swjr-swis

RFP-F Flag Flat. One of the stock parts added since... 1.11 I think? In the utility section. It adds no drag or even collision; that way I can have all parts visually connected and still spread my wheel base.

Is this a private party, or can my R100EC-1 rover enter too? Seats lying down to lower drag. I needed a Jr dock for correct control orientation, so I used cones and a 0.625 battery limited to 100 EC. Trying my luck with the DLC rover wheels. Using a flag to visually connect everything with zero extra drag. On the KSC runway, flag planted. Resource panels shows 100 EC (battery at half capacity). Ran almost out of juice just as a pretty steep hill got in my way of following the coastline - even the bit of climb killed the rest. I may have to retry a different path to get a bit further. 13.5 km as the crow flies.

Except:

Thank you for reminding me of this one; I keep forgetting to do this again for every KSP instance. Undoing the frustrating editor offset limits, this, and lowering kerbal respawn to 5 mins (more than enough to pull themselves together after a crash. Back to work, I have craft to test!). Well, that and the ISAIDNOCAMERAWOBBLEDAMMIT! portrait setting (CAMERA_FX_INTERNAL = 0) that newer KSP versions no longer honour...

@Thundrevv Test payload of exactly 50 t (inert), feel free to add to the OP for standard use by everyone: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ydxqmh6p4bpk01q/00000-50t.craft?dl=0 Also, a first entry to get things started, since no one else has submitted anything yet. I'm going for a pure stock entry, no mods or DLC at all. Intended to land all stages with parachutes on drone ships, since that's the best scoring option. Lifter is 2x side boosters, 1x core stage, 1x extender+cabin, with the core stage and side boosters being almost identical. Complies with all stated rules as of the moment of this posting: Central core is Size 2 (2.5m) Has three cores, same size. It is fully reusable, second and later stages included (with exception of the fairing and engine shrouds, but that's standard in such challenges, even if not explicitly stated). It's obviously not an SSTO, or it wouldn't comply with rule #2. It can be both remote-controlled and crewed. Recorded run is with crew, but all stages including the extender have a probe core and comms for full remote capability. No cheats (Kraken drive, Alt-f12 menu, KAL glitch etc.). Since it's pure stock, all recovery is done through savefile reloading, as permitted by OP. Note though that it is necessarily done in reverse order, due to the time-critical path to circularize the payload first. WIP context for the curious: So my entry then: the FRL3C50T-B, recorded on a minimum-score successful run, all parts recovered undamaged. This was just aiming to recover everything as the challenge requires, no drone ships yet. Scoring for 2x side boosters on water (2x 20p)+ 1x center booster on land (1x 80p) + 1x extender stage on land (1x 80p) and price of 121799 funds (payload cost excluded): by the original OP method: (2x20 + 1x80 + 1x80) + (121799 / 1000) / 2 = 160.8995 by my suggested alternative calculation: (2x20 + 1x80 + 1x80) * 1000 / 121799 = 1.642 Pictorial evidence of craft, flight, payload delivery, and individual recovery of all stages: P.S.: This design is 'no rights reserved, free to do as you please with it' as far as I'm concerned. If it gives any other entrants ideas for improved versions, you have my blessing to tinker away and enter your result as a competing entry. The craft file is linked here for anyone to try it. I just want to see a successful landing of all stages on drone ships, by anyone - fair play if you happen to succeed before I do, because I have limited free time and will take a while to get it.

Looking at this more closely now: it favours building the most expensive lifter possible - building cheaply would just bring the average down. Alternative: points * 1000 / price. This would result in a score range between 0.5 - 5.00 or so, higher being better (high points and low price). This is assuming points scoring for 2x side boosters, 1x core, 1x extender as a maximum. @QF9E 's question about additional stages also getting points is very valid.

This one I wondered too. It's the only way to make a full recovery including side boosters happen in a pure stock game, and how I was attempting to make an entry for this. Still not easy to make happen, but not entirely impossible anymore... IF loading a save point is allowed.

He's doing this out of his own pocket and in his spare time next to a demanding full time job and other real life stuff, folks. Keep that in mind. As frustrating as it is, be assured that your reports have been seen, and the errors are being looked into. Unfortunately the current spell of instability is looking like a problem in the hosting platform itself. Moving the site to a different and more reliable hosting provider is currently being investigated, but it's not a quick easy thing to decide or do. A live database needs to be migrated, there's code compatibility to consider, money has to be spent, and certainly not least free time slots have to be found for the actual move. If it were a code fix it might've already been resolved, but this is a project by its own right. In the meantime, I'll keep fielding and answering the reports here as best I can.

