khyron42

CRAFT: Earth Orbit Probe MISSION: Place a probe in a 149.5 million km x 152 million km orbit around Kerbol (Earth\'s orbital distance); test deep space propulsion systems. Extended mission: Move probe to a ~88 million km orbit (GeneralIssue\'s fiction provides this as the orbit for the planet Azure) and study solar light levels at this distance. CREW: Robotic Probe LAUNCH DATE: July 5, 2012 NOTES: Uses NP, Angara, and MechJeb parts. Deliberately overpowered for mission to allow return to Kerbin. FLIGHT DURATION: ongoing MISSION OUTCOME: After 796 days flight time, primary mission\'s target orbit achieved. Enough fuel to return to Kerbin, but questionable as to whether a safe landing will be possible. It was decided to move the probe to other orbits for further scientific studies rather than attempt an immediate return.

Surely someone can break the 1010 m/s barrier? I\'ve tried a few times to improve on my 1002.7 speed but I\'m starting to think I did everything exactly right on that flight - I\'ve broken 1000 a couple more times but only gotten up to 1001. Attempts with even more engines haven\'t gotten better results either, but my attempt at a 60-engine monster did rip itself to shreds entertainingly.

Cooly, you apparently used a mod that\'s not already in, in addition to your spaceport parts I see some 1m to 2m decoupler part from Down Under. It was only on a Debris part, so I deleted it and it didn\'t affect your main lander. Base photo (people are supposed to be taking these and posting them!) Revised save file attached. Zekes, you are cleared for liftoff!

Sorry for the delay. I loaded that up, turned my rover to face towards the main base and turned on its lights, then switched to your pod and zoomed & angled to have the other craft in the foreground: Your pod is off far in the distance ahead, and my rover is off to the left - but otherwise that\'s a complete photo of the base. Candre\'s HTV is still alive but not going anywhere, and the Titanic has indeed lost a whole wing so probably couldn\'t move without being too imbalanced. The Lake of Broken Landers now lives up to its name. We all knew it would happen someday! Cooly568, it\'s your turn!

Ummm... Tim? That persistent.sfs is from the stock community base. It has your 'Pizza delivery 1' in it at a different minmus base.

Do you want to go back to the previous save and try again? You still have a lot of time to try for a less violent arrival. Or we can go with this. ------- Everyone, there\'s a novapunch 1.2 Beta now, and we should switch to using it instead of alpha. If you already have your community mod folder built, you can delete all parts whose folders start with 'NP' and then install the newer one. It\'s supposed to improve performance by making use of simpler textures.

It looks like that part is only debris bits at the moment anyway, so I\'ve deleted the debris items that had it. I also snapped the base photo. Mechjeb\'s green light provides an easy way to locate the outhouse during Minmus\' long nights. I find it quite comforting that the outhouse has no propulsion means - I\'d hate to accidentally hit 'launch' instead of 'flush'. Tim_Barrett, it\'s your turn again! If you really insist on creative landing approaches rather than landing and then detaching rovers, remember that you can use [ and ] to switch between all available craft; hitting ] will switch through all craft newer than your launch one and then to the oldest craft in the save file, allowing you to switch to just-detached craft easily. Keep in mind that I\'m already bending the rules for you by allowing you to fly a second time instead of going to the bottom of the list, and fly without naming your target base; don\'t land at multiple bases or I\'ll just ignore your turn completely.

CONTINENT NUMBER: 2 NAME: Hyperborea REASON: From wikipedia - In Greek mythology the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived far to the north. Their land, called Hyperborea or Hyperboria — 'beyond the Boreas' — was perfect, with the sun shining twenty-four hours a day, which to modern ears suggests a possible location within the Arctic Circle.

Actually, in real life they use that point (L1) for SOHO and two other satellites. According to my friend who was one of the operations team, it only had to do less stationkeeping than a normal satellite - but yes, the game does not support 3-body gravity. However - you can do what Koschei is asking for. Have the satellite co-orbit with Kerbin, at a distance perhaps 60 degrees ahead of it in its orbit. At that distance, it will always be 'above' a point that\'s in sunlight, since it\'s far enough ahead in the orbit that the point on a straight line from it to kerbin will be to a point that\'s in morning at all times. However, at that distance Kerbin will be invisible. The compromise would be to have the craft co-orbiting just outside Kerbin\'s SoI, and it would stay forever above the terminator.

Xeranes, did you have some additional mod included? I tried to load your save and it complained about an unknown part (RCSBlock1).

It also sits on the runway already angled upwards slightly, so the 'wheel drag' doesn\'t prevent it from getting the initial lift needed to get airborne. I\'m going to try it again with less canards, later on. ---- My flight profile is 100% throttle the whole way, takeoff at 20 degrees up pitch, pitch down to 10 at 13 km, and then try to manage the pitch to level flight above 16.5 km. it seems that as long as you end your sprint in a sustained level flight, you\'ll get the same results no matter how you got there; you just have to be in level flight long enough for all acceleration and drag factors to have reached equilibrium. I reach 16km with 1/2 the fuel left anyway, and gain my last 200 or so m/s while levelling off. I think the biggest thing holding mine back right now is altitude-related air drag; I just had a successful flight with only one set of canards and one more pair of engines, making this technically a jet-propelled projectile rather than an airfoil. However, I ended at a lower speed because my 'level flight' ended up at a 200m lower altitude. Time for work, but tonight I\'ll start trying for the 17-18km mark instead.

