KSP Challenge: Impact the Mun!

[purpleivan]

Went for the MOAR BOOSTERS strategy, by increasing the number of stages around the base of the vehicle (plus some tweaks further up) and got my time down to 15 mins 7 seconds.

Still not as quick as @dvader but a good improvement over my previous time.

The flight of the vehicle was a painful slideshow for the first 11 minutes, so the video is running at x10 times normal speed until 1:11, then normal speed after that.

The video grabber didn't capture the end of flight popup window for some reason, but the impact time can be seen on the mission elapsed clock.

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by purpleivan

[mystifeid]

14min 0secs.

No mods used for design/practice/flight. Which is a pita.

Trying to get under 14 minutes seems to be significantly harder than 15 minutes. Every time I think I'm going to squeek under, it ends up being right on 14 minutes.

[dvader]

@mystifeid Impressive! I rebuilt my rocket from scratch and got a bit over 20,000 dV but still couldn't get a better time than 4:18. I thought it could not be improved upon. But, I rebuilt again with higher TWR and "just" 19,200 dV... and... 13:35!!! Any more than that and my computer will throw me out the window... Don't even ask how many vectors are under that thing.

 

 

[purpleivan]

6 hours ago, dvader said:

@mystifeid Impressive! I rebuilt my rocket from scratch and got a bit over 20,000 dV but still couldn't get a better time than 4:18. I thought it could not be improved upon. But, I rebuilt again with higher TWR and "just" 19,200 dV... and... 13:35!!! Any more than that and my computer will throw me out the window... Don't even ask how many vectors are under that thing.

 

During the pause at the start of the video I was thinking "CPU melting in 3, 2, 1"

[poruru]

14min 25sec.

I need more CPU power for more ΔV

 

[ernstsmit]

1st Attempt: 24:33

2nd Attempt: 20:22

3rd Attempt: 18:39

https://imgur.com/a/7jusKd6

4th Attempt: 17:09

https://imgur.com/a/JGDl3Ww

Edited July 3, 2018 by ernstsmit
New personal record added.

[dvader]

12:56! I think I'd better stop before I become addicted.

@purpleivan Yeah, you hear the clamps go and then nothing. No explosions, no engines. A bit scary really but that's why I have multiple cores. Burn one and there are five left. This version is about half the mass (4700t vs 8800t) so much lighter on the CPU

 

 

[purpleivan]

I thought I'd have a crack at this with larger sized parts to simplify the vehicle and hopefully get some extra oomph... that seemed like a fun party I wanted to join.

So I assembled my new, better TWR vehicle and sent it into space. Well as far as it got before the first detached stage clattered into it... time for some tweaking.

So I toiled away on my machine, adding more and more Sepratrons until the problem was licked, by spinning the detached stages away about their vertical axis. Yes that did the trick, only took about a hundred of the light blighters. Yes, there was a better solution, but that required ripping the thing apart and setting up the detachment properly... where would the fun be in that.

So finally I had a ship I thought would be a huge leap over my previous design that gave a time of 15m 07s. So what time did it give me....... 15:02, a whole five seconds.

Ah yes, I remember the good old days, the days of feel smug because I had a 17:02 time. They were tha halcyon days, the sunny days of my youth, I remember them as if they were yesterday... well a couple days before yesterday anyway.

 

Here's the video of my epic, 5 seconds shorter journey to destruction (beginning at x10 speed due to slideshow).

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by purpleivan

[mystifeid]

Down to 13:33 tonight

[mystifeid]

12min 52sec

So today I decided that if you don't know what you're doing, just make it really, really big. I turned off cpu HT. I turned off my ramdisk. And made the bad boy below which has 450 Mammoths in the first 11 stages.

4424 parts. 56 thousand tons.

@dvader - I haven't watched your videos yet because for one I almost never watch youtube videos and two, it would spoil the challenge. However I am looking forward immensely to watching them if @Darth Badie ever calls time on this thing.

By the way, I foolishly put a ring of 18 Twin Boars inside the Mammoths (I'd like to have that moment again) and they seem to interfere with the resource stage view of the Mammoths.

Still using an unmodded install.

imgur album - https://imgur.com/a/AeaMipj (Sorry - I always forget to take screenshots of the last few stages)

Happiness is clearing the atmosphere and seeing that your heading is 000°.

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by mystifeid

[Ossan3]

16min 34sec

It is my (PC's) limit...

