seanth

Ezriilc and I did a momentum challenge a while back and we ended up hitting on designs where we just kept adding on more parts in a modular fashion. It was getting to the point that computers were slowing down with part numbers. The idea is to encourage people to get the job done with fewer parts. Check out the following for the old stuff

The downside of doing it this way is that the fuel usage will include the fuel used to get to a good hydroplaning speed, and not show the fuel usage at the time the screenshot was taken.... It too bad it's too easy to cheat on the throttle. Taking the speed and dividing the units of fuel/s in the resource window would give us m/L at the time the image was taken. Assuming the submitter didn't throttle down just before the image was snapped.

(mass*speed)/part number/total amount of fuel used This gives us three categories for scores: (mass*speed)/parts = category 1. Efficiency in parts (mass*speed)/fuel used = category 2. Efficiency in fuel usage (mass*speed)/parts/fuel used = category 3. Efficiency in both at the same time

Yeah. I agree, but I'm hesitant about making it a point too far away. I myself am cool with distant points that take an hour or more to sail to, but it might discourage some people from entering.

My kids just went to bed, so I now have some time to think about this and write things down. See if this makes sense. I'm going to use values from your example rocket-boat, and Watson Your Mind. In both our screenshots, the resource panel is visible, so I can calculate the total amount of fuel used. WYM used 214L of LiquidFuel, and the unnamed craft used 13,329L of LiquidFuel and Oxidizer combined. Let's assume that we'd also F3ed and saw the total distance traveled. Let's just for the sake of argument say both craft had gone 1km. The images also have velocity and ship mass. Unnamed has 4 parts, and WYM has 80 parts. Craft Mass (tonnes) Velocity (m/s) Distance (km) Fuel Used (L) # Parts m per L Momentum (tonnes*m/s) Momentum/part Momentum/L Momentum /L/part unnamed 114.5 97.4 1 13,329 4 0.075 11,152.3 2,788.075 0.8367 0.209 WYM 34.7 44.0 1 214 80 4.673 1,526.8 19.085 7.1346 0.089 hypothetical 114.5 44.0 1 214 80 4.673 5038.0 62.975 23.54 0.294 Those momentum/L/part scores are not very dignified, so maybe do the momentum cals using kg vs tonnes. So the values would be 209, 89, and 294. This trade off makes sense to me. Weigh a lot+go fast using lots of fuel with few parts? Great momentum/part score, bad momentum/L score, but good momentum/L/part score. Interestingly, the hypothetical craft ends up getting a score close to the unnamed one. Feels like a good trade-off going on with mass, speed, and fuel usage. This method doesn't need a distance traveled component. Thoughts? Having said all that, I would absolutely be in for a long distance-no-refueling challenge

I'm working on that now. I had an idea how to deal with it while cooking dinner. Hold tight: I'm looking at some test numbers to see if things are sane

It's not easy. I found using the aerodynamic overlay arrows helped me squeeze more speed out of designs

Simple, but it elegantly exposed problems in scoring and possible cheats. But, I'll take it off the board.

lol. Well, you are definitely winning on the leader board right now.

I like this idea a lot. It appeals to my no refueling circumnavigation stuff. I can see there being the part efficiency score, the fuel efficiency score, and a part AND fuel efficiency score. I'm playing around with scoring approaches....

I'm tempted to make the target be the south pole of Kerbin. Heading straight east on a heading of 90° from the KSC hits that peninsula. You need to head out at something around 98° to miss it. But maybe that's the easy way to state the rules for the fuel efficiency part? Get into the water east of the landing field of KSC, point in a specified heading, and go until you reach land or run out of fuel.... I don't have access to KSP right now so I can't test out how some possible scoring mechanisms might be done.

The thing with boats is that they are amazingly efficient in the real world if you are patient. You can transport huge masses of goods very slowly, using very little fuel. SSgt Baloo and Ezriilc have hit on a possible fuel efficiency challenge: how rapidly can you get to the eastern shore (or some specific lat/long) from KSC. But it also seems like we can have two efficiency challenges going: part efficiency and fuel efficiency. The part efficiency challenge is just momentum/#parts, so easy to alter the rules. Need to think a little about the distance to travel fuel efficiency challenge rules. I'll alter the first post to make it clear there are two challenges, now.

