RCgothic

And now I've killed Bill. That's the first time I've burnt up on ascent! Time to start over again I think.

Oops, killed Val already. Forgot suborbital could be deadly.

Landed on and returned from Duna for the first time!

1093m/s. Beacon assisted parking brake. Sepratrons have the best twr. This was built for a challenge thread, and was briefly the challenge leader before being overtaken. The trick is keeping it in a straight line, which is basically just luck. @tewpie managed >1200m/s before the end of the runway.

I found my original design thread:

Best I can find at short notice. The three small polar orbits do the job. Walker Star 18/3/1 in 89deg inclined orbits (evades the polar krakens). The higher constellations are for orbital/interplanetary stuff. Six sats is enough for ground or orbital operations between deployable antennae, but for re-entry or low-level supersonic stuff 18 keeps the basic indestructible antenna in range.

Is it possible to implement sub-networks? I've picked up this bad habit of providing total surface coverage so I never lose contact with low-level probes. In my defence I can only say that this mod makes satellite networks fun enough to want to! For Kerbin this requires 18 sats, and it only gets worse from there. As the number of relays increasing exponentially increases pathfinding complexity, it would be useful to limit the number of possible paths. E.g.: An antenna is placed in custom group "Duna Rovers". It is allowed to talk to group "Duna Surface Relays", and is only allowed to check links to that subgroup. It can't talk to other Duna Rovers, or try to connect to Kerbin. Let's say I have 5 Rovers. "Duna Surface Relays" form a network (6) in low orbit. They're allowed to talk to "Duna Rovers", "Duna Surface Relays" and "Duna Interplanetary", possibly through multiple antennae if the user interface would otherwise be too complex. "Duna Interplanetary" is a high orbit network of 3 high-power sats. It can talk to "Duna Surface Relays", "Ike Surface Relays (3 relays)", "Duna Space (4 non-non-comm probes, only allowed to talk to interplanetary)" and "Kerbin Interplanetary (3 relays)". "Kerbin Interplanetary" connects directly to KSC and "Duna Interplanetary". Additionally there's 1 "Ike Rover" which talks to "Ike Surface Relays". Assuming that's it, total 26 craft. Now I'm not great at combinatorics, but that's 325 possible connections between relays and 26! (~4e26)possible non-cyclic paths between two nodes that need to be checked for connection to KSC? I'm sure RT is smarter than that, but still. The proposed subnetwork implementation would have the following connections: 1 Duna Rover (1)-> Any Duna Relay (6) =6 paths Any Duna Relay (6) -> Any Duna Interplanetary (3) = 6480 paths Ike Rover (1) -> Any Ike Relay (3) = 3 paths Any Duna Interplanetary (3) -> Any Ike Relay (3) = 45 paths Any Duna Interplanetary (3) -> Any Duna Space (4) = 20 paths Any Duna Interplanetary (3) -> Any Kerbin Interplanetary (3) = 45 paths Kerbin Interplanetary (3) -> KSC = 6 paths. This gives 6*6480 ways to go from duna rover->duna relays->duna interplanetary. = 38880. From duna Interplanetary there are 155 ways to go down a dead end (to duna space or Ike) and 45 paths back to Kerbin. Once at Kerbin there are 6 other options. Total routes: 38880*(45*6+155) = ~16 million paths. That's a vast improvement over 4e23. I'm sure I've miscounted somewhere, or maybe RT is already that clever, but it would knock a pretty substantial overhead off and more closely replicate real satellite networks too. I really don't mean this to come across as a feature demand, more just making a suggestion and sharing some thoughts. :-)

Docked two fuel modules behind my Duna mothership, and two Ike landers to each side. I didn't need two, but hey, keeps things balanced. Only the crewed duna spaceplane to go! May just be a conventional lander if I'm not feeling ambitious. Also, does anyone know how to stop the aerodynamic forces overlay each time I take a screenshot? Is it easier to change KSP's shortcut to something else or would it be easier to change it in Steam?

And by reporting end them.

And today I failed to assemble my revised Duna mothership because I'd put the lower docking port seniors on backwards. Kept nudging the core stage into it's fuel tanks and wondering why they wouldn't dock!

Today I failed to double-dock my Duna mothership's fuel tanks. Without a double dock they were far too flimsily connected, so I implemented Abort from LKO. My untested Duna spaceplane successfully re-entered, but didn't have enough pitch authority to keep the nose up. It became clear that a return to KSC was not on the cards, and the plane shortly ditched into the ocean at 45deg and 50m/s. I'm pleased to report that Jeb, Bill, Bob and Val were all recovered safely.

