hoioh

Obviously and very visibly (seen the album?), there wasn't any oxidizer in the tanks otherwise I would've made it to the mun and back easy Lower, not so much, but the cost of the rapier doesn't make up for it's additional altitude achievement so the jet scores better with these rules

And another attempt: fewer parts, stronger engine, higher cost though, but higher altitude: https://imgur.com/a/gIY1N Score: 13307 x 11 / 150852 - 1 = -0.02966483705883912709145387532151 Yay! first one to achieve a negative score! (Let's do that again with the cheaper engine) Okay, I can do better than that, cheaper engine, lower altitude, same number of parts: https://imgur.com/a/iGl3i 9557 x 11 / 138105 - 1 = -0.23878932696136997212266029470331 Almost a quarter point negative

First attempt at crossing, not as good as @Marschig, but still below 1: Score: 10562 x 15 / 111447 -1 = 0.42157258607230342674096207165738 Album: https://imgur.com/a/uh66R

I didn't realize this was your purpose, @neistridlar, I was thinking about the picture above the OP. This changes everything because on such a small scale contrast, like in your own NA flag is much more important than detail. To bad I didn't catch your reply earlier today, but I might be able to have a look at it tomorrow night and see if there's a better solution to come up with for the purpose of placing the tiny little flag on the side of a plane.

PNG files coming right up: Not through imgur though, converts to JPG.... Flag 1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x21995ltmusrzu0/KEA Flag 1.png?dl=0 Flag 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ewkmdhexmlw3b5l/KEA Flag 2.png?dl=0

And this would be our second choice:

Here's what @neistridlar and myself came up with for a new flag to fly over the challenge, would love to hear some opinions:

I think you made a very nice effort there @neistridlar ! i like your third option best, it's cleanest, but I would use the colors of the middle option and not have the middle stripe with a totally different hue (too many green in the color). If you PM me the files I can pick it from where you brought it. (Oh and I LOVE how you picked up on the badge idea, thanks for the nice words!)

Mine came in at 25t @Alchemist, not the 35t you brought in, but not that much smaller either. I didn't have to mine anything from it, just brought it in "as is". Not as difficult as your's either, I found that flying with a big rock on the back of the humongous shuttle wasn't the slightest problem at all (I am running 1.3.0, I think, can't actualy be certain at this time, that might matter for the performace of potato earodynamics).

I could link it, or you could just browse the pages of this topic to find it. It's in the previous 5 - 10 pages or so, wasn't that long ago. I used a lot of mods though and my shuttle is ENORMOUS, like really big, 5m cargo and such, from a mod that I found and like a lot. I'll upload all of my albums later today using a dropbox link to some ZIP files, each containing 1 mission (but currently uploading like 300GB, so it may take a while... Here's my space potato hunt album: https://imgur.com/a/PMFfa I do recommend reading the thread though, there's a lot more info there than just a bunch of pictures

Mechjeb is fine once your shuttle is out of the atmosphere @Artienia Only requirement is that in atmosphere you must fly yourself, but once you have reached space you can use mechjeb. If you want "stock" badges you can only use stock, if you use "near solar" then you will get "modded" badges. I don't know anout the refueling, that's really up to @michal.don

I'ts aparently not a thing that happens to everybody, but in my case it certainly made ship explode everytime. no docking port, no problem! So it could help, I mean I'm just sharing my own experiences here

I experienced a similar problem when I did my own potato hunt. I found that the fewer parts you have in between your main structure and the potato catcher (grappling hook) the lees likely you are to experience BOOM when catching. Also, make sure to use the "autostrut" function in the right click menu in the editor to strut the catcher to the heaviest part of your ship, it will make for much more pleasant hunting of asteriods. And whatever you do, never put a docking port between your ship and your potato catcher, it will severely increase the likelyhood to go BOOM. (At least, in my experience.)

See I wondered where the symbol came from! I went and checked the character map to find the most similar character I could Another thing: I still got those badges on the shelf. Would it be an idea to hand out a single badge to each contestant that didn't make a death trap? I'm thinking that in the spirit of the challenge we could easily get away with using only the gold ones Here's a link to the files for the badges to use at your discretion for the purpose of rewarding contestants of this challenge: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4qbvqc4p91wke1z/Regional jet challenge badges.zip?dl=0

