Speeding Mullet

I couldn't very well be Shuttle Program Director and Admin (totally shameless plug alert) of the Shuttle Challenge v3 without putting in my 2 cents here. Wear the badges be prepared to defend the badges I say As @Red Iron Crown says they are largely useless from a point of view of efficiency or cost effectiveness when compared to other methods of getting to space. OK so maybe that's not a good start to my "for" argument but I totally agree - There's many other designs I should pick to fly @inigma's 42t fuel pod to orbit, to lift the modules of my space station for on orbit assembly, heck even to land an asteroid (yes I've done that with my Buran). But none have been so satisfying for me personally than designing and building a complex working shuttle and proving it with a series of increasingly difficult missions regardless of it's efficiency, limitations and various constraints. Gliding into KSC from a re-entry in a shuttle, flaring up before touch down and deploying the drag chute to signal a mission well planned and executed is intensely pleasing. In summary: Whatever you think about the Shuttle Program(s) IRL, they were unbelievable engineering feats and if you can distil it to just that I think you will enjoy the challenge of refining a shuttle design and working with the limitations they mandate. I've learnt a lot more about balance, aerodynamics, highly accurate re-entry, and packaging complex modules in confined spaces with designing shuttles than I have with designing rockets, and I've found as a consequence my rocket building has become increasingly refined, as have my plane building capabilities. SM

Oh gutted so either land a whopper heavy asteroid or wait for 1.1.3 in a few weeks time then? Yep interplanetary mission for STS-10. Just doing some trial runs to see if the objectives are realistic and also fun then should be good to go in a few days or so! Hi there you will be defined as stock as the mods listed are only Quality of Life mods rather than part mods. Good luck with your design can't wait to see - The picture on page one you posted is a superb teaser SM

Agreed. The two ideas don't have to be mutually exclusive. I'd love to see a huge overhaul of the existing planets and moons as part of a upgrade package adding more places to visit. Wouldn't it be nice to get new places to visit that are also worth visiting. SM

Nice thanks for the description! Personally I also love building on feeling and although I have mj installed so can review delta-v readouts I mostly just guess and see what happens. It's more fun and it gives you a real instinct after a while as to what is going to get you there, and hopefully back. Prime example of that recently with my first mission to Moho, where I had to get out and push to make it home . In other news, development of the STS-10 Mission is continuing. Here's a teaser on the idea in principle, but there's a lot of fleshing out to go to make it worthy of the STS-10 label. I've seen a lot of mods have been updated for 1.1.2 now, so hopefully we can get some more entries coming in as everything calms down post 1.1.x SM

Banned for guilt-tripping me into giving you undeserved rep

I haven't downloaded it to test but it looks like RealPlume added particle effects for decouplers July 28 2015. Check this entry out. on the GitHub I will attempt to install and report back as soon as I can. EDIT: It appears that's not the mod you (and now I) are looking for unless I've missed an obvious setting. If I discover it I'll let you know... Thanks SM

Banned for not quoting enough Carl Sagan in Signature.

Banned for not hailing nose cone

The Wiki page was updated on the 3rd May so should be accurate for you. It takes you through the different modifier keys for differing operating systems too and gives you advice on remapping if required SM

