Kerbal Charter Challenge!

[HazelPine]

The Kerbal Charter Challenge!

 

Hey everybody! I bring you a new challenge today, the Kerbal Charter Challenge!

"But Pine," You ask, "what is the challenge about?"

Well, charter flights are when instead of buying a seat on a plane, as you normally do with normal airlines, you rent the whole aircraft for whatever thing you have to do with it. These charter aircraft can be anything from a small single seat prop plane to full-on jumbo jets, so it leaves a lot of room for a huge array of possible designs. This challenge is comprised of two flight routes you can attempt, each with their own missions and requirements!

 

There are rules, of course, that are common to both routes:

 

 

No use of the cheat menu allowed.

Exiting the atmosphere is not allowed (69,999m and lower is fine though).

Only jet and/or prop planes allowed. No rocket planes.

RATO is allowed, but only for takeoff, landing procedures, and the SolidFuel is considered for your score, so factor that in.

Any RATO sleds/booster rails systems must survive somehow, otherwise the cost of it will be factored in your score as funds spent.

Any non-cheaty mods are allowed.

Autopilots are allowed, but I'd prefer if you didn't use them, unless it's better for you.

No abusing of any loopholes (please tell me if there are any).

You need to land back at the KSC in all of the classes and/or routes.

I will provide a save file for this.

FAR is fine, but please specify you're using it.

As Van Disaster pointed out, electric planes get infinity points under the rules. So any entry which uses electric propulsion will be scored differently and have a notation on the entry, like so: User (points)*

 

Important Stuff For Your Entry:

For your entry to be valid, you must not break any of the rules and show: Pictures/video of takeoff, flight, landing at the airport, whatever you are doing at the airport, takeoff from airport, flight back to KSC, and final landing. Also tell us what class you're participating in. BTW, you can do more than on class with a single entry, if you're so daring!

 

The cost of Liquid Fuel as of 1.1.3 is: 0.8 Funds per unit (liters, I'm assuming). So base your fuel dependent scores off of this value.

The cost of SolidFuel as of 1.1.3 is: 0.6 Funds per unit, from my napkin math taken from dividing the cost of an SRB's fuel and dividing by the cost of the fuel.

The cost of oxidizer (i case you need it for things that are not rockets) as of 1.1.3 is 0.18 Funds per liter, according to the wiki.

 

The save file for the challenge is here!

Simply make a folder and place the persistence file in it, put the folder in the saves folder and load up the game to attempt!

 

 

Anyway, here are the routes you can participate in!

 

 

 

Polar Charter:

Spoiler

 

The mission is simple: There is a small airport on the northern polar ice cap which is your destination, and you must fly there doing whatever your class calls for. There are a few possible classes which you can attempt your entry on, which include:

 

Passenger Flights:

In this mission you will be carrying as many passengers to the airport as you can or feel like, and the score will be based on the cost of the fuel spent divided by the amount of passengers. Lowest score wins!

Electric craft will be scored on the weight of the craft divided by the amount of passengers!

 

Cargo Flights:

In this mission you will be carrying a cargo to the airport, which has to be separated from the plane at the airport.  Scores in this class will be based on the cost of fuel spent divided by the gross tonnage of the cargo AFTER it has been separated from the aircraft. Lowest scores win!

Electric craft will be scored by the weight of the craft divided by the mass of the cargo!

 

Emergency Rescue Flights:

The sole flight controller in the airport, Hayne Kerman, is feeling very sick! You must rush to the airport and bring her back to the KSC in the lowest time possible to save her live! Your score is the time it takes to bring her back starting from when you take off from the KSC. Lowest time from takeoff to landing back at the KSC wins!

 

Also, this is the airport you will be flying to:

It has a control tower and a terminal capable of fitting up to 80 Kerbals, along with signaling lights, in case you arrive at night.

 

 

Good luck everyone! Hope you have fun!

