Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES)

[lolstock]

Refer to the following video for an example:

The purpose of this challenge is to cargo drop whatever into enemy territory. Since we don't have enemy territory, you get to do it wherever you want.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is the following:

1. Design a cargo airplane or spaceplane.

2. Design a cargo payload.

3. Load your cargo onto your plane.

4. Proceed toward drop zone at cruising altitude (for reference: 8,535 meters for a C-130) (if you drop on another planet this doesn't matter, obviously)

5. Descend to drop zone (a typical descent maneuver is a -45 degree approach, with a very late flare.

6. Drop cargo during a touch-and-go maneuver or low approach without bringing the plane to a stop on the ground (you may, however, drop the cargo going slow on the ground).

7. Return to any runway on Kerbin (see below about mods).

8. Screenshots during critical events (video is even better).

POINTS/SCORING:

+500 points for completing the challenge

+250 for each cargo drop during a single flight

+5 x total weight of cargo dropped in tons

+25 points for each Kerbal air dropped

-50 for each Kerbal killed

-50 for each part damaged during the drop (does not include parts used to mount the cargo on, but does include any parts damaged on the cargo plane)

+100 for photo album

+200 for video (cannot have points for photo album as well)

+500 for landing the plane safely on a runway

+250 for dropping cargo after a suborbital flight

+500 for dropping cargo after an orbital flight

+1000 for dropping cargo on the mun or minmus

+2500 for dropping cargo on a celestial body outside of the Kerbin system

-500 if that celestial body had an atmosphere

Scoreboard

Stock:

1. UpsilonAerospace: 1,830

2. Styles2304: 1,571.43

3. Tsevion: 982.15

3. lolstock: 909.75. Achievements: Kerbin Express

Stock/Far:

Mod/FAR:

1. Darren9: 5,005

*List any mods that you used when you post

Achievements:

Globemaster: circumnavigate Kerbin WITHOUT leaving the atmosphere.

Space Marines: for a cargo drop after a suborbital flight.

Kerbin Express: reach orbit, go around Kerbin, deorbit, drop cargo.

Who needs parachutes?: drop cargo on an airless body.

Tag, you're it: drop cargo during a touch and go.

Solar System Express: drop cargo on another celestial body without coming to rest on its surface.

Fiscally Responsible: drop cargo that has a purpose (for example, a new part for a base).

Paratroopals: Perform an air drop of Kerbals.

*More/less TBD

Notes:

1. VTOL is allowed but the challenge is failed if you bring the craft to a non-moving hover or come to rest on the ground. It is obviously going to be useful if you drop cargo on an airless body. VTOL may be used for landing the cargo plane after the cargo is dropped.

2. You may land your cargo plane anywhere before returning it to land.

3. You don't need to land ON the runway but you must land NEAR one

4. You may use MechJeb without being placed in the mod category.

5. Kerbinside may be used to get additional runways. You will not be placed in the Mod Category for using Kerbinside.

6. You may refuel at any space station/do aerial refueling. The point of this challenge is to maintain some velocity throughout the mission. If you are in orbit, you have velocity.

7. RSS may be used, but will place you in the mod category. For any point value that involved leaving the atmosphere, multiply your score by 6.4.

8. All mods are allowed in the mod category at the moment.

9. A low approach, for the purpose of this challenge, is classified as <2500 meters above the ground. (subject to change)

10. Lastly, you do not actually have to carry your cargo inside your plane. As long is it can carry cargo, you're golden.

Another video for inspiration, although maybe not relevant:

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Happy building!

Edited January 27, 2015 by lolstock

[Tsevion]

This isn't exactly a proper entry, but I do quite similar things in this video. Loading cargo into a cargo plane, air-dropping it in the mountains, and air dropping kerbals onto the VAB.

Air dropping Kerbals starts at 2:07

Air dropping vehicle in the mountains is at 3:45

[BagelRabbit]

This isn't really a proper entry, as it's pretty old and probably wouldn't work anymore. Still, I was rather proud of this thing when I made it.

Thirteen Kerbals were dropped off at 286.243 km from base. Nothing was damaged. I can't remember the mass of the payload dropped; I'll peg it at a very conservative 11 tons (4t for each of the crew modules, 1/2 for each of the Lander-Cans for a total of 4t, 1t for the Mk1 cockpit in the back, and 2t for the landing gear, parachutes, empty fuel tanks, RTGs, adapter, etc.)

500 (Challenge completed)

+250 (1 cargo drop)

+143,121.5 (286 km traveled)

+5.5 (11 tons)

+325 (13 Kerbals air-dropped)

+200 (video provided)

+500 (safe runway landing)

=144,902 points.

You may want to change this challenge so that you get 1/2 point per km traveled; that bit seems a bit overpowered at the moment.

My favorite part about this plane is that the payload that it carried was about two and a half times the mass of the remainder of the plane.

Looking forwards to what others can come up with for this challenge... it will be fun.

[lolstock]

You may want to change this challenge so that you get 1/2 point per km traveled; that bit seems a bit overpowered at the moment.

