DonLorenzo's Forum Campaign: To space, the moon and beyond

[DonLorenzo]

Thanks for all your submissions, I\'m working this weekend (), I hope to have the turn update and new turn ready tomorrow morning!

Cheers

[robsr3v3ng3]

hmm am I the only one or is maybe the two turns per week starting to seem a bit unrealistic.

Obviously this is not a gripe aimed at you don, you\'re doing a great job of processing the turns as soon as you can, but because of real world things going on in everybody\'s lives and the fact that a two turn per week schedule doesn\'t really take in to account time to process each turn the situation of finishing the weekdays turn (which doesn\'t really start until tuesday) on friday, and then the new turn not coming out until sunday morning, which then has to be finished by sunday night is starting become a bit more regular.

It might be worth us all looking again at a turn timing system which allows a number of days the players need to build their rockets etc, and then allow at least an entire day for don to do his bit. I\'d like to change my suggestion from the two turn per week idea towards maybe a three turn per two week idea. That should allow roughly four days for the players to make rockets and just less than one day on average for don to carry out turns and plan the next turns missions etc.

What are people\'s thoughts on this, or am I just a bit of a moron who is making up an issue that isn\'t really there?

[DonLorenzo]

I try to run people\'s submissions when they come in, to be able to do the turn as quickly as possible. This time around most players submitted close to the deadline, which made it hard for me to finish the turn today. Also work schedule doesn\'t help (just back from it now, totally dead. Will finish up tomorrow morning though).

What I do as far as \'planning\' goes is just take a three day minimum turn duration and slap the next deadline in a spot where I have at least a bit of time and that \'makes sense\' to you guys. It\'s not much more defined than that. I think it\'s been working OK, I don\'t mind the irregularity. We can have a more rigid schedule, but it\'s going to have to be fairly slow and incorporate set \'processing time\'. As I said the fairly unpredictable and irregular schedule hasn\'t been bothering me, but if you guys prefer things more rigid and defined (and there are perfectly valid reasons as to why that\'d be nicer) we can do that too. It will probably end up like a week long turn with 1-2 days of dedicated processing time for me. It\'s bound to take a little longer now with the missions becoming longer and the amount of players growing (both good things!)

Cheers, and more importantly, good night.

[robsr3v3ng3]

ah ok no worries then if you are happy with it as is. I was just thinking in terms or a rigid time structure it is starting to unravel a bit. But if you\'re going to make each turn fairly equal in length then it should be fine.

[DonLorenzo]

Here\'s the turn 10 update.

Again many different missions were flown, the highlights were the succesfull launch of both a probe and a kubble space telescope. These instruments of science will surely raise many new questions, which will lead to a slew of new missions next turn. Before moving on to the turn 11 announcements, the turn 10 financial overview (in a slightly different order this time, for no good reason):

