Camaron

Oh, thats a shame. In any case enjoy the contracts system. I did what I always do when career mode gets a big change, and started over from scratch.

With this request, and buzzboy's interesting submission, I've made two parts. One scoreboard with recovery counted, one without. I welcome you to the contest, flyboys!

I'll be honest, I've built a MUCH bigger SSTO. But it doesn't land! This is, by far, the largest SSTO i've ever seen to even attempt a landing. You blew me away with that. I saw the chutes and I'm all like: "B-wha?" I do have a suggestion: it looks like you have a considerable chunk of fuel left on the return landing. (Considerable given you only need a puff to soften touchdown) I think you should test a bit to find exactly what throttle gets you around the touchdown speed you like. Then have an action group for toggling the engines. That will let you jump straight to the throttle you want, just a few meters off the ground. That way, you can land safely with the tiniest possible shred of fuel leftover, and possibly get just a bit more payload into the sky.....assuming you didn't do that already. I'm very interested in how much money you recover when landing this thing? How much of the 2.4 Mil did you actually get back?

That would create radically different situations. If I did that, I would have to give spaceplanes their own section. It's a cool idea but it would be unfair against traditional lifters. Also, If I'm not mistaken dont the recovered parts yield less than 100% cashback? Note: In the next few I will be posting the valid submissions into the rankings. There are three valid entries at this point, I believe. Lastly, I will be converting the scoring to √-per-ton, which would not change ranking at all, but would offer much cleaner scoring numbers than what I had originally proposed.

Show us some pics, I'll be glad to put you up as the first contender!

Like I said earlier, if you want to use a very light payload, you're free to do that. The score is a ratio of weight to cost, so pushing the upper limit of a weight category wouldn't help you, and doing the opposite won't be a disadvantage. Added a rule for final decouplers. Not sure what you mean by launch cranes. are you talking about clamps that put your ship up one or two hundred meters? I'll allow it, so long as the parts are stock, and you don't go completely overboard.

I like your idea. I can split this into "Heavy" and "Light". The original intention of this is to see who can get heavy loads into space without breaking the bank. anything less than ten is just too easy, in my opinion. I've built a single-launch ship that weighed 2,900 tons in orbit, so I really wouldn't call 25 "a monster". Will be updating the OP in the next few. Keep in mind, the way the scoring works, you could very well top the charts with a half - ton payload, if it's done cheaply enough.

I'll make it more Generic, then. Good points.

Are you on a laptop, Rune?

So, now that economy is working, Cost efficiency can be a big thing. But, I wonder, how much weight can one thrust into orbit with the cheapest Rocket? The challenge is basic. Who can get the most bang for their buck? Rules: 1) All Stock parts, and all stock physics, with the exception of FAR, in the Recovery category only. 2) Autopilot will be allowed. It's not a piloting challenge, after all. 3) Your Payload may contain mod parts, but may not in any assist the launch. 4) FAR allowed, but ONLY in the divisions which count Cost Recovery. 5) You MAY use sandbox, but you must still prove what your ship cost. 6) Prove, through photos and video, that you actually did what you say you did. 7) The Payload should be detachable and left in orbit. 8) Engines, SRB's, RCS thrusters, and any fuel which are attached to the Payload may not be used to help the craft achieve orbit. 9) The final decoupler which separates the Payload from the Lifter, will not count against your Lifter's cost. If the decoupler sticks to the Payload, it will count for part of the weight. If it stays attached to the lifter, it will not count as part of the Payload weight. Separators or docks may also be used for this task as well, and will be treated and counted the same way as decouplers. 10) The Payload is not considered part of your costs. In some cases, it may be tricky to get your parts costs out from under the payload in VAB, but you're smart people. You'll figure it out. The lifters which get the most weight into orbit per √, will be highest. Your Score will simply be the Cost of your Lifter, divided by the Payload's weight in Tons. Lowest score wins. Ultra-Lightweight Lifters Category, Payloads Up To 12 Tons, without Recovery 1) 882.892: gm537's Jet Lifter 1) 1,087.694: Mesklin's "Tavrida" 2) 1,588.298: Slugy's Lifter 3) 1,751.5203: Firerunner's "Can o' Boom" 4) 2,801.5564: Tweety's "1285kg Probe Lifter v2.1" Lightweight Lifters Category, Payloads Up To 40 Tons, without Recovery 1) 1,144.173: Mesklin's "Tavrida X2" 2) 1522.775: gm537's Lifter 3) Middleweight Lifters Category, Payloads Up To 120 Tons, without Recovery 1) 3,171.379: MadChris48's Lifter 2) 3) Heavyweight Lifters Category, Payloads Over 120 Tons, without Recovery 1) 1593.617: gm537's Lifter 2) 3) ======================================================================== Ultra-Lightweight Lifters Category, Payloads Up To 12 Tons, with Recovery + FAR 1) 296.57: Tsynique's Shuttle 2) 3) Lightweight Lifters Category, Payloads Up To 40 Tons, with Recovery + FAR 1) 22.9: gchristopher's Plane 2) 3) Middleweight Lifters Category, Payloads Up To 120 Tons, with Recovery + FAR 1) 2) 3) Heavyweight Lifters Category, Payloads Over 120 Tons, with Recovery + FAR 1) 2) 3)

√ For Windows, Hold Alt, and while still hokding, type 2, 5, and 1. (Then let go of Alt). This ONLY works with numpad numbers, and not the linear numbers above the letter keys. ...And hopefully that's the last post needed on how to make the Radical symbol. Enjoy!

