The Colony Ship Challenge

[NGTOne]

With the recent discovery of planets other than Kerbin (and theories that there may even be planets orbiting other stars), the KSP administration has made the decision to construct a robust, re-usable colony ship infrastructure, to make interplanetary (and eventually extra-Kerbolar) colonization routine and efficient.

To this end, they have commissioned YOU, the public at large, to design a large colony ship that meets the following requirements:

1. Capable of deploying the following colonial equipment to the destination body:

a) A large colony base, with room aboard for at least 32 Kerbals. The colony should be landed manned.

A set of outposts, each with room for at least 4 Kerbals. There should be no fewer than 4 of these outposts. The outposts should be landed manned.

c) A set of manned rovers, each with room for at least 4 Kerbals. There should be no fewer than 4 of these rovers. Note that the rovers can be landed unmanned.

d) A set of space stations, at orbital inclinations of 0, 45, 90, and 135. Each station should house no fewer than 8 crew members.

e) Any other equipment that is deemed useful (Kethane refining equipment, mapping satellites, what have you).

2. Capable of travelling from Kerbin orbit to orbit over any planet or moon in the Kerbol system nonstop and returning to Kerbin orbit after dropping off the colonial equipment, without refuelling.

3. Capable of long-term operation (i.e. should have as little reliance on consumables as possible - for instance, using gyroscopic steering instead of RCS).

4. All colonists should be kept in a habitation block during transit - i.e. the colony equipment should not be used as habitation space during the journey.

5. Capable of unmanned return to Kerbin orbit, to pick up a new load of colonial equipment, and delivering this equipment to a different body.

6. Capable of deploying any piece of colonial equipment at any time - there should not be a requisite order for deploying equipment (e.g. "this piece deploys before this piece").

7. Designed as a single, monolithic mission architecture (i.e. multiple flights to the target body should not be required to deliver all requisite equipment/fuel. Multiple flights to Kerbin orbit to assemble, fuel, and crew are OK, but only one craft should have to leave Kerbin's SOI).

You are allowed to use any mods you like, so long as they are balanced. HyperEdit is not permitted (all components should be launched from the ground or built fairly on orbit). You are not restricted by budget or number of launches.

In short, your assignment is to develop a re-usable colony ship that can deploy a whole colonial infrastructure in one go, and then do it again and again.

As an example, I present the Grand Voyage-class colony ship:

Post your colony ship pictures and mission reports below!

Edited June 19, 2013 by NGTOne
Small clarification for condition 2.

[SpaceshipFood]

That thing looks like a lag bomb

[NGTOne]

That thing looks like a lag bomb

Oh, it is. But it works.

[1096bimu]

I don't think your ship can achieve orbit from the surface of Eve, or even land on it for that matter.

[NGTOne]

I don't think your ship can achieve orbit from the surface of Eve, or even land on it for that matter.

The ship itself isn't designed to land on the surface. It stays in orbit and deploys the gear from there.

[Mephane]

I don't think your ship can achieve orbit from the surface of Eve, or even land on it for that matter.

The way I read it, the large ship itself is not supposed to land anywhere anyway.

[1096bimu]

2. Capable of achieving orbit over any planet or moon in the Kerbol system nonstop and returning to Kerbin orbit after dropping off the colonial equipment, without refuelling.

That sounds more like acceding from the surface than to reach other planets from Kerbal.

Also, those engines don't seem legit, they pretty much give you unlimited delta V with almost no need for fuel tanks.

Edited June 19, 2013 by 1096bimu

[NGTOne]

Also, those engines don't seem legit, they pretty much give you unlimited delta V with almost no need for fuel tanks.

They're a real design undergoing theoretical work right now - they're very low-thrust, heavy as hell, overheat like crazy, but have a very high ISP.

[1096bimu]

They're a real design undergoing theoretical work right now - they're very low-thrust, heavy as hell, overheat like crazy, but have a very high ISP.

You don't have to pretend that it is "balanced", because if it really were, why didn't you use the stock rockets? why did you choose this one? Obviously its advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and therefore not balanced.

