cantab

A short atmospheric test flight of what I hope will be a shuttle orbiter. Uses all-moving canards with a servo in order to get plenty of pitch authority. Now I just need to figure out why the servo was ignoring trim. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2796094084

A vacuum cleaner repair shop.

Adversarial inputs.

(and by lands

I don't think we need to worry about Skynet any time soon.

I've never bothered to learn precision re-entry and landing on Kerbin. I just land anywhere. Down is down.

Played KSP for the first time in way too long. New sandbox save. Working on a shuttle that takes inspiration from Starship and from retro sci-fi, but all I've flown so far are launch abort system tests on a fuselage, I haven't finished designing the wings yet.

Today I Learned the Mission Builder can do that.

No reverts ramps up the tension a hundred-fold. And it's such a good feeling when you nail the landing.

https://imgur.com/9wFwkhG https://imgur.com/QJXbThw Flies surprisingly well, for a giant multirotor with a rocket hanging under it. The nightmare has been getting it in the water WITHOUT it blowing up. Even though it was descending at about 1 m/s when the main body hits the water that's still enough for a spectacular RUD. I had to use the rotors to very gently and carefully lower it in.

The people were originally called Kermen. "Kerbal" was and still is an adjective to describe something that's over-the-top, crazy, and quite likely to explode. At some point that adjective came to describe the little green men (and later women) themselves.

Though it wasn't used for the final touchdown, I still chuckled at seeing a Rhino-powered Gilly lander! You're also a braver man than me landing in a lander can. After I killed Kerbals doing that I insist on real pods/cockpits for my Kerbin landings.

Space is hard. Mad Mike, you will be missed.

I don't know the mass. But I built "Jeb's Tylo Lander" which was single stage and powered by four Rhinos. It had additional drop tanks to get it out to Tylo in the first place. I then built a refueller capable of filling up the whole thing in one go, and I think that might still be my mass record.

Working on a heavy lift octocopter. Thought I'd pick people's brains here. Which looks better for the rotor shrouds, the full gold or the silver and gold stripes?

Welll ... it's to look cool (or, arguably, absurd) getting through the atmosphere. I'll try and avoid doing it though. My preliminary tests indicate the design needs loads of work anyway. And not shock heating, though that would have been suitably awesome. It's actually just moody red lighting.

Any rules against clipping? I don't like doing it, but I have a design concept that wants it. (Specifically, five Kickbacks clipped into one.)

I had forgotten about that. Although it's not what I had in mind it's fully within the rules and therefore is allowed. So congratulations on your new record! It's arguably exploiting a game bug but it's still wheel driven. If entries using it overwhelmingly dominate the leaderboards I'll add a class for vehicles that don't use the XL3. You ought to have a post-run photo, but since you say it drove around KSC with no trouble I'll waive the requirement this time.

