The "Duna Extended Research Program (DERP)"

[Death Engineering]

On 3/10/2016 at 9:38 PM, sdj64 said:

Relevant Mods: IFI life support, Planetary Base Systems, Fuel Tanks Plus, SpaceY, Kerbal Engineer.

KCT settings: 0.4, 0.4 in the VAB.

I've not come across that LS mod.. how does it compare with others (if you've used them)?  

This looks like an ambitious mission!   Good luck!

 

9 hours ago, The Space Core said:

If any mac users in this forum could help me out with getting all of the mods in place that would be great otherwise I'm keen to observe. 

Sorry you are having problems.. try posting any issues/questions in the mod(s)' thread and see what happens?

[NeilC]

TL;DR: This is a public service announcement. When building with KCT, do only one build per launch window and then recover and rebuild the individual payloads! It works out to less build time, because reasons! 

 

I'm really liking the build time aspect that KCT adds, and playing around to optimize it. However, the way it calculates build time from cost seems to be very strange. I was getting a bit frustrated when I started combining payloads I'd designed separately, because the times didn't come out how I expected. Then I watched an early showcase video by Magico13, where he mentioned that build time is related to the square root of cost, not any kind of linear function.

For example, my re-usable lifter is very simple - Delta-IV style design, with each booster being an orange tank and a skipper, plus parachutes. When I build this subassembly on its own, it takes 105 days. However, when I add it to one giant craft containing all my payloads, it only adds 36 days to the build time. Incidentally, the tiny hex strut I had to place first in order to add my subassembly took 2 days on its own, but only added 5 minutes to the build time of the finished craft.

This leads to some.... perverse incentives, shall we say? Namely, this monstrosity.

Build time 173d. Rollout 26d. Separate on the pad, recover the dangling payload, and fly the prime payload. Rebuilding the separated payload plus recovered lifter parts takes 28 days, then another 26d rollout. Total: 253d. That's in time for a 1,100dV transfer. 

Building this as 2 separate assemblies would take 151 days for the first launch + 81 days for the dangling payload + 2x26d rollout  = 284d. That's a 1400dV transfer.

Incidentally, I tried recovering the dangling payload as an entire craft using KCT, instead of the normal recover button. It took 26d to refurbish, and then 5 more to add on the lifter. So.... it's actually faster to break it all down and rebuild it from parts? I think maybe that system is not working as designed?

@magico13, are you still watching this thread? Any more tips on how to optimize builds for KCT? Or is this more of a balance issue than a valid strategy in your opinion?

 

 

Edited March 16, 2016 by NeilC

[Nich]

Yes I have never liked the fact that KCT punishes small builds.  It does kind of make up for it by giving double points for second and third VAB

[magico13]

@NeilC I think that's the most effort anyone has ever made trying to "cheat" the system. If you really want to cheat it, launch your rockets out of the SPH: there's no rollout time.

Recovering through the KCT menu takes time minimally equal to the rollout time (basically you're just rolling it back) and is mass based. Building the vessel is cost based. Which one is faster depends on the cost to mass ratio of the vessel. Personally, I prefer rebuilding from scratch as it's way less likely to bug out and break things.

Dual assembly lines might still be faster (and is the "legit" method). With that you build it in two parts, then scrap one (the cheaper one) and edit it onto the other. With 10 upgrades you could get one rate of 0.6 or two 0.4 BP/s rates. If it takes 151 days and 81 days totalling 232 days normally, you could build both halves at once in 226.5 days (226.5 for the bigger one, 121.5 for the smaller), then edit and rebuild. Hmm, unless the edit stage took less than 6 days it looks like you might not save any time. Where you would save time is launching that smaller thing separately while the other is still building, if at all possible, since you could almost launch two of them in the time it takes for the larger craft to finish.

Dual or tri rates should always result in a higher total throughput at the expense of each individual craft taking longer. The square root in the BP formula does promote construction of larger craft if you have a single rate, however.

 

I never really got a chance to do a bunch of in-depth balancing for KCT, it's mostly just balanced for "this gives times that won't make people want to kill me". And given that the whole mod can be completely reconfigured through the Presets, anyone can change the balance on their own. Seriously, you can make build times use a linear formula instead of square root, or a logarithmic one, or an exponential, or be based on mass, or on the number of engineers you have at KSC right now, or a fixed time (per vessel or per part). Any tricks that work for one Preset probably won't apply to another Preset.

