The Official Kerbal Dakar 2020

[Pds314]

Summer Kerman: "Wait, so less aggressively. That means roll the vehicle and blow up the EDF, a wheel, and the only electricity source within 45 seconds, only 4 kilometers from the starting line? Right??"

[Pds314]

Okay, made it, but... oof. That's a lot of damage. I'm not allowed to "repair" a vehicle between stages, right?

Edited January 2, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

It was at this moment that she knew... she messed up. (Is there a correct way to do a 100 meter drop?)

Edited January 2, 2020 by Pds314

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

GODDAMIT WGY IS IT SO HARD TO BUILD A FRICKING CAR THAT DOESN'T FLIP OVER WITH STOCK

I might have to turn to mods...

[Pds314]

2 hours ago, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

GODDAMIT WGY IS IT SO HARD TO BUILD A FRICKING CAR THAT DOESN'T FLIP OVER WITH STOCK

I might have to turn to mods...

My suggestion is to have very firm suspension, low center of mass, and very LOW friction control on the wheels. You'll slide instead of rolling. Make sure also to give the front wheels less friction control or it will have a tendency to spin out.

The extreme version of this is to forego making a car altogether and build a "hovercraft" instead. With a skirt of frictionless wheels holding it up. As you can see from this one climbing a mountain at 440 kph, they can be made quite resilient, although they do require you to land jumps correctly to not break the skirt. Yeeting yourself into the sky at a third to half the speed of sound and then just taking whatever landing gravity gives you definitely won't cut it.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Pds314

[QF9E]

@DoctorDavinci: Not sure why but the stage 1 finish flag isn't visible for me. I've driven multiple times over the approximate point where the flag should be according to other posts , but the stage does not finish. Meanwhile, the holokron icon seems to have moved over to the Stage 1 start point. 

I'm using KSP 1.8.1.2694 64 bits on Windows 10 with Making History but without Breaking Ground. Contents of GameData folder (which, if I am not mistaken, gives a list of all installed mods):

The route itself is very enjoyable. Needless to say my solar racing car is not the most durable one out there and it was quite a challenge to get it to the finish in one piece. Awesome work designing the track!

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by QF9E
added details about my KSP installation

[QF9E]

Some other bugs in OrX:

* Sometimes the Holokron does not appear after spawning on the Dessert Airfield and opening Stage 1. When this happens it seems that starting the race is impossible. Reloading, resetting OrX and trying again sometimes solves the issue but sometimes multiple reloads are necessary to get the holokron to appear.

* Sometimes my car gets destroyed when OrX places it on the starting position. It seems that in these cases OrX spawns the car beneath the surface. It also seems that some of the pieces of my car get displaced, but if this is OrX or a consequence of spawning beneath the surface isn't clear to me.

* If you are thrown out of the car the Holokron disappears. Running after my car and getting in did not return it. I haven't been able to find a way to continue the race when this happened. OrX only allows me to restart the stage but that is not what I would want in such cases.

My conclusion is that OrX is not yet mature enough to handle this Dakar challenge, at least not for me and my KSP setup. I might try again using the savegame method.

[klond]

 Hello from Minnesota my fellow internet friends.  I like winter, but this desert brown and sky blue is a nice change from our white/white.

Stage 1 complete!  30:07:74

 I took a risk and built a small car.  6 wheels, 1 battery, 2 RTG, no solar.  I dip into battery reserves uphill which is a fun resource management mechanic.

 The sponsorship sign is top heavy but car ain't fast (5 or 10m/s uphill, 30some down).  I rolled it over in trials so there's a small reaction wheel to right myself.  Reaction wheel is also helping me in SAS Only mode when driving.  I'm on KSP 1.8.1 with that OrX mod.  Thanks for the info about screen flickering quickload fix for Vessel Mover.

 Started out during the day.  Got dark later going up in the hills.  Lil scary cuz I'm watching Alien while I was driving.

 Lil terrain issue.  Wasn't a problem.  We'll pretend it's mud/sand.

