boolybooly

Cupcake, thanks once again for two excellent videos demonstrating the adept piloting of your unique designs. Magpie is duly logged on the honour roll though I am going to have to go with a gatecrasher listing for the Barracuda due to the indubitably vertical lift off but nevertheless an intriguing mission and amazing music! Show us watcha got zekes! drewscriver thanks for your mission report while I recognise the influence of cupcake which you acknowledged and observed an homage in the rooftop landing with VTOL catamaran in the distance, there is no doubt you developed Dragonshy with painstaking attention to the flight characteristics and made it your own and fully deserve your Advanced Pilot Precision Award and Astrokerbal Distinction (Minmus).

Personally once a node location is set, I dont see why we cannot edit its other parameters at the navball so you dont have to mess around with reopening nodes that minimise while you are zooming out. I agree its a difficult system to use, but it is a lot better than no nodes at all

Good advice glacierre, I did it the hard way because it is hard in this instance and it can easily be improved by dropping the nacelle and adding a double radial scoop instead of single. I think the received wisdom on radial scoops may need rewriting btw because they have dropped in weight and have a high intake value. British_Rover thanks for your mission report. I am assuming you did not use modular propulsion during the K Prize mission and am adding you to the guest list with an Advanced Pilot Precision Award. Congratulations and welcome to the K Prize. pa1983 thanks very much for your instructive mission video of Falcon XIV Kosmos, as usual a beautifully finished craft and another K Prize winner. This is a K-Prize mission with "Milligan Jet K-Prize" a stripped own Milligan jet which went to 4x lift off, full orbit and safe landing with the same craft without refuelling. It all relies on a lot of internal air intakes and four radial scoops which you can see in the screenies.

This for example is one I built today to minimise intake spam. It has no hidden intakes and you see 3 inline ram intakes, one scoop beneath and a jet body intake on top. It (Deuce) can just make a 70km orbit, though you really do have to get the climb just right there is plenty of air fuel for the job, only just enough rocket fuel/oxidiser though.

Partly the air intake which limits altitude and therefore top speed on aero engines (atmospheric drag is on a log scale of some kind relative to altitude, you can go a lot faster higher up) but nukes are very hard to lift, a pair of the smaller engines like the LV-909s work much better around a single aeroengine SSTO. example This layout has the advantage that all air goes to one aero engine and if it flames out* it wont spin the craft like dual aero / single rocket layouts. You will find it easier if you can add at least a couple of radial air scoops in a suitably aesthetic location. If not then consider a pair of T30 rockets as you will have to make up more altitude and speed with the rockets. They have 2.5x the weight but 4.3x the maximum power of the 909 but you will need to lift more rocket fuel in the first place. Air intake is pretty critical and we don't have anything which approximates a supersonic ramjet yet so I use radials and hidden arrays, but that example has no hidden parts and works fine. *One tip is to reduce throttle as air become insufficient as this reduces the demand for air and allows the aero engine to continue working at reduced power at higher altitudes. If you cut throttle 20% and then wait it will usually reignite. When building the craft relative location of lift and mass centers is critical, lift behind mass. But then it flies like a paper plane with a lump of blue tack on the nose and just nose dives unless you have attitude control surfaces far enough back from the center of mass that it gives leverage to overcome attitude droop. The further apart the lift and mass centers the more downward torque mass creates. Its all about leverage. Same goes for the undercarriage, place the rearmost pair just behind the center of mass so the plane can tilt back using the leverage of the control surfaces, if the wheels are too far back the leverage of the mass to wheels distance overcomes the leverage of the control surface to wheel distance and the craft will not lift its nose. So let us know how it goes.

Oh sorry, my mistake, the lack of horizontal lift off screenies and the extra vertical take off screenies confused me before I read the post. So I have moved your entry to the Roll of Honour and recorded that you earned an Expeditionary Astrokerbal Distinction for the Duna landing and return which supercedes and includes the other landings for purposes of the listing. Technically you also earned an Exploratory Astrokerbal Distinction for Gilly and an Astrokerbal Distinction for Mün. FYI

So did you land safely Cap'tain Kerk? Your word is good enough its just that the K Prize mission is only complete on making a safe landing, which is often the trickiest part of a mission! Reloading from F9 is perfectly proper in case of mishap FYI. Moar Boosters, an impressive craft by any standards though I have linked it as a gate crasher with a suitable jokey description, hope you are OK with that, because the craft launches vertically and has a lift stage which it decouples from which means it isn't technically a single stage to orbit! But thanks for the contribution and I am sure people will be interested to see what you did and how you did it. Thanks for the Cosmic Flyer report Rogue Mason with picturesque screenshots, evidently a very capable ship and worthy winner of the highly regarded Astrokerbal Distinction which supercedes and includes the Kosmokerbal Commendation for a Mün flyby which I nevertheless mentioned in the link summary. Well flown!