The intent is to get at fuel efficiency. We could strap a bunch of very powerful rockets onto a craft and go very fast, but the fuel consumption would be staggering. By taking fuel consumption into account, it means we need to really think about the trade off between power, mass, and drag. Re your score: your momentum is 11149.6702, but fuel usage is zero. So your score would be (114.473*97.4)/0, which isn't a number. This exposes a way to cheat, however. Someone can get their craft up to it's max speed, quickly cut back on the thrust, and take a picture to make it look like the craft is going faster with less thrust. I can't think of a way to prevent this sort of cheating, so I guess the contest is dead. It can be restarted as a part efficiency variation, but it's certainly not the original intent.

The stock resource gauge in the upper right corner reports the fuel consumption. I guess there is uncertainty about what units liquid fuels are in in KSP, but everything I have looked at indicates that 1 unit of fuel is 1L. If it makes you feel better we can just say "unit" instead of "Liter". The score would have the same numeric value. The forum isn't letting me post a larger image. I'll see about making the image clickable so people can see a larger image.

Good catch, re tons vs tonnes. Fixed. As for the arbitrary number vs a formula: Honestly the units of the score can be ignored. I listed them in the example just to make it clear how the score is calculated. I spend my work day making sure SI units are correct in what I wrote, so it was just habit. Since this is a momentum efficiency challenge, the SI units of the score would be (kg*m/s)/(L/s), or (kg*m)/L. If we listed the score as (kg*m)/L, the score looks unreasonably big -- 1776320 vs 1776.320 -- so we can use tonnes vs kg. It doesn't matter too much as long as the entrant makes their units clear somehow. The score is (mass*velocity)/(units of fuel/time). Long as we know the units being used, we can convert. I just would rather not end up with (pounds*cubit per decade)/(hogsheads per century)

Doh. I ended up deciding that the part count was an unnecessary limitation, but left it in the initial description. I just edited the initial description so it's accurate for the rules listed. In the example 1st entry I posted, I used mechjeb to show the vessel mass, but you should be able to get the ship mass from the map view, right? In the previous Boat Momentum Challenge I had been using the map view.

What do boat momentum and rockets have in common? If you are Theodore von Karman, a lot. Best know for the Karman Line being named after him, Karman did work looking at the energetic costs of transport. Of specific relation to this challenge, he published “What Price Speed? Specifc Power Required for Propulsion of Vehicles” in 1950 in the journal Mechanical Engineering. In it, he and his coauthor, the Italian aeronautics engineer Giuseppe Gabrielli, looked at “’power per unit weight’ as a function of the ‘maximum velocity’" (Theodore Von Karman and G Gabrielli. 1950. “What Price Speed? Specific Power Required for Propulsion of Vehicles,” Mechanical Engineering. 72: 775–81.) For this challenge, we’ve tried to keep the spirit of Gabrielli and Karman’s work, but made is a bit more Kerbal. Here I’ll show you how to get all the information you need to show your score using just the stock game, and then with MechJeb. Stock KSP method You'll need two screenshots for this: one showing your craft moving, and the other taken in map view. In these two screenshots we have thrust, mass, velocity, fuel usage per second, and number of parts. For the momentum part efficiency score, you need the mass, velocity, and number of parts. In this example the score would be: (35.13tonne * 34.6m/s)/80 which equal 15.19 For the momentum fuel efficiency score, you need the total thrust, the velocity, and the units of fuel per second. Showing the thrust of each of the rockets on the ship lets me sum them all up: [(98.0kN+98.0kN+98.0kN+98.0kN)*34.6m/s]/(0.76L/s)= (392kN*34.6m/s)/(0.76L/s) = 17,846 For craft using rocket engines, remember to add the LiquidFuel and Oxidizer numbers together to get the total fuel consumption. You could manually calculate the thrust if you take your craft's mass and multiply it by its acceleration (not gravity's acceleration. The acceleration caused by your engines) MechJeb Method If you use MechJeb, showing the values is more compact with a custom window. All the information is on a single screenshot. This will be my official first entry: Watson Your Mind For the momentum part efficiency score, you need the mass, velocity, and number of parts. In this example the score would be: (34.821tonne * 43.9m/s)/80 which equal 19.11 For the momentum fuel efficiency score, you need the total thrust, the velocity, and the units of fuel per second. Showing the thrust of each of the rockets on the ship lets me sum them all up: (441.6kN*43.9m/s)/(0.86L/s) = 22,542.14 Craft file available at https://github.com/kjoenth/KSP-Boat-Momentum-Challenge Note that changes in mass, thrust and fuel consumption all influence the final score. Its an optimization game. Good luck! An addendum note: The thrust value is the mass of the craft times the acceleration to the craft by the engines. That gives you a kN (using the values reported by KSP), and multiplying it the velocity gives you a kN*m/s. If you are wondering, a 1 kN*m/s is equal to 1 kWatt. "But what does this have to do with momentum?" you say. Momentum is mass*velocity. Another way to calculate a N*m/s is to say momentum*acceleration.

