Magzimum

Well, our Earth atmosphere has the same weight (and mass) as a 10 meter tall column of water (I'm talking pressure at sea level here). I don't know how thick you'd make that roof, but I hope you will use some light materials. As for the 100 km tall columns to hold it up... can't we make an inflatable roof?

Some advice to launch tricky objects in an easy way: Go straight up until at least 25 km (i.e. no gravity turn!) Easy on the throttle: Below 14 km you keep it below 150-200 m/s. Keep it below 300 m/s until 20 km. If you don't, it will flip over. Add large wings at the base of the rocket. I have once used the largest airplane wings as disposable stabilizers. Bring some extra dV (i.e. Moar Boosters) I read the comments that suggest you can do this in a normal gravity turn, but a deviation of just a few degrees would flip this thing over. I could have engineered it so that it does not flip, but frankly, I rather add a few more boosters than to fiddle with it for days until it is balanced. In my opinion, sometimes is it just easier to go straight up and accept the extra costs. I managed to get this thing to Minmus: Original post here.

No. Let's look at the Earth: The Earth has a mass of 5.97237×1024 kg The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×1018 kg So, from these numbers we see that the atmosphere is 0.000086% of the total mass of the Earth. So, even if we would deliver the atmosphere to the Moon from elsewhere, we can conclude that adding an atmosphere would not significantly change the total mass of the Moon. Because the Moon is smaller, the percentage may be a little higher, but also a terraformed Moon would not be significantly heavier. Oceans would add a small (<1%) percentage to the total mass of the Moon. Vegetation would be the least significant (less than the atmosphere). But the key issue here is that when you terraform, you do not fly in all the material. That would be absolutely nuts. If we would terraform the Moon, we would do so with materials from the Moon! So the total mass would not change a bit. And as a result the tidal forces acting on the Earth wouldn't change either.

Our crew has completed its Dres adventure. In a short summary: See the adventure here:

As a result of a sudden attack of homesickness, our Kerbals were focused, and were positive that they were just going to finish the last mission, then gather in the Shuttle and go home. Yep, that's where we come in. There was quite a bit of flying to be done. We could have used the tested Dres Hopper to accomplish all but one of the flights, but where's the fun in that? Let's use the station's pod first to fetch some of the Kerbals. Anyway, long story short, as it didn't have enough fuel it got stuck in a very low orbit and had to be 'rescued' by the Hopper. As can be seen below the monopropellant had not run out, so the crew argued this was not a rescue mission and they were fine. But everybody enjoyed the prospect of unnecessarily high acceleration by the Hopper and the dispute became a consensus that the dispute which was no longer a dispute would be forgotten. And as Kerbals do, by the end of the long sentence everybody agreed that this is where we came in. There was the issue of the mission which needed to be accomplished. Some temperature readings on the surface. Now this was something that the Hopper could not do. It has no thermometers which was a bit of a design flaw. Science instruments are so light that they should have been added. We could have used the Elcano rover, which would be ideal, but driving was not considered a viable option after having gone around the planet already. Whatever, we have two little dinghies on the Dres Resort, right? Meanwhile the Hopper transported its cargo to the station... Not to drop its cargo of Kerbals, but to pick up more. It seemed like a fun thing to dock a second pod to the Hopper, and fly them all to the Shuttle in one go. After dropping off the two pods back at the station, Jeb went to rescue the two Kerbals on the dinghy, who were stuck in orbit. (Intermezzo: Mission control was now positively brimming with Dres contracts. We completed two more before leaving)... (End of intermezzo) So, about getting the Dinghy back, and getting the last Kerbals from the Resort to the Shuttle: After delivery of the Dinghy at the Resort, the Hopper picked up the last Kerbals. Time to go home. Bye Resort! Next stop: the Shuttle. The last Kerbals joined their friends in the Shuttle. This time by EVA, for fun, but also to keep the Kraken away. The Hopper would remain in orbit of Dres. It was made for Dres. 27 Kerbals on a mission to get home to Kerbin, after a lot of good adventures on the most forgotten planet of the system. Not anymore. Dres has been awesome! In the spoiler below a lot of pictures of stages being separated, courses being plotted and home planets being encountered. And after all that: Our Kerbals were home! ( Finally, showing this was a career mission: We scored an amazing 7481.8 science points too! And even got a few funds back, and got some experience for the crew too! ) Thanks for reading everybody! I hope to have shown you what a wonderful dwarf planet Dres is. Hopefully this inspired you to get out there and explore Dres too. Because, as you probably have guessed by now, that's where you come in. - The End - Link to the Imgur album, which does not contain anything new - just for the archives...