 

Leaderboards:

 

Passenger Flights:

1. Van Disaster with 7.54 Points and 672 Kerbal Passengers

2. zolotiyeruki with 15.25 Points and 144 Kerbal passengers

3. Maverick_aus with 24.275 Points and 64 Kerbal passengers

4. DrDonut with 28.093 Points and 222 Kerbal passengers

5. GDJ with 30.444 Points and 27 Kerbal passengers (multi-mission)

6. Koolkey with 34.327 Points and 288 Kerbal passengers

7. Adelaar with 51.84 Points and 46 Kerbal passengers

8. Mesklin with 58.35 Points and 6 Kerbal passengers

9. Baybrawler with 77.23 Points and 6 Kerbal passengers

10. DoctorDavinci with 103.795 Points and 43 Kerbal passengers

11. Baybrawler  with 163.9 Points and 16 Kerbal passengers (multi-mission)

 

 

PF FAR Edition:

1. Van Disaster with 0.9875 Points and 640 Kerbal passengers

 

Cargo Flights:

1. DoctorDavinci with 42.254 Points and 230,3 Kg of cargo

2. Bomaye with 43.94 Points and 1,232,620 Kg of cargo

3. Baybrawler with 70.394 Points and 37,200 Kg of cargo (multi-mission)

4. Adelaar with 70.6 Points  and 50,835 Kg of cargo

 

CF FAR Edition:

1. Van Disaster with 3.82 Points and 207,410 Kg of cargo

2. Blasty McBlastblast with 6.09 Points and 1,274,000 Kg of cargo

 

Emergency Rescue Flights:

1. zolotiyeruki with 25min 56s

2. Adelaar with 26min 46s

3. TheDestroyer111 with 27min 15s

4. NightshineRecorralis with 27min 58s

5. SpacePlaneAddict with 29min 5s

6. Koolkey with 31min 49s

7. owenmanley with 41min 57s

8. ScirptKitt3h with 42min 51s

9. michal.don with 45min 5s

10. Baybrawler with 2h 37min 44s (multi-mission)

11. GDJ with 2h 41min (multi-mission)

 

ERF FAR Edition:

1. Van Disaster with 29min 10s

2. Blasty McBlastblast with 2h 12min 23s

 

 

The Great Hall Of Fame

(Do something extra special/awesome/insane and get your name here!)

 

- Blasty McBlastblast -

Worried about the health of Hayne, he decided to bring the whole airport back to the KSC so that she didn't have to jump down and get even worse! Definitely a different way to rescue a kerbal!  Also, he has lobbed the biggest load so far, at 1275 tons! Truly a crazy polar pilot!

 

 

- Van Disaster -

To date, has carried the most kerbal passengers to the pole in a single flight and back! That would be 672 kerbals! He has recently managed to fly 640 kerbals to the pole for under 1 Fund per passenger!

 

 

BADGES!

 

Baybrawler has been kind enough to help out with making a badge for this challenge! If you complete the challenge, feel free to show it off on your sig!

 

Here it is:

 

 

 

Bush Charter:

Spoiler

 The mission is simple: Fly your plane to the airports and complete at least one of the available missions! The missions are:

 

Passenger Flights:

In this mission you are tasked with flying to every single airport in the vicinity of the KSC (polar airport is not one of them), deliver AT LEAST 1 kerbal to each airport and return home! Scores are based on the cost of fuel used divided by the amount of passengers, which gives you the ticket cost. Lowest scores win!

 

Cargo Drop Offs:

In this mission you are tasked to deliver AT LEAST 1 cargo (all cargo must be the same mass, or as close as you can, with a tolerance of 100kg MAX) to each of the nearby airports (no polar), and return home! The score is based on the cost of fuel used divided by the total mass of the the cargo (add all delivered cargo masses). Lowest score wins!

 

Sea Rescue:

In this mission you are to fly out to sea, rescue 3 intrepid kerbals that have just returned from a Mun mission and come back home! But it isn't as simple as it sounds, as the plane must be able to land on the water and come back! Scores are based on time, lowest time from launch to full stop at the KSC wins! If you recover the capsule along with the kerbals, you get a 2 minute deduction from your score!

