Micro-challenges for all! (Continuation of Newbie Central.)

[qzgy]

3 minutes ago, Kerbalstar said:

I'm glad you like it! And no, nothing related to Reddit, not on my part, at least. @Alpha 360?

No I think the point he was making is that reddit used to hold similar weekly challenges, which have pretty much died at this point. Basically saying that probably with both the fact that there was a time limit of only a week led to it being kinda stopped.

[Kerbalstar]

1 minute ago, qzgy said:

No I think the point he was making is that reddit used to hold similar weekly challenges, which have pretty much died at this point. Basically saying that probably with both the fact that there was a time limit of only a week led to it being kinda stopped.

Ah, gotcha.

[sturmhauke]

What @qzgy said. Also, the format over there makes it harder to find older challenges even if you wanted to do them.

[Lucast0909]

Attention! New Challenge Issued!

Stock Helicopter

Good evening ladies and gentlemen! As part of an initiative to investigate "new and more interesting forms of flight" the Kerbin Rotunda for Aircraft and Persons, henceforth referred to as KRAP, have issued subsidies for assisted development of a form of rotary wing gyrocraft, also known as a helicopter. Of course, in classic KRAP fashion, by subsidies they mean a shiny medal if you succeed, and by assisted development they mean you're on your own. Those damn bureaucrats. On the plus side, they said the experience gained from such an endeavor would likely exceed the value of any financial compensation they could provide. Whether that's the truth or a cheapskate excuse to get out of paying you is still up in the air.

Da Rules:

• Build a stock helicopter capable of flying for at least 30 seconds.

Da (not) Rules:

• Feel free to use anything in the cheat menu short of gravity hack in order to get your chopper flying, the point is that it needs to fly, it doesn't have to be an engineering marvel.
• Feel free to use any mods so long as your chopper doesn't use vtol engines or anything of the sort (although for'ard propulsion engines are allowed)
• I don't care how soon after the 30 second mark your chopper crashes, provided you can keep it flying (under it's own props, no boosters) that long, you succeed. Trust me, that alone will be challenge enough.
• Feel free to copy any design features from any other designs you see (including the one above), just be sure the aircraft is your own and not somebody else's.

As a sidenote, the helicopter above is mine, and it is fully capable of flight, although it's a monster on the controls and it is rather slow without the two jets on the fuselage. TTFN, Ta Ta For Now!

-Lucas Kerman, C.E.O.

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by Lucast0909

[obney kerman]

Wow. Not many submissions on the last challenge.

Precision ICBM!

Send an ICBM to the KSC2. The missile must hit one of the buildings. The missile cannot at any point enter orbit. Difficult, but I have faith in you. Good luck! @doggonemess will post the next challenge in a week!

Do:

1. Create an ICBM

2. Crash the ICBM into one of the buildings at KSC2

Do not:
1. Enter orbit

2. Miss.

[Kerbalstar]

On 11/27/2018 at 6:52 PM, Lucast0909 said:

Tactical Ballistic Missile Chunkin!

20 hours ago, obney kerman said:

Precision ICBM!

Does anyone else have Deja Vu? Okay, well, anyone who enters @obney kerman's challenge and earns the badge also earns the ICBM Chunkin Badge! Remember, all challenges are now open, and we always welcome challenge suggestions!

[obney kerman]

Sorry, was a little short on ideas. At least this one's *somewhat* different.

[Kerbalstar]

Announcement:

Today(January 7th, 2019), I just wanted to share something with you all. On May 5th, 2018 @Alpha 360 sent @obney kerman, @VelocityPolaris, and me the original PM that started the Newbie Central thread.

On 5/5/2018 at 10:24 AM, Alpha 360 said:

You know, the four of us do a lot of the posting on the smaller scale threads. I think we should get together and form a thread where anyone with a random subject can post. I know that many people do that in the "What did you do today in KSP" thread in the discussion room, but there we can each invite each other to challenges and stuff. In other words, a newbie site where all forum users under 500 rep can compete against each other in challenges, or display their work without feeling embarrassed and stuff like that. It might take a little work to put together the rules and ideas for this thread, but would you guys want to help out with it? 

