Mike the Mechanic

Have you ever wondered how powerful an RCS thruster is? Probably not, because it is tiny and therefore weak. Have you ever wondered how strong Gillies gravity is? Probably not, because Gilly is tiny and therefore weak. But have you ever wondered how powerful the tiny RCS thruster on Gillies weak gravity is? Well now you probably do. But is there a way to satisfy your curiosity? Yes! I present you the Silly Gilly Challenge. It is really simple: Land the most mass on Gilly using nothing but the RCS engines! Well, it's not that simple. Here are the rules: - Use the RV-105 RCS Thruster Block or the Place-Anywhere 7 Linear RCS Port as your main engine (Each part counts as one engine). - In order to prevent people from building drop pods, use the SC-9001 Science Jr. as landing gear. (yes, it's a silly rule, but otherwise the landing part is not a real challenge) - Start from a circular, 20 km orbit around Gilly (Periapse greater than 20000 m). How you get there is not important (hyperedit it there if you must), although full mission reports are always welcome. - Land on Gilly, plant a flag, do science, be silly. - Return the craft to a circular, 20 km orbit around Gilly. - Calculate your score: Weight of your craft (m) minus all the mono-propellant that is in tanks (f) (Mono-propellant in crew cabins must not be used!) divided by the number of engines (n) or, to put it simply: (m-f)/n. Note: Massless parts do not count toward your score, so KER readouts must be double checked! - If anything breaks off, it does not count as part of your craft. - The cheat menu (eg. part clipping, infinite fuel, etc.) is forbidden and will get you sent to Eve. Here is my own attempt: My score is: Mass of vehicle: 20*0.2 + 3*3.5 + 2 * 0.5625 + 6*0.235 + 4.54 = 21.575 Note: Struts, Engine and Solar Panels do not count. Mass of Monopropellant in Tanks: 6*0.16 = 0.96 Number of Engines: 1 Score: 20.615 Good luck

Since you're taking requests/suggestions: Amber. A chunk of ice with a strange creature frozen/trapped inside. Not sure how you would do that though, maybe just some ominous shades in the ice/amber.

Kerbal Space Program: "This is why you can't have nice things"

I personally think the Kerbals are overpowered - they survive more than 20 gee's, have no gender, live almost indefinitely in cramped environments, use the same technology as humans currently do, they ragdoll as soon as they hit something, they smile when their vehicle explodes, I don't like their haircut, their jetpacks don't have enough thrust and too much dV, they make probes useless and they are unrealistically green. As for the engines, I don't care. Seriously, it's still in alpha. Just wait it out, the day of rebalancing (bible reference) will come soon. Until then, there is http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75272-0-23-x-Stock-Rebalance-Project-v1-3-19-04-14. Should balancing be put on the "do not suggest"-list?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDOFzu-6MD4 metaphorically, of course ...

Aaw, I was getting comfy in that first place - Congratulations!!! I want to mention though that in 23.5, the enigines were nerfed considerably - an ion lander for Vall was not possible with the old engines ...

Teach me your ways, master

I know, I confused you with esinohio, who got into a car accident - anyway, as stated, I am terrible at writing posts :S Wait - yeah, that was totally intentional - the message goes to you too cantab - get well soon everybody

So, this is my entry. I think I got all the basic and additional mission points. I also brought two rovers, drove one of them 10 km, deployed 4 packages spaced 2.5 km away from each other and deployed a satellite. I even bothered to have some habitation space and a total of 5 stages I'm super proud of this one, it took a lot of time to get it right (and not fall apart on the launchpad). (Edit) I suck at creating imgur albums and especially at adding correct titles, I am sorry for possible confusions

I built a service module named "Adam", and a lander named "Steve". "Adam" and "Steve" met in orbit and went together to Eve. Only Adam returned to Kerbin, so it was Steve and Eve, not Adam and Eve. In career mode, I used to do small trips with one Kerbal to the Mün I called "Münhop", multiple Kerbals would be a "Münbus"- mission, and rovers were "Münvan"-missions. Other than that, I tend to take real space mission's names and make them Ksp-relevant, e.g. "Dunkohod" or the "Xenon Impulse".

