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KSP Challenge: The Atari Challenge!


Darth Badie

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57 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

Unless the player can actually shoot the asteroids and break them into smaller bits, this cannot be titled an Atari challenge.

:P

24 minutes ago, StahnAileron said:

Part II: If you collected them in Kerbin orbit, de-orbit them; attempt to hit them with a direct rocket launch from the surface. The lower to the ground and higher the (combined?) impact speed, the higher the score.

Anyway, back about this challenge: Yeah. I read "Atari Challenge" and I thought it was designing and launching a vessel that looked like an Atari console. Or, now that I think about it more, Atari-era classic characters.

The challenge is actually named for my asteroid-grabbing ships; all of which are called Atari This or Atari That. The ships, of course, are named for the game system, because when I think of asteroids, it makes me think of the classic Atari game.

But if you wanna blow up your asteroids, feel free. Just take a screenshot beforehand, please. :)

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20 hours ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

The challenge is actually named for my asteroid-grabbing ships; all of which are called Atari This or Atari That. The ships, of course, are named for the game system, because when I think of asteroids, it makes me think of the classic Atari game.

I was KINDA close, in a broad sense :P

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I've been waiting for others to post to get an idea of how to go about this. Stopped waiting and gave it a try today. Failed miserably or maybe not, as I gained some knowledge that will be needed later. Here is what I've learned so far. Way more Dv is required than I planned for. The plane change alone is huge. I plan to try again and match the asteroid plane while launching - does that work? I have no idea yet. Next, I could not figure out how to target the object. Go to map view. Select. It will ask if you want to view it from the tracking station. Sure I say. Uhmm ok, now what? Couldn't select it to target. That is when I learned that in the lower left corner is a blue sat. dish. Clicking switches it to start tracking objects. It also assigns a name. Now you can target it in map mode. I rendezvoused ok but then got confused and couldn't make contact to grab. My docking/RCS skills are terrible. Next time I hope to at least grab one asteroid. Two seems way to difficult at the moment. Hope this helps someone get started and do better than me. 

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@Red Shirt You won't need a plane change for the first one at least.  You can launch directly into the correct plane.  Take a look at the following tutorial:

In order to target an asteroid:

  1. View the asteroid in the tracking station.  If you are already in the tracking station, click on the asteroid to select/focus it.
  2. In the bottom left corner click the bright blue "tracking dish" looking icon to start tracking it.
  3. Go back to flying your ship and go into Map mode.
  4. You can now click on the asteroid and set it as your target.

And yeah, the deltaV requirements can be horrendous.  Try sticking with Class C or lower to start with until you get the hang of it.  I've already seen Class E's get to 2,500 tons which I can't move even with 3,600 m/s deltaV (the added weight drops that to like 6 m/s for me).

From my experience so far, I would suggest aiming for no less than 3,000 m/s and upwards of 5,000 m/s of deltaV.  More if you can swing it.

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I will go ahead and start my entry with just 2 class E's to for now:

ECQ-291-E at 1202t and EWT-435-E at 2419.4t for a starting score of 3621

But as you can see, I am equipped to attach up to an additional 4 asteroids(probably smaller) to this starting chain...

 
Added a dinky class C(SMW-714-C) for an extra 64.2t bringing the rock mass up to 3685t and the score up to twice that for 7370.  Passing the first entry on page 1 and taking first place(for now).

After wrangling that 2400 ton asteroid around, that 62 ton pebble was hardly any effort at all, my acceleration was even above 1m/s/s(as opposed to 0.07m/s/s)

 

Clearly I am a glutton for punishment as I went after another Class E, this one turned out to be 1764t(DCM-533-E) bringing the tons of rock up to 5449T with 4 rocks that gets a x3 for 16,347 points.

Looking at the results thus far, that seems like a pretty safe bet, but I still have 2 more chain links should there be a need...

Edited by Terwin
Added a 4th rock
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This does not meet the requirements of the challenge but I had to share my first ever asteroid capture. total weight at capture 280.649 T.

9EFmcJb.jpg

Weight after release 21.772 T

1M3VOPY.jpg

Before releasing, moved it into stable Kerbin orbit. 

io4Obuk.jpg

I did not pack drills and refining equipment so not able to go after a second asteroid. Barely had enough fuel to get back to Kerbin. Landed safely.

Point is, this can be done. 

