Shuttle Challenge v6 - The STS thread [Stock and Mod Friendly] - ANNOUNCEMENT: v7 IS LIVE!

[xub313]

2 hours ago, Artienia said:

Now that's what i call a close call, i'm suprised you had enough monoprob to make it back.  However i see that the oribit you have created had a deviation of 1 kilometer or so, while the tolerance only allows for 100 meters of lee-way. While i cannot award you the STS-1b badge, i can give you the 1a for a splendid landing. If you have a quicksave during deployment you should be able to correct this (Maybe make a kerbal do some manual pushing  )

I was only looking at the last three digits. I didn't notice they were 1km off.  Good catch. I had plenty of monopropellant, I just have to dump most of it before reentry in order to keep the thing aerodynamically stable. I don't have a quicksave of that launch but I flew the mission again with the exact same craft just for you. 

Spoiler

 

[Artienia]

2 hours ago, xub313 said:

I was only looking at the last three digits. I didn't notice they were 1km off.  Good catch. I had plenty of monopropellant, I just have to dump most of it before reentry in order to keep the thing aerodynamically stable. I don't have a quicksave of that launch but I flew the mission again with the exact same craft just for you. 

  Hide contents

 

Splendid work! Not much to say that i didn't say during your original launch. I'll be enticipating your next mission, commander

[minerbat]

wait, you wanted me to circularise between 70-1999 km??? i thought i was supposed to have an apoapsis of 1999 and a periapsis of 70?

and i did another stream where i did succesfully complete sts-1a high tier and sts-1b high tier, if i didnt misinterprent the instructions:

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by minerbat

[Artienia]

9 hours ago, minerbat said:

wait, you wanted me to circularise between 70-1999 km??? i thought i was supposed to have an apoapsis of 1999 and a periapsis of 70?

and i did another stream where i did succesfully complete sts-1a high tier and sts-1b high tier, if i didnt misinterprent the instructions:

 

You have succseffully completed 1a, so congrats, here's your badge!

on 1-b however as far as i saw you just... dropped it while you were heading to the ground? You need the keep the pod in a precise orbit for the challange. I do really like this improved shuttle design though!

Edited May 21, 2021 by Artienia

[minerbat]

10 hours ago, Artienia said:

on 1-b however as far as i saw you just... dropped it while you were heading to the ground? You need the keep the pod in a precise orbit for the challange. I do really like this improved shuttle design though!

oh yeah. i remember now. i dropped it because i didnt have enough fuel to reach the right orbit. but now it is no longer clear to me what you expect. do you want an orbit with Pe at 70 km and Ap at 1999 km? or a circular orbit between 70 to 1999 km? because i thought the first but is it wrong?

but you took over this challenge? because the OP is someone else

Edited May 22, 2021 by minerbat

[Artienia]

13 minutes ago, minerbat said:

oh yeah. i remember now. i dropped it because i didnt have enough fuel to reach the right orbit. but now it is no longer clear to me what you expect. do you want an orbit with Pe at 70 km and Ap at 1999 km? or a circular orbit between 70 to 1999 km? because i thought the first but is it wrong?

but you took over this challenge? because the OP is someone else

For a successfull chalange, you need to delieved the 40 ton payload into an orbit. The tolerances between the orbit's peri and apoapsis depends on the altitude. At the STS-1b you will find a table which lists the tolerances for each orbit. If you have an orbit between 70-1999km, the maximum distance between the peri and apoapsis can only be 100 meters. If you have an orbit above 8000km, the differance can be up to 50 km. 

I am assitant challange manager, i am currently responsible for aiding in sturmhauke's  duties by judging, guiding and awarding submissions.

[minerbat]

so i misinterprented the table... that is annoying... i could have easily achieved it even with the first design... but lets try again then

[Artienia]

2 minutes ago, minerbat said:

so i misinterprented the table... that is annoying... i could have easily achieved it even with the first design... but lets try again then

Don't worry, i failed 1b multiple times aswell just for this reason, a person above you failed for similar reasons too so you're not the odd one out. i'd probably simplify the challange (or it's description) but i do not have the authority for that 

 

On the bright side at least you're an expert on getting out your new shuttle  

[Artienia]

A special post, speaking as Artienia not as an Assitant Manager. 

