MunGazer

Sounds like an interesting entry; however, I think you may have copied and pasted improperly for the image link. I'll await that edit and then delete this post once it's complete. Edit: Didn't realize until now I can't delete my own post apparently

Awesome vid! I was laughing so hard at that kinetic strike, that was an epic and timeless piece of video right there . That's kinetic entry #2. It's looking like this challenge shapes up well for vanilla stock entries. I have to leave for work right now, but what's the name of your craft? And very nice video editing by the way, the first one I saw of yours in the VTOL challenge was consistent with that as well.

Really cool entry That would be our first kinetic energy strike entry. Nicely done and I'm glad you had fun.

That's fine, a lot of people (myself included) are cutting their teeth on this newest version of KSP and there's no rush. I anxiously await the release of FAR and North Kerbin Dynamics which will make this challenge exponentially more fun so I'll be patiently waiting for all that to happen anyway.

It's called pilot assistant:

Holy Shnikeys, well that explains a lot. I was just thinking the other day that if I ended up in a wheelchair or something, I'd be cool with it and just playing the **** out of KSP all the time. I'd even learn C# and Blender like a mofo and mod develop like a madman.

Thanks for your entry. My favorite part was the 6 snakeeyes deploying, I always loved watching grainy test footage or Vietnam era footage of those being dropped in groups . Also nice touch with the music. With a targeting pod, your M102 hit could have been dead on but it may have pre-empted a higher heat damage from your bombs.

Lol sounds good. Hilarious "Location: " by the way.

Good luck and Krakenspeed with your challenge I think replica styled entries would be really fun. I plan to add some kind of polling system for style points (separate boards for style points apart from performance scores) for all the crafts submitted validly for the challenge that would be accessible to participants and spectators, I'm just not sure how to implement that yet and will be open to suggestions. I imagine your B-2 replica would be well within the rules. I want to encourage people not to worry too much about whether or not they achieve 1st place with their scores - unless that's your thing. The scoring system is there mostly to spur on a sense of competition, but creativeness and having your own style to share is highly valued here.

Cool, thanks . I just got to work so I'll update your entry on the leaderboard to reflect this one once I'm home, roughly 9 hours from now.

Updated OP for the following: 1. Clarified what I meant by "gatecrashing" 2. Added rule for Mach 1 enroute to target requirement (340 m/s speed over land minimum) 3. Added condition that a sufficiently clear video in entry exempts uploaded screenshots

Lol, awesome. I love it. I'll update the leaderboard when I get home. The scoring strategy was perfectly valid - you engineered something extremely efficient / cost effective. The example craft's manufacturer's stocks just crashed

After some consideration, ladies and gentlemen, I decided to also specify the rule that your craft's ground speed must exceed Mach 1 (whatever that is exactly in m/s in ksp I'll have to find once I'm home) at some point enroute to the target. I'll update the OP with that once I'm home (I'm kind of scared to try and edit that big thing on my mobile phone). This is to keep things in the spirit of it being a "supersonic" bomber challenge, and also to prevent scenarios where a craft carries seven hundred large bombs to the target while flying relatively slowly. Not to say you couldn't carry a very large number of munitions with a proper supersonic craft.

Oh, I'll clarify what I meant by no gatecrashing. I define gatecrashing in this context as making entries that blatantly violate the rules and/or clearly disregard the intent of the challenge as outlined in the original post. However, since the term could be misunderstood yet still by others, I'll go back and edit that when I get off work to avoid further confusion. No invitation is necessary for this challenge. Anyone may participate Also keep in mind that my entry attempted to set a modest bar of performance; I flew mostly at Mach 2 which was slower than the craft's actual speed potential, and also used a modest amount of force destroying the target, although much heavier payloads could be deployed from the example craft. The score from that is simply a reference point for any submissions, who may easily exceed that score by a tremendous amount, but by the same token their peers will also see opportunities to push the performance or firepower envelope. With a 12,000 pound tallboy bomb or a well placed cluster of maybe 4 or more JDAMs with a direct hit, etc., could potentially register over 3 million heat on the target and amp up your score. You can test out different munitions heat damage on the crater crawler by simply attaching them to it back at ksc and right clicking on them "fire missile", then press f3. Take note of how much heat damage was inflicted. Closeness to the target and multiple munitions tends to increase the damage (obviously).

