ihtoit

how awesome are Romfarer Lazor System nukes? A: they'll vapourise anything in physics range, is what!

nicely done! OhTehNoes: lovely landing, wrong runway tho. Scores 0 Leaderboard updated.

The Boffs have done it again, they've gone and handed me another Post-It. This time they're looking for expert designers and crazy pilots to design and demonstrate an orbital escape and glider landing system. THE CHALLENGE: Design, build and demonstrate a crew escape system from an orbit of between 30-50 degrees inclination. Land your escape pod at KSC. THE RULES: - Your pod must carry at least one Kerbal. - Start your deorbit burn from a stable orbit of at least 70kmx70km at between 30 and 50 degrees inclination. - Following your deorbit burn, you must turn off ALL propulsion systems (rockets, jets, ions, RCS, the lot). - Your landing must be performed using dead-stick aerodynamic controls (ie a controlled glide). - Wheeled landing on the KSC runway only. - Parachutes prohibited. - Usual "No 'Sploits" rules apply. - No passing round for another go. If you miss the runway, you land where you land. - YOUR POD MUST REMAIN INTACT. - ALL KERBALS MUST SURVIVE. SCORING: 100 points for a runway landing. 50 points for a landing anywhere else on the KSC peninsula (to the base of the mountains) 2 points per Kerbal above the requisite 1. (Challengers Note: I did this using my standard short spaceplane from my just-imploded anchorage the other day. The spaceplane somehow ended up in a 36 degree inclined orbit (from 0 degrees, how the heck did that happen??), but somehow intact, so I deorbited it and made a safe KSC landing just short of the runway - deadstick since I was out of rocket fuel and had to deorbit using the last of the RCS fuel aboard. Luckily I had motorised landing gear so was able to bring it to the complex to a waiting fuel tanker...) LEADERBOARD: 1. Tejing in a stochasty design orbiter, 102 points 2. Kasuha, 100 points 2. Koolkei, 100 points SPECTACULAR FAILURES: OhTehNoes, great landing, wrong spaceport! the_bT, flies like a butterfly, lands like a... butterfly. Butterflies don't have wheeled undercarriage. Neither does this.

it's F1.

Very easy to keep it to 1.0g: fire up MechJeb and check "Keep To Terminal Velocity", and limit throttle at 60% (for a good gravity turn at 1km-70km, 66% heelover). It is also EXTREMELY fuel efficient.

ok. Build a JATO car and glide it to the Island!

PREREQUISITES: KAS (Kerbal Attachment System) THE CHALLENGE: Build a functional orbital probe or station in Kerbin orbit. THE RULES: - You may start with ONE probe core and ONE structural part in the payload segment, in addition to your crew capsule. EVERY OTHER part MUST be stored in KAS containers during liftoff and orbital insertion. This includes power systems (batteries, panels and RTGs). - Your installation should consist of at least one communications antenna capable of reaching KSC from orbit. - Usual "No 'Sploits" rules apply. SCORING: Judgement call on aesthetics and Kerbalness. The more cubic octagonal struts you use, the better Points will depend on how many KAS containers you actually manage to empty (and ditch overboard, please don't ditch full containers and don't carry empty containers up just to ditch them! If you have a container that's half full, fill it. Dropping in one strut per container is very cheaty and will anger the Kraken.) PROOF: This is a slightly sane build: a Kerbosync comsat: scored 4: Core components: probe core & 1.25m inline heatsink. Crew capsule (with RCS) still attached, about to decouple for deployment.

I'm like a dose of herpes. You think you've finally gotten rid of me then BAM! Right in the middle of a wedding party!

that's what I'm talking about! For those wondering what I meant by "Only one of each wing", and "No symmetry", this is it.

