Karman Crossing Challenge (Stock or mod)

[neistridlar]

25 minutes ago, Lisias said:

The 3 is already covered by mine and yours (I think). And the 4 and 5 are not simple to measure directly, and are already covered by altitude anyway, as the time you spend above the Karman depends only from the vertical speed you had when you loose thrust, and that affects directly the altitude too, that it's easier to measure as KSP already gave us this number.

When @hoioh posted this, he was probably following my thinking, and surely before @Gargamel explained why I was wrong.

See here:

 

I'm pretty sure he clarified later that by distance he meant altitude above the karman line, which you already have the data for in the spread sheet. Anyways that would be a nice metric for rewarding large vessels I think. I have been thinking I might try to stress test the existing proposals by trying to find exploits, that is designs that should be considered bad or undesirable, but still gets good scores. That will have to wait until tomorrow though.

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, neistridlar said:

 I have been thinking I might try to stress test the existing proposals by trying to find exploits, that is designs that should be considered bad or undesirable, but still gets good scores. That will have to wait until tomorrow though.

Yep. I'll post at least one of these "unorthodox" entries this weekend. :-) All of them exploiting loopholes on the contest, and perhaps we should address some of them.

6 hours ago, neistridlar said:

I'm pretty sure he clarified later that by distance he meant altitude above the karman line, which you already have the data for in the spread sheet. Anyways that would be a nice metric for rewarding large vessels I think. 

Check "mine" and "yours" formula to see if what he proposing is not already being addressed (a second opinion is, indeed, a nice idea). you can see the formulas, besides being read-only, I'm right?

[neistridlar]

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

Yep. I'll post at least one of these "unorthodox" entries this weekend. :-) All of them exploiting loopholes on the contest, and perhaps we should address some of them.

Check "mine" and "yours" formula to see if what he proposing is not already being addressed (a second opinion is, indeed, a nice idea). you can see the formulas, besides being read-only, I'm right?

I suppose they are similar. Here is how I interpret hoioh 3-5 though: 

3. Kerbals/launch cost

4. (max altitude - 70km)*kerbals

5. (max altitude - 70km)*kerbals/launch cost

And yes I can see the formulas, but I don't get the markings of which cells are being used by a formula, have to go find it my self, or copy the spread sheet over in a new one that I can edit.

[Gargamel]

I'm not a challenge forum regular, but the simplicity and elegance of this one has piqued my interest.    Once you guys work out the scoring, I'll toss my hate in the ring.  That said, I didn't know challenge ideas needed a WiP thread of their own! 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Gargamel
Yes I see the typo, but I'm leaving it in for comedic value.

[Lisias]

13 hours ago, Gargamel said:

That said, I didn't know challenge ideas needed a WiP thread of their own! 

This is Kerbal Space Program! Welcome aboard, and have a good landing! :-D

(yes - real screenshots from real challenge attempts! The mishaps are more entertaining that the successful attempts!! :-D )

[hoioh]

On 4/3/2018 at 6:07 PM, hoioh said:

I shall clarify: what I mean with 4 is (altitude - 70km) * (#kerbals-pilot)

Because it's harder to carry more kerbals higher I figure the multiplier could be used in order to have something interesting to score. I think it was you who carried 67 or so kerbals over 70km up, so that should provide an interesting benchmark.

And for number 5 we would be deviding the total cost of flight by the amount of #4 to get an economy score

@Lisias I've accounted for your argument already, but you might have missed it

Edited April 7, 2018 by hoioh

[Lisias]

11 hours ago, hoioh said:

@Lisias I've accounted for your argument already, but you might have missed it

Probably. Sorry. I will revise the thread as soon as possible. Things gone somewhat crazy here at Brazil these two last days.

[Andetch]

Hmm, so I was thinking (I can't currently play KSP as I am overseas and way too busy so can't really test these ideas in game, but have ran them through with some submissions and I feel they seem to work) about the proposed formulas.

I like the the multiple class system, and these formulas are inspired by all the help and suggestions you guys have given me - thank you so much!! 