 

Tourist Haul:

In this mission you are tasked to fly to Bandei Resort and pick up the awaiting tourists and fly them to the polar airport, land, takeoff, fly back to the resort, and then fly the plane back home. Since the tourists are important famous figures, they do not tolerate paparazzi, and any extra passengers from the KSC are not allowed to fly, nor they will pay if they happen to be in the flight.  The score is based on the cost of fuel used divided by the amount of VIP tourists you take with you. Lowest score wins!

 

Radio Tower Crew Change:

In this mission, you must fly two kerbals up to the K2 Radio Station so that they can take the place of their co-workers up on the frigid workstation! Once you deliver two kerbals up there, bring Phoebe and Wehrlan Kerman back to the KSC! Since the bigheads that run the radio station aren't in a hurry to bring them back, so just concentrate on making it cheap on fuel! Scores are based by the cost of the fuel used divided by 2 kerbals, since the aircraft will only carry two passengers at once anyways. Lowest score wins!

 

Radio Tower Evacuation:

In this mission, you have to rescue Phoebe and Wehrlan from the mountain, since it has been discovered the mountain is an active volcano that has just awakened, and as such is releasing poisonous corrosive gases, which for reasons the spacesuits can't protect against. Once you get them in the aircraft, fly them to Bandei resort, since the KSC is directly in the path of the poisonous gas, and as such is being evacuated and declared a dangerous place! Fastest time from KSC takeoff to full stop outside the resort wins!

 

 

 

Map:

A nice little map to help you find your way, in case you get lost.

 

Airports:

 

Greenview Aerodrome:

 

Challenger Point:

 

 

Bandei Resort:

 

The resort has claws at two set heights for easy transfer of passengers.

 

K2 Radio Tower:

 

A perilous location, with an extremely short landing zone and inclined surface. STOL craft is almost a must here.

 

 

 

Leaderboards:

 

Passenger Flights:

1. Koolkei with 7.2 Points and 6 Kerbal passengers

 

FAR Passenger Flights:

1. Van Disaster with 1.225 Points and 160 Kerbal passengers

 

Cargo Drop-offs:

1. zolotiyeruki  with 5.696 Points and 17,050 Kg of cargo

2. DoctorDavinci with 18.397 Points and 88,600 Kg of cargo

 

FAR Cargo Drop-offs:

1. Van Disaster with 0.55 Points and 185,205 Kg of cargo

2. Koolkei with 3.599 Points and 19,780 Kg of cargo

 

Sea Rescue:

1. Eidahlil recovered the pod in 56s (!)

2. Koolkei rescued the kerbals in 4min 11s

3. Adelaar recovered the pod in 7min 6s

 

FAR Sea Rescue:

1. Van Disaster recovered the pod in 10min 13s

 

FAR Tourist Haul:

1. Van Disaster with 1.8576 Points and 5VIPs

 

Radio Tower Crew Change:

1. zolotiyeruki with 5.952 Points

2. Adelaar with 76.99 Points

 

FAR Radio Tower Crew Change:

1. Pine with 0.292 Points

2. Van Disaster with 0.472 Points

3. Koolkei with 2.84 Points

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round-The-World Trips

Spoiler

 

Unlimited Trip

 

This mission is a bit different from the other ones, where as the other ones there is a leaderboard with scores, this one does not. Let me explain!

 

Your goal in this route is to fly around kerbin in an aircraft of your design, stopping at two landing spots marked by towers during the trip. This section of the challenge is not exactly scored by points, but you will have your name and flight stats of the trip recorded (see below), along with a basic description of the aircraft.

 

So, what do you need to provide once finished?

Aircraft info: passengers and/or cargo capacity, number of engines and type, type of craft.

Trip info: Cost of the flight, time of flight, any incidents, top speed.