OK, you might go "HUH?" at this one, but... THE CHALLENGE: Build an AIRBREATHING aircraft and carry six Kerbals to the Island. THE RULES: - Usual "No 'Sploits" rules apply. - Your aircraft MUST take off and land from the KSC and Island runways. - Your airframe MAY NOT use symmetry! - NO rockets or electric engines. Your engines MUST be of the LF+air variety. - Here's a twist on the symmetry: ONLY ONE of each wing or control surface may be used. - Maximum of TWO SAS units (ie 1 SAS-equipped command pod and 1 ASAS box is IT, or a command chair and two ASAS units - or even a probe core and two ASAS units). - Take as many trips as you want, but your aircraft MUST be able to carry Kerbals. Proof is in a screenshot of your aircraft landed intact on the Island runway with six Kerbals standing in front of it. No points, this is scored on success or failure as a binary condition. Let's see just how messed up our aeronautical department really is! (Challengers' note: Hopefully this one won't be as taxing on my poor system as the Planetes challenge. I will get back on that one, just as soon as I figure out why exiting the savegame results in ship duplication and Kraken attacks.)

Or, like me, have issues with FAR and some of their other plugins!

So if I go to 50,000km but keep my periapse below 30km, that's ok? Oh, right, I'm out then. that'd take *ages*! (see my first question) Oh, easy life - I'll just whack a couple pair of supernukes onto rotatrons, drop them on a pair of stubbies and see ya round the back of Mun...

ok, I got Krakened. Loaded the game just now and everything exploded - at which point the autosave decided to kick in. Now I got to start over! >:[

hmmm... sounds a little like my Starflight One challenge. OR, my ORIGINAL "Gravity" challenge. Maybe you ought to try my Planetes challenge for something with hazards.

that's gonna be like firing a gun at a bullet that's speeding toward you, firing over your shoulder blindfold on a mechanical bull set to 9.

OK, slight redesign (gone BIGGER. MUCH bigger. And a two-part ship, to boot!) Presenting, KMS Ottoman II: Couldn't wait, straight to the pad with this SSTO parasite payload beast: FIVE HUNDRED FIFTY THREE TONS! :x Separating the payload in 150km circular orbit: (hopefully well out of the way of any errant rocket stage... though I do seem to remember this thing having 24 parasite boosters attached to it at one point :x might have to send up yet another mission to clear up the small stuff... hint hint!) The payload: all of 36 tons fully loaded: ...and as agile as a housefly on speed! Docking approach to the first of the outer hulks. Looks fairly easy, at least it's not spinning! You might notice at some point that I've got a Clamptron port mounted radially on my ship, for some reason MechJeb has an easier time with radial mount ports than axial mounts... ...and there it is. In case you're wondering, those boxes are KAS large containers containing some (hopefully) useful kit for the work that needs doing. Sent Bob out to fix the chutes, found out that it wasn't uncontrollable spinning last time, grabbing a chute actually changes the whole RCS control experience: WHY DOES IT DO THAT! I DON'T LIKE IT! I DON'T LIKE CHANGE! It changes from POV control (ie, normal) to objective view control and it's weird, like flying a radio controlled NBA (neutral buoyancy airship) or an RC hovercraft... Found out also that the Rockomax 24/77 engines don't work even if you attach them directly to a fuel tank which has FUEL AND OXIDISER in it (says "Oxidiser Deprived)! So those half dozen crates of them I bought along are USELESS, might as well just tip 'em over the side and save a couple tons. Not holding out much hope for the RCS gear either, might just use the crates to carry chutes. Thrusting using the tug engines is LONG and SLOW and TEDIOUS (wonder if the Rockomax 77's'd actually work on the tug?). Had to set hard thrust limit of 20% or the sideways thrust from the pod overwhelmed the RCS' capability to counteract it and started the whole structure tumbling. Aerocapture of the Hulk inevitable: We'll see if this hulk makes a safe landing in the next photosode. Note to self: save four chutes for the pod for landing at KSC.

