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Competition: The Great Velocity Race!

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Jarvitä

Jarvitä

Posted
Posted

As stated a few times in the thread already - a straighter trajectory is a good control for the competition - it's easy to repeat and puts the focus on rocket building rather than piloting. And in the even that someone's results are suspect - it's easier to prove or disprove the accusations with a straight shot than it is trying to hit a 'sweet spot' trajectory.

Except that, as someone mentioned, it's easy to 'cheat' by missing the straight vertical by a couple degrees. Congratulations, you have picked the least efficient trajectory. This race is ridiculous, piloting and orbital mechanics knowledge is as much a part of this game as designing and building the rocket.

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Scorch

Scorch

Posted
Posted
This race is ridiculous, piloting and orbital mechanics knowledge is as much a part of this game as designing and building the rocket.
Or at least it will be an important part once we are able to go to other planets. Setting your rocket on a slingshot trajectory would make saving on rocket systems much easier.

And I agree, trying to fly in a straight line is also hard to do, because not every rocket will be able to fly directly upwards, invalidating such a rule. IMO rules should be kept simple:

1. Build only with stock unmodified parts.

2. Go as fast as you can in whatever way you deem necessary.

Maybe once there is an autopilot we can simply set a straight upwards planned flight and let it go, thus eliminating the pilots skill as a factor, which would allow for proper benchmarking of rockets. Otherwise, it's impossible to eliminate pilot skill as a factor, because you still have to trigger stages yourself even if you don't touch the steering, which will affect the result because not every flight will have the same timing.

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Iskierka

Iskierka

Posted
Posted

The final screen tell us final speed over land. We can judge level of cheating by that value.

And I'm honestly surprised by my value of only ~175 m/s in that way. Seems I managed to be fairer than even I thought.

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cjameshuff

cjameshuff

Posted
Posted

Except that, as someone mentioned, it's easy to 'cheat' by missing the straight vertical by a couple degrees. Congratulations, you have picked the least efficient trajectory. This race is ridiculous, piloting and orbital mechanics knowledge is as much a part of this game as designing and building the rocket.

'Cheating' in that way would be sabotaging your own results in the piloting race. And yes, it's inefficient, I'm aware of that, the point is that it's more reproducible. And as Iskierka notes, you can find out how much lateral motion you end up with.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Entroper

Entroper

Posted
Posted

Wow. With struts, 9 km/s was child's play. I didn't even refine this design, I bet I can crack 10 by just adding fuel.

'Fat Man':

Stage 1

19x LFE

38x LFT

Stage 2

12x SRB

7x LFE

21x LFT

6x struts connecting the bottom LFTs to the center

Stage 3

6x SRB

1x LFE

4x LFT

Pod

I think I can add one 'layer' of fuel to each stage, plus SRBs to the last stage to get it off the ground, and this thing should scream.

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Entroper

Entroper

Posted
Posted

So close! More SRBs and struts, maybe? :) Also, better piloting of Stage 3 while the SRBs are firing... boy is that thing wild.

This iteration is named 'Big and Tall'.

Stage 1 (18 000 m, 275 m/s)

19 LFE

57 LFT

Stage 2 (320 000 m, 2 800 m/s)

12x SRB

7x LFE

28x LFT

6x struts connecting the bottom LFTs to the center

Stage 3 (2 159 000 m, 9 850 m/s)

6x SRB

1x LFE

5x LFT

Pod

If you use this design, WAIT after jettisoning stage 1 before firing stage 2, or the whole thing will go up in one enormous boom.

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Dornkirk

Dornkirk

Posted
Posted

11.9 Km/s

You may notice I build this rocket off-center too clear the tower.

Piloting instructions:

Keep SAS on until you release the final stage.

Some steering is required in the first two minutes after lift-off.

After the final stage is released turn SAS and the engine off. Use spin (the Q or the E key) to stablize the stack. Wait until the released tri-coupled part has drifted away and only then fire the last engine.