Only one way to find out Spartwo chocs awaaaay! Interesting little vehicle zekes, linked, congratulations on creating another successful K-Prize winning design, the new v21 small inline rocket motors are quite handy. Multiple launches are an optional factor which are mentioned on the roll of honour when specified by a prize winner because it may be of interest to spectators or other craft designers perusing the list for inspiration. Choice is yours. I think it might be worth adding a science related accolade for v22 though.

Back so soon RogueMason, that is a compact and powerful looking craft, which has clearly evolved a few steps from the one which inspired it but it is interesting to see the similarity in tank distribution. Well done on solving the disassembly issue and winning another prestigious K Prize award! Pinolallo, that is an interesting shuttle shape, innovative use of the Mk1 lander can with its nice IVA and your docking and precise landing won you an Advanced Pilot Precision Award 1st class, the first of v0.21 in fact. Congratulations. Thanks for your reports, logged and linked.

Cool, will fix. RogueMason, welcome back and congratulations on another K Prize, this time with a Kosmokerbal Commendation for passing through the Münar SOI. Well done on recovering control of the craft, and landing safely. Here is one I threw together today making use of the stock clipping behaviour to place an array of intakes inside the craft body, you can see the edges projecting, supplemented by 4 radial scoops. Milligan Jet (as opposed to Lear...!) Wing tip pods provide enough rocket propulsion to round off orbits up to about 180km. I am currently testing out its multi launch attributes, it will do at least two, maybe three if I start again and go easy on the throttle. The RCS is a little superfluous as it doesn't need to dock and the nose cones are essential for looks only as they weigh a lot for what they are. Has a nuclear generator tucked inside a fuel tank to keep the reaction wheels viable in space.

OK Pinolallo, I am sure people will be interested to see your report. Well played zekes, are you saying it rolled off the runway? If it came to a stop on the runway you deserve an APPA, as it is I linked both posts in the roll of honour and removed the temporary listing on the gatecrashers list. Hejnfelt, congratulations on winning the K Prize and Advanced Pilot Precision Award with your carefully balanced twin aero engine design AirWalker.

Thanks Pinolallo, nice to see your craft in action , I am guessing you know that vertical take off is outside the K-Prize rules, so it is linked as a gatecrasher entry with a suitable jest.

Check the second screeny

Does lithobraking with this count?

That fuel config looks about right for minimal orbit IMHO having experimented with that small rocket engine myself though infiniglide might help with the landing, if its in the stock game its in the K-Prize. So we have a new minimalist record holder for this version, congratulations to sploden. Also thanks again pa1983 for your last report, I have managed to add your Laythe mission to the honour roll using explorer.

Getting down to a planet surface and back up is a lot more expensive to do in terms of fuel than shifting orbit PE temporarily. I like the idea of dropping a payload by leaving it on an aerobraking trajectory and have it chute itself down, but I think the focus of the K-Prize is on the delivery craft and the intention for the distinction is the utilitarial version of the Astrokerbal Distinction, so I would have to say you do have to land the craft. But I think it would be an elegant method and would be an Utilitarial Commendation despite not placing the payload in a sustainable orbit providing the collision trajectory was intentional ie providing the payload lands intact! Does that sound fair? PS I am currently unable to edit the roll of honour in Chrome (can in Explorer) because the formatting control on the forum has gone all to hell and it is ignoring carriage return etc when it displays a newly formatted post. I cannot break this post into paragraphs for example.

Oops my bad, quite right and an "Astrokerbal Distinction (Mün)" is absolutely legitimately yours!

I dont know Spartwo, you tell me, last I heard your ship was on a decaying orbit!? Did it land safely? Had it made a non decaying orbit (PE>70km) prior to this, did it take off horizontally? Rockets only craft are perfectly fine btw as long as the initial take off is horizontal.

Pirke I agree that a shotgun chair is fun, but seriously I have thought about it and decided that dropping a pod is permissable because it is like dropping payload and the rule which said that crew transfer should not alter flight characteristics was redundant and in this case obstructive so I deleted it. It seems reasonable that you can crew craft with Kerbals from dropped pods. So congratulations on your successful K Prize mission. pa1983, thanks for your mission screenies for another awesome STOL Duna drop.

