Signo

If the rover is not supposed to come back and "small" I usually go for a "skycrane". If the rover is manned and I have enough room however I prefer to stick engines directly to it.

Good luck - I second the claw solution, but this is "absolutely Kerbal".

I am not saying that I support part clipping, but if you imagine the tanks under a hollow and empty "mk2 to mk1" adapter they should be shielded and they should have room where to belong. Some parts, especially adapters, need a few tweaks like "stock configurable fuel", and Mk1 parts might enjoy a little bit of extra love like a longer cargo bay. However, this is a little bit rhetorical, due to the fact that the kerbal law is the law. At least until next patch.

Hi all, it has been a while since I have last seen an "Infini-miner" around here. Even more uncommon, a LF only infini-miner. Introducing "Ajax 122", 93.480t at take off - 73 pieces - 4 crew - 3 rapiers, 5 nukes - 4638m/s nuke propelled with full tank It takes 30 days to refuel with no engineers onboard and an average ore concentration (3.8) - solar powered for inner system, fuel cells for outer system (220 Ox available at take off from Kerbin), RTGs for "ongoing duties" - crew in HH module in the tail bay, functional ladder. TWR is not exactly "top of the crop", but more than enough to land on almost any vacuum body (except for youknowwhere) and of course Laythe after a Minmus pit stop. The extra Ox storage can be used for those "painful" high TWR burns with rapiers. No Ox needed to reach orbit. Craft file available on request. Thank you for reading. Cheers.

@Hodari, @tseitsei89 and @Eidahlil - thank you for your feedbacks. They are all really appreciated. @hodari - you are right, and you forgot to mention the "well, it does not work..." moments you have when you first try a design. I know that it takes time and I would like to improve the quality of that time for the people entering the next challenge. I still think that it is not completely fair for a host to enter his own contest - just to avoid any possible "conflict of interest". Speaking about the scoring system, I think that it would be better to have more strict gates at the "entrance" and a simple scoring system kinda like - Build a single rapier powered craft, best remaining d/V at LKO wins. It would still be "exploitable" as usual but with less room for any real game-breaking craft. Thank you all again, I love you guys.

@Hodari: thank you, I was expecting something like this. Keep in mind that this was my first attempt to host a challenge. I fully understand your point but you must admit that this community is pretty "hostile" in terms of discovering sneaky ways around the system. Next time I hope it will be "set in stone". By the way, the only true rule change was about the formula and it happened just after your submission. I tried to keep it as much "open" as possible, I think that the only true "rejection" was about @foamyesque staging craft. I would like once more to apologize about your "score change". If I may, this is a game, nobody bombed your diamond mine and you can still submit a new entry. It takes less than 15 minutes with warps.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to close this challenge as soon as possible because I think that it needs a pit stop and an overhaul. TWR has got too much weight in this evaluation process, below I will show you a couple of example pictures to better explain my point of view. However I do not want to end this abruptly, I think that Sunday the 8th, 23.00 GMT can be a reasonable deadline for anybody still wishing to submit any entry. I would like to gather, if possible, any feedback you have on this challenge and any suggestion on how to implement a consistent scoring system. I would like to thank again all the participants. It was quite an impressive airshow. Following a comparison of two hypothetical bananas: (these are by no means "entries", hosts should never enter their own contest imo, apart for "never done before" achievements; moreover there is just the "moneyshot" so I am disqualified) TWR d/V Score Banana2k (sample 1) 0.51 4855 2000.79 Crack O'Maface 3 (sample 2) 0.50 4926 1997.32 In such a close TWR contest I was expecting the second craft to top the score of the first due to the range advantage but I was wrong. As I wrote above, I am open to any suggestion that could help the balance. Sample 1 Sample 2

@tseitsei89: thank you for your entry, that is why team Passionfruit does exist. A whopping 3864.92 points. Best score to date. You are currently holding the "Triple Crown".

Yes: "winged rockets" were pretty much ruled out before the "first amendment"; the original purpose of the challenge I had in mind was to work on aero and TWR balance to maximize the results of a completely reusable utility aircraft. Due to my inexperience in managing the rules and due to the endless resources of the community this is now a grand carnival. A very good one, but in my opinion not exactly "spot on". We are however already approaching the ceilings for a few categories; I gathered enough data (I hope) to propose a new challenge, with a better set of rules.

Oh, I did not read carefully - are you going to submit a passionfuit too?

