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Inspired by @Snark challenge to create a craft with the best glide angle and minimum sink rate, and failing miserably to create my own craft that was capable of meeting his challenge, I decided to come up with an alternative on the same theme.

This challenge requires you to build an unpowered craft that is capable of reaching and landing on the island runway.  The start point is directly above the runway where vehicles from the SPH normally launch, at a height that you feel is sufficient to meet the challenge.

Unfortunately you will need Hyperedit installed to enable your craft to be dropped at the start point.

The idea is to reach and land on the island from the lowest start height that you are able to complete the mission from.

 

 

Rules

1. Craft must be completely stock

2. No engines of any description allowed (that includes propeller engines made from stock parts)

3. No dropping or staging of parts.  The craft that lands at the island must be exactly the same as when it started

4. No Mechjeb or other piloting aids.  All flying must be done manually

5. Use the Hyperedit* 'land ship' function to set your current position when sitting in the normal launch spot on the runway, and set the height you wish to land/drop from

6. No use of infini-glide (no idea if that still works in 1.3, but no using it if it does)

* It's been mentioned in a post below that there may be a glitch in Hyperedit in KSP 1.3.1 and that the 'land at current location' may in fact put you somewhere completely different.  The basis of the challenge is to start above the normal runway launch position at your chosen height, and with the aircraft in a level attitude with zero airspeed.  If you can achieve that without using Hyperedit, then that's OK as long as you can submit your entry with proof of your starting position/attitude/speed.

 

Hyperedit set to current position, and 5000m drop height selected

OEAd289.jpg

 

Half way there and plenty of height in hand

YmgpWn6.jpg

 

Safely landed

1EzBNf7.jpg

 

My own entry is a design that would be relatively efficient in the real world, but I am not so sure that it is the best design for the conditions in KSP.  I also arrived at the island with plenty of height in hand, so could definitely have started lower.

ETA.  I have achieved this challenge from a lower starting height than the one I have posted on the leaderboard, so that you know my score can be beaten and to encourage people to have a go.  However, I did fail on my very first attempt from 5000m.  As a tip I would suggest that getting your glide established after hitting the drop button, before you lose too much height, is certainly what helped me to make a successful flight.

 

Leaderboard:

1: Not Sure - 2900m

2: Rocket In My Pocket - 3000m

3 : Scarecrow - 5000m

 

 

 

 

Edited by Scarecrow
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2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Can I turn on infinite fuel and use a skycrane to put it up there?

The idea of Hyperedit was to start directly above the normal launch point on the runway and to have a screen that displays what height you have elected to start from.  If you can guarantee and show that your skycrane will not start your entry any closer to the island, and you have some way of showing what height your craft was dropped at (possibly the F3 screen showing max height?) then I would be ok with that.

If I'm not happy that your method hasn't given you an advantage, then I will disallow it.

Edited by Scarecrow
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3 minutes ago, Scarecrow said:

The idea of Hyperedit was to start directly above the normal launch point on the runway and to have a screen that displays what height you have elected to start from.  If you can guarantee and show that your skycrane will not start your entry any closer to the island, and you have some way of showing what height your craft was dropped at (possibly the F3 screen showing max height?) then I would be ok with that.

Challenge accepted.

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As there have been no takers for this competition, I declare myself the winner.  I doubt anyone will be interested but the lowest start height that I managed to complete the task successfully from was actually 4400m but, as stated in a previous post, I wanted to post a score that I knew was beatable to encourage people to have a go.  Ah well.

Edited by Scarecrow
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On 10/6/2017 at 5:14 PM, Scarecrow said:

Ok guys, I will look out for your entries.

Was about to try to make an entry, but I can't figure out Hyperedit.

Perhaps I'm just being an idiot lol, but I set location to current, set a height, press land and it teleports me half way around the world. I've tried setting the location at the active vessel, loading the runway or landing pad from the saved location list, but it seems like everything I do just flings me to the dark side of Kerbin. (I've even visually compared the Lon/Lat numbers from your screenshot to mine, and they are almost exactly the same.)