I suddenly realized what you meant exactly with regard to the challenge. Your time/score should be just fine since the only time to be logged is mission start to target destruction, you can take as long as you want / far as you want to get home

Very good point, thanks. I'll just leave it as manned / unmanned and that'll greatly simplify the leaderboard as well Alright, hopefully everything is set up for you guys to have a go at it. I'm at the end of a very long staying up not sleeping session thanks to a 10 hour energy chased by a Rockstar. I'll sleep about 5 hours then I'll be back. Have fun bros!

Yeah sure It would be a good idea, I'll add those sections to the leader board Sure thing

Alright, just got the drop box link set up: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d9vc2v9xhoi6uj5/persistent.sfs?dl=0 I will add it into the challenge main body in a sec. Sure, go ahead. Your time in seconds will still be computed the same, but at least you'll still be able to compete with any others who use the same method Edit: Bah, sorry. I realize what you meant now exactly with regard to the challenge. Your time/score should be just fine since the only time to be logged is mission start to target destruction, you can take as long as you want / far as you want to get home

I'll get right on that Doc

Challenge description: A terrorist faction known as the Kerbal State of Terrorists and Extremists (KSTE) is at war with you. A KSTE High Value Target (HVT) has been located at the coordinates of lat/long (1°/-111°). Your mission, should you accept this challenge, is to destroy this craft with extreme prejudice using a high speed bomber aircraft. Challenge instructions: 1. Use Hyper Edit to place a Crater Crawler [stock craft] at coordinates lat/long (1°/-111°). Ensure that the brakes are set on it so that it doesn't roll around. Alternatively, you can use this persistent.sfs file of the landed crater crawler: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d9vc2v9xhoi6uj5/persistent.sfs?dl=0 2. Make an aircraft capable of destroying that target using one or more of the following types of weapons: I. (Guided or Unguided)+(unpowered)+(explosive or kinetic) II. (Guided or Unguided)+(rocket or missile)+(explosive or kinetic) 3. Take off from KSC's runway(1st screenshot), fly west over the ocean, and knock out the target (2nd screenshot). Then, turn around, return to KSC, and land on the runway (3rd screenshot). Be sure to take those 3 screen shots AFTER each completed major task. (The screenshots of course aren't needed if you have a video which clearly shows the F3 screenshot's information) Then post your calculations and show how you arrived at your overall score. Challenge scoring: 1. (Weighted as 50% of overall score) Time elapsed in total seconds from mission start until destruction of any part of the target 2. (Weighted as 30% of overall score) Highest heat damage recorded on any single part of the target (can be seen in F3 window after target gets hit) Remember to scroll through that list and record the single highest heat, which will likely exceed the part's tolerance. If you used a kinetic weapon, then your score will be 1,000 multiplied by the number of rover parts destroyed. There are 115 rover parts in the crater crawler, so if all of them were destroyed, that'd be worth 115,000 heat. 3. (Weighted as 20% of overall score) The total cost of your craft as shown in the space plane hangar. The method for determining your overall score is as follows: (A. + B. + C.) where: (MY SECONDS / YOUR SECONDS)*(50) = A. (YOUR HEAT / MY HEAT)*(30) = B. (MY FUNDS / YOUR FUNDS)*(20) = C. To clarify, my example submission is supposed to be used with the above formula as a common reference point / benchmark in scoring each entry. Those are: MY SECONDS = 826; MY HEAT = 60,209; MY FUNDS = 96,617 So, for example: Reference scores from my example submission: A. 13 minutes, 46 seconds = 826 seconds B. 60,209 heat C. 96,617 funds Entrant scores: A. 20 minutes, 45 seconds = 1,245 B. 115,347 heat C. 82,415 funds Entrant overall