 

This is really just a fun challenge for you to test your aircraft designing skills and have fun flying at some cool locations that were hand-picked! Since this is not scored, electric planes of any sort can participate as well. FAR users are placed in a special section, as to not mix stock air and FAR entries together.

 

Entries:

 

Eidahlil's Toasty Hot Trip

 

"Bill was going for speed."

Eidahlil's entry is an interesting one. He decided that the best way to travel round the globe was quickly, and boy did he go quick!  Traveling at up to 1.703 m/s, he covered over 6,700 Km in less than 49min and 34s, so it is no surprise his plane was almost melting throughout the whole trip! Even stopping inside a puddle didn't help cool off much! He also traveled cheap! Using 520 Fund's worth of jet fuel, he saw the world (or the equator of the world), and even spun out of control as he climbed to altitude once! Bill was probably happy to be out of the plane once he came back though; it sure seems like it was hot inside! Great job, Eidahlil!

 

 

zolotiyeruki's Biplane Trip Around The Block

 

"The flight of the Dragon Lady's Stumpy Sister"

 

zolotiyeruki wanted to fly a plane with long wings, but he noticed that made landing his plane difficult. So he cut the wing in half and stuck a piece on top, and thus, he made a biplane. Using a mere 390 liters of fuel, which he paid 321 Funds for, Bill went on his trip. The flight plan was to maximize efficiency, but most of the fuel usage happened during ascents back to cruise altitude, due to the plane having an engine designed for high altitude flight and speeds, which Bill saw plenty of during his 1h 4min trip! Bill glided the plane dangerously close to the treetops during a rather long final approach to land back at the KSC, but he remembers seeing some animals as he flew silently by. Awesome flight, zolotiyeruki!

 

 

Van Disaster's Red Plane Express

 

"Hey, surprise."

 

Van Disaster, being the resident FAR efficiency builder extraordinaire, decided that naturally, he had to do the trip with economy in mind. With 176 souls on board, his plane took off during an eclipse, much to the amusement of the passengers. Heading west, Phoebe, one of the pilots of the magnificent red plane, noticed that the sun seemed to be setting behind the airplane. You know, lovely conditions for landing on barely-maintained 'airfields'!  Playing around with the engines, Phoebe shut down the engines 300 km out from the first airstrip, as to save even more fuel. Once the beach was in sight, some of the passengers began to worry, since the gear had not been deployed yet. In contrast, some were cheering the pilots for their "kerbalness". For some reason, the fact that the plane was amphibious was not mentioned at all in the flight brochure, so it was a surprise for the kerbals when they noticed they were alive and well floating next to the beach. 42 minutes later, when the sun rose, the twin 'Bear' turboprops hefted the plane into the sky, setting course for the river airstrip. The passengers had fun, and while they almost collided with a mountaintop hidden in the clouds, they managed to glide all the way to a safe landing once again. Around 5h and 8 min after departing, the plane finally made it back to the KSC, after flying and seeing so much of kerbin from the height of 11,600 meters, while cruising at a steady 450 kts (232 m/s). Oh yeah, did I mention that each passenger spent only 3.018 Funds for such an incredible trip? Amazing trip, Van Disaster!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Electric Flier Competition

 

In this mission, you are to fly around kerbin and to land on both landing zones during the way, all the while using an electric powered aircraft. As to keep the laying field fair, SOLAR PANELS ARE NOT ALLOWED (MINING IS ALSO NOT ALLOWED), since then you wouldn't be using any resource and scoring would be impossible as well. Your score is based on the cost of all resources used for the flight divided by the amount of passengers you take along with you.  This flight does not have to be done in a single non-stop flight, you can land anywhere you feel like whenever you need/want to. BUT, you will have t land at both locations before landing back at the KSC after going around kerbin.

 

LEADERBOARD:

1.

 

FAR LEADERBOARD:

1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by Pine
Updated!

