Boonta Eve Classic - A Star Wars Podracer Challenge

[borbalf]

Very nice JAFO! I'm also testing a 4-nacelles pod, but with 2 turbojets each but as of now it's kinda useless, he goes where he pleases and not where i'm heading it how do you manage steering? just airbrakes, gimball and vernor enginges?

did you try the race track yet?

[JAFO]

Thanks!

how do you manage steering? just airbrakes, gimball and vernor enginges?

Yep.. that's all. A light touch on the controls helps, too.. basically, encourage it to go where you want, rather than force it. Get too heavy-handed with it, and you just end up going sideways, or even backwards. How well that will work on the track remains to be seen.

One tip.. I found that past a certain point, the inner-mounted airbrakes actually counteracted my steering input, so it just would not turn any further in that direction. I had to disable them for all control purposes except braking.

did you try the race track yet?

Nope. I want to see what I can do, if anything, to improve the control a bit more. Track testing will probably start in the next few days.

Edited August 12, 2015 by JAFO

[borbalf]

Thanks!

Yep.. that's all. A light touch on the controls helps, too.. basically, encourage it to go where you want, rather than force it. Get too heavy-handed with it, and you just end up going sideways, or even backwards. How well that will work on the track remains to be seen.

One tip.. I found that past a certain point, the inner-mounted airbrakes actually counteracted my steering input, so it just would not turn any further in that direction. I had to disable them for all control purposes except braking.

Nope. I want to see what I can do, if anything, to improve the control a bit more. Track testing will probably start in the next few days.

you could try adding a "tail" to each nacelle, with some elevons like i did here:

the jet exhaust passes between vertical elevons, and having them so far back gives you even more control! Some small reaction wheels will make control your podracer even easier

Edited August 13, 2015 by borbalf

[JAFO]

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind.

[Soda Popinski]

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind.

One thing you need to watch out for with a tail, is it can make keeping attitude after yawing difficult. Say after you turn left or right, you tend to "drift" laterally for a while. While a tail is great to get that initial yaw, it will put torque on the nacelles forcing them back towards the original trajectory.

To counter-act this, I suggest placing a vertical stabilizer forward of the CoM of the nacelle. This will give a balancing force when drifting, but shouldn't effect the yawing, though you can place a canard there with yaw active if you want greater yaw authority. Of course this will add to the drag somewhat.

[Soda Popinski]

Reading the Kerbal Foundries thread, I found a suggestion to increase stability was to decrease the Strength Tweak for the repulsors. That seemed to help in my case, or I'm just learning to fly my new Podracer a bit better. There was also a suggestion to lower the damping for heavy craft (yet keeping it high for fast craft). So I'm not sure where a heavy fast craft fits.

Anyways, here's my latest attempt with my latest Podracer, the Boonta Ootman Specific Stabilized Normally Aspirated Super Sonic, or BOSS NASS. Best part is at the end.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Soda Popinski

[borbalf]

Reading the Kerbal Foundries thread, I found a suggestion to increase stability was to decrease the Strength Tweak for the repulsors. That seemed to help in my case, or I'm just learning to fly my new Podracer a bit better. There was also a suggestion to lower the damping for heavy craft (yet keeping it high for fast craft). So I'm not sure where a heavy fast craft fits.

Anyways, here's my latest attempt with my latest Podracer, the Boonta Ootman Specific Stabilized Normally Aerated Super Sonic, or BOSS NASS.

http://youtu.be/ngfloE0GZgI

Not bad, i've got to try reducing repulsors' strength!

Can i build a new podracer and try again?

[Soda Popinski]

Not bad, i've got to try reducing repulsors' strength!

Can i build a new podracer and try again?

Go for it!

[JAFO]

Anyways, here's my latest attempt with my latest Podracer, the Boonta Ootman Specific Stabilized Normally Aerated Super Sonic, or BOSS NASS. Best part is at the end.

Hmm.. some interesting techniques, you have there.. ponder on them, I shall.

[digitalpsychosis]

Well this looks like fun...

