tseitsei89

Yeah sounds interesting but there are just too many rules for me to actually be willing to compete

Some common and quite well working scoring ideas: 1. Lightest entry wins 2. Cheapest entry wins 3. Fastest entry wins 4. Most science returned wins 5. Least parts wins At least these come to mind immediately... Important thing is that you don't make the scoring dependent on too many different factors so it won't get too complicated

True for rockets but if you add wings you generate lift and can fly with a twr much lower than 1 obviously. Or did you honestly think that all aeroplanes in real life have a twr greater than 1?

Seems reasonably good approximation for an SSTO. But what you seem to be missing is that you could obviously do it more efficiently by asparagus staging. Just drop empty tanks every once in a while and you will increase your dv signnificantly (you can also drop some engines once you get higher since your craft becomes lighter and your engines gain more thrust...) which means you need less tanks to start with which means you'll need less engines to start with. But all in all I agree that the numbers you need will still be ridiculously high...

Better? 403.5m this time

Just quick and simple entry. Literally the first idea that came to mind. distance 2100m and looks reasonably close to the original thing IMO...

I'm pretty sure it is impossible from that altitude. Just did some quick tests and I can't even get 5km/s dV while still keeping atmospheric TWR over 1... But from higher point probably quite doable. BTW does anyone know the coordinates for Eve's highest point?

@Foxster I downloaded a screencapturing software and got the ascent on video just to show that it is possible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onABiPxvs-o&feature=youtu.be 103x100km orbit from 690m starting point Here I just edited the same craft (with no heatshield) to eve surface and got off from there. And as to how I deorbited was I just slapped a decoupler FL-100 tank and a terrier on the back of the craft, did the deorbit burn and decoupled those parts. ANd IMO it is quite stupid to count those as part of your lander for 2 reasons: 1. You could easily deorbit the lander with your transfer stage decouple and then accelerate the transfer stage back to stable orbit. 2. If you count the deorbit stage in it becomes a game of patience since you can just start from 90 001x90 001m orbit, burn 2m/s and then just wait a long time and your craft will land Doesn't sound that fun to me... EDIT: I actually realized that I probably need to add one more rule since now it would be allowed to just drop landers straight down to Eve from 90km with 0m/s orbital velocity and that would probably make heatshields unnecessary and I still want to see crafts that can actually survive proper re-entry... Maybe something like "Your starting point (where the mass of your entry is calculated) must have an Ap of >90km and Pe >0km". That would simulate the situation after a normal deorbit burn.

Yes I think you are correct because I got very close to blowing up at one point and had to ease the throttle (while on terrier stage) to keep the nosecone and pod from exploding. The nosecone temperature was something like 30-50K below the critical temperature according to KER at hottest point.

Ok I did it again with a completely different computer and got to 100x100km orbit from 700m elevation launch site with 64m/s dV left. New and more precise flight profile: 1. Full throttle until speed is 220-230m/s 2. Throttle down so that you will be at around 270-280m/s when at 6km. 3. At 6.5km start turning so that you are about 10-15degrees from vertical once you reach 7.5-8km and click prograde on SAS. 4. Now control the throttle so that your speed is just being maintained or only slowly increasing. 5. When you are around 40 degrees from vertical increase throttle significantly to gain speed. This way you should get your time to Ap to be about 46-50s when the vector runs out of fuel. 6. Immediately start the terrier and burn to prograde with full throttle until your Ap is above 90km. 7. Coast to Ap and circularize.

The pics are in a retarded order and I don't know why and I don't know how to fix it. So that might be confusing... But I'll try to answer your questions: I used absolutely zero fuel to land. Just atmosphere to slow me down until it's safe to open the chutes and throw away the heatshield. The reason why dV numbers are changing is (I think) that KER calculates dV for current ISP (or maybe otherwise weirdly too?) and my ISP on Eve sealevel is definitely quite low. And as you can see on the VAB picture the craft has ~6km/s dV while fully packed and that is exactly the same craft that landed minus the heatshield and 1 decoupler. Flight profile was straight up with full throttle until your speed is ~180m/s and then start to control the throttle to keep the speed increasing slowly. At somewhere around 8km (and 270-300m/s) start turning until you get your prograde vector to something like 10-15degrees away from vertical and then follow prograde and use your throttle to control how much you tilt. If your time to Ap is about 45-50s when you drop the vector and start the terrier you should be fine. I will try it on another computer with the same version of KSP when I get the chance to see if my install is somehow broken

