The Rover Race Challenge

[rocketengineer1982]

@Adelaar

My time is 4 minutes and 56 seconds.  The Racing Bus Mk 1 carries 7 Kerbals.  I blew a tire near flag Nein after unintentionally becoming airborne.  If I had the presence of mind at the time, I could have easily gotten in a flip.  No seperatrons were harmed in my completion of the course.

The blown tire was definitely slowing me down a bit, however it would have cost me a lot more time if I had stopped to fix it.

Final score:  296-35 = 261

Not bad for my first run at this.  I'll see how much I can cut down that time.

[imgur]gsQoG[/imgur]

 

Yes, I have FAR installed.  At 38m/s, there's no significant difference between FAR and stock aerodynamics, and course negotiation and hill-climbing ability matter so much more in this contest.  My design doesn't even have any aerodynamic parts.  I can remove FAR and run again if you like.

 

Kind of going nuts here.  Still can't get the imgur album to embed...

https://imgur.com/a/gsQoG

Edited August 6, 2016 by rocketengineer1982

[DoctorDavinci]

So here's my first attempt at Keremy's Test Track .. Timer started at 00:02:00 and I passed the finish flag at 00:06:07 (Spun out a couple times)

247 - 5 (extra Kerbal) = 242

 

[MiniMatt]

Best attempt so far comes in at 208 (3 minutes, 28, no bonuses or penalties) but there's definite room for improvement in design and driving standard

 

[rocketengineer1982]

I've uninstalled FAR.

Nearly made it in 4:17, but I flipped at the last crest.    Skidded to a stop upside down 70m from the finish line after 4 minutes and 17 seconds of driving.

I figured out that turning on the fine controls (caps lock) makes cornering somewhat easier.  I wish we could change the steering limits on the wheels...

Edited August 7, 2016 by rocketengineer1982

[rocketengineer1982]

New time:  4 minutes 6 seconds!    Again, no sepratrons were harmed in the racing of this rover.

Score: 246 - 6(5) = 216

 

Full Album:  http://imgur.com/W5kTeqQ

Edit: Fixed score calculation.  Each extra kerbal gives a 5 sec bonus.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, MiniMatt said:

Best attempt so far comes in at 208 (3 minutes, 28, no bonuses or penalties) but there's definite room for improvement in design and driving standard 

@MiniMatt

Uhhh...  Your score is off.  You used two sepratrons, which gives you a 10 second penalty (5 per separatron).  I assume that while it says this applies for the Ultimate Challenge, it also applies to Kermey's Test Track.  This would give you a score of 218.

That 51m/s through the flats was really impressive!  Try increasing the traction and friction controls to reduce your skidding and you should be able to maintain higher speeds through KSC.

@DoctorDavinci

Same comment.  I think sepratrons are supposed to have a time penalty.  That would give you a score of 252.  Not too bad!  Work on your driving and see the above comment about reducing skidding and you will have a great score!  Wonderful design by the way, it looks lighter and speedier than mine.

@Adelaar

Does the 5 sec per sepratron penalty also apply to Kermey's Test Track?  Are we not supposed to use sepratrons for the Test Track?  Please clarify sepratron usage in the rules.

Edited August 7, 2016 by rocketengineer1982

[Heimder]

Well, I’ve made half the time with my new craft, but when attempting to beat the ultimate challenge, I’ve got “out of fuel” (electricity)… maybe I will try again with moar battery AND at daytime. 

So, time for a NEW craft again 

Edit: MKII get more closer, but still need more power

Edited August 7, 2016 by Heimder

[Adelaar]

Well, this challenge is certainly... taking up speed

Anyway, great entries again. @DoctorDavinci, your rover seems pretty much frictionless... either you've tweaked with those controles (which is fine, btw), or the downforce of your craft is low. You could either make your craft heavier, use spoilers to create downforce or use mechanical force (e.g. monoprop) to create more downforce.

Nice entry as well Minimatt Nice old skool looking race-rover!

5 hours ago, rocketengineer1982 said:

Does the 5 sec per sepratron penalty also apply to Kermey's Test Track?  Are we not supposed to use sepratrons for the Test Track?  Please clarify sepratron usage in the rules.

Nope. You can freely use 2 sepatrons for EXTRA POWERRRR. Keremy wishes it. For the Ultimate Challenge, use of sepatrons is without limits, but comes with a time penalty. The idea about it is to be able to negotiate difficult terrain by having the ability to use power surges.

