[BREAKING GROUND] Chernobyl Liquidation Challenge

[EvenFlow]

FOREWORD

After Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl NPP exploded, large amounts of rubble, graphite moderator and other radioactive material from the destroyed reactor were ejected onto the roofs of power plant facilities. Radiation on some parts of the roof was so severe that unprotected circuitry used in remote-controlled robots failed near-immediately. To continue cleanup works rubble needed to be removed from the rooftops. Since the radiation levels would give human workers lethal doses in a matter of minutes, robotic solutions were in high demand.

One of such solutions was a repurposed lunar rover (named STR-1), a remnant of the Lunokhod program outfitted with dosimetry equipment and a bulldozer blade. It's circuitry was already hardened against cosmic radiation, and such it could be quickly modified and deployed into the containment zone. Even with this protection, it only managed to clean up a couple dozen square meters of the roof before succumbing to the extreme radiation.

In this challenge, you will take on this exact task.

You will develop a rover with limited operation time which will help remove graphite rubble from the power plant site along with a delivery method.

THE CHALLENGE

The cleanup operation will consist of four major phases.

1. Rover delivery

Taking off the KSC airfield, you will need to deliver the rover to the disaster site. Time will be counted with the in-game clock from the mission start to the moment, where you come within 150m of the reactor (when the distance marker disappears). In this case, the quicker the better. Point assignment rules will be elaborated on in the next section.

2. Landing your rover on the roof

Since the radiation levels near the core are extremely high, you will need to minimize your time in the proximity of the reactor. From the moment of your arrival within 150m of the reactor you will have two minutes in-game time to deploy the rover onto the roof and leave the 150m perimeter.

3. Retrieving the carrier craft

This section will not be timed, albeit additional points will be awarded if you can return your carrier craft to the KSC unscathed.

4. Cleaning up the roof

After your carrier vehicle has landed (or crashed horribly) you can begin your operation. This section is not timed - the only limit being your battery life (to simulate radiation exposure). Points will be awarded based on how many of the 10 graphite blocks (Oscar-B fuel tanks) situated on the roof you can remove before your battery dies. The blocks are supposed to be pushed off the edge of the roof into the destroyed reactor building where they will not pose a threat.

The challenge ends after your rover battery dies.

RULES

As with all challenges, here are some rules:

1. Your carrier craft can be a VTOL aircraft, a helicopter or even a land-based vehicle. The choice is yours in that regard and creativity in the delivery method department is greatly encouraged!

2. Your rover's only power source can be a single Z-400 battery. All other power sources such as your control modules are prohibited and need to be emptied in the hangar.

3. You may not use any power producing parts such as solar panels, fuel cells and RTGs.

4. The rover has to be delivered onto the roof via the carrier craft, e.g. it may not be deployed outside of the 150m perimeter and flown or driven onto the roof.

5. Albeit the graphite blocks may explode after being dropped into the reactor, they may not be exploded directly on the roof as a mean of their removal.

6. Using kraken drives to propel your rover is prohibited, as the whole point of this challenge is dealing with the problems within time and resource constraints.

7. Please let me know if your submission is stock + DLC or uses some other mods for ease of organization

8. For obvious reasons, the rover must be unmanned. No Kerbals can come close to the reactor, they are already green enough as they are.

The points for each section will be awarded according to these rules:

 

Section 1 - Delivery

Number of points is the value of the following function:

ceil(max(300 - your_time [sec], 0) / 2)

 

Section 2 - Landing the rover

Number of points is the value of the following function

ceil(max(120 - your_time [sec], 0) * 4)

 

Section 3 - Returning the carrier craft

Number of points awarded is

40 - if the carrier aircraft is landed undamaged at the KSC

0 - otherwise

 

Section 4 - Clearing the roof

Number of points is the value of the following function

100 * blocks_removed

 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

First, you should download the savefile containing the powerplant set up in the correct spot.