[HoloYolo]

Looks fun, can't do it tonight though 

[michal.don]

Hi there,

I built a simple small plane and performed the rescue mission. The time was 45:04, whis is probably better than ambulance would perform where I live

Here's the album:

It was a nice relaxed flight, thanks for the challenge,

Michal.don

[Adelaar]

Oh I like this Challenge. Must try them all!

[HazelPine]

@michal.don, awesome performance! 45 minutes and 5 seconds is a pretty short time considering you flew all the way to the pole and came back, simply stunning! You're first in the Rescue Flights leaderboard, let's see if you can hold the title!

[Van Disaster]

If I can find some time I'll build something ( or more than one thing ) - I'll be using FAR though ( and pilot assistant, sorry some of us have issues with hands ).

So to summarize, only engines which require IntakeAir, don't abuse freedom of part choice, and you've got to actually do the trip rather than hyperedit?

Loophole: electric aircraft engines don't consume fuel. Ergo one passenger/smallest cargo possible will have a score of infinity. Not intended, I suspect

[Adelaar]

Also, can we make seperate categories for those who use FAR and those who don't, as aerodynamics are vastly different between the two...

EDIT: Do I have to leave the kerbals aboard the passengerplane at the polar airport?

Edited July 17, 2016 by Adelaar

[HazelPine]

As soon as an entry with FAR is presented, I will make a separate leaderboard!

Also, you don't need to disembark the kerbals, just get them there. We can pretend they got out, did stuff and got back in to go home.

[Adelaar]

Well, they appear to be all very happy to be underway...

EDIT: And it appears they were right to be scared, I seemed to have made a bit of a kerbal landing and blew off my engines. And then, many things happened.

Now I have to start all over again

Edited July 17, 2016 by Adelaar

[DoctorDavinci]

So I decided that landing and taking off consumes too much fuel so I flew over your Polar Airport with 46 Kerbals in command chairs and dropped them as I flew by ... Thing is only 43 survived

Started the flight with 7520 fuel and landed back at KSC with 1941 fuel .... I'm not including the deceased Kerbals in my calculations which means I delivered 43 Kerbals to the Polar Airport

7520 - 1941 = 5579
5579 / 43 = 129.744
129.744 * 0.8 = 103.795

And here is a video of the actual drop .... all who survived landed within 1 klick of the airport

 

Edited July 17, 2016 by DoctorDavinci

[Adelaar]

Alright, just completed the passenger ferry. I had 50 kerbals (of which 4 crew) aboard the C1 Stratos, which burned through 2984 units of fuel to make the round trip.

This leads to a fuel consumption of 59,68 units per kerbal, and 64,8 units per passenger.

 

Edited July 17, 2016 by Adelaar

[HazelPine]

@DoctorDavinci and @Adelaar, great entries! Lots of creativity and patience shown! Updated the OP with your scores, with Adelaar in first and DoctorDavinci in second! Hope you enjoyed the scenery!

[Adelaar]

Had a go at the rescue mission using my B4 Falcon, took me 32:50. Could've been a minute faster, if it weren't for the wheel friction to cause the aircraft to slide away from Hayne, meaning I had to repeatedly attempt to grab the ladder. Oh well.

 

[HazelPine]

Great job @Adelaar! You're first on the rescue leaderboard!

[TheGuyNamedAlan]

im on. working on plane now.

[Van Disaster]

Well... was going to post the first FAR entry but I wiped the tail off on landing so I'll fly again some other time.

[Adelaar]

@Van Disaster, holy... that thing would never get off the ground in stock Aero. What's it called? Kairbus A4000?

[Van Disaster]

1 hour ago, Adelaar said:

@Van Disaster, holy... that thing would never get off the ground in stock Aero. What's it called? Kairbus A4000?

Generally unprintable swearwords, at the moment I did build something bigger once.

I suspect it would actually lift off in stock, but it'd have a really awful time climbing. One major problem is the biggest landing gear still aren't long enough.

