Excalibur

With my latest design I hit 25.5k with 5 solids. 4 of them connected directly to stack decouplers - had rather a eureka moment when I realised you could get away with attaching them there. I\'ll wait and see what comes around next turn. By then 0.16 may have dropped and that will turn everything upon it\'s head. I imagine Don will have quite a task re-engineering the campaign. ???

I\'m obviously missing something then - I could only manage 10k on my second mission. Did you receive any 1st/2nd bonuses? Thanks for the tips - I quickly realised salvage would be very important. I may choose parachute tech. next to assist with that one!

To be honest I thought as much - worth a try though. My craft is made up of solid boosters as I\'m only on my third turn (don\'t have the remote pod either). I\'ll keep two \'chutes on it and eat the $750. Directed at the long time players of this campaign just out of curiosity; what mission(s) had you completed by your third turn? I\'ve just managed to do 25km, with the 10km on my last turn.

I should have made it more clear - that battle tank isn\'t mine sadly. I\'m not sure who posted it - I haven\'t searched the forums to see if the YouTube username matches a forum member\'s. I imagine that whoever created it used similar .cfg edits to myself regarding the rotatron. Probably made one that rotates between 200-500 for the wheels and I imagine the turret one is stock. I\'ve gotta say \'scale model\' recreations like this add a whole new dimension to the game and I\'ll have to investigate them more in the near future!

No worries Don, hope you have a good one! I\'ll be submitting mine soon but I have a question first. You state in salvage rules that one parachute can safely return 4 units of mass. My latest craft has a single \'chute supporting less than 4 units by the end of the flight. Trouble is if you play the flight out to the end a couple of parts are destroyed on landing (or if you land in the ocean the pod gets destroyed) due to quirks in the ZO2 main system collider I think. I\'d really like to be able to use the first rule and remove a \'chute to save me $750. Please advise!

Thanks man. To be honest it\'s rather flawed. Needed a break from other KSP duties and mis-read the title of this post so actually thought the poster meant a Land Rover (i.e. the quintessential off-road vehicle). So I threw it together in about forty minutes. Hence why it tends to spontaneously fall apart/explode, the front wheels collide with the body during steering (I had to beef up the wheels otherwise it looked rather lame) and it\'s top speed isn\'t exactly supersonic. That last screenshot is at Vmax. It was inspired by the following tank, which in my opinion is a far more superior vehicle. Still - couldn\'t resist trying something similar myself, it\'s much easier than you\'d think. It took me a few attempts to find an optimum rotational speed for the drive rotatrons, the default 20 was far too low. 200 worked but still too slow; I next set it to 1000 which caused instant hilarity. It actually did a standing backflip before every single one of its parts exploded in unison. 400 seems to work for now.

I\'m afraid my design isn\'t entirely stock... it just wouldn\'t have been possible without mods! Anyway I present the \'Defender TDI\'.

Welcome back fella! A friend first pointed KSP out to me a year ago when the first public releases were out, I\'ve been playing it ever since. I\'m a total spaceflight nut so this game is just absolute heaven for me. The fact you can now play around with aircraft too is just incredible. You ever need any help just ask.

I was a bit last minute as well - I\'ll try to give you a bit more time this turn! Glad to be aboard too. Also idea for a meta-contract. How about having to deliver a Zo2 Main System to KSC 2?

You\'re right, as I use MechJeb I can\'t call it stock. I just see MechJeb as \'psuedo-stock\' and sometimes my answers reflect this. I think I was just arguing with you for the sake of it which I apologise for. I snapped an Achilles tendon a few days ago so I\'m liable to snap myself rather easily at the moment! Edit:1013 m/s absolute speed while diving. 1005 m/s overland, again. I wouldn\'t be surprised if this design can crack 1020 m/s diving and 1010 m/s level, though. Again, this is while slowing down... Final results. Edit 2: Yup, I was right: 1030 m/s absolute, 1018 m/s overland. Something I will disagree on though is posting speeds attained in a dive! When I said 1010 would be hard to beat I did mean in level flight! Some nice crafts though dude. Looks like I\'ve got some catching up to do!

I can see why you may think that, especially if you\'re coming from a hardcore-stock-parts-only viewpoint. In my defence I see this challenge more as a test of design acumen rather than piloting skill, so I think the use of MechJeb is fair in this context. It\'s a good way to ensure consistent results with a design and to also test a design to its limits. If the challenge were to fly straight and level at 100m for 10km then I\'d say fair enough!

I\'m using stock tanks and engines, but use modded wings (Tiberion\'s Shuttle Wing Small) since they provide much more lift than the stock parts. I have managed to crack 1km/s with stock only though, however my fastest craft uses the modded wings. Here are some examples of my latest designs: Kkyron, I think 1010m/s will be VERY hard to attain with stock engines and tanks.