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To everyone who likes to get involved with these weekly challenges, I'd like to apologize for a challenge that might be a bit too time consuming and/or challenging to complete quickly. I've been catching asteroids for awhile now, just for fun and to complete contracts, so I've gotten quite a bit of experience at it; but I was hesitant to offer any advice. Not because I didn't wanna help (I'm always happy to help other players whenever I can) but, because although I have a couple thousand hours in, I know there are players with a lot more and I didn't wanna look like I was giving advice to players who don't need it. Anyway, we're in our final week, so I'm gonna dispense with all that.

First off, a rule change. You are not required to bring your asteroids anywhere. Once they're captured they're captured. And remember that you only need two asteroids of any size to complete the challenge. You can decide for yourself when to stop. I instituted the scoring system to add more challenge for veteran players and to encourage a bit of competition. If you've attempted the challenge at all, you know capturing multiple asteroids with a single ship is not so easy. So if you capture a couple then you've earned your badge and can wear it with pride.

@RonaldRayGun, @redshirt, and anyone else attempting the challenge, some quick advice. Choose your asteroids in the tracking center and begin tracking. Set an alarm for each so you can see when they encounter Kerbin. But this is the key for capturing multiple asteroids: do not attempt to capture them at Kerbin. You only need to launch from Kerbin. You do not need to capture your asteroids there. For a single asteroid, I usually grab them in LKO. But to capture multiples, that'll really make it tough on yourself. Just let them pass through Kerbin into solar orbit. Now go into solar orbit yourself and go after them. We all know this is the wrong way to travel somewhere, but you're not trying to go anywhere. You just wanna capture asteroids that are in an orbit roughly the equivalent of Kerbin's. Target them one at a time and plot your intercept. You can raise your Ap a bit or lower your Pe a bit to speed up your rendezvous. Just hit maximum timewarp and wait 'til they're close enough for a good rendezvous. Then move on to the next.

A quick tip; pack plenty of monopropellant. You'll need multiple RCS ports and Vernors to control your ship while thrusting with an asteroid in tow. An "expert" tip, if you will; assign your Vernors to an action group so you can disable them quickly. A solar rendezvous is the same as any other, except everything is more pronounced. You'll want to make small adjustments, but the moment you engage RCS the Vernors push you slightly sideways. The slightest movement can turn a 1.5km rendezvous into a 60km rendezvous. So disable the Vernors and just use the RCS ports for fine adjustments.

And this might be most important of all: it's an unwritten rule that Alt/F12 is always acceptable for testing. Once you begin tracking an asteroid, you can Alt/F12 a rendezvous with it. Once you have your design, use the rendezvous feature to grab it and test your ship. You need to know if you'll be able to control your ship under power with an asteroid in tow. Engage RCS and accelerate slowly. Increase power and see how well you can control it.

A design tip: if you're hunting big game, bring your big guns. I recommend Mammoths. If you want to grab a Class D or E (not to mention multiples), their great power and gimbal are invaluable. Set them out as wide as you can and strut the crap out of them. I always use the same basic design for catching asteroids because I know it works. It took some trial and error but I'm able to control even the largest asteroids with it. If you've seen my Mun Arch Challenge video, "The Lonely Kerbal", I used the same ship design to bring a Class D asteroid through the arch. The design is the most important part of this challenge (as it often is). Just get your design down and test it. Then tweak what you need to and you'll be ready to go. If I can do it, anyone else can as well. You saw how easily @Terwin smoked my score (nice job, by the way).

I suggested this challenge the same as all the others in the weekly suggestion thread, because I thought it would be fun and challenging. I didn't expect it to get picked, but I was really happy when it did. However, I'm now on the verge of having the first weekly that was a complete dud. So apologies to all who didn't need advice but just haven't had time yet. We still have a week to go, and I'd love to see some more entries. So good luck to all, and hope to see your successes soon.  Thanks for reading such a long post.

Cpt Kerbalkrunch.

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29 minutes ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

First off, a rule change. You are not required to bring your asteroids anywhere. Once they're captured they're captured. And remember that you only need two asteroids of any size to complete the challenge. You can decide for yourself when to stop. I instituted the scoring system to add more challenge for veteran players and to encourage a bit of competition. If you've attempted the challenge at all, you know capturing multiple asteroids with a single ship is not so easy. So if you capture a couple then you've earned your badge and can wear it with pride.

Good to know, I was a little uncertain about capturing desteroids since linking them into a chain is so much easier than wandering bits of rock that just happen to get close to Kerbin.