nah, that's one launch vehicle (as long as you don't do a "revert" to relaunch or whatever, 'cos that'd be a bit cheaty)... would be a sod on fuel tho. Rules updated on that one. :\ Anyhoo, updating the top post with new TESTED TOTALLY STOCK scenario file with the original sixteen Drones and a bit of added hazard >:]

yeah, fixing that...

hmmm... worth a look, I can see no problem in squirting in a bit of fuel using a KAS pipe and stapling on a couple midget engines... scoring revision to follow... thx for the suggestions

yeah, I'll have a look at the persistence file later and see if I can get it to run vanilla. Sry bout that EDIT: OK, hold your horses, I'll redo it in vanilla and re-upload. Be a few hours :x

yeah you've got the infiniglide effect off of that pair of control surfaces.

OK, I'm going to try for a deorbit of all 16 hulks, with this: Meet the "KMS Ottoman". This is a refit model, with the radially mounted cargo bays switched out for 24 KAS containers which hold: 64 radial parachutes 40 monopropellant tanks 100 linear RCS thrusters ...the idea being to deorbit the hulks and providing they survive impact, any which land near to KSC will score me even more! Pinpointing them is going to be hard since RCS has a really sucky thrust and I'm not even sure 2 tanks per hulk is going to be enough (I'm putting three on the bigger ones just to be sure). My target order is going to be three low orbit, one high, using 25km hops between co-orbiting intersections. EDIT: Cracking idea, would be wonderful if Jeb didn't start tumbling uncontrollably the second I picked up a chute... slight redesign in the works, going to load up with missiles and shoot the things down. EDIT EDIT: this is going to be redesigned as a modular launch system, basically it's going up in one piece then I'll be parking various bits in odd orbits for flyby recovery on my way round. Sounds complicated. I want to keep the physics part count down when I do my manoeuvres.

