tseitsei89

Sorry but is there something I can't really understand here? Couldn't you just add new "bars" in the resource tab (where fuel, ec, oxidizer etc. are shown) for angular momentum in x y and z directions. You could also simply just "exert reaction wheel torque" when your rcs is turned off (R button in game) and "exert rcs torque" when rcs is activated. And the last problem: "resetting the angular momentum of reaction wheels". When you are landed they would obviously reset automatically. When in space we could simply have a button "reset angular momentum" which would start to slow down all reaction wheels AND automatically (try to) counter any rotation caused to the ship with rcs if the ship has any of those. IMO these should work just fine but maybe I'm missing something...

Maybe I am one of those "space nerds" then (I actually wouldn't count myself as one tough...) I mean I am totally ok with how reaction wheels currently work. It is a game after all. BUT I really don't see why (more) realistic reaction wheels would be that bad.. Then we would just have to use more RCS to control the attitude of our crafts but that's not really that hard either now is it? Just slap in one mono tank and few rcs ports at both ends of the ship and you'll be just fine in most cases...

How are you planning to return/transmit the science? You can't transmit because no antenna and you can't return safely with that design? Also I think MPL should be banned for this challenge since MPL + simple mun lander + lots of time warp = (almost) infinite science. Or am I wrong? Haven't really used MPL that much because I think it's stupid but IIRC how it works it is totally OP for this challenge...

Did this few weeks ago in 1.1.2. 728m/s and just manages to stop on the runway if you drive it correctly. Here it is: Instructions on how to drive it are on the description texts of the pictures. That took a c**pload of sepratrons carefully placed to different radii and many test "flights" to optimize accelerating and braking distances

How do you survive reentry heat? Doesnt your kerbal just overheat very quickly and explode while entering atmosphere at +2km/s velocities

Well obviously there has to be something in any game that "prevents" you from doing something because otherwise you could just do anything with ease and that wouldnt be interesting or challenging. Some examples: Not having infinite isp on engines PREVENTS you to go anywhere dith minimal fuel mass. Reentry heat prevents too fast/too low reentry As you can see these are both important game mechanics based on how stuff works in real world. Similarly RT just adds more of these mechanics based on real world. It is not necessarily good or bad for the game. It just makes it more realistic and challenging.

Yeah... about 100 of these similar polls with similar results already... The results of this poll will no doubt be the same: Around 80% of people will say game is good or quite good. 15-20% will still claim that game is almost or completely unplayable because of broken wheel/gears/landing legs or frequent crashes. I think we already know that... no need for a new poll anymore But hey, whatever floats your boat

Well at least for me the reason why I'm not doing his challenge is that there is no clear, absolute goal that I'm trying to reach (fastest, cheapest, biggest, highest etc.). It's IMO kind of vague... I mean what should I optimize my plane for? And how can we compare 2 planes that are optimized to do totally different things? I feel like I have no idea what to do to get a good score since score is only based on peoples opinions and not on how well/cheaply/efficiently my plane does what it is designed to do...

Airbrakes on the "back" end of the craft. They need to be covered with the (inflatable) heatshield though or they'll blow up

Yep it was manned. Command seat in service bay. You can see where the kerbal will be seated in the second picture of my entry. Portrait is not shown if you use external command seat (look at Cunjo Carl's latest entry. There is no portrait there either since he too uses command seat in service bay). Proof pics. Kerbal sitting in command seat but no portrait is shown:

True bit it would still: 1) be an amazing feat of piloting skills 2) allow for a completely free and reusable spaceprogram/transportation throughout the whole kerbol system once you get the infrastructure in place. And that would be just beautiful. I mean fully recoverable sstos to carry any payload to lko There those will be given to nuclear tugs that can take them to orbit of any planet. There we would have ssto capable landers for every planet (except for eve we would need this suborbital docking trick) And on the surfaces we would have isru bases to refuel landers and nuclear tugs when needed. Everything is free since everything is 100% reusable and all fuel can be made by isru. Just perfect!:)

They make those nose cones last just a little longer before exploding... I guess because part of the airflow that would otherwise hit the cones now hits the antennas instead

