Unique Landing Systems

[LittleBitMore]

When a certain world event caused a stock market crash, the landing engine companies and parachute companies took the biggest hits and are on the brink of bankruptcy. While these companies recover, the Kerbal Space Program dreams of landing systems forged with the other parts they have lying around, powerful enough to land 250 tons of liquid fuel, on Tylo. Perhaps these dreams aren't so nonsensical after all.

This brings us to the challenge at hand: creating a unique landing system to provide alternatives to parachutes or powered landings. The goal is to invent a new system for landing safely, scored based on its capabilities, unique-ness, and specifications.

Rules:

1. READ ALL THE RULES BEFORE SUBMITTING, as well as the score system. 
   • This way you know what you need to make and what you're aiming not to do.
2. The system must let your craft land intact on the target planet (excluding any parts you let intentionally fall off or break in the descent system). 
   • Meaning your payload must survive, but if your landing system is one time use, then so be it.
3. The return must be from 70km or higher. 
   • This is so you don't make a flat panel on the bottom of a huge payload, make it jump a meter, and call it a day. This is for all planets to provide equal descent times (to an extent).
4. It must be the only significant method of slowing down. 
   • Meaning if there were fins for stabilization that happened to minorly affect the return, this is allowed, but not adding huge wings that slow it down almost all the way, then saying an entirely different system did it all.
5. It must stay landed eventually and must not take off again. 
   • Fairly straightforwards: it must land for good, eventually. it can bounce and stuff, but to count it must eventually stop bouncing.
6. You can only use these four celestial bodies: Kerbin, Duna, Mun, and Tylo.
   • Each have different score based on their difficulty, with Kerbin being the easiest and Tylo being the hardest.
7. The system should be easy to remove and replace back on another craft and must attach from one part. 
   • Meaning if I were to have the craft file then it should be relatively easy to pull that one part off (and consequentially remove the entire thing), and tape it to something else entirely (with similar size and stuff, of course). This includes all propellants or expendable resources used in the landing system.
8. No stock parachutes, or powered engine descents.
   • You can however make homemade parachutes (somehow) or use engines in creative ways that aren't just direct descents. I will determine whether it is good or no good.
9. No parts mods.
   • In addition, no cheats or other unfair mods. QOL, autopilot, and visual mods are all allowed. Infernal Robotics is allowed to allow players who don't have Breaking Ground to have advanced robotics systems. You can use the cheat mods or alt-f12 to hack yourself 70km above the planet if you want.
10. Please provide evidence.
    • Imgur albums with sufficient enough images are allowed, but videos are preferred. In addition, craft files also work, but it's recommended to have both a video and a craft file. Provide payload specifications as well as descent time.
11. Only I can score.
    • While you can technically legally follow the scoring stuff, there are a few things that need to be based on unbiased opinion and ergo I must do myself. When i score your design, I will put you on the leaderboard.

Scoring:

• Start with 1000 points, then follow the following steps IN ORDER.
• Subtract the descent time (from 70km to final touchdown) in seconds from the current score, with a maximum of 300 seconds (any more will only subtract 300).
• Add 250 if it is fully reusable and requires no refueling or resetting of any kind.
• Add 250 if it breaks no parts included in the descent system.
• Add the weight of the payload in tons, with a max of 250 (if any more, just add 250).
• Subtract the weight of the landing system in tons, multiplied by 10, with a maximum penalty of 250.
• Multiply by 2 if on Duna, multiply by 3 if on the Mun, and multiply by 5 if on Tylo. Only the largest multiplier will be used.
• I will look over your design and provide a number somewhere between 1 and 10 based on how interesting your craft looks to me. Divide the interestingness score by 4, and multiply your score by that. For clarification: (Interest/4)*score. I will do my very best to be as unbiased as possible.

Some ideas and tips:

• This section is just for some good places to start if you want an idea, and additional tips for maximizing score.
• Plane wings will generally get you low creativity scores, which will severely impact your final score.
• The descent timer starts at 70km and ends at the instant you land on the ground and do not take off again. Use this to your advantage and maximize your speed before hitting 70km.
• Nobody said directly vertical trajectories were required, but they are faster.
• If your timer is longer than 5 minutes, don't bother trying to make it fast (unless you want to beat 5 minutes, that is), because any time over 5 minutes will have the same penalty as 5 minutes.
• If your landing system is heavier than 25 tons, then don't worry about making it light unless you want it lighter than 25 tons, for similar reasons as listed above.
• If you have more payload than 250 tons, just shave some off until you just barely make it. At that point you aren't gaining extra points for payload anyways.
• If you know what you're doing, Tylo has amazing point values.
• Mountains mean closer landing zones. Use this to shorten your timer.

Leaderboards

Spoiler

1. Example - 1234
   • By @examplesubmissionnotarealperson
   • The leaderboards are currently empty, and this is an example of what a leaderboard entry will look like. This pragraph is used to show how interesting I found it and how great the feats were in this design.
   • This design can be found at Example KerbalX Link, and the proof is at Example YouTube Link.

Disqualified Entires (If a design breaks a rule, it is put here. This way these designs are not forgotten, but also not included in the leaderboards.)

