BagelRabbit

Just wanted to let y'all know that this week, I'm going to try to make a THROMGORD mk4. (Thinking that it will VTOL, be 0.25 compatible, have a minimum of fifteen missiles, be capable of destroying at least the KSC water towers, and look really nice.) The legacy of THROMGORD is still very much alive. ...still requesting assistance for the missiles though

The mystery deepens. I initially thought that the SAS unit with mass was somehow 'tugging' on one part of the structure of the rover, rendering it unstable... ...but placing the module (or any other non-massless part) anywhere on the craft causes the problem to occur. I honestly don't know, anymore.

All right. Here's the craft file. The rover is called Pico-Pico-Pico Rove B on account of its small size. How to induce the effect: Decouple the rover and drive around. The rover has a high CoM and thus is relatively tippable, especially off the side of the runway. If you tip the rover at a high enough speed, the Kerbal will ragdoll but still more-or-less remain in the seat. Switching to another object and back makes the Kerbal get up (it may take several attempts), but when he's up, he's counted as debris. Switching to the Kerbal, he has his own navball and everything! Also, you can assess his Monopropellant levels but can't take surface samples, pull out the EVA pack, or move in general. Here's a picture of Bob staring out into space near the crashed rover. Hello, Bob? Earth to Bob! oh, not again. I have a feeling that this will make a good testbed for Debris-Kerbals. See if you can't find a way to fix the problem. -Upsilon

I generally have it happen on my small rovers. Here's what I've found about this issue: It has happened without the Kerbal's head touching the ground. If a Kerbal is ragdolled by crashing into another object (not even necessarily headfirst!), this sort of thing can happen. You just can't see it happen often, because it takes more specialized circumstances. Here is a video of an unrelated bug (and one that still isn't easily explainable... if you have some time to head over here and check it out, it would be much appreciated.) [sorry, wasn't supposed to ask for help on this thread.] In this video, the Kerbal goes ragdoll after crashing. What isn't shown, but what happened on three separate occasions, was that the Kerbal remained 'ragdoll-ed' in the seat, and was counted as debris. It seems to be related to clipping the Command Seat into other parts. It happens much of the time when I have the Kerbal clipped into another part, just a small ways. It seems to be related to having the Kerbal stay "in" the seat even after it goes ragdoll. This often happens because of part clipping. When the Kerbal crashes in the correct way to bring about the bug, it will not get up, but remain in Ragdoll mode until another part is switched to. When another part is switched to, the Kerbal generally gets up, but when he is switched to, he cannot do anything. Would it help to provide a .craft file for a rover that always induces the effect? It's small (13 parts) and so it would be reasonably easy to see which bit was causing this ragdoll effect. I'm almost positive it's separate, as the scarecrow bug is related in no way to External Command Seats, which is the root of the Kerbals-as-Debris bug. It certainly is something that I would like to have fixed though, maybe Claw will make a BUST thread for it after investigations of this bug are concluded.

Yep! SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION, GO! I'm currently trying to figure out a couple of things. Possibly the greatest mystery I've encountered is... how in the world does the game let me have five-sided symmetry when I do this?! ...playing KSP can be fun.

Oh, c'mon you guys. Not the problem. It runs fine, as long as the SAS module is not on there. But adding a part that the physics engine does care about makes it worse! I referenced the very same Scott Manley video in the OP, too: With all due respect to both of the repliers so far, I clearly stated in the OP that it was a problem caused by adding that small SAS module, and not by the rover's massless-ness or any previous part clipping that occurred. I did this because I wanted replies that were related to the problem, which I have not received so far. (Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh. I just want answers for what the heck is doing this.) I've done a couple of small experiments, and this is what I've found out so far: Substituting the SAS module with a Z-200 inline battery pack (massless, and with almost the exact same dimensions) makes the problem vanish. Substituting it with an Oscar-B fuel tank (greater mass, slightly larger dimensions), the problem occurs to a greater extent. Substituting it with an OKTO2 (small mass but not massless, smaller dimensions) makes the problem occur to a lesser extent. It seems that there's some sort of strain placed upon the craft by a part that has mass. I'm going to test out different methods of attachment and see if that does the trick. To anyone who has read the entire report, do you know what is causing this? Thanks, Upsilon