I compiled all badges for the STSv6 (+1) missions on commander level for those who wish to achieve them all without having it take up too much space. As far as i know only one person has completed and been awarded all 24 of the official badge so this is my own little invitation for all of you to follow on their footsteps! 

Have fun!

Edited May 23, 2021 by Artienia

[QF9E]

4 hours ago, Artienia said:

A special post, speaking as Artienia not as an Assitant Manager. 

I compiled all badges for the STSv6 (+1) missions on commander level for those who wish to achieve them all without having it take up too much space. As far as i know only one person has completed and been awarded all 24 of the official badge so this is my own little invitation for all of you to follow on their footsteps! 

Have fun!

Looks great! I've done all missions except the last one, which I don't recall being from the official list of Shuttle missions, what mission is it from? Also, the rightmost patch of the first row misses a star.

When are you going to have a look at my Solid Rocket Shuttle missions? As I've written before there's one badge I don't yet have (the unmodded space station badge at the commander level), so I'd appreciate it if you'd judge that one. 

[Artienia]

16 minutes ago, QF9E said:

Looks great! I've done all missions except the last one, which I don't recall being from the official list of Shuttle missions, what mission is it from? Also, the rightmost patch of the first row misses a star.

When are you going to have a look at my Solid Rocket Shuttle missions? As I've written before there's one badge I don't yet have (the unmodded space station badge at the commander level), so I'd appreciate it if you'd judge that one. 

Oh my bad, i'll fix that right away, also my apologies. I looked at your submissions but i saw you had all the badges so i didn't judge them. Could you link your shuttle submission? You submitted a lot of ones  

 

P.S. The last one is STS-1c, Don's v5 exclusive christmas-themes mission. I'll include a version without that because it in all fairness a mission not a lot of people completed

By the way @sturmhaukeare new missions planned for the other planets? Some new missions for the solar system would be really nice!

Edited May 23, 2021 by Artienia

[QF9E]

4 hours ago, Artienia said:

I looked at your submissions but i saw you had all the badges so i didn't judge them. Could you link your shuttle submission? You submitted a lot of ones

It's this one. And I know it's subtle, but the badge for that mission in my signature has silver laurels rather than gold ones.

My Solid Rocket Shuttle series started out rather modest: I had built a version of the proposed SRB-X shuttle derived launch vehicle (basically an SRB core stage with two SRB boosters) when I noticed it had the payload capacity to put a shuttle + 40 ton payload into LKO. So I did STS-1b with it. And then I started wondering: how far can I get with this concept in the Shuttle challenge? I'm quite proud that I got it to dock reliably, and that I landed one on the Mun. But unfortunately it is not a practical vehicle, so I am not going to do the remainder of the challenge with it.

Edited May 23, 2021 by QF9E

[Artienia]

13 minutes ago, QF9E said:

It's this one. And I know it's subtle, but the badge for that mission in my signature has silver laurels rather than gold ones.

My Solid Rocket Shuttle series started out rather modest: I had built a version of the proposed SRB-X shuttle derived launch vehicle (basically an SRB core stage with two SRB boosters) when I noticed it had the payload capacity to put a shuttle + 40 ton payload into LKO. So I did STS-1b with it. And then I started wondering: how far can I get with this concept in the Shuttle challenge? I'm quite proud that I got it to dock reliably, and that I landed one on the Mun. But unfortunately it is not a practical vehicle, so I am not going to do the remainder of the challenge with it.

Simply astounding. I thought i was decent with shuttles but this completely blows me out of the water.

This is why i am proud to award you your 23rd Stock-Commander badge, STS-5/8

You have shown us the limits of not just this challange but determination itself. I am honored to judge missions of such preciceness. 
Anyways, big talk aside i believe you are the only person who have gotten all 23 of the Stock-Commander badges (STS-1c isn't included due to it's exclusiveness) so bravo. I hope as more missions get added you'll be at the forefront of the most kerbal engineering possible  

With this i am also certain you can use the second all-in-one picture. I originally made it just for fun but it seems that it's got a use only a couple hours later. Thank you for participating and I hope you will continue!

[QF9E]

4 minutes ago, Artienia said:

Simply astounding. I thought i was decent with shuttles but this completely blows me out of the water.

Thank you! What can I say, I love building Shuttles in KSP, and I really like this set of challenges. If you haven't already done so, I invite you to click on the STS-3 (space telescope) patch in my signature. That telescope is my favourite object I've ever made in KSP.

I'll think about using your patch collection: In my current signature every patch includes a link to the corresponding mission, and I'll have to think about how to include these links in your image.

 

[Artienia]

11 minutes ago, QF9E said:

Thank you! What can I say, I love building Shuttles in KSP, and I really like this set of challenges. If you haven't already done so, I invite you to click on the STS-3 (space telescope) patch in my signature. That telescope is my favourite object I've ever made in KSP.

I'll think about using your patch collection: In my current signature every patch includes a link to the corresponding mission, and I'll have to think about how to include these links in your image.

 

I believe i got a feasable solution

The megabadge could be divided into squares, where if you click those images it would take you there. Basically it would look like one large imagine but function like a lot of tiny small ones. i'll actually try it out with my signiture (forgive me sturm for a minute) and see if it would actually work. if it does i'll be glad to crop the images and send them over to you if you like how they look!

[QF9E]

3 minutes ago, Artienia said:

I believe i got a feasable solution

The megabadge could be divided into squares, where if you click those images it would take you there. Basically it would look like one large imagine but function like a lot of tiny small ones. i'll actually try it out with my signiture (forgive me sturm for a minute) and see if it would actually work. if it does i'll be glad to crop the images and send them over to you if you like how they look!

I think that would work. At the same time, I think I am going to leave my signature as it is: I quite like the long list of patches.

[Artienia]

41 minutes ago, QF9E said:

I think that would work. At the same time, I think I am going to leave my signature as it is: I quite like the long list of patches.

Understandable, i'm suprised it works myself, sadly the stuff has to be scaled down (to a height of about 120px btw) to fit the entire thing in, managed to do 6 too lazy to to do the other ones, it's just a test anyways. I'll see if i can polish it later on 

[Fulgora]

Personally I prefer to just show my highest badge for each planet / moon. Thats much more tidy and the link goes to the Youtube playlist which contains all missions for that badge.

[sturmhauke]

I like the megabadge idea. Some people have taken it upon themselves to do their own megabadges, which is fine too.

I have some preliminary designs for new missions, but I haven't really had the time to flesh them out. But now that Artienia is doing the mission reviews maybe I can spend time on new ones.

[Fulgora]

1 hour ago, sturmhauke said:

I like the megabadge idea. Some people have taken it upon themselves to do their own megabadges, which is fine too.

I have some preliminary designs for new missions, but I haven't really had the time to flesh them out. But now that Artienia is doing the mission reviews maybe I can spend time on new ones.

I have a suggestion for a new Mun-mission that makes use of the new construction mode:

STS Mun-8

After your crew has left your new outpost on the Mun the lack of an escape vehicle makes for a very unsafe working environment. To make your base safe, deliver the parts for a new escape vehicle and use an Engineer to build a functional escape vehicle at your base. The escape vehicle must be connected to your base by either a separator or a docking port.

 

Pilot level:
Construct a new escape vehicle which has a crew capacity of at least 2 Kerbals and is capable of docking to your Mun-station in orbit and demonstrate that capability. The shuttle used to deliver the parts may stay on the Mun.

 

Commanders level:

Construct a new fully-reusable escape vehicle that is capable of docking to your Mun-station as well as re-docking to your base again after a successful escape flight. Your escape vehicle must fit at least 6 Kerbals in pressurized cabins.

After completing the demo flight with the new escape rocket land your shuttle either at the KSC runway, the Island Airfield off the KSC coast, the Dessert Airfield from MH, or at any Kerbal Konstructs airport.

 

Spoiler

^^^ I am thinking about doing that mission after completing my Mun station as a bonus

 

[sturmhauke]

I might do something with that. I haven't even played the latest patch yet, to be honest.

[Artienia]

6 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

I like the megabadge idea. Some people have taken it upon themselves to do their own megabadges, which is fine too.

I have some preliminary designs for new missions, but I haven't really had the time to flesh them out. But now that Artienia is doing the mission reviews maybe I can spend time on new ones.