P.S Obney Kerman, I know that your signature is about not having threads. If you want, you can change that to "I have 1 thread" by starting this off, or you can just be a sub-author of the thread

P. P. S VelocityPolaris, I know most of your forum time is working on Past the Haze so you might not want to take an active role in this, if any role at all. That's fine with me, do what you want to do.

P. P. P. S kerbalstar, I don't know what to say, because unfortunately, I didn't snoop around. Take it whichever way you want. 

Happy Explosions!

I have not obtained permission from Alpha to copy that PM here, because I think that he's lost in the horribleness that is Real Life*, especially around the holidays. If I do obtain permission, I will edit that PM in here.  Everybody give a big shoutout to @Alpha 360 for graciously giving me permission to copy the above PM to the thread! 

As you can see, at that time I had(and still do have) a habit of posting on small-scale threads to encourage the newbies to keep going, because I knew that getting encouragement helps people to keep writing. I’ll let that PM speak for itself. 

Anyway, we had some questions about where it should go. We asked some mods (namely @Vanamonde, and Senõr luizopiloto), and they both said the Gameplay questions and tutorials sub-forum. You might be wondering why a clearly challenge related thread should go in Gameplay Questions. Well, that's because originally it was not obviously challenge focused. Originally we wanted it to be a place where newbies could post their mission reports, with us doing "challenge missions" once a week, with the goal being for the newbies to "1-up" us. People could post anything they wanted at any time, as long as they were below the rep limit (originally intended to be 500). Over the first few days, we decided that the "mini-challenges" should be the main focus of the thread. On May 7th, 2018, the original thread was posted. (It would have been earlier, but I ran into some issues trying to get the picture for the base "base".) @cratercracker, the wonderful artist and generous soul he is made our original badge. It looked like this¹, for those who do not know.

 

We carried on for a few weeks, posting challenges, discussing what we should do next, and generally falling into a routine of sorts. On May 9th, @Alpha 360 created our original Discord sever. That same day, I came up with the idea for a schedule². @Alpha 360 helped me improve on it, and we stuck to it. On May 25th, @Alpha 360 announced that @Lucast0909 had come up with Tier 2-X medals³ for the challenge enters, and wanted to "join the crew"⁴.  I already knew this, as I and @Lucast0909 are friends in real life. Anyway, Alpha had already approved @Lucast0909 joining the team, and everybody else did too. At that point, our team had 5 members. We continued to carry on for a few months.

On June 11, 2018, @doggonemess joined the team. It was perfect timing, as @Alpha 360 would be out of town for his next challenge, so @doggonemess was available to do that challenge. Our team now had six people. Both of our new additions would prove to be valuable additions to the team. With the addition of @doggonemess, we now had two skilled medal-makers⁵. 

About a month later, on August 11, 2018, @Alpha 360, announced that he was going to cede control of the thread to me. I was surprised, honored, and confused. Here is some of the conversation that went on after @Alpha 360 made his announcement.

Quote

"All hands on deck! Full dress for the departing captain!"

"Mr. Midshipman! haul down the captain's colors!" "Aye, aye Lieutenant!"

"Begin Salute!" *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

"Haul up the new captain's colors!"

"Welcome aboard Captain @kerbalstar."

"Now back to yer stations ye filthy landlubbers! On the double!"

- @Lucast0909's quote.

Quote

Thank you @Alpha 360! I'm honored!

Live Long and Prosper @Alpha 360!

-My quote.

 

Quote

Yup! Back to work people, back to work!  Okay, I think that we all want to close this thread to switch to a challenges for all thread. Is that right? If so I'll make an announcement on the thread. Do you think you should let the thread lay dormant, as Alpha suggested, or immediately post the new thread? I'm all in favor of just posting it immediately, it'll be a while before I can post it, but I can probably have it up by tonight(In the U.S.). The first Challenge can be @Lucast0909, followed by @obney kerman, @doggonemess, @VelocityPolaris , and then me. I tried to change it up to give our new people some initial posting time. @doggonemess , thank you for the medals! We need to think of the challenges for the new thread. I figure we should go with something big to start off like a Duna sat mission. What do you guys think? After that maybe...  I need some ideas. Thanks everybody! 

 

"To your stations!"

My quote.       

Quote

SIR! I believe we should wait for at least a day before closing it, SIR!

 

If I may sir, I'm actually against closing the thread, but if I'm outvoted, I'm outvoted.

  @obney kerman's quote.         