Nice entry btw, I'll update the scores. Usage of FAR is also allowed. Like you said, the aero-effects are very little at those speeds.

[Burning For New Frontiers]

Is this allowed?

20 ms^-1 tops.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Burning For New Frontiers

[Adelaar]

@Burning For New Frontiers, you cannot enter in the regular category, but due to popular demand the "Wacky Racers" category has now been opened.

@ScriptKitt3h, you may enter your tank onto the field in the new Wacky Racers category. I'm still working on a armoured assault course, so once that's done you can fully test your tank on the test-track.

@The Optimist, you can now enter your prop-driven craft into the Wacky Racers category

[Hesp]

16 hours ago, Adelaar said:

@Hesp, very nice! I'll update the leaderboard and include your entry, minus the points for the parts lost

@Adelaar I saw you accounted 20s for the parts lost, actually I think the penalty is higher:

2 spoilers / 1 small hardpoint / 2 cubic struts / 1 wheel / 1 light + 2 sepratrons used -> 45s

Edited August 7, 2016 by Hesp

[Adelaar]

12 hours ago, Hesp said:

@Adelaar I saw you accounted 20s for the parts lost, actually I think the penalty is higher:

2 spoilers / 1 small hardpoint / 2 cubic struts / 1 wheel / 1 light + 2 sepratrons used -> 45s

Thank you I was just guessing the amount of parts you must have lost. Score updated!

[Heimder]

New entry to standard categories, this time must more faster, I’ve used all what learned from my ultimate attempts (still don’t finished), It was almost perfect.Total Points 205, you can overwrite the previous one.

 

Edited August 7, 2016 by Heimder

[MiniMatt]

Final entry - was hoping to beat the lightning pace set by @Hesp but in the end only managed to narrow the gap. 3 minutes, 16 seconds with 2 passengers for (I believe) a total score of 186. There's potential, with a generous interpretation of "flip", to accrue up to 30 bonus points at flag 1 & flag 4, but I'm not entirely comfortable with that - Hesp deserves his spot and displayed far better skills than my cack-handed driving

There's a good extra 10 seconds available from this rover, I got a 3:11 in practice but of course wasn't recording at the time - and that run was still far from perfect. But unfortunately I don't have the time for further attempts at this stage.

So, lessons learnt:

• For the purposes of this challenge a total loss battery power solution is probably going to be more mass and drag efficient than fuel cells/RTGs/solar.
• Contrary to my initial expectations, drag counts for a *lot* in this challenge - a lot of distance is covered at max speed from the start to flag 1, and (particularly) from flag 9 to 10 - just a couple m/s difference here can add up to significant time savings. 3 kerbals in cabins can likely be propelled a good 10+m/s quicker than the same three in command chairs, despite the cabin solution weighing a couple of tons more.
• Hesp's trick of splitting the sepratrons into two groups is one worth stealing  Significant time is lost in accelerating, being able to boost both the initial launch and the straight from flag 9 is probably better than having one almighty double-sepratron powered kick.
• SAS has different modes now. Experiment and find which works best for you. Personally I had better results with "SAS only". Splitting out keys to separate forward drive from pitch down is another option.
• The extra large XL3 RoveMax (tank steer) wheels retain a bug left over since 1.1 pre-release whereby rapidly cycling the left/right steering allows them to far exceed their stated max speed - hundred ton vehicles can easily exceed 100m/s - combine this with several of the 16 capacity mk3 passenger compartments to break the challenge and record a negative score  (but that would be naughty, don't do that  )

edit: oh, and because I've had so much fun in this challenge you all get a bonus trike compilation reel. Three wheels good, four wheels bad - as George Orwell might say. Was surprisingly good, but never quite got it under 3 minutes 30.

 

Edited August 8, 2016 by MiniMatt

[Heimder]

About Wacky  races

Quote

• Your rover may NOT be powered by jets or rockets or monopropellant, but may be powered by all other means.

Can I use jets, rockets or monopropellant indirectly? I mean... not as the engine that power the rover but to "power the engine"

[Adelaar]

@Heimder, with flips I mean flips along the vertical axis, not the horizontal ones, those are called spins. I am afraid I cannot deduce points on your time of 4:10. Still, your ride looks nice and you the jumps well! Your score will be 250 points, which is a big improvement on your old score!

Yes, you may use it's power indirectly

Nice entry @MiniMatt, gotto love those mishaps, very recognisable. Looks like you have very little wheel friction though, you could either manually increase that, or you could use spoilers (and perhaps add it to action groups to deploy when necessary to provide extra downforce). Your score of 186 (the 'flips' you mention do not count, I'm afraid) will go on the board!