 So Jeb's sign is a lil heavy, even with the RTGs in front (The torque from the 4 rear wheels didn't help.  Maybe if I slipped it into front wheel drive I could have made it).  'Limits my max approach angle.  Gotta zig-zag up the steeps.  Battery wearing down up these hills.

 Took a quick minute to stop by a crash sight from the goliath speed challenge recently that I happened to cross, and to let battery recharge.  This is turning into an adventure.  Visibility poor, very dark, the hills have eyes.

 Wheels settings are all factory.  This is me sliding down the final hill, full brakes still doing 15m/s.  'Should have taken a longer route.

Got air a few times earlier, some cuz of poor visibility.  The poor weight distribution of the sign makes me land tail first.  Lost a few letter pieces.  Gotta be more careful.  Sign makes a nice wheelie bar tho :).

Mod failed to stop timer so I'm using this photo here at a full stop.

Get well Triop.

Edited January 2, 2020 by klond

[DoctorDavinci]

11 hours ago, QF9E said:

@DoctorDavinci: Not sure why but the stage 1 finish flag isn't visible for me. I've driven multiple times over the approximate point where the flag should be according to other posts , but the stage does not finish. Meanwhile, the holokron icon seems to have moved over to the Stage 1 start point. 

I'm using KSP 1.8.1.2694 64 bits on Windows 10 with Making History but without Breaking Ground. Contents of GameData folder (which, if I am not mistaken, gives a list of all installed mods):

The route itself is very enjoyable. Needless to say my solar racing car is not the most durable one out there and it was quite a challenge to get it to the finish in one piece. Awesome work designing the track!

 

The timer not stopping is odd and a detailed report of your time should appear ... I guess that is broken somehow (I have a suspicion that it has something to do with terrain detail ... different terrain detail settings will cause the Kerbin terrain altitude to change)

I didn't take the above into account although not exactly sure if that is the issue ... KSP.log would help substantially in figuring this out

As for the stage flags not appearing, you need to use the save game from the OP

8 hours ago, QF9E said:

Some other bugs in OrX:

* Sometimes the Holokron does not appear after spawning on the Dessert Airfield and opening Stage 1. When this happens it seems that starting the race is impossible. Reloading, resetting OrX and trying again sometimes solves the issue but sometimes multiple reloads are necessary to get the holokron to appear.

* Sometimes my car gets destroyed when OrX places it on the starting position. It seems that in these cases OrX spawns the car beneath the surface. It also seems that some of the pieces of my car get displaced, but if this is OrX or a consequence of spawning beneath the surface isn't clear to me.

* If you are thrown out of the car the Holokron disappears. Running after my car and getting in did not return it. I haven't been able to find a way to continue the race when this happened. OrX only allows me to restart the stage but that is not what I would want in such cases.

My conclusion is that OrX is not yet mature enough to handle this Dakar challenge, at least not for me and my KSP setup. I might try again using the savegame method.

I'm suspecting the same issue as mentioned above .. regardless, something isn't right and I need to figure it out and fix it

I didn't know that the start location is at the desert airfield and I suspect that terrain height is the culprit as the holokron would be trying to spawn at the altitude it was saved at and if there is something above that altitude, the model of the airfield perhaps, then it would likely crash through the terrain and explode .. I'll have to add in some code to account for the terrain height for above as well as for any models etc.. as explained above

As for the being thrown from your car, that is how the OrX K Outlaw Racing challenge type was set up (so that the challenge would stop if the active vessel changes after the challenge had started) ... I can  change that and put in a button instead to stop the challenge, although I'll likely make it a select-able option in the challenge builder so that a creator can select whether they want challengers to be able to switch vehicles (that was the original purpose ... to prevent spawning a new vessel in the middle of a challenge)

3 hours ago, klond said:

Mod failed to stop timer so I'm using this photo here at a full stop

I'm thinking the same as above in regards to the terrain height ... the holokron is spawning under the ground which makes it too far away to detect that a challenger has passed through the gate ... I know the holokron spawned since it is what actually spawns the stage gate when you're 800 meters out

