swjr-swis

This doesn't happen in stock. I notice you have a decent amount of mods loaded, including visual enhancements - suspect would be those, or any mods that add 'internals' or cockpit transparency views.

Does a 45t supersonic passenger airliner count as heavy operations? First let's scout the place. I still had a seaplane nearby that location (from a previous visitation of Ben Creag), so time to extend that trip a little.

I think that's officially the highest population the island has ever had.

I didn't copy it from anyone, that's all I can say for certain. So if you want to throw around credit, I'm fine to 'be it' for now - but be prepared to rectify if and when someone else pipes up and claims it.

Indeed it is! Welcome to our little retreat. I'd offer a coconut drink with an umbrella, but the island is all out of coconuts. Settle for an umbrella?

I was summoned? Seeing as how my craft ended up upside down on the side of this rather prominent peak, I thought of naming it after the mountain/peak in the end shot of Cliffhanger. But for the life of me, I can't remember what it was called in the movie. So I'll settle for "Point Break" (from an entirely different movie). Navigational clues: Head straight NW from the KSC until you cross a large sea. You'll spot this landmark as a lone white peak on the other shore, north/right from you. Or head roughly east from Hotel26's Fake Victoria Falls. Again it will be north from your path, but on the left-hand side.

I pretty much stopped using the sandbox game mode because of this. It's not a real sandbox if you can't tweak ALL settings at will. So I got used to creating my own 'sandbox+' mode: Start a career game, with all settings as I want them. Immediately create a 'clean' save at the start of time, so I can always return to a pristine start by loading it. Call up the cheat menu, add the required funds/science/rep, and cheat or manually add in the things for the particular sandbox I need at that moment. Make a new save with those settings, so I can revert back to this at will. Optional: load the pristine save to return to a clean start situation. Rinse and repeat to create however many different 'sandboxes' I foresee using. This 'career' game is now my sandbox, in which I can call up whichever specific constraints I wish by loading the corresponding named save. Those saves also retain many of the difficulty settings you change through the esc menu, so even that can be customized at will. All within a single 'save', through the magic of multiple savefiles. But yes, I agree, it would be very welcome if the sandbox mode directly allowewd us to pick and choose tech tree and facility level limitations, among many other settings.

Your challenge, your rules. I'm fine with that invalidating most of my current entries. But keep in mind that prohibiting ore tanks will just start an arms race of sorts, finding the next best heaviest part to add to the craft. And it's trivial to add near-infinite density mass at minimal drag penalty by using bays or fairings. The real problem is not the ore's low drag; it's that the scoring formula offers: marginal benefit from optimizing for top speed, which is hard. (Even disregarding the high penalty on engine count, max speed will never exceed 820 m/s. That offers only a potential maximum 26.5% of improvement over the fastest entry so far.) a very significant benefit from maximizing weight to engine ratio, which is relatively easy. (As shown by JunoSlab-51, it can potentially go as high as 51t per Juno. Heaviest ratio entry up to now was 20-ish t per Juno, so there's theoretically still up to 155% scoring improvement possible. Very likely less, but still a whole lot more than speed optimization offers.) Given the above, you can expect anyone seriously entering for a top score to be optimizing for the high mass factor, one way or another.

Those FAT-455 tail fins you're using as wings are holding your plane down in that region. They're too draggy, even at absolute minimal AoI or deployment settings. I managed 365 m/s after a lot of tweaking, and it was still too far from punching through. With the exact same body, I switched those tail fins for Big-S elevon 2, and without any further optimization it shot through to Mach 1.7, without need for diving, reaching a top around 628 m/s. That would score your plane a good thousand points more.

It's been quiet for a few days. Let's stir this pot a bit. How about a 'draggy' Mk3 entry? Presenting the USC-F1, scoring 663.5 m/s * ( 17.145t / 5 junos) = 2275.142. Currently runner up in the supersonic category. It uses oxidizer for balance and as stand-in for cargo. With deployment at 12, it cruises at 4.5km and just under Mach 2 for a very decent range.