Hey everyone! Recently, I made a tiny li'l rover. It was a wonderful thing. It was made out of Cubic Octagonal Struts, with some of the tiny rover wheels on there, as well as an External Command Seat, some solar panels, and a battery. Nothing too out of the ordinary. I drove it around for a while (no problems yet, mind you) but noticed that putting a Kerbal on there raised the CoM enough to make it a wee bit unstable on hills. So, I added a small SAS module to help it right itself... oh no. Immediately after being decoupled, the rover began to vibrate (the SAS was not turned on at this time). The vibrations increased to an absurd level over a period of a couple of seconds, before the rover crashed into the pod I had used to load it. One of the wheels came off, and the rover immediately stabilized. Upon further investigation, here's some things about this strange vibration. > Removing any one part of the craft via a crash seems to make the wobbling instantly stop. This includes wheels, cubic octagonal struts, or the Kerbal pilot. > Once the wobbling stops, there is no way to make it start again. The rover remains perfectly stable, and in some cases, can even drive reasonably well. > The Small SAS unit is the cause of the wobbling, and removing it makes the problem vanish. The SAS unit is not clipping into any other part. Furthermore, it has mass (I think) and thus should be the thing keeping it from wobbling to bits in the first place! (Scott Manley did a video in which a similar problem occurred on a rover with 100% massless parts.) I'm wondering what's going on here. Here's a Dropbox link to the rover (called Pico-Pico-Pico Rove on account of its smallness) and I've also made a Xacktar-style video on the problem it faces... Any help would be thoroughly appreciated. I wanted this to be my flagship small-rover, and it was all going so well...! Thanks, Flobbert

Name: UpsilonAerospace Job: Musician Why do I want to do this job: It sounds like a lot of fun! I'm currently making music for the planets in KSP, but this music can be incorporated into films quite nicely. (My music is going to be in some of HatBat's films as well.) There's a link in my signature to the music I've made so far, and I'll also link the thread here. Looking forwards to this! -Upsilon

Here's the difference between pitch, roll, and yaw. Pick up a ruler. (I'm sure you have one nearby.) Hold the ruler straight out in front of you with one hand, with the side with the numbers on it facing up. This is your "rocket" or "airplane." Use a bit of imagination. Turn the ruler up or down so that it's facing the sky or the ground. This is your 'Pitch' axis. Move the tip of the ruler from left to right. This is your 'Yaw' axis. Keep the ruler facing straight ahead, but turn it clockwise or counter-clockwise about so that the side with the numbers on it isn't facing upwards anymore. This is your 'Roll' axis. Note that if you 'Roll' your ruler ninety degrees so that the edge of it is facing up, and then 'Pitch' up or down, it's basically the equivalent of 'Yaw.' If you're mostly building rockets, the two most important controls to have are 'Pitch' and 'Yaw' control, especially while landing. This is so that you can point your craft in the correct direction when burning, as easily as possible. (Otherwise, you may want to map your joystick in a different way, but I won't get into that.) To map your joystick properly, Pitch should be activated by moving the stick forwards and back, Yaw should be activated by moving the stick to the left or the right, and Roll should be activated by twisting your joystick clockwise or counter-clockwise. Just like the ruler that you were twiddling around a moment earlier. As for other controls, such as throttle control, you can put them wherever you have room on your joystick. There are plenty of buttons to press, and you should do whatever feels most intuitive and easiest to you. I hope this helps! -UpsilonAerospace

My initial "meh" run is at 1:40, but it doesn't really count. (See below.) Here's the run, via the Eternal Video Provider, YouTube: Here's what I did wrong, with glorious multicolored bullet points. > Overestimated the time that it would take to stop for literally every hairpin turn on the course. The Grasshopper stops on a dime. > Got my back wheel a little grassy coming out of the Admin Building complex. > Most importantly: Accidentally took the wrong path near the end, gained maybe four or five seconds from that. (I realized this after the video had begun to upload, so sorry for the misinformation.) Current Unofficial Best Time: 1:45 (adjusted for the little mistake near the end). Estimated 'Perfect Run' Time: 1:37-ish Top speed during the run was over 35 m/s. Acceleration was glorious, deceleration was even better. I just need to go at this track some more and take the turns well. I really hope that multiple submissions are allowed. In fact, depending on how strict Kyrian is, I may have just disqualified myself. I slowed down immensely for all of the turns I made. You can see in the video that I got down to about 10 m/s for both of the hairpin turns that I made, and below 15 m/s making the sharp-ish turn by the SPH. The fastest turn that I made was the one onto the SPH trackway, at about 36 m/s. hope this helps... Trying the run correctly, tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Noted and fixed. Thanks for the suggestion.

