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I am not sure, if this has been done before, at least, I didn't find any challenge like this... There are various vehicles in use in KSP, serving a lot of different purposes. It is hard to say which vehicle is the best - unless you compare them under equal conditions. Obviously, a faster vehicle is better. Same goes for a vehicle that does accelerate fast and for one that can stop fast. But what is fast? In order to find out, build a vehicle, launch it from the space plane hangar, achieve a maximum speed and come to a stop, before you run out of runway. Rules: a) A vehicle is any given set of parts that can carry Kerbals or payloads (or both) (you don't need to have wheels, it may lift off, whatever...) b) You may use any form of propulsion or acceleration as long as it is included in the stock game. c) The runway is defined by that big long rectangle of tormac at the KSC (the green slopes are not considered to be part of the runway as of this challenge) Highest "speed over land" wins. Screenshot/Video or it didn't happen. The List of Best Vehicles Danken94 - 713 m/s Jefzor - 618 m/s qzgy - 447 m/s Martian Emigrant - 289 m/s something - 265 m/s So here's my attempt: 265m/s with quite some runway to spare. However, at 270m/s I constantly ran out of runway....still wondering how Jeb and Bill survived those 14.8G ...

Kerbal physics allow for part A to crash into part B with only part A exploding. That means survival is a question of the cabin crashing or being crashed into by something. With the bridge down, there could be good chances that the bridge actually survived...

On the other hand, given the headline to content ratio of 12 characters/character, he's doing better than most mission reports...

Has this tool ever been tested with GNU Octave? https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/ I am just asking since octave is Open Source and mostly compatible with matlab code - and mostly it is the differences that do mess up the code... Also, octave is available for Linux, Mac and Windows which would make it universally useable.

So apparently kuzzter changed his mind and removed that last panel. Which makes my analysis a bit wrong, but most if it is still entirely correct...

Just in case it helps some of you congesting what just happened: So first, let's bust this "April Fools"-myth. The final update was published on Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 01:32h UTC+2. Technically it wasn't even April Fools Day at UTC (Friday, March 31 at 23:32h there) and technically it wasn't April Fools Day at UTC-4 either (but Friday around prime time). So why should the update be considered an April Fools Day prank? It might have been April Fools Day in Central Europe and East of it, but that's not the point - why should any arbitrary time zone have been taken into account? There is no hint there. Let's furthermore recall the thread title for the update before. It was "Chapter 19 pg 9: Qd8+". Now any reader will be familiar with chess at this point so look up the move "9 Qd8+" on the web. You will find one match: Reti vs Tartakower. That match ended with a white win after 11 Bd8#. So the basic question is who is white and who is black, right? Now, you would assume that the Kerbals where white, but they aren't - it is the Kerbulans. Otherwise they wouldn't announce "Check" on page 9, would they? From there on it is straight forward to the end. White wins in move 11. Now, watch closely how the Kerbulans manipulate the poll on page 11 - the final move. The rest is - once more - straight forward. I have to admit, when I first saw the announcement of the Kerbulans winning on page 9, I was a bit confused and thought I misinterpreted something here but well, @Kuzzter sticked so tightly to the eleven moves, this cannot be coincidence. Maybe @Kuzzter will continue this in a few months time, but I'd bet against it. As I said, there's no hint supporting that point of view - at least in my opinion. Also, there already have been several announcements from @Kuzzter pointing out that he wished it was over... so yeah.

Pricing will be announced as a big event which will have been announced as a communiqué which will have been announced. Hard to miss. Squad is gonna hype the release beyond recognition so everybody will have had a chance to read about it, even if you will have wanted to ignore it :)

April Fools Day is over. Message not removed. That's the end then. If any moderator sees this message, then please lock the topic and let this story rest in peace.

The STS used a drop tank and two SRBs to propel the Orbiter into Orbit. As both boosters and a tank were dropped on its way to LEO, this was a 3 stage rocket. The Buran programme used a several LOX engines to get the Orbiter into Orbit. As the 4 boosters and the central stage were dropped, this was a 3 stage rocket. So yeah, all real world "shuttle" or space plane examples did drop engines on its way to orbit...