Using MechJeb is ok but claiming this is not okay IMO... There is stock which is nice because it is same for everyone. Then there are mods that make the game harder (RSS/RO/DeadlyRe-entry, life support) which are fine for people who want more challenge Then there are "neutral" mods (mostly visual mods) which are also fine because they don't really alter the actual gameplay And then there are mods that make the game easier (OP part mods, infinite fuel, autopiloting) which ARE ALSO OKAY TO USE BUT you shouldn't then IMHO compare your achievements with those playing stock. Since some things are significantly harder/impossible to achieve in stock compared to different mods. I mean I could easily (using just my computer which seems to be the point of the poster I quoted, since he/she compares playing without mechjeb to doing all simulations, aka playing the game, purely in your imagination) edit the config files of stock parts to "mod" the game myself to achieve anything imaginable... So it is okay to use mods that make the gameplay easier but you should then admit that you have used them and your achievements are not really comparable to those using stock because of using said mods...

That took some fine tuning but I reached space in 32 seconds

Yep. Inline they don't work but radially it's just enough Also using small hardpoints as radial decouplers enables cheaper radial decoupling than inline decoupling (something I came up with during the 1.1 economy challenge)

Done! That was quite hard!! EVA propellant was insufficient on several tries but finally succeeded with 0.02 EVA propellant left Here you go. 1 kerbal delivered to a "station" at 150km circular orbit. Cost of the ship 1908 funds: EDIT: Okay bigger is definitely better here. Quick attempts with more kerbals give me 372 funds/kerbal to the station. And there is still much room for improvement. However my current craft carries 225 kerbals and reaches stable orbit of about 100km/100km and I would have to individually EVA each kerbal individually to the station (trivial but takes wayyyyyy too long)... And as I said I executed this by putting huge amounts of external command seats inside cargo bays. Either way an entertaining challenge I think my single kerbal design is quite close to optimal actually (always happy to be proven wrong here ) but I think I'll leave the multiple kerbal transportation for other people since it's basically just same as my 1.1 economy challenge with an extra effort of EVAing all kerbals from LKO to the station...

Wow... didn't know eva packs have such a huge amount of dv... But then again that is something I have never played with properly

Nice. But can you actually circularize and rendezvous with the station from that 150km/0km "orbit" by using just eva-fuel? Not necessarily that easy...

I understand that SSTOs (Single-stage-to-orbit) are perfectly allowed but you won't get refunds for them (the price of the craft is what you see in VAB. No money back from recoveries). So disposable 2-3 stage crafts will obviously be better for this challenge.

Oh yeah. That is one more important question! What mods are allowed for this challenge?

Ok. Will probably try this at some point. Best results can probably be achieved by stacking command chairs in cargo bays. That way you can transport a s**tload of kerbals for minimal payload mass but I dont have patience to load all the chairs with kerbals so I'll probably just use actual crew parts for transportation...

Questions: 1. Do you mean 150,000m instead of km? 2. Cab I use a reusable design and get refunds if I land it at ksc? If yes then reusable spaceplanes are a way to go since you only pay for the fuel and can use efficient jets most of the way... 3. Can I do a design that transports several kerbals there simultaneously and then calculate my price/kerbal or do you only want crafts that ship only one kerbal? So for example if have a craft that ships 10 kerbals for 10,000 funds would it be as good as having a craft that ships 1 kerbal for 1000 funds?

Slightly modified version of the craft (no airbrakes and chutes + longer burn from the sepratrons) reaches ~1050m/s for the easy category. Will post screenshots later

According to that answer you can just build a "plane" that has >1 TWR and take off vertically and then turn in to horizontal flight So take off speed would be ~0.0m/s Yes I agree that the vertical thrust component in this case was quite negligible. Ok that's fine Easy solution is to either: 1. Tilt your wings so that they have an angle of attack while the rest of the plane (including the engine) is horizontal 2. Tilt your engine so that it is horizontal when the angle of attack of the plane is whatever it needs to be in level flight (or at take off if we measure that instead) But all in all I think that in your case the vertical thrust really is very small. I would just like some more accurate and better defined rules... Again no offense towards you or anyone else meant

I would say measure mass on orbit. Since the lander has to get to eve somehow too. Also nice craft I'm working on my own entry but I doubt I can beat that...