So, if a majority agree I propose the new scoring to work like this. The part count (parts recovered) is only for a successful landing of the craft. If you crash land, killing everyone that means there are no parts to recover, so the value will be 0. If you land but destroy some of the craft, then we can find out the part count easy enough from the F3 readout. If your Kerbal has to bail out (1.4 has a Kerbal Parachute, any previous versions you can usually survive jumping out and landing into water) then the value will be 1. 

1. The highest altitude - We just want to be high! ( (Max Alt - 70,000) * (parts recovered) ) - cost at launch = Score Simple, right? I think it gives a bonus for bigger craft, and bigger is harder, no?                                                               
2. The best altitute/crew ratio - We want to take our friends! ( (Max Alt - 70,000) * (parts recovered) ) - cost at launch, then multiply by number of Kerbals on board minus 1 (for the pilot) = Score This will mean that if you only take 1 passenger, it doesn't give you much reward. 

I think that these two formula's cover the majority of ideas on scoring, like passenger/cost/distance ratio etc. In both, higher scores are better. Now can someone tell me why they are flawed?

Also, added commendation for most Kerbals above the Karman line. 

And; Bronze Commendation for landing on the Runway. Silver for landing on the Launchpad. Gold for landing on the Helipad at VAB roof (if you miss the helipad but are still on the roof of the VAB then you get the coveted "So near, yet so far away" prize)

[neistridlar]

1 hour ago, Andetch said:

Hmm, so I was thinking (I can't currently play KSP as I am overseas and way too busy so can't really test these ideas in game, but have ran them through with some submissions and I feel they seem to work) about the proposed formulas.

I like the the multiple class system, and these formulas are inspired by all the help and suggestions you guys have given me - thank you so much!! 

So, if a majority agree I propose the new scoring to work like this. The part count (parts recovered) is only for a successful landing of the craft. If you crash land, killing everyone that means there are no parts to recover, so the value will be 0. If you land but destroy some of the craft, then we can find out the part count easy enough from the F3 readout. If your Kerbal has to bail out (1.4 has a Kerbal Parachute, any previous versions you can usually survive jumping out and landing into water) then the value will be 1. 

1. The highest altitude - We just want to be high! ( (Max Alt - 70,000) * (parts recovered) ) - cost at launch = Score Simple, right? I think it gives a bonus for bigger craft, and bigger is harder, no?                                                               
2. The best altitute/crew ratio - We want to take our friends! ( (Max Alt - 70,000) * (parts recovered) ) - cost at launch, then multiply by number of Kerbals on board minus 1 (for the pilot) = Score This will mean that if you only take 1 passenger, it doesn't give you much reward. 

I think that these two formula's cover the majority of ideas on scoring, like passenger/cost/distance ratio etc. In both, higher scores are better. Now can someone tell me why they are flawed?

Also, added commendation for most Kerbals above the Karman line. 

And; Bronze Commendation for landing on the Runway. Silver for landing on the Launchpad. Gold for landing on the Helipad at VAB roof (if you miss the helipad but are still on the roof of the VAB then you get the coveted "So near, yet so far away" prize)

I can see one flaw right away. Just spam lots of small lightweight cheap parts, like the basic fin. 25 funds and 0.01 ton. It is basically free points. If you want part count to be a part of it it needs to either count negatively, or you need to use the ratio of parts launched to parts recovered or something like that (but the ratio can be manipulated with the basic fin as well). And for the second one, having lots of kerbals is going to be very expensive, so you have to go really high to even make a positive score if you bring like 30 kerbals. Division by cost at launch in stead of subtraction takes away this issue.

[Andetch]

4 minutes ago, neistridlar said:

I can see one flaw right away. Just spam lots of small lightweight cheap parts, like the basic fin. 25 funds and 0.01 ton. It is basically free points. If you want part count to be a part of it it needs to either count negatively, or you need to use the ratio of parts launched to parts recovered or something like that (but the ratio can be manipulated with the basic fin as well). And for the second one, having lots of kerbals is going to be very expensive, so you have to go really high to even make a positive score if you bring like 30 kerbals. Division by cost at launch in stead of subtraction takes away this issue.