Whoops, that's what I meant to do, so thanks for pointing that out! anyway, post updated. Nice entry!

Edit: I also changed the score for for cargo weight, and have updated your score in the OP!

@Tsevion do you have a score for that?

Haha the skydiving without a parachute is great.

Edited January 25, 2015 by lolstock

[hoioh]

not to muddy the waters, but what if someone tossed his/her cargo on duna? That would be awasome in terms of kilometers travelled. it might not be wise to give points for that at all, but you could add extra points for doing it on another body?

[lolstock]

not to muddy the waters, but what if someone tossed his/her cargo on duna? That would be awasome in terms of kilometers travelled. it might not be wise to give points for that at all, but you could add extra points for doing it on another body?

Good point. I think I am going to delete that. I just finished it myself and could have orbited as much as I wanted to get more points. So gone it is!

- - - Updated - - -

And here's my entry. I made a cargo plane before but was struggling with it, so here's an SSTO spaceplane.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

+500 points for completing the challenge

+250 for one cargo drop.

+9.75 for cargo

+50 for two kerbals dropped

-100 for two kerbals killed

-400 for 8 parts destroyed

+100 for photo album

+500 for dropping cargo after an orbital flight

= 909.75 points

I did this stock and without FAR. Now you know why I chose my username.

Edited January 25, 2015 by lolstock

[Tsevion]

@Tsevion do you have a score for that?

Haha the skydiving without a parachute is great.

+500 challenge completion

+250 cargo drop

+25 Kerbal drop

+7.15 cargo weight

+200 video evidence

so 982.15 pts.

[Darren9]

I also have an older attempt at a LAPES that can score some points, I was a bit more focused on just getting the parachute from the cargo bay. Uses Firespitter, Real-chutes, B9, Infernal Robotics and Kerbchellin wheels. I might try a bit more of a points grabbing attempt.

+500 points for completing the challenge

+250 points for one cargo drop

+5 points for one ton of cargo dropped

+50 points for two Kerbals air dropped

+200 for video (cannot have points for photo album as well)

+500 for landing the plane safely on a runway (it was close'ish, I landed next to the cargo to show it was intact)

= 1505 points

[lolstock]

Ah you got it to work right! That's awesome. I tried to build a rightful cargo plane but got pretty fed up and made a spaceplane instead haha.

[Styles2304]

I'm recording my entry right now

[Styles2304]

I used mechjeb just to confirm the weight of the HMMWV. There are also parts from KAS on the HMMWV but this is a stock entry. Nothing other than stock mechanics was used for this entry.

POINTS/SCORING:

+500 points for completing the challenge

+250 for single cargo drop

+21.43 (5 x 4.286 for total weight of cargo dropped in tons)

+100 (25 x 4 for each Kerbal air dropped)

+200 for video

+500 for landing the plane safely on a runway

= 1,571.43

Edited January 27, 2015 by Styles2304

[hoioh]

Ok, so mission accomplished, somewhat. I have a lot of fatalities dropping Kerbals, but I guess I'm no different as the inventors of the parachute, right? Right? No? Oh bugger. I'll have to invent a better parachuting system for my Kerbals. Works fine for the rover though!

Javascript is disabled. View full album

16 Kerbals and a rover, in case you wanted to count them

Pictures can be uploaded speedily, video is a different beast though. So I'll upload the video's tonight while I'm not using my internet anyway and will post the video tomorrow.

I'll see if I can create a better system for extracting kerbals from a flying plane. I guess that'll start with a better vehicle for each kerbal. Currently even surviving the high speed exit isn't really enough because when these things land sometimes the Kerbal is considered debris and sometimes it doesn't survive the landing at all. I had 5 kerbals that I couldn't recover, but I still had 6 left in the end. So the real fatality rate is not as bad as I thought, but half the survivors are severely wounded....

[lolstock]

Haha, yeah paratrooping DID always get dangerous duty pay anyway. I guess now we know why!

[hoioh]

So here's the video's: (I did it in parts to save viewtime, I'm open to suggestions on a nice video editor that's either free or cheap and doesn't bring in addware, last one I tried did the latter...)

Rover drop:

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• Kerbal dropping 1-3:
  
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Rover & Kerbal Recovery: (still uploading at the moment of posting, may take a while still)

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(You'll have to be patient with HD, it takes a while for Youtube to realize I uploaded 1080p video...)

Score:

500 completion

250 x 17 = 4250

10 Never really checked the weight, let's keep it at 2 tons or so maybe I'll check the actual weight later.

16 x 25 = 400 (counting the dropped Kerbals, not the recovered ones as per the rules.)

-50 x 10 = -500 (counted each damaged or killed Kerbal here, no real way of telling if any of the parts came off their landers and the rover was perfectly intact.)

200 for video

500 for landing safely on flat terrain (I could've flown her all the way back to KSP but that takes an hour and as the video clearly shows, lander ain't that hard on flat terrain.

Total: 5360 points

Now if I could improve my survival rate I could earn an extra 500 points right there. That s now an official work in progress.