Staging:

[table]

[tr][td]Time[/td][td]Action[/td][td]Speed[/td][td]Altitude[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]00:00[/td][td]Apply SAS and throttle up[/td][td]0[/td][td]0[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]00:25[/td][td]Eject SRBs[/td][td]62[/td][td]1200[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]02:04[/td][td]Release Liquids[/td][td]157[/td][td]10000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]02:10[/td][td]Fire SRBs[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]02:35[/td][td]Eject SRBs[/td][td]230[/td][td]15200[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]04:08[/td][td]Release Liquids[/td][td]650[/td][td]52000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]04:13[/td][td]Fire SRBs[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]04:38[/td][td]Eject SRBs[/td][td]878[/td][td]72000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]06:12[/td][td]Release Liquids[/td][td]1647[/td][td]189000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]06:17[/td][td]Fire SRBs[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]06:42[/td][td]Eject SRBs[/td][td]1992[/td][td]242000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]08:16[/td][td]Release Liquids[/td][td]2945[/td][td]475000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]08:21[/td][td]Fire SRBs[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]08:46[/td][td]Eject SRBs[/td][td]3340[/td][td]565000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]10:20[/td][td]Release final stage[/td][td]4423[/td][td]952000[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]10:30[/td][td]Fire final stage[/td][td]-[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]17:44[/td][td]Final stage done[/td][td]11898[/td][td]-[/td][/tr]

[/table]

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MaxSchram

MaxSchram

Posted
Posted

12.7 km/s

I brought the last two stages into an elliptical orbit with apogee ~90km and velocity ~2230m/s. At perigee (~50km and ~2360m/s) the rest of the fuel was burned. With this maneuver i tryed to minimize the effort of lifting fuel against the planets gravity.

Notice how my interface bugged out, since my computer had a hard time :)

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Shade

Shade

Posted
Posted

Alright, after gathering up my courage, I took up the challenge to out-monster the previous monsters. Here's the result, the Big Bertha mk3:

bigberthapad.png

A few facts about the monster: Built off-center in the VAB, yet still had to build a notch into the lower stages to allow it to ascend past the crane-like protrusion on the launch tower. Initial FPS during launch is about .5 for me, and I have a fairly beefy computer. It is capable of thrusting continuously for upwards of twenty minutes, staging included. And of course, most importantly, it will eventually reach a maximum speed of 14.600m/s :D

bigbertha14600ms.png

Staging is... complicated. For the lower stages, there is an overlap to allow one ring of tanks/engines to fall away and a new set to ignite while another keeps firing to open the distance to the spent stage faster, after which those get to fall away. Otherwise, the time needed for the spent stage to get far enough away to safely ignite the next stage would basically mean nearly ending up back on the ground. Once higher, staging is more standard, so you have to allow time for them to fall away before igniting or things will go boom.

Stock parts only, of course, although struts kinda feel like cheating when they allow something this huge to exist without collapsing.

Craft file attached for anyone who wants to try it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
koberko

koberko

Posted
Posted

Hi guys.

Here is my attempt at reaching 10k mark... Currently only 9505 m/s

I find it more challenging to go strait up (as much as possible, because final stage has to be manually driven). I'm working on new rocket with witch I'm trying to reach at least 3000 m/s and more then 50 000m altitude just by using first stage (all liquid boosters). Then one stage of solid boosters, one more with liquid boosters (3 boosters) and then final stage with one booster and 4 or 5 tanks. If that will work, I think I could pass 10k mark.

Regarding this current rocket; I have added couple fins to increase stability at lower altitudes, due to fact that I have remove most of S.A.S modules to reduce mass.

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  • 1 month later...
Stupititykills

Stupititykills

Posted
Posted

For further optimization, I would like to call to everyone\' s attention that an empty srb weighs 3.4 Mass units, while a radial decoupldr weighs 4 mass units, so in upper stages, keeping the empty cans on until burnout of the entire stage may be more efficient than dragging up the decouplers. Using this, you may be able to squeze that little more delta-v out of your design.

Edit- I win

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  • 2 weeks later...
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