Issarlk

Turn start balance: $23210

Mission flown: Complete full kerbin orbit

Expenses

Technology: $10000

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $13650

Community pool contribution: $1000

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $24650

Income

Mission Salvage: $1250

Mission Reward: $25000

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $27750

End of turn balance: $26310

Robsr3v3ng3

Turn start balance: $27650

Mission flown: Reach 80km altitude

Expenses

Technology: $11250

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $11000

Community pool contribution: $0

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $24250

Income

Mission Salvage: $3750

Mission Reward: $13000

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $23250

End of turn balance: $26650

Fireblade

Turn start balance: $33095

Mission flown: Launch a Probe to Kerbol orbit

Expenses

Technology: $1350

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $32500

Community pool contribution: $0

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $33850

Income

Mission Salvage: $2595

Mission Reward: $48000

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $52095

End of turn balance: $51340

Bellaby

Turn start balance: $24690

Mission flown: Complete one full kerbin orbit

Expenses

Technology: $11250

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $10050

Community pool contribution: $2000

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $23300

Income

Mission Salvage: $1575

Mission Reward: $25000

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $28075

End of turn balance: $29465

Awaras

Turn start balance: $54382

Mission flown: Complete one full kerbin orbit

Expenses

Technology: $15000

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $15350

Community pool contribution: $5000

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $37350

Income

Mission Salvage: $6432

Mission Reward: $25000

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $32932

End of turn balance: $49964

Matticus88

Turn start balance: $9000

Mission flown: none

Expenses

Technology: $0

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $0

Community pool contribution: $0

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $0

Income

Mission Salvage: $0

Mission Reward: $0

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $1500

End of turn balance: $10500

Fermun

Turn start balance: $22150

Mission flown: Establish stable orbit

Expenses

Technology: $6000

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $15800

Community pool contribution: $0

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $21800

Income

Mission Salvage: $0

Mission Reward: $20000

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $21500

End of turn balance: $21850

Db101

Turn start balance: $26738

Mission flown: Deploy Kubble to 100x100km

Expenses

Technology: $2400

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $25400

Community pool contribution: $0

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $27800

Income

Mission Salvage: $6450

Mission Reward: $40500

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $48450

End of turn balance: $47388

Excalibur

Turn start balance: $9000

Mission flown: none

Expenses

Technology: $800

Personal Launch: $0

Mission craft cost: $0

Community pool contribution: $0

Contract entry: $0

Penalties: $0

Total: $800

Income

Mission Salvage: $0

Mission Reward: $0

Contract Reward: $0

Community Pool withdrawal: $0

Fundraiser: $1500

Total: $1500

End of turn balance: $9700

Community Pool

Starting Balance: $19250

Deposits: $8000

Withdrawals: $0

Balance before interest: $27250

+10% Interest: $2725

Final Balance: $29975

Turn 11 Announcements:

-Remote Tech I has had its price reduced by 10% to just $9000

-Liquid Tech II has had its price reduced by a further 10% to just $10000

-The next turn (12), will have new missions and possibly a tweaking of the current reward structure.

-A meta contract: propose a contract for next turn, it should have some interesting variables and be in the scope of the current state of the game (ie. no \'land on the mun twice, then circle minmus and return). I can\'t think of a nice one at the moment. No need to fill in the entry/rewards, I\'ll take care of that. The one I like the most will get to participate in it for free next turn.

Deadline: Thursday 12-07-2012 (23:59 GMT+2).

Will update OP now with new tech prices and mission rewards

[DonLorenzo]

Well I hope no one was looking while I posted that I needed about a million edits to get it right

[Matticus88]

Ninja edits

Thanks for letting me sneak in last minute!

[Excalibur]

I was a bit last minute as well - I\'ll try to give you a bit more time this turn! Glad to be aboard too.

Also idea for a meta-contract. How about having to deliver a Zo2 Main System to KSC 2?

[robsr3v3ng3]

Idea for the contract (inspired by the other submission)

Scenario, the lovely folks who do all the fundraising and financing need to inspect the second KSC site, and so they\'ve asked us to build a craft which can get them to KSC 2. These chaps are pretty wealthy though, and so they like to travel in something with all bells and whistles, as well as refrigerated champagne. To suit their 'needs' they have their own comfort ship which is what they want to rock up at the KSC2 runway in. (This craft would have to be made by Don, or some one else who is willing).

So the task at hand is to get their pimp mobile of a craft to the KSC2 runway from the KSC1 runway (or maybe launch pad).

The biggest bonuses could be given to those who waste as little 'company money' on getting them there, e.g. who uses least fuel and who uses least engines. And maybe smaller side bonuses for those who get there in as little mission time as possible.

[robsr3v3ng3]

Don I have some serious concerns about you arithmetical abilities.

For my costings/available funds bit for the end of the latest turn you said I spent $11,000 on my craft and $11,250 on tech (that is correct as far as I know) but what isn\'t correct is how they add up to equal $24,250 and not $22,250 :S.

And also you\'re $5,000 over on how much I earned. My income was, $1,500 from fundraising, $3,750 from salvage and $13,000 from the mission objective, which should come to $18,250 not $23,250.

I should therefore be starting this turn with $23,650 not $26,650.