score: A. (826 / 1,285)*(50) = 32 + B. (115,347 / 60,209)*(30) = 57 + C. (96,617 / 82,415)*(20) = 23 = 112 In the above example scenario, the entrant's overall score was (32+57+23) = 112 points. The higher the overall score is, the better, with a score of 100 being exactly the same as the benchmark. Challenge rules: 1. No gatecrashing please (I define gatecrashing in this context as making entries that blatantly violate the rules and/or clearly disregard the intent of the challenge as outlined in the original post) 2. Your craft must not exceed 30 kilometers altitude above mean sea level 3. You may use any part, flight control, weapon (within the scope of the challenge as outlined), or weapon control mods that are compatible with KSP 1.2 or later, just don't use hyper edit for positioning your bomber or refueling aircraft (if any). Altered physics or planet size differences are prohibited, although a FAR category leaderboard may be added in the future. DRE and KJR are both accepted. 4. All your difficulty settings should be at their default value (at least to ensure consistent aerodynamic heating among competitors) 5. No nuclear weapons may be used (see weapon type guidelines in the challenge instructions) 6. You may use drop tanks or separate parts from your craft, but no part of your primary craft can sustain any type of damage throughout the mission. 7. Your final F3 screen shot after landing needs to show at least that you landed at KSC runway. 8. Usage of pilot assistant, waypoint manager, navhud, etc. is encouraged and recommended. 9. Refueling during the mission is allowed - but only under the very strict condition that it is mid-air refueling only and not within 100 kilometers of the target. For instance, you may takeoff from KSC and link up with an airborne refueler aircraft to top off on fuel if you'd like. Rearming during the mission, however, is not allowed. Since pre-positioning of such a refueler aircraft would adversely affect the time aspect of the scoring by the standard rules, such an entry would grant a pardon and allow the actual start time for the bomber to occur when it began moving down the runway. 10. Submitting additional videos, pictures, craft links, etc. is encouraged and permitted. 11. Multiple entries are allowed. 12. I may not accept an entry as valid if I think it uses a mod or does something that is too overpowered or unrealistic by "my" standards. However, it would have to be pretty severe for that to happen. 13. It doesn't matter if there's a kerbal in the target rover and it does't count for points 14. Since this is a "supersonic" bomber challenge, your highest speed over land shown on the F3 screen after target destruction needs to be equal to or greater than 340 m/s Challenge example submission of my own: Leaderboard: (Entries with an asterisk at the end of their score (i.e. 135*) are ones that used kinetic energy only to destroy the target) Manned: 1. wrench-in-the-works // RFAX-178 Shadowsong // 8500.49 2. Lonogan1 // KDS A-114d 'White Hawk' // 3092.715794670952 3. Deathpuff12 // KB-26 Kraken // 1365 4. ABalazs // A-1002-A Lil Dart // 250 5. ruinzv2 // Decker Mk III // 209 6. DoctorDavinci // CANUKWorks DHB-69 Casper // 203.813 7. sdj64 // BX Crossbow // 162* 8. Nicole // Airshark Super // 135* 9. DebatedNothing // The Sled // 133.662 10. Deathpuff12 // K-25 Skyward // 129 11. wrench-in-the-works // XF-118 Phoenix // 127.14 12. hidude398 // LRB1 // 116.199 Unmanned: 1. Eidahlil // Kreditor Prefekt Drone // 1006 Exhibition Board: 1. DoctorDavinci // CANUKWorks Heinz 57 // "Be gone terrorist, along with the top two kilometers of Kerbin's crust upon which you stand" (Entries here abide by the same rules but are not required to post scores)

Very clever engineering, great stock piloting skills, excellent distribution of inclination angles

You get to be the president of KSC. MAKE KERBIN GREAT AGAIN j/k. It is a unique design tho. Shouldn't be too hard to tack on some extra fuel somehow. Did you burn it all on the way there? What was your craft's fuel mass to overall weight ratio?