Nice look forward to seeing the report and awarding you the relevant badge! Yep a single launch would qualify you for commander as long as you land on the runway, otherwise pilot it is . Now that is low hanging fruit even though the inclination looks to be a little challenging. When I learnt how to intercept potatoes I actually found them easier to intercept them in interplanetary space rather than once they'd entered the SOI. That one's still interplanetary, go get it and enjoy the aero-brake Nice Energia mission thanks for the link! as @cadaverific says there's a lot of very experienced shuttle builders kicking around this challenge and the forum in general so don't get disheartened as everyone would have gone through different phases of ability when designing them . There's some great info in the original 2 challenge threads as well as in other areas of the forum. I can link you to some useful places if you need help in development, and we can also help you here if you like! Ditto, I've been waiting a few days to see everything catch up with CKAN and am going to check in tonight and see what is install-able. I'm comfortable waiting for your mission rather than you posting out of challenge order, it will confuse me less You didn't spam at all - clarity is good. Spamming would have called in the mods I'm sure . I do rather like your addition of the Tiltprobecore assistance. I've seen it done before but never incorporated it into my shuttles for fear of part escalation. Now that I'm good for that and we have 64 bit and I have a Gerty 3000 rather than a laptop these are all the little QOL things that I'm going to have to catch up with. By the way the thread is excellently arranged as is your mission entry, and I can confirm that your shuttle is 4 probe cores cooler than mine (at the moment ). I'm awarding you in the stock category as all the mods listed have not altered the physics system in which you fly by the looks of it. Please correct me if I am wrong though! 333.23km and a fantastic mission report. The shuttle is detailed and you have clearly thought through a lot to get to where you are in the design iteration so congratulations and wear your badges with much pride. I will update the leader-board shortly. There's a lot of wing on that one for sure! Interesting that you've gone without strap-on boosters, but evidence by siphoning fuel from the main tank (totally allowed by the way) that you didn't need them anyway. Does far require less or more Dv to get to orbit on average? I think your shuttle has a bright future ahead of it, and feel free to swap over to the modded category (and back) as you see fit for the different challenges. Here's your badge! Now that is a fat main tank! It's amazing what a difference a few mods make, and that 42t payload was lofted big time granting you the top spot on the leader-board for the modded category. Water landings are indeed allowed, and @Evanitis will testify to that with his amazing recovery here landing the shuttle upside down in the drink! With the above said you have run another nice mission here and gone back and done the land-landing to moot my point anyway, and I am pleased to award you your Flight Director's badge and will update the leader-board shortly.: In other news I am just waiting on CKAN to roll through a few more mods then I'm going to be flying a few experimental development missions of my own aimed towards a new STS challenge or two. I think this is required as people are rapidly eating through the challenges and I've always wanted to extend the mandate of this challenge thread. If you have a good idea for a mission please feel free to PM me rather than lay out the idea directly in the thread. Great to see all the shuttles being built and flown here, keep it up! SM

Great, I'm as excited to see how people get around the difficulty of this one, I reckon there's going to be a lot of variability in the mission. On variability as there's quite a lot of missions here that require you to do A, B, C with quite tight limitations I am going to open this one up as follows: For the STS Pilot - Rank 6 multiple missions may be flown to retrieve the potato as long as said potato is de-orbited using a shuttle. For the STS Commander - Rank 6 only one launch is permitted for the whole mission (Pilot category will still be awarded if the landing is not at KSC etc) How does everyone feel about this? I want to be able to differentiate between Shuttles capable of doing this in one hit, but still open it up for people to get mega creative. Excellent - I'm counting 3 out of the 4 required modules now unless I am mistaken. I have an inkling what you are going to attach to your ship before you go potato hunting. Can't wait to see! I always forget about Energia being used to loft standard payloads in piggyback. Hell with the ability to loft a shuttle AND the 42t payload to such heights I bet it's actually a super capable launch vehicle. Might or might not be going to test that theory out SM

I can see where you are going with this and I like it! Great idea to ditch the shuttle and just loft a massive payload for the launch that doesn't count towards the actual mission. It's not exactly in line with the challenge requirements but as previously mentioned as long as the core requirement is satisfied I am happy Nice mission once again. I see you have picked up the roll maneuver to bring the shuttle over the main tank. I definitely use that in my Buran flights as apart from being a cool roll program it does as you say increase stability for some reason! Good re-entry and flight over the mountains with Minmus in the distance, and thoroughly worthy of your next badge in the series! @cadaverific - Thanks for the run down on the mods. Just waiting for all things 1.1.2 to update and then I will probably pick up this mod moving foward. Nice one! Also it sounds like you have done the rescue mission already, but save that until you've completed the now running STS-3 mission if you wouldn't mind . Good luck! Once again @xoknight thanks very much for updating the Hubble Space Telescope for this new v3 challenge thread. As you have consistently kept the module updated across three separate version of this challenge I am pleased to announce that you are part of the exclusive Architects Club, as without you this challenge wouldn't be the same. Here's your badge! The MMU's are included in the sub-assembly by xoknight and are the awesome little craft that are made to be used to assemble the telescope in space. They are the bit that requires a little thought to construction as the way they are built into the sub-assembly currently means that the package won't fit into the cargo bay. Bit of thinking and construction savvy required for STS-3 now! As mentioned the STS-3 challenge is now up and running and it looks like people are really tearing through this challenge. Quite frankly it's brilliant to see and is just the kick I need to get into gear and release STS-9. I've also definitely got an idea for an STS-10, but I want to see who completes 9 first EDIT: I'm pleased to announce STS-9 is now live, and well, um, just check out the OP. It's a doozy! SM