Looks like the forum ate the reply I tried to post on this last night. It was of course a completely brilliant dissertation with iron-clad argumentation on a perfect scoring system for functional and aesthetically pleasing speedrecord-breaking aeroplanes... but alas, the napkin I wrote it on is lost forever. What I still remember: @Aetharan, I like some of the things you propose and hope we can find a way to include them in the scoring. That said: I do think your proposal is a tad too complicated. I don't mind math, but it might discourage entrants. If you need more time to calculate the score than to build/fly a candidate plane, we've gone too far. People might just plonk down a few pics and leave it to the host or others to do the scoring. Either way, it would become not fun. I welcome the idea of including factors of functionality, but I feel this challenge should remain, as @Lisias says, mainly about top speed. Any other factors, even combined, should have less impact on the score than speed itself. Just an opinion of course. We want to encourage 'actual planes'. Many of the requirements mentioned so far could simply be part of the challenge rules/requirements of entry: things that are mandatory and should be in the design to even compete. If defined clearly in the rules, they don't need to factor in the scoring at all. Requiring proof of landing intact might be one of them. Linking to the craft file so anyone can verify the entry if so inclined. Smaller number of engines should be favoured in the scoring somehow. Engine number as a divisor seems too harsh a punishment though - if anyone wishes to enter a huge jumbojet replica using only Junos, and it happens to fly fast, I would love to see it get a proper score. Still not really sure how to factor this in though. May be as simple as detracting number of engines from the score total? It should really just be a sort of tie breaker. While I do like long-range planes, and Junos certainly lend themselves to this, I don't agree with making it equally important as speed. It's also not trivial to establish range accurately: F3 tends to give unreliable numbers, mods have been proven to differ in their calculations in other challenges, approximations of the type 'cruise speed * (fuel / fuel consumption)' depend on other variables (SAS y/n, trim, cruising altitude, etc), and simply flying until flame out will quickly grow tedious for longer ranges. So not really sure how to get this in. Maybe a single +100 points if it can circumnavigate? (post pictorial proof of success). Passenger count is a nice thought, same as cargo, but I'd rather see this calculated though categories: Eg. +10 poins for 1-5 passengers, +20 for 5-15, etc, with some maximum category to avoid spam tactics. Time's up for today, work beckons and I need to fit in a bit of sleep.

In the transsonic or supersonic regimes, perhaps. Bigger cross-sections do suffer more from the thicker atmosphere at sea level. I noticed this with the Mk3 Dodo, which much preferred a bit of altitude. Subsonic though, drag is not significant enough yet - and the best you can do is drop to sea level to milk every decimal of thrust the Juno can offer. The heaviest plane on 1 Juno challenge (JunoSlab-51 being the winning entry there) shows that it's possible to go much heavier still. Diminishing returns, as at one point airspeeds get so low that scoring would suffer, but I think you're still a bit away from the optimum. I decided to give it a try: USC-Z4b is a subsonic design, single 1.25m stack, one Juno, four Big-S delta wings, four strakes. I added a passenger cabin and a cargo bay with battery, probe core and panels, plus some ore (playing the part of cargo as well as helping to balance). 35 parts, 20.732t with every tank topped up. Acceleration is pretty slow, but steady - at the time I recorded its top speed it was still not done, I just got tired. It flies very nicely with or without SAS, although it has a tendency to roll very slowly that I haven't been able to remove after several rebuilds. If you decide to fly it with SAS, keep an eye on pitch because the constant flutter of the control surfaces will make it slowly dip its nose. It needs a bit more wing AoI to maintain level flight without input. If you decide to change this, the wings are attached to a cubic octagonal strut in the service bay, which is where I dialed in the rotation. And you might want to adjust authority on the various control surfaces to get responsiveness to your own taste. It's also just a tad unbalanced; as fuel is used, CoL sneaks a bit forward. All in all though it serves its purpose for an entry to this challenge.

Note that the way scoring is right now, you'll need a ratio of 2.5 to 3 tonnes per Juno to be competitive. This may change though, so don't let that keep you from entering any design you have! You got good speed with that first one.

