XolotlLoki

Totally not suited to this challenge, but I was intrigued by the idea of building a VTOL, so I tested yours. The design looks awesome; I had to tear it apart to figure out what it was made of. The multiple engines inside each other was a little much for my taste. And the addition of the RAPIER engine soley to allow exploiting a turbojet/RAPIER bug seems a bit too much like cheating, which makes it less fun for me. But flying it was very fun as long as the tanks were full. Landing was difficult; I wish it had weighed a lot less, like without the LV-N and RAPIER. I tried to land on top of the VAB, but once engines 1 and 6 got to 1/2 full the CoM shifted and I was unable to maintain control. So I built my own VTOL, and got it to the top of the VAB: Craft file here.

I tried to do this a couple of times, but the game wouldn't let me launch a plane with a Kerbal next to the runway. It kept giving me the choice to recover the Kerbal, or abort the launch. I tried from both within the SPH and the Space Center runway itself, the latter of which also gave me the option of controlling the Kerbal. Maybe a Kerbal on a rover? EDIT: by launching your plane from SPH, then a crewed rover from VAB, I was able to get a Kerbal to your ship. But I was completely unable to get him on the ship. There was no ladder, so I tried going from the front via the intake, and from the side via the gear bay, but no luck either way. How exactly did you test your plane?

I didn't realize that you had actually posted a craft, but then I saw that the example entry had a working link. So I downloaded RAPIER SSTO and put it through my test plan. Your plane was extremely pleasant to fly. Takeoff used very little runway, due to the massive amount of lift. I was able to land with full fuel tanks with zero throttle. No other plane came close to this. The plane was very controllable. However, once I ran the closed cycle to drain the oxidizer and most of the fuel, the plane became somewhat difficult to fly. High AoA caused the plane to fly backwards, probably due to the CoM shifting behind the CoL. I was able to recover, and even landed on the runway, but there were a couple of close calls while manuevering back for landing. I then did an SSTO run using my normal SSTO flight plan, and made it to 72km circular orbit in only 6:28, with 27 fuel and 38 oxidizer remaining. I will try to get back to KSC with the remaining fuel. EDIT: I misjudged the amount of drag, and didn't make it back to KSC. But once I got to the lower atmosphere, I was able to glide a good long while. Your large wing and 3-engine design worked very well, modulo the CoM issues with low fuel.

Continuing my reviews of the leaderboard, I flew Mesklin's Omega and ABalazs' XR-5SB. Omega was an interesting design. The large delta wing and widely spaced gear made takeoff and powered landing relatively easy, and there wasn't too much runway AoA (maybe 3*). However, the lack of a tailfin (and hence yaw control) made unpowered landing difficult, and I was unable to do the last second corrections necessary to land on the runway. XR-5SB was actually very pleasant to fly. The only real problem was the wide wings and narrowly spaced gear, which caused several wing strikes during powered landing. It used the same V-tail as my Fly, which provides a good balance of low part count and aerodynamic control. It did have a somewhat large runway AoA (like 8*), but this didn't interfere with takeoff or landing; it allowed takeoff rotation before the end of the runway, which is not common. Next I tried to download Slugywug's Minimal SSTO, but the link 404'd. Darren9's gRape'r downloaded, but it didn't include a cockpit or a remote pod, so no way to control it. I skipped Col_Jessep's second entry, and went on to Xeldrak's CRAP. CRAP was a very good mini-wing design. The X-tail was a nice touch, and gave a surprising amount of lift, which most mini-wing designs lack utterly. This allowed full-tank powered landing with only 1/3 throttle, which no other mini-wing could do. However, the X-tail had one major drawback; the lower two fins were dangerously close to the ground, and broke off in almost all of my landing attempts. This was made worse by the excellent roll control they provided, which made it difficult to stay exactly roll-neutral during landing approach. And when I did manage a perfect touchdown (after 5 tries), applying the brakes made the plane front-flip and crash. Still not sure why that happened. I skipped ABalazs' second plane, and SkyRender's RCS-free plane. I did test Hodo's X-152A and Liowen's Tadpole MK1R. X-152A was in many respects a nice plane. However, the large canard caused unstable pitch control which frequently made the plane fly backwards. This was somewhat mitigated by the CoM/CoL, which allowed a relatively easy switch back to prograde. But it rendered my flight plan untenable, and I was forced to actually turn around to get to the runway, not use some kind of cuban-8. Though the powered yaw control was excellent, I still crashed trying to get on the runway. Tadpole was a very large plane for this challenge. It flew very well with tanks full; I managed a clean powered landing with both 1/2 and 1/3 throttle. However, with tanks empty the CoM had shifted behind the CoL, and I crashed badly on landing.