[NeilC]

 @magico13: Oh wow, thanks for the detailed response!

I didn't realize I could get 0.8 throughput with 2 lines, I'll have to give that a try. The trouble with launching my small thing first is that the big thing includes the lifter.... maybe I can rearrange and do the small+lifter, and launch that while parallel building my in-situ refueler payload. I have a bigger & better refueler design too, so maybe by going parallel I can squeeze that in.

Good to hear that the presets are so customizable, that's really cool! This challenge has really got me back into KSP, and I love what KCT brings to the table. I'll have to create a custom preset for the next career I play, and I'll be sure to share it if I do.

 

Great mod, Magico13! I'm loving it!

[Enginerdy]

I love KCT, I've been using it in my career games for a while, it completely gets rid of the feeling that your space program is progressing too quickly. It sets a nice pace so transfer windows come and go without having to just warp to them, and makes things a little more challenging when something goes wrong and you need a rescue mission there ASAP. Also, this is a fantastic philosophy:

Quote

it's mostly just balanced for "this gives times that won't make people want to kill me"

I've been working on and off on my 2.0 attempt at the challenge. I've noticed that the upgrade points buy substantially more build points when you spend them on additional production lines. What I'm thinking of doing is running 4 production lines in the VAB with 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, and 0.2 BP/s on each, plus the free production line on the SPH with 0.1 BP/s for a total of 1.2 BP/s. After seeing NeilC's post about the benefits of producing single big projects I may have to rethink that strategy. My original strategy also has some challenges with regard to getting the prestige points. However splitting production across multiple lines is definitely the way to go if you're trying to maximize total build points over the length of the challenge.

[Nich]

Yes splitting build points makes the prestige points very difficult.  I suspect the scoring is bugged because the cost of getting the MPL in orbit is much more then the kerbals but the kerbals give a lot more points if they land on Ike and Duna. +6 for prestige +2 for orbit +6 2 on Duna +6 for 2 on Ike.  The 2 labs only give 4 total and weight 5 times more.  Although you don't have to land and take off the dv requirement is not that large for Duna (30% of the mission) and practically free for Ike (<5%)

Same goes for Kerbal habs very heavy very expensive very few points.

I hate to say it but I think Bill odyssey 518 kerbal SSTO is probably the way to go.

 

That being said I am enjoying the challenge of completing all the points but I simply have way too many funds tied up in hardware that can not be recovered to get a decent score.

[sdj64]

On 3/15/2016 at 11:03 AM, Death Engineering said:

I've not come across that LS mod.. how does it compare with others (if you've used them)?  

This looks like an ambitious mission!   Good luck!

Thanks.  IFI is interesting because it is both realistic and simple (or so they say at least) by being based on only one life support resource but with consumption rates as the average of all the O2, H2O, and food that real astronauts use, scaled down to the Kerbal's size.  The main challenges are that the resource is low density, requiring a large volume of space.  While others have radial containers, IFI life support supplies take up more space than a Hitchhiker for a crew of four, one-way.  Also there's no shipboard recycling, and no recycling at all without another mod to add greenhouses - for this I'm using Planetary Base Systems.  They also work pretty simply, taking in ore and spitting out supplies at low efficiency.

I haven't used the other life support mods so I can't say exactly how it compares.

Interesting thoughts about build times.  My missions are set up so that each half of the stack takes up one equal (0.4) VAB thread and one launchpad for the whole time until the first window.  It could probably be more efficient.

[Northstar1989]

@Death Engineering

Thinking about this challenge more carefully, it appears to share one of the major flaws many such missions have- it rewards you for the # of Kerbals sent, ad infinitum...

Such scoring always inevitably leads to players with powerful computers launching massive, extremely high part-count ships that can carry huge numbers of Kerbals, whereas players with weak computers (such as myself) are left in the dust.  In fact, working on a Constellation mission re-creation completely separate of this, even 6 Kerbals turned out to be an unbearable burden for my computer in 1.05, given the part-counts well in excess of 100 parts required for any decent level of realism in the re-creation of the planned (and scrubbed) real mission.

In summary, I think it is an extremely bad idea to reward players for the # of Kerbals sent without limit.  Such challenges should probably be capped at a reasonable (low) number to allow players with weak computers to be competitive- somewhere between 4 and 6 Kerbals...

Something to keep in mind if you ever create a 2nd version of this challenge, or anyone reading this is thinking of creating a similar challenge of their own...