Yes, this actually managed takeoff from the runway successfully. From here.

I liked one similar concept to the cannon I\'d read about in a sci-fi book. You lay a pipeline, big enough around for your craft to fit inside. The pipeline climbs gentlly in a straight line towards the east, up the side of a tall mountain near the equator - the sci-fi book used Chimborazo, I think. There\'s a track inside the pipeline for a while, and after that it\'s perfectly straight (computer controlled to keep it that way, especially when it\'s active.) Your craft is a payload and small second stage built around a very high power jet engine. The engine has no outer casing or fuel lines - just what\'s needed to turn a fuel/air mixture into thrust. It\'s also built to be able to handle the shock wave of going through the atmosphere at launch speeds, starting at the altitude where the high end of the pipe is. You fill each section of the pipeline with the ideal fuel/air mixture and pressure for the exact speed that the engine will be travelling when it passes through that section. Stick the engine+payload in at the low end , seal the pipeline on that end, fill the pipeline, and light that baby up. The beauty of it is that this way, you never have to accelerate the fuel to orbital speeds, just the payload + engine. The drawback is when it leaves the pipe, it has to be going way higher speed than what\'s actually needed, and transitions to huge air resistance in a split second right as it loses all active thrust. That\'s going to be your max Q for sure, but a highly aerodynamic craft can minimize the strain at 6 km altitude. This is a way to get most of the advantages of the 'gun' style launcher, while still limiting the G forces that your payload has to withstand - you can tune the thrust of the engine and length of the gun to never exceed the G\'s that will happen when it exits the pipe. Obviously, you wouldn\'t be launching people this way. ;D

If you can post the 'F3' results from after burnout I\'d give you credit for 1005, which means I\'m in second place but still broke the 1 km/s level... the largest mess I managed to build that could actually survive takeoff only reached 1002.7.

Sorry. Maybe this kind of a huge setup is a place to land a ship and be done with it instead of going for complicated. Maybe it\'d even be a good thing to honor the spirit of the rules, and land one craft and then maybe detach one rover. Like I said pages ago. Also, which of the two bases had you decided to land at? I\'ll update your reservation. I\'ll move you down one. It is xeranes\' turn.

It\'s -your- turn. do what you like with it. Be considerate of the fact that 10 other people will eventually want to add to that base, too, so you aren\'t there to provide everything anyone will ever need - just what YOU feel like leaving as your own unique contribution.

I tried about 4 designs to get higher speeds, but all of them managed to get airborne and into the 900+ speed range. - based on past attempts I was pretty sure it would work. The main concern was whether having that much of the thrust coming from in front of the CoG would destabilize it, but it worked quite well. I think with that number of engines wing lift may not matter; I should try it with 2-4 more engines and just canards on the sides. We\'re both trying for 1 km/s!

Hmm. My first flight to the Abandoned Launch facilty had way too rapid a descent and was completely destroyed; I should have aborted the landing and circled around but I thought I could pull it off. I\'ll try again when I have time tomorrow. My second try ended much like my first one. The third try, I managed to land, but overshot the landing by about 3 km, and had to taxi back - I lost the landing leg I meant to use as a parking brake late in the landing, too. Highlights of the flight and final shot showing the base: The relatively narrow straits between the two continents Dropping the first set of drop tanks Within 'radar range' of the base Barely clearing the mountains on the way in to land Landed but overshot, time to taxi back The base layout - the first craft was completely invisible to me, so I switched to it to take the shot and decided to stay over 200m from it in case it was showing up as underground.

Whoa - what happened to Greghorst? I\'ll get my flight started right away.

Yes, it includes stock. As long as I\'m posting - my power\'s back on (just came back about 3 hours ago) and I\'m signing up for another flight. Destination Base: Lake Kostok base Planned additional mod: Fixed Camera, unless someone adds it before me.

Excalibur - Nice example of simpler is better. For the other direction: The Flying Engine II. Switched to MechJeb since everyone else was moving to it instead of stock, and mk 2 fuselages for slight mass savings in the early part. Liftoff... Right before burn out... Final Results after burnout: Record title: World Airspeed Record Record statistic: 989m/s Game version when record achieved: 0.15.2 Mods used: MechJeb Craft name: Flying Engine II

go for it.

It\'s all about thrust AND drag. with lots of engines but very few fuel tanks I was getting better results. It just took creative arrangements that allowed all engines to power off of a single fuel tank for the final sprint. I\'m amused by the mechjeb everywhere in these screenshots too, but it does save a lot on weight to not have an ASAS - I might have to retry this challenge again in a minute.

shhilent, sorry, then. Feel free to register for a turn. Tim_Barrett, It\'s your turn! ---- I forgot to mention - BlackBicycle, you\'re welcome to book your flight however you want, but please keep the RP minimal. As stated in the first post, this is not a roleplaying thread. It\'s perfectly ok to let other people suggest which base you should add to, though.

I\'m going to bump myself off the list for taking too long. Shhhilent - letting you do that wouldn\'t be fair to all the other people who have patiently waited their turn. If sss isn\'t going to fly his turn, he gets removed from the list, not replaced with someone who he chooses. sss is up - if he wants to fly it himself.. Otherwise it\'s Tim Barrett\'s turn.