The Jool-Dive Golf Club

[Ryu Gemini]

Forward: One cratercracker came up with the original idea for this in his "Deep Atmospheric Dive" topic, but didn't really set up his topic very well.  However, I actually liked the idea a lot, so I decided to remake it in accordance with the guidelines.  Props to cratercracker however for suggesting it!

 

 

Presenting the modern sport of spacefaring Kerbal gentlemen:

 

Space Golf!

Space Golf is a fine sport played by some more daring Kerbal astronauts space-faring gentlemen.  The goal of the sport is to get the lowest score possible, and ironically revolves around attempting NOT to hit Kerbals, spacecraft, or other things.  Usually, anyway.  Also, a small but vocal Kerbal community insists that we should really be calling it "Space Limbo," but Space Golf enthusiasts insist this doesn't make sense outside of Space Golf games that revolve around flying through the Mun Loop as most golf holes are not above going under things but getting close to them.  Limbo enthusiasts sometimes counter that you are often "going under" the top of an atmosphere, but that is really more a technicality.  Besides, Golf is more dignified a name than limbo, and we get enough of that steel drum music at the Laythe resorts. 

 

The nature of one's score in Space Golf is Typically something such as "how close can you get to X while under constraints Y or before doing Z" and Jool-Dive Golf is no different. 

 

The goal is to dive as deeply into Jool as you can, while still returning alive to tell the tail.  Or, if you are a chicken, having your unmanned probe return "alive."  Technically, that does work, but many space golf enthusiasts really insist that it goes against the whole spirit of things.  Drone enthusiasts counter with the argument that a failed attempt can still result in them no longer having ship funds to play golf with anyway, and that besides some Space Golf "holes" really are uncomfortable to go to anyway. 

 

Some members refer to a dive like this as a "Golf Swing."  If you prefer this terminology, then your goal is to take a Golf Swing as far into Jool as you can and return back to stable orbit. 

 

 

Goal:

 

The deeper you go, the lower your altitude, and your lowest altitude is your score.  Dying or having a ship be unable to get back to orbit disqualifies you.  The former also gets you a nice tombstone next to the Laythe Yachting Club Church honoring your attempt, complete with a carved model of your vessel. 

 

 

 

Rules:

1.  You must have the following difficulty options:  Re-entry heating set to 100% or higher, Part Pressure Limits on, Part G-Force Limits on, and Kerbal G-force Limits on with a multiplier of 2 or less.  Naturally, no cheats or modifying parts to be cheaty.   Also important to note that normal difficulty does not enable the pressure/g-force limits, so you'll want to set a custom difficulty so you can toggle those on).

2.  To qualify, you must regain a stable orbit after the dive with at least part of your original diving vessel.  For purposes of simplicity, a stable orbit is one in which the lowest your craft gets during the orbit is 250,000. 

3.  While the atmosphere starts around 200,000ish, the Golf Club really insists that you at least get under 180,000 for it to really count as a proper swing at it. 

4.  Multiple vessels and docking is allowed, if you for some reason see that as a good idea and not at all scary to do in a suborbital trajectory above Jool.

5.  Hyperedit is allowed and recommended for the purpose of putting your ship into a circular orbit around Jool.  The hyperedit-defined Orbit must be at or above 250,000, and must be a circular orbit.  Naturally, Hyperedit is not allowed to be used after this point.  

6.  Any non-cheaty mod is allowed, but gets on a separate scorelist.  FAR is permitted if you wish too. 

7.  You must mention any mods you used in your swing.  Mechjeb is allowed for an otherwise stock run, but must be mentioned and noted. 

8.  Proof may be provided in a suitably convincing series of screenshots, or a youtube video. 

9.  You are allowed to dive without an actual Kerbal in your vehicle, and your score will be counted, but club members reserve the right to snicker at you or call you names behind your back. 

 

Bonus challenge:  The Laythe-Jool Golf Club

Take off from Laythe, and land at least part of your vessel back on Laythe after the dive.  Hyper-editing your vessel to Laythe's surface at the start is allowed if you don't have a suitable means of simply creating your intended ship there. 

 

 

 

Scoring: 

The sport is Jool Diving Golf!  That means the lower your score, the better.  Your score is the lowest your altitude in Jool's atmosphere gets.  Mods and stock will be treated separately, and FAR will get its own scoreboard as it effectively changes Jool itself.  If you complete the bonus version of the challenge, this is also noted and if enough people do this will get its own score list. 

-For purposes of "Stock," you are permitted to use Off-Kerbin construction/launchpad mods to get your vessel into its starting orbit in place of HyperEdit (or for the Laythe Club, for constructing the vessel on Laythe), as long as the vessel itself contains no mod parts.

