orcman

Big thing is not to start bouncing fore and aft, otherwise the wheels explode due to stress. My gut feel is that you can slide as fast as you want on wheels though. I don't think at 500 m/s they have any substantial traction. I like the constraint of the runway as you have to brake as well ;-) BTW is the chevron area at the end of the runway still "on the runway", or does the runway end at the line (your rules, but it should be clear) Any idea on what the land speed record is ATM? or have I just set it? (yay!)

Mad Max 3 : Beyond Red-Ickuless Speed: 556 m/s Time: 25s Stopped just in time. Mad Max 3 at the finish line If you get a bit of interest in this, it might be a good idea to break this challenge up into various classes too: Air-Breathing, Solids & Methalox ?

You could probably get a few m/s faster if you lightened the fuel load. I can see you still have most of the tank left. Also setting the chutes to open when risky help the slow-down phase.

Yeah, it went a little squirrelly towards the end, but the vertical stabilizer was just enough to correct it - didn't leave the ground though. (max alt 1m) I had to get the fuel load just right too - the first few tries landed me in the drink. You can seen my velocity is 0.2m/s. braked to stop, then hit the screenshot button. Two hands needed for this one ;-) Happy to share craft file if you want to try it yourself.

Right then. Mad Max 2 Top Speed: 511 m/s Time: 23s finish line screenshot

I was about to post a very similar challenge, so here's my entry: Vessel: Mad Max 1 Highest Speed: 211 m/s Highest Altitude: 1m Time taken: 53s Distance: 6764m Screen shot of finish line

It really depends on whether you need torque (pulling power) or acceleration : http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-pros-and-cons-of-diesel-engines.html as for prices, a 10 sec google search gave: http://www.fuel-prices-europe.info/ 2 mins more search gave: http://autotraveler.ru/en/spravka/old/fuel-price-in-europe-12_2-2014.html Aside: not being nasty but has anyone else thought that they should teach efficient googling skills in schools?

My first guess* is that it is stable because: 1. the center of drag is behind the center of mass (axially) 2. the mass is spread pretty evenly left-to-right and front-to-back 3. the drag is also distributed evenly as above. 4. CoM, CoT and CoD are all in a line axially. The rocket has symmetry, just not the usual radial symmetry. As for why you built it... I'd take a stab at the fact you like soccer? possibly the world cup? * It really is a guess - I'm not a rocket scientist

Is it possible to make some sort of permanent targetable marker like a "Beacon" to help guide-in space planes to the runway? Ideally it would be 100m or so _before_ the end of the runway (possibly on both ends?). Others might like the center of the launchpad to be a target as well. At the moment I use a flag planted via eva, but numerous times it has "walked" or been knocked over and has been out of place. Perhaps a "Beacon" could be used in science contracts as another legitimate use?

Hey Thesla, The short answer is: it depends. Longer answer: Part of the astronaut's kinetic energy (0.5mv^2) will be added to the station's velocity vector (it will alter the orbit ever so slightly), the remainder of their energy will be added to the rotation of station. Exactly how much of each depends on how far away the astronaut grabs the station from the stations' center of mass and the distribution of mass of the station (inertia). If they tumble around like in the clip, things are much harder to calculate, but most likely a larger portion of the energy will go to the extra rotation. Either way all energy between them stays constant. So if you add up the rotational and kinetic energy of both parts, it will be the same as the sum afterwards - just split a bit differently. The more probable outcome of the clip is that the astronaut hits the station and is killed (has no real gauge of closing velocity), or tears their suit on some sharp. XD

You could try the Firespitter mod pack. It has electric propellers and some float parts (amongst a whole heap more parts)

Yeah pretty much, I hadn't thought to expand it to a generalised case. Really I had thought of just making it a box - eight points, not as a series of profiles along a curve / line. That's about as far as I can get atm, I think - It's more of an exercise of learning how to write mods, and if I could contribute something useful in the process, all the better.

Heya, had a look through your code to see how hard it would be to add the box shape... Came up with this idea for specifying dimensions: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dj89mr3x2dl9vw9/quad.png The three main drivers are side1, side2 and the angle between them. Length is just as the other shapes. The common chord is directly derived from the three main params (used in internal calcs) I've played with the UI code to make it do the following: 1 - if the user just modifies side1, it behaves like a square 2 - if the user has modified side1 and side2 only, it behaves like a rectangle 3 - otherwise it's a freeform style quad, sides 3&4 are stretched to be at least as long as the common chord. I think I would put the stack point on the intersection of the bi-divisor lines (each side/2) Does anyone see problems with this approach? Code:https://www.dropbox.com/s/y335vf9iqxh5lks/ProceduralShapeBox.cs I'm still getting my head around creating the object and collision meshes, but I likes a challenge and this is the first mod that I have been interested in coding for.

Yes, you'd definitely have to limit the spoke count, but I thought that would be best left in the hands of the user. Perhaps work out the diameter of the attached children parts and work it backwards form there. Sort of a anti-clipping sanity check, rather than a limit. I do like the idea of making it a truss object, but I thought it would be better to just start with a simple, already existing shape. As for what to do if the count is increased /decreased - Again I think looking at the child parts might hold the key. Do they have some symmetry flag? (I have no idea) If they don't then probably just leave the extra nodes unpopulated. When nodes are removed, something has to be removed, so probably delete the last node's children. Squad's approach is to essentially overwrite the existing nodes, (ok, you pick a part, which detaches all children and then you change the count and reattach), so we're already used to having to reattach the symmetric parts. I say just clone the first one for all subsequent ones. We'll so learn how to work within the limits. I'm glad you like the idea XD. Now for the complementing part: The wedge The wedge is a cylinder that is bent through an arc. It has stack points top and bottom. The top one being at an user-defined angle. The diameter of the wedge would also be configurable. Two parameters would define the shape of the wedge: The "bend radius" and the "bend angle" If you were to measure the distance between the intersection of the top and bottom stack planes, to the actual stack point, this would be the bend radius. The bend angle would define the angle between top and bottom circles. Again, keeping the object to a simple cylinder to start with, perhaps moving to a truss-like object later. BTW, this is one the most important mods IMHO, as we have to live within the 32bit memory limit. It actually enables creativity, as some creations would not have been possible without it (I have a air-launch system that uses HL-airships and your tanks to get a 100T payload to 20K at terminal velocity) I just wanted to give my appreciation and thanks.

Had a thought about another structural part that might be easy to add. A "hub" - basically a structural cylinder that has stack attachment points radially around it's girth. Extra parameters would be: - an "end offset" = distance from base/top (0 to length) - a "spoke count" = how many radial points (0 to inf) - a "ring count" = how many ring layers or spokes along the remainder of length (spaced at ((length- 2(offset))/ring count) intervals)

Has anyone suggested cubic / box stretchy tank shapes yet? I think for rovers, probes and space stations the flat areas could be very versatile. Stretching in all three axis would offer ultimate flexibility. BTW This mod has quickly become one of my core mods. A big thank you on developing and continuing such a useful one.

Here is my attempt: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eciojg5z6f74wrv/screenshot4.png It's basically a core of oscars surrounded by 8 more oscars tanks https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4tzkik3oxdrswm/screenshot12.png total score I think is : 1666 = 1189 (height) + 117 (speed) + 50 (supersonic) + 100 (10K+) + 10 (recovery) + 200 (in space)