Perhaps it's just not working right in 1.3.1? (Yeah, confirmed not working right in 1.3.1: Check spoiler for relevant thread)

Spoiler

 

 

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
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Well, I didn't figure it out, and I still think it's borked by the latest update but I was able to get myself over the runway starting position through some annoying trial and error lol.

So; here is my submission: The FlyingKite1-Starting height 3000m.

(Those two RCS ports are it's landing gear; it doesn't carry any monoprop or actually use them.)

dLmamyr.jpg

(I had to manually punch co-ordinates in till I was able to get myself over the starting runway position; for some odd reason, I had to put 2400 into Alt to get 3000. Also I know it says 3009 on the altimeter, I gave myself a second to take the screenshot, but rest assured I didn't hit "drop" till 3k.)

1EESHzH.jpg

(Actually had some speed left by the time I got there, had to use up the runway and apply the airbrakes to get below my jury-rigged RCS port landing skids safe landing speed of 50 m/s!)

0ijajkK.jpg

Thanks for making the challenge, I really enjoyed it! I think it could be done even lower than 3k, and I'd love to see someone else try. I think this craft could even do it lower, maybe 2800k but I was sick of mucking around with Hyperedit. Lol.

 

 

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
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1 hour ago, Scarecrow said:

@Rocket In My Pocket Nice entry.  I've added you to the Leaderboard.  I'm still running 3.1.0 so have no idea if Hyperedit is borked in 3.1.1.  Hope it gets fixed if it is.

Thanks! Yeah I've seen confirmation in the thread I posted above in the spoiler that other people are having the same issue with random teleporting in Hyperedit in 1.3.1.

Might want to add a note about it in the OP? Although it's still possible to get above the runway if you try hard enough lol.

Great challenge idea btw @Scarecrow! I'm usually not interested in challenges but this was right up my alley as I spend a lot of my time designing and flying small planes back and forth to the island. So... who's next? I'm very sure it can be done a lot lower...I'm guessing around 1500m even might be possible?

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
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  • 4 weeks later...

First the elephant in the room with my run, hyperedit doesn't work with 1.3.1 but I still liked this challenge, so I built a simple SRB + Parachute contraption to bring me to the desired height then dropped. My ground speed was 0, vertical speed about -5m/s before I dropped. 

wWDYieS.png

Its up to the judge to say whether this is legal or not, but I saw it as pretty fair. 

6sUyboW.png

Landed at the island runway with some room to spare... Might just go again tomorrow for 2.5km.

More pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/wE8bv

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Nice entry @Not Sure

I'm going to round your altitude up to 2900m to allow for the lag between dropping the boosters and taking the screen shot.  It's not immediately clear that the boosters under the wing were dropped at the same time, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

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7 hours ago, Scarecrow said:

Nice entry @Not Sure

I'm going to round your altitude up to 2900m to allow for the lag between dropping the boosters and taking the screen shot.  It's not immediately clear that the boosters under the wing were dropped at the same time, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Just to give an explanation for the bottom SRB's, the plane and the bottom dropped stage accelerated with each other, while the upper stage had parachutes resisting its acceleration. Thanks for adding me, but I kinda wanted to point out a very very easy exploit I found after landing. Hyperedit has the boost function, making a constant boost of 0.05m/s would increase your distance by amazing lengths if not infinity. It blurs the lines, and if this competition was bigger (sadly it isn't) it would be a contest of who could cheat the most subtly. Great contest though! I'm thinking about doing an around kerbin non stop challenge next. 

Edited by Not Sure
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I wanted to create a challenge that would be fun for anyone who entered.  It's a sad fact of life that there will always be individuals who will cheat for the sole purpose of seeing their name at the top of a leaderboard, completely missing the whole point of the challenge.

Thankfully I think we have a pretty good community in KSP and cheaters don't seem to be anywhere near as prevalent here as they are in other games/forums.

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25 minutes ago, Scarecrow said:

I wanted to create a challenge that would be fun for anyone who entered.  It's a sad fact of life that there will always be individuals who will cheat for the sole purpose of seeing their name at the top of a leaderboard, completely missing the whole point of the challenge.

Thankfully I think we have a pretty good community in KSP and cheaters don't seem to be anywhere near as prevalent here as they are in other games/forums.

That's true! 

 

P.S. If quicksaves are cheating I cheat a lot...

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