Munar Dakar 2017

[Leafbaron]

@Triop would you be interested in doing a Munar Dakar? Im thinking stage 1 will be from launchpad to the beginning of stage 2, which would be in the canyons to the east or north of the East farside crater or farside crater, respectively. From there one would travel down the canyon towards the respected crater then around the outside of the crater rim, upper or lower, ending back at the lander. Final stage will be landing back at KSC within 100km radius of ksc. my intial thoughts. thought since you are a veteran Dakarian i'd see what you thought. This will not only test driving and rover design but rocket design as well. It would be quite interesting on Minmus as well with the added complication of lower gravity. Let me know your thoughts. If it shows interest I will set up the course along with my submission. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I present to you the Munar Dakar Challenge. 7 stages of I what I presume to be hell. The Challenge will include rocket and rover design. Stage 1 will start at Kerbal Space Center launch pad. Stage 2 will begin at the mouth of the canyon to the East of the Mun's East Farside Crater. From there it is pretty standard. Stage 7 will encompass all previous stages distances and will end upon returning to KSC, THE ROVER DOES NOT NEED TO COME BACK TO KERBIN. The Stage 1 flag will also represent the end of stage 7. From here you will be given a 75km radius (edits to come?) for every km outside this radius. 1 second will be added to your total time. 

There will be 3 categories; stock, modded (referring to modded parts only), and casual. Within these categories there will be two sub categories; rocket powered/combination (only if rocket is propelling you forward) and wheel/electric only (you may use thrusters/rockets for added gravity). The casual category will allow quick saving and reloading as well as unbreakable parts. 

I would prefer this to be along the lines of the Dakar 2017 challenge wherein the vehicle must be moving at 0.0 m/s at the start and end of each stage. However, given that this is the Mun and there may be sliding issues we may need to think of something else.

Rules

1. If you vehicle cannot be repaired with KIS and KAS it is a DQ. Having KIS and KAS does not automatically mean you will be categorized into the modded group.

2. Quicksaving and reloading are not allowed (unless you state casual category in submission).

3. You will have 6 hours to complete each stage. Once a stage has finished you are free to take as much time as you would like. (stage 1 and stage 7 may take longer than 6 hours depending on how you decide to approach the transfer) 

4. Be creative and have fun!

Here is the link to the save file. Let me know if this works. .rar-https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2ep0U6uAcqeckxIVjExR2s4LVU and the .zip-https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2ep0U6uAcqecVVxVzZFeENpNWc

download the .rar/zip file. and extract the "Official Munar Dakar 2017 folder the "saves" folder in your KSP directory. 

Edited January 25, 2017 by Leafbaron

[Triop]

10 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

@Triop would you be interested in doing a Munar Dakar?

I would be interested in participating, not hosting.

Feel free to start the challenge yourself.

 

[Leafbaron]

sounds good buddy. Even if no one has interest in it. Im still gonna make it up and post my results. I think it will be a blast. Will re-write the post with rules and such then try to figure out how to upload the save file. Its going to be a few days. 

[Triop]

14 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

Even if no one has interest in it.

My opinion on posting challenges: If 2 people want to do your challenge, it's a succes.

“Auto racing began 5 minutes after the second car was built.” – Henry Ford

[DoctorDavinci]

54 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

sounds good buddy. Even if no one has interest in it. Im still gonna make it up and post my results. I think it will be a blast. Will re-write the post with rules and such then try to figure out how to upload the save file. Its going to be a few days. 

I'm totally down ... I'd take part in this challenge idea

[DarkOwl57]

uh.... launchpad? on the Mun?

[DoctorDavinci]

1 minute ago, DarkOwl57 said:

uh.... launchpad? on the Mun?

1 - Build a launch vehicle to send your entry vehicle to the mun (Kerbaled of course ... )
2 - Race the checkpoints on the Mun
3 - Return your Kerbal to the KSC

Simple, no?

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hi, mm space... thats the black stuff above the blue stuff?  Not been there for ages and likely not driven a rover on the mun since beta, so I'm pretty doomed from the off, so yeah I'll give it a go   What I really popped in to say is that if launch facilities on the mun are required for testing purposes I can sort a Kerbal Konstruct or two static to do the job.

How fast can you go on the Mun without flinging off into space? are rovers any good at re entry ? 

 

[DoctorDavinci]

43 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

How fast can you go on the Mun without flinging off into space? are rovers any good at re entry ? 

These are questions that need to be answered

[Leafbaron]

orbital velocity on the mun at 10k is about 500 m/s plus or minus. So on the surface lets just round it to 600 m/s. if you car goes that fast then you will surely reach escape velocity.

 

[DoctorDavinci]

1 minute ago, Leafbaron said:

orbital velocity on the mun at 10k is about 500 m/s plus or minus. So on the surface lets just round it to 600 m/s. if you car goes that fast then you will surely reach escape velocity.

 

That is unless you use rockets pointed up to stick yourself to the surface

[Leafbaron]

very happy about the interest! i am placing flags for a test run right now. Its gonna be the muns east farside crater, beginning at the start (or end) of the canyon that goes off to the east. mainly because it is roughly equitorial and will make landing easier without inclinations changes. also will reduce the criticalness of launch windows. 

1 minute ago, DoctorDavinci said:

That is unless you use rockets pointed up to stick yourself to the surface

my thoughts exactly! i was thinking ion thrusters at CoM. 

however, my submission will be electric only for forward propulsion. 

2 hours ago, Triop said:

My opinion on posting challenges: If 2 people want to do your challenge, it's a succes.

“Auto racing began 5 minutes after the second car was built.” – Henry Ford

i love that quote

[DoctorDavinci]

7 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

very happy about the interest! i am placing flags for a test run right now. Its gonna be the muns east farside crater, beginning at the start (or end) of the canyon that goes off to the east. mainly because it is roughly equitorial and will make landing easier without inclinations changes. also will reduce the criticalness of launch windows.