Skaled Komposites H-wing series After the initial succes of making the all window-seat, luxury R-wing liners found here: We decided that go big or go home is a great motto, though we're not prepared to go giant just yet, we are here to present our all new supersonic jumbo jet series: the Skaled Komposites H-wing series. The H-wing is a series of jumbo jet sized, supersonic, twin hull, all window seat, luxury aircraft with not 1, but 2 lounge areas up the front of the twin hulls:) The H-wing comes in 3 sizes: the 160, 208 and 256 models, each named after the amount of Kerbals each can transport. The ultimate in comfort at excessive speed: Like it's smaller brethren the H-wing houses a luxury lounge, but dissimilar it now houses not 1, but 2 of these! a great benefit of these lounges is that due to their greatly increased size they can house up to 8 Kerbals each depending on the configuration, but can at any time be sold at the price of 8 first class seats without issue. The lounges, just like the smaller R-wing series, can be ordered in several configurations. Options include: the frat party lounge, the honeymoon suite, the cigar club, man cave (or alternatively, for the ladies, a massive walk-in closet is available), the cinema and many other options to pick from. If you have a specific desire for a specialty cabin we can build anything that suits your particular and distinguished needs. The new series is a LOT faster: it's single, massive engine helps it cruise at speeds in excess of mach 4 and safety is guaranteed by seating the pilots in a specially separated cabin which can house 2 pilots and an attendant, or navigator, whichever is preferred. At high speed and altitude it is recommended to fly using the built in Mechanical Jebediah autopilot system's Smart A.S.S. systems to maintain altitude, speed and stability optimally at 0 degree pitch. Thanks to the extreme speed and the separated cabins the flight should offer the ultimate in comfort and viewing pleasure to your discerning passengers for whom only the best will suffice. Easy pilot training and cross series shared control method: Press 1 to activate flaps and slow down (only usefull prior to landing) When taking off simply hit that throttle to the max, once you reach about 60m/s pull back on the stick and pitch up to about 30 degrees. Just sit back and wait untill you reach about 15km before you gently pitch down to about 5 degrees. Once you reach 19km altitude, even gentlier this time, pitch down to 0 degrees. (We recommend to activate the Smart A.S.S. system while doing this for the fine control required to pitch down 1 degree at a time, but alternatively you can point pro-grade on the SAS system to make the plane level out). From here on out the plane will continue to accelerate until you've reach the maximum speed of around 1340m/s at an altitude of 19.5 up to 20 km altitude. Fuel consumption will drop, time will pass by and your ride will be smooth as silk while the pink glow licks the many windows. Once a destination is reached just throttle down to 0 and wait for the plane to lose some speed and altitude prior to attempting maneuvers, not because the plane can't handle this, but your passengers certainly won't like to see their drinks flying all over the place! When you need to reduce speed faster, deploy the flaps, when you don't stow the flaps again and/or throttle up a bit to maintain about 200m/s speed for optimal handling and control at low altitude. Line up the runway, drop the gear, activate the brakes and, while you come in to land, reduce your speed to about 100m/s on your approach. When close to the runway you can reduce speed until you touch down gently on the tarmac, or any other substrate, to see the plane stop in a matter of moments. H-wing model specifications: H-wing 160 Type: Supersonic Passenger count: 144 + 2x 8 Kerbal suite of choice Part count: 44 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 19000m to 20000km Range: about 5000km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: 134,258,000 H-wing 208 Type: Jumbo Passenger count: 192 + 2x 8 Kerbal suite of choice Part count: 46 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 19000m to 20000km Range: about 4500km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: 154,258,000 H-wing 256 Type: Jumbo Passenger count: 240 + 2x 8 Kerbal suite of choice Part count: 48 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 19000m to 20000km Range: about 4000km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: 174,258,000 More pictures to be found here: https://imgur.com/a/v4lPx Craft files for flight testing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eghbv003j3ev6j7/Skaled Komposites H-wing series.zip?dl=0

There are two caveats with this submission: 1) I forgot to take screenshots during the initial launch. I hope the fact that this shuttle has flown many times already will suffice. 2) My old save game got lost, so I Alt-F12'ed a station into orbit around Duna. Is that ok? I think you've accidentally linked the wrong album there mate

It doesn't have to be perfect, just as close as you can get it. If you can get it perfect you will receive nothing but extra credit (because it's due). Just see how close you can get, but don't go overboard on the exactness of your orbits. You can look over the thread to see some achievements that have been deemed succesfull and make your way from there. (Mine was certainly not to the exactest of exact to be sure! But mechjeb made my life a LOT easier.)

Not everyone can freely have acces to those parts, though it it may be hard for those that do to distinguish them from the rest at some point. Personally, I'm all for allowing in more parts, but I would suggest adding parts everyone can have acces to so the playing field remains level, or making a separate category for the folks that want to use these parts.

Yay! new thread! Could you, I'm not sure any records have been kept, update the board with all the reviews since the last update by MJP? If no records have been kept, I'll just look up my own to get on the board and anyone else who would so whish to would have to look up their own

thanks for the compliments on the design. I was personally thinking on similar lines as you are, since the whole challenge is pretty subjective as it so stands anyway. I would say: Bronze for anything that doesn't explode and is flyable and landable, Silver for anything that does so reasonably well and Gold for things that are simply mind blowingly good IE handle perfectly, fly like a dream and fulfill the specs as requested in the briefing to their finest. And yes, it's subjective. Or we could just give everyone a gold star for participation

Ehm, you might be missing a couple zeros on the price tag there @neistridlar If we're restarting anyways, I made some badges if the new OP is interested: Just a sunday morning's work (they don't look shiny enough jet, which will be worked on if they're going to be used)