Okay so I know there have been some Lightweight Eve lander challenges before but I haven't seen one in a long time so here goes. Rules that apply for both categories: Only allowed mods are informative and visual mods. (And pilot assistant mods for "Anything goes" -category) No altering physics! No cheating otherwise also! No kraken drives or and of that nonsense. Use of hyperedit is allowed for transfering your craft to Eve and moving the craft to a launching location of your choice. (You can land anywhere you want on Eve's surface and then hyperedit the same ship to a location that you want to launch from.) You must provide screenshots that show your crafts decent and ascent as well. Must be manned. (Kerbal doesn't have to plant a flag or visit the surface so no need for ladders though). You will start from an unstable Eve orbit so that your starting Ap is >90km and your starting Pe is >0km. You can use any means you want to get the craft there and then whatever mass you have left is your entry score. (I for example used hyperedit to get to 100x100km eve orbit and a small extra stage for deorbit burn that I then decoupled.) You must reach stable orbit. (Pe >90km). There will be 2 categories with different rules: A) "Robust and actually usable lander" B) "Anything goes" Category A) rules: 1. A proper crew pod must be used. So NO lawn chairs. 2. You must take off from <1000m elevation from sea level. 3. No using kerbal's EVA pack for the final circularization. Kerbal must get back to orbit in the pod. Category B) rules: 1. Land anywhere on Eve and take-off from anywhere on Eve. 2. Other than that do whatever. Use lawn chairs and EVA's and whatever you want. And here is my entry for the A) category to kick things off: Sub 30t Eve lander EDIT: Sorry the pics are in a weird order and imgur shuffles them again even if I rearrange them. I dunno why. But you can still see what is going on by reading the descriptions

http://imgur.com/a/jQlOq Not really a serious or in any way optimized entry for category 2. Just a proof of concept to show you guys that going big is by far the best solution here (mainly because the mk3 passanger module can habit 16 kerbals and only weighs 6.5t). Just slapped together a mk3 plane with 2 passanger modules (2x16=32) kerbals and a cockpit (4 more kerbals) and 4 rapiers. got it to 80,957m ap on the very first try and landed it safely giving me a whopping 80,957*(36/4) = 728,613 points which is a very clear number 1 spot on the leaderboard but I don't expect it to last long now that I have told you about the wonders of the mk3 passanger module EDIT: also I can reach 243,7xy m ap for the altitude category but I am unable to find away to make the kerbal survive the "landing" from that

Yeah but IMO the pure altitude category should have only 2 rules (or maybe even just one): 1. Jet engines only 2. (optinally) Kerbal(s) must survive

Oh, we can use chutes to land? In that case I think I can still improve my result

Already did that actually but was unable to land it on water... I got 241xyz km ap that way so it is slightly more effective with my design also but as I said earlier I needed to get back to land in order to get the kerbal back alive

Yes sorry 240890.3 was from KER but the real number is actually 240827m which is still #1 on the leaderboard

Yeah screenshots seem to be in an interesting order I apologize... But yeah that was the best I could do after a long series of iterations. If somebody can beat that I'll probably try some more though... Less xenon can be used and maybe less mass to kerbin orbit but I think that the duna lander is quite optimal already

http://imgur.com/a/tddDm pure altitude entry 280,890.3m apoapsis horizontal takeoff and landing. I lost almost all the parts but the kerbal survived

http://imgur.com/a/5464d 4.609t mission.

I just did 5.444t craft. Don't have pics about the flight so it'll not be officially accepted but I will post some pics about the craft tomorrow. I believe that is currently the lightest craft beating Eidahlil's craft by a whopping 0.029t

I have 4932 run for pod category but I need to fly that again to get screenshots

I'm not sure what is this 1.2 version you are talking about? Maybe 1.1.2? I'm using the newest version currently in the store and for me it says KSP 1.1.3. And yes, no physics are changed.

45.09 LF left Done in 1.1.3 version http://imgur.com/a/K8LFo Small increase is still an increase EDIT: all gimbals set to 0 on launch. Gimbals only cause steering losses and you can "steer" enough with the reaction wheel of the pod. The trick is to guess the correct amount of tilt in the beginning so that after you hit prograde you can just stage and see you reaching 45 degrees at ~11-12km. Then you know you are doing just fine The tilt needed is just a few degrees...

No. It doesnt make any sence because it doesnt work like that... High TWR os only really needed on takeoff and landing. Once in orbit you can use any twr. Sure high twr makes it easier and faster to plan and execute burns but they are totally doable with very low twr also. Just harder to plan in advanca and take longer to execute For real life example see how ion engines work. VERY VERY low thrust but lots of dv and they can get really far once put in space by more powerful engines...