If I drop a ton of rovers with seats, I can get an infinite amount of points, right? I hope I'm not going on your nerves with my pesky questions, I mean well

Since Moho is very close to Kerbol, shouldn't there be some considerations about radiation shielding? I mean - I can redo the Munar Apollo Mission I did for the initial Apollo Style Challenge, but shouldn't this challenge have some unique feature? Besides having radiation shielding, the kerbals will spend some days in transit, some habitation must be necessary too I imagine. Also, how about landing in some specific place, like close to the moholes? Throwing something in them should give some reward too. These are suggestions, because the rules up until now look a little - let's say - conventional. I will definitely participate though, I haven't been to Moho for a long time and the new parts provide some interesting options ...

Clipping was not enabled, but I used the symmetry function excessively - I may have broken the VAB. Yes, I realized that I have to rebuild it, but I'm glad it's not the engineer in this case. I could not determine whether anything is clipped or not, because the game breaks down as soon as I try to remove anything ...

The error is reproducible, the craft file is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/h6t7dsiu8uvd7r8/Xenon%20Impulse%20II.craft

However, there is a problem I encountered: This happened when I was trying to remove the leg. The error occurs every time I load the ship. Hope this helps to make the plugin even better http://imgur.com/Yvh9kEu

Ugh, I was just testing some designs, and the new ion engines are extremely powerful compared to the old ones - Are you sure you don't want to make a new leaderboard/scoring? I'm saying that because with the new engines, Vall and Eeloo are within the range to land on ...

Ignore my post, it works perfectly - I messed up some staging ... Sorry

Great job! This tool saves time and lives Just one small thing, the ion engine does not work properly yet.

I admit, it's not a Falcon X replica, since it has to go all the way to the moon, also, it's supposed to be a "mashrutka", a Russian small bus, but anyway - enjoy ... I don't speak Russian, but I am from eastern Europe (originally anyway), so you will have to excuse the (sometimes) stereotypical captions

Does this count? Originally made for the Jool 5 Challenge, it weights 31.4 tons and it visited Laythe, Tylo, Vall, Bop and Pol (I jetpacked Bop, no points for Bop), which makes for 183 points according to the grading sceme. I suggest you make us visit only one body with the lowest mass possible, that way you could prevent entries like mine

I'm sure it has, I just have not seen it yet How about a "blueprint mode" you can switch to - it would basically display your craft from the main axes and some stats, com, col etc. That would be cool actually.

Hello, I noticed a small thing that would peoples lives easier: Make the thrust vector indicator in the VAB (pink thingy) and the Center of Lift indicator longer respectively extend over the lenght of the whole vehicle of building - in any way, make aligning these points easier. Up until now, the alignment of the thrust vector, center of mass and center of lift have to be eyeballed - it would be nice if those vectors and points could be aligned with the visual aid easier.

Can I still submit or is this challenge dead? I think I got all the points: No orbital construction LOR Mission No mods (except Flight engineer and the dust experiment, which did absolutly nothing (sandbox save)) Own design! 3 Man mission 2 Kerbal lander (!) No aparagus Escape system/ullage motors Lander behind CM + Fairing Free return trajectory 80m from memorial rovers + 4 packages, drove at least 10 km, dropped the packages at least 2.5 km from each others + Flag. Redocked and crashed the Lm into the moon, deployed satellite. No casualties Super long list, apologies

Thanks, I havn't read the first post properly :S I think it works now

Thanks, I'm happy to contribute to a great challenge! Hehe, sorry about that, but if it helps, I'm not planning any more lightweight mission as of now, and my design is not perfect by far I'm not so proud of the Bop-episode (because I didn't use the lander, feels cheaty) , but the secret is to start in a low orbit (20 km is the lowest I believe) and having the sun shine on your landing site (otherwise you just dissapear in a cloud of smoke all of a sudden). If these requirements are met, you can basically hold s and occasionally brake your fall with shift. Switching to mapmode helps too, but be sure to disable the jet pack, or you may start to spin and loose all the RCS. It took 4 reloads to land Jeb in one piece on Bop, and a lot of precious xenon to retrieve him from orbit. On another note, how do I get the nice badge you all have?