keptin

My thought was that if you mounted it to the underside of an aircraft, it would be a look-down radar of 45 degrees. It's been vetoed, but maybe we'll do an aircraft-specific large aero-disk radar like you see on AEW&C aircraft. http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_E-3FR_lg.jpg This is early concept and will be narrowed down to a couple for now. As Majiir mentioned, the mapping system needs an entire overhaul and will have to wait until the rest of the mod is brought up to speed. We talked about ray casting as a possible method for getting the desired control for a variety of scanner types and functions--perhaps a sub-plugin with various mapping patters and options to choose from, such as beam focus (narrow/wide) by changing the random ray scatter angle from 1-8° to 1-35°, while reducing ray distance and number of rays, for example. Different scanners would have different advantages/disadvantages. This sounds like something that the SatMap mod and a few others might be interested in. Perhaps it can be a collaborative effort to implement something like this. I'm not a programmer, so I'm a bit hands off when it comes to this stuff.

Ha, I've been sitting here researching mechanical-scan antenna radar, mechanical-scan array radar and AESA radar for two hours. Super cool stuff. MSAR & AESA: Holy snap mechanical-scan antenna radar moves fast! Back to the topic, even if it couldn't map at 50x speed (assuming it's even possible at all), it would map a much larger area than one pixel at a time. I'd definitely prefer that so I can map more than a 1 pixel thick line. The numbers above were just examples...to make things a bit more fun, maybe you tighten up figures so cone angles are 1-5 degrees or even less. I suppose from space 1 degree is a pretty big ground target; 20 degrees could cover the size of a whole country.

Concepting some small radial detectors I wish we could map Kethane deposits/veins more than one pixel at a time. I have no idea the extent of programming involved for this idea or if it's even possible, so don't get your hopes up, but here goes:

Hey folks, I've been working with Majiir to do some modeling for the project starting with a 2M part set. I'll be sharing some of the concept stuff as I go--have mercy, I'm a modeler by trade, but I think it's fun to show off what I'm working on. To start, this is a 2-meter converter I'm finishing up:

I\'ve posted this one a few times, so it\'s about time I make a new one. It doesn\'t meet the rules of this challenge with its jet at the rear, but it gives a good idea of what can be done with rotatrons. Flight vid: http://youtu.be/5e4j0fivBgQ?hd=1

Try this one on for size http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=11716.msg215062#msg215062

Wouldn\'t it be better to try to land the biggest ship with jet thrust? Clearly, making the smallest ship isn\'t much of a challenge. Also, update your OP with the new rules.

So, this is a 'smallest spaceplane' challenge?

Ha, I was hoping for a spectacular explosion, not dissimilar from the actual Operation Credible Sport.

The established around the world challenge has an organized OP with rules and a leaderboard. It accommodates jets & LFRs, SRBs, and mods, all in separate challenge categories. LFRs aren\'t competitive in the atmosphere, so anyone who wants to compete seriously has to use jet engines. You\'ve copied an ongoing challenge, thus taking away potential challengers from it. If you don\'t intend on making a unique challenge with a clearly defined OP, why not just reply to that thread? Since you\'ve already made a new challenge, consider changing the rules to make it unique, e.g., 'How far can you get using only 6 jet fuel tanks?'.

Was able to slap some more wings onto it to form the Ultratanker 10000. It can grow in length, if need be.

While cool, there are two active 'around the world' challenges. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=8772.0

I would love helicopter parts, especially tail rotors! I managed to build this using Damned parts, but it\'s a bastard to control.

I present the Ultratanker 8000.

Record title: Turbojet Altitude Record Record Statistic: 38,008M Game version when record achieved: 0.15 Screenshots: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=12572.msg196331#msg196331 Mods used: None

Thanks for the interest everyone! Unfortunately, BrickMod has been put on hold indefinitely. I\'m no longer interested in deving it, but if someone with >100 posts and KSP modding experience wants to take it over, please PM me.

I present the Choplifter Omega 5000 MkII. In classic KSP fashion, the MkI has a 30% survival rate. Now with 70% survival rate! Flight vid: http://youtu.be/5e4j0fivBgQ?hd=1 The MkI was a giant single-shaft death machine, but the MkII is surprisingly flyable and stable after takeoff without RCS--except for turning. Not gonna lie, turning is dangerous.