Exactly. It's a problem. So how would a multiplayer game deal with it? I am not going to defend the multiplayer. In my opinion, it doesn't work, and therefore I am against the idea of such multiplayer where players can warp individually. However, if we can solve this together, perhaps by doing this mental exercise, I could become the biggest fan of multiplayer. Ok. I see your point. That would indeed solve the paradox from the previous scenario. Let me change the scenario. (Note: I am not trying to be annoying - if we want this multiplayer to have any chance, it shouldn't have any loopholes, and it certainly shouldn't be breakfast for the Kraken). Player 1 sends a mining rig to Minmus and starts mining on Y3, D1. He warps ahead to wait until the tanks are full, and on Y3, D5 he docks his SSTO and refills the tanks, then flies home for celebrations and medals (i.e. no change compared to the previous post). [new] Player 2 is playing on Y3, D1 too. He has a ship in high Mun orbit. And as unlikely as it seems, he managed to accelerate his ship so much that he gets to the Minmus site on Y3 D3. After player 1 has left Minmus in real time, he lands right on top of the original mining site with a lander on Y3, D3. Of course, he cannot see the mining rig, because he is not in the same timeframe, so no crash occurs. (It's a safe landing, so no explosions anyway). Now player 1 and 2 decide to work together, and while player 1 toggles back to the mining rig in Y3 D5, player 2 also warps ahead to Y3 D5. Both the mining rig and the lander are now at the same time frame and at the exact same spot. That should be a problem. (Not realistic? Far fetched? I say it can be quite realistic to accidentally be at the same spot around the easter eggs and on the KSC (e.g. runway) ).

Other games made such a thing work too (Civilization had a multiplayer where you did not have to wait for the other player to finish his/her turn). However, let's do an exercise to see if this could work, let me present one scenario that you may have to be able to deal with. Scenario: Player 1 sends a mining rig to Minmus and starts mining on Y3, D1. He warps ahead to wait until the tanks are full, and on Y3, D5 he docks his SSTO and refills the tanks, then flies home for celebrations and medals. Player 2 is playing on Y3, D1 too. He has a ship in high Mun orbit. And as unlikely as it seems, he managed to accelerate his ship so much that he gets to the Minmus site on Y3 D3. After player 1 has left Minmus in real time, he crashes his drone ship into the mining colony on Y3, D3, and completely destroys it. What will player 1 experience? I see a few options, such as: keep going, and screw it that he's flying on Paradox Industries LFO ™ revert back to Y3, D3 to the moment the conflict arose revert back to the earliest launch of all relevant ships that are somehow affected My problem is that none of these sound very attractive.

What I am missing in this thread, at least from the opening poster ( @Numberyellow ), is a remark that acknowledges the fact that SQUAD has to make choices. They are a relatively small IT company (compared to the company that develops e.g. Fallout). Because of such choices, certain issues that are indeed a good idea will be postponed (possibly indefinitely). All ideas presented by the OP are indeed good ideas (except multiplayer and career on which I disagree). But none of the items would be at the top of my priority list. My priority list contains (1) Bug fixes (the seams on the planets, especially), (2) Mk2 LF-tanks (for spacecraft), (3) stock life support and (4) a new gas giant. And I know that a lot of people would disagree with my list too... Having said that, back to the topic of this thread. How much programming time would it take a professional programmer (i.e. SQUAD) to add a 2nd runway at a 90 degree angle to the current one? It may not be essential for the game, but if it can be done in a short time, it sure looks nice: Figure 1, LaGuardia Airport in NY. It looks like they have a KSC (LGSC?) too, with a few SPHs... I am however uncertain whether it's worth the trouble to create a menu option before launch to select the North-South or East-West runway. For those few times that you want north-south you can taxi to it yourself.

Sure. But a spaceplane wants to shed its velocity and make a safe landing. An ICBM on the other hand wants to maintain speed (to avoid making itself an easy target for intercept). So from that point of view, pointy bit forward, I'd say. So summing it up, the best design for an ICBM is long and slender, with a pointy nosecone if it doesn't blow up, and if the nose cone does blow up, a small diameter heat shield instead?

I just passed by and was delighted with the wall of text. I know a thing or two about heat transfer phenomena and I was happy to see that I have nothing to add to your post. Excellent work. Just a thought: The nose cones typically have a low mass. Would you think that in certain cases they actually heat up quicker than parts with worse aerodynamic properties but higher mass?

Oops. I read the OP, and then completely missed the "Ascent" part of the question, and assumed "Descent". My bad. Thanks for correcting. (It was only in giant letters in the thread title, and in the first sentence of the post... so anyone could have missed that...)

