Two-stage Starship Challenge

[Gigakoos]

Hey Kerbonauts!

In recent months, our rival company, SpaceX, has made great advancements to their future launch system: Starship & Super Heavy. Of course, us Kerbonauts can do much better than them! For the colonisation of other worlds, we need a simple, reliable and cheap way to land on other worlds. Because our chief engineer is having coffee, we ask you to design, build and fly a two-stage reusable launch vehicle.

Your vehicle should be able to take as much cargo and crew (compared to its total mass) as possible to a world that is as scientifically valuable as possible. Of course, you can use orbital refueling, ion thrusters, nuclear engines, and literally anything else you can think of! Please do keep in mind that, to rival SpaceX, your entire upper stage will need to land on the celestial body. There will be a stock leaderboard and a dlc/mod leaderboard.

Celestial body multipliers

Body	Multiplier
Moho	10x
Eve	8x
Gilly	9x
Kerbin	0.3x
Mun	4x
Minmus	5x
Duna	8x
Ike	8x
Dres	8x
Laythe	14x
Vall	12x
Tylo	12x
Bop	12x
Pol	12x
Eeloo	15x

The formula to calculate your score is: score= max crew/(dry weight upper stage/10) x (max cargo/total wet weight) x (science multiplier celestial body) x reusability score x 100

In which:

max crew: The maximum amount of kerbonauts that can be transported to the surface of the celestial body. Bring them home!

max cargo: The maximum amount of cargo (in tons) that can be transported to the surface of the celestial body. Please leave it there.

science multiplier: See table above.

reusability score: 1: not reusable - 2: one stage reusable - 3: both stages reusable

 

If you find a way to get a higher score by going to a different body or changing the crew/cargo ratio, go ahead! Please supply video or pictures as evidence and give me all the needed data. And remember, bring your kerbals home.

We're looking forward to your submissions. If you spot any mistakes or if we missed out on anything, please tell us!

The Δv Foundation

Leaderboard with cargo & crew:

1- @EveMaster 3609.5

Leaderboard without cargo:

 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Gigakoos
Leaderboard

[sturmhauke]

I did this mission for a Reddit challenge a couple years ago that it turns out doesn't quite fit the criteria (6 crew but no cargo, and I don't know the exact wet/dry mass of the upper stage), but it shows what's possible at least. It consists of an interplanetary spaceplane and two strap-on booster rockets, all of which are fully reusable, and capable of a Dres landing and return. Stock parts only, version 1.3.1 (I think, certainly not later than that).

Full gallery: https://imgur.com/gallery/KhMpv

[EveMaster]

 

Nice challenge, you have put quite some amount of thought into this challenge.

I did the math for my craft https://kerbalx.com/EveMaster/100KerbalsToEve:

• max crew: 100
• dry weight upper stage: 294t
• max cargo: 0t
• total wet weight: 3269t
• science multiplier celestial body: 8
• reusability score: 3

score = (100/(294/10)) * (0/3269) * 8 * 3 * 100 = 3.4 * 0 * 3 *100 = 0

Obviously I have to redesign it to also include cargo. This is something I already had in mind and this challenge gives me some more incentive to do so.

The scoring system uses a multiplicative formula which forces you design a craft with both cargo and crew capacity. This is what you intended. Note that the multiplicative factors (1/10) and 100 do not have an effect on the relative ranking. I guess you added them so that the different components are all in the same order of magnitude. Also you should add additional parentheses around the crew part in the formula.

 

On 10/20/2019 at 10:44 AM, Gigakoos said:

Of course, you can use orbital refueling, ion thrusters, nuclear engines, and literally anything else you can think of!

Can the orbital refueling only be performed by using the two stages or can existing refueling infrastructure be used, e.g. have a separate craft that can mine on a moon and refuel the 2-stage craft in low Kerbin orbit or a low orbit around the target planet? Would the mass of the refueling craft count to the total mass? Limiting the total number of stages to two means that for Eve you need either an ssto or have a suborbital catcher that has enough fuel left to reach Gilly after the suborbital catching procedure. Both is just barely possible and would make the challenge too hard for Eve compared to the other celestial bodies pretty much impossible.

If the cargo contains mining equipment, are you allowed to use it? I assume the carge must not be used at any time, but it would be a good idea, if you could clarify on this. What about if the cargo contains wings? I guess it is also not intended to decouple your wings after landing on a planet with an atmosphere and declare the wings as cargo.

[Laie]

15 hours ago, EveMaster said:

a multiplicative formula which forces you design a craft with both cargo and crew capacity

Sure? I understood that we're to make two flights: one with tourists, the other with ballast.

[EveMaster]

I think this statement from the mission description makes it clear that the craft must have both cargo and passenger capacity at the same time:

On 10/20/2019 at 10:44 AM, Gigakoos said:

If you find a way to get a higher score by going to a different body or changing the crew/cargo ratio, go ahead!

One mission with cargo and one mission with tourists would make sense if you are allowed to have some small modifications between the cargo- and the passenger- variant of your craft.

[EveMaster]

I have an idea how to achieve a high score. Here is the upper stage designed as an SSTO from Gilly orbit to Gilly surface and back. It has place for 40 Kerbals and has a dry weight of only 114kg. 

That would give me a factor for the crew part of

max crew/(dry weight upper stage/10) = 40 /(0.114/10) = 3509

Edited October 23, 2019 by EveMaster

[Gigakoos]

@EveMaster wow, those designs look really nice! Quite an original way to do it!

For the formula: Starship, also with crew, should be able to take cargo with it. (The crew and some robots use the cargo to build a base on Mars) But I could make a leaderboard without cargo? 

@Laie It should be capable to achieve the score in one flight.

[Kergarin]

Is it a problem if the second stage is only separated on eve and it does all others in one stage? 

Also is isru allowed?

[Gigakoos]

3 hours ago, Kergarin said:

Is it a problem if the second stage is only separated on eve and it does all others in one stage? 

No problem! But keep the reusability in mind. 

3 hours ago, Kergarin said:

Also is isru allowed?

Sure, SpaceX's plans for Starship include in-situ resource utilisation on Mars (that's one of the reasons they chose methane and lox as fuels) so go ahead! 

[Kergarin]

1 hour ago, Gigakoos said:

No problem! But keep the reusability in mind. 

Sure, SpaceX's plans for Starship include in-situ resource utilisation on Mars (that's one of the reasons they chose methane and lox as fuels) so go ahead! 

So then, does this fit? 
It's an older build, and maybe I have posted this for one or another challenge already
If you say it's legit I will start calculating

 

[Gigakoos]

@Kergarin, it looks really good! Can it take cargo? And how far can it go without refueling? 

Also, great video! 

[Kergarin]

55 minutes ago, Gigakoos said:

@Kergarin, it looks really good! Can it take cargo? And how far can it go without refueling? 

Also, great video! 

It can only take 6 Kerbals, no cargo.

It only goes to Minmus without refuelling. From there on it can jump to everywhere with isru 

[Gigakoos]

Just now, Kergarin said:

It can only take 6 Kerbals, no cargo.

It only goes to Minmus without refuelling. From there on it can jump to everywhere with isru 

Alright! Could you do the calculations? You can ignore the cargo factor then, I'll put you on the no-cargo leaderboard! 

[EveMaster]

@Gigakoos Please remove my entry with the Gilly-Ladder-Stage from the leader boards as this entry is not finished. I have neither designed the rest of the craft nor actually flown the mission.

You can add my the 100 Kerbals to Eve submission instead if you like.

What is be the formula for the non-cargo-leaderboard? It could for example be the same as the orginal formula but with 1 ton instead of 0 ton assumed as cargo capacity so that the score will not be always 0.

[Kergarin]

16 hours ago, Gigakoos said:

Alright! Could you do the calculations? You can ignore the cargo factor then, I'll put you on the no-cargo leaderboard! 

I will do as soon as I find time 

[EveMaster]

I now have a submission ready for a combined cargo/passenger launcher. I tried to maximize the score. The stats:

• max crew: 1
• dry weight upper stage: 0.405 t (excluding Kerbal)
• cargo: 40t
• wet weight: 321.973
• science multiplier: 5 (Minmus)
• reusabilty score: 2 (Tiny upper stage is recovered)

My total score: 3067.5

Mission report: https://imgur.com/gallery/wKdpMd9

[TheEnderman]

Welp, here i go... are there any mods that arent allowed? i kinda wanna use an orion drive lol, but its kinda OP

[TheEnderman]

Is this still going?

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:30 AM, TheEnderman said:

Is this still going?

I don’t think so. The person that posted this thread last visited on October the 28th 2019. Sorry

[KingDominoIII]

How is the no cargo score calculated?

[Gigakoos]

On 1/22/2020 at 5:49 PM, KingDominoIII said:

How is the no cargo score calculated?

The cargo factor is left out.

 

On 1/19/2020 at 3:05 PM, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

I don’t think so. The person that posted this thread last visited on October the 28th 2019. Sorry

Sorry, I was very busy doing others things so didn’t have time for KSP 

On 10/30/2019 at 11:19 PM, TheEnderman said:

Welp, here i go... are there any mods that arent allowed? i kinda wanna use an orion drive lol, but its kinda OP

Yeah I think it should be realistic (OK, Orion was a real world proposal...) that SpaceX could use it. So an Orion drive or warp drive would be too OP :-)

On 10/28/2019 at 11:37 PM, EveMaster said:

My total score: 3067.5

OK, I’ll add it.