[TheDestroyer111]

Wow this is ezpz Uhh it's not  

BTW is it allowed to set reentry heating to 50%? I could do the rescue even faster but everything would explode with reentry heating at 100% as in the save file provided.

Anyway, here is the super-fast rescue mission that took 27:15 MET. This learned me a couple of things about arresting parachutes and explosion-free high-speed flight. Quicksaves were quite useful. And don't blame me for the "Biomes visible in map" thing, I don't consider it as cheating because it's a simple visual aid used by almost every airline or space program. (A real paper map doesn't have dark areas for the night part of earth, doesn't it?) I didn't use any other Alt+F12!

 

Edited July 19, 2016 by TheDestroyer111

[Mesklin]

Exceptionally cheap and fast plane "Snowball": RAPIER and hypersonic cruising at 25 km of altitiude. 6 passengers and one pilot, 17 minutes from takeoff to landing.

Points - 28.8 (I spent 216 units of for 6 kerbals)

P.S. Imgur album was updated with flight back to KSC

 

Edited July 19, 2016 by Mesklin

[HazelPine]

@TheDestroyer111, incredible rescue! Not to mention a very kerbal rescue, with parts exploding and even a lost engine at the end! I would let you put heating to 50%, bu then I'd have to let everyone else too, so just to keep an even level of difficulty, let's keep it at 100%. Still, you're first! 

 

@Mesklin, you entry is one of the best ones so far, but sadly you haven't provided any proof you landed back at the KSC, and as such I can't put you in the leaderboard yet. If you send proof of you coming back from the poles though, it seems like you'd be first in the passenger flights board, and by the looks of it, you have fuel to come back!

Edited July 19, 2016 by Pine

[Van Disaster]

Well, Imgur has committed suicide, so you're going to have to put up with 3 shots and a link to a Flickr album. This is with FAR.

Trip album

The brakes hardly worked at all on the landing back at KSC, so I had to hit full reverse thrust & then taxi back onto the runway, burned an unfortunate amount of fuel. Steering is awfully difficult when you have no steerable wheels, too. If I do this again I'm going to have to use some robotics to steer with, or B9 compressed air thrusters or something.

So that's 22*16 pax + 3 crew, total of 355 souls. Fuel use from start to finish, 1679-393 = 1286

Fuel cost/souls on board = (1286*0.8)/355 = 2.9

Edited July 20, 2016 by Van Disaster

[HazelPine]

@Van Disaster, that's an insane score! As soon as I get to my PC I will add you to the FAR leaderboard!

[Adelaar]

Since nobody is taking on the cargo mission at the moment, I'll be the one to start it off The Imgur album is here, but the preview doesn't work. I'll post a few seperate pictures and the album at the bottom.

I've used my C4 Constellation to haul a total of 50,835 kg of cargo to the Polar airport. In total, I've used 4488 units of fuel to do so. This gives me a fuel consumption of 88,3 units per tonne, and thus 70,6 points.

Prepped for take-off:

In flight

Weight (bottom left corner) and fuel prior to unloading cargo

Unloading

Weight (bottom left corner) after unloading cargo (cargo weight displayed in imgur album)

Back @ KSC, stationary (with fuel read-out)

 

 

 

The rest of the album, once it works again...

 

Sorry about the long post. Imgur is annoying :/

Edited July 21, 2016 by Adelaar

[Van Disaster]

Imgur is broken and likely staying that way, I'd really recommend finding another hosting site. Sticking your images in spoiler tags works pretty well though.

I did another passenger run with a stretched plane; took off easier than the smaller one but for some reason it really didn't want to land on the runway... think I took 8 runs at it before it landed without destroying something ( usually a couple of bits around the tail ) and I had to land so fast that despite touching down at the threshold it ran off the end again. Landed on the ice just fine...

Spoiler

That's 30x16+3 = 480 onboard
1979-562 = 1417 fuel used

And a final score of (1417*0.8)/480 = 2.35