Hotblack Desiato

okay, thanks for the entries, very well done, two new shots into infinity. since it is a bit hard to compare people who went on escape trajectory, I took the speed at periapsis to determine the difference (I think that's the only plausible and comparable value). the board for the highest height, I don't know what to do with it, since it could be beaten by just being a fraction of a meter per second slower than escape trajectory, and it would become very tedious, since there is no time warp. I removed the entry of Rfmeijboom from it, since he has a new place in the highest topspeed section and replaced it with his entry which came still back. @Rfmeijboom: is there a way to restore your top speed at your 5th entry? (your rocket looks even bigger as the one of the other entries, and may have reached a top scoring). by the way, it's funny that the sticky launchpad bug survived that long. maybe that could be an special highscore entry for the longest lasting bug? regarding parachutes, I'm not entirely sure if they are still necessary, they won't come back EDIT: funny side note, the challenge was born here: http://derstandard.at/2000014596034/Kerbal-Space-Program-Knifflige-Weltraum-Simulation-startet-im-April#posting-1002914292

I'd suggest a different scoring: Range: +1 for each Kilometre you flew before running out of fuel (okay) +100 for each Kilometre(1000 metres) of altitude you can achieve before engines begin flaming out. (since it needs to be in balance with the distance) +1000 for each circumnavigation of the planet(Kerbin), Polar or along the equator. (since kerbin has a radius of 600, a circumnavigation brings 3769 points, 10 extra points for a circumnavigation are pretty useless) Weight: +1 for each 0.1 of mass (okay) +20 for a mass of over 20 tons (at 20 tons, you already gained 200 points, 10 extra is a bit low) +30 for a mass over 50 tons (same here) +40 for a mass for every 100 tons of mass (for taking into account that people build big planes) +50 for every FULL ore container as cargo. (everyone has an ore container in 1.0.2) Size: +1 for each 0.1 in height +1 for each 0.5 in width or length +5 if its over 9 metres tall, and 25 metres long and wide +50 if your plane is taller than it is wide(weird plane award) Transport Capacity: +1 for each 0.1 mass of the cargo +5 if you can detach the cargo in the air without it self destructing +5 If the cargo lands unharmed There will also be a few bonus ways to acquire points (which I would account as multiplicators, since those achievements also depend on the size of the craft) Old Fashioned - Use propeller engines(x1.1) (nice, but if you mean the firespitter propeller, keep in mind, that they run on electricity and therefor probably can stay infinitely in air) Gotta go fast! - Go over the speed of sound(x1.15) Kerbal style - Land your plane backwards(x2) Long range - Your plane can refuel in flight (x2) (landing backwards is hard) Where'd the air go? - You went sub orbital(No rapiers or rockets though)(x1.3) Efficient - Use just 2 engines(x1.1) Partying - Have a capacity of Kerbels over 50(x3) Low budget - Land on the Island Airstrip at some point(x1.2) extra achievements: Something can go wrong - Have kerbal rescue capability built in (droppods or so) (x(1.2 +0.02 per additional kerbal) 4 kerbals would bei x1.28) Helicopter-like - Build a vertical takeof capable plane (x1.2) Refuel anywhere - Have a refinery and drills on board, cargo-orecontainers need to be locked - (x2) and as rules: no rocket motors, no orbits, rapiers only in air-breathing mode, no ion engines. otherwise people build a spaceplane and go on a high orbit around kerbin --> infinite points.

interesting. so with a little change, the LV-N would properly burn enricheduranium and produce nuclear waste, which already exists in CRS. there is one other idea, I like quite much: the decoupling pods. they are just a bit a pain because they nowadays need the heatshield below them ;-) (but the mk1 together with deadly reentry has a built in heatshield aswell.

cryogenic engines burn hydrogen-rich to get their high ISPs. derived from the Space Shuttles external tank, there was roughly a oxygen-hydrogen ration of 1:2.5 (molar). since a ratio of 1:2 is required for the reaction, that leaves another 0.5 mol hydrogen per mol oxygen unburnt.