The KMS Ottoman, a merchant salvage tug, has done an impressive job in cleaning up Nearspace around Kerbin, but they report some debris that they can't handle - large, empty fuel tanks left over from the early days of Kerbolar exploration still litter the LKO equatorial lanes at 80km and 200km, which they have offered to tender to other private concerns interested in large amounts of metal. As the only bidder your company has landed the contract to remove these hazards. There are TWELVE hulks in 80km orbit and FOUR in 200km orbit. You may use any of the following methods you wish: capture and recovery, deorbiting, or blowing up. Use the provided save package (Verified REMOTETECH download) or this one (Verified COMPLETELY STOCK WITH ADDED HAZARD (and no antennas ANYWHERE!) download) (just unpack either one into your saves folder and run from there. You'll find it pretty much stock as it stands) as your scenario primer. You will see the relative positions of all the hulks in the Tracking Station monitor. You will also be able to pinpoint the extra hazards as debris. It's all pretty small stuff (FL-T200 tanks and standard rockets, which are point scoring retrieval objects!), but it's spread across both orbital lanes and between them on some crazy orbits, so let's be careful up there THE RULES (subject to revision): - ANY structural or powerplant mod valid. Go nuts. - NO exploits, hyperdit, infinite fuel or any other method of cheating known or unknown. - NO simply deleting the flight tracks in the Tracking Station! - You will be penalised 500 points for EVERY launch after your first one (resupply, refueling or rescue craft - there is fuel in some of the hulks, you'll have to find and recover it!). Segmented launchers (multiple payloads) count as ONE launch as long as all segments share the same lifter platform to orbit, SSTOs and Skycranes (which return to Kerbin and lift off immediately into orbit without refuelling on the ground first) also count as a single launch even if it lands and takes off multiple times. - Refuelling only permitted in orbit via the dregs left in some of the hulks. That's *all* the fuel available to you along with what you carry in your initial launch. - Your vessel MUST land back at/within 10km of KSC to score! - Your Kerbal/s MUST survive! HINTS: KAS recommended. MechJeb recommended. There is no monopropellant available on any of the hulks (oops, oversight). If you plan on docking, pack PLENTY. SCORING (subject to revision): 5 points per hulk destroyed by missile (I wanna see explosions!). 3 points per hulk destroyed by deorbiting (confirmation by orbit track is sufficient). 10 points for landing a hulk anywhere on Kerbin. 20 points per hulk RECOVERED TO WITHIN 10km OF KSC (I wanna see it *landed*). 25 points for crashing a hulk into Mun! 50 points for crashing a hulk into Minmus! 75 points for pushing a hulk to Kerbolar orbit. 100 points for landing a hulk at the runway, mainly for SSTO lovers. 150 points for landing a hulk on the VAB roof! 100 points for landing a hulk at the island runway. 200 points for landing a hulk at KSC 2. 300 points for sending a hulk on a terminal Kerbolar dive or into Kerbolar escape trajectory. 50 points for retrieving a piece of debris (consisting of an FL-T200 fuel tank with attached rocket engine) back to the KSC peninsula (that's a pretty big target to land on from orbit!). Rockets are expensive, we need to reuse as many as we can! (STOCK scenario only) 100 points for crashing a hulk into any planet other than Kerbin or any moon other than Mun or Minmus. 500 points for converting a hulk into an active manned satellite. (Thanks to kookoo_gr for helping rebalance the scoring) **Design needed for special award: The "Leaf Award", named for the Nissan electric-hybrid supercompact, awarded to anyone who uses the stock Rapier engine, with intakes (to fully utilise its hybrid capability), on an SSTO vehicle as the *only* source of forward propulsion and successfully brings down at least THREE hulks!** **Design needed for the "DeLorean Award" for anyone who manages to use a KSP Interstellar 3.75m nuclear fission reactor in Basic mode alongside the requisite heatsinks and thermal generators as the sole source of electrical power for the entire vehicle. No award offered for using the smaller reactors or any of the fusion reactors.** LEADERBOARD: 1. Claw with The Claw, pushing the elephant for 2400 points (solar escaped 8 hulks) 2. Slayer McGee with an epic 16-stage mission for 1738 points (and some very interesting and varied solutions to the challenge, including a KAS hack for adding parts) 3. 4. 5. (Challenger's note: it just took me all night to set this one up, so my attempt won't be getting documented until tonight...) (ADDITIONAL: I will be uploading a persistence file from a vanilla .23 installation later tonight, please bear with me if you want to wait for it, this one currently requires RemoteTech 2 to run. EDIT: done.) INSPIRATION: The story of Planetes follows the crew of the DS-12 "Toy Box" of the Space Debris Section, a unit of Technora Corporation. Debris Section's purpose is to prevent the damage or destruction of satellites, space stations and spacecraft from collision with debris in Earth's and the Moon's orbits. They use a number of methods to dispose of the debris (mainly by burning it via atmospheric reentry or through salvage), accomplished through the use of EVA suits. The episodes sometimes revolve around debris collection itself, but more often the concept of collecting "trash" in space is merely a storytelling method for building character development. The members of the Debris Section are looked down upon as the lowest members of the company (and also occupy the lowest decks of the orbital station on which they live and work) and they must work hard to prove their worth to others and accomplish their dreams. Ongoing plot elements include an upcoming exploratory mission to Jupiter on the new fusion powered ship, Von Braun, and the lead character's decision to join the mission, no matter the cost. Many other plot threads are also developed throughout the series that help to explain each character's motivations and personalities. The Space Defense Front is a terrorist organization that believes mankind is exploiting space without first curing global problems such as mass famine and the widened socio-economic divide on Earth. - Source

OK, I think I've got the hang of maximising glide distance... climb as high as you can until you're at about twice stall speed, then heel over and keeping it just above stall speed, ride the glide slope in. Doable with SAS/ASAS, the lack of active control surfaces negates (or should do) any "infiniglide" effects.

MOAR WINGZ! The Railgun Mk.V: Free flight: Score: 6812m, stall speed sub-10m/s: