Raven.

This is a challenge that I've been carefully designing for a couple of weeks now. This challenge is to design, build and launch a multi-mission shuttle that meets certain requirements (detailed below). Scoreboard Specifications for your Shuttle design. -All shuttles submitted must be capable of delivering at least a small 1 ton payload to LKO. -All shuttles must be able to achieve, at the very least, a circular orbit of 70 km. -All shuttles must be capable of atmospheric flight after re-entry. -All shuttles must land at either the KSC runway or the island runway horizontally. Drogue chutes, drag chutes, and airbrakes are allowed in order to help control airspeed, so long as the shuttle is still landing horizontally. -Because this is not necessarily a space-plane challenge, only shuttles that launch vertically will be accepted. Qualifications for an entry: All entries must meet the design specifications listed above. -In order to qualify for the “Stock†category, the shuttle must be completely stock with no mods. -If a shuttle uses a mod, it is automatically placed into the “Mod†category. -If FAR is used, then it is automatically placed into the “FAR†category, regardless if other mods are used or not. -Balanced mods are allowed. Examples of balanced mods are B9 Aerospace (with the 0.23.5 patch), Space Shuttle Engines, KW Rocketry, AIES Aerospace, Infernal Robotics, DROMOMAN, Real Chutes, and Interstellar. All mods used must be listed with the submission. If this is not done, the entry does not qualify. You only have to list the mods for the shuttle itself; listing mods for the payload is not required. -Because this is a design challenge, pre-built shuttles provided by mods such as KSO are not allowed. -Multiple submissions are allowed. Each submission is scored independently. This is so that people have a chance at getting every award listed below, since it’s impossible to achieve all of those awards with a single design. -Kraken drives are not allowed for the time being. Submitting your Shuttles Each submission must have a screenshot of: -The Shuttle on the launch pad/runway before launch. -Map view with of the shuttle’s final orbit with both the periapsis and apoapsis heights shown. Alternately, you can use MechJeb to display the periapsis and apoapsis or the semi-major axis. -Your delivered payload after finalizing orbit. Must state the weight of the payload. -Your shuttle landed at the runway. -The shuttle must complete the challenge in a single mission. Refueling at a fuel depot is allowed only for missions whose target location is outside of Kerbin SOI. -(Optional) Your shuttle in orbit of another celestial body. Must show circular orbit with Periopsis in map view. -(Optional) Any other screenshots you want to showcase. I personally enjoy looking at screenshots of stuff that people come up with. Scoring -1,000 points are automatically awarded for completing the challenge. That is meeting all specifications listed above. -The Final score is a summation of three different sub-scores and a completion score: the altitude score, the payload score, the SOI score, and 1,000 points that are awarded for completing the challenge. -The altitude score is based off of the final semi-major axis of the payload your shuttle delivered. --For payloads delivered to Kerbin orbits, the altitude score is the semi-major axis multiplied by 0.1. --For payloads delivered to the Mun, the semi-major axis used to score is 12,000 km. --For payloads delivered to Minmus, the semi-major axis used to score is 47,000 km. --For payloads delivered to locations outside of Kerbin’s SOI, the altitude score is 84159.286 (Kerbin’s SOI radius in km) times 0.1. -The payload score is the weight (in tons) of the payload times 100. -The SOI score only comes into play if you deliver a payload to another celestial body. This score is based on the delta-v required to reach the target celestial body. A higher score is awarded if you can deliver your payload to the surface of another celestial body, though you still need to get the shuttle back to the KSC runway. The scores rewarded for visiting other celestial bodies is listed below: Mun: 1070 Mun – Landed: 1710 Minmus: 1000 Minmus – Landed: 1240 Sun: 950 Moho: 3880 Moho – Landed: 5280 Eeloo: 4200 Eeloo – Landed: 5040 Eve: 2340 Eve – Landed: 14340 Gilly: 4200 Gilly – Landed: 4235 Duna: 1430 Duna – Landed: 2810 Ike: 1810 Ike – Landed: 2345 Dres: 2100 Dres- Landed: 2655 Jool: 4545 Laythe: 6925 Laythe – Landed: 9725 Vall: 7305 Vall – Landed: 8485 Tylo: 7675 