Electric boat challenge

[Pds314]

Your goal is to build an electric boat with good capabilities.

RULES:

1. NO jet or rocket engines are allowed to be used as a boat engine or in the boat engine.

2. You may use underwater or above-water propulsion, including both propeller and paddle wheel designs, or anything else you come up with.

3. You are encouraged to give your boat interesting or useful features and appearance.

4. Post your boat's mass and top speed.

5. Boats should be able to do at least 5 m/s or they're considered impractically slow. Almost all real boats worthy of the title can go over 10 m/s if powered, so I think this is more than fair. 

6. Seaplanes must prove they are not offsetting more than 10% of their weight with aerodynamic lift using aero GUI for any speed challenges.

7. If it requires infinite electricity, say so. Add RTGs and solar panels if at all possible.

8. Vesselmover and hack gravity is strongly encouraged for getting your boat to the sea. Getting a boat that may well be a hundred or even a thousand tonnes safely into the water isn't part of the challenge.

TIPS:
Airboats are by far the easiest, as getting an efficient prop up to the right RPM is trivial and your power usage is fairly efficient.

AWARDS:

[Riverboat]: Build a viable design using a paddle wheel.+50 points.

[Airboat]: Build a viable design using an aerodynamic propeller. +30 points.

[Motorboat]: Build a viable design using a submerged outboard motor. +100 points.

[Biomimicry]: Build a viable design using reciprocal, rather than rotational motion for the propulsive apparatus. +150 points.

[Chimera]: Build a viable design using multiple different propulsion methods. +50 points per extra method.

[Warship]: Add a stock cannon to your design. +100 points.

[Missile Cruiser]: Add stock missiles to your design launched from a silo. +100 points.

[Torpedos Away]: Add floating torpedos to your boat that can damage another boat. +100 points.

[Submarine]: Make your boat capable of diving beneath the waves and resurfacing repeatedly. +200 points.

[Submaroops]: Make a boat that fails to resurface after diving or fails to dive after surfacing. +100 points.

[Wolfpack]: Add working submarine torpedoes to a submarine. +100 points.

[Oceanliner]: Your boat can accomodate 200 or more kerbals who live in accessible cabins. +150 points.

[Carrier I]: Take off and land a helicopter from your boat. +100 points.

[Carrier II]: Take off and land horizontally a plane from your boat. +200 points. Overrides I.

[Carrier III]: Take off and land horizontally a plane over 10 tonnes from your boat. +300 points. Overrides I and II.

[Seaplane]: Your boat is actually a plane that can takeoff and land on water. +100 points.

[Flying Boat]: Your boat is a seaplane where the hull is also the fuselage. +50 points.

[Flying fish]: Your boat can take off from the water and glide like an aircraft to a safe landing but lacks an aerodynamic power source. +250 points.

[Amphibious Armor]: Create a boat that can justifiably be called a tank or AFV on land. +100 points.

[Oil Tanker]: Create a boat that holds 50000 units of liquid fuel. +100. +100 more for each doubling of fuel capacity.

[Speedboat]: Exceed 30 m/s on water. +50 points. +10 points for every 5 m/s over 30.

[Nimble Giant]: Exceed a kinetic energy of 100 million Joules. +50 points. +5 points per additional 10 MegaJoules

[Landing Barge]: Land a rocket lower stage on your boat from at least 30 km high. +150 points

[Mobile Launch Facility]: Put a 10-tonne payload into LKO using a rocket launched from your boat. Rocket must start with lower stage unfueled. +250 points.

[An Alien Sea]: Legitimately get your boat to Laythe or Eve with rockets and use it there. +250 points.

[Supercarrier]: Add an elevator and hangers to a boat that achieves at least Carrier I. Store at least 5 aircraft that can take off from your boat in the hangers and launch them. +250 points.

[Helicarrier]: Achieve Carrier I or higher in a flying boat. +150 points.

Edited August 25, 2018 by Pds314

[maceemiller]

I love seeing new challenges but as im a rocket man only (havnt got the skills to build much else) I must ask one question about this challenge. ...

I know weve only just met but can I see yours please

[Pds314]

2 hours ago, maceemiller said:

I love seeing new challenges but as im a rocket man only (havnt got the skills to build much else) I must ask one question about this challenge. ...

I know weve only just met but can I see yours please

Not at my PC right now.

