Tarmenius

Congratulations on your great first entry! If you're able to get your Pe and Ap exact enough, you can bring them down to 74km (but no lower than that). That will likely improve your score noticeably... not that it isn't awesome already, of course! I hope Munfrod brought something to read and eat while a rescue can be mounted... if a rescue is even planned, that is

That all makes sense to me. I'll have to give your benchmarks a try and see what I come up with.

Still, even with the Ap overshoot, you managed to save about 11 m/s on that flight. Steering losses were reduced by 12 m/s, gravity losses by 4, but your drag losses increased by 7. I'd love to see the profile you flew. I could certainly stand to refine my ascent a bit

Fun Challenge! This is the first time I've participated in a budgeting restriction, so it was nice to do something different. Normally, I engineer for fuel efficiency, not cost efficiency And now, for the pictures! Here, we see the "Budget Rescue" in the VAB, with a total cost of $16,766. And here it is, lifting off from the pad with Launch Clamps released: Just after rendezvous, but before docking, the orbital fuel and engine were de-orbited successfully. The other pieces of debris in the screenshot are from other missions and totally unrelated to the "Budget Rescue." Docking with the Science Station was relatively uneventful, but I was a little worried about whether I'd have enough fuel to de-orbit. Thankfully, I managed to get the Periapsis below 30,000m for a direct re-entry, with a small amount of fuel in reserve for final braking. And the Budget Rescue splashes down at a comfortable 5.6 m/s thanks to the fumes left in the fuel tanks! No parts were lost, and both crew members survived! Corberry looks surprised... or confused. Maybe both? And now for the breakdown of score: Total Cost: $16,766 Bonuses: Extra Capsule +2500 Lighting: +300 Solar Panels: +200 Batteries: +150 Redundant Chutes: +1000 Docking Clamp: +500 No MechJeb: +50 Scientific Instruments (4): +1500 Full Ride: +500 Total Bonus: +6700 Final Score: 8174 ((18000) - (16,766 - 240)) + 6700 = 8174 That adjusted score is less than half the allowed budget! Woo! I completely forgot to use the $500 Engineer part instead of the cheaper $240 one. But the one I used is still clearly visible, so I hope that's okay. Let me know if I've left something out or did the math incorrectly.

I'm impressed! You broke the record and the categories! I guess that calls for a new color

Congratulations, honolululu on making the Double-Digit Club! If I made a little jpeg or gif for those of you who break 10, would that be something you'd want to put in your signatures? I'd like to reward such exceptional efficiency with something more than just a place on the scoreboard.

Interesting... I'd be curious to see exactly how much of an effect it has. I suppose its time to run a few more attempts for myself.

Thanks for the support, PakledHostage, I appreciate it. And you make an excellent point on noting the use of MechJeb's auto-pilot and information panels. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it makes good sense. I will make the additions accordingly. That works just fine! Congrats on a great first entry!

Congratulations on breaking 10, metaphor! And thanks for the video, it's quite helpful. Danger Will Kerbinson!, that's quite the respectable entry on your first ever Challenge! And welcome to the Forums! Nurph, your entry has also been added to the Scoreboard. Congratulations on completing the challenge! mcirish3, I'm looking forward to seeing what your SCIENCE! will show to be the optimal profile for this rocket. You've got more patience than I for the math.

Nice improvement! That moved you up a few places into 5th! I understand the urge to separate auto-pilot users from manual pilots. I will admit that at times, I feel it can provide an unfair advantage. However, in this case, I don't think it does. To take tavert's entry as an example, he spent 2 hours getting MechJeb's settings to be just right. That requires him to know just as much about the ideal ascent profile as anyone else. This challenge, at it's core, is less about the act of piloting, and more about knowing what an efficient launch profile looks like. metaphor's entry is close on tavert's heels, and he flew the rocket manually. I think this demonstrates that a skilled pilot can be just as good as MechJeb.

That trajectory isn't too bad. After all, you did get the rocket into orbit. Congrats! Actually, that pretty much looks like the ones I end up with. Hmm...

I wouldn't consider it a mistake in interpretation. Since I didn't define the parameters with enough specificity, both ways of looking at it fell within the rules.

Wow, quite the bit of activity while I slept! On the subject of tavert's entries: The rules did not state that Ap needed to be greater that 75km, so his scores are valid. Since we're dealing with such minute differences in fuel spent, and to allow everyone the opportunity to increase their score, I will change the target orbit to a 74km x 74km minimum. Originally, the 74km minimum Pe was in place to allow for some margin of error in piloting, but I must say I'm impressed at the precision of everyone's entries (even the manually piloted ones!). Does this sound fair to everyone? And Congratulations to the new participants for completing this challenge!

Yeah, I had to find this out the hard way after placing a group of seats on an SSTO. I sat wondering why the heck it got into orbit fine with empty seats, but failed miserably when occupied. The funny thing is, You can put a couple seats on a normal rocket, move Kerbals from the Command Pod to the seats and watch the craft's total mass increase.

honolululu, Congrats on your first Challenge! You certainly did it correctly and performed admirably. NeilC, I totally understand the engineering draw of this game. It's where I spend most of my time. And a very nice improvement on your previous score! My experience with MechJeb is pretty limited, but I wonder whether adjusting the "Turn Shape" setting will help reduce steering losses while also keeping gravity losses down. Unfortunately, it might translate into slightly higher drag losses. I suppose it's a matter of "Which force applies the greater influence over the duration of the launch?" and focusing on bringing that down.

mcirish3: Congrats on a successful orbit, and thanks for the video submission! The numbers were kind of hard to discern, but I think I've gotten the score correct. If I have it wrong, please post a screenshot for clarification And PakledHostage, it's good to see you're still around. I'm looking forward to finding out what you can accomplish here.

