Sundiver : How low can you go?

[John FX]

This challenge is about engineering your craft to withstand the heat that comes from getting into a low solar orbit.

There are not many rules,

no changing physics, no hyperedit.

stock, unchanged parts only with a maximum heat of 2399 or lower

no debug menu with one exception if you like you can use infinite fuel.

no heatshields

You can use any info aids or flying aids you like, for example KER or Mechjeb.

Your score is your Apoapsis. The lower the better.

Please show an image of your craft showing the Ap and a negative flux on your sun side parts.

'The Spirit of the Rules'

get the closest stable orbit to the sun as your craft can stand and stay there until your temperature equalises to prove your craft can stay there pretty much forever. Use any stock parts you like up to a max heat of 2399. Your ship must be capable of getting to its final orbit although with no fuel restrictions..

BUG ALERT : DO NOT HAVE THERMOMETERS SHOWING, IT CAUSES A CATASTROPHIC MEMORY LEAK, PRESS F10 TO TURN THEM OFF

1, John FX 169,086,044

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Here is my entry

Edited May 6, 2015 by John FX
added 2399 max heat

[Serassa]

So you prefer the "how many wings can you stack" challenge instead?

[John FX]

So you prefer the "how many wings can you stack" challenge instead?

How about you give it a go?

more fun than snark...

[Serassa]

How about you give it a go?

more fun than snark...

The game does not simulate heat radiation from other parts, so all you need to do is stack as many parts as your computer can handle and hide them all in the shade.

[John FX]

I think you won't find it so easy without hyperedit, which is against the rules so your entry is invalid.

Have a proper go. Launch a rocket and get into an orbit around the Sun. Your will find that once you are closer than 200Mm your engine will explode very easily, whatever you are controlling your attitude with will either run out or explode, tilting too much will make you explode.

[Serassa]

I think you won't find it so easy without hyperedit, which is against the rules so your entry is invalid.

Have a proper go. Launch a rocket and get into an orbit around the Sun. Your will find that once you are closer than 200Mm your engine will explode very easily, whatever you are controlling your attitude with will either run out or explode, tilting too much will make you explode.

what makes you think that I need to tilt?

[John FX]

I will enjoy seeing your solution. You do plan on having a proper go, don't you?

[smjjames]

BUG ALERT : DO NOT HAVE THERMOMETERS SHOWING, IT CAUSES A CATASTROPHIC MEMORY LEAK, PRESS F10 TO TURN THEM OFF

Oh THATS what the memory leak is coming from, thanks.

[Serassa]

I will enjoy seeing your solution. You do plan on having a proper go, don't you?

I do have a solution, but I couldn't do a proper launch because it causes some kind of a bug that makes shielding completely useless, every part single part on my ship start to receive solar heat as if unobstructed.

[John FX]

I do have a solution, but I couldn't do a proper launch because it causes some kind of a bug that makes shielding completely useless, every part single part on my ship start to receive solar heat as if unobstructed.

I would report that as a bug. Is it reproducible in a stock game?

The first thing I did when I got a memory leak during testing was repeat in stock and when I got the same issue I went to report the bug but found it was already known.

How close to the sun were you when you experienced the bug?

/Part of my desire to run this challenge was to explore edge cases in the heating model and hopefully find some bugs to improve the game.

EDIT :

Heating

A new heating simulation has been implemented together with the improved aerodynamics. Now, not only temperature but also energy flux is considered when making heat calculations, meaning radiative, conductive, and convective heating and cooling are all simulated and all parts have their individual thermal properties. Parts will emit a blackbody radiation glow if they get hot enough.

Are you sure your parts are not heating up due to other parts heating up and radiating heat to them?

Edited May 4, 2015 by John FX

[Astrofox]

This Challenge seems fun, I might just give it a go. It is crazy, but it just might work...

Anyway, I'll try to have fun with this challenge later on today.

[John FX]

This Challenge seems fun, I might just give it a go. It is crazy, but it just might work...

Anyway, I'll try to have fun with this challenge later on today.