Tylo – Landed: 10745 Bop: 7945 Bop – Landed: 8201 Pol: 7945 Pol – Landing: 8125 -Submissions are set into one of three categories: Stock, Mod, and FAR. Stock is absolutely no mods allowed at all. Mods, is open to balanced mods. FAR, is those submissions, whether they use stock parts or mods parts, that are using Ferram Aerospace Research (FAR). -In order to help myself with this scoring system, and to score everyone fairly and evenly, I have created a Google docs spreadsheet that has the scoring system programmed into it. That spreadsheet is located here. When you submit a shuttle, your username and the craft name are entered into the spreadsheet. Awards The Piggyback Distinction: Launch a shuttle that is “piggybacked†onto a fuel tank, rocket booster, or other craft. An example is the STS shuttle program. The Jebidiah Distinction: Launch a shuttle that is attached, quite literally, to the top of a rocket. The SSTO Distinction: Achieved orbit with a SSTO craft. The Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot Distinction: Successfully launch a shuttle whose launch vehicle by all means should had crashed and burned. The Squad Distinction: Complete the challenge with a shuttle made from absolutely no mod parts. The Highflier Distinction: Achieve a circular orbit greater than 250,000 m. The Ares Distinction: Achieve a circular orbit around a celestial body other than Kerbin The Constellation Distinction: Land on another Celestial body. The Aerospace Engineering Distinction: Complete the challenge with FAR and Deadly Re-entry. The Predator Distinction: Complete the challenge with an unmanned shuttle. The Ace Distinction: Complete the challenge with a manned shuttle. The Eve Distinction: Deliver a payload to the surface of Eve, and return. The Certified Badass Distinction: Have your shuttle perform some act of pure, unadultered insanity and succeed. The Sparky Award: Launch a shuttle that crashed and burned. Example: The following is a sample submission, the Martial A5 Shuttle: Mods for the shuttle used are: FAR Mechjeb B9 Aerospace KW Rocketry Space Shuttle Engines Universal Docking Port Set from Kip Engineering The example shuttle delivered a 1.26 ton payload to a 1497x1500 km orbit. It did not visit any other celestial bodies, so its SOI score is zero. The shuttle had a Periapsis of 1497.43 km and an Apoapsis of 1500.92 km, so its semi-major axis was (1497.43+1500.92)/2 + 600 = 2099.175 km. So the Altitude score was 2099.175 *0.1 = 209.9175 points. The payload was 1.26 tons, so the Payload score was 1.26 *100 = 126 points. So the total score was 1000 (awarded for completion) + 126 (payload) + 209.9175 (altitude) + 0 (SOI) = 1335.9175 points. The shuttle was piggybacked off the back of an external fuel tank with boosters, so it gets the The Piggyback Distinction. The shuttle achieved an altitude higher than 250 km, so it gets the Highflier Distinction. The shuttle completed the challenge with FAR, but did not complete it with Deadly Re-entry, so it does not receive the Aerospace Engineering Distinction; that distinction requires both mods. The shuttle does, however, get the Ace Distinction, as it is a manned shuttle. A drone would received the Predator distinction instead. Scoreboard (Mod Category) Darren9 - Porkshuttle 7: 9830 Piggyback, Highflier, Ares, Constellation, and Ace distinctions. Mazlem - KSS Benign: 3467 Piggyback, Highflier, Ares, and Ace distinctions. Northstar1989 - KSS Nyrmidon: 3770.5 Jebidiah, Highflier, Ares and Ace Distinctions. Also a Sparky Award recipient. Sensi - Laythe Shuttle: 30790.9286 SSTO, Highflier, Ares, Constellation, Ace, and Certified Baddass Distinctions. Scoreboard (Stock Category) diamond2a - Shuttle3: 1601 Jebidiah, Squad, and Ace Distinctions NavalLacrosse - Shuttle 2: 9446 Piggyback, Squad, Ares, Constellation, Ace, and Certified Badass Distinctions. mpink - HLS Tweed: 4678.5 Jebidiah, Squad, and Ace Dinstinctions. Kadrian - Kwitsatz: 18266.9286 Piggyback, Squad, Highflier, Ares, Constellation, and Predator Distinctions. Also this shuttle earns the Sparky Award. Valley - Focus Future Shuttle Ver 2.0: 1186.9174 Jebidiah, Squad, Ace, and Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot Distinctions Mark Nutt - Hawking Shuttlecraft: 11866.9286 Jebidiah, Squad, Highflier, Ares, and Ace Distinctions palioxis1248 - Betelgeuse: 3185.4921 Jebidiah, Squad, Ace, and Certified Badass distinctions. Also a Sparky Award recipient. Scoreboard (FAR Category) Itoum - Kolombia: 1543.2497 Piggyback, Highflier, and Ace Distinctions