You might want to check some of the others for errors.

[DonLorenzo]

I\'m doing it in the most horrendously inefficient way, copying things from emails into excel and then back into a forum post by hand. does anyone know of a program or somethign that does this better or at least semi automatically? ill have a look at your data when im off work, but this does seem to happen fairly often...

[issarlk]

My numbers are correct.

If you use excel, could you give us one of the sheets you use? I use excel on my side so it would be simple to just send you a small xls by email.

[db101]

I can\'t say how to best ease the email -> excel import, but I\'ve been thinking about sending a data screenshot of my craft along with my turn -- it might help the cost of parts breakdown for you:

If you want. (edit: or my .xls file like issarlk suggests)

If you\'re exporting a good chunk of excel data to the forum, here\'s how I\'d try. Particularly if the form you use has a full page of excel data filled with turn info:

Save a copy of the page with the data you want as a space-delimited text file, which will generate a .prn file (heh. porn.)

And you can open that with notepad or whatever to look something like this.

Then to copy that here easily just select all (or whatever part you want) and wrap in [tt] the teletype tags [/tt] like this:

---

[tt]Part Mass Price Salvage Amount Mass Cost RecoveredSalvage

Core

ZO2 Main 1.2 $1,000 65% 1 1.2 $1,000 1 $650

Command Module 1 $2,000 35% 1 1 $2,000 1 $700

Propulsion $0

LFE - large 2 $15,000 20% 0 0 $0 0 $0

LFE - gimballed / aerosp 2 $20,000 20% 0 0 $0 0 $0

LFE - small 0.5 $6,500 20% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Solid Rocket Booster 1.8 $500 65% 20 36 $10,000 20 $6,500

Fuel Tanks $0

Fuel Tank - small 1.25 $400 25% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Fuel Tank - large 2.5 $800 25% 0 0 $0 4 $800

RCS Tank 0.9 $400 25% 0 0 $0 0 $0

ZO2 - small tank (150) 0.35 $150 25% 0 0 $0 0 $0

ZO2 - large tank (800) 1.5 $750 25% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Structural $0

Radial Decoupler 0.4 $250 0% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Stack decoupler 0.8 $250 0% 1 0.8 $250 1 $0

Strut 0.05 $50 15% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Tricoupler 0.8 $500 25% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Utility & Control $0

Parachute 0.3 $750 15% 3 0.9 $2,250 3 $338

Winglet - AV-T1 0.05 $150 15% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Winglet AV-R8 0.08 $250 15% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Fuel line 0.05 $100 15% 0 0 $0 0 $0

RCS Thruster block 0.05 $100 35% 0 0 $0 0 $0

ZO2 - Solar Panel 0.1 $3,000 50% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Landing Strut 0.1 $200 25% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Robotic $0

Unmanned Pod 1 $4,500 70% 0 0 $0 0 $0

PowerSat 1.2 $2,500 15% 0 0 $0 0 $0

Total cost $15,500 Recovery $8,988

Mass at lift 39.9[/tt]

---

<3 preformatted text!

Might be worth a try if you\'re copying a lot of data over to the forum.

[robsr3v3ng3]

Or you could set up an excel sheet for each player which has a list of parts and some inputs at the top for starting cash etc etc.

Then you have a list of researched techs and a box next to them, when a player has researched it just put a y in next to it and that updates the prices/salvage.

When you receive a turn submission all you would need to do is find that players excel sheet, put in the quantities of parts they use and their researched tech and funds available. Then choose a mission reward and that will then tell you how much they\'ll earn. Then figure out how much they get from the salvage of the dropped off parts and you\'re sorted.

The excel sheet I use when I make my craft has a separate section for salvage, so I type in how many of each part are in each jettisoned stage and it tells me how much it weighs and therefore if I will earn the salvage on it.