It can be found here: https://filebin.net/h67zuoh36flmrfpz

Afterwards, after creating your entry you should either film your run, or document it via screenshots. If you choose to go with the screenshot route, please provide the following:

1. Screenshot of your crafts on the KSC runway at the beginning of the mission

2. Screenshot of your arrival within the 150m perimeter with the HUD enabled

3. Screenshot of your carrier craft departure with HUD enabled (if you choose to retrieve it) with the rover on the roof visible in the shot, or just a picture of the rover on the roof if your delivery method is expendable

4. Screenshot of your carrier craft landed (if you choose to retrieve it) with HUD enabled

5. Screenshot of your rover on the roof with amount of electric charge remaining at the beginning of cleanup visible

6. Screenshot of the roof after your electric charge runs out with all remaining graphite blocks visible

 

If you have any questions regarding this challenge, feel free to ask them via messages or here in the thread itself. Have fun and good luck on your journey.

If you feel that any of the rules or point awarding mechanisms need tweaking please let me know!

 

Be wary that the power plant building contains almost 1100 parts so you may experience quite a bit of lag. This is kind of offset by the fact that the model is static and the game does not seem to lag quite as much as with most mobile spawned high-partcount crafts. With a GTX1050 and 8GB of RAM I was able to keep the FPS at about 20-25 at all times and I could execute the mission without too many lag-related issues.

I will prepare a proper badge for all participants and will post it here in a few hours.

Cheers. c:

 

STOCK LEADERBOARD

1. Cela1 - 1594 pts (134 + 420 + 40 + 1000)

2. jinnantonix - 1532 pts (140 + 352 + 40 + 1000)

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MODDED LEADERBOARD

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Edited July 27, 2019 by EvenFlow

[Mr. Peabody]

We have a new Thread of the Month! Congratulations! Probably a new heritage challenge as well if @EvenFlow can keep the nuclear plant updated through several versions. Welcome to the club mate!

[EvenFlow]

1 minute ago, The Dunatian said:

We have a new Thread of the Month! Congratulations! Probably a new heritage challenge as well if @EvenFlow can keep the nuclear plant updated through several versions. Welcome to the club mate!

Thank you so much! I really can't wait to see what people can come up with here. Will do my best to keep the challenge running for as long as possible c:

[Cela1]

This was a very fun challenge thanks! I went for a para-dropped rover to minimise time over the reactor, however I was a little low on my approach and clipped the tower  (luckily no damage ). My craft is stock + DLC btw.

The reason there are extra batteries on top of my rover was that I couldn't figure out how to stop my plane from charging the rover probe in-flight, so I ejected all unregulated charge before starting clearing the roof.

My rover also has a scoop on the front to aid disposal of graphite, but got blown off while deploying from the pane . This is what it should look like: 

[EvenFlow]

Incredible job @Cela1! Great precision on that parachute drop as well! I will make sure to put the score on the leaderboard as soon as i can tomorrow since I'm preparing for a job interview right now. Congratulations on completing the challenge! I have to say i underestimated just how efficient those Making History rover wheels are since I don't own the DLC. That was great!

[Cela1]

2 hours ago, EvenFlow said:

Incredible job @Cela1! Great precision on that parachute drop as well!

Haha... yes... precision... not like it took 30 attempts before that .

2 hours ago, EvenFlow said:

I will make sure to put the score on the leaderboard as soon as i can tomorrow since I'm preparing for a job interview right now.

Good luck with the interview!

[doggonemess]

Very cool and topical! Well done on the reactor building, too.

I just downloaded the save file and KSP tells me "save incompatible" when I try to load it. I'm on the latest version with both DLC packs. Any ideas?

[Azimech]

I'm not going to do this but ... I admire the time and energy you've put into this. Thank you for making this. The series brought tears to my eyes.

[Cela1]

On 7/18/2019 at 3:37 PM, doggonemess said:

Very cool and topical! Well done on the reactor building, too.

I just downloaded the save file and KSP tells me "save incompatible" when I try to load it. I'm on the latest version with both DLC packs. Any ideas?

You need to rename the Chernobyl.loadmeta and Chernobyl.sfs to persistent.loadmeta and persistent.sfs

[FahmiRBLX]

On 7/12/2019 at 9:32 PM, EvenFlow said:

1. Your carrier craft can be a VTOL aircraft, a helicopter or even a land-based vehicle. The choice is yours in that regard and creativity in the delivery method department is greatly encouraged!