[MiniMatt]

Yeah the friction is weird, some places I'd gladly have less, others far more - every time I tweaked it I ended up with far too much in some places so it would dig in and roll rather than powerslide, or far too little. In the end, after much unsatisfying tweaking I just left at defaults  I'd often wished for a "handbrake turn" button, so action group deployable downforce might not be a bad call

[Adelaar]

That's the problem I'm encountering as well. Creating downforce works to some extent, but with 1.1.3. wheels I have the feeling that friction only comes into play when the wheel is at an AoA from the vector from which it is travelling, whilst in real life, friction decreases when the AoA becomes greater. Maybe the Dev's should enter the race to see the problems with the wheels

[Hesp]

Hi Matt, nice rover with last attempts. Probably with some tweaks could be faster than mine!

Actually i'm experimenting with a barebone rover (0.7t), but as you said the Kerbal drag is really huge on the straights.

3 hours ago, MiniMatt said:

Yeah the friction is weird, some places I'd gladly have less, others far more - every time I tweaked it I ended up with far too much in some places so it would dig in and roll rather than powerslide, or far too little. In the end, after much unsatisfying tweaking I just left at defaults  I'd often wished for a "handbrake turn" button, so action group deployable downforce might not be a bad call

The wings on my ultimate rover work just like that, in case you didn't notice already:

action group on the B key to deploy spoilers @ 50 degrees when braking --> very effective at the entry in turn 1 and turn 8

Edit:

OK now I have a rover able to do less than 2:40 if well driven (i spun out in practice), if you want I can share the .craft file.

http://imgur.com/a/jGeZI

The wheels friction, springs and dampers need some fine tuning, and maybe you guys could help

Aerodynamics definitely work, I ran through turn 9 at 40m/s! (with FAR installed)

Edited August 8, 2016 by Hesp
Rover update

[Heimder]

4 hours ago, Hesp said:

The wheels friction, springs and dampers need some fine tuning, and maybe you guys could help

Yeah having problems if this too...  Already improved at maximum what i could and got a lot stability but still having problem on turns, if I solve this I can become much more faster, but the only thing now that I can change is the wheel configuration, also solved the booster problem that make me spin and reduced a little more the Weight.

[Lego8_bit]

say id like to bring  in a 6 wheeled rover however i am using a mod aka B9 procedural wings, tweak scale and procedural parts.

 

an example of what i could bring that uses these mods is this

and the shell of the f1 is b9 procedural wings and let me tell you i was happy with the result loads of downforce with a top sped of 55 m/s with little to no friction issue

 

  and its also based off this design of an f1 before it was banned XD 

 

would this type of vehicle be permitted in a standard race?

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by Lego8_bit

[Heimder]

I DID IT, I’VE COMPLETED THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE…. or kind of…. various “technical difficulties” along the way, some kraken forces and kerbal style solutions, and these things got me so much more time, something like 42:00, but if things was “perfect” could be completed in about 30:00 or less, also this will give-me a very funny video…. I will edit and post soon.

[Lego8_bit]

1 minute ago, Heimder said:

I DID IT, I’VE COMPLETED THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE…. or kind of…. various “technical difficulties” along the way, some kraken forces and kerbal style solutions, and these things got me so much more time, something like 42:00, but if things was “perfect” could be completed in about 30:00 or less, also this will give-me a very funny video…. I will edit and post soon.

 

CONGRATS

 

[Lego8_bit]

UPdate i have a rover built and im currently recording a vid on it but i lose SO MUCH TRACTION >:/

[Adelaar]

@Lego8_bit, I'm a bit unsure about Tweakscale and procedural parts (because I do not know to what extent part weight is scaled correctly), but B9's procedural wings are allowed, since they work in the same aero-soup-model as other parts. Also, there is a trade-off between downforce and drag, and so the top speed. Good luck!

@Heimder, I look forward to your video!

[Lego8_bit]

8 hours ago, Adelaar said:

@Lego8_bit, I'm a bit unsure about Tweakscale and procedural parts (because I do not know to what extent part weight is scaled correctly), but B9's procedural wings are allowed, since they work in the same aero-soup-model as other parts. Also, there is a trade-off between downforce and drag, and so the top speed. Good luck!

Ok thanks for letting me know  

Edited August 9, 2016 by Lego8_bit