 

 

[Darth Badie]

Hello everyone! This is the last week for this challenge so if you want to participate hurry up !

 

[Mark Kerbin]

So basically we are going with the old "shoot the moon" idea?

Ok. Ill get on that.

[purpleivan]

I've had one last crack at this, going to leave the real competition to those who are better at this than I am. This time however it's going to be in what I like to call the "brave volunteer" catagory.

So for this I needed one brave volunteer.

I asked Jeb and he said "errr... got a card game to go to" and vanished.

So I ask Val, who was reluctant at first (I was being coy with the details of the flight), but I told her it would be just a short trip to the Mun (18m 28s to be precise) and it was for science after all.

"For science" she said "sign me up".

So for "science" we'll now see how quick you can make Munar Mystery Goo.

Launch went well, as did ascent through the atmosphere, but there was a moment when it looked like the vehicle and it's pilot might be lost (prematurely), when it started to wobble at about 100km and then some engines exploded. But after that moment was survived things went smoothly.

Once she was well on her way and realised that this little science experiment was a one way ticket, she climbed out of the Lander Can and sat herself in a command seat that just happened to be stuck to the top of it. That way she got a great view from this front row seat,.

Thanks for being a great volunter Val, it's been nice knowing you.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by purpleivan

[Norcalplanner]

Played around with this design for a few hours, and ended up with 16 minutes flat.  Just over 4,000 tons on the pad:

 

After dropping a few onion booster stages, we looked like this:

 

After shedding all the boosters and the fairing, things looked like this:

 

The upper stages abuse fuel crossfeed on the decouplers mercilessly.  The Terriers fire up at the same time as the Wolfhounds, firing through gaps between the outer tanks:

 

Once the outer Wolfhounds are gone, the Sparks fire up as well.  If I had to put a label on this technique, I'd call it Kerbal Onion Candle.

 

Starting to pour on some serious speed:

 

Two Spiders join in the fun after the radial Sparks are gone:

 

Final stage:

 

Stay on target...

 

'Tis done.  16 minutes on the button.

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by Norcalplanner

[tonimark]

ahh its very hard to upload such an image or video at ksp forum

but i will do the challenge

one more questions is the minutes in real life or in game time ?!

[Vanamonde]

1 hour ago, tonimark said:

ahh its very hard to upload such an image or video at ksp forum

but i will do the challenge

one more questions is the minutes in real life or in game time ?!

The limit is in-game time: 20 minutes on the flight timer at upper left of screen. 

As for pics, upload them to a picture sharing website such as Imgur.com (it's free) and use the link they provide in your posts. 

[tonimark]

AH I DID ALL I COULD BUT I DIDN'T MADE IT here is what i could made :

Album will appear when post is submitted

Edited July 8, 2018 by tonimark
adding image

[Vanamonde]

Welcome to the forum, @tonimark.

Imgur albums have never worked well with our forum software. How about linking individual pics? 

[tonimark]

wait @vanamonde i can fix it right now 1

wait @Vanamondei can fix it right now

[Vanamonde]

9 hours ago, tonimark said:

wait @vanamonde i can fix it right now 1

wait @Vanamondei can fix it right now

I'm getting a blank gray screen. 

[mystifeid]

12min 28sec

21.1km/s at 7:32. This one has half the part count and nearly a third of the weight of my last attempt. There is still room in the VAB to add several more stages but they would provide diminishing returns and make it run very slowly in real time - this one is still not too bad in that respect.

I did manage to get one going at 24km/s but it took 11 minutes and ended up reaching the Mun in a time that was 20 seconds slower than this one.

Imgur album - https://imgur.com/a/ciJdMbB

[DunnoAnyThing]

Would sub-10min be possible?

Edited July 9, 2018 by DunnoAnyThing

[mystifeid]

42 minutes ago, DunnoAnyThing said:

Would sub-10min be possible?

I've always had a nagging feeling that it might be.

[tonimark]

16 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

I'm getting a blank gray screen. 

what but i see this normally check your internet connection??!

@Darth Badie @Vanamonde

HERE AND DAYS I HAVE PUBLISHED MY RESULTS FOR STYLISH DECAY CHALLENGE BUT IT STILLS REMAIN UNCHECKED PLZ CONTRACT DARTH BADIO OR ANY OTHER JUDGE TO CHECK MY CHALLENGE RESULTS AT STYLISH DECAY!!!