@Gaarst Having consulted with the developer of the mod on this one I have decided to allow it. In his own words: PA does not have any automatic tuning of it's control system while MJ does. Assuming MJ allows any arbitrary pitch/bank to be held, I don't see the difference. PA has no automation of its actions along the lines of MJ ascent guidance or other true autopilot functionality. I've always viewed it more as a control abstraction aiming to resolve issues with flying by keyboard rather than a true autopilot So with that in mind I will update the allowed mod list to include this one and you can go ahead! Look forward to your next entry! Yet for the best part of the 3.2km/s re-entry it held its AoA, even with only the cockpits SAS to control it (and some RCS), proof of how well balanced it is in flight I guess! As long as the "orbital assembly" is built to the challenge requirements of 4 modules 4 launches, and contains one service module with RCS, engines, and reaction wheels, one habitation module, and two 2 scientific modules, then you have completed the requirements and any extra launches are not counted towards the mission. i.e. if that core requirement is filled you can launch another 300 times if you wish and do a whole story line mission and I'd welcome that! I installed a million mods then had to scale it back as it was crashing every 3 seconds. Realised last night that I was opening KSP from the 32 rather than 64 bit launcher so I'm waiting for any 1.1.1 resets and will CKAN myself to the max again. I love the realistic exhaust plumes and lighting that you used. I had them but removed them due to ^. OhmywordDRE. Seriously now you are going for some kind of ultra mode on the modded section here. A lot of people assume I think that modded means loads of parts that make life easier but I think you have gone the other way entirely. I am very very interested in your experience with Kerbalism by the way. I've never toyed with life support to this point but decided a while a go that with 1.1 release I would make a choice of one Life support mod and integrate it into my install and see how I went. I've seen a lot of opinion against (mostly from people that wanted to carry on using another life support package) but I don't much care about that - I'd rather have a fully integrated system and there's a lot of praise flying around from that side of the fence. How are you going with it? Nice recovery of the landing resulting in your grand award ceremony (I'm assuming here you deployed the sats with spin stabilization?) of Commander - Rank 2 (modded) Well done! Also means I need to get my butt into gear and release the new Hubble Space Telescope on behalf of xoknight which I now have. Let me get right to that and also update the leader-boards and a couple of other things! SM

