zarakon

Here's mine: (includes a bonus failed attempt at the start!) +50 cockpit view +50 under 1 minute +100 (I think) for 120 m/s icemonkey - if you happen to have a recent nvidia GPU (GTX 600 or GTX 700 series) you can use Shadowplay to record or stream. It's really nice because it records directly to a compressed format, so you don't get massive multi-GB files for recording just a couple minutes, and it has very little impact on framerate

I think you listed the scoring for speeds incorrectly

I'm also trying to do one with just simple vertical staging, 2 stages per level, no droptanks or asparagus nonsense. Currently at level 4

[imgur]a7QdJ[/imgur ]

Yeah, getting the Mun intercept is the hardest part without map view. It's totally do-able if you know your heading, speed, altitude, and the position of the Mun (mark it as your target before you launch). It just takes a lot of math! But the Mun's SOI is a really big target, and some people here have gone there so many times that we mostly just have a feel for it. I did an IVA no-map Mun mission a while ago just based on one rehearsal using the same craft

Alright, finally done! Level 1: 4.3 tons, 60 kN thrust Level 2: 30.7 tons, 645 kN thrust Level 3: 163.4 tons, 2500 kN thrust Level 4: 816 tons, 13900 kN thrust Level 5: 4224 tons, 68700 MN thrust Unmatched in heaven and earth, one machine equal to the gods! Total of 23498 delta-v By far the most I've ever successfully gotten to orbit, largely thanks to the overpowered SLS parts. Without those, this probably would have been twice this size

Somehow one engine got in the wrong place in the staging order, so the wrong end started pointing up...

Good luck with that! 6 may be plausible with the use of jet engines, but 7 is firmly in the realm of absurdity. Even if your first level is only 2 tons and you get a 25% payload mass fraction on each level, you'd be looking at building a 32768-ton monster for level 7.

I've gotten mine up to level 3 so far. I think the first one is 4.3 tons, and the level 3 is about 160 tons total, so I'm in pretty good shape for weight. Each level of it just baaaarely reaches orbit. At this rate, level 4 will be about 976 tons, which is completely do-able, but still quite a bit of work to get it working and optimized. I made one attempt at it, but didn't get close to orbit. I think I need to upgrade my KER or MJ because they aren't giving me good info once I start using the SLS parts. Level 5 would need to be almost 6000 though. That means it'll need 20+ of the KR-2L or KS-25x4 engines at liftoff. That's also about double the mass and liftoff thrust of the Saturn V. The total craft will also have over 23000 delta v without any nuclear, ion, or jet engines

Do you know the altitude where ships will be deleted when on rails?

I usually have a set of 2-4 drop-tanks on the outside of the lander, and I put the landing legs on those. This allows me to have a wide base to make landing easier, and I can dump the landing gear along with the empty tanks for my ascent.

I started on it, with the goal of scoring a 4. But then it turned out to be harder than I expected, and I was spending too much time trying to tweak down the weight on the first two, and I started playing a couple of other games so I just never finished

Well, I certainly didn't expect to see anyone do THAT! 4300 remaining? Land it on Gilly too then land back at KSC? I think you've got enough for that

Wings are only helpful if your thrust/weight ratio is low. That little thing has more power than it needs - it's basically just a rocket with extremely high ISP and a slightly different flight profile. KSP's jet engines are drastically overpowered compared to real life

Yes, I would say jets should be a separate category

I don't think using their engines is allowed, only electrical systems. Clarification on that would be good though edit: removed a false conclusion

Yeah, I've done the upside-down one myself. It feels a bit weird, but isn't too difficult once you get used to the controls being essentially backwards. It's fun though, and it's definitely something I want to try once I get my Oculus Rift! I haven't tried backwards yet. I should do that, as it would be much harder. Probably want a plane with a very slow landing speed so you can see the surrounding landscape for reference before it's too late

I'll see what I can do when I get home later I predict we'll see a maximum score of 5 Although.. are jet engines allowed?

Build a plane with the cockpit on backwards. Fly in IVA view only, and land it on the island runway. And/or do the same with the cockpit on upside-down

According to http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parts Each ion engine requires 8.729 charge per second You have 11 engines, for a total requirement of 96.019 per second. A single solar panel generates 0.75 charge per second. You need 128.025 of them running at full power to meet your requirement. Your design appears to have two 8x7 squares of panels, so only 112, not enough to power all of your engines fully.

ERROR! Does not compute!

Mun polar regions because they're very not-flat Tylo because it's hard to land there, especially precision landings without MechJeb Dres because it's boring

To reduce the amount of loophole abuse and nitpicking about challenge rules, I propose that we set some standard "no cheating" rules that should apply to all challenges without needing to always explicitly state them. These would of course not apply if the challenge rules specifically state otherwise. 1. No "hack gravity" 2. No "infinite fuel" (including infinite RCS or EVA) 3. No absurd part modification. The challenge should state whether mods are allowed or not, but it should be assumed that using blatantly overpowered parts or modifying parts to be blatantly overpowered is not allowed. For example, if mods are allowed you can use something like the B9 Aerospace pack, but you can't use a Mainsail that you've modified to have 1000000 thrust and consume no fuel. 4. No excessive abuse of infiniglide. If your plane happens to infiniglide a bit, that's probably fine. But if you're using it to accelerate to supersonic speeds or if it obviously circumvents the spirit of the challenge (such as in a glide distance challenge), consider it cheating. 5. No Hyperedit, save file modification, or other things of that sort.

1. The game doesn't allow it 2. To affect even the smallest moon by 1 m/s would require an absurd amount of effort. Maybe all of the rockets ever built by all KSP players combined could do something, but not much.

Like others have said, this is usually the result of having the wheels too far back. Think of your plane as a lever where the wheels are the pivot and your control surfaces are the forces trying to lift the front of the bar. A few ways to make liftoff easier: 1. Put your rear landing gear closer to the center of mass. This will make it easier to pivot on the runway, but could also make your tail more vulnerable. 2. Angle your wings slightly so that they generate lift while the plane is level. I do this with almost all of my planes, but it does have some drawbacks, especially in planes intended for leaving and re-entering the atmosphere. 3. Adjust your wheels so that the nose is higher off the ground than the tail. This has the effect of angling your wings for lift while on the ground while allowing you to keep them flat for flight. 4. Add control surfaces (canards) at the front of the plane. If your rear control surfaces are having trouble pushing the back of the plane down, you can assist them by pushing the nose up at the same time.