I usually use that as lander. http://i.imgur.com/H7MIHCB.png 4 legs, stable as hell. so, I think it doesn't depend so much on the number of the legs, but how far they are apart from each other. and a lander-can + 4 FL-T400 tanks, with the legs on the outer edge of the tanks, that gives a very nice base, and it can't tip over. and that was my ten-wheel rover and my 6 leg kerbal home. http://i.imgur.com/kdNW6y7.png

hello I throw another aspect into this discussion: always keep in mind, that others (maybe even the majority) is not from USA and quite often not even from an english speaking country (I'm for example from austria) and therefor may make mistakes which they aren't aware of. a friendly hint is sometimes appreciated. besides that, with your initial question, you already did a fine job as a forum-member. you can also look at this wiki-article and search for this particular latin term: Bonus Pater Familias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_pater_familias ;-)

there is a multiplayer-mod, which needs a server. and there is/was a dual-screen mod, so one ksp-setup shows the craft while the second one shows map-view, and they can communicate with each other.

nice the magic of procedural fairings. although I never managed to get similarly shaped payloads into space (with NEAR). at a certain size (let's say something close to a 1000t SSTO, I just dropped using fairings at all, but that was in 0.90. to the OP: I recommend installing kerbal joint reinforcement and the above mentioned procedural fairings. it helps a lot with rockets, they become less wobbly and the fairings work better than the stock ones. besides, have you tried using fins at the bottom of the rocket? they help a lot with stability, especially the active ones.

wow, the bug with dragless perpendicular tanks just cries for abuse. not as bad as the infinigliders, but close.

once there was a monolith floating some 11000m above minmus surface. but that monolith nowadays sits firmly on the surface of minmus. the only other object I know of, which would behave like this (being visible from >100km distance, and orbit something else) would be the magic boulder. but that thing was in ikes orbit *whistling the x-files theme*

I already expected that. I just wanted to express, that having the stock-planets modified might not be enough today.

what do you need? I thought about a few things which I want to tweak into that system, as the original alternis kerbol was limited to modifying the stock planets, not adding anything.

sounds a bit like my landings. the only difference: I figured out that I can timewarp on launchpad (in the demo version). so I assembled a big rocket, and went onto the launchpad. timewarp till mün was right above, and launched. that thing was hillariously inefficient. but I did not only manage to land one kerbal over there on mün (who then became the first permanent resident due to lack of fuel), I even landed a second one within 150m to the first one (with a completely drained tank too), as an attempt to rescue the first one. this way, bob and bill became the first two kerbals permanently staying on another object (jeb rested somewhere in pieces). I later used a similar method as you described to land on eve and duna (one way of course). 2000 days eve trajectories weren't uncommon.

I built a nice "little" probe with something about 40-50 tons dry, 110 tons wet. it sports the 10000 LF mark III plane tank in the middle, 2 nervas on the side, one ore container, refinery and so on. and that baby has something over 7000 m/s delta-v, and can land on the small moons (gilly, minmus, bop, pol) for refuelling. from what I've seen so far, the only problem is, that there aren't stock rockettanks for LF only, and that the nerva still behaves not like a real one (a real one could utilise anything that would boil inside a nuclear reactor, including the oxidizer. in that regard, the old system was closer to reality, it just did not actually burn LFO, although that could be possible, I'm thinking of something like a nuclear preheated combustion system).

yes, I do not like how they got nerfed too. how about this: give them 50% more fuel (because they lost 30%, that would bring them to pre 1.0 states), raise their thrust and give them the same ISP and thrust on ASL and in vac. this way, they become nice first stages, on kerbin and on eve, adding a nice challenge of getting the lander with SRBs to eve, land them safely, and launch back to orbit. because currently SRBs are worthless on eve.

I know and yet, I started with mechjeb and use the execute maneuvernode function quite extensively. in other words: mechjeb turns the engines off after a multi-hour burn. ;-) and it tells a lot about your spacecraft, that is quite useful.

great to see this mod in 1.0 how about interstellar fuel switch, take the tank-element and color it in different ways, and make it switchable. pro: just one part in the part-list contra: not weld-able (if ubiozurs partwelding mod gets a 1.0 update).

interesting mod. some features could be really handy when I build overly big spaceship. regarding the on-rails-accelleration: how about offering an api so modders with ion-engines can tap into it? for example nerteas near future propulsion. horribly low thrust at really high efficiency, yet, if nertea could tap into your timewarp-system. another idea: maybe it is possible to set the joints between the items to fully rigit, as if they were one part. because I don't see any reason why that needs to be calculated during ion-accelleration.

I'm not sure if it's actually necessary to add the other maps. having a red minmus is nice but not necessary. and the same thing goes for a greener laythe. again something that is not really necessary. but the rearranged planets are nice, especially sitting in the big jool-system with all those other moons. and in my opinion, the new horizon planets are very well done, and its just a matter of configuration to have them on other orbits.

interesting. assuming that kerbin needs to be in the habitable area of a star, this could lead to interesting situations for players. together with the 1.0 calculation for solar panels, a start in a white dwarf system could force the player to play with nuclear power (especially if OPM is added to the bunch). on the other hand, a red giant produces large amounts of light, and heat. this could cause other problems for brave kerbonauts.