Well if you do drop parts before reaching orbit, then you do have a space plane, but not an SSTO. Would you, however, get rid of the tanks after you finished orbital insertion, you would have a SSTO space plane and the drop tanks would be payload from a technically point of view (although some challenges around here require to detach payload as full as it had been on take off). If your drop tanks have an engine attached, you technically built a shuttle, according to the shuttle challenge....

I have completed this challenge before, and I did have great fun doing so with my various space plane models. Realizing this challenge celebrates its 5th anniversary this year I needed to do something special... The rules clearly state that losing parts in flight is against the rules and that decoupling was forbidden as well. Realizing that a ladder does cost 440 funds while a stack decoupler comes in at around 400 funds, I developed the cockpit lift system which lets your Kerbals exit the cockpit without the need of expensive ladders. You might argue it was against the rules, but that's all totally legal once you stage after landing. You mission report will state that you separated instead of using the forbidden word of decoupling. So well in that sense the space plane would be both a valid entry and a gate crasher until @boolybooly comes around and measures it. Yeah, you already guessed it: I went to orbit and landed back on the KSC runway just in order to see what @boolybooly would write in his gate-crasher entry list...we just need an appropriate name....what about Erwin? Erwin at take off - https://postimg.org/image/tbkl1vs5z/ Supersonic flight - https://postimg.org/image/akinrpxlj/ Achieving orbit - https://postimg.org/image/ycrz38zmf/ Final approach - https://postimg.org/image/aafqm48d3/ Erwin landed on the KSC runway - https://postimg.org/image/7udx89qaf/ Nothing fell off during flight - https://postimg.org/image/9ngtwlbh3/ Using the cost efficient cockpit lift system (CLS, patent pending) - https://postimg.org/image/wdfypkuon/ Separation confirmed - https://postimg.org/image/lrw3dkod3/ So, as far as I got it, this is a Advanced gate crashing pilot precision award but well might be something totally different as well...no idea. Up to @boolybooly to judge. In that sense - happy birthday, K-Prize...

No it isn't. The pure mention of Godwin's law doesn't fulfill its predictions. In order to fulfill Godwin's law somebody would have to mention Hitler or the members of the Nationalsozialistischedeutschearbeiterpartei (their abbreviation is banned here) without referring to that explicit law. But yeah, I have to agree with @Foxster - this thread should definitely be over.

Well some easy calculations: A Mexican/East European engineer does cost roughly 30Eur/h (at least in the company, I work at). Squad did develop the game for about 6 years now. One year - in Mexico does have about 230 working days (of 8 hours each). Let's suppose Squad threw a constant workforce of 10 software engineers into this project over the whole 6 years. Then we do have 30 Eur/h/person x 230 days/year x 6 years x 10 persons x 8 h/day = 3.3 M Eur. Above, it has been said that Squad sold about 1.7 M copies of the game. Then, in order to get a 10% gain, Squad needed to sell those copies for 3.3M x 1.1 / 1.7 M = 2.14 Eur. Knowing, that I did pay 40 Eur, I do assume that Squad still has some of my monies...

Celebrating the winter equinox is a bit paradoxical in itself. It is either winter solstice or autumn equinox. As for Kerbin - the equinox is the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator. That never happens on Kerbin as the ecliptic and the celestial equator are aligned and consequently the sun never rises above or sets below.

As Alshain has pointed out there is a major flaw with purchasing something you can get for free in a legal way... As far as the mission editor goes - don't we already have our challenge section on the boards? I disagree a bit with the 'too late' statement. Squad currently expanded to overseas markets and now hopes to cash in a little extra from those customers. For them the DLC will be just in time.

Didn't know Hawaii used European time...

