up like that now yet getting airspeed of 1300 m/s below 20 km! If I got speeds like that in 1.0.2 my intakes, pre-coolers and engines would explode. Either that or pre-coolers work insanely better now.

Just watched Nao video, dispite the speeds he gets nothing goes beyond yellow. Not that I'm disrespecting what you did Nao that was superb, I "bend the knee" to you, but the new setting are just not as challanging as before.

Maybe they need an aerodynamics/thermal difficulty level slider? Then some of us can play at "Feel the Burn" mode?

Yeah i was kind of surprised nothing really overheated... and i do miss the temperature challenge too (although i think the biggest wings still can overheat in 1.04).

There is thermal difficulty slider already called "reentry heat" (when you start a new game) but it's set to 100% even on hard. There is also alt+F12 where we can adjust anything physics related but thats modding...

Welp one thing i find interesting in this patch is the new Aerospike for sea level Eve ascents... maybe Eve rocketplanes could be viable again, that was fun to build

[Red Iron Crown]

BigFatStupidHead, I've added you to the leaderboard. You might think your fraction low, but you did it in an all-rocket single stage that you recovered afterwards, things that eat into fraction. Great design and practical for in-game use for a reusable space program.

[Jouni]

Here is the Needle. It's a bit more optimized than my usual rockets, but there's still a lot of room for improvement.

This screenshot was taken shortly after dropping the boosters. I had to throttle down for the last 15-20 seconds before booster separation, as the rocket would otherwise snap between the upper stage and the fairing base. Booster separation usually involves some harmless explosions.

The service bay contains reaction wheels, a probe core, batteries, and a MechJeb module. The struts were apparently included in the payload, as I couldn't attach them to the fairing base first.

The orbit was something like 90x70 km, with 39 m/s remaining. Taking a screenshot in the Mac version always removes the apoapsis/periapsis information.

195.55 tonnes of payload for 839.22 tonnes of launch mass means that the payload fraction was 23.30%.

Craft file without MechJeb.

[Red Iron Crown]

Well then, that will end my brief stay at the top of the leaderboard. Great entry, Jouni, looks like the ARM parts are still very efficient.

[Nao]

Sigh... >BUG WARNING< guys, when using cargo bays, make sure drag values are correct for it and nearby parts.

Im trying to get a craft based on mk3 parts to orbit (quite similar to "Mk3 Cargo 1.04 by slugy"), and >sometimes< whatever is connected to the front and back of the cargo bay receives extra drag while cargo bay drag drops to zero. The net value of the three parts is close to correct usually but i had it start to grow (like a memory leak, only with drag )... this gives erratic ascents, sometimes it's peace of cake, sometimes it just can't ascent at all (worst case i had was up to 250 drag points at 8000m alt and only 300m/s speed on the cargo bay (other Mk3 parts further away had 20-40 times less drag)

After moving the cargo bay door several times i managed to get the bug to go the other way and canceled all drag of cargo bay, it's contents and whatever other parts that were connected to the front and rear (image)

and then i opened and closed the cargo bay

note: large holding tank is the cargo (not visible), only the adapter at the rear (not connected directly to cargo bay) had correct value.

The only two mods im running are engineer and hyperedit... it could be fault of either of them - im going to check that. But for now it's just a heads up that something like that can happen.

EDIT: threw out both mods, still happening i'll try reporting this if it's not already.

EDIT2: it happens often on revert flights, and is influenced by presence of stack connected docking ports inside, made a thread here if anybody want to chip in on the experiences: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126792-1-0-4-Cargo-bays-drag-is-glitching-(especially-after-reverting-flight).

@Red Iron Crown Since it's high chance that the glitch is happening on reverts that often happen during challenge flights, if anybody else can confirm it, maybe it would be good idea to hold up any new submissions of cargo spaceplanes. The glitch can be both frustrating - limiting the craft or exploitative - potentially wiping drag on all mk3 sized parts for big advantage.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Nao

[selfish_meme]

Sigh... >BUG WARNING< guys, when using cargo bays, make sure drag values are correct for it and nearby parts.