 

Regards,

Northstar

[Jasonden]

On February 7, 2016 at 0:09 PM, Nich said:

On February 8, 2016 at 6:18 AM, Death Engineering said:

 

 Just food for thought but most of my calculations with tac life-support  show that expedited transfers reduce the mass of the ship by quite a bit although they require more D V the supply savings are very significant if you can take a three-year round-trip and turn it into a six-month round-trip. I am interested in this challenge but I have to play around with some of the additional mods to see how they work and then wrap my head around the scoring which is incredibly complex

 

14 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

@Death Engineering

In summary, I think it is an extremely bad idea to reward players for the # of Kerbals sent without limit.

good thing this challenge limits the # of Kerbals with Kerbal Construction Time then.

[Death Engineering]

Additional 'Scoring' metric added to challenge:

"Duna Domination" - Now that you're on Duna, why not stay awhile? :
This separate score rewards not just 'getting there', but also time spent on Duna's surface. Time on Ike is not considered. Rounding down, simply add up how many days each kerbal is on Duna's surface. 

To include 'Duna Domination' scoring with your entry, keep track of how many Kerbal-days you have crews on Duna.  eg: 3 kerbals on Duna for 100 days each = 300 kerbal days.

                                                 100          
Duna Domination Score =   Final Score     ^{*  Kerbal Days on Duna}

Important: This new scoring metric does not change existing scores and including it with new or existing challenge attempts is optional. 

[Northstar1989]

On 4/3/2016 at 3:06 PM, Jasonden said:

 

good thing this challenge limits the # of Kerbals with Kerbal Construction Time then.

*cough* Given the massive amount of time allocated to complete the challenge, it's really not much of a limit.  A clever player can still send dozens of Kerbals in the time allotted with sufficiently-clever design and launch-schedules...  But weak computer are lucky if they can handle 4-Kerbal missions, if that...

Edited April 20, 2016 by Northstar1989

[Death Engineering]

On 4/20/2016 at 3:29 AM, Northstar1989 said:

*cough* Given the massive amount of time allocated to complete the challenge, it's really not much of a limit.  A clever player can still send dozens of Kerbals in the time allotted with sufficiently-clever design and launch-schedules...  But weak computer are lucky if they can handle 4-Kerbal missions, if that...

You are correct, the clever designs and launch schedules is what this challenge is about.

I can't do much about the slower PC's except offer this: http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-gamer-buying-guides/

[Patupi]

OK, I was looking for a challenge recently and considered re-doing the old Duna Permanent Outpost mission but with more limitations. I did consider RSS/RO but so far, even with the current build just about ready for 1.1.3 I can't seem to get it to work with my machine without severe slow downs. However KScale64 will work. But, now Duna Permanent Outpost thread is over a year since the last post and I really didn't feel like necroing it, and this is the most recent Duna related one I could find.

 

Anyone know of something where this would fit, or perhaps consider a separate scoring sheet for a 6.4x scale mission? A lot would change with this, not just the much heavier rockets (and more difficult to build re-useable rockets) but also times, including construction times. So far I've tested rockets in 6.4 scale to lift fairly large payloads to orbit, but non-reusable. I've never been good at space planes, but I have in the past done fairly well at reusable rockets. I'll certainly give it a go. If I do, even if no separate sheet does pop up here I might just post it anyway, even if it doesn't count it'll be fun.  Sending screaming, fiery Kerbals of death to their doom as they make new rilles on Duna sounds like a fun way to spend an evening or fifty. At least there is a fix to stage recovery that is supposed to work with 1.1.3 right now so I think I have everything I need.

 

 

EDIT:.... or maybe I'll just do a normal mission without KScale... *sigh* I had difficulty getting any reusable jet hardware working so I thought maybe it was the atmosphere being annoying (I already had Deadly Re-entry in) and the next time I ran KSP it crashed the whole computer! Black screen, though something was going on in the background but nothing would drop it out. I've been hoping for a real scale system for a long time, but the thing has NEVER worked for me. I don't know if it's just I'm cursed, but even versions that were stable and working fine for other people with that version of KSP just would not work reliably for me.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Patupi

[Patupi]

OK, things are not going well. Right now all I've done is spend 11,841 space bucks on simulations... that failed miserably. The reason? I went against my normal expertise and attempted to make a plane work. HAH! Me and planes do not work well. I did go for a space shuttle analogue though, vertical launch, but coming back the damned thing keeps flipping out, plus stability is an issue.... I may have to rethink the entire thing. Plus I've spent all my points on the SPH instead of the VAB as I was planning on one Cargo Shuttle and one personnel STOL spaceplane. If I redesign now I'm probably going to have to restart from scratch and use the VAB instead. Rockets I know, planes.... yeah, not so much.