I think I'll do away with a holokron spawning at the finish line and just make the gate do the timing

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll post your guys/gals/others times to the OP when I get a chance to sit down at my computer ... if you decide to continue with using OrX I would love to see the KSP.log after each stage as well as some info on your sytems and KSP settings as it will help me figure out exactly where I screwed up (if you end up having the KSP.log it would be greatly appreciated if you could post a dropbox or other link in the ORX K thread so I can take a look at it and fix it)

 

[ChaoticPheonix]

2 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

I'll post your guys/gals/others times to the OP when I get a chance to sit down at my computer ... if you decide to continue with using OrX I would love to see the KSP.log after each stage as well as some info on your sytems and KSP settings as it will help me figure out exactly where I screwed up (if you end up having the KSP.log it would be greatly appreciated if you could post a dropbox or other link in the ORX K thread so I can take a look at it and fix it)

 

My only issue with OrX has been the craft blowing up when I try and start the race. It only happens with my big rally truck entered on page 1, and not anything smaller.

[DoctorDavinci]

7 minutes ago, ChaoticPheonix said:

My only issue with OrX has been the craft blowing up when I try and start the race. It only happens with my big rally truck entered on page 1, and not anything smaller.

Do you have a bunch of clipped parts and is your CoM for the craft close to the ground or really high up off the ground? ... If you could, PM me a KSP.log from a session where this happens (it would help substantially)

Could very well be the repositioning of the craft during start that is going bonkers by moving your craft to the start position but due to the CoM being so high off the ground it moves the craft with some of its parts in the ground causing it to go boom

I'll have to fix that

And sorry @Triop and everyone else, I didn't want this thread to turn into a support thread for OrX K ... I will put a warning in the OP and if others here do use OrX K and have issues please post in the OrX K thread so we can keep this thread more focused on the race instead of my mistakes

Edited January 3, 2020 by DoctorDavinci

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

15 hours ago, Pds314 said:

My suggestion is to have very firm suspension, low center of mass, and very LOW friction control on the wheels. You'll slide instead of rolling. Make sure also to give the front wheels less friction control or it will have a tendency to spin out.

The extreme version of this is to forego making a car altogether and build a "hovercraft" instead. With a skirt of frictionless wheels holding it up. As you can see from this one climbing a mountain at 440 kph, they can be made quite resilient, although they do require you to land jumps correctly to not break the skirt. Yeeting yourself into the sky at a third to half the speed of sound and then just taking whatever landing gravity gives you definitely won't cut it.

Wait that worked?

Hmm ( ideas of building a 6WD pickup truck that goes at a quarter of the speed of sound powered by two junos and a spark in case of emergency )

Actually, thinking about in now, I’ve already made one a long time ago. Just need to find it in one of my save files

Edited January 3, 2020 by έķ νίĻĻάίή

[Pds314]

34 minutes ago, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

Wait that worked?

Hmm ( ideas of building a 6WD pickup truck that goes at a quarter of the speed of sound powered by two junos and a spark in case of emergency )

Actually, thinking about in now, I’ve already made one a long time ago. Just need to find it in one of my save files

Junos should be able to get you to pretty insane speeds.  I would think more than ~85 m/s. Considering that even a single Juno can make an aerodynamically optimized aircraft reach like mach 2 and a completely unoptimized one reach mach 0.7. A pickup won't have as good drag coefficient but still.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[DoctorDavinci]

1 hour ago, Pds314 said:

Junos should be able to get you to pretty insane speeds.  I would think more than ~85 m/s. Considering that even a single Juno can make an aerodynamically optimized aircraft reach like mach 2 and a completely unoptimized one reach mach 0.7. A pickup won't have as good drag coefficient but still.

Yes, Junos can get to pretty insane speeds across the ground ... I routinely hit over 100 m/s with 2 pushing 8 tons on 8 wheels

@Pds314 I just saw your post with your time, did you have a start picture for the timing so I can put it on the scoreboard?