Wow! That was an absolute frenzy haha! I rewound several times to get what was going on but certainly a video worthy of the STS Pilot - Rank 1 award. I've often toyed with using an ablative nose cone but discarded the thought. Having seen yours I might chuck one the Buran on and do a dummy mission to see how I find it! Collect your badge here That's one sturdy runway! Clearly your shuttle is a beast to blow up the runway on landing. Anyway great mission and I will update the leader-board shortly with your entry! Small request for next time that you keep the UI visible in all the screenshots that aren't just for "KSP is pretty" as it helps me see what is going on properly with the mission. Here are your badges! Regarding why your plane/shuttle/rocket/bird/rock/whatever-you-throw-into-the-air wants to fly backwards the COL behind COM thing is part of the story but not the full story. To quote @NathanKell directly from this thread: "Just because the CoL is behind the CoM at one angle of attack doesn't mean it always is. Try slowly rotating your plane in the SPH so it has more and more pitch (simulating AoA), and watch the CoL move. Remember that your Mk2 fuselage also provides list. Finally, recall that what matters is the aerodynamic center (which, sadly, KSP won't show you)--i.e. the sum of all aerodynamic forces, not just lift. Just because the center of lift is behind the center of mass doesn't mean draggy bits forward of the center of mass aren't moving the aerodynamic center forward..." On the topic of the mod "Pilot Assistant" it is currently banned, but with the caveat that I am waiting on a response from the mod's author/maintainer as an adjudication on whether it should be allowed. Reading into it it does make flying shuttles much much easier, but I've not used it so wanted someone with authority to educate me before I immediately rule it out. In short I'll get back to you on that one You clearly have a well thought out shuttle there and capable of the finest precision. Little more than 2 meters between Periapsis and Apoapsis is incredible, I don't remember seeing anyone that accurate before! Another excellent mission with clear report and well flown mission. Please collect your Flight Directors badge, I will update the scoreboard shortly!! Also I want to mention that your guide to landing is excellent! I rarely bother coming down to a standardized altitude but it's something I may employ in the future for more "regular" re-entries. Mostly I just melt it in for some fun and to see what the Buran 11F35 Kerbal B can handle. By far and away my favorite re-entry in my Buran was this 3.2 km/s screamer (Rest in Peace Patcan Kerman): Could that be a clue to STS-8? Good luck building the ship FCI! Look forward to seeing it as KTS-3 definitely influenced some of the functional detail on my Buran! To answer your questions: Better Burn time - Allowed Docking Port Alignment Indicator - Allowed Neither of those mods take over the actual re-entry from your hands so absolutely fine as far as I am concerned. A big part of the challenge as you will know is based around designing a shuttle that is stable in flight, particularly re-entry, and as these are both more "quality of life" rather than "do my job" mods they are welcome. To qualify for stock entry only the craft has to be purely stock barring a few planetary system altering mods, RSS, HarderSolarSystem two examples off the top of my head. What a wonderful shuttle! The Mk 420.69 () clearly has what it takes and is indeed the first FAR entry. I like your considerable use of comfort and quality of life mods as well as parts mods so well done there. Doesn't look like you'll need to much development from here to hit the heady heights of the rest of the STS missions available! Wear your badges with pride, mod that thing to hell and carry on as you were! Another awesome day of challenge entries everyone! Look forward to seeing more entries soon, and am working on publishing the STS-3 and the STS-8 Missions tonight SM

Banned for lording over tacos

Hi YANFRET! You may need to read this how to and amend your post accordingly to get any attention on this issue you are facing. I'm sure once you post more information one of the many helpful people on this forum will step in to comment . Good luck! SM

Ahha! I think you spotted an error from the previous thread which carries through to this one. The missions are numbered 5-7 when 4 modules are required. Looking back at my entry (as I was the first to achieve STS1 all the way through to STS 7) I actually launched 4 times to build my space station. Edit: Just to be clear also the challenges are meant to be done in numbered order. So 5-8 requires the completion of the previous missions. I've pulled through rule 8 from the original challenges to make this clearer! I will amend the numbering on the challenge. To be clear - 4 modules and 1 launch per module. Sorry for the confusion! @Norcurion, @Gaarst great to see you both doing another entry to the challenge. I will review when I get home from work in about 10 hours as I cannot view the galleries on work PC @commonnerfer Welcome to the challenge, and our first video entry! Rest assured I will also watch this with tea in hand on my return home from work! Have a great day / night everyone! SM

Banned for using HarderSolarSystem while flying shuttles for my challenge. Please continue

I won't - but only as I'll have to consider adding a challenge and badge every time someone is using a different mod but thanks for the idea I'll keep it under advisement Wow CRG 100 and CRG 50 Cargo bay makes for a lot of room. Looks like a large shuttle with plenty of wing area! Nice clean booster separation on the way up despite your comments on the rocket pitching all over the place it looks like you had a high quality ascent curve to meco too! All in all a great introduction to the challenge, and proof that you can make an awfully complex, not really re-usable, expensive, heavy flying brick a thing of beauty . I guess you've almost hybridized STS and Buran with that set up. Pilot Gaarst I award you Pilot - Rank 1. Wear it with pride and look forward to seeing you compete in more challenges with Pitchy McPitchface, I mean whatever you decide to call it! I concur! Good news everyone! All being well the Hubble Space Telescope mission should be updated and ready to roll very shortly. Just waiting for a couple of things and then it's good to go. Also working on a mission profile for the STS-8 "Can you land me" jaunt which should also be ready soon, but it's so late game for this challenge that I'm not expecting anyone to have reached it before its release. Thanks all SM