Nonsense. What NASA needs is a good challenge. Let's make it a race, and someone design a cool badge - seems to work well enough here in the forum. Moar boosters! Crazy gravity assists! Kraken drives! C'mon, let's get those creative juices going! (NASA's favourite words: "It works in Kerbal Space Program.")

Unfortunately I am much quicker at picking up on weaknesses in scoring formulae once I see/test them, than I am at thinking up better alternatives. I'll ponder on this.

I've spent very little time in versions past 1.3.1, so I've not noticed that 'starting' mass in the dV readout is not actually the starting mass - or at least a bit ambiguous. I'll take your word for it. In that case, ignore my mistaken assumption please. The numbers of my entry will require adjusting, but I think it still comes out on top (fuel mass used is rather low to make much of a difference). Don't credit me for that craft, it's not mine in any way. The first one is literally the original craft as used in another old challenge; the second one is the exact same craft with some insignificant changes just to make the point about mass being so much more of a factor. Clear, I made a wrong assumption there in my too-furtive scrolling through the thread. All's good then, just my entry needs adjusting. 81 units of LF burned is correct. Thank you for adjusting.

The heaviest craft I've seen on a single Juno was over 51 tonnes. Top speed in the video is 43.2 m/s (3:38), it could only fly through MJ's pilot assist to keep it from stalling, and one can debate if it's still an airplane, but it took off from the KSC runway and landed intact at the island. Let's do the math. 43.2 m/s * (51.185 t / 1 juno) = 2211.192. Exchanging the two outer layers of wingpanels by one extra juno to more than double the speed (but losing 4.5 t of mass): 88 m/s * (45.564 t / 2 junos) = 2004.816.

From what I see on the scoreboard so far, everyone but you has used launch mass. Unless @Laie decides to correct every entry up to here, you'd just be putting yourself at a disadvantage by calculating it differently. (please ignore, as I made an incorrect assumption here.) Additionally, if mass at top speed is deemed required, anyone playing pure stock will be locked out since the rules also require that the used mass is visible somewhere on screen, and there is no stock read out that will show that in the flight scene. There is one in the map view, but then you wouldn't be able to show the plane or the other details. It's not even a tweaked design really. I did nothing to minimize drag, for example. That said, there's no secrets to it: it reuses basic ideas from the previous challenge. But you are focusing on the wrong thing - you thought this challenge was about speed, when it's really all about weight to engine ratio. You already start with a lower mass than my craft, and then it's divided over one more engine. On that same plane, try removing one engine and adding more weight. Ignore the loss of top speed this will cause. You'll still gain a huge chunk of points.

Sometimes a different method of scoring can yield interesting differences in design optimization, so I'm always interested in challenge reboots. A few remarks though: 1) The above line makes me a little sad. While it is true many entries in the previous challenge were more ballistic missiles than planes, and landing or even keeping the craft intact was left entirely optional, a good few entries were in every sense of the term 'actual planes'. I think my winning entry for the manned category was too, even if severely optimized towards speed (which the challenge was actually about). Despite the optimizations and spartan comfort level, it had a pilot seat, control surfaces, retractable landing gear, could take off practically hands-free, was capable of controlled flight, included a probe core, was remarkably easy to handle and acrobatic for a speed-optimized craft, and could land intact given a good stretch of runway. If I remember correctly, when fully fueled, it could get to anywhere on Kerbin, maybe even circumnavigate. It did use 'a bundle of Junos' (25), I'll admit to that, but then at what number do we no longer consider something an 'actual plane'? There were many entries from others that got very respectable speeds out of significantly less engines that were actual planes too. In that same thread, I also showed several Mach 2+ designs based on the generally-considered 'too draggy' Mk2 and Mk3 cross-sections using 6 or less Junos for power, which were, if maybe a bit odd-shaped, 'actual planes' as well. All in all, I think the above statement summarily dismisses all that work a bit too easily. 2) I get that you're trying to penalize large numbers of Junos, but the challenge title is now misleading. Your way of scoring this reboot makes total take off weight more significant than actual top speed, which makes the challenge not really be about 'fastest'. 'Most efficient Juno-powered transport' or some-such would more clearly convey the challenge. Unsurprisingly, so far the best-scoring entries are slow-flying but relatively heavy designs. Anyway, onwards to the challenge. I am a bit disappointed to notice that entrants seem to not have taken notice of lessons learned during the previous incarnations of this challenge. There's a lot of valuable information to be gleaned from that thread. A few minutes work based on what I remember from then gave me a lean supersonic design that in its maiden flight beat everything entered so far by a good margin - even the subsonic ones (2 engines, 652.5 m/s at 7.55 t). The only tweaking I did for the second iteration (the entry shown below) was replace the rear cone by a chute to make the landing need a lot less runway. Note that despite this taking 4.5 m/s off the top speed, the added 0.09 t (!) of weight made it score even higher. As they say: no pics, no leaderboard. So here's my first entry (yes that's a fully-loaded ore tank in its center, I wonder why): USC-B2 = 648 m/s, 2 engines, 7.64 tonnes -> 648 * (7.64 / 2) -> 648 * 3.82 -> a score of 2475.36 (in the supersonic category). And yes, those are elevons being used as main lifting surfaces. Why did I use a part with only half the lift/weight ratio of a 'real' wing? Hint: it's explained and demonstrated in the previous challenge thread. Fair(ing) warning: for my next trick entry, I may use a fairing.

