zolotiyeruki

Thanks for the consideration! I guess I've played enough KSP that there wasn't a whole lot new, although I enjoyed designing the habitation modules. It's been a long time since I've done an asteroid capture, and never brought an asteroid into the atmosphere, so that'll be new. I'll have to come up with a creative way to bring it back, and there'll probably be a few quicksave moments, since I have no idea what's going to happen with the CoM/CoL on re-entry. Is it necessary to land with the asteroid still attached to the shuttle, or could I drop it on the KSC grounds and then land the shuttle separately?

How do you keep the really long fuselage from flexing? Whenever I have a long plane with the wings centered (rather than distributed), it flexes really badly.

I've updated Stage 4 to be in order. Somehow I managed to upload a bunch of pictures from stage 4 into the stage 2 album. That's fixed now, and stage 2 was already in order. Stage 2: http://imgur.com/a/nUBym Stage 4: http://imgur.com/a/VsTKh

I have a slightly quicker time to turn in. 25:17. Just before sending the plane off, the KSC staff realized Hayne had left the coffee machine going, so they had to send a replacement scientist to make sure the airport didn't burn down. http://imgur.com/a/PutAB

HAHAHA! I think you broke the challenge right there. That's brilliant!

Alright, here's the Space station assembly, missions 5, 6, and the first part of 7. Properly captioned and in order. http://imgur.com/a/mi6v4 I've rearranged the pictures for 7&8 as well. For some reason, imgur put them in randomly when I uploaded. Grrr.

I must have snuck them in under your nose, then Looks like I haven't posted 5-6 yet, though. Here's #2: Here's #4:

Finished up stages 5-8 today. The habitation module consists of a larger common area, and six private cabins. I stuck another science module on, along with some solar panels. One of the private cabins had floated off, so I recovered it along the way. A bunch of the docking happened on the dark side of the planet, so the pictures aren't very good. Also, the Kraken attacked one of my shuttles, tearing off the LV-Ns, my solar panels, my main landing gear, and a whole bunch of liquid fuel. Fortunately, I had a bit of oxidizer left, so I was able to de-orbit. I hope that my landing in the shallows right next to KSC doesn't disqualify the entry. http://imgur.com/a/7JCkK

Point of order--Cunjo Carl's craft was *not* 1.87 tons. The rules don't say that jettisoned parts can be ignored So add back in the mass of those command pods and decouplers, dangit!

With this new information about the Mk3 passenger cabins, here's my entry #3. 31.924 tons / 64 kerbals = .4988 http://imgur.com/gallery/FZCV7 Take out the 295 extra fuel, and you can save another almost 1.5 tons. EDIT: Did some tweaking. Added another passenger compartment, a few other tweaks. Now 37.28 tons/80 passengers = 0.466 http://imgur.com/a/0jqAt Sure, it looks kinda like a bus, but this is mass transit, right?

Ah, my mistake--I was under the impression that the Mk3 was 8 tons.

I edited my post with an updated entry with a better score. Can you update the leaderboard?

Here's my entry: 130 Kerbals, a hair under 88 tons. Score = 88/130 = 0.6769 http://imgur.com/a/xFlRC Are we allowed non-part mods like MechJeb or Pilot Assistant or KER? Here's attempt #2. Same 130 Kerbals, but only 81.126 tons. Score: 81.126 /130 = 0.624 http://imgur.com/a/mjO96 There's a hard lower limit at 0.5--the highest kerbal-per-ton pod/capsule/etc is the 4-kerbal Mk2 crew pod or the Mk3 16-passenger or the Mk1 passenger compartment, which are all at 2 kerbals/ton.

It is traditional for the OP of a challenge to post their own entry first, to 1) prove it's possible, and 2) inspire other players.

The score is tons/kerbals. Does that mean (mass of plane / #of kerbals), or (mass of fuel used/# of kerbals), or (pick either mass or # of kerbals transported)? Can you clarify the scoring please?

Right--it's a guide that will make it more likely (though not guaranteed) that other users will participate.

Did the rescue. This one was kinda boring, since the shuttle has already proven itself several times. I can't wait to go to Duna (but I have to build a space station first)! To be honest, these launches all look the same--it's the same shuttle with the same boosters, just a few different things in the cargo bay. I had, again, a lot of extra fuel on landing, and this time, it nearly lost me the mission. Got a little wild on (and off) the runway. http://imgur.com/a/VsTKh

If you think it's ready for prime time, take what you've written, edit your first post in the thread, and then I'd suggest you update the title so that other forum-goers know that it's ready for people to play.

Whoops, my bad--I forgot to post the results of that mission. Here it is: http://imgur.com/a/nUBym

No, I don't think your work is done. You've received some help on how to refine the challenge into something interesting. it's still up to you to form the ideas into a workable (and fun!) challenge.

Here's my HST run. Boatloads of LF left over. http://imgur.com/a/FuoDk TIL that the performance improvements in 1.1.3 are still not enough to let my computer handle high-part-count craft...

Maybe you could word it like this: "build a craft with a heat shield full of ablator. Get it into space, and then re-enter. Burn off as much ablator as possible without burning *all* of it, and land safely. Your score is the percent of ablator used up." And you can add various tweaks to make it more interesting, like: --once on a re-entry profile, do not touch the controls until re-entry is complete, i.e. ablator is no longer being consumed --extra leaderboard: largest ratio of burned-ablator-mass to total craft mass (i.e. 100kg or ablator used on a 1T craft = 10%)

I designed it that way, looking forward to the eventual Laythe mission, where I'll drop cargo out the bottom. The high wing creates some controllability issues on re-entry--it's really stable in a nose-up (almost radial-out), high drag attitude. So stable that I literally cannot force the nose down, even if I pump all the remaining fuel to the forward tank. The reason I haven't posted any more progress is because I'm working on something special for laythe.

You can complete the challenge with or without FAR, whichever you prefer. It's just a separate leaderboard for each.

Oh, I hadn't considered that the ore pod would be *filled* !