[Styles2304]

So here's the video's: (I did it in parts to save viewtime, I'm open to suggestions on a nice video editor that's either free or cheap and doesn't bring in addware, last one I tried did the latter...)

I use AVS4YOU . . . it's a suite of software. I got it during one of their promotions like they're offering right now . . . $60 for unlimited subscription. Outstanding price for what you get. Definitely worth the look.

[Bushrod]

Now if I could improve my survival rate I could earn an extra 500 points right there. That s now an official work in progress.

All of your videos are private.

[hoioh]

Sorry, I forgot to publish them last night. They should be visible right now.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the tip Styles, I'll check it out.

[hoioh]

Update on the "Safe High Speed Kerbal Extraction System ®" (SHSKES®) it works! really! Take a look at this here stealth Kerbal dropping:

[lolstock]

Dude that's actually awesome. What did you use for the ejector seats?

[Ethanadams]

15 points yahhh

[hoioh]

It's a tiny decoupler with a command seat on it and some Cubic struts to form a "Fall Cage ®" which is built out of three pillars, strutted together at the top. The rearmost pillar has a side-mounted chute attached to it near the top. On the sides there is a decoupling booster left and right, the really tiny booster dunno the name and KSP is starting up in the background after my 100th crash today. I left only 1000 or even just 500 fuel units in the booster, but left the thrust at 100%, it's just enough to kick it out of the cabin. I set the chute to deploy at 50 meters only, that way it doesn't drag the kerbals into the tail of the plane when flying at very low altitudes (everything above 50 is fine, below 50 is BOOM!)

Anyway, that's it, nothing more, nothing less. I placed 18 in my new creation, but had some rover trouble earlier. Rebooting again to decend and drop a rover and the 18 Kerbals at a site about 600km away from KSP with plenty fuel to spare for the return trip.

- - - Updated - - -

Uploading a video right now to better show off the Fall Cage ®

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- - - Updated - - -

Uploading full video for the Second attempt now. I have 18/18 of my Kerbals survive, but lost my Rover due to a KSP crash... It never made it back in after the break... I'll show a separate shot of the rover touchdown which is not from the same flight just to prove that it does in fact remain in one piece.

[hoioh]

Here goes attempt number 2, 5 part video:

Seated the 18 Kerbals first, that's a lot of work. Here's takoff!

Dropping the Rover and crashing KSP just before it touches down...

In this video you can see that there is such a thing as too slow. Luckily I could correct that on the second attempt after a quickload and a little extra throttle.

Fly back for a soft landing:

Counting my Kerbals on the site, all 18 accounted for!

I'll add a video tomorrow with the separate rover survival drop, to show that the landing is just fine and it was KSP that crashed, not the rover!

(As usual by now: It may take a while for youtube to catch up with the post.)

[WhiteKnuckle]

Success! Sort of...

I didn't care about weight, just number of drops and number of Kerbals, so I loaded my heavy lift VTOL with this:

Then started out from Woolypool

Shot showing my start from the map view

Did my first drop at KSC

Then a quick jaunt over to KSC Island

Then north to Milfurt Island

Then over to Jeb's Airport

Then north again to Kerman Lake where unfortunately Kenny Kerman opened his chute too high and was shot down by enemy gunners (or didn't land by the time I moved outside the loading distance...)

Then up the coast to Ben Bay

Then inland to the Shallow Valley

Finally back east to Bill Cove

This is the point where I should have just landed if I had any sense, but I don't. So I headed back to Kerman Lake to look for Poor Kenny... I ran out of fuel about 100m over the runway...

Thankfully the boys made it out ok

Did a pretty good job seeding a continent with Kerbals if I do say so myself

So, score...

500 for completing the challenge (depending on your definition of "landing"

250 x 7 drops (not counting the failed one)

5 x 4.62t (seven .66t lander cans)

25 x 8 Kerbals

-50 (RIP Kenny)

100 for photos

Total= 2023.1

Mods: FAR, DRE, Kerbin-side

Oh then my game crashed, so not going to be trying this one again for a while lol

[hoioh]

I promised a video of a succesful rover drop to prove the problem was with KSP crashing and not the rover crashing, so here it is:

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- - - Updated - - -

And then there's the matter of scoring:

Chellenge completed: 500 points

Cargo drops: 19 x 250 = 4750 points

Weight of cargo: (62.317 - 54.472 = 7.845) x 5 = 39 points (rounded down)

Kerbal airdrops: 18 x 25 = 450 points

Kerbals killed: 0

Parts damaged during drop: 0 (all the splosions are decouplers)

Video's provided: 200 points

Landing safely at KSC: 500 points

Didn't go anywhere but Kerbin atmosphere.

Total: 6439 points

The only way I could improve on that is by going larger and/or not dropping the rover and going 100% kerbal dropping, but that would be abusing the system to get the highest score out of it and I would likely summen the lag kraken every other minute and spend more time with the boot-screen as with the actual game. Let me tell you: this thing is having issues with my heavy, half a year old, high end rig. It likely wouldn't even load on my previous machine.