The "control from here" trick as FullMetalMachinist said would be my #1 test. Easy and quick. Are the wheels put in straight? They have a top, bottom and two sides. The bottom must point down... and the default orientation in the VAB or SPH is almost always wrong. You will have to turn them before you put them onto the rover! Learn about this by building a much simplified rover and take it for a test-drive. Also, posting a screenshot helps. Press B to toggle the brakes. Normally they are off by default, so it's unlikely, but easy to check. (Also there is the brake icon at the top of the screen in the middle which will light up if the brakes are applied). I assume you have batteries and something to generate electricity? I have forgotten batteries in the past, but I believe you cannot use steering either in that case. Without batteries it certainly won't move, even if you have solar panels and plenty sunshine. If you are unlucky something was clipped while it was still attached to the plane. In that case the wheels may have experienced a sort of Kraken attack. Can we see a screenshot? Sometimes it is a telling sign if the wheels have sunk partially into the surface after you dropped the rover onto the surface. Haven't experienced that in v1.2 though... If nothing worked (or if the last point is your problem), the solutionto now involves some de-bottlenecking: First test the rover separately. Then keep the plane, but make a tiny and much simplified rover which is certainly not clipped anywhere. If both tests show no problems, then both the rover and plane have no problems individually. Basically, just start ruling out one thing after the other. But screenshots always help to get a good answer!!

Go to the alt-F12 menu (Linux users use right-shift+F12), and look for the "orbits" tab. Then choose "Eve". There is also a rather big number, which is the distance from the planet's core I believe - it's not really relevant. Just enter 1, or 0, and it will automatically say that your value is not possible and choose the lowest stable orbit instead... On Eve that will probably be around 100 km altitude (I didn't try). You can do this cheat directly from the launchpad, so you don't need to design the launch vehicle yet.

Maybe it is a good idea to play the trainings (they can be found in the main menu). These teach you all the basics. In addition, the trainings are not so long, so you can take a break after each training (or after each failure, which is inevitable, especially in the more difficult trainings such as docking and landing).

This: Yeah, I guess it became more serious when I felt a little wronged. But to clarify, I took the game as serious as ever, but I took the thread/forum more serious as a result. Normally I think KSP is hilarious, and I don't take it too serious (except the physics, which is very serious). Example. You soon spend a good 4-8 hrs on designing, testing and driving a vehicle. Possibly more. And I did that specifically for this course and for this challenge... with the aim of setting a quick time (in my own category of solar/electric/stock where I am not even sure anyone else is going to compete). Of course that means I want it listed somewhere in the results. I don't even care if the categories are all merged together... But I have to say that I got a little bitter when it was suggested that it shouldn't be listed at all as a result of reloading a few times. It's a little like being offered a small gift, and then have it taken away again. That may make you disappointed, even when the net result is the same as when nothing happened at all.

Who cares that more cores don't help! That thing looks awesome! Call it the PorcupineSat and launch it! Btw, when you're orbiting a planet (i.e. Kerbin), you can just set Kerbnet to auto-update (the little icon top-left of the Kerbnet window). Then you can use time-warp to make things happen faster. It will still update every 7 or 3.5 seconds (real time), regardless of how fast game time is going. So it will also still find anomalies.

@Triop, can you please clarify some of the rules? (And if an update is needed on the opening post of the thread, please do that ASAP)? Some people are speaking in your name, others are making suggestions about the rules, and someone even disqualified my entry on your behalf. But usually on the forum only one person is in charge of a challenge... To give a short overview of what I picked up in the thread: You can use a mod with parts with a crash tolerance up to 250 m/s (that's nearly Mach 1). You cannot use the cheat that makes stuff indestructible (which in my opinion is the same as a crash tolerance of 250 m/s). You cannot reload, because that would break the spirit of the Dakar. (But using mods that have nearly indestructible stuff does not). None of this is mentioned in the opening post of the challenge. To be disqualified by someone who isn't even the organizer has confused me... especially since it was on a rule that I (still) cannot find in the opening post of any of the Dakar threads, which is where normally the rules are listed.

If you only use wheels to propel the vehicle forward, it's a ground-based circumnavigation. The only reason you lose contact with the ground is because of the ground itself. Also, see the rules of the challenge, #3: Stay on the ground or on/below the surface of any water present. (BRIEF jumps over dunes and such permitted.) Having said that, my longest jump on Minmus was probably longer than the first flight of the Wright brothers, and they called it flying! Exactly. If you had, Dres would be on the board. Dres was on the leaderboard in the previous challenge. Glad you answered your own question already before you even asked it! In the meantime I took the badge from the previous challenge, and photoshopped the Minmus and Dres badges together into one...