Boat Momentum Part and/or Fuel Efficiency Challenge There have been challenges to build the fastest boat, and there have been heavy lift rocket challenges. Welcome to the boat momentum efficiency challenges. Whether you are considering fuel efficiency or part efficiency (fewest number of parts), efficiency is a tough nut to crack. Arguably, building a very heavy AND fast AND efficient boat is harder than building a very light and fast boat, so let the kerbalizing begin! Power Fuel Efficiency Scores: (foamyesque) Hydrofoil 2: 204,002.24 (Ezriilc) Orca 6: 153,021.41 (Ezriilc) Orca 5.3: 99,048.34 (Ezriilc) Sea Train-depleted fuel: 88,772.11 (seanth) Franklin My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn: 71,078.48 (seanth) Crick in My Neck-full throttle: 67,473.30 (Ezriilc) Sea Train: 63,052.18 (seanth) Crick in My Neck: 55,997.77 (foamyesque) We don't need no stinkin' hydrofoils: 55,967.62 (Ezriilc) Orca 3.4: 54,098.84 (The_Rocketeer) Soviet R: 46,966.95 (SpannerMonkey(smce): Challenge Cat: 26,400 (estimate) (seanth) Watson Your Mind: 22,542.14 (foamyesque) Unnamed: 18,543.40 (Heffy) Make KSP Great Again-minimal fuel: 5,379.70 (Heffy) Make KSP Great Again: 2,650.18 Momentum Part Efficiency Scores: (foamyesque) We don't need no stinkin' hydrofoils: 1,651.12 (Ezriilc) Orca 5.3: 1,268.37 (Ezriilc) Orca 6: 782.32 (Ezriilc) Sea Train: 337.82 (foamyesque) Hydrofoil 2: 305.05 (Ezriilc) Orca 3.4: 297.89 (seanth) Franklin My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn: 241.36 (Ezriilc) Sea Train-depleted fuel: 224.25 (foamyesque) Unnamed: 155.73 (The_Rocketeer) Soviet R: 149.9 (seanth) Crick in My Neck-full throttle: 138.94 (seanth) Crick in my Neck: 118.08 (SpannerMonkey(smce)) Challenge Cat: 56.36 (Heffy) Make KSP Great Again: 25.07 (seanth) Watson Your Mind: 19.11 (Heffy) Make KSP Great Again-minimal fuel: 10.05 Just for funzies--Momentum per L/s scores ([mass*velocity]/fuel usage per second): (foamyesque) Unnamed: 30,411.51 (Ezriilc) Orca 6: 13,495.18 (seanth) Franklin My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn: 9,654.28 (Ezriilc): Orca 5.3: 7,756.71 (The_Rocketeer) Soviet R: 7,746.6 (seanth) Crick in my Neck: 7,039.45 (Heffy) Make KSP Great Again: 7,391.23 (foamyesque) Hydrofoil 2: 6,512.25 (foamyesque) We don't need no stinkin' hydrofoils: 6,432.94 (seanth) Crick in My Neck-full throttle: 6,066.44 (Ezriilc) Orca 3.4: 5,906.37 (Ezriilc) Sea Train: 5,570.42 (Ezriilc) Sea Train-depleted fuel: 3,916.43 (Heffy) Make KSP Great Again-minimal fuel: 2,964.17 (SpannerMonkey(smce)) Challenge Cat: 2,479.07 (seanth) Watson Your Mind: 1,777.44 Momentum Part Efficiency Scoring: Total mass of your craft, multiplied by its velocity, divided by its part number (mass of your ship*speed of your ship)/total number of parts or (tonne*m s-1)/part number = Part Efficiency Score. Momentum Power Efficiency Scoring: (Thrust of your ship * speed of your ship)/units of fuel per second or (kN*m s-1)/units of fuel per second = Power Efficiency Score. Momentum Fuel Efficiency Scoring (for funzies): (mass of your ship * speed of your ship)/units of fuel per second or (tonne*m s-1)/units of fuel per second = Momentum/Fuel Efficiency Score. General Rules: The craft must be carrying at least one Kerbal. Hydrofoils are allowed BUT craft must not completely leave the water. That's called a plane. MechJeb is allowed since it might make it easier for people to show values in the screen shot (see submission guidelines). The intent is to build something using stock parts that works in KSP's normal physics. This means no mods that add parts, alter how stock parts work, or something that alters the aero- or hydro- dynamics (or other physical characteristics) of KSP. Something like MechJeb, even though it adds a part, is allowed since the part in question is essentially massless and can't effectively be used for structure, lift, or buoyancy. When reporting your fuel per second values, remember to add all the fuel being used together. If you are using rocket engines AND ion engines, you would add the liquid fuel, oxidizer, and xenon gas rates together to get one L/s value. MechJeb is highly encouraged since it allows you to show part number, mass, etc on the same screen as your craft while it is underway. Use of the debug toolbar for cheating is strictly not allowed. Of course, use of the debug menu to visualize aerodynamics when you are testing is allowed AND ENCOURAGED. Submissions should be made in the latest version of KSP. Submitters are encouraged to share their craft with others so we can improve on designs. Submission Guidelines: Please include images or video of: The boat moving through liquid at that speed. The craft's mass while moving has to be shown. It's not enough to show the mass of the craft in a build area, since fuel might be consumed getting to the water or getting up to speed. For the part efficiency challenge, the ship mass, velocity, and parts present must be shown in the image For the fuel efficiency challenge, the ship thrust, velocity, and fuel used per second must be shown in the image See the following post for examples Craft sites: http://www.kerbaltek.com/craftkitchen