[DonLorenzo]

Yeah, i use something very much like that rob. I think it\'s just down to me really. I\'ve been fairly stressed out lately and been doing the turns at night just before going to bed. Hope it\'ll pass and you guys can trust my maths again soon

[Matticus88]

well you got all my maths right so far... not that thats difficult lol 9000 + 1500 = 10500

[Bellaby]

time to add more errors ^^

i added 2000 to the pool which you missed, so I\'m actually 2k poorer than depicted.

[DonLorenzo]

About that bellaby, you didnt say so in your e-mail, so I didn\'t put it in. Now if I\'ve overlooked that it\'s a different matter Oh well last night shift for the week coming up, will do some brushing up after that!

[db101]

I\'ve been testing out some several-turns-down-the-road missions, and a launch timing issue came up. Do you allow us to dictate (roughly) when our launch occurs? Namely, I was playing around with the zoxy panels and needed a morning launch so the air would remain clean as the crew entered space.

[Awaras]

I\'ve been testing out some several-turns-down-the-road missions, and a launch timing issue came up. Do you allow us to dictate (roughly) when our launch occurs? Namely, I was playing around with the zoxy panels and needed a morning launch so the air would remain clean as the crew entered space.

Lord knows that I have sent some extremely specific flight instructions (sometimes down to specific MET seconds) and he has always been forthcoming and patient with it all...

[Bellaby]

apologies Don, thought i had :-[

edit: I\'ll just take the pool and my personal budget as what you have depicted to avoid confusion, and I\'ll make sure to add that to my email next time

[DonLorenzo]

That\'s ok. You can just put in more next turn! I have some free time today so I\'ll look over everything, correct any mistakes and prepare the next turn for you guys. Thanks for being civil about it and bearing with me!

Also, launch timing is perfectly fine, however try to make it somewhat easy for me. \'Wait untill the sun rises/sets\' etc. is fine, \'wait until minmus, mun and kerbol are in a three-phase 37 degree 0 precession position\' isn\'t. Yes I made that up I have no idea if those astro words even go together

[DonLorenzo]

Also, a few pages back in this thread I mentioned that the kubble mission will incrementally get harder (the 2nd one needs to go in 200x200km orbit, the 3rd in 400x400, 4th in 800x800 and so on). I haven\'t looked in detail yet but I think I\'ve got some second submissions for the 100x100 mission. I\'ll allow that this turn (since the info is quite buried), but pay out a lower amount. Next turn this information will be updated in the OP as well. Just saying. Cheers

[db101]

I thought the orbit ladder was personal -- I was the only one to put up a kubble last turn, and got the 10k first bonus. Doesn\'t that mean others can still do the 100x100 orbit for the full 33k, but as I already have one up there, I need to put one in a 200x200 (which is the plan this turn). And etc.

Aha I\'ve got it -- awaras put up a kubble this turn too? And if issarik launched one, the sky is getting crowded with prying eyes!

(Don\'t mind me, just enjoying the launching of actual payloads more than passing altitudes.)

Now for an uncalled-for suggestion: I\'m not fond of the doubling in altitude each time -- perhaps if it were linear (100, 200, 300, 400, 500... or 100, 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000...). Maybe a Fibonacci sequence (100, 200, 300, 500, 800, 1300, 2100, 3400, etc). I\'m rather fond of that one, and thought I\'d suggest it sooner than later in case anyone has some input. The Fib is a gentler exponential that will still make each new launch a serious decision, but doesn\'t have as hard a cutoff as a strict doubling of altitude each time. (edit2: prime numbers are pretty nice too, and 'harder' than linear. (100, 200, 300, 500, 700, 1100, ...) Just a thought.)

edit: Thanks for the launch time clarification. I was just thinking along the lines of 'sunrise' or whatever. Since Kerbals haven\'t invented clocks. (Just stopwatches for elapsed time per mission)

[DonLorenzo]

Yeah the ladder is personal, I was just concerned that info got snowed under. I\'m gonna stick with the doubling, it means there will be less feasible kubble missions, but there will be more new missions soon anyway so that should be OK. Also the dV required to double the orbits becomes less and less so it\'s actually not that steep an increase. I do like the fibonacci sequence, I\'ll keep that one in mind for future stuff that might need it.