Free beer while stocks last!

[wossname]

EMERGENCY! ATTENTION ALL STAFF...

Werner has bought up all the launchpad time for the next week for what he says is "vital chemistry research" in collaboration with a list of emminent scientists who also went to his university. He denies that it's a reunion kegger.

Gene is furious, of course. He's throwing his own party for the rest of the KSC staff on the roof of the VAB.

Problem is, Gene's beer and snacks delivery has been left on the runway through some bureaucratic bungle!

Goal:

Get one or more Probodobodyne QBE probe cores (filled with beer and snacks) over to the thirsty and hungry revellers

on top of the VAB in the shortest time possible after launching from the RUNWAY.

RULES

• No cheats
  
• Stock parts only
  
• FAR is allowed (no need to declare it)
  
• Mechjeb is allowed (ditto)
  
• Autopilot mods are ok too! We need to get the beer and snacks up there FAST!!!
  
• No part scaling mods allowed.
  

Bonus points:

• Warm Ale - beat 20 seconds - 20 points
  
• Prompt Delivery - beat 17 seconds - 10 points
  
• Express Service - beat 12 seconds - 10 points
  
• Pour me a Frosty One - beat 8 seconds - 60 points
  
• 2 points for every QBE core that survives landing on the roof
  
• Two trips within 5 minutes using the same vehicle - 100 points!
  
• Launch cost less than 1500 - 5 points
  
• Refridgeration - 20 points for each Mk1 Liquid Fuel Fuselage that survives the landing on the VAB roof intact and 100% FULL. <<< NEW BONUS
  

Leaderboard:

1. wossname 1440 points "Partaaaaaaaay! Wooo" (10*9*8 QBEs * 2 points) Flown at a painful 0.5 frames per second - this was not a pleasant flight
   
2. MarvinKitFox 1122 points "Teddy"
   
3. fire219 720 points "K is for Beer!"
   
4. Yukon0009 608 points link
   
5. Elowiny 192 points "The Thingy"
   
6. juzeris 102 points link
   
7. Bioman222 38 points "Booze Missile"
   
8. Elowiny 7 points link (You also get 50 Karbon Kredits from the Keuropean Union for not ruining the environment).
   

Juzeris' second attempt was deemed to be in breach of the rules and justly disqualified, however the reasons stated for breaking the rules are deemed by this committee to be honourable and fully in the best interests of Kerbalkind. The end almost justifies the means. But not quite.

Edited April 7, 2015 by wossname
Judgment!!!

[MarvinKitFox]

Hi there.

Sloane's the name, Beer delivery is the game!

This here is my trusty ship "Teddy". A right cute lil wagon.

Not the fastest in town, but if you have a mighty thirst and need your beer delivered un-shaken,

then Sloane's Teddy is the girl for you.

That's one careful delivery of 7x8x10 + 1 QBE-packed beers,

please sign this here chit for 1122 points.

- - - Updated - - -

p.s.

I advise a change in rules, an open-ended one like "2 points for every QBE core that survives landing on the roof" is very open to exploitation

p.p.s.

Redone, with half-empty tank. much easier to steer.

Edited April 5, 2015 by MarvinKitFox

[wossname]

Well I guess that'll be enough beer to last until the band arrives.

A respectable effort. You just sneak into first place by a slim margin of 1038 points

Great job.

- - - Updated - - -

I advise a change in rules, an open-ended one like "2 points for every QBE core that survives landing on the roof" is very open to exploitation

Well, I don't mind if the QBEs are spread far and wide over the VAB roof, as long as they are intact and filled with precious, life-giving beer and snacks.

[juzeris]

I'll go the speedy route, with delivery times as low as 5 seconds.

While the big haul was still on the way, Gene had an intern strap a couple of boosters to a beer keg for an emergency delivery vehicle, the BEAR (Beer and Extras, All Refrigerated) launcher (download).

Nothing fancy, no need for autopilot, a very simple point and click and panic interface, simplicity at its drunkest. May result in additional fireworks.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

This is probably 102 or so points, as if somebody still cares after MarvinKitFox's performance.

Edited April 5, 2015 by juzeris
Corrected point total

[MarvinKitFox]

Juzeris, we should team up.

You get them instant beer, and I supply the endless refills.

I have *no* idea how you manage to get that QBE on the roof without splattering it all over, or even Imploding the whole VAB! (which is what my fast-delivery attempts tended to do)

[Elowiny]

Javascript is disabled. View full album

My vehicle : the Thingy

It holds 96 Cores, so 96x2=192.

So I have 192 points !

My time : 50 seconds

[fire219]

I am currently working on a heavy haul carrier even far superior to Marvin's (carrying 896 QBEs for 1792 pts).

But it brings KSP down to a crawl. Back to the (drunken) drawing board.

[wossname]

Gene says he's never had better work out of his engineers. From now on he's paying us all in alcohol and junk food.

Works for me.

And here's my latest attempt...

http://imgur.com/a/dzQid#0

(why does imgur NEVER work properly on this forum?) Arrrgh.

I'll update the scores now.

I'll go the speedy route, with delivery times as low as 5 seconds.

You screwed up your score, check the leaderboard You did beat 20 seconds... you did beat 17 seconds... 12 seconds... 8 seconds.

Edited April 5, 2015 by wossname

[Elowiny]

When my flying and building skills get better, I will aim for an higher score.

I'm pretty sure my PC will cry in pain.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Elowiny

[wossname]

When my flying and building skills get better, I will aim for an higher score.