Spoiler

1. Example - 1234
   • By @examplesubmissionnotarealperson
   • The disqualified list is currently empty. This paragraph will show you what I liked about the design, but also what rule it broke. If the rule is fixed this design will move to the Leaderboards. In addition the score shown is only the score it would have gotten if the rules had not broken.
   • This design can be found at Example KerbalX Link, and the proof is at Example YouTube Link.

If you have any questions, complaints, or suggestions about the challenge, please tell me so i can refine this challenge further. On a similar topic, the challenge is subject to rule/scoring changes and early designs may be disqualified or rescored.

Edited July 17, 2020 by LittleBitMore
Changed a lot of things, including the scoring system and challenge introduction

[Ksp Slingshooter]

Looks interesting.
I have 3 questions:

You add and subtract the payload weight? 

22 minutes ago, LittleBitMore said:

• Add the weight of the payload in tons, with a max of 250 (if any more, just add 250).
• Subtract the weight of the payload in tons, multiplied by 10, with a maximum penalty of 250.

Is Breaking Ground DLC required?
Can you use Airbrakes to slow down?
 

[LittleBitMore]

Just now, Ksp Slingshooter said:

You add and subtract the payload weight? 

I meant to add the payload weight and subtract the landing system weight. I'll fix that now-- greatest apologies.

1 minute ago, Ksp Slingshooter said:

Is Breaking Ground DLC required?

No, and if you don't have it, it can be replaced with Infernal Robotics if you like.

1 minute ago, Ksp Slingshooter said:

Can you use Airbrakes to slow down?

Of course. Homemade airbrakes will be bigger though.

[Ksp Slingshooter]

So if I got this right, we should make a subassembly that only attaches through nodes or can they be radially attached?
Also, the airbrakes must be only attached to those landing systems or can they be attached directly to the payload?

[LittleBitMore]

3 hours ago, Ksp Slingshooter said:

So if I got this right, we should make a subassembly that only attaches through nodes or can they be radially attached?
Also, the airbrakes must be only attached to those landing systems or can they be attached directly to the payload?

I mean, if it's all airbrakes, then they should be attached to the system.

And the system can be attached either radially or in a stack, it's your choice.

[sturmhauke]

Do we have to launch the payload + landing system into position, or can we edit it into place and then go from there?

[LittleBitMore]

34 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

Do we have to launch the payload + landing system into position, or can we edit it into place and then go from there?

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that you could edit into place if you wanted

[sturmhauke]

2 hours ago, LittleBitMore said:

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that you could edit into place if you wanted

Oh, yeah I missed it. Nevermind then.

[dnbattley]

On 7/18/2020 at 3:47 AM, LittleBitMore said:

use engines in creative ways

Landing on Tylo from 70km unpowered is, unless I've missed something, going to need some form of physics exploit to achieve successfully. My first thought would be Kraken tech, but frankly that would make the challenge too easy, and it's not clear to me whether that sort of exploit is going to be legal per the terms of the challenge. My second thought is to exploit the infamous wolfhound impact tolerance. Was that the intent of this comment?

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by dnbattley
Typo

[The_Stinky_Broccoli]

how about dropping fuel tanks below it and using the shock waves to slow it down?

Edited July 19, 2020 by epicfailure2020

[LittleBitMore]

13 hours ago, dnbattley said:

Landing on Tylo from 70km unpowered is, unless I've missed something, going to need some form of physics exploit to achieve successfully. My first thought would be Kraken tech, but frankly that would make the challenge too easy, and it's not clear to me whether that sort of exploit is going to be legal per the terms of the challenge. My second thought is to exploit the infamous wolfhound impact tolerance. Was that the intent of this comment?

What I meant was using engines in some way to activate a system somehow, like how engines push things that are in front of their nozzle (like making Kerbal cannons), and using that in the system.

I think the only exploits that should be disallowed are Kraken drive exploits and the KAL-9000 throttle exploit (if that exploit still exists). Should I append the rules with these changes, or should exploits all be legal?

3 hours ago, epicfailure2020 said:

how about dropping fuel tanks below it and using the shock waves to slow it down?

It's totally legal-- and it sounds like a tricky yet interesting premise. You have me intrigued.

Edited July 19, 2020 by LittleBitMore

[The_Stinky_Broccoli]

I will try. it would be easier with bd Armory or that kind of thing. can i teleport to tylo and than land?

Edited July 19, 2020 by epicfailure2020

[LittleBitMore]

1 minute ago, epicfailure2020 said:

I will try. it would be easier with bd Armory or that kind of thing. can i teleport to tylo and than land?

Of course, but teleport to 70km or higher. This is mentioned in the OP.

[The_Stinky_Broccoli]

ok thanks

[The_Stinky_Broccoli]

250 tons of LF seems like a lot 

[LittleBitMore]

3 minutes ago, epicfailure2020 said:

250 tons of LF seems like a lot 

Yeah, but 250 is the maximum weight you can get before you stop gaining points for payload weight.

In addition, the 250 tons to Tylo was an example, and it can be any weight from a total of 4 planets. Make sure to read the rules so you know what you're supposed to do.

[The_Stinky_Broccoli]

o yeah sorry

[LittleBitMore]

Just now, epicfailure2020 said:

o yeah sorry

No problem, it's fine-- I was just letting you know.

[The_Stinky_Broccoli]

thanks

is there going to be a badge?

Edited July 19, 2020 by epicfailure2020