The Wheel Driven Speed Record Your goal is simple: Reach the fastest possible speed in a vehicle driven by its wheels. No jets, rockets, or propellers here! Vehicle Rules: Unaltered stock parts (DLCs included), physics, and solar system only. The vehicle must be propelled solely by one or more wheels. The use of thrust, aerodynamic forces, or any other force for propulsion is prohibited. - The wheels do not have to be wheel parts. They may be built from any parts in the game. - A vehicle that is solely a rotating wheel is not allowed. A monowheel or unicycle with a distinct body and wheel is allowed. - The use of engines and aerodynamics for control and braking is permitted. The wheels may be powered by any means. - 'Turboshaft' engines that use thrust to impinge on a turbine are permitted, however they must demonstrate that the thrust does not propel the vehicle directly. The vehicle must travel freely on the ground. Steering is not required. - So no rail vehicles. Rocket and jet thrusters may be used for downforce or/and control, provided they at no point have a component of thrust in the direction of motion. - Since the vehicle may pitch and yaw due to bumps, thrusters should be angled to thrust slightly against the motion. The vehicle does not have to be Kerballed. Run Procedure: Keep it in the spirit of the challenge, don't try and abuse loopholes in the rules. You may carry out your speed run on any reasonably flat terrain on any celestial body you choose. - No soapbox derby cars that rely on gravity to go fast! - No boats. Underwater cars driving on the seabed are allowed. The vehicle must start from a standing start, accelerate to its submitted seed while remaining more-or-less in contact with the ground, then come to a stop intact. - Minor damage is acceptable. - It is permissible to leave the ground after reaching the submitted speed. The submitted speed is an instantaneous surface speed recorded by screenshot or video frame. This speed should be representative of the ground speed of the vehicle. - Unlike in real life, there's no need to average over a mile, do a run both ways, etc. Cheats may be used to get the vehicle to the start point for its run, but may not be used during the speed run. Submission Minimum Requirements: Screenshots of the vehicle stationary at the run start, moving at the submitted speed, and stationary at the run completion. A statement of the celestial body used (since some of them look similar from the surface). The version of KSP used. If any jet or rocket engines are used, a demonstration that they do not directly propel the vehicle. A signature badge (a smaller version of the header image) is available. I've experimented with this myself previously and hope to have an entry of my own soon. Leaderboards Classes will be added as I see appropriate or as are reasonably requested. For the moment there's just the Open class. Open: 109.4 m/s on Kerbin by @AHHans: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/191373-the-wheel-driven-speed-record/&do=findComment&comment=3735536 51.9 m/s on Kerbin by @cantab My Entry 51.9 m/s on Kerbin. Wheels made from girders, powered by Breaking Ground motors. https://flic.kr/p/2iohgZj https://flic.kr/p/2iokT8P https://flic.kr/p/2iojKN9 Control was difficult, I had to really work to keep it straight. After reaching peak speed I span out under braking and crashed into the fuel storage tanks near the runway, damaging the wheels.

Fighty McFighterface.

So I guess this actually qualifies as an STS-1a, since it flew to orbit and landed back on Kerbin. Sure, the orbit might have been around the Sun ... and Dres ... and landed there. But details. Diablos standing by for launch by cantab314, on Flickr

They blooming well better be! I'm not reflying the whole dang Drespollo mission because it launched from the runway. Because yes, it's been a while but I've not forgotten about this. Diablos has completed the Drespollo mission. Inspired by Final Fantasy VIII's gravity-elemental summon, I was constrained a bit by the almost complete lack of black and red parts in KSP, but some lights made up for it. The full mission album starts here:: https://www.flickr.com/photos/52548818@N05/49460439703/in/album-72157711410945967/ (And sorry if Flickr ads are annoying. They seem to show a lot more than they used to and I might look for a different image host. Imgur was a nightmare for organisation last time I tried it though.) Some discussion of the craft and mission. (Sorry, this is duplicated inside the spoiler, and I now cannot seem to edit the post to remove it from that spoiler) Based on the inspiration, I wanted a winged spaceplane for this, and something with straight or swept wings rather than a delta. I tried using the Mk2 parts but couldn't seem to get enough fuel, so switched to the black-and-orange Soyuz parts instead. The Soyuz side boosters also give a "claw" look to the drop tanks. Four Kerbals are accommodated in the Gemini pod and a crew cabin. Sadly the cabin windows had to be covered up by the fairing, which also holds the science equipment. The hatch on the end of the crew cabin lets Bob EVA into the "unpressurised section" inside the fairing to service the experiments. I did most of my aerodynamic testing with Panthers on the wingtip nacelles. These don't actually hold any fuel, the tanks are empty, they're just there to put the wheels somewhere. I took the Panthers off the final version to save weight once it became obvious an SSTO wasn't happening - it could barely even get get supersonic. I put dihedral on the tail for roll stability. With a flat tailplane it was obnoxiously unstable but I didn't want to change the gull-wing geometry. That's chosen to provide space for drop tanks and boosters under the wings and also support the wheels at the wingtips. The angled tailplane sorted the problem out, plus it looks cool. Having gone for a 1.9 metre fuselage meant no payload bay, so everything would have to be carried on the outside. It's at this point I opted to land the spaceplane and make the orbiter basically a glorified fuel tank holding the fuel for the Dres departure burn, rather than build a separate lander. The "Orbital support vehicle" is in two parts, with the command pod and most of the avionics carried under the starboard wing while more fuel is under the port wing. Once at Dres the two parts get decoupled and joined together. Then it was just a case of strapping on enough boosters to make LKO. The boosters ended up bulkier than I'd hoped, but needs must. They did the job. I never learn not to build low TWR ships. I. Never. Learn. With the drop tanks full it's a lot for a single Cheetah to push. 0.1 TWR, fun fun fun. Cue the TV reruns while I babysit the ejection burns. I went for a low-inclination orbit to avoid problems with the return transfer so I missed the poles, but got orbital science from all the other biomes. (Yes, I'm still using the biome view cheat for this.) For touchdown it has 8 cubs more-or-less under the centre of mass, gimbals locked of course, and 8 Vernors at the extremities for balance. I probably could have done it with only Vernors in hindsight, but real engines are nice to have. Like an idiot, I took hardly any screenshots of surface operations. I explored around a bit, looked at a couple of surface features (but obviously took no science from them), and managed not to fall in the canyon. Since I'd come in something with rockets and wheels, I did try emulating Evel Knievel.. It didn't really work. Without a ramp, I was ending up off the ground well before I reached the speed needed to cross the canyon - at that point it doesn't really count as a jump IMHO. This was all reverted of course. Not for the first time in my Kerpollo challenge Kerbin re-entry was dicey. Diablos does not like to re-enter empty, the centre of mass is too far forward and there's no Vernors to help with control. It survived it during a (reverted) shakedown run to Mun and back at the fastest re-entry I could manage, but my first attempt at a Dres return hit Kerbin's atmosphere even faster. So I had to opt for a later Dres-Kerbin transfer with lower ejection delta-V requirements and lower atmospheric re-entry speed. And I still blew up two nosecones and the tail bumper wheel. I had considered Starship-style fins, but dropped them because I wasn't sure the wimpy hinges I have would cope; with hindsight such fins could have helped a lot. Overall for Drespollo, the design process took quite a long time. Maybe I'm just bad at it, but I find planes a lot harder than pure rockets. But once I had an airframe I was happy with, the rest came together relatively easily. Having a decent range of parts means I've really put the troubles of the early missions behind me. But I do need to test more thoroughly. The fuel transfer bug and the re-entry speed caught me out. Required screenshots I'll post here.