My last craft sits on the runway pointing upward at about a 40 degree angle. Have to use full power on take-off as otherwise the engines overheat from friction with the runway and explode. I did use your kind of flight profile in the past but I did find it slightly more fuel efficient to do a low-throttle steep ascent to altitude, then pitch down a little at a time and throttle up. Almost like a gravity turn when I think about it. Hard to describe though as I\'m not too precise about timings/altitudes for changing throttle and pitch. I generally just do it when it \'feels\' right. Different craft may suit different profiles however I suppose.

That thing is absolutely beautiful! I love the first picture, that\'s an awesome piece of kit. No I never thought to take the \'F3\' shot so 1st place is actually all yours... for the time being... You might be able to get a bit more out of that anyway... The first two flights with my craft were around 980-990m/s. I found the most efficient flight profile was to climb at 45 degrees and 1/3 throttle until I hit about 13km. Then gradually reduced the pitch to about 8 degrees whilst slowly advancing to 100% throttle position. That got me just above 1k. What profile did you use? My guess is that it has so many engines it doesn\'t need many wings. I imagine the vectored thrust gives a strong lift vector.

I think your battleship would sink my CPU pretty damn easily. Out of interest what setup are you using?

Fair point from both of you, hence a new video! Hope you all enjoy the HeliTruckter. http://youtu.be/n9wh6QllN3I I sometimes forget how easy MechJeb makes things these days. I still haven\'t taken a spaceplane out of LKO, I\'ll have to give that a whirl sometime. That crash sounds like one of those 'oh ****' moments when you realise you should have started braking/turning/something a LOT earlier.

Does look like it. Just in case not, here\'s my latest entry; World Airspeed Record Statistic: 1.0023km/s Version: 15.2 Screenshot: Mods used: MechJeb Tiberion\'s Shuttle Wing

I\'d have thought that thrust in front of CoG would make it more stable if anything else. Great design though, I never even thought of using the Mk2 fuselages for some reason. Like the name too, a lot of my previous designs could be described as such! I think MechJeb is an essential tool in this application - just set the SURF heading/pitch to what you want and you get a nice smooth profile. The only mods I\'ve used for this challenge are structural and aerodynamic - I still think the stock options are a bit limited in that department. I always use the stock tanks and engines though otherwise it seems a bit pointless - I\'m sure I could edit the Turbojet .cfg and get silly speeds but that\'s not the point is it? Anyway I hate to break it to you buddy but I just passed 1000m/s. Got up to about 1005m/s but we\'ll go with the picture at 1002.3m/s. Your move Sir Kyhron...

May I enter a craft from a previous challenge? Liked the powerslide at the beginning of your video RedDwarf, I thought you\'d see it through and demolish your base. Must have been tricky to fly it out there too...

Nice work mate! Lots of engines but fundamentally simple - I like it! Did that take a lot of testing? Usually takes me three flights or so to optimise a design, unless I strike it lucky I guess. Now to see if I can crack 1km/s...

I present the Hawk Moth RCS Aerobatic Aircraft: http://youtu.be/ZD3Vsm94tQY Stable and fun to fly whilst also being extremely agile. In the version shown it has seven Linear RCS ports for power at the expense of endurance; the best strategy is to apply power only when needed and glide as much as possible. Needs no assists for take-off or landing. Uses the following mods; Probodobodyne Silisko Edition 2 Forward Swept Wing Damned Robotics C7 Flight Pack 3 Camera Mod MechJeb Music: Jimi Hendrix - Driving South

Record title: World Airspeed Record Record statistic: 967.4m/s Game version when record achieved: 0.15.2 Screenshots: Mods used: Tiberdyne Big Shuttle Wing MechJeb Craft name: Meteor Mk II

Cool, what are those AMD FX CPUs like? I\'ve no experience with them. Have you tried any overclocking? If it\'s got a 95W TDP then a good air-cooled heatsink should let you run a bit more voltage I would think... (Bit off topic sorry) I\'ve got a much older Intel Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz. Though it\'s overclocked to 3.6GHz on air.

Fair points - I know the \'Mozzy\' isn\'t quite a true aircraft. It will fly with the bike attached but nowhere near as well as it does without. Landing is possible but very difficult without the whole thing exploding. I mainly wanted to show people how small you could build an aircraft (I\'ve since made smaller and more agile would you believe) and also demonstrate the strange high-G acceleration bug. C7 has informed me that it is indeed the \'infini-glide\' bug at work. So really the craft is a bit unfair anyway as it exploits an in-game bug. If it keeps you happy RedDwarf I\'ll create a fairer entry. BTW I\'m guessing IV is your favourite series? I must have watched every episode a hundred times. The early ones are the best!

If KSP ever hits the bigtime perhaps they can persuade Clarkson to do the voice overs... we wish! Fully agree with your sentiment. If I was capable of producing mods I think I\'d release a Top Gear pack!