AHHans

Well, I can see that. I tend to disagree, but I can see that some people think this is fun. You and me both! It may have something to do with how it is actually measured, but I haven't yet ruled out that this was done in WW2 by the allies to confuse the Germans!

Hmmmm... For me just typing some values into a python shell is faster. (And I often include the stored ore in my fuel calculations, so the built-in dV calculation also doesn't always work.)

You just keep using the standard 9.81 m/s2. This isn't really used because the acceleration happens in Earth's (or Kerbin's) gravity field, but because it was used when defining how Isp is calculated.

Errr.... You do know that a simple resistor is 100% efficient in converting electrical energy into heat? (That does not mean this it is smart to do this to heat your home, but that is another topic.) P.S. But thanks for point these things out to me! I didn't know that thermoradiative cells exists and learning to understand how they work was quite interesting.

Something like that would also be my guess. For some reason the the game failed to notify the "check contracts" part of the code of the fact that you've changed from being outside of Eve's atmosphere to inside the atmosphere. Though I want to throw "did this at too high time warp" into the mix.

I see two potential issues: One is that on one side (visible at e.g. timestamp 0:10) there is a barometer that's clipping into one of the wheels. I don't think that is a problem on it's own, but are there other parts that are clipping into each other? The other is the (unfortunately quite usual) suspension wobble. The "Spring/Damper" settings could be too stiff or too soft. My suggestion is to fiddle around with the settings a bit, make the spring strength and damper strength higher or lower (on all wheels!) and see if you find a setting that works. Right now my guess is that the spring strength or the damper strength is too high.

Please try to understand the physics of such things before making such suggestions. The thing is that "anti solar panels" - or "thermoradiative cells" as the working part in them is called - don't generate heat, they generate electricity by radiating away heat. These are interesting things btw. I didn't know that such things are a thing. As far as I understand it, they are essentially photovoltaic cells, but at the hot side and not the cold side like PV cells. I think I understand now how they work, but I'm not 100% sure. Where I am sure is that they are heat engines and thus follow the same rules of thermodynamics as all other heat engines. Thermoradiative cells work with a radiation temperature of at best the 300 K average earth - or spacecraft - temperature. That means that the amount of power per radiating surface is strictly limited. In space you might be a bit better than the 50 W/m2 quoted in the articles about the "anti solar panels", but not much! On Earth (or Kerbin I guess) you don't need to worry about where the heat is coming from because the planet is a huge reservoir, in space you cannot just radiate away heat - i.e. cool down your spacecraft - indefinitely before the craft stops working. So you'll need a source of heat: solar radiation -> Why not use PV and batteries? Chemical fuel -> Fuel cells. Radioactive isotopes -> RTGs? Using them for thermal control might work and generate some electricity along the way, but they are less efficient at radiating away heat than "simple" radiators (or they'll be even worse at generating electricity) so you'll need more m2 to get rid of the same amount of heat. And they will be heavier than the same area of "simple" radiators (in addition to the structure that spreads the heat you need the parts that generate the electricity). So what do you think about thermal control systems that are 10 times as heavy and twice as bulky as the current stock ones, but instead of using ECs they generate ECs at about the rate that the stock ones use ECs? While they actually need to work! In real life I could imagine that this technology is used in spaceflight. E.g. to increase the efficiency of RTGs: make the whole RTG assembly more heavy and bulky but have it use less radioisotope for the same electricity output. Not heat pump, heat engine! (Heat pumps use non-heat energy to transport heat to a higher temperature.)

In theory, yes. Just put the decoupler that ditches the experiment storage unit and the parachute on the unit into the same stage on the staging setup, and then the parachute will be activated when you decouple the lot. But I can see two potential problems: one is that I'm not sure if a single experiment storage unit will survive reentry - even if you add a small heat-shield. The other is that if the unit leaves physics range while in the atmosphere, then it runs a risk of being deleted by the game. And finally: why don't you just add an experiment storage unit (ESU) to the top of your Onion capsule like you would do it with the Mk1 command pod? A simple stack of Onion, ESU, and Mk16 parachute will orient itself in the atmosphere with the bottom of the Onion first and safely reenter even from high Kerbin orbit (from further away than Minmus). (This works also with the large "Russian" command module, the "Pomegranate".)

