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sevenperforce

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Everything posted by sevenperforce

  1. sevenperforce
    I was inspired to do the Wing It bonus based on the Bono Mars Glider concept from the 1960s.
  2. sevenperforce
    No, not in any meaningful sense. Almost everything sinks, and what doesn't is so sparse compared to the ginormous diluting capacities of the whole friggin' ocean.
  3. sevenperforce
    Oh no! I'm sorry! Excited to see what you'll come up with, though! I'm currently cropping and organizing the photos from my (succcessful) Brute Force attempt, but it'll be nowhere near as low-mass as yours or @Laie's.
  4. sevenperforce
    Well, last night I made an achievement for making the Duna Ascent Vehicle solid-fueled, so that adds some extra incentive to the mix. I don't think anyone would fly the whole mission using solids...that seems waaaaay too challenging. Not that it couldn't be done, but...aish. It would have a HUGE mass cost, which means the bonus would have to be totally unbalanced.
  5. sevenperforce
    Hm ok... It was my understanding that you may not transfer fuel into it after the takeoff from Duna, so no refuelling in Duna orbit, but you can do what you want before leaving kerbin orbit? Brute Force requires each component to be sent up in a ready-to-fly configuration, based on many of the early Earth Orbit Rendezvous mission profiles (both for the Moon and for Mars). Real-life propellant transfer is nowhere near as simple as it is in KSP...you have to deal with differing propellant types, ullage, pressurants, and a host of other things. A brute force approach is the simplest in real-life: send up module after module until you have everything you need, and then there's no redocking in Mars orbit or anything else. Fantastic! Great job, I'll update the leaderboard. I'm really horrible at winged rolling landings myself. Wow, impressive. Currently, the rules only allow 5 launches from Kerbin, so that's something to consider. I made a penalty allowance for mission profiles requiring more than five launches. I've toyed with rewards for a larger-Kerbal-capacity mission but it's hard to keep it balanced.
  6. sevenperforce
    Launch cadence would have to rise astronomically high (no pun intended) before it would make much of a difference, and rocket plumes only hit the ozone layer briefly. I'd like to see a space startup that uses biofuels, though.
  7. sevenperforce
    Really impressive entry! Congratulations! I can't give you Wing It (unless you want to revert back to the landing save and refly the landing) because you didn't have a rolling landing on Kerbin, but I can give you everything else, which puts you at 1.6975! Sorry about being draconian on the rolling landing thing, but part of that bonus (which I'm particularly bad at, myself) is designing a glider which has a good enough lift-to-drag ratio for landing on Duna but enough crossrange capacity for a controlled, directed landing on Kerbin. But you're still at the top of the leaderboard! I especially liked the efficient use of parts and mass on the mothership...and really good idea putting the large, heavy heat shield for Hohmann aerocapture on the mothership, rather than lugging it all the way down to the surface and then back up!
  8. sevenperforce
    Great! As you can see, adding more and more bonuses really helps. In theory, you could get a negative score, but I've been careful to make enough bonuses conflict with each other that ∑(A, B, C...) cannot exceed 1.
  9. sevenperforce
    mainscore*(1-(A+B+C))
  10. sevenperforce
    FYI - I added another bonus, A Solid Plan. @mk1980 @Kergarin @Laie @AeroGav Yeah, but it requires at least a little forethought, especially when it comes to docking, etc. I only made it a low reward anyway. Thanks! I look forward to your entry. Exactly.
  11. sevenperforce
    Just the fuel you transfer.
  12. sevenperforce
    omigod I think I just died Looking at the top -- I don't see a round nose cone. Did they scrap the automatically opening/closing fairing?
  13. sevenperforce
    The way to do it is to keep an attachment node open on top of your craft and build objects in the proper order. Let's say I'm making an ascent vehicle, and I want my craft to have three drop tanks in radial symmetry, each with two landing legs in mirror symmetry. I set up the core part, then I place the part I want to use as the base of my drop tank on top of that core. I switch on mirror symmetry and place the legs where I want them on the drop tank base part. Then, I pick up drop tank part, switch back to radial symmetry, and place it on the core part. I can rotate the drop tank base as desired and the mirror symmetry remains. Just can't mess with the legs after they're placed. I used this method to make a perfect omnidirectional Vernor-based RCS thruster with a low form factor for a Dragon 1 clone.