So, it would seem rescuing kareless Kerbals from orbit is actually going to be a very common thing. I had already made three rescue missions to Kerbin orbit before I even went to the Mun! This showcase is very simple! Show off your interesting designs for getting those silly stranded kerbals safely home! I'm personally most interested in Low-Tech designs, but anything goes! This thread is not necessarily stock-only, but please don't post ships that are made of nothing but mods. Here's my current Low-tech rescue ship, which carries a good deal of science equip along, and retains a decent protion of its equipment for landing. Since the stranded Kerbals are always in a roughly 100km round orbit, I have been considering building and launching a pod station of some sort with several small return pods that can simply leave the station grab the Kerbal, and drop home, without new launches.If anyone has something awesome along those lines, I would love to see it!

Thats pretty cool, but it doesn't look very re-usable. Why is there a cockpit (A heavy one at that,) on a part that is clearly going to be abandoned?

I am considering turning it into a payload challenge by replacing the max altitude but with weight of a paylod.

I had already intended to require The manned capsule. My mistake. However, you seem to have accomplished this easily with three fuel tanks and an engine. Looks like this may not be such a challenge after all. Sorry.

If you break 0 parts, you get "Safe Landing", right above Rocky Landing, for 3,000. Rocky landing means you broke between 1-4 parts, and only get 1,000. Break more than four, and your craft is out of the running.

Nothing in "SSTO" refers to being plane-shaped. This is simply the easiest and most prominent way SSTO's are typically achieved. This challenge is a Single Stage To Orbit challenge.

This challenge is inspired by the upcoming Kerbal update, version 0,24. As of last week, we now have a reliable look into how parts recovery and budgeting will work, and it seems that accomplishing a mission, and returning home with as little wasted parts as possible, will be a very important, or at least advantageous, part of the strategy of playing KSP's Career mode. So I wondered: How difficult would it be to create a safely returnable SSTO craft which did not rely on Jet Engines, or any higher technologies at all? So, here's the challenge - using ONLY the technologies in green in the photo below, no higher than the tier-3 techs, create a craft which can takeoff, achieve a full orbit, de-orbit, and return safely to the ground (or sea), without shedding a single part. Now, before you exclaim "impossible!", here is my own craft which has successfully accomplished the challenge (barely), as proof that this can be done! Triode's Dowload Link: http://www./download/hrv0sone0225gaq/Triode.rar As for scoring, this craft reached a maximum Apoapsis of 81,000m, Landed Safely, and consisted of 56 parts. Rules: 1) All Stock Parts 2) All Stock Physics 3) Must be a manned craft 4) Use of stages is allowed for organizing things like how your engines fire, when parachutes deploy, etc. 5) Your craft cannot lose any parts at any point! 6) Your craft may utilize powered landing, but still must achieve a full orbit during the mission. 7) Crash landings that damage or destroy a few parts upon return will be allowed, but it will cost you on your score. 8) Show evidence, through pictures or video, that your stock Low-tech craft, actually accomplished what you say it did. Also, you must upload a .craft file of the ship you used, so that myself or others may verify that your ship is legit! -Subject to change. Scoring: -Achieve Orbit: +2,000 points -Safe Landing - 0 parts broken: +3,000 points -Rocky Landing (less than five parts broken): +1,000 points -For every 10m maximum altitude you achieve over 70,000: +1 point -If you somehow reach Kerbin Escape Velocity, +5,000 points. Make sure you reel it back in, though. -Every part beyond 25 will reduce your final score 1% -In the event of identical scores, I will sort the tied entries based on style. I hope you all have some fun with this! I felt like it was an interesting challenge. I will consider suggestions on more detailed scoring, if you have any ideas! Rankings! 1) Camaron's Triode: 4209 points 2) 3)

Might be worth finding or making a mod that can give you one huge panel. If you want a common alternative, use the welding mod, which will fuse multiple physics objects into each other to make one. Big many-parted panels like this are one of the most common uses for that mod, usually used with "Heat Shields"

Andromeda-M is my most whackjob-like to-date. Capable of about 100km round orbit as an SSTO, or 550km-600km round orbit if stages are dropped as intended.

Can't be done. The lag is a limitation of your computer, mostly. And any optimization that could happen at this point is extremely advanced. You would have to decompile the Unity engine itself, and re-write the physics engine better than it already is. Even a Triple-A studio wouldn't have good odds with that. If you want to run 5000 parts fluidly, you're going to have to come back to Kerbal with a top-of-the-line computer from ten years in the future. Even that might not be enough. I'm running a 3.7 GHz i7 4820K, and I still can't run more than 500 parts with over 20 FPS.

Ions can't lift anything on Eve. The wings probably helped hi accurately land at a high-altitude position, giving him less dense atmosphere to fight with on the way up.

On the RCS v.s. SAS point mentioned earlier. Personally I prefer SAS, because it is limitless as long as you supply power. But, with an E class asteroid, you would need at least 50 of them to even dream of it, and it's best if you spread them around the surface by detachable pods. That said, you would need a whole lot of RCS thrusters to effectively move an E class as well. A real winner would probably come from an intelligent hybrid of both systems. Last note - In my eperience, putting a truckload of SAS on the main tug or any single point at all during an asteroid grab is a HUGE mistake. Your SAS will have major issues that cause an continually increasing resonating effect which is a nightmare to deal with. I personally like to use detachable pods with SAS and clamp them all around, while having no SAS at all and the tug itself.

0.24 should be out soon. I'm itching with anticipation for that. In the meantime, we haven't heard from you in almost a week, Saltpeter. Any update? More trouble at home? What's up?

Whackjob's clusters are using the KR-1x2. The tall engine that has 2880 fuel built into it, and burns blue to magenta. They are fantastic clusters. I've nearly filled the entire VAB to gain that much launching thrust.