Today in the showroom we have another piece of fascinating space hardware from the AHTech Industries labs, the: GeeMaster 2000 This fascinating space station includes a precision centrifuge optimized to separate money from thrill-seeking tourists' wallets. It is the modern solution to the problem of fulfilling high-gee adventure contracts from tourists that want to pass out while in orbit (or on suborbital trajectories). Generating high accelerations with engine thrust means not only that you have to bring massive amounts of engine power into orbit together with the fuel to run the engines, but also that you only have a few seconds before you have reached escape velocity and are no longer "in orbit". The centrifuge section of the GeeMaster 2000 includes two one-person passenger cabins. While not in use these cabins are securely docked to the main body of the station, which allows for secure storage and enables safe transfer of tourist passengers to the cabins. For centrifuge operation the cabins can be decoupled from the main body, which allows the occupant to experience the full force of the centrifugal acceleration. Using only easily-replenished electricity to generate the acceleration for the tourists, this craft can stay in space and be reused over and over again to extract money from a large number of tourists.(*) If the main body of the craft is aligned along the prograde/retrograde axis, then passenger cabins will typically remain on an orbital trajectory for the full circle of the centrifuge motion. If the main body is aligned along the normal or radial axis of the orbit, then for part of the circle the passenger cabins will move retrograde relative to the main body. If this is done in LKO then the cabins will be in a suborbital trajectory during that time, allowing the extraction of money from tourists that prefer suborbital trajectories. (*) Suitable passenger shuttles are sold separately. The risk of pilot complaints about doing "boring shuttle missions over and over" are outside the responsibility of AHTech Industries.

Well, the scanner arms are intended to be used on rovers. So putting them on a lander that cannot move over the surface is - let's say: daring. Even with a scanner arm mounted on a rover I sometimes have to maneuver a bit because something is in the way and the arm cannot deploy properly - sometimes because I'm just too close to the object I want to study. But if you land within arms length (pun intended ) of an object, and the scanner arm doesn't recognize it as scannable, then it's probably suface scatter as @VoidSquid said.

Well, yes, I never kept it secret that @5thHorseman gave me the idea for doing my "flying rock"! But his version wouldn't actually qualify for my challenge: it wasn't powered, so it couldn't take off again. P.S. And, yes, I included a reference to him in the challenge description.

"On Kerbin even the rocks can fly!" (In the revelations by Johnpatmos Kerman) With Jebediah being on his way to Jool, Tedford Kerman took the opportunity, grabbed an access rover, and drove out to Jeb's asteroid-to-aircraft conversion that is still parked close to the KSC. After careening wildly around the grasslands Tedford finally found the trick how to get this so-called aircraft into the air: put enough grease on the wheels so that you kind-of "fly" over the surface until you gather enough speed to take to the air. But even then he needed all his skill to keep the craft flying, never actually in the direction he pointed it, but flying. At least it managed a good clip when he opened up the throttle and set the props to high-speed flight. Back on the ground he thought: "Hmmmm. I wonder if someone can do this better?" The challenge is to build an aircraft that uses an asteroid as it's main structural component. That's all. Well, it should be a "natural" asteroid, i.e. one you "found" in space, not something you added in the SPH. Rules "Aircraft" means that it should be capable of - reasonably - controlled flight, you should be able to fly it somewhere (e.g. the KSC), land it, and take off again. I don't care if it is a plane with wings, a quadcopter, a VTOL that flies on jet thrust, or whatever. It should be able of controlled (well, after a fashion) landings, just letting it fall at the end of some parachutes is not O.K. Feel free to use the Kerbals parachutes as wings if you want. Using parachutes to decelerate (or even land) during (re-)entry from orbit is O.K. Using parachutes to decelerate once you are safely(?) on the ground is also O.K. It should be "reusable", i.e. there should be no built-in limit on how often you can land and take off again. If it uses a limited resource like Lf, then it should at least have some point where you can attach a refueling truck with a Klaw or so without the structure falling apart. (That shouldn't be too hard.) "Asteroid as main structural component" means that it should be an asteroid that can fly, not a plane that can carry an asteroid. If it can still fly if you destroy the asteroid, then you did something wrong! No cheating after you started assembling the craft. I.e. after you attached the first component to the asteroid. This is no competition about who can find the best asteroid, or how to get a crazy collection of structural parts into orbit. So feel free to cheat an asteroid into existence in LKO and your craft into a rendezvous with it. But it should in general be possible to assemble the craft without cheating at all. You can also first land the asteroid on Kerbin and attach the components there. I plan to have two leaderboards: one for the highest speed in level flight, and one for the most easy-to-use construction. Note: As of 21st March 2020: In version 1.9.x there is a bug that affects the mass of small asteroids: #24855 on the bugtracker. Affected asteroids get a mass of 150 t assigned to them instead of the correct value. In the bug report on the bugtracker there is an explanation of a patch that fixes this issue. Speed Record Leaderboard Submission Rules: Be landed at Kerbin, take-off, do your high-speed run, and finally land again. Provide at least picture evidence of your speed run. If the number of submissions allows it, then I'll split this into separate leaderboards for stock (+DLC) and modded craft. Current Leaderboard: @AHHans with "Flying Rock Kit": 136.5 m/s Easy-to-use Construction Submission Rules: Stock (including DLC) only! I want a large audience that is able to use the craft. Publish the craft file somewhere, together with assembly instructions. Submission Deadline: 12th April 2020 (Easter Sunday) Later submissions may or may not be included. I plan to ask the people here on the Forums to vote for the most user-friendly craft. If you have a good idea on how to do this, then let me know. My submission, the "Flying Rock Kit":