Im trying to get a craft based on mk3 parts to orbit (quite similar to "Mk3 Cargo 1.04 by slugy"), and >sometimes< whatever is connected to the front and back of the cargo bay receives extra drag while cargo bay drag drops to zero. The net value of the three parts is close to correct usually but i had it start to grow (like a memory leak, only with drag )... this gives erratic ascents, sometimes it's peace of cake, sometimes it just can't ascent at all (worst case i had was up to 250 drag points at 8000m alt and only 300m/s speed on the cargo bay (other Mk3 parts further away had 20-40 times less drag)

After moving the cargo bay door several times i managed to get the bug to go the other way and canceled all drag of cargo bay, it's contents and whatever other parts that were connected to the front and rear (image)

http://i.imgur.com/fuNjjd7t.pngand then i opened and closed the cargo bayhttp://i.imgur.com/QtVfUKZt.png

note: large holding tank is the cargo (not visible), only the adapter at the rear (not connected directly to cargo bay) had correct value.

The only two mods im running are engineer and hyperedit... it could be fault of either of them - im going to check that. But for now it's just a heads up that something like that can happen.

EDIT: threw out both mods, still happening i'll try reporting this if it's not already.

EDIT2: it happens often on revert flights, and is influenced by presence of stack connected docking ports inside, made a thread here if anybody want to chip in on the experiences: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126792-1-0-4-Cargo-bays-drag-is-glitching-(especially-after-reverting-flight).

@Red Iron Crown Since it's high chance that the glitch is happening on reverts that often happen during challenge flights, if anybody else can confirm it, maybe it would be good idea to hold up any new submissions of cargo spaceplanes. The glitch can be both frustrating - limiting the craft or exploitative - potentially wiping drag on all mk3 sized parts for big advantage.

Have you deleted physics.cfg?

[Nao]

Have you deleted physics.cfg?

Wait wth, why after renaming physics.cfg file the new one is different to the old one, i was on stock install ?? ... Anyways, thanks for suggestion but the bug in question prevails refreshing physics file.

[selfish_meme]

You might need to redownload a fresh version, just to make sure you have no remnants, it probably won't fix it but good to know it's completely stock.

[Nao]

You might need to redownload a fresh version, just to make sure you have no remnants, it probably won't fix it but good to know it's completely stock.

I'm using KSP store version, it's just a zip, and there is definitely a difference between physics.cfg that comes zipped and what the game generates by default if the file is "missing".

And frankly it's the game generated version that looks more problematic, there is a bunch of zero value temperature related constants, where in the game's original they have actual values.

Anyways, it's all temperature related while the bug at hand is related with drag cubes... Don't want to make into a bug support thread so let's take this to the thread i mentioned earlier.

[Rune]

Yeah... 1.04 has a few new and amazing bugs. From the temperature bombs to the multiplication of the shock cones (I have three models of it in my career save, and I still can unlock new ones... and the weirdest thing about it is one of them looks slightly different), it seems like 1.05 won't be too long now. But I hope your earlier entry didn't benefit from bugs! It is really cool that low TWR designs work so well with enough wings.

Also, re-re-reading the rules, I now find that I could have put the probe core as part of the payload and still comply with the rules. A tiny effect, that won't even move me into the leaderboard (works out to 22.28%), but hey, next time I'll have that in mind.

Rune. I'm bad with fine prints.

[Red Iron Crown]

@Red Iron Crown Since it's high chance that the glitch is happening on reverts that often happen during challenge flights, if anybody else can confirm it, maybe it would be good idea to hold up any new submissions of cargo spaceplanes. The glitch can be both frustrating - limiting the craft or exploitative - potentially wiping drag on all mk3 sized parts for big advantage.

Ugh, I really don't want to have to do that but it does seem to give an unfair advantage. Let me think about it for a bit before making a sweeping change like that.

[Slugy]

Sigh... >BUG WARNING< guys, when using cargo bays, make sure drag values are correct for it and nearby parts.