On the lander it went docking port - separator - rest of lander. After the lander redocked to the orbiter, I fired the separator. This meant the lander's docking port, that had landed on Minmus, was attached to the orbiter. The idea is that when the orbiter then returns to Kerbin, I get credit and science for recovery of a vessel that landed on Minmus, not merely that orbited it. This didn't work. The docking port alone doesn't count. I think it has to be a command module. Since probe cores on the lander are banned taking advantage of this isn't straightforward, but I may look into it again in future.

And here's the documentation of Minpollo. The spacecraft are being named after summons in the Final Fantasy series. The first two were very much in name only, but now I have more parts I'm looking to take some more inspiration design-wise. Madeen is in no way a replica of its namesake from Final Fantasy IX, but I think it gave a little character to the lander - I was trying to avoid it ending up boring. Shame I didn't have the round small tank, I had to use the baguette instead for the pom-pom. The lifter is much more "new KSP", a simple stack with boosters. Two Bobcats in the core stage, the TWR is below 1 when the boosters jettison but it's manageable, and a Poodle for the upper stage. Quickly and simply built but it does the job. Screenshots start from here in the album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/52548818@N05/48982134347/in/album-72157711410945967/ Highlights: Madeen liftoff by cantab314, on Flickr 29 km mapping orbit by cantab314, on Flickr Kupo! by cantab314, on Flickr Madeen landing site. Shores I think by cantab314, on Flickr

Unity Analytics, as far as I know, only covers in-game actions. But a future KSP update (or, speaking more generally, other games) could include something more snoopy. Anti-cheat software for multiplayer games is invariably quite intrusive (it has to be to work), and I can easily imagine Squad carelessly putting something like that in KSP even though it's single-player. EDIT: I know it's a bit hypothetical, maybe bordering on paranoid. But I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think I would prefer a generic approach that can limit what a program can "phone home", rather than something that's very specifically tailored and could easily be rendered useless by an update.