Quote

I'm sort of feeling like we should do one last challenge before closing it out, from the responses we got in the forum. Sure, it wasn't a lot, but maybe it would be better than just closing it right away. If we change the title to "Final challenge" that might be better so nobody says it was totally unexpected.

 

 

  @doggonemess's quote.      

We agreed to do one last challenge before closing the thread. We had some questions with the new medals, and we decided to go with mission patches. We wondered what to do for the last challenge and eventually decided on a base on another planet. Then we had @Alpha 360 change the title of the thread to indicate that is was closed, handed out the last medals, and began to start working on the Micro-Challenges thread. We worked out a schedule, I assigned some duties to get the pictures for the thread's OP, and I began to work on the post. For some reason, I ended up writing most of the OP on my phone. We posted the thread, and life continued on as normal for a while.

On October 18th, 2018, @Lucast0909 resigned his art commissions, being busy with other things that needed his expertise. We were down to one artist out of the 5 of us.

On October 28th, 2018, because @VelocityPolaris had not participated for a while, I checked his profile for his last visit date. It read as Oct. 13th, and the "last read" date at the top of our PM thread read September 1st. I decided to declare him officially MIA. He had declared a few weeks before that he was shipping out to college, and I can only conclude, that, like @Alpha 360, he has been lost to the horror that is known as Real Life. If he ever comes back out of the rabbit hole, he is welcome to re-join the team. We're keeping his spot warm.

Somewhat ironically, our team now has as many members as it started with, even though we gained two members over the course of the thread. 

Due to declining traffic on the thread, on December 7th, 2018, we decided to re-structure the thread to keep all the challenges open, so as to encourage participation.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to share this with you, is because traffic on the thread has declined to almost zero. I think this is partly due to the holidays, and partly due to the fact that the thread has slipped to the second page. This took me a bit to write, because of RL concerns mostly, and getting permission to copy PMs. I started writing this January 5th, 2018, to celebrate the 7-month anniversary of the thread. It took 2 days for me to finish writing this post. 7 months isn't particularly special, but I think that people really like this idea, and will participate if they see it. I think that the original concept that @Alpha 360 had was great and that people really loved, and still do. So, I'm posting this to give everybody a reminder of how this all started.

Just as I friendly reminder, all challenges are now open, and I shall soon be putting all of their medals in the thread OP, next to their titles in the Challenge Index. We also have a Discord server here: https://discord.gg/KNercYn. Pop on and chat with other Micro-Challengers! I am active on there often, so pop in, share some challenges, and look at some of the entries!

* Originally typed as Real Lice.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

1.

Spoiler

2.

Spoiler

My thoughts about a schedule are:

I figured that we should have some sort of schedule for the thread, i.e., who will post what challenges when. My plan is:(The numbers are weeks)

Month 1:

1. Me- Mun Anomaly Challenge.
2. @obney kerman or @VelocityPolaris - TBD, should figure it out.
3. @VelocityPolaris or @obney kerman, whoever didn't take week 2.- TBD
4. @Alpha 360- TBD

Month 2:

1. Me-TBD
2. Whoever took week 2 before. - TBD
3. Whoever took week 3 before. - TBD
4. @Alpha 360 - TBD

I figure that we should fill in those TBD's with challenges, i.e., week 2 @obney kerman- Duna Probe. I say @obney kerman just as an example, it could be @VelocityPolaris .

Also, sorry @Alpha 360 for putting you last, but you posted the thread.

I think we should keep the schedule 2 months ahead.

What do you guys think?

 

Sincerely,

Kerbalstar

3. A sample of @Lucast0909's work.

Spoiler

4. Apparently, we're like a gang.  

5. A sample of @doggonemess's work.

Spoiler

 

Thank you all for reading,

 

--Kerbalstar

Edited January 11, 2019 by Kerbalstar
Added @Alpha 360’s PM.

[sturmhauke]

I for one haven't forgotten about this thread. But you know, that whole Real Life thing. I have kids and a long commute, and also I'm kind of a perfectionist so it takes me a while to build stuff.

[UnfortuneLess]

Wow.

Well now I feel bad for not participating. Thankfully, I have a week off now so Ill just play some good old KSP. Ill start off with the first challenge posted here, why not. Also, Real Life is OP, someone should tell God to nerf.