Derp. Ignore

Did you ever see my pull request. It's been a while, but I think I set it up so processing can happen in the background.

My laptop died, and I just don't have a replacement able to run KSP. I'm around, though, and enthusiastic to see someone wants to keep BioMass going.

Could you clarify what you mean? Do you mean the greenhouse is completely full of biomass in 3days, or that you see any biomass in 3days. Remember to download the latest version from github. It has far fewer options to turn on/off and should make it easier to use. Remember that expecting to get food very quickly is pretty unrealistic. Imagine you have an old VW from the 1970s. That's all the space you have to grow food. It takes about 90 days from planting seeds to harvest in the real world. The math in the book "The Martian" was pretty spot on. Growing food in space is _hard_. I will try and post an image showing the seed bank location later today. I do _not_ recommend playing classic. It is not maintained at all. Use "Easy" if you must. On Medium and Hard difficulty, the Seed Bank part is found in "Utility". It looks like one of the snack containers, but has a plant icon on the outside. To manually edit difficulty level: Go to GameData/BioMass/Plugin/BioMassDifficulty/ Rename BioMassDifficulty_MM.cfg to BioMassDifficulty_MM.old Duplicate Easy.txt Rename the duplicated "easy" file to "BioMassDifficulty_MM.cfg" Delete BioMassDifficulty_MM.old Open BioMass.cfg in a text editor Change DifficultySettings = Hard to DifficultySettings = Easy

Did you ever see my pull request. It's been a while, but I think I set it up so processing can happen in the background.

I'm having a problem with a part that has a lot of always active modules. The modules are simulating plants, but when a player right clicks on the part, the popup gui is full of info. It's interesting, but ideally there would be a way to hide things. A example screen shot: For debugging, it's nice to see info on whether germination is active or how efficient something is, but for these always-active, biologically inspired reactions, giving the user feedback like that is excessive and fills the screen. The obvious solution would be to remove some modules, but I am not sure how to reduce things from the basics of Germination, Respiration, Photosynthesis, and Reproduction. Any thoughts? I don't suppose there is a hideFeedbackInGUI flag.

Short version: Use the version on github. I uploaded a new test version that should address some of the problems previously reported (too many buttons for each part). I have not fully looked at everything yet, so be aware it's experimental. You should never use the testfueltank. It's there just for testing. I will make sure it is hidden on non-tester version that I will upload later today. I will post a very quick tutorial on how to grow plants after I double check the zip that's on github right now. The quick version is: Seeds can be gotten in the Seed Bank part found in Utilities Seeds become BioMass(i.e. the plants, called Kamboo ) in greenhouses when you allow germination (think of it like you are turning on infra-red lights to promote germination) Kamboo will only start producing seeds when there is IR light present. I'm fairly certain one of the greenhouse descriptions specifically says IR light is needed to allow the Kamboo to produce seeds. (See the above link) If you are trying to produce seeds and allow germination at the same time, you will get few or no seeds since the plants make seeds which then germinate as quickly as they can. There are details that that does not cover, but I will address all that in a post soon(tm)