Well if we're suggestion some ideas i got a couple of my own aswell. I'll just say rough drafts 

DUNA STS-4
Construct some sort of communication network around duna 

DUNA STS-5/8
Construct 2 bases on the "Near" and "Far" side of Ike

JOOL STS-2
Deploy 3 Sattelites around Laythe and Tylo each

JOOL STS-3
Land on Tylo and construct a surface base

JOOL STS-4
Land on Laythe and construct a surface base

JOOL STS-5
Dive inside Jool's atmosphere (Maybe like at 50k alt or something idk)

JOOL STS-6
Land on all 5 of Jool's moons and deploy a science pack on them (or something)

EVE STS-2
From orbit construct a comm array

EVE STS-3
From orbit construct a surface base

EVE STS-4
Eve Space Station

EVE STS-5
Do Gilly stuff

EVE STS-6 (super WIP)
Land on eve and make it back to orbit (Refueling both at surface and orbit station? Should be technically possible...)

MINMUS STS-2
Comms Array

MINMUS STS-3
Surface Base

MINMUS STS-4
Minmus Space station

 

I think these would be easy to make yet provide a lot as we'd be doubling the off-kerbin shuttle work (9, and these new 12 ones) 
Also while we're at the missions, would it be possible to rearrange the order of the mission listings on the first page from
(Kerbin -> Kerbin 9 -> Mun -> Duna -> Jool -> Eve -> Minmus -> Kerbin Test)
to
(Kerbin -> Kerbin 9 -> Kerbin Test -> Mun -> Minmus -> Duna -> Eve -> Jool)
because it's out-of-orderness really drives me mad  
 

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Artienia

[QF9E]

One aspect of these challenges that I like a lot is that they explore various parts of the game - for instance, I needed to acquaint myself with how to control a probe remotely for the EVE STS-1 mission and how to do ISRU for JOOL STS-1. With that in mind I really like @Fulgora's idea to build a mission around the new concept of in-game construction.

I would hesitate with missions like "build a comsat constellation around planet X", as the principle is the same every time. Although building a dunastationary constellation is quite fun, as Ike is in the way. You can build an 8 sat constellation if you are careful, but a 9 sat constellation is probably impossible.

Another thing is the existence of the Skunkworks badge. In the past this badge has been awarded for a Jool-5 in a Shuttle, so I don't necessarily think that Jool-5 should be a regular STS mission. As to landing on and getting back from Eve: That is a viable mission, as my STS Grand Tour attests. I built an Eve lander / ascent vehicle that fits inside the long Mk3 cargo bay. But unless you have considerable experience with Eve, I think you'll find it quite hard, much harder than the other Shuttle missions.

I've tried really hard to build a Shuttle design that can land on and take off from Eve, but I haven't been successful so far.

Another mission that could be added to the list is a Moho landing. It isn't the easiest thing in the world but it is viable (again, see my Grand Tour for one workable strategy) and a bit different from other existing missions, as the dv requirement is so much higher.

 An idea for a mission in the test series could be to demonstrate a fully reusable system with a flyback booster. I've developed one during the course of my Kerbin STS missions, and I have since experimented with several other approaches - I've been working on an inline design as well as a "belly to belly" design with twin spaceplanes.

Edited May 24, 2021 by QF9E

[Fulgora]

1 hour ago, QF9E said:

One aspect of these challenges that I like a lot is that they explore various parts of the game - for instance, I needed to acquaint myself with how to control a probe remotely for the EVE STS-1 mission and how to do ISRU for JOOL STS-1. [...]

I would hesitate with missions like "build a comsat constellation around planet X", as the principle is the same every time. Although building a dunastationary constellation is quite fun, as Ike is in the way. [...]

I can absolutely second this! Any new mission should add a new twist and not just repeat something that already has been done on a different planetary body. Otherwise the missions become more a chore than a challenge.

With that in mind @Artienia's Jool dive idea is quite nice as it is indeed unique.

[Artienia]

3 hours ago, Fulgora said:

I can absolutely second this! Any new mission should add a new twist and not just repeat something that already has been done on a different planetary body. Otherwise the missions become more a chore than a challenge.

With that in mind @Artienia's Jool dive idea is quite nice as it is indeed unique.

Thank you! I personally like the Duna Commsat mission as i want to see what everyone comes up with for 100% coverage for Duna and Ike. The best i could come up with was a 5 sattelite combo

Also after brainstorming some original ideas, i thought of this: What about some water base for Eve? maybe even a submarine? Boat? I think that would be really fun to build an Eve boat 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Artienia