[Soda Popinski]

Well this looks like fun...

Do, or do not. There is no fun.

Try, I meant there is no try.

[Soda Popinski]

I finally finished a race without crashing once! First time, took me 7:01, but second time, I got a bit of an improvement. Here's the video. Behold, the B.O.S.S. N.A.S.S. mk IX.

Edit: Original video had titles messed up. Uploaded the corrected version.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Soda Popinski

[JAFO]

First time, took me 7:01, but second time, I got a bit of an improvement.

5:53*! Congratulations!

I suspect you could probably manage to get a little quicker time, too. You finished the run with 55 units of monoprop un-used, and 841 units of oxidiser remaining. Get rid of all that excess mass (say, remove 40 monoprop and 800 ox), maybe add a touch more liquid fuel somewhere, and who knows how much time you could shave off.

* Sorry mate, but 17:47 - 11:54 = 5:53, not 5:47

So, that would be 5:23 with the open cockpit bonus.

Incidentally, (not complaining, mind you) does that bonus actually represent anything? Is the difference in drag really that much, or is the bonus for the koolness factor?

Edited August 24, 2015 by JAFO

[borbalf]

5:53*! Congratulations!

I suspect you could probably manage to get a little quicker time, too. You finished the run with 55 units of monoprop un-used, and 841 units of oxidiser remaining. Get rid of all that excess mass (say, remove 40 monoprop and 800 ox), maybe add a touch more liquid fuel somewhere, and who knows how much time you could shave off.

* Sorry mate, but 17:47 - 11:54 = 5:53, not 5:47

So, that would be 5:23 with the open cockpit bonus.

Incidentally, (not complaining, mind you) does that bonus actually represent anything? Is the difference in drag really that much, or is the bonus for the koolness factor?

I think the extra drag is not that much, but using a command chair adds another problem while driving: during landings after jumps, even if the pod survives, the pilot might be knocked out of the pod (usually with bad results for the poor kerbal )... and command chairs are cool!

[Soda Popinski]

* Sorry mate, but 17:47 - 11:54 = 5:53, not 5:47

So, that would be 5:23 with the open cockpit bonus.

Incidentally, (not complaining, mind you) does that bonus actually represent anything? Is the difference in drag really that much, or is the bonus for the koolness factor?

D'oh! I did the math by converting everything to seconds first, and somehow mixed things up.

For the open air cockpit, coolness factor, and the fact that Podracers in Starwars were all open air. I just wanted to give some options to not go that way, but still encourage open air. Also, as bobarf mentioned, your pilot can be thrown off after a landing, or often in my case, after the cockpit flips over and the pilot essentially lithobrakes, yanking him or her out of the chair. I eventually placed horizontal stabilizers to reduce said flipping (with control surfaces off, otherwise it was less stable).

I know I could probably do better. Maybe I'll try it again later, but I need to go do something else for a bit.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Soda Popinski

[Deutherius]

This is a great challenge! I have tried to make a pod racer back in 0.24, but failed miserably (or perhaps spectacularly? There were explosions. Lots of them). This got me inspired, and so I stuck together a few parts in 15 minutes, then spend at least 3 hours trying to balance the damn thing and after 200 reverts I finally came up with this design. It is mostly stolen inspired by others, but I made it work fully stock, without repulsors or KAS cables. The result flies horribly, looks meh, has crappy range, consists of way too many parts (those damn decoupler cables), cannot break mach 1 at sea level despite having over 4.2 TWR, is extremely dangerous, and way too much fun to fly.

Obviously won't be participating in the challenge (doesn't use required parts, breaks starting speed and flies rather than hovers), but I felt like bumping this thread and giving kudos to those who build the real things, because they are awesome.