The easy bit is that you can just put whatever you want on top of a fuel tank and a KR-2L, turn on infinite fuel and launch slowly straight up to avoid aero effects. Then burn solar retrograde to get the Pe you want around the Sun.

The hard bit is, once you get closer than about 200Mm to the sun your KR-2L may well just explode when you turn it on...

Really looking forward to seeing peoples solutions.

[Serassa]

I would report that as a bug. Is it reproducible in a stock game?

The first thing I did when I got a memory leak during testing was repeat in stock and when I got the same issue I went to report the bug but found it was already known.

How close to the sun were you when you experienced the bug?

/Part of my desire to run this challenge was to explore edge cases in the heating model and hopefully find some bugs to improve the game.

EDIT :

Heating

A new heating simulation has been implemented together with the improved aerodynamics. Now, not only temperature but also energy flux is considered when making heat calculations, meaning radiative, conductive, and convective heating and cooling are all simulated and all parts have their individual thermal properties. Parts will emit a blackbody radiation glow if they get hot enough.

Are you sure your parts are not heating up due to other parts heating up and radiating heat to them?

I know it's not my own parts becausethe same design works if I just hypeedit it into orbit, everything is properly shielded. But if I to launch it with lots of time warping at some point it stops working. Probably has to do with quick loading. Maybe you have to do this in one go, no loading allowed.

[John FX]

I know it's not my own parts becausethe same design works if I just hypeedit it into orbit, everything is properly shielded. But if I to launch it with lots of time warping at some point it stops working. Probably has to do with quick loading. Maybe you have to do this in one go, no loading allowed.

timewarping about level 4 equalises the temperature within your craft and can make some parts explode through overheating.

Once you are closer than a certain distance to the sun you have to go slow. It's part of what makes this a challenge...

[Serassa]

I would report that as a bug. Is it reproducible in a stock game?

The first thing I did when I got a memory leak during testing was repeat in stock and when I got the same issue I went to report the bug but found it was already known.

How close to the sun were you when you experienced the bug?

/Part of my desire to run this challenge was to explore edge cases in the heating model and hopefully find some bugs to improve the game.

EDIT :

Heating

A new heating simulation has been implemented together with the improved aerodynamics. Now, not only temperature but also energy flux is considered when making heat calculations, meaning radiative, conductive, and convective heating and cooling are all simulated and all parts have their individual thermal properties. Parts will emit a blackbody radiation glow if they get hot enough.

Are you sure your parts are not heating up due to other parts heating up and radiating heat to them?

timewarping about level 4 equalises the temperature within your craft and can make some parts explode through overheating.

Once you are closer than a certain distance to the sun you have to go slow. It's part of what makes this a challenge...

Like I said, it's not the temperature, it's my shielded parts also receiving radiation influx from the sun.

[John FX]

Like I said, it's not the temperature, it's my shielded parts also receiving radiation influx from the sun.

I suggest you start your own thread to discuss further the effect which you say is a bug. I've shown you that hot parts emit radiative flux, if you are getting flux it does not have to be just from the sun. This is a challenge, not a bug report thread.

Out of your first 9 posts, six have been in just this thread and you have not yet made an entry which qualifies. Maybe your next one should be to report a bug...

Make a note of these things and report it.

KSP version including Windows, Mac, or Linux, 32 or 64-bit, and if it's Steam

A detailed explanation of what happened and what you were trying to accomplish

A screenshot of your craft or any relevant screens

A .craft file or save files if relevant

The ouput_log.txt or player.log file KSP creates when it launches and, if applicable, the crash log KSP has generated when the program crashed

A detailed list of system specifications

The guide for reporting bugs is HERE

The link to post a bug report is HERE

Edited May 4, 2015 by John FX

[John FX]

Now that the thread has settled down I'd like to make another call for anyone who would like to have a go to submit any entries or even say they are interested.

I see this as a nice little engineering challenge to design craft that can withstand heat. Given we can draw heat away from parts with convection, radiation and conduction there should be many ways to make your stock non-heatshield parts efficient at dealing with heat.