 

This was my attempt at a shuttle, using side booster rockets only. I did manage to get it to orbit successfully with maybe 70 dV to spare (though it was a 70km x 100km orbit, so lower would have been valid) with a dummy cargo of 35 tons. My initial plans were for sections to be launched that likely would be a little smaller than that, so it would have worked, but there is no point in reusability if I can't get the darned plane back down in one piece!

 

 

Lets face it, I'd be happier with rockets anyway.... they make a more impressive bang when they blow up

 

(EDIT: I know what needs to be done to stabilize the shuttle. I already have the center of lift behind the center of mass, both fueled and dry, but upon re-entry the center of drag needs to be behind the center of mass and I'm having difficulty getting that right and keeping the other balance the same. I kept the main fuel tanks for the central orbiter on either side of the cargo bay to make sure the center of mass didn't shift much when the fuel was used, but this meant that, with the engines at the rear, the plane has it's mass more to the rear. Enough that it flips out when it gets below 40km on re-entry. I tried airbrakes to attempt to shift drag rearward without affecting lift, but things aren't working well. Things heat up and blow up... a lot.)

Edited July 16, 2016 by Patupi

[Death Engineering]

On 7/15/2016 at 11:29 PM, Patupi said:

OK, things are not going well. Right now all I've done is spend 11,841 space bucks on simulations... that failed miserably. The reason? I went against my normal expertise and attempted to make a plane work. HAH! Me and planes do not work well. I did go for a space shuttle analogue though, vertical launch, but coming back the damned thing keeps flipping out, plus stability is an issue.... I may have to rethink the entire thing. Plus I've spent all my points on the SPH instead of the VAB as I was planning on one Cargo Shuttle and one personnel STOL spaceplane. If I redesign now I'm probably going to have to restart from scratch and use the VAB instead. Rockets I know, planes.... yeah, not so much.

 

This was my attempt at a shuttle, using side booster rockets only. I did manage to get it to orbit successfully with maybe 70 dV to spare (though it was a 70km x 100km orbit, so lower would have been valid) with a dummy cargo of 35 tons. My initial plans were for sections to be launched that likely would be a little smaller than that, so it would have worked, but there is no point in reusability if I can't get the darned plane back down in one piece!

 

 

Lets face it, I'd be happier with rockets anyway.... they make a more impressive bang when they blow up

 

(EDIT: I know what needs to be done to stabilize the shuttle. I already have the center of lift behind the center of mass, both fueled and dry, but upon re-entry the center of drag needs to be behind the center of mass and I'm having difficulty getting that right and keeping the other balance the same. I kept the main fuel tanks for the central orbiter on either side of the cargo bay to make sure the center of mass didn't shift much when the fuel was used, but this meant that, with the engines at the rear, the plane has it's mass more to the rear. Enough that it flips out when it gets below 40km on re-entry. I tried airbrakes to attempt to shift drag rearward without affecting lift, but things aren't working well. Things heat up and blow up... a lot.)

Curious to see how using a shuttle works out in the scope of this challenge. Unlike "real life", I suspect a shuttle would save some time and funds (overall). For me at least, the problem is getting the shuttle back down in one piece. 

BTW I'll be posting another Duna challenge in a week or so that will be much closer to the DPMAC (see OP) than this one, worth less dependence on mods and fewer rules for scoring.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Patupi]

5 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

Curious to see how using a shuttle works out in the scope of this challenge. Unlike "real life", I suspect a shuttle would save some time and funds (overall). For me at least, the problem is getting the shuttle back down in one piece. 

BTW I'll be posting another Duna challenge in a week or so that will be much closer to the DPMAC (see OP) than this one, worth less dependence on mods and fewer rules for scoring.