If such mods could be used, your challenge becomes pointless because I can always make an engine with even higher ISP, lower weight, and huge thrust. Hell, even warp drives are undergoing "theoretical work", somebody had done some math at least right?

besides, If you really want to talk about realism, any sort of energy based propulsion technology, whether it's electric or nuclear, must deal with radiators, especially the high ISP ones, because they use more energy per unit weight of propellant. Such engines will require huge radiators which cannot form angles of less than 180 degrees with each other because it will radiate into other radiators and therefore loose efficiency. This limitation will render your massive fission rocket array totally impossible because just one of those rocket will need a radiator bigger than the rest of your ship combined. And no, it is not simulated by the large heat generation because the game has no accurate thermo model. If it did, your engine would over heat, and it would take ages for them to cool back down again. In the end, you might as well carry less engines and burn them for longer.

Making an engine that will overheat by itself is just a stupid design for so many reasons. First no engineer would be stupid enough to make it that way, there would be some kind of built-in limit to prevent it. And secondly, it doesn't give you any legitimate challenge to the game because you can just keep it under a certain thrust and it will never explode. Might as well just make the max thrust lower. And thirdly, it's just plain annoying because you can't control engine thrust separately, if you have this and other engines running at the same time, those would also loose thrust.

Edited June 19, 2013 by 1096bimu

[NGTOne]

You don't have to pretend that it is "balanced", because if it really were, why didn't you use the stock rockets? why did you choose this one? Obviously its advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and therefore not balanced.

If such mods could be used, your challenge becomes pointless because I can always make an engine with even higher ISP, lower weight, and huge thrust. Hell, even warp drives are undergoing "theoretical work", somebody had done some math at least right?

besides, If you really want to talk about realism, any sort of energy based propulsion technology, whether it's electric or nuclear, must deal with radiators, especially the high ISP ones, because they use more energy per unit weight of propellant. Such engines will require huge radiators which cannot form angles of less than 180 degrees with each other because it will radiate into other radiators and therefore loose efficiency. This limitation will render your massive fission rocket array totally impossible because just one of those rocket will need a radiator bigger than the rest of your ship combined. And no, it is not simulated by the large heat generation because the game has no accurate thermo model. If it did, your engine would over heat, and it would take ages for them to cool back down again. In the end, you might as well carry less engines and burn them for longer.

Making an engine that will overheat by itself is just a stupid design for so many reasons. First no engineer would be stupid enough to make it that way, there would be some kind of built-in limit to prevent it. And secondly, it doesn't give you any legitimate challenge to the game because you can just keep it under a certain thrust and it will never explode. Might as well just make the max thrust lower. And thirdly, it's just plain annoying because you can't control engine thrust separately, if you have this and other engines running at the same time, those would also loose thrust.

Hey, I'm not pretending they're perfectly balanced - I just thought it was an interesting engine type, for a few different reasons (did I mention they can't be refuelled? At all?) The high ISP comes at the cost that they incinerate any part they're attached to (they have an amazing heat tolerance, but the parts around them don't), so each engine needs a heat shield (which weighs a lot), and their thrust is tiny. Besides, that's not the big point of this challenge - I really just want to see what kind of large colony ships people can create.

As for carrying less engines and burning for longer, it's not feasible, for a few different reasons. One, those 48 engines only produce a (fully laden, with the gear deployed it's higher) TWR of about 0.2, and they're used for some pretty major burns, including launch circularization. Secondly, the lag factor - the Dres insertion took more than 8 hours realtime (I actually got a full night's sleep, and MechJeb was only halfway through the course correction when I woke up).

As for the theoretical work, I believe a test model was built by Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and new models (with ISPs in the range of anywhere from 100,000 to 1,000,000s, but as yet unbuilt) are in the works.

And, finally, can we take this discussion somewhere private? This thread wasn't meant to be a discussion of the legitimateness of the fission fragment rocket mod. I mostly just wanted to see what kind of large colony starships people could create, and provided a few basic criteria to this end.

[trippytripp]

-snip-

Jeeeeezz, Calm down, will you? It's a game. It's not going to be perfectly realistic. Just appreciate the fact that he was even able to construct such a monstrosity.

[1096bimu]

Hey, I'm not pretending they're perfectly balanced - I just thought it was an interesting engine type, for a few different reasons (did I mention they can't be refuelled? At all?) The high ISP comes at the cost that they incinerate any part they're attached to (they have an amazing heat tolerance, but the parts around them don't), so each engine needs a heat shield (which weighs a lot), and their thrust is tiny. Besides, that's not the big point of this challenge - I really just want to see what kind of large colony ships people can create.