[obney kerman]

I'm so honored to have been a part of these threads. Thanks so much to @Alpha 360 for including me back when this first started.

[Kerbalstar]

19 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

I for one haven't forgotten about this thread. But you know, that whole Real Life thing. I have kids and a long commute, and also I'm kind of a perfectionist so it takes me a while to build stuff.

I get it.

 

18 hours ago, UnfortuneLess said:

Wow.

Well now I feel bad for not participating. Thankfully, I have a week off now so Ill just play some good old KSP. Ill start off with the first challenge posted here, why not. Also, Real Life is OP, someone should tell God to nerf.

Yay!

[Kerbolitto]

@Kerbalstar I did not forget about this thread but I don't like military stuff on KSP, so I just waited a bit to see if there would be something funny to participate

[Kerbalstar]

2 minutes ago, Kerbolitto said:

@Kerbalstar I did not forget about this thread but I don't like military stuff on KSP, so I just waited a bit to see if there would be something funny to participate

Military stuff? Oh, the ICBM stuff? That’s just prescion sub-orbital aiming. Well, I can promise you that the next challenge, by @doggonemess well be different.

[doggonemess]

New challenge!

ASPARAGUS TO THE MUN

What could possibly go wrong? (Image from the KSP wiki)

Your challenge is to send an Apollo-style mission to the Mun using asparagus staging!

Primary objective:

• Land on the Mun and return safely!

Optional objective:

• Make the trip without using a landing module, i.e., the entire craft lands on the Mun and returns to Kerbin.

For those of you who are not familiar with asparagus staging, it is the process of carrying many smaller liquid fuel boosters that all feed fuel inwards via fuel lines and then dropping them in pairs as the outermost tank runs dry. The name comes from the appearance of such rockets, like a bundle of asparagus. Each booster has its own small engine, optimized for the ISP in which it will be used. For most rockets, this means that most of the booster engines will be efficient in the atmosphere, while the main engine will be optimized for vacuum. All the boosters are ignited at launch (and the main engine, unless it's a vacuum engine). 

(Image from the KSP wiki)

The idea is that you can carry an enormous amount of fuel and a high thrust-to-weight ratio but efficiently drop the empty tanks and unneeded engines as you go, thereby keeping the TWR high while at the same time carrying only the required amount of weight to make it happen. This method was proposed (but not implemented) on the Falcon Heavy, but with only two boosters feeding fuel into the main tank. Of course, when we do it, we have to Kerbal the heck out of it.

While asparagus staging used to be more effective, due to the aerodynamics model in KSP, recent updates have made it much less so. To get the most out of this technique, speed should be kept subsonic until you reach the thinner parts of the atmosphere, beyond 15,000 meters or so. Once the air thins out, you can throttle up to 100% and continue into orbit.

See the KSP article here for more info: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Asparagus_staging

The most important thing to remember is to check your staging carefully. You need to drop the boosters starting from the outside and working in. It's also wise to use Sepratrons to get the tanks clear after staging, as there isn't much room with this design.

Happy explosions!

[sturmhauke]

Does this count? It went to the Mun, Minmus, and Gilly. https://imgur.com/a/L5tUk

 

[hoioh]

33 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

Does this count? It went to the Mun, Minmus, and Gilly. https://imgur.com/a/L5tUk

 

It's so pretty!

[sturmhauke]

Aw, thanks! Half the time I spend on missions is making stuff look cool, and trying to get cool screenshots. I've done video a few times too, but haven't totally got the hang of editing.

[Kerbalstar]

Would everybody give a big hand to @Alpha 360 for coming out of the depths of RL to allow me to copy his PM to this thread! It is in the spoiler below, and in my “history” message above! Thank you @Alpha 360!

Spoiler

On 5/5/2018 at 10:24 AM, Alpha 360 said:

You know, the four of us do a lot of the posting on the smaller scale threads. I think we should get together and form a thread where anyone with a random subject can post. I know that many people do that in the "What did you do today in KSP" thread in the discussion room, but there we can each invite each other to challenges and stuff. In other words, a newbie site where all forum users under 500 rep can compete against each other in challenges, or display their work without feeling embarrassed and stuff like that. It might take a little work to put together the rules and ideas for this thread, but would you guys want to help out with it? 

