Yakky

Update: Nobody was responding so I dramatically simplified the challenge (see revised 1st post). If there are still no takers, I will give up here. Surely I'm not the only one who finds this possibility interesting? Here is my demonstration that EVA-to-orbit is achievable with plenty of fuel margin. Starting from a randomly chosen surface elevation of 3861 m, I reached a 10km x 12km Munar orbit with 0.15 units to spare. This gives a score of 6345.8 and I could have gone higher.

Wow, so many interesting extensions of this concept. I never expected it to generate this much interest! Lots of discussion of how "random" (vs. repeatable procedural) the sub-biomes should be. My view there is they at least have to be consistent within a given game file. They shouldn't shift around from mission to mission, but it might be acceptable to have every new game have a different randomly generated set. That would keep things interesting. Also could work OK to just have them be totally procedural (not varying from game to game) since realistically it's not that common to touch down in exactly the same place every time. When I go to a planet (or the Mun), the point where I land is generally not too carefully selected, or driven by practical considerations like my orbital inclination and where it's daytime, unless I need to link up with something that I've landed earlier. So in practice, randomness or non-randomness probably wouldn't impact the playability of the game much. I envision the typical celestial body having thousands of sub-biomes, so for most practical purposes there would be nearly infinite variability from game to game. I'm sensitive to the number of things Squad has to try to balance in producing a game that works for a broad audience. I'm not a modder or insider, so I won't pretend to know how the conversations about implementing or not implementing different features have gone. At least we have an open architecture that allows mods to customize the game. I also proposed this idea in the "add-ons" section of the forum for that reason.

I am, alas, not a coder, but I wanted to propose an idea for a very simple/quick mod that would help motivate more use of rovers and surface exploration. Anyone wanting to develop it, please feel free. I also proposed it as a feature suggestion here. The idea to chop up surface biomes into procedurally generated sub-biomes that are of a size and scale that makes it reasonable to get from one to another by driving, walking, or hopping over the surface of a celestial body (i.e. characteristic size of a couple km). This would motivate rovers and in general more surface-based exploration, which currently is not very interesting in the game because it takes forever to walk or drive from one biome to another. Sub-biomes would work like the randomly-generated zones in scanning or survey contracts, except they would be procedural rather than random (for stability across games and missions) and every point on the surface of a celestial body would be assigned a sub-biome. A small region would be labeled as "Zone XYZ within Biome ABC" and would offer some incremental new science points. Sub biomes would only apply, and would only be discoverable, on the surface. They would not affect airborne or space-borne scientific research. This would give a strong incentive for driving around to see what you could find. I envision some sort of screen notification when you cross into a new sub-biome on the surface. No info would be given when up in the air or in space. Now, clearly you wouldn't award full science points for exploring a new sub-biome or it would throw the science element of the game completely out of whack. My thought is that doing science in a new sub-biome would generate a small incremental amount of science, maybe 15-20% of the science points that were obtained for the first science research in that biome. So for example, you land on Duna, do an EVA Report, and get full points. Then you drive a few km to a new sub-biome, do another EVA Report, and get maybe 15% more points. Maybe the points would decline a bit with each additional sub-biome so that you reached a point of diminishing returns after driving to 3-4 of them, so you get 15% for the 2nd location, 10% for the third, 8% for the 4th, etc. The exact percentages could be adjustable via a cfg file. If you wanted to keep the total science points in the game "the same" (i.e. not dilute the value of science too much), you could also slightly reduce the baseline surface science awards to compensate. Anyway, that's the idea. Anyone interested?