Alright I made a fairly simple VTOL and, to avoid feature creeping on it for the next 3 weeks like weaponizing it or doing all the crazy things to it I've thought of, I figured I'd just share it here as it is in its most basic form, and I may come back through with another iteration here and there to show additional capabilities and features I'll be adding to it, like being able to fast rope a Kerbal down onto the island control tower while hovering, etc. I call it the V-Eleventy. Since all the other aircraft model numbers were taken, Jeb decided that Eleventy was an intelligent sounding make believe number. It's a four engine tilt rotor design not much different from some real world concepts. Mods used to build & operate: B9 Procedural Wings, Firespitter, TweakScale, SXT, QuizTech, NavHud, Pilot Assistant. I have lots of other mods too and still need to learn how to get VTOL related stuff working - TCA was giving me grief when I tried to enable it in CKAN. Firespitter's VTOL automatic hover module seems to have some kind of overheating issue, so I altered the config to avoid it, and still the auto hover didn't seem to do anything. So in the end I just used the tilting and steering functions which all seemed to work great. Initial features / design details: 1. Fuel is in the wings and allows for about 1 hour and 15 minutes of flight at full throttle at sea level. Most of the time full throttle isn't needed however and wing pylon mounted drop tanks could be added to extend range. 2. I had to fine tune the thrust limiter for the front pair of engines to properly balance thrust when hovering, so the front engines are thrust limited to 73.5 while the rear ones are at 100. 3. Action-key mapped the VTOL swivel controls for full forward, full vertical, and raise/lower for angles in between with the default increments which work great, not too much and not too little. 4. I learned after a little frustration that QuizTech intake air diverting RCS thrusters won't produce much, if any thrust if you have precision [caps lock] mode engaged. They work great though for stabilizing your craft without having to have monopropellant reserves. I needed them because this craft has difficulty with the roll axis without them. 5. Has a top speed at sea level of somewhere around 143 m/s at full throttle, but cruises at around 100 m/s at 2/3rd throttle. 6. Engines are TweakScaled to 150% size Planned possible future abilities: 1. Ability to auto hover somehow 2. Be able to fast rope kerbals out of the back while hovering 3. Gunship upgrade variant. Basically like an AC-130 VTOL. Radial mounted 105mm cannon, gatling, 40mm bofors, targeting pod to aim them all, etc. 4. Various compatible rovers. Could be science rovers, mining rovers, cargo, military vehicles, etc. Note that various parts of the video have been accelerated or clipped out to keep you from falling asleep and drooling.

Hmmm... interesting... and I just had a thought. What if one could design an aircraft that would fly normally at first using wings for lift, and then after take off while settled into a suitable pitch angle, suddenly retract its wings such that the overall profile was similar to that of an ICBM, fire up a powerful engine cluster and turn itself into a sort of a projectile? The idea would be that the only part taking the brunt of the heat would be the nose cone while the wings would be safely tucked away, and the thrust to drag ratio and velocity would be so high that you would basically rapidly accelerate the craft into a nice long trajectory, making it as drawn out as possible without exceeding 30km altitude. Might be easier to do in FAR with thinner air because obviously the fuel consumption fighting all that lower atmosphere drag would be insane. Then, once the apex is reached close to 30 km altitude, the craft would shift into a supercruise mode - extending wings to a special configuration different than that of takeoff. Once near return to KSC, the craft would then retract wings back into projectile mode, and using atmospheric trajectory prediction could basically plummet through the atmosphere with a high ballistic coefficient and heat tolerance until it slowed enough to deploy a landing configuration. Would the mods to execute such a craft be illegal for the challenge, such as trajectories and some kind of robotics to manipulate the wings? I'll have to read the rules again Edit: Ah yeah, stock parts only. Oh well I just thought it'd be a cool concept. Might be cool in theory and very hard in practice anyway.

Lol, I remember following this challenge last time around. Competition was fierce and many of the fastest times in the speed category were within what seemed like 1% of one another. It seems like the primary dictating factor here is part heat limits. I wonder, are there any legit non-spirit breaking methods for dealing with heat? Does the use of radiators make any difference at helping out with hot parts like the nose, wings, or nacelles? I'm not sure of the specific game mechanics where radiators are concerned.