Yeah, I thought about the spam loads of parts - maybe just but a clause in disallowing more than say 3 of the same part? I initially had (part count at launch - part count recovered) but thought that would give advantages to having a massive (by part count) stage that just gets binned and isn't part of the craft. 

As for the second one - fair comment. However I thought because it is multiplied by the amount of parts it offsets the cost (it seemed to give a good score for your passenger craft - a higher score than for my entry that went higher!) however, as the part count multiplier can be abused I am back at square one, unless of course the "no more than 3 of any part" rule can be used to limit it? The 3 part limit will also make it harder to build bigger craft as you have to mix up the cabins (unless it is max 3 of any part excluding cabins and engines?) 

Alternatively, we could put a clause such as "If you wanna be a pr**k and just do something like have loads of basic fins to up your part count, then you automatically receive the "Tosser Award" for being a prime example of one. 

I am up for whatever way works, fairly, keeping the competitive nature of the challenge. 

[neistridlar]

So, I kind of made this just for the purpose of showing how bad @Andetch's latest suggestion for scoring would work for big expensive vessels. Well, it turns out I failed in epicly. Scoring 39,185,344 by my math. I thought the enormous price of this thing would outweigh the altitude and part count, but it barely makes a dent. Back to the drawing-board.

[Andetch]

4 hours ago, neistridlar said:

So, I kind of made this just for the purpose of showing how bad @Andetch's ... SNIP

 

4 hours ago, neistridlar said:

 

 

 

Yeah? So that indicates that because of the amount of kerbals you carried, the altitude and price were offset?

My head hurts trying to figure out a scoring system.

[neistridlar]

6 hours ago, Andetch said:

 

Yeah? So that indicates that because of the amount of kerbals you carried, the altitude and price were offset?

My head hurts trying to figure out a scoring system.

nope, the part count is what offset it even though I did not go very far above the karmanline, I had so many parts that it overwhelmed the purchase price. I will make an other attempt to break it though. My goal is to get a negative score .

[Andetch]

2 hours ago, neistridlar said:

My goal is to get a negative score .

Okay, new challenge.....

Anyone can break the laws of physics in KSP, but who can break my equations?

(Here is a thought, how about measuring against dry mass instead of parts?)

[neistridlar]

Aaand, I did it! This time with more kerbals! 99 of them to be excact. Score -18,839,997:

More images: https://imgur.com/a/CM1P9

[Andetch]

Right, thanks @neistridlar you won the "break it" challenge, so now for a radical new formula. 

Use the original scoring method, but put some classes; (each has a survivor and suicide class)

Single seat - single seat suicide

2 - 5 seat - 2 - 5 suicide.

5 - 50 seat - and suicide class.

50 - 100 seat.

100+ seat. 

Break that now!

[Gargamel]

On 4/12/2018 at 7:05 AM, Andetch said:

Okay, new challenge.....

A challenge that requires a separate challenge just to figure out the scoring system.   

[Andetch]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

A challenge that requires a separate challenge just to figure out the scoring system.   

Indeed! Seeing as my original scoring system was flawed, we need a new way to score.... Or I guess this is a dud challenge

Or even I could just score on what I like the best, KEA style - encouraging bribery and under the table payments to my offshore kerbin bank at every launch.....

[Lisias]

Bleh. I was hunting down a bug on KSP, messed up the GameData mods and allowed KSP to delete the crafts without realizing that I didn't made a backup (not to mention debugging the thingy on my "production" KSP, not the testing one).

(mea stultitia, mea maxima stultitia...)

Since 1.4.3 is now on the wild, i will see how it works and after upgrading everything here (or not), I'll rebuild the contraptions I did for this challenge and then publish them here. :-)

[DoctorDavinci]

On 4/15/2018 at 6:41 AM, Andetch said:

Or even I could just score on what I like the best, KEA style - encouraging bribery and under the table payments to my offshore kerbin bank at every launch.....

Do you take bitcoin? 

[Andetch]

4 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Do you take bitcoin? 

I take all forms of negotiable currency, bitcoin, bullion, shiny rocks, spaceship parts, livestock, fake gold watches.... Whatever - if a Trotter will trade in it, so will I!

Edited April 28, 2018 by Andetch
Battle with autocorrect