I do think previous airliner challenges suffered a bit from being subject to individual interpretation. I think there is sufficient room to use objective in-game parameters to judge operating efficiency. A few examples: There's three actual runways in the stock game (KSC, Island, Dessert). One can request evidence to be submitted of flights between those runways, 1) as proof of flight and landing capability, and 2) with starting/ending fuel numbers shown to calculate fuel efficiency. KSC-Island is bare minimum on flight range, while KSC-Dessert is a good validation for medium-range liners. Island runway is a good measure for short take off and landing (we are focusing on airliners here, not carrier-graded planes), offering sufficient contrast with the KSC runway length. A few other locations can serve for additional judgement/points on landing capability, and serve as examples of typical tourist routes. KSC-Temple and KSC-Baikerbanur come to mind. The geography of those locations add some extra difficulty to approach and landing compared to the runways. Long-range capability can be judged by successful flights from KSC to Poles, opposite side of Kerbin, and/or a full circumnavigation. Lat/Lon can be shown even in full stock games as proof. Cruise altitude can be divided in 'bands' to add different point values. Same with cruise speed, cost, passenger capacity. Fuel burn is a tricky one. From an operating perspective, I think I'd rather know total fuel usage after landing at destinations. Reason: a plane that can cruise very efficiently once at altitude might still burn off quite a bit on the climb to said altitude. Which could make such a plane very inefficient for short(er) routes. 'Maintenance' can be simplified to part count. Divide in bands for different point values. Use a few of these parameters to define a few separate categories. Range and passenger capacity come to mind as the most prominent separators. This will allow people to submit planes tuned to their best affinities and encourage more people to submit entries. I think using things like the above would allow people to pretty much judge their own entry already. The OP or judges would just need to confirm the given information and check on the entry being within the requested category parameters.

Message received and passed on. One thing that would help investigating the cause is if we had the craft files that the site keeps crashing on. Since this can't be done through the site itself, use one of these alternatives: Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/request/WrDKybZC8DbCMnrmFlih e-mail mailto:support@kerbalx.com Thank you.

Just type the tag (without the #) in the search bar.

Thou art hereby anointed in the Holy Order of Antioch, having fulfilled the Quest to its honourable completion.

Making it too hard. I shall read from the Book of Instructions, chapter two, verses nineteen through twenty-one: And the Jeb spake, saying, 'First shalt thou start a new career, granting thyself the maximum starting funds. Then shalt thou upgrade one facility, no more, no less. One shall be the number thou shalt upgrade, and the number of the upgrading shall be one. Two shalt thou not upgrade, neither upgrade thou zero, excepting that thou then proceed to one. Three is right out. Once the number one, being the only upgrade, be reached, then spawnest thou thy intrepid kerbal, who, being within sight of the Holy Twins of Ginormity, shall explore it.' Takes all of one minute maybe. Just don't let Jeb start on about the sloths and stuff.

1 and 3 unequivocally discovered. I can't confirm 2 though. I think the wormhole evaporated when they redid Kerbin's textures, so that may be why you don't see it anymore in 1.11.2. Although on mine it still looks very sandy. But the shape of that patch is unique and spot on. I do recognise the background, you're in the correct vicinity. I do however not recognise those specific towers. I went and loaded up 1.11.2 and went back and forth in time to see in what epoch those existed... but I can't find them. Any chance those are a residue of Kerbal Constructs? The only place on Kerbin with that particular structure.

Let's revive it then.

Start with something like this, and build bigger around it: Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/swjr-swis/SMOL-VTOL

A recently posted challenge found me sleepless and bored and ... ... .. why am I doing things with props again?!

'Distrubutur' huh? Don't eat potato chips and type...

There I went.

Ok one more then. Sally calls this The Philadelphia Experi-truss. o.O Hint: Obviously on KSC premises, but... you can't walk the walk, unless you retier the career. Same place, moments before the scientists hit the switch...

There's also this very temporary feature my kerbals named the 'Bank of Einstein-Rosen' (which incidentally may actually explain where kerbals come from and how they came to be on an otherwise uninhabited planet in a barren solar system): Hint: Thinly veiled by the sands of time, facilitated by its secondary nature, soon to be washed away by the tides of entertainment. Edit: Hmm, are youtube links suddenly no longer embedded? Just shows a non-interactable black panel for me. Gif-ified imgur link then: Bah, doesn't seem to work either, just gives me a still image. The interwebs are making me sad today. video is at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MsWeC9B3mo

Val also found this old snap of her visit to what she calls, with a mysterious grin, 'the Ginormous Twins'. Hint: Things are not as they seem. This pad is next level, yo.

Val has some fond memories of that little place.

Jolly well. In that case, I wish to nominate @Akagi to be added to the roster of intrepid explorers whose club affiliation shall not be named or discussed, and request the awardance of the appropriate amount of pointage. Have you decided by what name we shall henceforth know this quaint little lake?

Might this be the place? Terrain detail is different due to 1.3.1, but the outline of both the lake and the background mountains are pretty much identical.