Don't try to drive. Embrace that low gravity and realize that you will spend more time above the surface than on it. Install enough reaction wheels. You will spend more time flying than driving, so you make sure that the nose is pointed in the right way with reaction wheels, not with the (front) wheels. I managed to get around Minmus at roughly 30 m/s on average (post is near the top of this thread). Dres was way harder, because of the rough terrain.

I remember the term "future tech" from the civilization games, in which you can also continue doing R&D once you have completed the tech-tree. At least in the older versions of that game, the "future tech" does nothing but increase your final score. It gives no new units, no cash, no influence. But when you quit, it will calculate your high-score and future tech gives a few extra points. ... In short, it gives only bragging rights. However, for me, this would be a "nice to have", not an "essential" for game KSP development. I am sitting on 37k science points in my current career game, and I can brag about it without having any future techs. And for those who finish the tech-tree too soon: Adjust the difficulty setting of your game. Or use a mod.

If you are " not very experienced at getting to orbit " (quote from OP) then almost all the advice above is far too advanced for now. @diomedea gave some good advice though: try to go back to an older save game. Instead of helping you how to get to that ship, I am going to give you advice how to proceed with your career game: Leave the tourists in solar orbit for now. Do other missions first. Advance your tech-tree. Learn. Get comfortable with rendezvous & docking around the Kerbin system (incl. Mun & Minmus). Do a few visits to the planets: Duna (and Ike) and Eve (and Gilly). Send a probe to Eve for now - landing on Eve is usually a one-way mission. Try to get to Duna and back with a crew. Contracts will probably come up for this. Once you are comfortable with rendezvous, docking and getting to planets, you can try to get these tourists back. Hopefully the tourist-mission does not expire before then. But it if does, then you will take a hit in the reputation, and also in cash. It is quite likely that you will screw up many (many many many!) other things before you can attempt to get these tourists back. And at some point it may be easier to start a new career, and do it properly from the start...

But missions to the Mun take a day in real time. Minmus several days. And all the missions to planets are counted in years? This way, multiplayer missions are limited to Kerbin, and then probably only to the surface directly around the KSC. Even if you plan to do stuff in LKO, you end up most of the time waiting for a node. One orbit is about 30 minutes, and you only need to do stuff for 1-2 minutes during that orbit - sometimes not even.

@Triop, Could you confirm that this is indeed part of the rules? And if it is, could you do me and fellow members a favor and put this not so unimportant bit about reloading in the OP of the rules of the challenge? Thanks. I read the rules carefully. I also read the OP of the results thread. But I did not read the 36 page long discussion thread where, among many other discussions, the "discussion-ish-thingy with Triop and Panda" happened.

Since I completed the race with a solar powered car, I started building a new rover, this time jet-powered. And after countless explosions, broken tires and other RUDs, I wondered: Are people using the "No Crash Damage" cheat? And are we allowed to use that cheat? I just can't manage to keep the car in one piece going at speeds between let's say 80-120 m/s. (Note, I don't think I want to use that cheat - but if people do, that should most definitely be a separate category for the results, because it gives huge advantages).

Here's my first submission for the Kerbal Dakar challenge. Jeb competes in the solar/electric category. It's a skinny little car, but it is rock solid - there is absolutely no way to flip this thing on its side. A few specs: Mass: 5.154 ton 10 large solar panels 1 Battery 12 Wheels 2 small reaction wheels (for the big jumps) Lots of metal beams Time: Start Finish Time 5.22.00 5.34.31 12.31 5.40.01 5.50.18 10.17 5.54.00 0.05.02 11.02 0.07.00 0.18.06 11.06 0.22.00 0.34.15 12.15 0.36.00 0.47.14 11.14 5.05.00 5.14.32 9.32 TOTAL 1h 17m 57s Spoiler with pics of the Start/Finish of each stage, and some in-between pics of the rover on its way (jumps and top speed). Of course, it did not all go according to plan. A few reloads were needed (I saved the game after every stage). One reload before stage 7, because I ran out of sunlight no a steep hill and the car came to a complete stop, which seemed to me to be a bad thing in a race... And a few crashes. I made 2 screenshots of the most amusing bloopers. Imgur album here (but I put all the pictures in this post - so nothing new there). Thanks for reading! @gilflo, make sure that your vehicle comes to a complete stop at each flag, and take a screenshot. For more info, see the rules of this challenge.