@tseitsei89: thank you very much for your entry - your score is indeed 1741.52 and you go on top of the banana table too. If I may, you could mess up with fuel priorities to avoid flipping. Excellent job, closing to the banana limit.

@foamyesque: thank you very much for your entries - they are both really appreciated and both really "passionfruit", the Mk3 charter makes it for the "largest crew" honorable mention and 740.21 points. Speaking about your second entry, English is not my mother tongue and I am having pretty hard times to keep you all at bay while "engineering" the rules. This is indeed "correct" but it is not the kind of craft I intended to pit during this challenge. I hope that you agree that this is an attempt to "oversmart" the rules; I need a few extra time to evaluate its admission - the best possible outcome I see for this craft is to resurrect the "Gatecrashers" table. This is a "winged rocket". I will amend the OP to better clarify that "anything that goes up needs to get back down".

@tseitsei89: thank you for your entry. That is indeed correct and a wonderful effort. 2606.23 points for you in the berry table. Lovely "aero".

That is exactly my role model.

I wanted to "save the Skipper". Its TWR is just a little bit above 3 times a rapier. EDIT - And poodles could make a good banana.

Basically we could say that anything that has got a mammoth or a vector goes in the Passionfruit table. Anything with a TWR lower than 1 goes in the banana table, anything with a TWR higher than 1 goes in the raspberry table. I will amend the OP to better clarify this point. EDIT - @tseitsei89: in the OP it is now available a list of the engines that are "Passionfruit" specific. If any other available engine combo will be at a clear advantage in its category may be moved to Passionfruit. Cheers.

That is on top of the Passionfruit table. There is anything else you do want to imply?

@qzgy: cheers, happy boxing day and thank you for your entry. It would be better for your final score to account for all the 3 engines. With 540kN we should have a TWR of 1.8065. So you are a raspberry. Your final score is 515.98 (with just one rapier you would be a 313something banana). Largest crew to date, the usual "honorable mention". You are the first to bring a payload too - second "honorable mention" for your craft. You bring a light in the "TWR issue" we had with @Thor Wotansen entries - KER readings are indeed correct but the data we use in this challenge is the one that KER displays under the name "Surface TWR". Come on berries, bananas and passionfruits: there is still plenty of "upside" to exploit.

If you want to build a "stable" cargo try to keep your engines as close to the CoM as possible. Moreover, if you put your bay at the CoM and you align cargo's CoM too you will not have any different attitude after unloading. If your craft is "cool" it will stay cool even during very "aggressive" maneuvers, both loaded or empty. Drag is king - hide any possible parasitic drag source inside the bay. Good luck.

No, no, my bad. Allowing for different "tools" to obtain the relevant data was a tough call, I knew it could lead to some inconsistencies. Nvm, you are still in first place and your craft can improve the score.

@Thor Wotansen: First of all I would like to thank you for your swift reply - now on with the bad news - There is something wrong with your KER readings, I tested your craft and I've got results that were a lot similar of what I eyeballed from the pictures. Btw, very cool craft - really effective. I will amend the table as follows (if you agree of course): I will manually recalculate the TWRs in both your attempts, weight is displayed so it will be pretty easy.

@Thor Wotansen: May I ask you for the craft file of your last attempt? I think that the readings from your KER might be incorrect: your craft weights 28t while in orbit - 3 rapiers can provide 540 kN - so your TWR should be 1.92 and absolutely not 3.01. I hope you will clarify the misunderstanding as soon as possible. Thank you.

@AeroGav: Thank you for your entry. Excellent try, you are now on top of the "banana" table. Your true TWR in orbit should be 0.4507 (120 kN - 26.62t) and that will give us a score of 1353.87. If I may, it seems to me that due to the extra drag provided by wings you spend too much time "low and subsonic".

I second your request - from now on all apples shall be named raspberries. Unfortunately, no more points for the second landing.

@Thor Wotansen: "And then Mjolnir itself came upon us and divided our people: from now on shall the TWRs lower than 1 be divided from the ones above. Because bananas matter." Wonderful effort, next time do not be so shy about the power of the Mjolnir. Your score is a resounding 2688.69 as was predicted by the ancient runes, but in a brand new table. I will list both your entries due to the different specs, as long as you do not let me know otherwise. Impressive, at the moment you fill the first and second place. Usain Bolt would be proud. @Firemetal will be happy too - he is now in first place in his own private "banana" table. I would like to take this chance to ask for an extra effort from all the "banana" users out there. We need you now. The sample/example of this challenge is a banana like you. And you? Are you for "Team Apple" or "Team Banana"?