  14. sevenperforce
    Sure, see what you can put together!
  15. sevenperforce
    I didn't REALLY want people to Hyperedit their modules into LKO, but given that you can literally overengineer your LV as much as you want (my LV, which I used for all four launches, has about twice the payload capacity of what I used), it doesn't really matter. Plus, you can get bonuses if you do fly it manually. Eh, you can just count the probe core with RCS tank as the terminal stage of your LV. I guess I could make it another bonus if you don't use your LV for docking assistance? But then you run into the "what about fuel transfer" question and it just all gets hairy.
  16. sevenperforce
    Yep! I have a mission architecture with precisely that design in mind. You can also pick up Stayin' Alive for a low additional mass cost if you have Loop the Loop. I designed the modifiers to allow pretty high reductions but never 100%, obviously. I wanted payload-per-launch to be the main metric, but I wanted design considerations to mix up the scoring as well to allow for more flexibility.
  17. sevenperforce
    @Laie I'm going to set up the leaderboard. I've already got you down for Slow Climb. Are you eligible for Safety First, Old School, or Consistency, Good Sir? I assume you aren't eligible for Brute Force because it seems like you did propellant transfer.
  18. sevenperforce
    Actually, Elon Style would be sending everything up ITS-wise, where the upper stage was already the payload. I was thinking of typical currently-in-use launch vehicles; Falcon 9 being only one of the upper stages which can provide roll and pointing but no RCS translation. For example, you wouldn't expect a Centaur upper stage, a DCSS, or a Soyuz Blok I third stage to actually perform docking with the ISS. But I'll relax this. Well, if I was worried about people cheating I could demand full mission video, but all these challenges are honor-system. I think people will get more out of going for various bonuses than they will from pinching fuel constraints. If I understand it correctly, it's to emulate the real-life problem of keeping it's fuel around for months. I wanted my restrictions to mirror some of the constraints that real-life mission planners have to work around. There have been several proposals for Mars missions involving nukes, but they tend to be pretty seriously constrained. Can't fire nukes in atmosphere, often cannot restart, often need top-off or complex anti-boiloff systems. You also have to deal with radiation shielding, which is another reason to only use nukes on the outgoing trip. For all these reasons, it's simplest if I just say "No nukes after leaving Kerbin's SOI". Indeed! I think I am going to increase the bonus for Stayin' Alive, to make it more competitive. I hadn't realized how easy it would be to do a direct ascent.
  19. sevenperforce
    Go for it!
  20. sevenperforce
    According to NSF forums and the Mariner Notice, the upper stage performed a northerly dogleg. Probably a highly inclined, highly eccentric orbit. It's supposed to be a long-duration mission, per AF.
  21. sevenperforce
    I'm sure there are lots of space jockeys out there tracking the X-37B now. Aaaaaand based on discussions over at the NSF forums, these are the aluminum grid fins, not the titanium ones after all. Looks like the commentator misspoke. Surprised, because I thought this was supposed to be a Block 4 rocket. Maybe they just had extra aluminum grid fins and wanted to burn through them (literally?) on low-stress launches like this one?
  22. sevenperforce
    I did that as well. I'll go ahead and add it. I hadn't thought of it initially, because there is no mass restriction on the launch vehicle so you can really do whatever you want. My launch vehicle for my Brute Force entry can probably put about 25 tonnes into LKO with a perfect gravity turn, etc., but my payload modules are all under 12 tonnes. But consistency is definitely worth some extra points! What a surprise! Well, maybe the relaxed requirements of this mission will be more achievable. I'd love to see your mission architecture!
  23. sevenperforce
    Ah, gotcha. We should standardize.
  24. sevenperforce
    Try looking at Smart Parts Native solutions by adding tweakables is always preferable to mods. Adding advanced tweakables is great because it doesn't make things messy for new players, but it's also easy to implement and doesn't require new parts or anything.
  25. sevenperforce
    I meant thickness of the airfoil structure, not thickness of the titanium metal pieces. Thicker = protrudes farther from the edge of the stage. The mini-airfoils have a longer chord length. The titanium airfoils are not only longer, catching a greater cross-sectional area of the airstream, but they are also "thicker" and thus provide a longer path for air to flow through, increasing the amount of lift they can effect.
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