Simple one for me today, but simple is sometimes desired and often forgotten (i.e. this one may have been covered previously). When building an amphibious plane (or other amphibious vehicle) the Mk3 cargo bay rotated 90 degrees and book ended with a pair of Mk3 to 3.75m adapters acting as ballast tanks can create a nifty little wet bay for your small water craft and such . SM

Just read up on HarderSolarSystem - looks like an interesting package. My experience with high inclination re-entries has been, well, challenging. It certainly takes something extra to a normal re-entry and you have to be well planned above and beyond normal so good on you for trying to develop a shuttle to cope! FYI I will have to award you the modded category badges rather than stock when the time comes as you are effectively running an altered planetary system, I hope that's OK for you! SM

Sorry to disappoint but not to be. I'm going to call out for @hevenik as he or she joined in 2014 and has a post count of zero. He or she is also currently viewing the MSI infernal Robotics thread so I know he or she is around. Say hi hevenik! SM

Wow now that picture I like! In regards to the challenge technically the shuttles don't have to be the same (on the assumption that they both fit within the given definition of a shuttle above) and there is precedent in @Alchemist using two different shuttles to complete his mission (Great video - give it a watch ). Now we come to the topic of you using a different shuttle to bring your damaged shuttle back to KSC. Hmm.....Let me think about that....HELL YES I WANT TO SEE THAT! @Norcurion congratulations on developing what is clearly going to be a very capable shuttle. I like the balance tanks that's a good idea. It shouldn't be too much hassle to go from there to boosting inigma's 42t payload to orbit! It was unfortunate that a lot of your mission was flown at night as I would have liked to have seen more visual detail of the shuttle itself which is hard with night screenies, but the report itself I must congratulate you on - highly detailed and easy to understand so well done! I am pleased to be able to award you the first badge of this renewed challenge. You may wear your STS Commander - Rank 1 badge with pride. Please collect it here: Nice your definitely getting there. Looks to me you just need a little bit of work in balancing the staging and you will be there. Handy tip - Unless running a huge payload my shuttles boosters and main tank don't necessarily run full. You don't want to be hitting orbit with the strap-ons still going ideally. and I predict soon enough: 4. You will post the mission report to gain Pilot or Commander level 1 Sounds like it puts an absolute lump to LKO so you shouldn't have a problem with boosting the 42t payload when you come to that mission. In my experience designing something for the max capability or ideally mid range capability is the way to go. My Buran was designed with a 20-30t payload in mind, but can stretch to 42t up to 1000km altitude, or return from orbit on no fuel. I think you'll surprise yourself with the capability if you have designed it well. Look forward to seeing your results! Hey good to see you here FCI thanks for checking in , and your approval of the new (but basically your) challenge format. To be fair when I went through I couldn't fault your format at all so I just dragged it up to date and opened it up to modding more (I suspect that will be a bigger thing with 1.1). Are you going to design a new shuttle or run the KTS-3 Discovery updated for 1.1? I'm shortly to re-release the Buran 11F35 for 1.1 it's gone through another design iteration and is nearly ready to go. Great to see so much interest at the early stage of this new challenge release. Keep it coming everyone and spread the word! SM

Welcome to the forums (recently)! Regarding compatibility the best place to find out would be the mod release thread itself. The author seems to be very quick to respond and full of useful information. There's also lots of general discussion going on in there including people's opinions of the mod one way or the other. Personally I haven't yet tried it but it's big time on the tick list of things to install soon. SM

Mine too, although I'm pretty sure that it's due to just installing a quadrillion mods . Look forward to seeing your "simple shuttle" once you get a stable KSP going! SM