Thanks! Kinda feel dumb for not even bothering to check prior to posting.

Super awesome mod! In my quest to make a giant helicopter with wings as blades, it seems there\'s no way to control the speed of the servos on any of the parts. Is this a planned feature?

Doing this challenge legit, without taking advantage of known glitches, it\'s certainly possible to get all the way around Kerbit...but it would take several hours. If I end up doing another run at some point, I\'ll push it to the limit and try to wrap the planet.

Going for big. Things were going well until they weren\'t; I peaked at over 100Km, dragged down to a nice slow landing speed, and then, without being able to see the ground at night, landed hard enough to knock the wings off. Giving it another go. Flight Profile: https://imgur.com/a/5uvWI#4

Stock - 2,202,015m distance, flight time - 2hr 57min 42sec So, I had an interesting trip. Ship used all vanilla parts save for a Mechjeb, which I consider more of a grey area--it helps control (and babysit for almost three hours) the aircraft, but doesn\'t add thrust, etc. So I took off, burn up my climb tanks+engines getting to altitude and a bit beyond. Once those dropped, I quickly learned that one engine wasn\'t enough thrust to carry the weight of four fully laden fuel tanks, so Bill was forced to drop the secondary tanks or face certain death plummeting to the ground at a rate of -200m/s. The plane climbed back up to 9500m and I cruised from there. The odd part was toward the end of the flight when I was ready to land. I cut the engines with 9.9kg fuel remaining to give me a bit of safety fuel finding a landing zone. The ground was pretty flat, so I was ready to land and dropped to around 400m. I had planned to burn off the remaining speed by flaring the plane and drag-land at 5m/s. Unfortunately, I\'d never tested that method with such high-aspect wings before--this is where I discovered an infinite glide glitch. Seemingly different than the control surface thrust glitch, the damn thing would never slow down. In fact, left to its own, it began to speed up and raise in altitude. It was the ultimate ground effect. Desperate, I piloted it for almost 40 more minutes waiting to see if anything would change to no avail. I even managed to pop off the engine on a landing attempt and that didn\'t solve my problem. Eventually, Jeb needed to take a pee, so I forced her down at 40m/s, killing all three crew members in a brilliant flash of rocket fuel and debris. All in all, I made it more than half way around the world on stock parts and I consider this a successful KSP flight, despite everyone\'s deaths. =P Flight Profile pics: https://imgur.com/a/2vTAm#0

I like your flight plan better and this bit especially stands out. If it\'s anything like real world physics, quickly pushing to high altitude should save more fuel in the long run. The whole 'efficiency' thing on the engines weirds me out how it\'s so efficient at near ground level--I wonder if there\'s documentation on this somewhere showing the actual calculations and what\'s going on.

It\'s super easy to takeoff with one wheel. The plane sits in takeoff position on the runway, so you just lock ASAS and just throttle up...no skids necessary. To land, you zero throttle and flare up to burn speed before touching down. Moving the ASAS to the front, cockpit, fuel, engine, allows the canards to be further from the wing and provides more control during climb and landing. HeliosV download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/66999462/HeliosV.craft With the weight reduction of one wheel, you will see some fuel savings. The flight plan is just as critical; here\'s what I\'ve got so far for the Helios V: 1. Lock ASAS, start engines and throttle to 2.5 notches. 2. Set heading to KSP 2 3. Set pitch to 18 degrees, set throttle to 1.3 notches (your speed should be around 55-65m/s during the low-altitude climb, 0-5000ft, with climb rate of 10m/s) 4. At 5000m increase throttle to 1.5 notches, climb to 12500m 5. Level off at 12500m, cruise to KSP2 6. Begin landing sequence at ~5000-8000m from landing zone; reduce throttle and altitude.

very cool antbin, I think that\'s close to as efficient as possible, but I was able to ditch the U-2 style gear and go for full 1-wheel glider. Landing is tricky, but I managed it on a test flight. Don\'t have time for another run to KSP 2 though.