So I read a post in which Alshain commented that rovers, while neat in theory, are "incredibly boring" in practice because it takes too long to get anywhere interesting. He has a point, of course. It got me wondering whether there would be an easy (i.e. simple to implement and not disruptive to current game dynamics) way to spice up planetary surface science to encourage more small-scale land based exploration. In the real world (e.g. Mars Curiosity Rover), a lot of interesting geology happens from checking out different features over a scale of meters rather than kilometers. Here's what I came up with: Surface biomes could be chopped up into procedurally generated sub-biomes. Instead of "EVA Report from the surface at Duna's Poles" you could have "EVA Report from the surface at [procedurally generated name XYZ] within Duna's Poles." Names and zones could be similar to those that are randomly/procedurally generated for the various survey and scanning contracts, and I would imagine a lot of the existing code that was built for those could even be recycled. These sub-biomes would only be discoverable and accessible from the surface. From the atmosphere or from space, they would just show up as the regular biome. This would motivate more surface-based exploration (rovers!) by offering up a few more science points to people willing to drive around a little. It also doesn't seem too hard to implement, and wouldn't really break any existing game feature. It would be up to the devs to decide how much additional science to award for going to sub-biomes. It's probably too generous to award full science points for just driving a few km. I would suggest, as a starting point for further discussion/iteration, awarding 15-20% of the baseline science for each additional sub-biome that was explored. So for example, you land in a new biome and your first set of experiments gets the usual award. Then you drive/walk/hop to some other place in a different sub-biome, repeat your experiments (assuming you have the ability to repeat), and get perhaps 15% more science points. A third sub-biome would give you another 15%, etc. Thoughts on this idea are welcome. One option, of course, would be for some intrepid coder to hack out a simple mod that does this. Anyone interested?

It's a fair point. Any EVA landing and return is a major achievement since it's so rarely (if ever) been done. My thinking was that in order to consider the problem of EVA descent and return, solved, the orbit really should be high enough to allow an indefinitely long surface mission. Also, it somehow doesn't seem quite complete if the mission requires the spacecraft to temporarily duck into a dangerously low orbit. Seems a bit akin to orbiting Kerbin below the top of the atmosphere. Lastly, the amount of delta-v required to get from, say, 5 km to 7km is not very large, and orbits of at least 8 km are definitely possible. All of that said, I will post your result with an asterisk if you can complete it from a too-low orbit, especially since no one seems to be posting any entries here.

Yep, the landing was a little rough because my descent was sub-optimal. I didn't lose altitude early enough and then had to drop rapidly later on to avoid running out of fuel before getting close to the ground. Fortunately he walked away from it. BTW on another pass I tried, I ran out of fuel too high and he hit at 24 m/s, which killed him. So the critical speed is somewhere around 20 m/s. Anything in the teens m/s range seems pretty survivable based on my tests.

Some pics to prove an EVA landing from stable Munar orbit is possible. Unfortunately I dramatically overshot my refueling base! My orbital periapsis was 7215.8m and my landing elevation was 4612.4m. So if I had completed the challenge from the same altitude (which I did not), my score would have been 2603.4 in this example. EDIT: This score qualifies for Category 2 under the simplified rules.

