Plur303

I'm currently working on my design. But I have a question about the rules. Are radial decouplers allowed? I see people using radial decouplers. The rules make me think the creator was picturing only single column rockets using small decouplers and oscar fuel tanks. I'm trying to make one that can go to Duna and return but I want to make sure radial decouplers are allowed before I get too serious about it.

I didn't tailor this for my ship by any means. I have been thinking about this challenge for quite a while and built my ship according to the rules I thought up in advance. I see a lot of challenges that people just think up on a whim and post and they can't even complete it themselves. I completed my challenge before posting to prove that I can do it and to get the challenge rolling with an example. I plan on redoing it because I can think of several places in the flight where I messed up and wasted some fuel. Getting to orbit using the intake spam exploit is simply that, an exploit. Using ion engines is incredibly boring and pointless for a mission to the closest celestial body to Kerbin. I want my challenge to be quick and fun to participate in. Not several hours of slow burns to and from the Mun trying to obsessively save every unit of fuel possible. I like manned missions because it gives us a reason to bring them home. I like SSTOs because they are reusable and add a layer of difficulty to the game. Any idiot can just slap more mainsails and tanks on a rocket until it reaches orbit. And I dislike mechjeb because it removes the skill involved for a mission like this. I want this to be as much about the piloting involved as the ship.

I think it is perfectly clear what I mean. The craft needs to be controlled by a Kerbal. I guess you can put a probe on there too if you wish, but there needs to be a cockpit with a Kerbal inside. I updated the rules once again to clarify.

"Must be manned. No probes." How is that unclear?

It will be hard to score without the final resources being shown but go ahead and post it.

Eurofighter Typhoon with 38 missiles!

1. I never said SSTO means horizontal takeoff. In this contest I want it to be SSTO spaceplanes. I edited my original post to say spaceplane now. 2. I'm trying to find some method of scoring that rewards the ability to bring back as much % of payload of your craft's weight as possible. But not total payload otherwise people will just make massive ships. I'm looking for elegant and efficient designs. It's about bringing back the highest % of the fuel back, not the highest total amount. A small ship might be better than a big ship. Who knows? I'm willing to consider an alternate method of scoring if people are willing to help me come up with one.

Link to my gallery of the mission http://imgur.com/a/9dxfw (202+190) / (1320+1320) = 0.14848 0.14848x1000= 148.48 148.48 rounded = 148 +500 for runway landing +250 for no damage - 0 points for xenon = 898 points

SSTO spaceplane to Mun and back This contest is to see who can design and fly the best SSTO to the Mun and return it to Kerbin. The scoring takes into account the ratio of fuel remaining compared to the amount present at takeoff. Note it scores you on the ratio, not the total amount of fuel. I would like this to just be rockets and jets. No ion engines please. You will be penalized for xenon fuel being present. Scoring: ((Liquid Fuel at mission end + Oxidizer at mission end)/(Liquid Fuel at mission start + Oxidizer at mission start ))x1000 (rounded to the nearest whole number) - Land at KSC runway + 500 points - Take no damage during the mission +250 points (This is to keep people from purposely breaking off parts such as empty tanks or jets in order to save weight) - Minus 5 points for every unit of Xenon present at takeoff Rules: 1. No Mechjeb! This is a contest about flying skill, not just building a SSTO that can complete the challenge. Mechjeb defeats the purpose of a skill challenge. 2. Ships must be 100% vanilla stock parts. No mod parts. No edited config files etc. 3. No use of the debug menu 4. No intake spam. This means no stacking intakes. You may use as many intakes as you wish but they may only be mounted on tanks, tri/bi couplers, fuselages etc. This means no mounting intakes in strange places using small cube struts. You may use tri and bi couplers to increase intake area. 5. No refueling. You may not dock with another craft and refuel 6. Ships must take off horizontally from the runway 7. Three screenshot images must be uploaded or linked. The resources tab must be open in these screenshots. a. Your ship at takeoff with resource tab open b. Your ship landed on the Mun with resource tab open c. Your ship landed with the flight results box open so we can see you did indeed go to the Mun, resource tab open 8. Must be manned (as in some form of command pod with at least 1 Kerbal inside). Good Luck! Top 5 1. Plur303 - Nuke SSTO MK III 898 points 2. ThePsuedoMonkey -SkyHawk - 787 points (37 fuel points, 500 Landed on runway bonus points, 250 no damage bonus points) 3. Kuris - 258 points (No damage + 8 fuel points) 4. 5. Honorable Mentions: bsalis - for his daring mission in a very interesting ship design Rosarium - 402 (152 fuel points, 250 no damage) DQ for using clipping

Streams not happening on the schedule they said they would happen Updates not happening on the schedule they said would happen Week after week the only news is "Nothing to report" Nothing to see here, move along... Everything is fine... And yet I probably seem like some sort of jerk for pointing out these facts and am probably risking getting banned by even saying this... Since when are we supposed to live in fear of the wrath of the community managers whose salary we helped pay?

For a community manager you really do have some horrible PR skills... Just sayin...