(The rendezvous has generally required under 10m/s/s of dv when bringing a rock over to the others, even if it may take > 100 days)

Quote

A quick tip; pack plenty of monopropellant. You'll need multiple RCS ports and Vernors to control your ship while thrusting with an asteroid in tow. An "expert" tip, if you will; assign your Vernors to an action group so you can disable them quickly. A solar rendezvous is the same as any other, except everything is more pronounced. You'll want to make small adjustments, but the moment you engage RCS the Vernors push you slightly sideways. The slightest movement can turn a 1.5km rendezvous into a 60km rendezvous. So disable the Vernors and just use the RCS ports for fine adjustments.

I aim for longevity, so I have plenty of reaction wheels and 3 nervas.  So long as I go slow, I have plenty of time to change facing and this way I do not find myself needing to make as many refuel runs down to Dres(which is good because relying on unmanned drills it can take over a hundred days to refill the tank when it runs low).  Of course I also generally use reaction wheels and main engines for docking in my main games, so I have had some practice.(I also use claws for docking there as not having translation would suck for docking with a normal port)

Quote

A design tip: if you're hunting big game, bring your big guns. I recommend Mammoths. If you want to grab a Class D or E (not to mention multiples), their great power and gimbal are invaluable. Set them out as wide as you can and strut the crap out of them. I always use the same basic design for catching asteroids because I know it works. It took some trial and error but I'm able to control even the largest asteroids with it. If you've seen my Mun Arch Challenge video, "The Lonely Kerbal", I used the same ship design to bring a Class D asteroid through the arch. The design is the most important part of this challenge (as it often is). Just get your design down and test it. Then tweak what you need to and you'll be ready to go. If I can do it, anyone else can as well. You saw how easily @Terwin smoked my score (nice job, by the way).

Big engines take big fuel, and as I said above, I aim for efficiency(another reason I went to Dres).  I have over 6km/s/s even with some ore left in the back-up tank, and when I was pushing around the 2400t rock, I still had over 120m/s/s in the tank. (down to 66m/s/s with 5400 tons but I have no intention of trying to push that!).

 

Would you believe I have not refueled yet since starting my chain?  and with 300 ore still to be refined, I have not even used the first quarter of my fuel... Efficiency is a great way to go if you have the patience for it...(I did fully refuel on Dres before I started though)

Edited by Terwin
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26 minutes ago, Terwin said:

Would you believe I have not refueled yet since starting my chain?  and with 300 ore still to be refined, I have not even used the first quarter of my fuel... Efficiency is a great way to go if you have the patience for it...(I did fully refuel on Dres before I started though)

I like your mission profile, but I guess I was thinking of people who wanted to send everything in one self-sufficient ship. Mostly because that's the way I do it. I send drills and converter with a 5-star engineer. A Class E has an incredible amount of ore. I mined about 40,000 units of fuel from mine and it barely noticed. It was still about 2,000 tons afterward. As I said, I've found a design that works and I stick with it mostly because I know it works. When I make even the slightest changes, asteroids suddenly become uncontrollable. Because of that, I just stick with it and am hesitant to try something else. That's part of the reason I was excited about this challenge; so I can see the way other guys capture asteroids. To me, it's one of the best things about these weekly challenges. You'll see a bunch of players doing the same thing but in different ways. And I'll often see engineering wizardry that I never would've thought of. That's part of the reason I was hesitant to give advice. I didn't wanna influence anyone or act like my way was best. At this point, though, I don't really care about that anymore. I just wanna see more entries.

 

Was just looking at your ship again, and it's impressive that you're able to control such a huge asteroid with such a small ship. It might be because I'm impatient that I always bring larger engines so I can move faster.

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Instead of using big engines, i used lots of small ones and lots of vernors to be able to turn fast. Big engines might have been the better choice though, the high part count makes it relativly laggy...

Heres my current status:

5 Asteroids for a final score of about 15,000. Most of it was done last weekend, i might do 4 or 5 more asteroids next weekend. I never really catched asteroids before, so this is quite challenging.

Edit: The pictures are not necessarily in order.

Edited by rudi1291
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4 hours ago, rudi1291 said:

5 Asteroids for a final score of about 15,000. Most of it was done last weekend, i might do 4 or 5 more asteroids next weekend. I never really catched asteroids before, so this is quite challenging.

Wow. Not sure which is more impressive, your ship or your score. That had to be tough. Great job.

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13 hours ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

To everyone who likes to get involved with these weekly challenges, I'd like to apologize for a challenge that might be a bit too time consuming and/or challenging to complete quickly.