No maybe there, and also not really forgot. I didn't mind parts falling apart or Jeb passing out due to g-forces, so I didn't bother to switch off the limits. I also didn't know that Kerbals not only pass out, but also break apart if the g-forces get too high. And that's not actually the "part limits" but the "Kerbal limits".

I broke Jeb.

I tried a variation of your method, and it was too much for poor Jeb.

That's what I thought. That's not what I thought. (Well, actually I thought that it technically is within the rules, but goes against the spirit of the rules.) Well, I hadn't intended my post as a serious entry for the competition. I also didn't really push that craft to its limit, so there is still some room for improvement. A further issue with XL3 based designs is that the maximum speeds doesn't just depend on the craft, but also significantly on the piloting skills.

Maybe you should state that the speed exploit of the huge rover wheels is not allowed. (See the "spoilers" in the wiki page.) I think this violates rule 1 of the "Run Procedure". Or do you want to make it an extra category? I just spent 2 min to throw together this: Which I indeed easily got above 100 m/s by keeping <W> pressed, and then hitting <A> and <D>. (Well, and then spent 10 mins zooming around the KSC. That thing dives like greased lightning.)

I'm afraid so... But usually they hang out in the Lonely Nozzle. (According to them the music might not be as good as in the Dog & Booster, but in the Nozzle they brew their own cider.) Anyhow, right now they are studying hard. I guess all of them want to be included in the next mission to the Joolian system, testing if the shuttle also works as an SSTO on Laythe. Oh, that must be in the fine print under all the beer stains. Are you saying that I shouldn't have used the rule-book as a beer-mat? Thanks. I hope you'll have enough beer for my thirsty crew at the party.

Hmmm... at 57g (or 100 rpm as I like to call it) the victim ...err... guinea pig ...err... passenger? Yes, passenger cabins! So the passenger cabins tend to warp out of their holding structure and take flight. (Unfortunately the F3-window cannot be moved, otherwise you could see Bill in flight after ripping loose from the centrifuge.) Edit: Yupp! Warp-effect it is. (Well, that's what you get if you stop the centrifuge mid-warp.) P.S. Are you sure that you want to allow robotic parts?

O.K. Just let me disable "Part G-Force Limits"... Only 54g??? (Well, with the limits the parts fail at 50g.)

Are robotic parts allowed? *blows the dust off a centrifuge*

Sorry, fat fingered the submit button. It'll take me a while to get that written. [Edit:] So, I think I'm done. For some reasons that just turned into a story that just wanted to be told.