I am making this craft available to other players. It is all stock. Just a bit of fun. You can launch it to orbit with the supporting launch craft included and still have two Mainsails, fuel and some tanks left over from the launch vehicle. If you refuel these tanks in LKO you can get the D1 craft to Jool, after separation, almost full. There is a slight issue with tank draining logic supplying the outer nukes, one of the hidden internal tanks draining a little on either side inside the engine section when they shouldnt, because of the supply point, but you can get your view point in there in flight to alt right click and top them up if you are careful. Suggest any takers strip down the fairings in the VAB and see the internal construction before flying it. At least it has plenty of RCS, 4950! When launching, it is set up to ignite the nukes after 1000m altitude for best efficiency. Just take it straight up and after first stage, when travelling at 260m/s tip it over to 90° heading at an angle of 45°. Full burn and second stage drop until 1240m/s, AP 75+km, cut engines and tip over to horizontal ASAP. Lock to horizon and begin burn on exit atmosphere at 70km, burn until the PE starts to swivel round towards the craft and cut engines. It should now be in orbit with some fuel to spare in the third and last launch stage. Have fun. Discovery One launch craft zip. Docking port toggle 3 Antennae deploy 9

I have been having a lot of fun with this craft lately. In case it isnt obvious it is supposed to be Discovery One from 2001. Wasnt there an orbiting monolith somewhere ? Can anyone remind me where??

I think so Cupcake, cant get more precise than that and a helipad is definitely one of the KSP runways, very nice video, accomplished piloting and innovative and effective craft design. Liked your personalised flag and cool use of an IVA mod. Hats off to you! And thanks for sharing it.

Actually Pirke that set of images while very interesting raises a conundrum and I think it confused me into forgetting about it. The craft actually decouples before take off. Strictly this breaks the letter of the rules. Also the Kerbal chair gives command capability but the Kerbal comes from the decoupled part of the craft. If the craft can fly without the Kerbal then that is not a problem, but if the Kerbal makes the craft flyable then technically it does alter the flight characteristics, but that is unclear. Decoupling is a problem. It would be within the rules to spawn a separate craft for Kerbal transfer before take off. So it just seems pedantic to disqualify the craft because of that, but there is blatantly a decouple event happening, but that just seems pedantic etc etc. Clearly a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop" which confused me to the point where it was easier to pretend your post didnt exist than work out the right course of action. Sorry...! Unfortunately I dont have a reset button. So you decoupled but I am being pedantic and conflicted. So do you want to go on the gatecrashers list? Or do you want to do it without decoupling and use a craft with a lightweight satellite command pod or something....

I have edited the quote to show imho salient points hope you dont mind TouhouTorpedo. I agree we should be kind to devs. I want to consider the OP and come full circle to the topic. I have a personal hunch that players tend to transfer their emotions from the game environment onto their communications with devs and other players and ultimately all activity on the internet. Some become conditioned to treat all online activity as though it is just a game environment so they dont consider the severity of injurious statements seriously. Whereas they are sometimes received by people who do take them seriously and the mismatch between degrees of seriousness is a problem. What some see as vile and violent attacks, is to others just playful self expression, a verbal reenactment of a scene from Bioshock, Batman Arkham Asylum or GTA. The game environment of many games permits acts of make believe violence, its part of how the game entertains, how players find diversion and is how some devs make a living, but the game environment can end up leaking into reality and influencing developer-player relations. This is partly because people cannot help it as play is learning behaviour, but some devs and communities exploit this weakness very deliberately to generate hype and excitement about digital products. People who say that leaking doesnt or shouldnt happen are simply idealists in denial of reality. IMHO Harv's policy of not weaponising or hyping KSP is part of the reason we have a relatively civil community. KSP is quite a cerebral game, even though its also a lot of fun. IMHO The nature of the game shapes the community. But that does have a knock on effect which is where the game is frustrating to play it can cause tempers to get frayed in the online community as well, since people bring the game experience to the BB and feel a desire to express it. Though frustration is caused by obstacles in the way of desires. That people feel enough desire to get frustrated is in a way a good sign for the game. That does not excuse incivility or DOS attacks but I think it may be true that when gameplay annoys people in all honesty this increases the likelihood of bad tempered behaviour. I think there is no choice here, standards have to be maintained by moderators to ensure that the community stays within the bounds of good humour. But if you set boundaries based on good humour you can only truely maintain them good humouredly! Personally I am very cautious about reporting problems with the gameplay as I dont want my game experience to reflect too directly in bug reports. Where I experience problems I dont want to be too emotional, critical or bring the devs down, on the other hand they do need to know and it should be possible to have a calm and rational discussion with devs about the game and players hopes for its future. The law of nature though is there is always one (at least) who will abuse a situation of trust (its not an evolutionary stable strategy) so one has to back openness with security. To be honest I have held off saying that they should fix existing systems because I am aware that development is not linear and for example the VAB and other systems will receive upgrades once other modules are in place. The problem which arises for Squad in developing alpha code in a playable state so they can fund development is how much effort they should spend on making it playable and how much on reaching the finished functionality, to save effort and time until the point where final passes which fix all outstanding bugs are worth doing. I think its would help if we tried to understand this as a community.

Open the pod bay doors please Jeb...