EDIT: Nobody was responding to this challenge as originally written, so I've dramatically simplified it as follows. Achieve any one of the following: Category 1: Reach Munar orbit from the surface using only the EVA pack. Your score is the difference, in meters, between your orbital periapsis and your take-off altitude. That's it! You may use Hyperedit to position yourself for the start. (Yes, this challenge is actually possible without cheating or boosts. See Hints below.) High Scores: 1. Yakky - 6345.8 (see post 8 below) 2. 3. Category 2: Land from Munar orbit using only the EVA pack. Your score is the difference, in meters, between your orbital periapsis and your landing altitude. That's it! (The only restriction here is no use of the inverted Kerbal trick to survive unrealistically harsh impacts.) You may use Hyperedit to position yourself for the start. High Scores: 1. Yakky - 2603.4 (see next post) 2. 3. Category 3: Same as Category 1, but with the stipulation that you have at least 0.1 units of EVA fuel remaining after reaching orbit. This will be our proxy for a reasonable minimum reserve that would be required for orbital rendezvous under good conditions. High Scores: 1. Yakky - 6345.8 (see post 8 below) 2. 3. [--------original challenge text follows--------] This is a new twist the old question about what's possible with Munar EVAs. It was inspired by the question of whether a more complete version of chicknblender's recent EVA Grand Tour would have been possible. It's been proven to be just barely possible to get into orbit from the Munar surface using only the EVA jetpack. Since the physics are equivalent, this means it's also possible to land on the Munar surface from orbit with only a jetpack (EDIT: I confirmed this by doing an EVA landing from orbit -- see next post). That leads to this challenge: Descend from Munar orbit to the surface using only a jetpack, plant a flag, refuel in a capsule on the ground, and ascend back to orbital rendezvous with your low Munar orbit capsule. And do it from the highest possible starting orbit. This is a test of optimization and piloting finesse. It looks like it should be possible, but as far as I know it has never been done -- so this is your chance to score a world first in KSP! (Please let me know if it's been done before.) More specifically, here's what you need to do: 1. Drop a crew capsule somewhere on the Munar surface. This will be your EVA refueling base. 2. From stable low Munar orbit in another capsule, go on EVA, descend, and land near the surface capsule using only your jetpack. 3. Plant a flag, refill your jetpack fuel in the capsule you dropped earlier, rest and have some snacks. 4. Ascend back to orbit and rendezvous with your orbital capsule again. Fine Print: -- No piloting of the orbital capsule from the moment you depart it until you return. It must remain in a totally passive and unchanging orbit. -- The capsule must be in a stable and safe orbit, i.e. zero chance of impacting any terrain. -- You have to make it back inside the orbital capsule at the end. -- No assisted takeoffs from the Munar surface. The Kerbal may run and jump, but that's it. -- No cheating, cheats, or mods that change the stock game physics. Mods that have no bearing on the Munar environment (i.e. are irrelevant for this challenge) are OK. -- You may use Hyperedit to get your craft into low Munar orbit initially, but you have to manually land both the refueling capsule and the EVA Kerbal on the surface from LMO. -- No use of the inverted Kerbal trick to survive a ridiculously hard landing. The Kerbal must touch down body-first at a reasonable speed. Inverted Kerbals are a cheat as far as this challenge is concerned. -- Show enough pics to confirm the data of your orbital parameters, landing/takeoff points, and intercept/rendezvous achievement on return to orbit. It would also be helpful to have a pic showing your speed just before touchdown. Scoring: Your score is just the difference between your orbital periapsis and your touchdown/takeoff altitude. This rewards people who can reach higher orbits from their starting point. So for example if your orbital periapsis is 8,000m and you land on the surface at 4,600m, your score is 3,400. If your takeoff altitude is different than your landing altitude, use the higher of the two. So in the same example if you land at 4,600 but take off at 4,610, your score is only 3,390. Hints: 1. It really is possible to reach orbit from the Munar surface using only a jetpack. I've done it as have many others (see this post). But you won't have much fuel left over for orbital rendezvous afterward, so be very careful. 2. Most importantly, it won't be possible to reach orbit if you are making heavy use of two jetpack thrusters at once, for example if you're thrusting forward and up simultaneously. This is because the thrusters are perpendicular to each other and consequently are wasting some thrust pointing in inefficient directions. Only use one EVA thruster at a time, and make sure it's darn near perfectly prograde all the time for maximum efficiency. Then all you have to do is fly an optimal ascent profile. 3. Kerbal Engineer may be useful to monitor your height above terrain and vertical speed. 4. I found it useful to put the camera onto Orbital view (with V key) in order to prevent shifting camera angles from re-orienting my Kerbal all the time. Good luck!

It was in 0.22 and was the most incredible feeling of accomplishment I'd ever had in a video game. I took about a thousand screenshots and just let Jeb wander around the surface savoring the moment for probably an hour (since, as Peder noted above, there wasn't much to do once on the Mun back then). It was also really tough because I flew the final part of the descent visually (i.e. looking at the spacecraft and not paying attention to the nav ball) because I hadn't yet grasped the significance of keeping your engine aimed at the retrograde marker on the nav ball. I figured I just had to watch the craft, watch the ground, and try to estimate what needed to be done. Of course the lander was rotated around such that pressing the WASD keys bore no bearing on which way it would actually tilt, so we had a lot of pilot errors and crashes due to tilting the wrong way before I finally got it right. Landings got a lot easier after I made the little mental leap that the nav ball retrograde marker was your friend on a landing. :-)

Bad Jeb... no biscuit!