P.S Obney Kerman, I know that your signature is about not having threads. If you want, you can change that to "I have 1 thread" by starting this off, or you can just be a sub-author of the thread

P. P. S VelocityPolaris, I know most of your forum time is working on Past the Haze so you might not want to take an active role in this, if any role at all. That's fine with me, do what you want to do.

P. P. P. S kerbalstar, I don't know what to say, because unfortunately, I didn't snoop around. Take it whichever way you want. 

Happy Explosions!

 

 

[Kerbalstar]

New challenge!

Planetary Surface Explorartion Vehicle (PSEV) Design Challenge!

The challenge this week is simple, yet tough, as with all of our challenges. This week, your challenge is to design a rover.

Some specifications:

1. It must be Kermanned, and capable of carrying at least 2 Kerbals.
2. It must be able to land on a body from a low orbit.
3. It must be able to rove at least 1.3km from its original landing site, measured by planting a flag, and then looking at the distance away from that flag.
4. If you go more than 50km, you will get a special badge!

Spoiler

 

Good luck!

[doggonemess]

For our one participant, I'm happy to present the badge for the Asparagus Staging Challenge!

 

 

[Lucast0909]

Attention! New Challenge Issued!

Stock Space Warship

Greetings ladies and gentlekerbals! As was reported in the papers last week (you've seen them, haven't you?) global government bill 626 was passed and ratified by the Global Congress for all Kerbals. What does this mean for you? Well, I'm here to tell you. With the passing of the so-called 'Corporate Space' bill, space has now been freed up to enterprising corporations (and more importantly, their CEOs) to conquer as they see fit. In short, if you can plant a flag on it, it's yours. Fortunately for me and General Universal, we already had a handful of combat vessels on the production line (as pictured above: the KSS Stheno). Unluckily for you, that means you lot are all now behind the curve, ha!

Fortunately for you, our burgeoning flotilla won't be going anywhere yet, as the Stheno and her sister the Medusa are currently suffering major teething problems with their weapons systems. Oops. That means you all have just caught a lucky break, I'd strongly advise you to take the chance to establish your own fleets before there's no hope of defending your current holdings.

Of course, what would this challenge be without rules, and here they are:

• The craft must have at least theoretical interplanetary range (Duna at least) w/o tugs or additional boosters
• The craft must carry some sort of stock armaments, a show of force or weapons test is not required, but recommended.
• The craft must reach orbit by purely stock means
• The craft must be manned

Good luck, and godspeed!~ Lucas Kerman, C.E.O.

[doggonemess]

Delighted by the prospect of government military spending and unlimited cost overrun, Lev Aerospace is proud to present our entry to the burgeoning Kerbal Space Navy.

For your consideration, the Kerman-Class Korvette, KV-1002. (Don't ask what happened to KV-1000 and KV-1001. It wasn't pretty.)

The KV-1002 features an armored crew section with an escape pod, fuel-cell augmented reactor power plant, VTOL capabilities, Close-In-Defense Cannons (CIDC), two hull-mounted mass drivers, and six guided anti-ship torpedoes. It carries enough fuel to reach LKO or out past the orbit of Duna (but not both, you'll need a refueling station, which we're happy to throw in at lots of extra fees). Excessive maneuvering thrusters mean that it can turn 180 degrees on any axis in less than five seconds. Four Vector engines provide enough acceleration to launch the ship from the ground straight up or out of the way of incoming weapons in space. Crew quarters can accommodate two pilots and a complete engineering team or up to sixteen Marines.

 

Ventral view - orange fairing contains the escape pod. Note the armor plating around crew module and drive section. The four VTOL engines are also visible.

 

Reactor bay - also contains fuel converter for refueling from raw ore.

 

Anti-ship torpedoes - side mounted launchers open to release weapons, close to keep in the explosive goodness.

 

Escape pod - can be launched in a moments notice, in case of catastrophic failure (or stupidity).

 

Escape pod - crew safely blasts away from the dying ship (well, three of them anyway; sorry Marines - you always get the short stick).

 

[HeroBrian_333]

I'm going to be working through all of these in order...

You will be seeing a lot of me.

[doggonemess]

On 3/14/2019 at 6:29 PM, HeroBrian_333 said:

I'm going to be working through all of these in order...

You will be seeing a lot of me.

Awesome! They're open in perpetuity, so anyone is welcome to try their hand at them.