If you're talking about pitching up during atmospheric flight it could be that your centre of mass is moving as fuel burns. That will affect the trim of your aircraft.

Well done! I knew all Sepratrons was the way to go. How many did you use, and how did you for them all inside that structural fuselage?

I couldn't beat ElMenduko, but you guys have the right of it. I managed a new personal best: [URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/rcgothic/media/2015-11-17_00001_zpsqcskhr0w.jpg.html][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/rcgothic/2015-11-17_00001_zpsqcskhr0w.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [B]1092.4m/s [/B] The Vector does all right on starting TWR. It plus a full tank for the runway is 6.25t and gives you 1000kN thrust. 6.25t gets you 90 Sepratrons though. That's 1250kN of thrust ASL. Which considering you need to bring along extra support for them and they cause additional drag is not much difference. Until you burn through all that fuel. The Vector dry still weighs 4.25t. The Sepratrons weigh just 0.9t. Dump the Vector, it's not contributing. I couldn't make a craft with 90 functioning Sepratrons on it. I couldn't keep it stable, undetonated, and pointing in the right direction. But I bet whoever does manage it will get a new high score.

I have one more idea. I'll try it this evening if the headache goes away.

Link broken.

I managed to squeeze an extra 1m/s out of it by adding a ridiculous quantity of engines. (>100 sepratrons?) , but I think this is the best I can do: [URL="http://smg.photobucket.com/user/rcgothic/media/2015-11-16_00022_zpsv4ynrsch.jpg.html"][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/rcgothic/2015-11-16_00022_zpsv4ynrsch.jpg[/IMG][/URL] 1010.1m/s

I think this was an even better run, but the screenshot wasn't perfectly timed: [URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/rcgothic/media/2015-11-16_00017_zpsy1qaxcso.jpg.html][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/rcgothic/2015-11-16_00017_zpsy1qaxcso.jpg[/IMG][/URL] 1009.1 m/s

I started from well after the start of the runway though if we're being that picky.

Smashed it. 1010.5 m/s [URL="http://smg.photobucket.com/user/rcgothic/media/2015-11-16_00004_zpskcsmgbwz.jpg.html"][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/rcgothic/2015-11-16_00004_zpskcsmgbwz.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://smg.photobucket.com/user/rcgothic/media/2015-11-16_00003_zpsrdw98ebt.jpg.html"][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v723/rcgothic/2015-11-16_00003_zpsrdw98ebt.jpg[/IMG][/URL] That's a crash into the final light, so it's exactly at the end of the runway.

I managed to get this 1111.3t beast in the air: However I don't think there's any chance I'll be landing it:

Redone! This time with a 'Perfect' as opposed to merely 'Good' landing. On the runway: Ascending rapidly: Angled down for acceleration: Rocket mode activated: Orbit achieved: In orbit: Re-entry (note I spent basically a day in orbit so as to have optimum sun position on approach to KSC): Like Sean I overshot: But that just meant I got to touch down into the sunset: Complete!

First entry of 1.0.5! I've gatecrashed previously using FAR, but I thought I'd use the opportunity of a clean install with the new patch to do things properly. On the runway: Orbit achieved: Preparing for re-entry: Getting hot: Safe return!: For certain definitions of safe. Unfortunately didn't quite stick the landing and hit quicksave instead of screenshot, but that's just a case of re-doing the mission later. I assure you nothing had blown up by the time wheels hit tarmac. My landings still leave a little to be desired.

Uh, what? I think you have some misconceptions. It's technically true that you get lighter as you ascend, but not as much as you think. The acceleration due to gravity at LEO is 7.8m/s2, 80% of that at sea level. TWR increases during a flight primarily because you burn fuel and get lighter, not because you're getting higher! Secondly, TWR is useful as a measure of how much acceleration your ship can pull normalised to multiples of kerbin's (or other reference body's) gravity (at sea level). It doesn't change with altitude. On Kerbin it's basically synonomous with TMR. It's specified as weight rather than mass because weight is easy to measure (IRL) and gives you an instant indication of whether you'll be able to take off from whatever body you're on. Weight becomes totally irrelevant once you stop burning with a radial component. It's all about mass.

If you're using FAR it confers active disadvantage. Both the greater diameter and the cross sectional area changes add additional drag, in addition to a greater skin drag from additional rocket length. Nobody likes the fairing.