Im trying to get a craft based on mk3 parts to orbit (quite similar to "Mk3 Cargo 1.04 by slugy"), and >sometimes< whatever is connected to the front and back of the cargo bay receives extra drag while cargo bay drag drops to zero. The net value of the three parts is close to correct usually but i had it start to grow (like a memory leak, only with drag )... this gives erratic ascents, sometimes it's peace of cake, sometimes it just can't ascent at all (worst case i had was up to 250 drag points at 8000m alt and only 300m/s speed on the cargo bay (other Mk3 parts further away had 20-40 times less drag)

After moving the cargo bay door several times i managed to get the bug to go the other way and canceled all drag of cargo bay, it's contents and whatever other parts that were connected to the front and rear (image)

http://i.imgur.com/fuNjjd7t.pngand then i opened and closed the cargo bayhttp://i.imgur.com/QtVfUKZt.png

note: large holding tank is the cargo (not visible), only the adapter at the rear (not connected directly to cargo bay) had correct value.

The only two mods im running are engineer and hyperedit... it could be fault of either of them - im going to check that. But for now it's just a heads up that something like that can happen.

EDIT: threw out both mods, still happening i'll try reporting this if it's not already.

EDIT2: it happens often on revert flights, and is influenced by presence of stack connected docking ports inside, made a thread here if anybody want to chip in on the experiences: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126792-1-0-4-Cargo-bays-drag-is-glitching-(especially-after-reverting-flight).

@Red Iron Crown Since it's high chance that the glitch is happening on reverts that often happen during challenge flights, if anybody else can confirm it, maybe it would be good idea to hold up any new submissions of cargo spaceplanes. The glitch can be both frustrating - limiting the craft or exploitative - potentially wiping drag on all mk3 sized parts for big advantage.

Good spot, if only there had been a beta period for KSP to iron out these things ...

Are those drag numbers from a setting in the debug menu?

The Mk3 cargo plane I made certainly had less drag than I expected - but I put it down to the fixes for the excessive drag in 1.02 - so it seems quite likely that this bug was in effect. It might also explain why finding an ascent profile was hard, although that could just be me

I wonder if there is any similar effect with other parts.

FWIW it was a completely fresh unzip with Engineer as the only mod.

Time to play with rockets not planes for a bit me thinks.

[RuBisCO]

Good spot, if only there had been a beta period for KSP to iron out these things ...

You're funny, that's funny.

[selfish_meme]

OK here is my SSTO Spaceplane entry, bug or not, the Commite'. It was designed using every piece of advice I could find on the forums from Slashy's Post to small landing gear, and it looks like it. I had a small malfunction in orbit. I still had 198 fuel and plenty of oxidizer but had turned my torque off (some other advice), and run out of mono-propellent. My periapsis was 69,900m, I could have circularized to bring it above 70km but instead stupidly reverted thinking something was wrong before realising about the torque. Still I will include the craft file, I am sure you can verify it works. 15' from takeoff, 10' at 10km once over 600m/s start pulling up slowly, use action group 1 to switch to closed cycle when the thrust tails off, point to 40' and hold for 71km apoapsis.

SMA Prototype A - Commite'

66.36t on the pad

17.1t of Cargo

A payload Fraction of 25.79% not enough to displace anyone, but it's my first go

Craft File

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Edit: Moved Craft File

Edited July 15, 2015 by selfish_meme
Moved Craft File and renamed

[Rune]

Good spot, if only there had been a beta period for KSP to iron out these things ...

Are those drag numbers from a setting in the debug menu?

The Mk3 cargo plane I made certainly had less drag than I expected - but I put it down to the fixes for the excessive drag in 1.02 - so it seems quite likely that this bug was in effect. It might also explain why finding an ascent profile was hard, although that could just be me

I wonder if there is any similar effect with other parts.

FWIW it was a completely fresh unzip with Engineer as the only mod.

Time to play with rockets not planes for a bit me thinks.