I think that would be very interesting for part 2. It completely changes the optimizations, and without the extreme need to lower part count we should get much more creative designs.

Thank you Sirine, it's a pleasure to take part in your challenge. The numerical scoring gives a very different experience from the BSC challenges; it's easier to optimize for the win, though at the risk of losing the intangible attributes. That's why I'm focusing on simple takeoff/manuever/landing tests. Basically, I takeoff, do some form of cuban-8 to get back to the runway, then land. Then I do it again, but run the engine in rocket mode to drain the oxidizer and most of the fuel before landing. I do the full tank landing with full throttle, but try to do the empty tank landing with no throttle. This simulates both a launch abort and also a return from orbit, which are the only real use cases for SSTO landing. With the fixed link, I was able to test the current #1, goobd0g's StarFighter. Though similar to The Gnat in basic structure, it was a much more pleasant plane to fly. The front gear height differential was very modest, only giving about 3* up attitude on the runway. This allowed a normal takeoff, though the front placement of the rear gear allowed over-rotation and tailstrike if you are careless. I even managed a powered landing with full fuel tanks, in spite of the 15* up attitude necessary to maintain level flight. I was unable, however, to land unpowered with empty tanks. There just isn't enough lift in the wings. Overall, StarFighter is an excellent implemetation of the mini-wing design, and well deserves its first place.

Now that I've posted my entry, I'm starting to review the others, beginning with the leaders. The link for the #1 entry does not work, so I cannot test that: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4z...it?usp=sharing (probably a copypasta problem with the ...). The link for #2 did work, and I was able to open the .craft file. However, the entry did not contain a docking port, so I believe it should be disqualified. I will also try to fly it, but given the lack of lift I fear the landing will be brutal EDIT: landing was indeed brutal as expected; I never managed a single landing in almost a dozen tries. Even at full throttle I needed almost 20* AoA to maintain level flight at 150 m/s, which basically makes it impossible to land. With less then full throttle the plane drops out of the sky. But even takeoff was non-trivial with the Gnat. The front landing gear was so much higher than the rear that the plane was at 10* AoA while taxiing. This caused serious instability as the plane accelerated, which lead to a roll over crash every time. The only way to manage takeoff was to constantly pitch up, which provided an even down force that somehow stabilized the plane until it got to the end of the runway. I'll update this post as I test more planes.

Introducing the Fly, a minimal SSTO using the new Rapier engine. It places 3rd according to the current leaderboard: Craft Name: Fly Part Count: 14 ((150 - 14) * 10 = 1360) Time to LKO: 7:29 MET ((10 - (7 + 29/60)) * 5 = 12.58) Fuel Remain: ((29.6 / 10) * 3 = 8.88) Total score: 1381.5 Craft file: here. I also noticed that the current #1 and #2 are not calculated correctly, since 9:16 is not the same as 9.16. The actual scores should be: ((150 - 13) * 10) + ((10 - (9 + 16/60)) * 5) + ((127 / 10) * 3) = 1411.76 and ((150 - 12) * 10) + ((10 - (7 + 39/60)) * 5) + ((20 / 10) * 3) = 1397.75 The error was small enough that the relative positions did not change.

Loki is fine, and you are of course correct about One Way Ticket's extra feature set. Which is why I voted for antbin as well. And sploden, I've updated my test matrix to include your rover. I actually liked it as much as Deathsoutl097's, which was the only other really good small wheeled rover.

Fixed. Updated. I had added the meaning to my original post linking the spreadsheet, but not the spreadsheel itself. Done now. EDIT: Doing so now.

Was your skycrane separately controllable? If so, then a docking port would be reasonable. Usually when I land a rover with a skycrane, I ramp the throttle just before detaching, then let the skycrane fly off on its own. But there's no way I'd be able to click a docking port while doing this. Only stage separation (or an action group) is fast enough.

I updated the spreadsheet to explain, but basically it means whether that column was valid for that test on that planet. So for the "roll damage" test, K means your rover was damaged when rolled on Kerbin, !K means it wasn't damaged, and ?K means I couldn't make it roll so I have no idea. Same with M for Mun.