Give the "aim and fire" strategy a try, like juzeris did. When you're in the Hangar, use a tower support to hold your craft at the right angle and then just let her go like a bottle rocket! Takes a few tries to line her up right since you can't see the VAB from inside the hangar!

That definitely seems to be the fastest way to get Jeb a tall, icy lager and a hot dog.

[Yukon0009]

Here is 304 cubes of beer delivered to the party. Should keep em drunk for a few months. Will post craft tommorow (dropbox is messing with me)

Score: A rather pitful 304.

No beer destroyed.

Time: 1m 17s (plus 10 hours of rage)

[wossname]

Here is 304 cubes of beer delivered to the party

No beer destroyed.

Dude, it's 2 points per surviving cube! 608 points buddy.

Excellent work.

Keep it up guys, Gene is nearly ready to dance on the table. Bob has built a champagne fountain in the VAB's heat exchanger and Jeb is describing de-orbiting procedure to a bucket in the janitor's closet.

Edited April 5, 2015 by wossname

[Elowiny]

After MANY tries, I managed to land a ship which costed less than 1500 !

Javascript is disabled. View full album

It costs 1442 Funds

I get an EPIC score of....7.

[juzeris]

...

You screwed up your score, check the leaderboard You did beat 20 seconds... you did beat 17 seconds... 12 seconds... 8 seconds.

Ah, ok, I'll fix it then.

Juzeris, we should team up.

You get them instant beer, and I supply the endless refills.

I have *no* idea how you manage to get that QBE on the roof without splattering it all over, or even Imploding the whole VAB! (which is what my fast-delivery attempts tended to do)

You've got yourself a business partnership, sir.

Destroying the VAB seems to be based on some kind of energy or mass threshold, small pieces (less than 5 tons or so) won't destroy it even going significantly over terminal velocity, while the heavy ones destroy it with a small bump. Regarding dropping the beer, I have a parachute which deploys for a split second killing all velocity (horizontal AND vertical) instantly due to the very small mass of the QBE, that's why I go so low over the VAB, so that I don't spend the next 5 minutes gently gliding down.

[fire219]

Welp guys, party's over.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

(This thing, named the Spider for its long spindly legs, would have brought 384 cases of beer n' snacks.)

[wossname]

The horror...the...the horror!

This is why we simulate folks. Simulate and simulate again. Good job this never happened.

[RainDreamer]

Someone gotta make a comic of this. Kerbals watching their beers and snack slowly descending with joy, then suddenly a small bump crush the whole building they are on.

[wossname]

Someone gotta make a comic of this. Kerbals watching their beers and snack slowly descending with joy, then suddenly a small bump crush the whole building they are on.

The KSP community has some pretty great illustrators and cartoonists out there. You see a lot of them on the "Launcher" splash screen links.

Particularly this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/22087-Timmon26-s-Art-Thread?p=280102&viewfull=1#post280102

That's pretty great artwork, right there.

[HafCoJoe]

I might just have to do this xD

[Elowiny]

I just calculated : we brought around 1533 blocks to the party (every ship on this thread) ! The kerbals will be drunk for the next 1 000 years.

[fire219]

Including or excluding my failure simulation?

Edit: Crap. Hit wrong button. This is pointed at Elowiny, of course.

[Elowiny]

Including or excluding my failure simulation?

Edit: Crap. Hit wrong button. This is pointed at Elowiny, of course.

It was a simulation....so it's excluded ! If you do a real attempt which succeed, I will count your cubes.

[juzeris]

Well, well, well... After an appropriate amount of beers, some smart soul (all clues point to Gus Kerman) figured maybe it would be possible to solve the problem itself, instead of fixing the results. Cracking out his wheelbarrow of social engineering, krakenology and some python oil, he quickly implemented a circular approval process for a launch, changed all the signs pointed to the runway to instead point to VAB roof, de-orbited a GPS bucket and did some other black ops stuff, ending up with two pallets of beer cases balances precariously right over VAB roof.

After some premature celebrations of another successful delivery of ONE THOUSAND beer cases, well, things started happening. Careful with the python oil Kerbs.

So I don't know how to present this. It's not cheating according to any of the usual definitions of cheating, but it's still cheating. I'm not using mods, I'm not using the debug menu, I'm not even changing part data, just building a craft, and launching it, but, well. 1000 cases in 2 seconds.

Here's the craft file if you wanna try it out, it will probably crash if launching from the spacecraft hangar, but launching straight from the runway menu seems to work. 1000+ part alert.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Also, in case you're curious how that python oil works, I'm releasing the recipe, free for non-commercial applications:

offset=(500,102,1065)
craft=open(name,'r')
moved=open("Moved "+name,'w')
for line in craft:
if line[:6]==" pos =":
pos=line[7:-1].split(',')
newpos=[str(float(pos[i])+offset[i]) for i in range(3)]
moved.write(" pos ="+",".join(newpos)+"\n")
else:
moved.write(line)
craft.close()
moved.close()

name="Top secret launch project.craft"

[MarvinKitFox]

... quickly implemented a circular approval process for a launch, changed all the signs pointed to the runway to instead point to VAB roof

This is an awesome, innovative approach to the problem, but why bother with all that manual editing when you could just use a pre-fab tool like hyperedit?

If you plan on re-writing the fabric of the universe in any case, that is.

[juzeris]

This is an awesome, innovative approach to the problem, but why bother with all that manual editing when you could just use a pre-fab tool like hyperedit?

If you plan on re-writing the fabric of the universe in any case, that is.

Mostly because I haven't seen that done before.