hoioh

I just had to try my hand at this, as said by others before: not easy, but lots of fun watching your contraptions collapse and explode in on themselves! Here's some attempts that were sorta succesfull in chronological order.

I felt I had to re-do this having built a fair number of airplanes now and using my new experience I built the Triple Swallow (the bird, you dirty dirty man!) with a triple fuselage and wide, mostly straight wings. There's 1 definite disadvantage to this beauty though and that's that she likes to become unbalanced during flight because the system doesn't drain equal amounts from each tank, but instead favors the tanks on the left making the ones on the right too heavy requiring constant stabilization during the final ascent. Once in orbit all the remaining fuel can be moved to the central fuselage removing this issue altogether, still I believe KSP should integrate a fuel balancing mechanic as a standard or upgrade feature what with the new buildings and whatnot. Outside of that 1 fine issue she's perfect for carrying 2 small comm sattelites to Kerbin Orbit with fuel to spare (not much mind you!) So without further ado I present to you the Triple Swallow:

Nice story George, but could you put it in spoiler tags please? you're making the page hard to load and excessively long at the same time. just type and the same, with a / before the word spoiler and without the title, in front and behind every image in your post. it will make it a lot more readable like this: Or go to imgur.com and use the [imgur] tags with the number of your album.

Introducing Tiny DOT: 2 Kerbals in command seats (requires separate delivery system for Kerbals) Doesn't break at warp 4 Lands and takes off safely thanks to parachute (requires a slight retro burn to reduce landing velocity) No control surfaces thus no infiniglide Achieves 150m/s esily she's by no measn safe to fly and doens't make it anywhere really, but she's real friggin' cheap! Costs a mere $7167,- Kerbucks Wind in my face Low budget

I managed to land it! woo! The big one is absolutely no problem to fly with or without the spaceship so I didn't change anything about it since my last fail post, I just altered my flight plan to allow for a point of return close to the KSP. First I flew it all the way over to the ocean on the other side (heading 270) and then turned it around to fly back and drop the spacesip over the high mountains before the KSP. Then tweaking my point of re-entry and flight height by trusting against the direction until it's in the right place and then keeping it there while rising to almost 200Km. After that it only took 5 or 6 attempts to properly land it. And only then I found out I needed to change my landing gear when I change the wing positions...........epic fail.......... So I had to do it all over again and here it is: PS. I expect my previous landing of the mothership to be sufficient to show it's flyable and landable from above 25K. I can even present the craft file for you to experience how easily she flies by yourself (don't warp her though! Disintegration hazard!). (Oh and brainiac, I had the snapping problem too, moar struts! Is definitely the answer to you problems. MOAR (stategically placed) STRUTS!

Nice, I got the opposite problem, the spaceplane is hard to control on the way back but the carrier flies easily even without it's load. Here's some progress including the landing of the carrier. I've severely clipped the rocket into the spaceship using the new tools available in 0.90.0 hope you don't mind, it makes it look a lot better at the same time. (I just realized I'm doing it with 18 Kerbals (including 2 pilots for the space ship) Here's a progress report:

You need WAY more money than that to collect soil samples! To go on EVA outside of Kerbin landed you ened 400.000,- but in order to collect a soil sample anywhere you need to upgrade the science building to it's FINAL TIER costing 4mln or somesuch. I've got a running career that has just managed to pull that off. Upgrading biuldings has made KSP significantly harder, but the only thing I would to see reverted is the SAS option for the stayputnik because that part is now completely useless and basically means you need to put 2 cockpits on top of each other and attach chutes using struts in order to be able to train anyone other than jeb in the early game. The added difficulty actualy adds a nice challenge to KSP that wasn't there as much earlier. Anyway, soil samples: 4mln Kerbuck$!

I actualy rebuilt white knight I before the 0.90.0 release, but used a lot of B9 parts and mechjeb, so not suitable for this challenge. I'll do it again stock after christmas. Nice challenge! Some inspiration for other builders perhaps White Knight by Burt Rutan the builder of some of the most fantastical aircraft ever to be flown.

Quoting from the description: "The first four contracts can be completed using a rocket of just the first three parts." You don't need to, you can dom your first mission(s) without it, get the tech for the decoupler and then progress.

Had to try this and tried 50 times or so last night, but the only thing I got was frustration. So after sleeping it off I managed to do it the second time around. I could very likely do better if I land the plane closer to the rover using the parachutes at a lower altitude, don't flip the rover over, don't crash the boat upon landing and having to walk 1.5 kilometers and if I could just race better. But at least now there's a precedent for others to do better. Time: 32 minutes and 32 seconds to orbit (some more screenshots to show the craft on the ground are really there) Nice challenge!