The Washington Post published a glowing review that calls KSP "a masterpiece". (I didn't even know newspapers published video game reviews... my how times have changed.) From the article: “Kerbal Space Program†is a miracle, a game that engenders wonder at its scale and awe for its complexity. It has all of the true grandeur of a masterwork. Couldn't have said it better myself. We can all nitpick about implementation details, but in the scheme of things, this is an incredible game.

What's your strategy for getting the lander to Eve in the first place (and doing it all for less than 2.3 million funds)? If you brute force it with all fuel brought from Kerbin's surface, the launch costs of lifting all that fuel to orbit will probably bust your budget unless you have a very highly optimized SSTO for ferrying up rocket fuel. A more practical option is to refuel using mined ore on low-gravity outposts like Minmus and Gilly -- I actually think that strategy could allow you to turn a pretty handy profit. This sounds like a cool contract. I'd never attempt it on Hard Mode without quicksaves, though...

I agree wholeheartedly with the topic of this thread. It's a terrific update to a terrific game. The aero and heating are different, but definitely not worse, than before. They're much more realistic which in my book is better. The heat conduction and absorption.... Wow! That's pretty neat. There are a few bugs but they haven't really impacted playability for me. I'm confident Squad will get them cleaned up. Let's not forget Squad is a small team and has to make tough decisions about when and how to release. A version x.0.1 is almost inevitable after anyone releases a major software update and in my opinion, to expect it to have been completely airtight on release day is a bit unrealistic. The software has to get out into the wild for the final bug-squashing to happen. Let's compare Squad to Microsoft for a moment. Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of employees and has never in thirty years released a v 1.0 of anything that wasn't total bug-ridden crap. They usually don't get things right until version 3.0, and then they mess it up again by version 4.0 by completely changing the UI and adding bloaty pointless features. Who would you rather have developing this game? My money's on Squad all day, every day.

Seconded. And frankly, not a big deal either way. BTW my hunch -- totally unsupported by actual knowledge -- is that the wobble has something to do with a new code fix that does a bunch of quick things to keep the Kerbal from flying off the capsule when they pop out into EVA... that was a problem sometimes in prior versions.

On the occasion of the release of v 1.0, let me say again: Thanks, Squad! Thank you for your excellent game concept, your thoughtfulness in design, your dedication over so many years, for how much you care about and listen to your users, for making the game open-ended and moddable, and for your integrity in how you've commercialized it. Thanks for reminding us that game development should be as much fun as game playing. I will immediately purchase any future product you develop simply because to me, the name "Squad" tells me all I need to know. Doesn't matter what it is... tax software, bicycle handlebars, laxatives, Mexican sombrero hats. I will buy it out of gratitude for what you've done with KSP. You guys absolutely rock. Thank you for everything.

Fair point, this would cause ISP to fall more, maybe a lot more, but still not to zero. Zero only happens if the engine chamber pressure is lower than ambient and the engine is literally sucking air in backward through its nozzle. I'm not hung up about it... I just felt compelled to point it out because my sense was that the Squad devs would want to get it right.

This is hearsay from another player's experience, but I thought it was worth repeating here: Apparently some engines drop all the way to zero ISP (i.e. no thrust but still burning fuel) in high pressure atmospheres like Eve's. I haven't been to Eve yet to verify, however. If true, this is probably not the physics that the devs intended. The real world interpretation would be that the combustion chamber pressure is literally lower than ambient atmospheric pressure... which simply would never be true for any actual rocket motor. Even a child's plastic water rocket would still have an ISP of 5-10 on Eve.

That's a cool tip... thanks! - - - Updated - - - Zero ISP seems like a bug. It stopped producing thrust entirely? Shouldn't happen...