I'm glad you could get it to work! With a couple more tries, I'm sure you could beat at least my own score!

That's about where I keep it, too. Do you perform your gravity turn in one slow maneuver, or in steps? I do mine in about 4 or 5 small steps, turning to particular pitch settings at specific altitudes. For example, one step is pointing to +30degrees pitch at 30km. It certainly does look like double digits is a reachable goal. I wonder who will break it first!

That's my thought exactly. And if someone was able to program MechJeb's auto-pilot so well that it beats the rest of us, I will be impressed. In my experience, you simply can't tweak MechJeb's profile minutely enough to compete with manual piloting. Good work, guys! The scoreboard has been updated accordingly. I can't wait to see what people are capable of with this craft. NeilC, was your first four attempts also with MechJeb, or were you also able to achieve orbit manually? Just a point of curiosity, of course.

I know that most of us who have been around for a while will know how to get into orbit without any fuss. It's quite routine for me as well. But improving efficiency during the launch can do wonders to reduce the size of the rocket being used and it can take new players a while to learn how to manage their launches. Really, this challenge is for any player who wants to learn how to make a more efficient ascent, new or old. As for MechJeb, if it could perform the ascent far more efficiently than any human pilot, then I'd see that as an unfair advantage. But last I checked, this wasn't the case. Thus, no score penalty to MechJeb users.

*Updated for 0.21.1* The craft has been updated to reflect the changes in 0.21.1. Instead of the old ASAS, an Avionics Package and four(4) Z-100 radially-mounted batteries provide the equivalent mass (see the picture below) of the previous design. Since the new craft's drag profile may be different, and given the incredibly narrow margin between entries, I will also be adding a new scoreboard to reflect the change in characteristics. As always, input is welcome, and have fun! With so many new players joining over the recent months, I thought it might be nice to revisit an old challenge focused on a basic and fundamental part of the game: Launching a craft into orbit. Here we will take an incredibly simple design and aim to put it in an orbit no lower than 74km x 74km. Note that having an Apoapsis greater than 75km is perfectly acceptable, but will obviously result in more fuel being spent and therefore a lower score. Speaking of which, your score will be the amount of liquid fuel remaining. No math necessary! Given its very simple design, duplicating it yourself is the fastest option. However, I can also upload the craft file to the SpacePort on request. When re-creating it yourself, please be sure to use the LV-T30 engine and all four radial batteries. You may also want to use launch clamps (I find it sways on the launchpad), though this is not required. And if you’re so inclined, MechJeb is totally allowed. Several participants in the past version of this challenge were able to out-perform the ascent auto-pilot, so I don’t think it gives an unfair advantage to anyone. The updated craft for 0.21.1: You will have a pretty tight fuel margin, so good throttle management and a proper ascent profile will be very important. To submit an entry, please include a screenshot of your Pe/Ap from the Map View as well as one showing your remaining fuel and total battery capacity. Of course, if you can include all data points in one screenshot, that's great, too! Additionally, if you want to share the specifics of your gravity turn, be encouraged to do so. As this challenge focuses on the basics, I’m hoping this will provide new players a way to improve their skills and learn from other participants. Here is my own sample entry: A score of 6.62! Woo! That beat my original submission! But, I’m sure many of you can do better. To provide readers with a quick way to gauge the relative performance of MechJeb's auto-pilot versus manual piloting, I will note its use next to entries on the Scoreboard. I will also note entries that used Information Panels only, whether from MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer Redux. Bear in mind that this in no way reflects a less valid or less impressive entry. Programming the auto-pilot effectively requires as much knowledge of an efficient ascent path as any manual pilot. Scoreboard: 1. Nao: 10.55 (Auto-pilot) 2. Raptor831: 10.44 (Auto-Throttle/ Manual Steer) 3. tavert: 10.29 (Auto-pilot) 4. metaphor: 10.25 (Vanilla) 5. honolululu: 10.10 (Vanilla) 6. Bystander: 10.04 (Auto-pilot) 7. mootavic: 9.56 (Auto-pilot) 8. Danger Will Kerbinson!: 9.50 (Info Panel) 9. totalitor: 8.23 (Vanilla) 10. g00bd0g: 8.13 (Auto-pilot) 11. zarakon: 8.08 (Vanilla) 12. Bobnova: 7.84 (No Assists) 13. Giggleplex777: 7.78 (Vanilla) 14. tssn1611: 7.74 (Vanilla) 15. NeilC: 7.71 (Auto-pilot) 16. Quintic: 7.12 (Vanilla) 17. Tarmenius: 6.62 (Vanilla) 18. Epthelyn: 6.23 (Auto-pilot) 19. PakledHostage: 4.72 (Vanilla) 20. AndreyATGB: 4.44 (Info Panel) 21. Nurph: 4.09 (Vanilla) 22. Goozeman: 4.07 (Attitude-assist) 23. mcirish3: 2.39 (Vanilla) 24. Respawn: 1.43 (Info Panel) 25. Enigma179: 0.00 (Info Panel) Double-Digit Club tavert (First Member) mataphor honolululu Raptor831 Bystander Nao Have fun!

It could also be an issue of too much control authority at the front of your craft. Try placing static winglets on the nose instead.

Like Markus Reese said, for forward support is one good reason. I also place them that way under the Mk1 Cockpit if I want the craft to sit a bit lower to the ground, usually for small aircraft and spaceplanes. Those craft also tend to need a longer wheel base, and turning the front gear backwards can help accomplish that.

When part-way through your Munar orbit insertion burn, the engines unexpectedly cut out despite a mostly-full fuel load. Yep, forgot the fuel lines again...

With the beginnings of Career Mode in the works for 0.21, I would suggest coming back for that.