Before I get any further, I would like to say that I only have three control surfaces at a high angle, and that if I had more, it might adversely affect the car's performance. That being said: Not entirely true. The drag is higher than it otherwise would be, but this is more than offset by the fact that the wheels are gripping the ground better. Acceleration is significantly higher than before, and top speed is roughly unchanged. This is correct, but I can now drive at over 30 m/s through the straightaways and broad turns on the second half of the course, which is by far and away the best place to save time. Given, I can only manage hairpin turns at 10 m/s or less, but it's now far easier to accelerate to peak speed immediately after the turn. I've gotten to the point where the moment I know that I'm going to make the turn safely, I accelerate as much as possible. This means that I enter hairpin turns at about 8 m/s and leave them at 13-15 m/s. I can confirm that it helps. Don't take anything I say too seriously. For that matter, don't take anything that anyone says too seriously. Test things out yourself, and see whether they work. You'll become a better driver, and you'll figure out what makes your car work best. Every car is different, and so things that work well on my vehicle may not work well on yours. Again, best of luck to all participants. I'll probably post an attempt later today... that is, if I can do this without PersistentTrails.

I sense that someone has borrowed some design elements from me! Very well, your car looks quite nice, and I'm looking forwards to seeing it race. Just a couple of pointers: 1) Downforce really, really, really helps. Pure, sweet downforce. I increased the control surfaces' pitch to 30 degrees and got an incredible grip on the ground. I can now safely turn at 30 m/s plus. It's really excellent. 2) Why so much SAS torque? This thing will turn on a dime, but it will tip much more easily than it otherwise could. 3) An orthogonal view is not a top view... it's actually a bit closer to the view labeled 'Back View' here. It's supposed to be a 45-degree view, that is used to show all sides of the craft possible. A couple of questions for y'all: How far can you get off the main trail and still have the run be 'legal'? I'm assuming that staying on the gray concrete or the white brick is all right. My self-imposed rules are to try to have the car's center of mass to always be over the gray concrete. If I have a wheel or two on the green or on the white brick, that's all right, as long as the center of mass remains on the path. This may be a lenient way of looking at it, but by squinting, I can see that the current winner's car had its center over the white brick, at a minimum of three points over the course of the run. I assume that what I'm doing is okay. Will a YouTube video and a carefully hand-drawn trail suffice, instead of using PersistentTrails? My computer is really slow, even without mods, and the last time I tried installing a single mod (the soccer balls for the World Cup competition) the game regularly crashed and became frustrating to play. I don't want to have this competition detract from my KSP experience... it's supposed to be fun! My lap time, after a couple of (almost overly cautious) attempts is about 1:49, though I hope to improve this enough to beat the current higs score, wish me luck!

Where's the starting/finish line? I'm not sure whether there's supposed to be one (as I'm a first-time Formula K-er) but it seems as if there should be one somewhere... [EDIT: ...And what's the direction of travel?]

After successfully jumping the entire Admin building pool by accident (and taking almost no damage!), I have named my vehicle: G-10 "Grasshopper" ...the future of racing vehicles! Quick stats on the Grasshopper: Top speed (without RCS; tank full): 23.6 m/s Top speed (with RCS): 42.7 m/s Mass (With full RCS): 1.22t Mass (No RCS): 0.98t Maximum safe turn speed, 45 degrees: 25 m/s Maximum safe turn speed, 90+ degrees: 20 m/s Part count: 63 Control Surfaces: 3 > Superior roll cage, capable of withstanding a >35 m/s roll-over. > Wide-mounted RCS thrusters allow for precision turning. > (Also, nice turn radius despite lacking the smaller wheels.) > Unique and beautiful design, unlike any other so far. Pictures: Front view. Note how snug Jeb is in the Grasshopper's command seat. Orthogonal view. There's a pocket-sized I-beam on the bottom, just barely visible, and a structural panel mounted at an angle on top. Top view. Note the roll cage, from the hardpoints in the back to the antennas in the front. Jeb's as safe as a Kerbal can be. ~~~ I know I probably spent too much effort on this, but this is what I would love for future KRF cars to look like. We'll have to see how well the thing does, though... Whaddaya think? -Upsilon

I'll post more pictures later, but here's the car I've built. It's got an obscenely effective roll cage. 1.05-ish tons with RCS drained. Three inert control surfaces. Personally, I think it's really cool, though how well it races is still to be determined. It's nameless as of now, by the way. Any suggestions?