Ofcourse, the more the merrier and therefore more passengers = more efficiency I'm just referring to the fact that the smaller ones use less fuel per travelled mile and will thus go further, which is also good! For review purposes I would recommend doing the smallest, the middle and the largest. That will give you a very good feel for the series as a whole and experience how the handling changes as it becomes ever bigger Well, looks like the R-wing 128 comes out below 0.01 if only just, so there clearly are other ways than just hyperspeed at extreme altitude

Skaled Komposites would like to submit the R-wing series (a whole bunch of similar planes) for all your regional and international needs with a seatcount ranging from 32 up to 128, all based on the same variant model, using the same engine, wing structure and building model. We figured it would be nice if all your seats could be window seats. And not just have a whole bunch of cabins smashed together, say that they're window seats, but really you're just looking at the next cabin and really see anything. So in order to accomodate this we've built a model where, instead of connecting the main hull to the wings, the engine resides in the middle of the plane connected directly to the wings and instead of having engines connected to the middle of the wings we instead connected a pair of hulls to them. This allows for a all seats to be window seats and there's even an option to only use 1 of the front cabins as a cockpit and rent out the other to a bunch of rich snobs that want the best view they could possibly afford as a sort of "in air private cabin". Each successive model has more passenger count at a slight cost of maneuvering speed and range. All models needs some sort of runway to take off and land on and thanks to thrust reversing on the massive propeller can land really easily on just about any runway, taking off again depends on the length and size of the craft, but all models can easily take off from the island runway. All models use the same control scheme (once you've flown one, you can fly all of them with little to no practise): Press 1 to activate flaps (only required if you need to reduce speed for landing, do not overuse!) Press 2 to invert engine thrust (press again to go back to normal, mostly used to slow down once already on the runway or when flaps prove insufficient) To fly: simply activate SAS, set throttle to maximum and activate engine. Once a speed of about 60m/s is reached pull back on the stick a little and angle to about 10 degrees upward, wait for airspeed to exceed 100m/s before setting angle to about 25 degrees upward and climbing to cruising altitude between 8000 and 9000 meters. Angle back to 5 degrees upward once cruising altitude has been achieved, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. During flight any kind of steering maneuver can be made, even very aggressive ones (if passengers provided with barf bags) as long as the engine remains at full throttle. With engine off take care not to let speed drop below 100m/s unless attempting to land. (The smaller models are better at acrobaticsm the bigger ones are worse for this purpose.) At cruising altitude all the planes will all fly at about 215m/s with a fuel usage between 0.09 and 0.14 depending on size, smaller ones are obviously more efficient. That makes them a bit on the slow side, which is however adequately compensated for by the magnificent views from the many windows. To land: point at runway, drop landing gear and use flaps and/or reverse thrust to reduce speed to below 80m/s before letting wheels touch runway, stamp down hard on brakes once groud has been connected with wheels to stop. All models are very fuel efficient, share a lot of parts and therefore reduce engineer training costs,do not contain a whole lot of parts to begin with (33 up to 49) and there's only 1 common engine to take care of for each plane. Prices range from 34mln up to 43mln, depending on passenger count, and range is in excess of 1500km for all models and can reach up to beyond 3000km. To squeeze out that last extra drop of cash out of each flight you can, on top the official passenger count, rent out the right hand side "cockpit" for a frat party. In short: the R-wing series by Skaled Komposites provides excellent range and versatility in an efficient package that can go anywhere and can land and take off from just about every runway. On top of that it provides supreme passenger comfort and you can skimp on in-flight entertainment because everyone has a view. The full spec list on all models: R-wing 32 Type: Turboprop Passenger count: 32 + Honeymoon suite Part count: 32 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 3,225km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ34,006,000 R-wing 48 Type: Small regional Passenger count: 48 + Frat party lounge Part count: 34 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 2,867km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ35,106,000 R-wing 64 Type: Small regional Passenger count: 64 + In-flight romatic restaurant for 2 Part count: 38 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 2,580km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ37,406,000 R-wing 80 Type: Medium regional Passenger count: 80 + Spectator cabin Part count: 42 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 2,150km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ39,706,000 R-wing 96 Type: Medium regional Passenger count: 96 + Silent room Part count: 44 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 1,827km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ40,806,000 R-wing 112 Type: Medium regional Passenger count: 112 + VIP deck Part count: 46 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 1,827km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ41,906,000 R-wing 128 Type: Medium regional Passenger count: 128 + Hostess relaxation area Part count: 48 parts + 1 engine Cruising altitude: 8500m ± 500m Range: about 1,612km (calculated range, actual range may be in excess to this) Cost: Ѵ43,006,000 Download link to craft files and more screenshots: https://www.dropbox.com/s/37climtlq6cxiam/Skaled Komposites R-wing series.zip?dl=0

I was reading up on that in an article that was like, ehm, maybe nobody dared tell him that, like, ehm, well, there's no Mars launch window in 2019... Which is hilarious, so he's likely just bluffing on that one in order to "scare" the americans in launching first or something, which makes no sense. But there's a lot of planning for the 2020 launch window to Mars going on. Which is very exciting!

Color of the stars, commanders have landed their shuttles on a proper runway and in some cases added a little extra difficulty to the missions