No apology needed. In my case, it's not a problem of the challenge being too hard or time consuming... My problem is Emiko is too time consuming. It's been 3 weeks since my last chapter, so I really need to get at least one new one finished and posted in the next couple days.

But this is only the first week for the challenge, correct? If I can get my chapter done by this weekend, I'm definitely going to take a day off and take a shot at this.

Edited by Just Jim
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6 hours ago, rudi1291 said:

5 Asteroids for a final score of about 15,000. Most of it was done last weekend, i might do 4 or 5 more asteroids next weekend. I never really catched asteroids before, so this is quite challenging.

Might we be able to get either a screen-shot showing the masses of the asteroids(if you right-click on them they show you mass and ore fraction, unless that is part of KER), or a couple of shots showing the mass of your vessel(one docked with the cluster and one undocked), it is not really feasible to judge the mass of your asteroids just based on apparent size.

12 hours ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

I like your mission profile, but I guess I was thinking of people who wanted to send everything in one self-sufficient ship. Mostly because that's the way I do it. I send drills and converter with a 5-star engineer. A Class E has an incredible amount of ore. I mined about 40,000 units of fuel from mine and it barely noticed. It was still about 2,000 tons afterward. As I said, I've found a design that works and I stick with it mostly because I know it works. When I make even the slightest changes, asteroids suddenly become uncontrollable. Because of that, I just stick with it and am hesitant to try something else. That's part of the reason I was excited about this challenge; so I can see the way other guys capture asteroids. To me, it's one of the best things about these weekly challenges. You'll see a bunch of players doing the same thing but in different ways. And I'll often see engineering wizardry that I never would've thought of. That's part of the reason I was hesitant to give advice. I didn't wanna influence anyone or act like my way was best. At this point, though, I don't really care about that anymore. I just wanna see more entries.

 

Was just looking at your ship again, and it's impressive that you're able to control such a huge asteroid with such a small ship. It might be because I'm impatient that I always bring larger engines so I can move faster.

It helps that I do a lot of clipping.  I have 3 Mk3 LF tanks squeezed into the space of one, and 4-6 2.5m reaction wheels in addition to the 6 1.25m wheels on the grabber arms.

Aside form a relay satellite(not yet in place) to relay a control signal to the dark side of Dres in case I need to land and refuel again, and the possibility of using my Mk1 vessel for rescue refueling(the grabbers were both oriented wrong and unable to properly disengage, possibly due to clipped drag-cubes or something, but it has a full fuel load and plenty of ore to share), this ship is completely self-sufficient(the drills down by the engines are the ones used to refuel on Dres, along with a 2.5m ISRU, batteries, and 16 pb-nuk generators in the cargo-bay, somewhat obscured by the small radiators)

Even if it were not for the 1m/s cap on claws activating, I would be afraid to go much faster than 0.5m/s when trying to dock class-e asteroids together, just too big and unwieldy to react quickly to something going wrong.

Also, speed kills efficiency, and I am quite content to time-accelerate as long as needed, as this is my only on-going mission in this game.

(I also tend to over-do preparation and efficiency as it is not uncommon for me to off-load or otherwise dispose of excess ore and fuel after returning from another planet so that I am light enough to land safely back on Kerbin)

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Went at it again today, Success. Didn't worry about scoring. Just want to give it a try.

My launch stage completed circularization with 2 dv left in the tank. That has nothing to do with the challenge but I was impressed. My first asteroid was in Kerbol orbit. Getting there was easy enough as it was pretty much in same inclination as Kerbin. My second asteroid was the same one I grabbed yesterday and put in a highly inclined but stable Kerbin orbit. It was much more difficult requiring a lot of maneuvering and wasting a lot of dv.

I have been playing since 0.25 and this is the first asteroid attempts I have made. Thanks Cpt KerbalKrunch for the challenge. My opinion is while this is doable it is far more difficult than it sounds. I think anyone who is able to snag even a single asteroid deserves a big thumbs up. 

 

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@Red Shirt,  glad you stuck with it and went back for more. To me, asteroid catching is pretty much the same as anything else in KSP (or life itself, for that matter); nothing gets any easier. You just get better at it. And you're already better at rock grabbin'. You even passed up the little guys to go straight for one of the big boys. Nice work.

@Marschig, wow. I'm not sure what to say. That was awesome. Your ship is fantastic. Love that design. This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking I would see when I thought up the challenge. I've grabbed enough asteroids to know it's not so easy to control them when you're pushing them rather than pulling. That was highly impressive. And Munar orbit on top of it? Definite style points for that. :)

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