I'm definitely, definitely going to enter this. Since the above statement isn't much, I'll provide a tip for those still building: I really love the medium-sized, flat DTS-M1 communication antenna. It's absolutely wonderful to add some onto a roll-cage of Cubic Octagonal Struts... it really enhances the look. Here's an example of the antennas on a car I built recently. Though I'm definitely not going to use this design for this competition, I'll certainly borrow some of its looks... Certainly not an Innovation in Performance, but depending on how aesthetically appealing you want your car to be, it's something to consider.

My pixel light count is set rather low (~10), and so having the lights going full blast makes the ground overexposed so that it is white. Not only is this quite ugly, in my opinion, but it also makes it impossible to see the terrain scatter at night, so it's a little more difficult to know your altitude. Setting the lights at 0.5 seems to allow you to see the terrain well at night, and for it to not be oversaturated. I like brake lights. I've liked them ever since I was trying a landing without the F2 heads-up display, pressed 'N' instead of 'B,' rolled off the runway and exploded. They seem to help with that sort of thing.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: To everyone who has not completed their designs for this challenge (and even if you have): Kindly consider using the following lighting configuration. It's easy and quick to add (or retrofit), adds no parts, and can be applied to almost all spaceplanes. In addition, it provides valuable information at a glance, and it shows that you have paid attention to detail for your design. I call it... Up-Lite (ain't I modest?) To quote from the original Tutorials page: Again, you don't have to add Up-Lite to your design, but there are plenty of good reasons to do so. I would strongly recommend doing this unless you've already submitted your entries, and don't want to create a separate .craft file just for this small change. Thanks for reading this, and let me know whether you'll use Up-Lite... -Upsilon

Hello, everyone! Are you the kind of spaceplane builder that pays attention to detail? Well, I've got the thing for you! It's simple! It's quick! It's helpful! You can add it to all of your spaceplane designs! It provides useful indicators for no extra parts or cost! I call it... Up-Lite (ain't I modest?) Here's what you do. > Right-click on your spaceplane's back wheels. Adjust the colors so that the red value is at 0.5, the green is at 0.05, and the blue is at zero. > Click on the spaceplane's front wheel(s) and adjust the colors so that each value is at 0.5. Turn the front wheel(s)' lights on. > Go into the action groups. Click on the 'Gear' action group and the front wheel(s), and select the 'ToggleLights' function. > Click on the 'Brake' action group and the back wheels and click 'ToggleLights.' Whenever you hit the brakes, red lights go on; they turn off when you release the brakes. Whenever the gear is out, a white light will illuminate the ground. What does this mean? Well, for one thing, you can have a convenient way of telling your elevation when coming in for a landing at night. In addition, seeing white light illuminate the ground after liftoff has been a good prompt for me to put in the gear. As for the brake lights, it's useful to easily see whether the brakes are locked (a common cause of embarrassment for me). You can even clearly see that the brakes are on or off when the F2 heads-up display isn't there. Here's a video of the whole thing: Enjoy, and let me know what you think! -Upsilon

Quick peek at what I've been working on.... a beautiful SSTO capable of Mun encounter and return. Seats eight, docks wonderfully, is relatively part-light, and 100% stock. I'll enter it if I can work out a few little bugs... but it's pretty sweet.

Thanks, Avera9eJoe! I'm surprised that even after a Fanworks Friday and a month of being "Stickied," the majority of the Forum doesn't know about this. Link to current Forum page is HERE, or in my signature. Please take a moment to visit... me (and Avera9eJoe!) worked pretty hard on this. I've done a separate piece for Moho, Eve, Minmus, Duna, and Dres so far. They're all unique, and they suit the mood of the planets pretty well, IMHO. Though, maybe I'm a little biased...

My first thoughts upon seeing the title of this: "Perhaps the Moon knows the secret of the New Sound...*" *(Click for your daily dose of strangeness. It's music sampled from The Mighty Boosh, which is a bizarre, absolutely wonderful and occasionally inappropriate comedy, which is why I've linked it and not embedded it.) That being said: The song lyrics are great (I'm especially pleased that they don't include mud), though I wish I could hear the lyrics at all times during the video. I do really like the concept of a "What does the Fox Say?!" parody in KSP, though. Thanks for making this.

The devs said that they weren't sure, but that they would come up with something. Keep in mind: there was a KSP 0.9, way back in the good old days, when the Mun didn't exist and the water was solid... and the version after that was 0.10... and thus I'm inclined to believe that there will be a KSP 0.100.

I'm back! What did I miss? Rarity...?