KSP Career Achievements Challenge

[ticalc2014]

[FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]For quite some time now, I've been thinking about a challenge similar to [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/118310-The-Great-Kerbal-Space-Race/page7"]TinyPirate's "The Great Kerbal Space Race"[/URL]. It was a lot of fun, seeing how quickly into a new career, one could land a Kerbal on the Mun and return, safely. Where it started to disappoint was in the lack of continuity between the tasks being assigned. Simply put, I felt it would have been better had the tasks been linked to one another in the same career, and in doing said tasks, I made a point to try to achieve them in my own career. With that being said, it will be my attempt, here, to build upon what TinyPirate started, and create a series of tasks that should be accomplished in a single career. If anyone has a good idea for the challenge name, feel free to propose it, as I have the creative capacity of a slug.

For the purposes of this challenge (or rather, series of challenges), you should begin a new career. I opted to do a custom "Normal" career, so all rewards/penalties will be 100%, and simply disabled reverting, quicksaves, etc, and also set starting funds to 0. These settings should allow for significant progress in a short time-frame, while retaining the risk from higher difficulty careers. More expensive, less efficient crafts will still be affordable, allowing for early attempts at progressive missions in a timely manner, hopefully avoiding the senseless grind of reduced payouts. Now for some rules.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[IMG]http://i64.tinypic.com/df9c08.png[/IMG]

[B][U][SIZE=6]RULES:
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[B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]#1. [/SIZE][/FONT][/B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]No Debug Menu
[/SIZE][/FONT][B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]#2a.[/SIZE][/FONT][/B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3] No mixing of careers across challenges; if you start again, please update with all previous milestones[/SIZE][/FONT][B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]
#2b. [/SIZE][/FONT][/B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]While you may not mix results from multiple careers, I WOULD suggest creating a back-up save at each milestone (land on the Mun, 1st day progress, etc) whatever they may be. If things go south in the current challenge, reverting back to that backup will keep your previous results intact, while allowing you to try to improve your latest task.[/SIZE][/FONT][B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]
#3. [/SIZE][/FONT][/B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]No use of glitches/bugs/exploits/hyperedit. As with everything, this will rely on the honor system.[/SIZE][/FONT][B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]
#4. [/SIZE][/FONT][/B][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]No Mechjeb or the like; I will allow RemoteTech, KER, Kerbal Alarm Clock, and any appearance mods. Custom part mods may have their own category.[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]Aside from that, it is my hope that, should you decide to join in, it will be fun, competing with others, trying to push your early game skills to the limit. Everyone will, of course, have their own strategy and that's what can make something like this fun. I will update the challenges as often as possible, and will try to devise a fair scoring system, throughout.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[U][B][SIZE=6]Challenges:

[/SIZE][/B][/U][SIZE=5][FONT=verdana][B]Challenge #1:[/B] Achieve Orbit around Kerbin, and return safely to surface, as early as possible.[/FONT]
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Description: Whether you decide to go manned, or unmanned, you are tasked with bringing a vessel into orbit around Kerbin, and returning to the surface, as early on in the career as possible. Please provide screenshots: in the VAB, at the launchpad, in atmosphere, in orbit, during reentry, and safely landed, all with "UT" timestamps, where applicable. Also, immediately after your safe return (and recovery), please provide a screenshot of your current tech tree.

[/FONT][/SIZE][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]Scoring: Rather straightforward for a task like this. Points will be lost for each second (T) elapsed, each tech tree node (N) unlocked, and awarded for each Kerbal (K) on board. The scoring model will be scaled to a 0-100 range, and be calculated as follows: Points = [/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE][FONT=verdana][SIZE=3]80 / (1 + 0.0008T)+12K / (1 + K) + 8 / (1 + 0.2N)

I know this is a lot for such a simple challenge, but it shouldn't take too much time, will get you started in the right direction for other tasks down the road that may be time sensitive, and is simply being used as a "qualifier" of sorts. I will be posting another, more progressive challenge, shortly.[/SIZE][/FONT]

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[U][B][SIZE=5][FONT=arial]Challenge #1 Leaderboard
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