LAND SPEED RECORD!!!

[mastere]

Since I learned about mechjeb, I have been making many robotic rovers to explore the moon. I have been trying to get the highest speed possible on land, and so far the highest I\'ve gotten is near 250 m/s. I am including a screenshot of my craft blazing a trail before it hits a funny bump at over 250 m/s and flips.

RULES:

1. You must not use cheapass mods that make it impossible to flip or to go insane speeds, even with the friction limit of the tires. Plugins like Novapunch, Silisko, C7 industries, probodyne, tiberdyne, etc are all acceptable. In addition, modification of any parameters of part files or plugins is not allowed.

2. The speed must be considered stable, i.e. if you flip as soon as you hit a bump at that speed then it is not stable. If you are able to catch big air and have the suspension of the cart soak up the impact, then that would be considered stable.

3. You must use a cart base from tosh\'s cart plugin, or something that uses his plugin to define the wheel movements and friction.

It would be helpful to use the info at the end of the 'flight' to assess your land speed.

NOTE: this challenge is intended for kerbin only due to its higher gravity and air density, but I think that a high-speed mun record may be even more impressive due to how easy it is to leave the ground there.

[Cooly568]

Definitively trying this. 8)

[witeken]

My highest speed is about 1800 m/s. Stabe highest speed is about 600 m/s.

[Mr_Orion]

My highest speed is about 1800 m/s. Stabe highest speed is about 600 m/s.

You got that with an unmodded, latest version of the cart?

I\'m not sure if that\'s even possible, even the highest aeroplane speeds can\'t reach 1800m/s at ground level. A stock cart shouldn\'t even be able to reach those speeds because of the amount of friction.

It is possible to hit those speeds on the mun, but 600m/s cannot be stable because you\'d actually be orbiting, and 1800m/s would put you at 2x the speed of a normal escape trajectory.

[raptor jesus]

i got around 300 m/s flying a space plane on the ground i haven\'t used any carts though.

[Cooly568]

My highest speed is about 1800 m/s. Stabe highest speed is about 600 m/s.

Do you have any pictures to prove it?

[witeken]

Do you have any pictures to prove it?

Here you are

You got that with an unmodded, latest version of the cart?

I\'m not sure if that\'s even possible, even the highest aeroplane speeds can\'t reach 1800m/s at ground level. A stock cart shouldn\'t even be able to reach those speeds because of the amount of friction.

It is possible to hit those speeds on the mun, but 600m/s cannot be stable because you\'d actually be orbiting, and 1800m/s would put you at 2x the speed of a normal escape trajectory.

Of course it\'s possible! Just tweak some parameters . Did I said I got those speeds on the Mun? And you won\'t be necessarily orbitting. You\'ll just make a high jump .

[Mr_Orion]

That means you modded them, and counts ass a 'cheapass mod' since it\'s overpowered, so this doesn\'t actually fit in with the rules, sadly.

[mastere]

Yep, 'tweaking some parameters' counts as cheating, and thus disqualifies your claim to the challenge. I am interested to hear more about the 300 m/s cart, raptorjesus. Did you just throw some tosh wheels onto the cart? I feel like mine could go to 300 if i had a long enough stretch before I hit the mountain west of KSC, but once I hit about 230 m/s the speed gains take a while, even with full thrusters and RCS thrust to help the wheel motors.

[witeken]

Yep, 'tweaking some parameters' counts as cheating, and thus disqualifies your claim to the challenge.

Haha, cheating in KSP. Nice one joke .

However, My top speed was 400 m/s on the old terrain. It should be peanuts to break that with the new terrain. I guess I can reach 600 m/s with an uncheated cart very easy .

[mastere]

Nice one joke? Thanks I guess?

I would love to see pics of these carts that you are claiming got up to 400 or 600 m/s on kerbals surface with a cart using tosh\'s cart plugin, without tweaking the part files.

[witeken]

Nice one joke? Thanks I guess?

I would love to see pics of these carts that you are claiming got up to 400 or 600 m/s on kerbals surface with a cart using tosh\'s cart plugin, without tweaking the part files.

Okay, but I\'ll only tweak the parameter where Tosh disables unlimited speed. That\'s not cheating at all, because we want higher speeds than 80 m/s.

And yes, the 400 m/s in the old terrain was with an uncheated cart. The parameter I mentioned above wasn\'t yet in the cart plugin. You go to the north of the KSC. Than, where the KSC platform stops, you go to the right. There is a long flat way. Follow that one and at the end you\'ll have a high speed .

The new terrain is very easy to reach 400 m/s. Choose a direction and press that forward key.

[Mr_Orion]

You can get above the speed by adding rocket engines. I don\'t believe it\'s a hard speed limit.

[mastere]

It\'s not a hard speed limit, that\'s the point. If I was able to get up to 250 on a stock cart then you need to try a little harder. There\'s no point in participating in a challenge if you are going to cheat to do so. Modding a part to get the result is the lazy cheat way out of completing a challenge, and all of your pointless posts could have been avoided if you had read the rules in the first post. Still, I look forward to seeing what you can come up with with unaltered parts.

[witeken]

None of your 3 rules say that .cfg configging a part isn\'t allowed.

And, as I already said, my top speed is 400 m/s with an unmodded stock cart + command pod.

[mastere]

Pics?

[mastere]

Also I updated the rules in the op post for witeken and others too dull to realize the point of the challenge

[hubbazoot]

Using only the cart, I got up to 143 m/s, sustained and stable. I think I can beat that, though.

[mastere]

Wow, that\'s fast for just the cart and no RCS or thrusters. How long did you have to build up speed to reach that? For the one in the image I posted I used 3 liquid engines of 50 power each (i think) and RCS thrusters.

[hubbazoot]

I only used one tank and one booster, not very long of a buildup. The problem I was having is that the surface of kerbin is too rough for this (we need a dry lakebed ;P ). Usually, during the end of the burn I\'d accumulate enough force for the cart to gain lift, and then I\'d panic and crash instead of just gliding back down all anakin-style.

I had runs where I was reaching speeds of 220 m/s, but every single one of those ended in tears because of this problem.

[AlexTheStampede]

Oh, fun. Also? For the moment I\'m the one with the best speed, no cgf edit and a screenshot

At that speed it jumps a lot, but lands safely (notice the almost empty tank....) and the kerbalnauts are quite relaxed. They die, as apparently slowing down causes it to topple and obviously explode. Very kerbal.

The servo is there to topple the beast on the launch tower, basically just dead weight lol.

[mastere]

Very nice alex! Can I ask what the dialog windows about servo control and engines/turbines are? That looks interesting

[AlexTheStampede]

Very nice alex! Can I ask what the dialog windows about servo control and engines/turbines are? That looks interesting

Thanks, I did that record just for fun, posted it in my nation\'s thread, and then found this challange.

Anyway, I used two turbines from http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=10138.0. (200 power each one, yeehaw!) and the servo is from http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=10662.0

[mastere]

Wow, 200 each? that\'s smokin... I only had 150 total thruster power on mine and I\'m only ~30 m/s less. Thanks for the mod suggestions, I will look them up.

[AlexTheStampede]

I ran a couple of tests, just for fun: first one, cfg edit of the turbines, 400 each. I _think_ it\'s impossible to go up to 300m/s with the cart, as I managed to get about 280m/s (almost full power, too) before a small jump ruined everything.

Second test, water speed record! lol. Took off, auto landed on water (upside down) and started running... 21m/s and at about 22 it pointed down and turned into a submarine O_O\'