I like this setup, although I think it may need to be expanded and refined a little bit. For Type-D you could list two different sub types, Type-D Restricted (where only specific mods are allows) and Type-D Open (where any "balanced" mod is allowed).

Ok, sometime this summer I will be tackling Duna, as I've been asked by a few people to do a biome map for that particular planet. But I cannot tackle it until I'm finished with my current Kerbin project. In the meantime, Trueborn has a basic biome map for Duna in the main download that should hold you over until then.

If that's the case, why not allow the community to take a back-up of the Spaceport website so we can migrate it to a different server? Probably, good server and network equipment is not hard to get ahold of, especially if you already work in the industry. The bigger issue is the bandwidth.

What planet/moon is this? I think that map may be in the Custom Biomes 1.5 download. I'll probably give it a try if you don't mind me messing around with the source. I noticed you had it hard coded in the source, and was wondering if that could be changed. I you're right, for smaller planets and moons such as Minmus, 1024x512 is more than fine. But for Kerbin, Eve, and Duna, I think it needs 2048x1024.

(34.1, -79.1) "Neglected Mountains," named accordingly because I completely skipped over that range when I first named everything. Looks like I also forgot to add them to the list here on the dev thread. (61.9, -90.0) Currently marked as "East Kulge Highlands," along with a few other misc. highlands on Continent #1 and not marked as an individual mountain range. The stock game doesn't consider the area a mountain region and I'm inclined to agree. (34.5, -28.3) Considered to be part of the Great Ridge range. If you feel like it needs to be an area separate from the Great Ridge mountains, then I do not have a problem with it. (-5, -175) Was just thinking about this area last night, as this area was an area I was working on last night. Originally, I had it in mind to be part of Crescent mountains, but I'm seriously leaning towards changing to a separate range and giving it a name. (17, -159) This is a range that I've somehow overlooked. It needs a name. I got it marked as it's own biome in the biome map. (60, 178) This is a range that I've overlooked; on Kerbalmaps.com it is split between the left and right side of the map, so I never saw it until recently when developing that part of the map. So, it'll need a name . (78, 139) Overlooked at first, but picked up later on. I'm leaning towards Medved (Russian for bear, I think) Mountains to keep with the name scheme for that area (With Volk Tundra/Mountains, Volk is Russian for wolf). (26, -73) This is one of the areas marked as East Kulge Highlands, and could possibly be it's own biome considering that it does have a couple of small peaks. (50, 175) Yes, it will have a name. No named assigned as of yet. East Kulge does not have any land marks north of 50 degrees, except for maybe the lake at (70, -103), which marks the area of the boundary between West and East Kulge. I originally had it set to have the Fang Mountains at the source, but now that you mention it, it does make more sense to have the Fang Mountains at the mouth and the Mamba Mountains at the source. Added. I think the area you are referring to is the area just north of the Badlands, right?

I'd figured that I'd give a status update on the development progress. The biome map is shaping up very nicely, and thus far both continents 1 and 2 are finished with the mapping. This leaves continent #3 (the biggest of them all), which should shape up pretty quickly now that college finals are finished and because I am now far more proficient in the Gimp than what I was when I started this. Developing detailed and accurate biome maps from elevation maps is tedious, but once you get the hang of it, it starts to go much quicker. After the biome map itself is finished, the next task is writing a configuration file for the Custom Biomes mod to get the map not only imported into the game, but where the game will actually recognize the biomes. After this is done, the mod would technically be ready for a possible alpha release, although the text for the science experiments would not yet be in place. After the map is imported into Custom Biomes, the task of writing all the science experiments begins.

Trueborn, I have a question for you if you don't mind. I don't think this is possible, but I am curious as to the size of the biome maps. Is it possible to have higher resolution biome maps? Or is the 1024x512 resolution a limitation set by KSP itself?

What I typically do is go as small as possible on the external tank. Getting the CoM lined up right, with a smaller than normal tank with a good set of booster, and the thing will fly. I've had shuttles hit Kerbin escape velocity while still doing their ascent burn. I got a few questions on this challenge. Is FAR allowed and is the space shuttle engines mod allowed? Thank you.

Check this out: http://www.kerbalmaps.com/ It has an option for a large, high resolution biome map.

I've been playing modded games for, oh goodness, ten years starting when the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind came out. Every game that I have ever played, from Morrowind to KSP, that had mod support loads painfully slow when loaded down with a significant number of mods. In order to implement mod support right, the game has to load everything up front on startup, which means a slow startup time. The alternative is not pretty; the alternative is loading assets on the fly while you're playing the game, and that would lead to incredibly poor performance. I'm simply thankful for the fact that KSP is a good stable platform to load mods on top of.

