The Hypermile Challenge: least fuel to circumnavigate

[zolotiyeruki]

The Hypermile Challenge

Your challenge is this:  Construct a craft, fly it around Kerbin once, and land at or near KSC, using as little fuel as possible.

Rules:
--Stock parts only
--Must be Kerballed in a cockpit or pod.  If there's enough demand, we can create a separate category for Command Seats
--Air-breathing engines only, liquid fuel only
--Informational mods (e.g. KER) and autopilots (e.g. MechJeb, Pilot Assistant) are fine.
--FAR will be judged separately
--All fuel tanks must be full on takeoff, OR you must provide a screenshot at takeoff showing how much fuel you started with, so we know how much was used
--Your craft needs to return to KSC in one piece (no staging off bits).  I'll give you some leeway if you lose a few parts on a hard landing. This challenge is more about craft design and piloting at altitude than it is about your ability to stick a landing.
--Exploity stuff isn't allowed, with the exception of nose cones or small parachutes on the back of engines. Alt-F12 stuff is ok, as long as it's only informational
--You don't have to land on the KSC runway. Just be reasonably nearby.  If you're going east, as long as you get past the mountains that lie to the west of KSC, that's probably close enough.
--For credit, please provide screenshots:
1) at launch, with the Resources Panel open, showing your starting fuel.  This shot is optional if you start with full fuel tanks
2) somewhere on the opposite side of the planet, halfway through the flight
3) after landing, showing your ending fuel

Leaderboards: (feel free to enter as many of these as you like.  Each submission can count towards multiple challenges. If you'd like another category, feel free to suggest it)
1)  Scrooge McKerbal: Least fuel used.  Your score is (fuel at launch - fuel at landing).  If you have a rough landing, you only get credit for fuel still attached to your cockpit/pod.
2)  The Engineer: Prove you don't have to sacrifice speed for efficiency.  Multiply the total time by the fuel used, and divide by 100,000.  Lowest score wins.  For example, if you use 2,000 units of fuel and it takes you 2 hours from launch to landing, your score would be (2,000 * 7,200/100,000) = 144
3)  Sardine Can:  Least fuel used per passenger, a la the Regional Jet challenge from a couple months back.

 

Scrooge McKerbal	The Engineer	Sardine Can
1) ihtoit - 2200	1) ihtoit - 99.462	1) ihtoit - 2200

 

Edited February 6, 2016 by zolotiyeruki

[ihtoit]

will be doing this just as soon as I figure out why my KSP is crashing every $random_time_interval.

 

[EDIT]: After several crashes I've managed to obtain a fuel efficiency of 1.04km/u. I get about 800km then the program crashes. I reckon with the glide slope on my plane I could being it down on a dead stick for the last 90km. Max speed@20km altitude: 944m/s using single intake and single RAPIER in air mode. Images to follow soon.

[EDIT EDIT]: Finally got a stable session going. After 1h10m game time I've flown 5,194km on 1880 fuel. Currently 413.2km from KSC with 320 fuel left, at current altitude (figured the optimal altitude for an endurance flight on stock atmo is 16km) that gives me a substantial fuel margin, so it looks like a powered landing. Top speed: 1642m/s, current: 1636m/s. Yay precoolers.

(I did nearly have a disaster, stepped away having locked 800 fuel for reserve, hit that and nearly crashed into the crater. Pulled up after scraping some trees and looked back on the track, I was gliding at 54m/s and dropping at 12.2. From an altitude of 24km (probably too high, I was only doing 840m/s. The RAPIER was getting air starved))

 

The flight, in 6 screenshots:

Scrooge McKerbal score: 2200 (I'll accept that the estimation of fuel remaining on impact can only be guessed at)

Engineer score: (4521*2200)/100000=99.462

Sardine Can score: 2200

(gatecrasher due to nonsurviving pilot? But I did make it all the way round)

Edited February 6, 2016 by ihtoit

[zolotiyeruki]

5194km?  That's way more than the circumference of kerbin--it should be between 3800-4000 km.

[ihtoit]

5 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

5194km?  That's way more than the circumference of kerbin--it should be between 3800-4000 km.

add altitude. And account for rotation. I did a straight line run, I'll post the F3 when I land.

Edited February 6, 2016 by ihtoit