My learning wall, which I still haven't fully overcome, is to learn how to design spacecraft with enough margin for error to allow them to survive imperfectly executed missions. I always err too much on the side of weight/cost savings and performance efficiency and invariably don't build in enough redundancy or robustness because that $h1t costs mass and money. I assume the mission is going to go exactly as planned, which of course it never does. A few examples and their consequences: Mistake: Trying to save money by using uncontrollable solid rocket boosters when I should be using liquids. Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Not attaching a parachute directly to the friggin' capsule because hey, I have chutes on other nearby parts and what are the chances that a rapid unplanned disassembly event actually happens on this mission? Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Not putting stabilizing fins on my booster stages because fins are expensive and I'm absolutely certain I'm going to fly that gravity turn trajectory so well that there's no chance it will tumble head-over-teakettle in the high dynamic loadings of the max-Q regime* Result: Dead Kerbals * I play with FAR/DRE Mistake: Not enough struts because I'm pretty sure it's strong enough as-is Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Flying a mission with a scientist instead of a pilot to rack up more science points, even though it means I won't have SAS Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Using a too-low TWR engine for my final orbital insertion stage because I'm already going to be mostly horizontal and really fast by then anyway, and a bigger engine is heavy Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Scrimping on Separatrons when using strap-on side boosters because this time I'm pretty sure I'll be mostly out of the atmosphere by the time they separate and so there's not really much risk of them hitting the center stage and destroying the engine, is there? Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Not bothering to insert a stage separator between the final stage and the capsule, because I might as well recover that last engine after re-entry to recoup some funds, and I think the combined parts will probably still re-enter tail first and not overheat and explode. Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Getting greedy by trying to grab one last EVA Report in the upper atmosphere just after we've started re-entry Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Cutting out the launch clamps to stay below the 30-part limit early in the game Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Using the LTV-30 engine instead of the LTV-45 because it's higher performance and I think the capsule torque stabilization should be enough Result: Dead Kerbals Mistake: Building elaborately wacky designs to try to achieve things that are probably not achievable with the weight, size, and part limitations I have* Result: Dead Kerbals * in my mind I hear Scott Manley saying, "aye, what a clever design for such a wee rocket" Mistake: Not bothering with extra batteries on my probe missions because I'll remember to shut down the probe's battery when not in use Result: Dead Probes Footnote: It is also true that even though my learning wall is aggravating, it's also part of what I absolutely love about KSP. Sometimes I do get away with these things even though I shouldn't, and that can be pretty exciting.

Hear, hear to Squad and everyone who has contributed to this remarkable project! *You toast your observations of the achievement.* *Your drink feels right at home here.*

It's gotta be noses for Kerbals. That missing feature has been staring us in the face for quite awhile. Hopefully big orange carrot-noses. Otherwise someone needs to write a carrot-nose mod.

New contracts come along from time to time. If you don't like what's on the menu, time-accelerate a few hours and check again. Generally the biggest payouts come from testing very large and heavy parts. If you get a contract to test a very large Kerbodyne engine or booster in flight, you're in luck because they generally pay very well. BTW for engines or boosters, you can use the test part itself to get yourself into the required flight regime and then just reposition it in the staging stack so it will get activated again at the appropriate time. I got a contract to test the Kerbodyne 1x2 booster in sub-orbital flight and built a rocket consisting of nothing more than the booster, a battery, and a probe core. Once it was in space, I re-staged it and activated it again. Presto... 500k funds!

I've lately been playing the 6.4x scaled game in hard career mode with FAR/DRE but only stock parts, which is giving me a real run for my money. I'll probably try 1.0 with the 6.4x mod and Kerbal Engineer, just for continuity with what I've been doing recently. I will initially try it without FAR/DRE since it sounds like most of that functionality will now be in the stock game. If the stock aerodynamics are too simplistic then I'll be looking to bring back FAR ASAP. I'll be eager to check out all the new parts and features, so will probably start out in sandbox mode to do a bit of goofing around before launching another hard career mode game.

How about a Mun base that hangs bat-style from underneath one of the Munar arches? Perfect use of the Klaw! Seriously, has anyone done this? I would love to see pics.

It just occurred to me that the perfect hype train is... ... Elon Musk's Hyperloop. Can somebody Kerbalize this image? (Or another Hyperloop pic?)