Right now I'm pausing, considering getting more memory for my computer as tthings are rather slow right now. A pure stock take would probably be much easier (though even there KSP seems slow right now). The sluggishness is not in flight but in switching views and still getting crashes in the VAB every now and then. Plus I don't think I'll be using shuttles if I do take a stab at this or your new one. With the newer aerodynamics things are even tougher (for those of us that didn't use FAR much in the old days at least) than they used to be, and I had trouble with space planes then too

Edited July 24, 2016 by Patupi

[Daelkyr]

@Death Engineering Okay... I'm eyeing this challenge and was wondering about LIfe Support. Could I use Kerbalism for my LS needs? It sits in the TAC-LS realm of hardness for LS gameplay and simulates radiation in addition to the rest of the options.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Daelkyr

[Death Engineering]

38 minutes ago, Daelkyr said:

@Death Engineering Okay... I'm eyeing this challenge and was wondering about LIfe Support. Could I use Kerbalism for my LS needs? It sits in the TAC-LS realm of hardness for LS gameplay and simulates radiation in addition to the rest of the options.

Yeah for sure that would be OK!  In fact I was in the rough stages of designing another run at this challenge using Kerbalism.

I abandoned it because the 'Quality of Life' parameter in Kerbalism was pushing designs to the almost-silly when considering missions with 10-12 crew. I'd thought about deleting QoL from the mod for the challenge but that seemed a little cheaty (although to the rules of this challenge, that would still be acceptable).

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.  

edit: Added 'Kerbalism' to Life Support mod list.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Daelkyr]

@Death Engineering Just one more question as I get started. Is paying for rushed construction with KCT allowed or is it forbidden. I couldn't seem to find that answer. (Obviously, if I payed for premium rush delivery, I'd have to keep track of that expense as well.)

[Death Engineering]

8 hours ago, Daelkyr said:

@Death Engineering Just one more question as I get started. Is paying for rushed construction with KCT allowed or is it forbidden. I couldn't seem to find that answer. (Obviously, if I payed for premium rush delivery, I'd have to keep track of that expense as well.)

Rush 'penalties' are fine to use.

[Rodhern]

How did the Kerbals get to the point where they decided to go for the "Duna Extended Research Program"? I wonder if maybe this challenge could use a prequel to answer that question. The DERP challenge itself is above my level of KSP expertise, but something about it strikes me as a fitting end to a KSP career. The end being that kerbalkind have decided on the best place in space to go (Duna and Ike), and with some effort the goal is still possible to reach in time before the once bustling Kerbal Space Center is turned into a theme park and heritage museum.

My thought is that a DERP prequel would be a career game, with Kerbal Construction Time and other relevant mods of course, with sort of a known end game. Not so much of a challenge or competition, but more of an excuse to start afresh in a new version of KSP.

Do you think a DERP prequel, in essence a career game furnished with a set of predefined milestones leading up to the DERP launch, would enhance the KSP immersion and be fun? If it is worth to confer about I will open a new thread topic for the subject.

[Death Engineering]

On 9/15/2016 at 7:13 AM, Rodhern said:

How did the Kerbals get to the point where they decided to go for the "Duna Extended Research Program"? I wonder if maybe this challenge could use a prequel to answer that question. The DERP challenge itself is above my level of KSP expertise, but something about it strikes me as a fitting end to a KSP career. The end being that kerbalkind have decided on the best place in space to go (Duna and Ike), and with some effort the goal is still possible to reach in time before the once bustling Kerbal Space Center is turned into a theme park and heritage museum.

My thought is that a DERP prequel would be a career game, with Kerbal Construction Time and other relevant mods of course, with sort of a known end game. Not so much of a challenge or competition, but more of an excuse to start afresh in a new version of KSP.

Do you think a DERP prequel, in essence a career game furnished with a set of predefined milestones leading up to the DERP launch, would enhance the KSP immersion and be fun? If it is worth to confer about I will open a new thread topic for the subject.

Actually I usually play my career mode much as you are describing - mini and major milestones pushing the kerbs' deeper into space until they land on the Mun, Minmus and beyond. I think it does enhance the immersion/experience by playing mostly with crewed missions, life-support and KCT running as well. Almost sounds like you are describing a Race to the Moon (Mun) type playstyle which would indeed make a good challenge as well...

[ottothesilent]

If the challenge is still around, are you planning to add rule changes for the 1.2 update?

[Death Engineering]

On 9/24/2016 at 10:07 PM, ottothesilent said:

If the challenge is still around, are you planning to add rule changes for the 1.2 update?

I haven't tried 1.2 yet but I don't think there is anything challenge-breaking there so no new rules for 1.2... challenge still open