Considering the thermal explosion bug that also affects occluded parts, I'd say the root cause is some wonkiness in that code arose when the new thermal mechanic was thrown into the mix. Expect all part that occlude other parts to be affected, i.e: fairings andbservice bays.

Rune. Sadly, the number of patches for 1.0 is just as I expected.

[Red Iron Crown]

Added you to the leaderboard, selfish_meme. I won't give you grief about the periapsis as your orbit had a large enough SMA and you had fuel remaining to circularize anyway.

[rofltehcat]

Ok here is one of mine. It is ugly and its payload fraction isn't all that good but it works and it is 100% reuseable with ~6kerbucks in fuel cost (probably less, I landed 50km from KSC). It can put ~10-15 t into orbit and will have a weight of 70-75 t on the pad.

It is also very low tech from my "airline" savegame in which I intentionally limit the tech. There is a screenshot in there but basically the thing uses only the absolute minimum: You basically go for Turbojets and anything beyond that isn't needed much. I should probably unlock more landing gear options though as the basic ones are getting pretty hot during reentry.

Therefore it has 6 Turbojets and 4 Swivel engines (thinking of experimenting with 2 swivel, 2 thud, 2 terrier for better in-orbit efficiency from Terriers).

In the example I have a payload fraction of 13.92/73.99=18.81% which won't win a price but after all it is a restricted tech craft I think the craft might be capable of carrying more cargo (and less oxidizer, had a lot left in the end, don't have time atm to optimize).

Gallery: Contains a lot of unneeded shots, couldn't figure out how to easily delete them from imgur. Also can't figure out why the bbcode won't parse the imgur tags...

Javascript is disabled. View full album

If anyone wants to try it, here is the craft file:

http://kerbalx.com/rofltehcat/Untitled-Space-Craft

It is 100% stock except a mechjeb module (can be removed, it is inside the front mid pod with the probe core).

(Just don't try flying around corners and you'll probably have to redirect fuel from the front mid pod to the four tanks in the back once in the air or else it won't climb fast enough.)

Edit, flight instructions: You start it up normally (check staging, I tend to mess that up), lift off is possible at 120+ m/s. Then climb, depending on speed. Also transfer as much fuel from the front pod to the tanks in the rear. At about 11-12 go into a slow climb and accelerate. You should have roughly 1050 m/s at 18km, preferably more speed and altitude. If your acceleration drops (KER helps with that, usually when acceleration drops below ~6-8 m/s²) press the Lights button to turn off two jet engines and turn on the rockets. When your jets flame out press the Landing Gear button to close intakes. Climb steeper, e.g. 25 or 30° until the apoapsis is ~40-45 km, then follow prograde until your apo is at 75 km, then turn everything off and wait until 5-10 seconds before apoapsis, fire rockets, you're in orbit. For deorbit aerobraking you'll probably have to point the plane's upper side forward (because lowest tech landing gears). It is a bit tricky to handle during descend but you'll figure it out.

Edited June 26, 2015 by rofltehcat

[Red Iron Crown]

Our first low tech entry, very nice rofltehcat. I like the way you attached the payload, makes the plane returnable without needing cargo bays. Added to the leaderboard.

I took the liberty of fixing your imgur album embed, you can click "Edit Post" to see the bbcode.

[A_name]

Now that Mk3 parts are not so buggy I have a minimal Mk3 based SSTO cargo hauler.

Still not worked out the most efficient ascent, the one shown was ok, but probably not optimal.

123.13t out the hangar (a bit less by the time the brakes come off) and 50.65t delivered to LKO for 41.15%, with a little fuel left over.

In the pics below KER is badly confused - both on how many engines actually have fuel and how much dV there actually is (compare the circularization burn numbers, it was most confusing while I was testing it ...)

http://imgur.com/a/2uMLR

I was surprised to find that there was never any danger of overheating the wings!

I really like your design, very straightforward, sleek and minimalistic.