 

Stock scoreboard: 

ManEatingApe:  50,310

Starting Example:  179750 [Mechjeb]

 

Mods Scoreboard: 

 

 

FAR Scoreboard:

 

 

 

 

Example Run: 

This sample run was done quickly just to show it to be possible.  Hyperedit was used to get into a sufficient orbit.  It got a little under 180,000 and returned fairly easily, and so serves as a good baseline for a "minimum achievement" to aim for.

 

The vessel in question is a fairly simple thing with an inflatable heat shield and limited stabilizing fins.  Effectively, not too much different from XKCD's idea of "the most kerbal vehicle ever" (a submarine with an oversized heat shield plummeting into Jupiter).  Although, I suspect a fair bit smaller and easier to get back out of the atmosphere than a submarine would be. 

 

For further details on potential submarine shenanigans on Jupiter, feel free to visit the guy's "What If" website:

https://what-if.xkcd.com/139/

 

It may be preferable to have more than just two images for your own runs, but this should be sufficient for the starting example.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2017 by Ryu Gemini

[ManEatingApe]

@Ryu Gemini Hope you don't mind if I'm a little cheeky and submit an entry from a similar previous challenge to get the ball rolling...

 

My swing is 48,611 metres 

 

(Stock 1.2, full mission to Kerbin and back, normal difficulty so I think it meets the criteria above)

 

EDIT: Nope, see above, limits are not enabled by default!

 

 

 

Full Album Here

Edited March 3, 2017 by ManEatingApe

[Ryu Gemini]

That is very impressive.  Unfortunately, the standard Normal difficulty does not toggle on pressure limits or G-force limits for parts/kerbals.  Definitely worth an honorable mention though, particularly if you managed that from Kerbin. 

 

If you still happen to have the ship file, you could try loading it up with the modified settings, hyper-editting it into a similar orbit, staging it down to what you had the first time, and then verifying that it still holds together. 

 

[ManEatingApe]

6 minutes ago, Ryu Gemini said:

That is very impressive.  Unfortunately, the standard Normal difficulty does not toggle on pressure limits or G-force limits for parts/kerbals.  Definitely worth an honorable mention though, particularly if you managed that from Kerbin. 

 

No worries, I'll take a mulligan and have another swing at it! 

[MinimalMinmus]

I think Bradley Whistance's record is pretty much unbeatable, as he used stock propellers to dive to NEGATIVE 247 before ascending again.

I think this video itself asks for a new rule stating "No stock propeller".

[Ryu Gemini]

If he got that low, I suspect he didn't have pressure limits on, and thus likely not G limits either.  I could see how this might still be viable though. 

 

When I messed around with trying to put a flyer into jool, what was left of it "blew up" from pressure before it actually reached zero altitude. 

 

 

[ManEatingApe]

Ok, second bite at the cherry... 50,310m

Same craft as before, used the debug menu to enter 350km circular orbit, then a quick tap of the engines to go suborbital.

 

Twiddled the settings to add G-Force, Pressure and Part limits

 

Maximum deceleration was pretty tame...Jeb didn't even pass out once!

 

Lowest point

 

The ascent was a complete shambles, one of the canards got knocked off, so loads of room for improvement

 

Back to stable orbit

 

Full Album here

 

Out of curiosity, reloaded and let it sink to see when pressure limits kick in:

Spoiler

 

Answer: Just under 1800m, so a a brave propeller entry could totally crush this challenge (pun intended )

 

Edited March 4, 2017 by ManEatingApe

[MinimalMinmus]

6 hours ago, Ryu Gemini said:

If he got that low, I suspect he didn't have pressure limits on, and thus likely not G limits either.  I could see how this might still be viable though. 

 

When I messed around with trying to put a flyer into jool, what was left of it "blew up" from pressure before it actually reached zero altitude. 

 

 

Actually he did, and the pressure limit at which your craft goes boom is... -250 m.

Did you play in a old version? 'cause ships close to Jool were very krakenizable back then

[Hotaru]

13 minutes ago, MinimalMinmus said:

Actually he did, and the pressure limit at which your craft goes boom is... -250 m.

 

-250m isn't the pressure limit, that's the absolute limit even with pressure limits off, and I believe has been so since before pressure limits were implemented.

 

With limits on the limit is the 4000 kPa mark (at least with stock parts), which somewhere just below 1800 meters according to the probe I sent into the Joolian atmosphere the other day. As far as I can tell 4000 kPa is the limit for most/all stock parts.

[goduranus]

Ah here's another Jool atmosphere challenge.

Bradley Whistance's ship isn't stock though, stock game doesn't have a rotating mechanism, although with stock you could spin the whole craft and get similar results.

[DoctorDavinci]

1 hour ago, goduranus said:

Ah here's another Jool atmosphere challenge.

Bradley Whistance's ship isn't stock though, stock game doesn't have a rotating mechanism, although with stock you could spin the whole craft and get similar results.

You can make propellers with stock parts

For example:

And here's a stock ferris wheel:

 

Edited April 15, 2017 by DoctorDavinci