I would suggest making it a short track as a large part of the challenge is getting your vehicle to the Mun safely and returning your Kerbal back to the KSC ... Making it a short track would facilitate a single run ... Maybe land at the first flag then race to the second flag and back, then get your Kerbal back to the KSC (not necessarily the whole race vehicle ... just the Kerbal)

Thoughts?

Edited January 20, 2017 by DoctorDavinci

[Leafbaron]

Just now, DoctorDavinci said:

I would suggest making it a short track as a large part of the challenge is getting your vehicle to the Mun safely and returning your Kerbal ... Making it a short track would facilitate a single run ... Maybe land at the first flag then race to the second flag and back, then get your Kerbal back to the KSC (not necessarily the whole race vehicle ... just the Kerbal)

Thoughts?

my thoughts were 1/6 the gravity 1/6 the distance. So @Triop course was roughly 210 km as the crow flies. This'en here will be 35km 5km stages. of course this excludes the trip to mun and back. I want the race to be mainly focused on the munar rovers, with the added difficulty of returning the racer safely. My thoughts on end stage will be every km outside the 100km halo will add 1 second to total time. 

Thoughts on that? 35km might be a race down the canyon and then back, working on distances right now. 

[DoctorDavinci]

2 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:

my thoughts were 1/6 the gravity 1/6 the distance. So @Triop course was roughly 210 km as the crow flies. This'en here will be 35km 5km stages. of course this excludes the trip to mun and back. I want the race to be mainly focused on the munar rovers, with the added difficulty of returning the racer safely. My thoughts on end stage will be every km outside the 100km halo will add 1 second to total time. 

Thoughts on that? 35km might be a race down the canyon and then back, working on distances right now. 

I'm liking this idea so far ... One thing to think about is if you have to stop at each flag or can you just barrel past each one

So far I see that I could easily do this in one go on video ... Launch to the Mun, land beside the starting flag, race the track as laid out, return to the KSC with the race vehicle intact, smoke my cigar and revel in my achievement

Thoughts?

[Leafbaron]

I will test the track, if it feasible to stop at each flag then i would like to do that. If it is not, well then press F1 when zipping by. Stages may end up being 5-10km long. just placed flag 2. How do i upload save files btw so when im done y'all can test it?

shes gonna be a doozy, this terrain is rugged. and with AAA at least a day out. it'll be tough. 

thats stage 3 flag

[Leafbaron]

Possibly making the start to the lower left of the MechJeb window in that crater and going to east crater approximately 30km away then back.

I will show current course when i am done. 

[Leafbaron]

[DarkOwl57]

Well even as I would love to try this, I'm going to have to pass. As SpannerMonkey said, I haven't been there for ages and trying to race there? Sorry, but no can do

[Leafbaron]

@DarkOwl57Just join the casual category for your first submission. Quick saves and reloads are allowed in that category as well as unbreakable parts. 

[Cunjo Carl]

I was born ready for this!

 

On 1/19/2017 at 7:34 PM, Leafbaron said:

How do i upload save files btw so when im done y'all can test it?

The easiest way to share your save is to find the file (it will be a folder typically in C:\Steam Library/steamapps/common/Kerbal Space Program/saves), zip the whole save and host it through some online file hosting service. Google Drive is my personal favorite, but there's dozens of ok choices.

Is this challenge timed by in-game time or real-world time? My personal vote is for realworld, but will have fun regardless.

Also, I've found that 50m/s is roughly the cutoff speed between bouncy driving and bouncy flying on the Mun.

Cheers!

[DoctorDavinci]

54 minutes ago, Cunjo Carl said:

Is this challenge timed by in-game time or real-world time? My personal vote is for realworld, but will have fun regardless.

I personally think it should be in game time as it puts people with slower computers at a disadvantage since the ingame time could possibly run slower than real world time for some ... This could potentially make their times skewed as compared to people with faster computers

[Leafbaron]

I will try to upload the save this evening. Been busy all weekend and had no time. 

[Magzimum]

Just a few comments/questions here:

• So the time to get to the Mun and back to KSC actually counts to your total time? A typical Hohmann transfer to the Mun takes what, 6 hrs? Then you normally gotta get into a nice orbit, and ensure you land near that Crater and Canyon. A normal two-way trip will take therefore around 12 hrs?
• Since the two-way trip to the Mun and back will be roughly 12 hrs, who cares about the rover design? Even if you crawl along at a puny 5 m/s, you do the entire 35 km course in 2 hrs. So, you can gain max. 2 hrs by doing the entire Dakar in a record time, but you can win around 12 hrs by making a kick-ass rocket like Scott Manley did a while ago (link to youtube). This challenge to me seems more about rockets than rovers.
• The penalty for not landing near KSC is much too low. The circumference of Kerbin is 3770 km. So, if you land on the other side of Kerbin, your penalty is just around 1800 km, or 1800 seconds, which is 30 minutes. That's small compared to the flight time to and from the Mun.
  • If you increase the penalty, the challenge becomes about precision landing, but still not about the rovers.
• Also, if we are going to count the time to and from the Mun, can you provide a date/time that we all have to launch? The orientation of Kerbin matters in such things.

If you want to do a rally on the Mun, I suggest you make the start/finish on the Mun.

 

Edited January 24, 2017 by Magzimum

[DoctorDavinci]

@Leafbaron - anxiously awaiting the save file 

@Magzimum - I like the idea as it stands, it is about the journey there and back again

Also, I've hit speeds over 40m/s on the mun ... perhaps a rethink of your rover designs might be in order if you can only hit 5m/s

Edited January 24, 2017 by DoctorDavinci