I vote for all. you already created them. make it configurable, and leave it to the players what they want to play with. EDIT: do they have different masses? if so, reaching neighbor-planets would be more or less difficult (dV-wise) depending on the the mass of the central star. could be challenging.

fired up my 0.23 install with alternis kerbol (was still on my computer). first, even ingame, it doesn't allow a direct readout (and no timewarp in the radar station). jool: 13,300,500km (slightly excentric), 1° inclination, 6000km radius, 0.8g, 10h 0m, 0s moons of jool: kerbin: circular orbit 63,253km over jool, tidally locked (2d, 10h, 52m) mün: circular orbit, 37,107km over jool, 253km radius, 0.233g 1d, 5h, 25m laythe: circular orbit, 21,184km over jool, 500km radius, 0.8g 14h, 34m 2s minmus: circular orbit, 8740km over jool, 29km radius, 0.022g 5h, 25m, 34s pol: 130,000-135,000km orbit, 3-4° inclination, 44km radius, 0.038g 7d 14h, 14m bop: 180,000-185,000km orbit, 2° inclination, 65km radius, 0.06g 12d, 7h, 27m eve: 8,175,603km (circular), 0-1° inc, scale height 8km, atmo 90km (should result in a lower surface pressure), 22h, 21m, 40s moho: apoapsis: 5,222,117, periapsis: 2,700,000, 0° incl, 250km radius, 0.275g, 14d, 0h, 6m (tidally locked?) tylo: circular orbit, 25,358,816km, 0° incl, 1103km radius, 4.035g, scale height 7km, 80000m (0,5bar, non oxygen), rotation 1d 10h 6m, moons of tylo: dres: circular orbit, 16,445km, 0° incl, 138km radius, 0.115g 9h 40m, 0s duna: circular orbit, 35,083km 0° incl, 320km radius, 0.3g, scale height 5km, atmo 50000m 8d, 8h, 52m eeloo: apoapsis ~97,250,000km, periapsis, 92,000,000km (not sure), 0°, 478km radius, 0.687g 5h, 24m, 20s Vall (moon of eeloo): circular orbit, 4,462km, 100km radius, 0,0772g 1d, 12h, 41m comets: gilly: apoapsis ~110,000,000km, periapsis 80,000km (yes, that low), inclination 45°, 9km radius, 0.003g, 4h 10m, 34s ike: apoapsis ~350,000,000km, periapsis 7,000,000km inclination 30°, 18km radius, 0.007g 1h, 56m, 23s I guess, that covers it? keep in mind, that duna and tylo have custom maps too. and apparently, most moons are tidally locked. I'm looking forward to a kopernikus-port of alternis, maybe in cooperation with new horizons (I like the planets over there, but miss the alternis-jool-system as starter-system, it was great for learning swing-by maneuvers, and new horizons is released under cc 4.0, and he already fixed a glitch with kerbin being on a different position) EDIT: actually, it should be simple to rearrange the new horizon planets in order to replicate the alternis kerbol system. I'd say: sonnah gets more mass, a larger radius, and more moons (minmus, serran, mün, kerbin, aptur and one other small moon). and that's it. it has a sister-system with jool and its moons, and several terrestrial planets in its vicinity . and there is a super-tylo analog named titanus, which is a bit more forgiving as it has an oxygen-atmosphere.

the only mod so far that is able to modify planetary orbits ingame is hyper edit. one way would be: look into hyperedit and how they alter planetary orbits (maybe it's stored inside the persistent.cfg?). and then "store" those objects inside the sun (apoapsis and periapsis below sun-surface) until you need them. let it make one transit, and then store it back inside the sun. nice side-effect: stock heat will destroy everything the player brought to this object. another way I could think of: if it is possible to alter the color of the orbit. solid black for undetected objects, and colors for detected objects. and let them have a really large apoapsis.

regarding welding welded parts: I usually save welds as crafts before welding. this way I have the unwelded part if necessary. and I can modify the unwelded part, and weld it afterwards as a new weld. et voila, no welds of welds.

very nice mod. for me, the beauty of the mod is at another point: I use to give my rockets a lot of extra fuel, usually the rocket is overbuilt. adding a reactor and a few vasimr-drives to the payload (or the interplanetary stage) allows using that fuel in a highly efficient way. 10 km/s or more delta v are absolutely realistic. and I can dump the excess oxidizer.