The ESA exploit challenge

[dnbattley]

With a slew of new parts incoming, this is a simple challenge: to push these parts beyond their intended purpose for entertainment and productive purpose.

How far can you go? What does too far even look like?

The magnetometer boom looks to have good potential, but flags and farings may introduce other exciting possibilities...

[Misguided Kerbal]

15 minutes ago, dnbattley said:

With a slew of new parts incoming, this is a simple challenge: to push these parts beyond their intended purpose for entertainment and productive purpose.

How far can you go? What does too far even look like?

The magnetometer boom looks to have good potential, but flags and farings may introduce other exciting possibilities...

I can foresee the rosetta probe stuff being used as abominations. Remember guys: Misguided_Kerbal told you first! (if you've seen the movie 2012 you'll get this)

[dnbattley]

7 hours ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

I can foresee the rosetta probe stuff being used as abominations

I'm rather hoping that flags can be used as even lighter landing legs...

[Pds314]

Hmm.. magnetometer boom might allow us to make (very weak put probably very light as well) Piston engines with only stock parts. Not even BG. It's supposedly very fragile but I kinda doubt it's fragile in every state and configuration.

Re: flags. These could be a revolution in craft aesthetics. What they might also be a revolution in, is, well, revolution. I could see them having some very unusual behaviors and properties in regards to turboshafts and such.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Pds314

[Laie]

1 hour ago, Pds314 said:

Hmm.. magnetometer boom might allow us to make (very weak put probably very light as well) Piston engines with only stock parts. Not even BG. It's supposedly very fragile but I kinda doubt it's fragile in every state and configuration.

Pogo stick on Gilly / Pol / Bop?

 

2 hours ago, dnbattley said:

I'm rather hoping that flags can be used as even lighter landing legs...

Well, if they have colliders they're also subject to drag, are they? Massless wings, anyone?

[Pds314]

16 minutes ago, Laie said:

Pogo stick on Gilly / Pol / Bop?

 

Well, if they have colliders they're also subject to drag, are they? Massless wings, anyone?

Not necessarily. The drag cube for a thing need not even resemble its collision mesh. Many of the science experiments actually have very little drag if any.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Pds314

[dnbattley]

Initial view: the most interesting feature of flags for me is the low mass: we now have a 50g part on the smallest flag. Self interaction is possible but only through action groups and not via context menu (this is possibly an oversight on the Devs part and may be fixed later).

Separately, the Klaw jr is very interesting part: lower mass than 2 jnr docking ports and a 50 m/s impact tolerance offers potential as a rather nice landing leg...

[Klapaucius]

Well, someone needs to kick this off, so here is my completely useless submission. Horrendously inefficient, but there is some serious SAS in this thing.  It looks more like a farm tractor than an aircraft.

 

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Klapaucius

[dnbattley]

On 7/5/2020 at 8:56 PM, Klapaucius said:

*snip*

Nice!

I now have a submission too: behold the "fake space ship"

Liberal use of custom flag decals with a concealed k-drive to power it... and I'm very happy with how it turned out!

[dnbattley]

... Now expanded into a short, but full, motion picture

[FleshJeb]

5 hours ago, dnbattley said:

... Now expanded into a short, but full, motion picture

This is my new favorite thing.

[Pds314]

Flags.... are collideable! {Shenanigan noises intensify)

Hmm. The flat flags at least appear to have little to no bouyancy even at quite large sizes. Interesting.

They appear to have very minimal or no drag too.

They don't automatically survive lithobraking AFAICT, so they are not like the Kodiak or DSI intake that are perfectly content sliding or bouncing along the ground at mach III.

Thermal and obstructive behavior of flags in response to rocket or jet thrust doesn't noticeably change based on whether they are partially invisible. Superheated flags produce interesting effects WRT edge highlights.

For their size and weight, flags can make shockingly effective passive radiators.

Flags do not appear to become less effective at radiating heat at small sizes. A minimum size flat flag weighing 3 kg and being smaller than a flat solar panel will not overheat from being blasted by a reliant at 32.5% throttle or less.

Compare: the small solar panel, which weighs 5 kg and can survive a reliant at only 0.5% throttle, or 1% for short periods.

They're still not as good as 0.625m heat shields with ablator, at least, 1 tiny flag isn't as good as one relatively large and heavy heat shield. With ablator, it takes 36.5% throttle to break the heat shield. That being said, they're smaller than a heat shield.

They do actually beat heatshields without ablator though. A 0.625m heatshield with no ablator blackens at 1% and breaks at 25.5%.



 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Hmm... Can you survive a way-too-fast reentry with flat flags... probably not.

[Pds314]

The magnetometer boom is extraordinarilly heavy. 500 kg for something that's not even a mk0 part. It's roughly the density of solid gold going by the model. So probably not ideal for a reciprocating engine unless weight is a net benefit. But I wonder what it's like as a ballast? Or as a projectile.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Pds314

[problemecium]

OMG flags as landing legs... why didn't I think of that? I've been wanting tiny legs for so long! (don't quote me out of context ^^; )

I have also noticed that, interestingly, the new cores respectively have a built-in relay and a built-in Xenon tank. I used to use the HECS2 for minimalistic test vehicles due to its large built-in battery and strong reaction wheels, but the new core(s) promise to be even better for this purpose. If nothing else, it lets us be nutcases and build relay networks out of single-part satellites xD

[Pds314]

I wonder how strong the magnetometer booms are?

It looks like 8 booms can lift 290 tonnes not counting themselves without much difficulty, but cannot set it down safely.

3 booms can lift as much weight but will then proceed to bend over and begin to collapse before exploding into a million pieces. At least if that weight is too tall.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Pds314

[dnbattley]

@Pds314 This is some great research, and thanks for sharing!

41 minutes ago, problemecium said:

OMG flags as landing legs... why didn't I think of that? I've been wanting tiny legs for so long! (don't quote me out of context ^^; )

In my earlier ship I had to put tiny grip pads at the bottom for the collision, so it may be that some but not all flags have border collision: but conversely that factor worked well for the flame effect in the video...