Well, FF is calculating incorrectly then, probably with a fixed speed of sound as measured at sea level. It probably doesn't take into account that altitude has an effect on Mach numbers (because the speed of sound is slower in the lower density gas found at higher altitudes). No mod needed. In the stock game, open the debug menu (default is Alt-F12 or Mod-F12 on PC), click on Physics/Aero, and enable "Aero Data in Action Menus". Rightclick almost any part on your craft, and you will notice it will be showing some extra data, including the Mach number. Pin that menu and you have a continuous display to keep an eye on and to use in screenshots for proof.

I still had a save of my SeaPlane One in that neighbourhood from a previous exploration run, so I loaded it up. Took me a bit of time to match the angles for the screenshots, and to land for historical flagging and peak altitude measurement.

As one of the site's moderators, let me reply to this. The general sentiment in the KerbalX development and moderation team is much as you word it here, there being only one person of a differing opinion (*). The good news for you and all sharing this sentiment: @katateochi has considered the matter and has stated he's started working on adapting the site to remove this aspect of it. There is no ETA on this; it is not a trivial change, development time is at a premium. It'll be done when it's done, but it has been set in motion and it is coming. (*: I am, incidentally, that one dissenter. I think the whole voting system, regardless of its implementation, doesn't really offer as much, as accurate, or as valuable a form of feedback as people think it does, and that it should be removed entirely. On the other hand I am of the opinion that if one is to implement any kind of voting system at all, crippling it by removing half of the possible scoring spectrum only serves to further devaluate and ambiguate the little information that might be conveyed from it. We already have the option to comment in text, allowing very nuanced feedback and/or criticism, in one and the same comment if need be. The site also tells us how many views and downloads our craft have had individually, and how many other subscribers follow us as a designer. All in all that permits a much more meaningful evaluation of how our shared work is perceived than a tally of semi-subconsciously-clicked green arrows - that may be much more indicative of people's personal (dis)like of us, or how active/popular we are on other offsite channels, than of the actual quality/impact of our shared designs.)

They most certainly do. There is a ModuleCoreHeat in the part configuration, and it is set to transfer and radiate a small part of its core heat. In small numbers this will appear to have very little effect, but in the conditions explained here it will absolutely start to accumulate.

Well, I did say visitation, not discovery. So we're saying the same thing. The age of imperialism has come to an end, after all. ("What's that behind your back?" "It's Mt. Kerverest and a number of other landmarks." "Give it back." "Oh alright. But we need the Island Airport. For strategic... sheep purposes." ).

Distance as shown by F3? Leaves me dabsmack in the middle of a very green continent, no sand or water to be seen. At 1000km, I was flying right over some whitepeaked mountains. After the turn and another 1000km, some more mountains. If you're measuring through something other than F3, distances (and search area) could vary a lot. I'll try again when I get back. Val wants to go scuba diving!