The idea of an orbital prison has been tossed around quite a bit, especially in science fiction. The idea is that in the event of a jailbreak, there is nowhere to escape to. Prisoner gets out of hand? Just blow them out the airlock. The Mass Effect series had the Purgatory prison, which was more of a ship than an actual station, but still the same concept. Star Trek VI explored the idea of a prison on a cold, lifeless moon, of which unruly prisoners were left to die on the inhabitable surface (with no way of escape). The issue in real life with an orbital prison is the cost. In addition, the purpose of a prison is to keep people in, not to keep people out. So, in my humble opinion, an orbital prison should be quite easy to access in order to keep the cost of maintaining the station down. If prisoners will only be coming from Kerbin, then you can put the station in whatever inclination you want. I'd probably put it in a 70 km circular orbit at an inclination of 60 degrees. This keeps the access from the ground at a minimal cost while making an intercept from a higher orbit difficult. Also, I'd put a de-orbit engine on the thing. If there's a major jail break, de-orbit the thing and watch 'em burn . If you go the route of the moon prison, then you want a moon of which has enough gravity that a kerbal cannot escape from with a jetpack. This leaves mainly the Mun and Tylo as candidates for this. Eve is a great location to, and it analogous to actual hell.

There are plenty of programmers about the forums. In a couple of weeks I can help contribute.

I have an interesting issue. I sent up a 2.5 universal docking port with a station module. Sent up a capsule that originally had a stock 1.25 m docking port. Couldn't dock at all. Reverted the flight and replaced the stock 1.25 m docking port with the 1.25 universal port provided in this mod. Sent the capsule up and ran across the same thing, no engagement of the magnets and no docking after rubbing the two docking ports around a bit. Originally I had Module Manager 1.5.6. Updating to version 2.0.1 yielded the same results. I've also checked the installation to make sure that the mod installed correctly. Is there anything I'm missing?

Would you mind if I ask what mod are those trusses from?

Like people have already mentioned, there is a 0.23.5 patch out: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66020-B9-0-23-fixes And while I would to seethe B9 pack become part of the stock game, there needs to be some performance modifications made to the core KSP game because of the extra overhead that B9 introduces. In reality, KSP itself cannot really handle the B9 pack because it's not a 64 bit application. Me personally, I think that we need a working, 64 bit KSP on the PC before considering adding any mod that introduces new parts as part of the stock game.

There's a couple of things worth mentioning. 1: KSP is not a complete game; it is a work in progress and the science tree progression is not perfect. In fact, I don't think the debs have attempted to balance it just yet, especially considering that contracts are about to be introduced and a currency later on down the road. 2: KSP is designed to be modded. Don't like something? Then mod it to your own tastes. If one person wants to play the game a certain way, then he/she has the freedom to mod the game to their own liking. Which is exactly what I've done.

Start your turn early while your airspeed is still rather low. By the time you hit mach 1, you will not be able to pitch very much past a couple of degrees. Turn with tender loving care.

No, do not amend the treaty. Me personally, I've always admired the Native American viewpoint that land does not belong to any one person; we are stewards of the Earth, not its owners. My belief extends to those celestial bodies other than the earth, they do not belong to anymore, nor should they ever. Also, there is a contradiction in the OP. If you establish ownership of an item, such as a block of land on the moon, then you are taking the sole responsibility for defending that stake. How are you going to defend it? By throwing a sock at the trespasser? Or a wrench? Or will it come to the point to where we have armed astronauts on the moon just so they can keep trespasser "off their lawn?" You see where this is going. Establishing ownership of something breeds greed, and greed leads to violence. Leave the treaty, the moon and Mars belongs to no one.

I use the escape tower with my orbiters that use the 2.5 m pod. But, as soon as I'm above the atmosphere I ditch that thing.

Oh this is interesting. I might be taking a look at this mod tonight .

I believe that it does work .

That's sexy. Can't wait to get my hands on those .

Well, there's a couple things to take into consideration here. In the stock game, air brakes are needed to any fixed wing craft that is re-entering the atmosphere in order to help control air speed. We need these because there are a couple of other things that we do not have in the stock game: drag chutes and flaps. Another thing is that my experience has been that air brakes have a tendency to create too much drag too quickly. But of course I'm use to those in the B9 and Firespitter packs. They will need to be toned down considerably if they are to be made stock.

K3|Chris, this is some very nice work. I typically will use the 6m crew pods for habitation modules for stations, and having an IVA for it would be icing on the cake . I'll be giving the 2m pods a spin sometime tonight. bac9! Good to have you back!