Here's one from Imgur. It's a seaplane. Not my entry. Obviously speed is suspect because it's generating 16 tonnes of lift.

http://imgur.com/8AdRGdD

Edited August 24, 2018 by Pds314

[maceemiller]

29 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Not at my PC right now.

Here's one from Imgur. It's a seaplane. Not my entry.

http://imgur.com/8AdRGdD

nice!! as I said I make rockets and probes to go to space....it always amazes me how people can make stuff like that. believe me ive tried.....my planes for example are, well, if they lift off by the end on the runway, even for 200 meters im happy lol!

[Pds314]

6 minutes ago, maceemiller said:

nice!! as I said I make rockets and probes to go to space....it always amazes me how people can make stuff like that. believe me ive tried.....my planes for example are, well, if they lift off by the end on the runway, even for 200 meters im happy lol!

Try looking at the guides for planes. Landing gear and wing positioning REALLY makes a difference. And of course so does flying them gently.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Pds314

[maceemiller]

19 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Try looking at the guides for planes. Landing gear and wing positioning REALLY makes a difference. And of course so does flying them gently.

ahh ive tried mate. dont get me wrong...in my early KSP days I could actually get a plane id built to fly.....I even managed to do the "space plane to orbit and land at the KSC challenge" hence the badge in my signature. ....I just lost the art after managing to get to other planets and land, explore and return home to Kerbin.....

Currently I spend all my time with the RSS mod. Ive recreated Cassinis mission to Saturn, even dropping my Huygen probe on Titan on the way...

...im building the Parker Solar Probe at the moment. ...

anyway. ..enough about that....back to your challenge. ...I "may" attempt but will certainly keep an eye on this thread.....

cant wait to see what creations people come up with 

Edited August 24, 2018 by maceemiller

[Pds314]

A stock speedboat. Very underpowered (6 reaction wheels) but managed to just reach 30 m/s.
Score: 80 points. (30 for propulsion, 50 for speed)

[DoctorDavinci]

@Pds314 so there is a feature dev mod I made that will likely help with moving your boats to a water launch location 

This is a feature development mod for Vessel Mover which gives you the ability to select other launch locations from inside the editor and directly launch to said location

It is on the process of being integrated into VM but for now it is a standalone mod .... I give you Move Launch, Vessel Movers upcoming launching system 

 

Edited August 24, 2018 by DoctorDavinci

[Pds314]

Just now, DoctorDavinci said:

@Pds314 so there is a feature dev mod I made that will likely help with moving your boats to a water launch location 

This is a feature development mod for Vessel Mover which gives you the ability to select other launch locations from inside the editor and directly launch to said location

It is on the process of being integrated into VM but for now it is a standalone mod .... I give you Move Launch, Vessel Movers upcoming launching system 

 

Oh! Nice. I will check this out!

[DoctorDavinci]

1 minute ago, Pds314 said:

Oh! Nice. I will check this out!

There's still a glitch in it which is the vessels rotation after spawn .... but to mitigate that the ML mod moves the vessel and then the vessel is already set up to be placed like in VM when moving vessels ... other than that there's really nothing else wrong with it

Hopefully I'll get my HoloCache code working so users can make their own spawn points (mostly working )

[Pds314]

35 m/s. 90 points.

[sturmhauke]

I've made boats and seaplanes, even got an SSSTO (single stage seaplane to orbit) to Laythe once, but they were all jet and rocket powered. I've only recently figured out stock propellers, so this will be an interesting challenge. I've got a few others in my queue first though.

[Pds314]

Speedboat engine upgrade. Engine has been upped from 45 kN*m of torque to 150 kN*m torque.

It now breaks 50 m/s. That's 105 points.

[qzgy]

Welp I made a thing.

Presenting a Rowboat, infomally called the Flop-o-matic 9001 (Patent Pending)

It moves (very slowly) by flopping the paddles at the side in a rowboat-ish fashion. Truth be told, its more like a bird. But in water. And bad at being a bird.

 

Points - 150 (Biomimicry [I believe it counts... It certainly isn't a prop and I dont think its a paddlewheel])

Edited August 25, 2018 by qzgy

[Pds314]

7 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Welp I made a thing.

Presenting a Rowboat, infomally called the Flop-o-matic 9001 (Patent Pending)

It moves (very slowly) by flopping the paddles at the side in a rowboat-ish fashion. Truth be told, its more like a bird. But in water. And bad at being a bird.