Besides all this 'poor Squad needs support'-blahblah and the discussions about needing to pay money as you had so much entertainment here's my point of view: Squad is a supplier, I am the customer. If they do not meet my requirements for a certain product, they're out of business. So what are requirements you ask? Well, in my case it is quality (number of bugs), entertainment value (how long will I use it?), resource consumption (do I need a high end machine to be able to use it?) and finally the price. So let's go through it: Squad certainly provided an extremely high entertainment value with the base game, but from time to time their quality was crap (1.1.3 wheel issue, 1.2 terrain seems on the runway and the console bugs, which were at least to some extent (QA) their fault). To be fair, they solved most of the quality issues with later updates, which makes me confident they will be able to fux their DLC issues as well. The resource consumption is low to average, I'd say. So yeah I am waiting for reports on the DLC and then decide if I think my requirements are met...

You, me or him? Edit referring to the edit: Yeah kind of thought you meant him but probably shouldn't post at 0700h while I'm still sleeping my way to work...

Oh yeah. I totally do cheat if I feel cheated by the program. Especially version upgrades cause all kinds of crap which needs to be adjusted by savefile editing. I even "copied" vessels from the KSC to Duna in order to keep going after an upgrade. From time to time I need to dock or undock vessels via savefile and the KAS/KIS struts are screaming for savefile editing as well...

Really depends. The more complex the mission, the more time I spend designing the vessels. Just discovered that I am working since March 1on a design that will take a few Kerbals to Jool.... If it is a space plane on the other hand, I usually spend no more than a day, until I just reinvented the already existing design ... If it is a rocket. Just a few minutes. Since you throw it away anyways, it doesn't deserve so much time.

Yeah once had a similar issue: I accepted the contract while the vessel was on the launch pad. Contract didn't fire as the vessel was no longer "new". In the end I manually edited the contract to be completed and added a certain amount of funds to my account. My lawyers then argued that rolling a rocket out of the VAB certainly did not make any difference to its state of being new or old and furthermore there wasn't any specification stating whether new meant "after signing" or "after requesting" and it hence was totally legit to build the vessel while negotiating the terms of the contract...

Gravity Waves are created at the interface of two fluids of whatever kind. This might also extend to aerodynamics and different layers of air (which then cause certain cloud patterns). As far as I can tell there are three options: a) Only one kind of gravioli particles exists in the vicinity of a vessel, basically rendering the vessel detectable. b) Both kinds of gravioli particles exist, rendering the vessel detectable. c) Positive and Negative particles annihilate according to the Einsteinian equivalence of mass and energy, generating a surge in radiation which could be detected again. Also, any accelerated mass generates gravitational waves (and I assume, that's what you meant), although extremely weak which are a distortion of space and time that can be detected by a precise interferometer. As it was stated that the Enterprise was equipped with lots of sensors, it is fair to assume she should have the capability to detect electro-magnetic radiation...

They're probably sending a weak omni-directional signal to align receiver and transmitter, and then switch to a highly directional mode which actually allows communication. Would reduce the probability of interception to a minimum. Also, I finally know what word "bloak" has been derived from. I always assumed "cloak" but since @Kuzzter wrote "block" that actually makes sense as well. Might as well be a merger of those words - a cloaked block? If I recall correctly, Star Trek established some sort of "tachyon field" (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tachyon) created by cloaked vessels. KF-AJO has done something similar with "positive graviolis" or whatever it was called. Hence, there seems to be some similarity regarding the functionality of that device at least.

Paid content ... so we came there, finally. It's not that KSP wasn't worth it or it was no fun or whatever. For me there's a more fundamental question. Am I willing to pay for something, or am I just going to download another mod? I mean there are countless part mods out there. So the only thing which I would purchase is the mission editor, and there are lots of missions in the challenge forum, complete with ranking etc. Some of the most remarkable and long running challenges do completely fine without it *K Prize Challenge* *cough*

Finally someone came around with a brilliant idea. Since months I was looking for all those nice challenges from years ago, but couldn't find them due to this forum section being littered with more or less well thought of challenges. So yeah keep up the good work.