Which means, air-dropping from a supersonic jet is allowed?

[EvenFlow]

4 hours ago, FahmiRBLXian said:

Which means, air-dropping from a supersonic jet is allowed?

Yup, practically all means of delivery are allowed.

[jinnantonix]

Here's my submission:  No mods, v1.7.3 with Breaking Ground.

The Liquidator VTOL reaches 150m zone after 20 seconds of flight, drops the rover at flight time 42 seconds, and exits the 150m zone at flight time of 52 seconds.  All graphite blocks removed with 57 units of electricity remaining.

I calculate the score as follows: (300 - 20) / 2  + (120 - 32)* 4 + 40 + 100 * 10 = 1532.

 

 

[Scoopapa]

I wasn't able to download the file. Has it expired?

[doggonemess]

On 8/3/2019 at 3:36 PM, Scoopapa said:

I wasn't able to download the file. Has it expired?

I uploaded the file to my own personal OneDrive public folder. You can download it here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AF7jmxlDV9K6hIB3

 

[Akagi]

Is this still alive?

[QF9E]

I've tried: does not seem to be compatible with the current version of the game. It's very easy to break one or more of your wheels or to get stuck with your rover somewhere, and the Oskar-B tanks tend to get stuck at the boundaries between roof parts.

A pity, really, because I quite like the idea behind this challenge.

 

Edit: No, it is possible after all. You have to be careful to keep your wheels in one piece but it can be done! Will post my attempt when my delivery plane is ready.

Edited April 13, 2022 by QF9E

[QF9E]

I've finished the mission with a score of 1469 points, which I calculated as follows:

• I reached a distance of 150 meters from the reactor at 01:39 mission time. This gives me ceil((300 - 99) / 2) = 101 points for the first phase.
• I delivered the rover to the roof at 02:04, and cleared the reactor by 150 meters at 02:17. I therefore spent 38 seconds in the vicinity of the reactor, giving me (120 - 38) * 4 = 328 points for the second phase.
• I landed my helicopter on the KSC runway, for 40 points.
• I cleared the entire roof of debris for 10 * 100 = 1000 points.

My rover is fully stock, with no DLC parts used. I used an elevon as a front scoop and operated it using its deployment controls. The maximum deploy angle of the part is 30 degrees but by alternating the Deploy direction the effective range can be doubled to 60 degrees.

My helicopter uses Breaking Ground parts for the rotor; otherwise it is stock.

@AkagiThank you for bringing this challenge to my attention! The OP hasn't logged in on the forum since 2020, but don't let that stop you from completing the challenge, which I found very interesting (albeit a bit difficult, probably because of changes to the physics engine). If you want to I'm willing to review your submission for you.

Edited April 16, 2022 by QF9E

[Ben J. Kerman]

Hmm... I might give this a try. I am pretty good at building trucks in KSP, which could be considered as being good at building rovers. Airplane Plus will help with a helicopter delivery, too. 

[Nazalassa]

I found a quirk in the rules:

Nothing prevents us from underclocking an ion engine with a KAL-1000 so it produces Electricity...

And because the OP hasn't logged since 2020, the rules won't get changed.

Yet another trivial challenge.

[QF9E]

On 7/12/2019 at 3:32 PM, EvenFlow said:

Your rover's only power source can be a single Z-400 battery.

Anything that produces electricity is a power source, including underclocked ion engines. Since power sources other than the single Z-400 battery are not allowed, your idea is not allowed under the current rules, and no rules update is necessary.

That said, using the KAL-1000 to run components outside their rated performance is a well-known exploit. You can simply choose to not use such an underhanded technique, even in challenges where the rules as written would allow it.

[EpicRaisin]

The save file link is dead, does anybody have a backup?

[QF9E]

2 hours ago, EpicRaisin said:

The save file link is dead, does anybody have a backup?

I found that the link in the top post does not work anymore, but another user reposted it, and that link does still work for me:

On 8/4/2019 at 11:06 PM, doggonemess said:

I uploaded the file to my own personal OneDrive public folder. You can download it here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AF7jmxlDV9K6hIB3

 

[EpicRaisin]

Thanks! I'll try out this challenge later today maybe.