 

Points - 150 (Biomimicry [I believe it counts... It certainly isn't a prop and I dont think its a paddlewheel])

Very cool. Although also very slow. Can it do 5 m/s?

[qzgy]

2 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Very cool. Although also very slow. Can it do 5 m/s?

Honestly No. The most I've seen is like.... 1.2 or so. Its neat but about useless.

Guess it doesn't really count then?

[Pds314]

I made a reasonably quick long-shaft motorboat, but it still needs a lot of work. Unfortunately any contact of the SAS wheels with water reduces efficiency dramatically, and the whole thing is incredibly brittle.

Still far from the elegant and high-performance airboats, but hey, it's a working motorboat.

[Pds314]

Attempt at paddlewheels. Needs higher RPM.

[vyznev]

I made this thing a while ago for the 10g Kerbin circumnavigation challenge.  While it's designed for a high-gravity environment, it runs just fine under normal gravity as well. In fact, it gains a little extra speed, topping out a little over 45 m/s.

While not actually optimized for this challenge, I believe it meets the Airboat (30 points) and Speedboat (50 + 3x10 points) awards, for a total of 110 points. I suspect that it could also qualify for Seaplane and Flying Boat (under normal gravity) with fairly minor modifications, but the lack of elevators makes even attempting takeoff impossible.

That said, if I were to try to tweak the design for the challenge, I'd also rebuild the prop bearings; the ones I used still work in KSP 1.4, but can sometimes be a bit fragile and prone to falling off.

As a bonus, this boat is also fully amphibious and can make its way from the runway to the sea on its own without cheats or assistance, even under 10 times normal gravity. You do have to be careful not to hit any bumps too fast (i.e. at anything more than a couple of meters per second), though. Tip: Spin the propeller in reverse while going downhill, so you can use it for braking assistance.

[Pds314]

On 8/25/2018 at 2:58 PM, vyznev said:

I made this thing a while ago for the 10g Kerbin circumnavigation challenge.  While it's designed for a high-gravity environment, it runs just fine under normal gravity as well. In fact, it gains a little extra speed, topping out a little over 45 m/s.

While not actually optimized for this challenge, I believe it meets the Airboat (30 points) and Speedboat (50 + 3x10 points) awards, for a total of 110 points. I suspect that it could also qualify for Seaplane and Flying Boat (under normal gravity) with fairly minor modifications, but the lack of elevators makes even attempting takeoff impossible.

That said, if I were to try to tweak the design for the challenge, I'd also rebuild the prop bearings; the ones I used still work in KSP 1.4, but can sometimes be a bit fragile and prone to falling off.

As a bonus, this boat is also fully amphibious and can make its way from the runway to the sea on its own without cheats or assistance, even under 10 times normal gravity. You do have to be careful not to hit any bumps too fast (i.e. at anything more than a couple of meters per second), though. Tip: Spin the propeller in reverse while going downhill, so you can use it for braking assistance.

Nice! I like the catamaran design!

I managed to make a fast tanker!

Airboat: 30.

Speedboat: 50.

Oil Tanker: 100.

Nimble giant: 135

Total: 315

This thing is absolutely massive. 50000 units of fuel currently onboard with room for much more. Empty weight is over 200 tonnes but total weight is over 450!

The prop/engine specs are absolutely nuts. It has a static thrust of over 450 kN. It has a thrust at 34.6 m/s of about 378 kN.

It has 24 of the most powerful reaction wheel in the game clipped together. The thrust/weight ratio of the engine is comparable to the stock high-bypass jet.

 

Edit: I realized this thing definitely achieves Nimble Giant. 277 MJ of kinetic energy = 135 extra points.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Pds314

[Chel]

=Challenge Accepted=

[Pds314]

*Fills more fuel tanks*

 

EDIT: sadly, it self-destructs above 70% gravity in this configuration

Edited August 26, 2018 by Pds314

[Pds314]

I should make a carrier! =D

Biggest problem is of course the deck. Since for example a deck made of metal plates that was 10x100 would be 250 parts and so would a hanger of the same construction beneath it. Making airplanes take off and land in less distance or making the deck narrow seems.. precarious, and of course we don't have arresting gears.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Absolutely microscopic seaplane: 2.4 tonnes

It can't quite reach speedboat bonus. So it just gets airboat (30) plus seaplane (100) equals 130 points.

Shown just before takeoff.