While on the surface it seems simplistic, I'm sure some of you will find smart innovative ways to beat the heat.

[Serassa]

Yea the problem is loading. If I do this with one straight run there's no problem, but if I leave it in orbit, save and load that save, shielding fails and everything blows up.

This is one straight launch to 102Mm. It can go even lower, still 200 degrees headroom left. But with your crazy "see who has the most free time to wait while nothing happens" rule, I can't wait for it to go to the other side without time warp.

The screenshots are made this way intentionally so I people don't just start copying my designs as I'm the first entry.

[John FX]

Your entry is invalid (again)

I will not be accepting any more entries from you as I feel you will just use the debug menu or hyperedit your craft into place.

[Serassa]

Well guess what because this whole thing takes hours to complete if something goes wrong I can't even load and I have to redo everything. If you're wondering why nobody is entering your challenge maybe that's why.

Your challenge is not about dealing with the heat, which could have been a bit interesting. It's about dealing with the no loading bug and grinding hours of time just to start the challenge.

Those debug options are necessary just to make some time warps possible, I can't wait for 5 hours in real time like you can. As long as I show that the design can withstand the heat I consider it valid.

If you think your challenge is about patience and not engineering, go ahead and disqualify me, see if anyone else bothers to waste their time like you did.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Serassa

[Vanamonde]

Play the challenge or don't. If there's a bug that's preventing you from doing so, the challenge-maker here can't fix it, so please take it to the support subforum instead.

And now, on with the game!

[Bilfr3d]

Is there any limits on the type of craft we create? I see that you allow infinite fuel, and I have a few designs that will take advantage of that to try and get as low as possible to the sun. Just wondering, before I actually make an entry

[John FX]

Is there any limits on the type of craft we create? I see that you allow infinite fuel, and I have a few designs that will take advantage of that to try and get as low as possible to the sun. Just wondering, before I actually make an entry

No, not really. I wanted this to be a challenge where we try out engineering ideas to withstand heat, part of me is interested in seeing if any designs could withstand a tough re-entry so I'd be interested if people would consider posting their craft so we could all learn although it's not mandatory. It's about being innovative and getting rid of as much heat as you can with just enough structure to make it a challenge. Somehow I can see that knowledge being important now the game has changed. Maybe two categories, one allowing infinite fuel and one totally stock would be an idea. If anyone wants to try a non-infinite fuel entry I'd make another scoreboard for it.

Short answer is go for it. I'm interested in seeing how low people can go (remember it's your Ap that counts)

Also, if I have missed any parts that can stand heat over 2000 degrees let me know as that is the maximum that the challenge should allow.

Edited May 6, 2015 by John FX

[Bilfr3d]

some of the command pods can withstand 2400... I'm looking through the rest now

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The LV-N can withstand 2500

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the service bays can withstand 2600

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that's all I can find xD A lot of the fuel tanks have 2200 or 2300 though - the mk2 and mk3 aero ones

[John FX]

some of the command pods can withstand 2400... I'm looking through the rest now

- - - Updated - - -

The LV-N can withstand 2500

- - - Updated - - -

the service bays can withstand 2600

- - - Updated - - -

that's all I can find xD A lot of the fuel tanks have 2200 or 2300 though - the mk2 and mk3 aero ones

Ah. I see. When I did a quick look I saw 2000 as the maximum on the parts I looked at but I don't tend to use the MK 3 or service bays.

After a seconds thought I'd have to say all fuel tanks are OK and the NERVA should be although it makes a lot of heat and would not sheild much so how useful it would be I don't know. My idea was for it to be an unmanned probe so I should put that in the rules and the service pod seems a bit sturdy and can shield things a bit too well so I'd say no to them.

After another little think I think I should say 'you can use any parts up to a max heat of 2399' then to make it an even playing field and to keep it a challenge and the rules simple, does that sound OK?

If you have an amazing and unique design I could put in an 'unlimited' class where you could use any parts at all if you'd like. It would mean three scoreboards but that would be fine.