Azimech

What do you think, can you do it?

It is!

My score: 133km.

I created the first version of the my Dodge Charger in 2015. I'm still updating it and I still love to drive it.

I might be wrong but I don't think this has been done before. So I've started a car economy challenge: how far can you drive with a car powered by a jet engine and 50 units of fuel. And the basic rule is: it has to look like a car instead of a rover, even if the small landing gear wheels make it look stupid. So far so good

The challenge is ready guys! Good luck!

I've updated the rules and changed the fuel requirement to 50 units of fuel.

I really love VOID ;-)

Four kerbals sitting in seats and extended landing gear ... Those things are very draggy. But I might change the fuel requirement.

A car doesn't need to have powered wheels to be considered a car. Look at drag racers using jet engines. And like I said, airplane landing gear has wheels. So you just install those on a car: car has wheels. Example (not to be taken seriously): https://kerbalx.com/Azimech/Melviiiin-Wheres-the-flyswatter

You'd need a lot more fuel for getting airborne than keeping on driving ... which means you'd lose the eco challenge ;-)

Landing gear needs to have springs set to a low value, typically 50% or 30% of the dampers.

Unless I'm mistaken, airplanes have wheels. The idea of using airplane landing gear is to prevent the vehicles to run on electrical power.

What is your definition of car then?

They work! But you need to remove the gaps in between. https://kerbalx.com/Azimech/77I--EJ_SA-class-carrier-v079

The Car Eco Challenge. (This is not how to do it.) Inspired by this challenge: I'm starting a new challenge focused on cars. The challenge: start at the KSC and drive towards the north pole using 50 units of fuel. Rover wheels are not allowed, only landing gear. The car is to be powered by a jet engine. Required: 4 kerbals in seats and two science containers. The use of a boost flap is encouraged. Mechjeb is encouraged for use of the rover autopilot. Rules: Parts have to be connected visually, no floating stuff. Must have two headlights. Must have two rear lights emitting red. How you do it, I don't care. It's not required to make them look like real lights, just a glow on the inside of the rear quarter panels is enough. A battery. Moving control surfaces are not allowed except boost flaps. If you use boost flaps, they need to cancel out each other forces. SAS and RCS are not allowed. The jet engine is not allowed inside the passenger cabin. In case of a front mounted engine, the thrust vector is allowed to move through the passenger cabin. Part clipping is allowed. I don't care how ugly it is. FAR or other modifications to the aero system are not allowed. Have the action window of the jet engine and resource window open at all times. Take a screenshot at start, after 5 minutes and after that at 30 minute intervals. Take a last screenshot when you've run out of fuel. If you don't have/use Mechjeb, install a probe core so you'll be able to show the distance to KSC when you've run out of fuel. The comms system needs to be enabled in the difficulty setting. Since the idea is to build a car and not a rover, the car must have all the body paneling you'd expect from a real vehicle. Body paneling is not required to animate. It must have: a roof, hood/bonnet, trunk lid, front & rear quarter panels, doors, solid underside but doesn't have to be straight, a closed front, a closed rear, with a small slit in the middle for the exhaust thrust vector. Suggested terrain detail level: low. Both KSP 1.2.2 and 1.3 have problems with terrain on high settings, I don't know about 1.2.2 but the problems aren't there in 1.3 in low detail mode. Suggestion: program a route with Mechjeb. Turn the car in the SPH so you'll start in the right direction. Drive around the bay and head north, try to avoid the hills and mountains.

And if you're doing stuff like racing or combat, just disable timewarp on the server.

Interesting idea. But how are you supposed to fire both cannons at the same time? Besides, you can't load a craft on the runway when there's already one there. To make this work, both cannons should be a single craft file, using hangar extender and unlimited offset to place both far enough.

Congrats JQ!

Impressive! Cranes aren't really easy, stock or modded.

Hmmm ... suddenly I'm wondering if I could use kerbals for creating ball joints.

Set the control authority to a negative value.

Yep, forgot about that one.

I just invented a new bearing type! Using the collide - o -scope I figured out that two medium retractable landing gears joined together make a fantastic axle, autostrutting themselves. They have a high impact tolerance and are held in place by vernor engines, also with a high impact tolerance. I haven't installed VOID in 1.3 yet so I can't be sure how stable the engine speed is but it looks promising! By leaving a bit of a gap in between, you can create a (thrust) bearing halfway. The smaller landing gear is less ideal, the larger one is promising and the largest one is unusable, well maybe as a camshaft. So now we have a heavy duty solution to fill the gap between landing gears/MK1 crew cabin and the light antenna/thermometer and derivatives. The medium landing gear is 750kg lighter than the MK1 crew cabin and fits inside a MK1 structural fuselage with ease. I've already started work on building a transmission and clutch with them!

Thanks for updating! It seems to me some portions of the code might need a rewrite though.