So I said earlier I would submit and entry and here we go: Takes on 900 fuel = 1080 points She takes off from the unupgraded runway on her own = 20 point Unupgraded runway = 50 points 0x goo = 0 points 2x science junior = 30 points 2 additional seats = 40 points 0 parachutes = o points Antenna = 5 points Landed back on the same awful runway = 10 points Craft file supplied below the album = 20 points Flies stably up to warp 2. (This may be a good stability rating factor to include in the scoring) Total score: 1255 points (PS. I added this much fuel because that' how the scoring system works, but she flies better with 1 less tank of fuel. Below the album I've written a proposal to upgrade the scoring system to be less fuel dependent and inspiring to make more Noob friendly planes.) (PPS. I had another model with extra fuel tanks attached to the wings, but it required fuel lines to be researched and I only saw that I couldn't after the fact, so I had to rebuild. This original version was super stable and easily able to fly all the way down to the south pole, also she would fly stably at warp 4!) The APKE All Purpose Kerbin Explorer (Design inspired by Burt Rutan's magnificent flying contraptions) It's currently extremely in favour of the amount fo fuel you can carry on it. Though important, it's currently when done right 90% of the total score, that's too much emphasis I'd say, so it needs a little balance in favour of being Noob friendly and stable above fuel heavy. In order to prove stability I think the highest safe warp speed you can fly it at without crashing or veering out of control would be a nice score multiplier on the side of everything but the fuel. I would propose to reduce the points per fuel a little and multiply everything else by the safest warp speed. In return the fuel carried should be divided by the maximum available warp speed which is 4 to balance it in favour of the stability but not make fuel entirely unimportant. For this plane my scoring would look like this: She takes off from the unupgraded runway on her own = 20 point Unupgraded runway = 50 points 0x goo = 0 points 2x science junior = 30 points 2 additional seats = 40 points 0 parachutes = o points Antenna = 5 points Landed back on the same awful runway = 10 points Craft file supplied below the album = 20 points Flies stably up to warp 2. 20 + 50 + 30 + 40 + 5 + 10 + 20 = 175 Warp multiplier = 2 2 x 175 = 350 Fuel carried = 1080 1080 / 4 = 270 350 + 270 = 620 total score This is just a proposal to put fuel in a more appropriate place.

I can really see where you need help! Those walkers are amazing, but they wobble like the way that makes one lose his lunch though

this challenge has a LOT of overlap with the other mun challenge in the top 10 current topics, maybe you should team up! http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/103297-0-90-Mun-science-challenge

hi mealstrom, there's a new topic for this challenge because the original challenger is absent and we wanted to update the leaderboard in his absence. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102468-The-MachingBird-Revive%21-0-90-update

Didn't know you could do that with the steam version, makes me feel silly now. but good to know for the future, means I can update after everyone has updated their mods for the new edition.

I'm using the steam version of KSP and had this kind of trouble before. What worked for me was to remove local content, then completely empty the game folder (backup your saves and ships manually!) then redownloaded the game, replaced all the mods and the saves and ships and it worked again like before (crashes every hour or so, but works fine otherwise and always crashes when recovering a craft, or saving something, hardly ever during flight). Just tried loading the proteus (into the hanger first to get size info and re-save the vessel) then launched it without trouble.

at first Ihad some trouble, but after removing all mods, adding B9 for 0.25 and firespitter (complete, not just DLL) and the updated DLL for firespitter it worked just fine. didn't really try on any saved ships today. lemme check.

Just wanted to say I'm looking forward to a B9 update for this new version of KSP because it's got lot's that the original game doesn't have like good looking parts, sensibly shaped parts and so and so forth, then there's the wings and the control surfaces which are fantastic! I've been attempting to rebuild every plane Burt Rutan ever made and wouldn't even be remotely capable of doing so without B9. So here's the message you should take awat from this: love the mod, keep it up, a million thanks for making the effort!

I know that Laye, I just prefer to do it this way, saves a lot of time mucking about on the top of the craft and since I can only bring so many goo's I'm limited there anyway. But indeed, if you are worried about every last penny you could simply remove all but one of the small experiments and place em close to the command module. Be sure to move the Mechjeb box and the antenna though, they tend to stick to your kerbal as he tries to pass them.

Notice I didn't specify the cost and science tier there. It's on science tier 5 of the parts and the second to last one for the science bits because it's got the gravmax sensor on there. Other than that it's a pretty straight path, but I used the Sabre intakes which are on the second to last tier as well, so I updated the craft to use circular intakes instead of those to match the science tiers to get it as low as possible. Here's a link to the new craft file with the circular intakes: Kerbin Explorer Mark 2 The original craft cost: 166,698 (Science tiers for this one are 8/8 I didn't bother to make a screenshot of it) The new craft cost: 155,122 The new science tiers required (alternatives can ofcourse be made with less tools aboard): Tier 5/5 up to 5/7 depending on tools brought.

If you take a close look at Numerobis own disqualified entry you'll see just what he means: 5000 units total fuel (so yeah, that's both combined).

Modded Entry requires B9 and optionally Mechjeb, but it works just fine without it. She's got tools to visit 6 biomes on Kerbin in succession, airbrakes are under 0, 1-6 are the science pairs, with the exception of the goo's which have to be toggled manually due to simmetry placement and the ladder is under 9. Link to craft file Album fo the adventure: (to show the capabilities I added some shots of far away biomes it has traveled to on other journeys) Here's a shot with some flags of the biomes, excuse the clutter, just count the flags outside the greenzone and add 1 for the water shore just off the edge of the runway (could'e been any water really, but this one was convenient at the time.)

Very nice way of doing things Tex_NL, I really didn't think that one up. I basically use the F12 menu for some clipping and that's it. It never even occurred to me I could hack the crap out of it Thanks for the number 1 Numerobis! Got a badge yet?

I was doing something for the Kadvent calendar and remembered this thread, so I rebuilt my plane to be all stock and no MechJeb (for flying anyway, I used it for about 5 seconds in the hangar to show off the specs) and flew it around the globe. One needs to be seriously bored to do this by the way (which I most thoroughly am on a sidenote). Anyway, here goes the KCP-MK1 around the globe on jet fuel only:

Figured I'd take the challenge even though it's died down a bit at the moment. Considering the current runtime of this challenge I'm guessing this isn't the first time that happened. So here's the KSE MK2 (Kerbin Space Elevator) lifting a tiny Research and Comms sattelite and returning to KSC afterwards. Had to do it twice because the first time I messed up on the runway, landing was smooth as a feather, but the balance twisted it a little and the left rear wing touched the runway breaking off. Luckily it doesn't take quite as long as the timer suggests.