As for carrying less engines and burning for longer, it's not feasible, for a few different reasons. One, those 48 engines only produce a (fully laden, with the gear deployed it's higher) TWR of about 0.2, and they're used for some pretty major burns, including launch circularization. Secondly, the lag factor - the Dres insertion took more than 8 hours realtime (I actually got a full night's sleep, and MechJeb was only halfway through the course correction when I woke up).

As for the theoretical work, I believe a test model was built by Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and new models (with ISPs in the range of anywhere from 100,000 to 1,000,000s, but as yet unbuilt) are in the works.

And, finally, can we take this discussion somewhere private? This thread wasn't meant to be a discussion of the legitimateness of the fission fragment rocket mod. I mostly just wanted to see what kind of large colony starships people could create, and provided a few basic criteria to this end.

Then you should probably note this down on the OP that this isn't an engineering competition but rather more about aesthetics and coolness.

Instead of pretending other wise, which is when you said:

You are allowed to use any mods you like, so long as they are balanced.

If you think your infinite fuel rocket is balanced, I have my own "balanced" parts, would you like to see them?

[1096bimu]

Jeeeeezz, Calm down, will you? It's a game. It's not going to be perfectly realistic. Just appreciate the fact that he was even able to construct such a monstrosity.

Nobody said anything about being realistic, except that if you want to pretend that your engine is realistic, you might as well be consistent with your claim and start putting up huge radiators. Or, you could just admit that they are OP and don't conform to your own rules.

Either don't put on a restriction with mods, or don't use OP mods yourself.

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

This seems to be one of those threads where people yell at eachother for no reason.

I would post some ridiculous craft so y'all would stop and compliment me (like us good manners KSP players do) but I lack the inspiration.

So instead, y'all can laugh at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHG-odHHPD8

[NGTOne]

This seems to be one of those threads where people yell at eachother for no reason.

I would post some ridiculous craft so y'all would stop and compliment me (like us good manners KSP players do) but I lack the inspiration.

So instead, y'all can laugh at this

Well said, indeed. +rep.

Now, in general, can we get back on topic?

[1096bimu]

Well said, indeed. +rep.

Now, in general, can we get back on topic?

Sometimes I'm too lazy to point things out by doing a submission, but you don't even have a way to determine a winner, your challenge is so bad it doesn't even follow the sticky guideline.

[Reavermyst]

Sadly, I don't think this follows the guidelines for challenges. No need to make a huge fuss and knit pick over it, of course.

Though I gotta say, this might be better suited for the spacecraft exchange.

[NGTOne]

Sadly, I don't think this follows the guidelines for challenges. No need to make a huge fuss and knit pick over it, of course.

Though I gotta say, this might be better suited for the spacecraft exchange.

Fair enough. Admin, lock or delete?

[Reavermyst]

Fair enough. Admin, lock or delete?

Probably locked, but hey, the design of your ship is pretty cool looking. Maybe it won't be such a lag fest by launch eh?

[NGTOne]

Probably locked, but hey, the design of your ship is pretty cool looking. Maybe it won't be such a lag fest by launch eh?

Hopefully not. I want to be able to scale up even further for extra-Kerbolar missions in the future, but the lag issue kind of prevents that at this stage.

I think I'll work out some win conditions and point values, and repost this tomorrow. I still want to see people's creativity with ultra-large colony ships.

[The Error]

Sometimes I'm too lazy to point things out by doing a submission, but you don't even have a way to determine a winner, your challenge is so bad it doesn't even follow the sticky guideline.

Build Pretty Colony Ships. Doesn't even need to have a winner. You'll note the K-Prize challenge- doesn't have a winner, just leaderboards.

And the engines the OP used are SM-Fission Fragment Engines. Limited fuel, excessively heavy, non-refuelable, low thrust, and run very hot. Actually rather balanced. I can't find the link to the mod thread, but it might be on the SpacePort.

And on that note, how 'bout we all stop arguing and build pretty colony ships?

[HAVOK Tactical]

My design would be simple:

Ignore that it's not KSP. I don't have the game.

[HAVOK Tactical]

This is my proposal:

 

I didn't make it. Whatever Halo fan who posted this (his profile name and pic is Reach from Halo) did.