I drove it at night with lights on at full speed, and watched to see if there was any battery drain. Almost all the small rovers had some drain, probably hard to fit enough RTGs.

Fixed. In my case, I think my brain saw a Kerbalization of the name Joshua. Out of curiosity, what's the (ethnic?) origin of that name?

Not sure, I'll load your rover on Kerbin and check. EDIT: I loaded your rover on Kerbin at night, then turned the lights on. Here's what I see: No visible lights. Where are they supposed to be?

So sorry, it looks like your entry came in a zip file, so the game didn't list it in the UI. I'll test and update the matrix for the record.

The middle wheels had a tendency to go flat on less than even terrain. Other than that, I was impressed with how stable and functional it was, especially such a large rover with medium wheels.

Going back through the thread: Thanks for the primary vote! I never took SIR to Duna (Munar EDL was the difficult one), so I left off the chute. Struts would have looked good (especially liked them on antbin's rover), and added some strength. But SIR was strong enough without them, so in service of part count they got left off as well. And I never figured out how to get landing lights that wouldn't break off in a crash on uneven terrain. However, sepratrons would have indeed been a nice touch. I've never used them, but the rovers with them were much more pleasant to land. Even though I've gotten pretty good at ramping the throttle just before skycrane separation, it's always a hair-raising moment.

Just got back from picking up my new car (drove from SF to Phoenix and back), and I'm in the finals. Thanks everyone who voted for me! This is my first time to make it past the primaries. Thanks for your votes, and for appreciating the design choices I made

I've finished the testing I have time for (leaving for the weekend in the morning), and voted. Here's my final test matrix. I liked antbin and Kashua's rovers, and voted accordingly. I really wish they had provided an action group to toggle torque, since Munar roving is impossible with it on, and crash recovery is impossible without. antbin's rover was especially bad for this, since the reaction wheels were buried in the plating sandwich (otherwise an excellent design choice). The small wheeled rovers were annoying to drive on the Mun (as the challenge stated), and most of them drained batteries when driven at night, so they didn't get much vote love. Deathsoul's Sojurner was the lone exception. And again, torque toggling action group would have been very nice, though with the small wheels even an OCTO2 needs to be toggled. Some of the entries had trouble doing Munar EDL. I'm amazed I got Sojurner down, and One Way Ticket had barely enough fuel to get the skycrane off (Sojurner didn't even have that much left). And Bloody_looser's skycrane (really love the dysentery imagery that name gives) couldn't maintain attitude with the engines lit.

I've finally finished Kerbin rover testing, and started doing Munar EDL + rover testing. Test matrix updated.

Thanks for the review. Out of curiosity, did you drive with torque on or off? In the craft file description I suggest driving with torque off (toggles on action group 1), and only turning it on to de-turtle or do tricks. I wasn't sure though if anyone really read the descriptions, or bothered to act on them if they did. And my rover will flip with torque off if you try sufficiently hard

Whether that test item applied when on Kerbin. Your rover rolled when turned at top speed on Kerbin, so it got a K in that column. But the roll didn't cause any damage, so you got !K (not K) in that column. I'll add a M/!M to those columns after Munar testing.

I've started my review. I decided to do an actual test matrix, with comments as the last column. Here's a link to the spreadsheet. It's supposed to be completely public, so let me know if Google makes you sign in or anything. So far just 1/4 through Kerbin rove testing. Not too many entries, so hopefully I'll get to test Munar EDL and roving as well. If you're wondering what the K/!K means, K means that item in the matrix applied on Kerbin, while !K (not K) means it didn't apply. I will add M/!M after Munar testing. For example, for the test item "Roll damage", K means rolling the rover caused damage while on Kerbin, while !K means rolling did not cause damage while on Kerbin.

Introducing the Simple, Indestructible Rover. The skycrane is capable of Munar EDL, and the rover can drive forever with lights on courtesy of its RTGs. It is virtually indestructible, surviving falls and rollovers with no damage to any subsystems thanks to the I-beam mast. It has a very low part count: 16 for the rover, only 6 for the skycrane. For normal driving, turn off the reaction wheels. If the rover flips, however, engage them. They provide sufficient torque to flip SIR back upright from any angle, in addition to many tricks. SIR can do endless front and back flips, drive on two wheels, and spin around on one. Action groups: 1. Toggle reaction wheels (turn off for normal driving) 2. Back lights only 3. Front lights only Craft file available here.