Dear K-Prize committee. AHTech Industries respectfully submits an entry to be considered for the K-Prize, our ingeniously named: Person Shuttle 2 (Yes, what do you think? Who gives a bus a glorious name?) Since finishing its design it has been a veritable workhorse of AHTech's aerospace division. We've made at least a dozen trips to our gateway station ("The Gate") and other destinations in Kerbin orbit or around Minmus and the Mun. Recently - since even the fearless Jebediah Kerman prefers to no be on board when our more experimental craft launch - many of our interplanetary craft launch without crew and the crew is shuttled up in this craft. So we sent Julhat Kerman on a joyride ... a tour to show off what our shuttle can do. The full picture gallery can be seen on imgur, here are the edited highlights. As the name suggests the craft is optimized for the transport of personnel within the Kerbin system. In addition to a two Kerbal flight-crew it has space for eight additional passengers: Start, take-off, and ascent to orbit is fairly typical. If the pilot doesn't mess up you'll have more than 3.1 km/s dV in LKO. First stop of the tour was The Gate, AHTech's refueling station in a not-so-circular-anymore 500 km orbit around Kerbin. As usual, no refueling of the person shuttle was done. During a routine visit it is not needed to return to Kerbin, and this time the goal was to demonstrate what can be done without refueling. (Yes, I used the opportunity to transmit the accumulated science from the science lab.) Next stop was Minmus. Not much to be said here, the transfer and landing are fairly standard. Not so standard was maybe the noise from the crew cabins. After the risk of detection (and complaints) by the crew of The Gate was over, the passengers broke out the drinks and started their multi-week party. On Minmus everyone was reasonably sober, but most were hung over. So only Julhat took a quick peek out of the airlock, while the others settled for looking out of the windows. After takeoff - and as second part of the triad for newbie training(*) - Julhat and her crew left Kerbin's SOI to "orbit the sun". (And if you think that sound ominous, then you don't want to know what happened in the crew cabins during that time. But even the youngest crew member was an adult so no harm was done.) After having a good look the darkness of deep space, Julhat turned the shuttle around and headed towards the Mun. The sudden acceleration took a few of the not-really-sober-anymore passengers by surprise, but Claudon - the co-pilot - had foreseen this issue and stocked a large amount of barf-bags, so no lasting harm was done. But a fairly wide elliptical orbit was all that the fuel situation allowed. They spent a couple of days in that orbit, allowing the occasionally sober members of the crew a long time to look at the Mun. And while Julhat claimed that they "needed to wait for a good transfer to Kerbin from their current orbit", she spent a long time on the radio during these days. As exciting as the return to Kerbin was for those who hadn't done this before, so routine was it for Julhat and the other experienced Kerbonauts. Yes, the hull got a bit toasty during aerobraking, but nothing that the craft couldn't handle. And, yes, they needed several trips through the upper atmosphere to shed enough speed, but that's how you avoid overheating. And if you worry about crashing while gliding to the runway, then rest assured: there was still enough fuel in the tanks to get you out of a sticky situation. (Not that it was needed.) A fairly uneventful end to a tumultuous trip! But, was this the end of the trip? Julhat managed to glide the shuttle down to the landing on the runway, so nobody in the admin building noticed her return. And while orbiting the Mun Julhat had been chatting with her pal Lizlorf on the radio. Lizlorf currently has the thankless duty of crewing the refueling truck on the apron. So she could sneak onto the runway and refuel the shuttle for Julhat and the others. And under cover of the falling night Julhat and her crew of misfits took to the skies again. This time she went straight to the Mun. After waiting some time for the sun to rise at her destination she turned the shuttle for landing. By now all the high-proof drinks had been consumed. So after landing everybody got out to get a good look at the Munar surface. Julhat had landed next to a monument about alien explorers. There she and Claudon assembled their crew and told them the story of these explorers. How fear of "the enemy" lead on the one hand to weapons of mass destruction that threatened global extinction. But also how this competition motivated a group of these strange aliens to work together and perform the greatest deeds of exploration that their planet had seen up to that time. The return trip back to the KSC was a lot more quiet than the previous parts of the trip. Instead of drunken laughter, somber discussions dominated the noise coming from the crew cabins. This was much to Julhat's relief, because the landing on and take-off from the Mun left the shuttle only fumes after returning to Kerbin. And after she overshot the KSC it took some careful flying to make it to the runway. But she did make it in the end, and brought a lengthy trip to a successful conclusion. P.S. (*) "Newbie triad": Orbit the Mun, Land on Minmus, and Orbit the Sun. Together with "Orbit Kerbin" this will give a Kerbal three stars. P.P.S. In case it isn't clear, only the part up to the first landing is the part that is submitted to the K-Prize committee.

The "Mission Elapsed Time" like it is displayed in the top left gets reset on different kind of occasions during flight. (I think whenever you dock or undock from something, but I never really payed attention to it.) This makes it completely useless for checking if a craft is eligible for a certain contract. If I see it correctly then your station consists of multiple parts. What you can do is undock the parts one by one, and see on which sub-part(s) the green marker for "this is a new craft" on the contract display is set.

Well, I had exactly that in mind when I asked about time-warping mods. I don't know! But I wouldn't be surprised if high time-warps with BetterTimeWarp mess with the deployed science mechanic in a way that suppresses the messages. But, well, I don't know!