Without futher ado, I give you my horrible creation - the Hunk'o'junk

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And I have one (two) question(s) to the master builders - the airbrakes at the front, Anakin's pod racer kinda style, have inverted controls. I try yawing left, the airbrakes on the right engine deploy and drag me to the right. Same with pitch control. So I disabled them for control and only used them for braking, which was mostly unneccesary. I also had one airbrake on the bottom, but it kept adding itself into the brake action group despite me taking it out multiple times, which caused it to get crushed by the ground at landing. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[JAFO]

I give you my horrible creation - the Hunk'o'junk

I dunno about "horrible".. I quite like it.. the pod has something of a Brewster Buffalo look to it.. nice one!

And I have one (two) question(s) to the master builders - the airbrakes at the front, Anakin's pod racer kinda style, have inverted controls. I try yawing left, the airbrakes on the right engine deploy and drag me to the right. Same with pitch control. So I disabled them for control and only used them for braking, which was mostly unneccesary.

I too, have been unable to properly use airbrakes fitted like that. An 'invert' option, like some of the other control surfaces have, would be nice to have during building.

Edited August 27, 2015 by JAFO

[Soda Popinski]

Without futher ado, I give you my horrible creation - the Hunk'o'junk

http://imgur.com/a/DSsai

And I have one (two) question(s) to the master builders - the airbrakes at the front, Anakin's pod racer kinda style, have inverted controls. I try yawing left, the airbrakes on the right engine deploy and drag me to the right. Same with pitch control. So I disabled them for control and only used them for braking, which was mostly unneccesary. I also had one airbrake on the bottom, but it kept adding itself into the brake action group despite me taking it out multiple times, which caused it to get crushed by the ground at landing. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Looks great to me! Impressive use of stock parts to get the "cables" working.

I'd suggest making a "Turn Left" and "Turn Right" action group to activate those specific brakes. You won't get a proportional response like you would with normal yawing controls (assuming joystick / analog controls). I've got something similar set up for engine cut-offs for rapid yawing.

[Deutherius]

I dunno about "horrible".. I quite like it.. the pod has something of a Brewster Buffalo look to it.. nice one!

Thanks! I meant "horrible" as in "will probably kill anyone trying to operate it" It does have an abort system with parachutes and dramatic engine detachment, but it's usually flown too close to the ground to matter

Looks great to me! Impressive use of stock parts to get the "cables" working.

I'd suggest making a "Turn Left" and "Turn Right" action group to activate those specific brakes. You won't get a proportional response like you would with normal yawing controls (assuming joystick / analog controls). I've got something similar set up for engine cut-offs for rapid yawing.

...that is such a simple and brilliant solution. No idea how I managed to miss it! Thank you very much!

[borbalf]

I'm having some problems with repulsors again...

since last mod update, as soon as i stage the pylons some random repulsors wil shut off saying "Low charge" and obviously my pod crashed to the ground... do you know what might cause this? I have more than 2 generator per repulsor, each engine nacelle has its own batteries and generators, and the resource panel always shows lot of EC stored... even strager is that after a repulsor shut down, I can sometimes set its height to 100 again (it goes to 0) and when I press "Apply" it revives for a few seconds before dying again

[Soda Popinski]

I'm having some problems with repulsors again...

since last mod update, as soon as i stage the pylons some random repulsors wil shut off saying "Low charge" and obviously my pod crashed to the ground... do you know what might cause this? I have more than 2 generator per repulsor, each engine nacelle has its own batteries and generators, and the resource panel always shows lot of EC stored... even strager is that after a repulsor shut down, I can sometimes set its height to 100 again (it goes to 0) and when I press "Apply" it revives for a few seconds before dying again

I'd double check your action groups. Staging is an available action too. There might be one in there. Also ask on the Foundries thread.

[Soda Popinski]

Here's the first build / crashing video of the Podracer I started specific for this challenge.

[LtWhiskers]

This is incredibly entertaining. I used to love the podracer game for pc but this...this is so much better.

[Soda Popinski]

This is incredibly entertaining. I used to love the podracer game for pc but this...this is so much better.

Feel free to download my Craft file on the 2nd post in the thread and take her for a spin!

[JAFO]

Feel free to download my Craft file on the 2nd post in the thread and take her for a spin!

Likewise for my Quadrinator, if you're up for it.

Edited August 31, 2015 by JAFO