- - - Updated - - -

http://imgur.com/a/7VGm0

Upgraded my Xylol to 1.0.4. The Xylol 5B can lift 59 t to a 80 km with enough fuel to spare for a return to port. That is a 31.27% cargo mass fraction. Again the Xylol 5B was not designed for cargo mass fraction records, just to lift BIG cargo to orbit and land back (minimize cost to orbit for career mode) and look good while doing it. I might be able squeeze more out of it but I rather make a dedicated record breaking model for that.

Here is a zip with Xylol 5A (extra docking port and RCS) and Xylol 5B, with and without MJ case.

http://www./download/xn6a39krn9n265h/Xylol+5.zip

---

http://imgur.com/a/0OY7j

http://www./download/4wirhyyzpoicwrg/Xylol+5RB.zip

Ok so here is a the Xylol 5 RB, Down to 121.2 tons empty, reduced wing area, cut down cargo bay to only what is needed and reduced tail (like NikkyD suggested). It now flies like a shopping cart with cardboard wings attached but it made it to >70 km orbit carrying 68.4 tons of cargo and even with enough fuel to spare for a return attempt, little chance it will make it back to port though with the way it flies.

So that is 36.08% cargo mass to orbit

Launch Regime is:

1. Start with cargo bays open, close them before starting engine (custom09)

2. Close pre-coolers (custom06) and start engines at full power

3. Lift off to 30° pitch and maintain attitude

4. At 12 km dive to 0° pitch

5. Open pre-coolers at 500 m/s surface speed

6. Rise to 5° pitch at 600 m/s

7. Rise to 10° pitch at 800 m/s

8. Rise to 15° pitch at 1000 m/s

9. Rise to 20° pitch at 1200 m/s

10. Switch one set of RAPIERS to rocket mode when surface speed stops increasing (custom04 or custom05)

11. After other RAPIER switches automatically (~29.7 km) close pre-coolers and shut off jet engines (custom01)

12. At 40 km dive to 10° pitch

13. Cruise at 10° pitch once apoapsis exceeds 70 km

14. Circularize at apogee

Why launch with cargo bays open only to close them before takeoff?

Also, why not leave the precoolers on from the start?

[Slugy]

Here's something simple.

Two stages, Mammoth and Skipper, 284.74t on the pad, 67.28t delivered to orbit, for 23.63%

Lacks pics of early part of ascent (then I realised it was going well) which is pretty shallow, pretty much forcing turn as much as I could risk from ~60 degrees at 9km iirc, to get near orbital prograde low and quick while getting time to apoapsis far enough away to give the Skipper time to run.

Should probably have had a better name than "1" ... fraction_23 perhaps, although it did take a few less than that to get ascent right

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[RuBisCO]

A_name,

1. Because of the buggy MK3 cargo bays, you launch with them closed sometimes the parts inside are not counted as inside and their drag is not negated. Now maybe that has been fix, then again maybe not: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126574-1-0-4-Cargo-Bays-Causing-Objects-Adjacent-to-Belly-to-Overheat-and-Explode-on-Pad-or-Runway

2. Precoolers open cause drag, only open then when you need the air and/or cooling.

[Red Iron Crown]

Great rocket, Slugy, added to the top of the board. Shallow ascents do seem to be the way to go, the sooner you can start building horizontal speed the better.

[Nao]

Ugh, I really don't want to have to do that but it does seem to give an unfair advantage. Let me think about it for a bit before making a sweeping change like that.

Had a little more time with that, found out that that the bug happens only when the cargo bay part is a root (being a root helps with placing things inside). So i think just making a note about making sure the cargo bay part is not root should be enough.

For example, i took selfish_meme's craft, which is without the bug normally, and after making the cargo bay into a root it lost it's drag (after one revert). Fortunately it doesn't matter if the bay part was a root when placing parts, as long as it's not root when going to runway it should be fine.

Are those drag numbers from a setting in the debug menu?

Yes alt+F12 -> Physics tab and it's the first on the list.

Edited June 26, 2015 by Nao

[Red Iron Crown]

Thanks for that, Nao, glad I don't have to ban them altogether. I'll update the rules.