EDIT: disregard that, I just realized that you startedthe race as soon as you spawned ... I'll post your mission time

Edited January 3, 2020 by DoctorDavinci

[Pds314]

1 hour ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Yes, Junos can get to pretty insane speeds across the ground ... I routinely hit over 100 m/s with 2 pushing 8 tons on 8 wheels

@Pds314 I just saw your post with your time, did you have a start picture for the timing so I can put it on the scoreboard?

EDIT: disregard that, I just realized that you startedthe race as soon as you spawned ... I'll post your mission time

I think I started that one at either 30, 40, or 60 seconds in. I can find the screenshot several hundred screenshots back if needed. Honestly I am not gonna continue that run though. I want to complete it in a reasonable period of time.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Ugh. That final hill is brutal... I could have gotten a 9-10 minute first-stage run and I was being pretty conservative. But then I botched a landing and flipped out with reverse thrust. I started at MET 1:00.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[DoctorDavinci]

8 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Ugh. That final hill is brutal... I could have gotten a 9-10 minute first-stage run and I was being pretty conservative. But then I botched a landing and flipped out with reverse thrust. I started at MET 1:00.

Damn .. that is rough

I think the fastest route if you can maintain high speeds is going around via the stage 4 flag and then over to the pyramids ... much smoother ride 

I managed under 12 minutes in my testing with Bill's BBB Mk3 the other day .. 102.7 m/s lol

[Pds314]

7 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Damn .. that is rough

I think the fastest route if you can maintain high speeds is going around via the stage 4 flag and then over to the pyramids ... much smoother ride 

I managed under 12 minutes in my testing with Bill's BBB Mk3 the other day .. 102.7 m/s lol

Well in principle, if I do everything exactly right, I can do 130 m/s on moderately rough terrain and 170 on a flat. The problem is that that leaves not much room for error and means I need a very quick reaction time to control my orientation, acceleration, and speed in jumps and into steep hills. I think the thing to do is slow way down before going over the odd saddle points on the final ridge, then speed back up descending the hill.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[QF9E]

6 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

I'll post your guys/gals/others times to the OP when I get a chance to sit down at my computer ...

I think I can do better than what I posted, as I drove around the temple for a bit before doing that screenshot, in search of the end of stage. I'm thinking of doing the stage again using the save game method, if that gives a faster time will you update the scoreboard?

[DoctorDavinci]

17 minutes ago, QF9E said:

I think I can do better than what I posted, as I drove around the temple for a bit before doing that screenshot, in search of the end of stage. I'm thinking of doing the stage again using the save game method, if that gives a faster time will you update the scoreboard?

of course I'll update your times

as an aside, here's a fix for those issues with OrX

https://www.dropbox.com/s/drla4zkvv2d0wle/OrX.dll?dl=0

just overwrite the .dll in OrX/Plugin

I'll release an updated OrX shortly

Edited January 3, 2020 by DoctorDavinci

[Pds314]

SUB-10 minute stage 1!
Minor damage was received in the final minute or so of Stage 1, but it's not critical damage.

Starting line: MET 0 minutes, 30 seconds. There's actually a lot of "pre-flight checks" so starting by 30 seconds required a fair amount of practice


 

Spoiler

T + 19 seconds: fastest speed achieved during the flight: 171.6 m/s.


T + 46 seconds: Rushing for the mountains.


T + 1:42: Climbing the first mountains at 67 m/s.

T + 2:07: Slowing way down to crest a sharp ridge. I don't want to have to land that jump.


T + 2:35: Cruising through the valley.


T + 3:06: Roughly halfway there.


T + 3:43: Huge ridges ahead.


T + 4:07: A crystal is a sure sign of how mountainous the terrain is. Remember, these aren't groundscatter. They CAN hurt you.


T + 4:17: Accelerating into the valley.


T + 5:05: accelerating up the mountain.


T + 7:00: The final stretch... one of the most dangerous parts of the run with many ridges and cliffs that are unavoidable.


T + 8:20: The I can see the finish line. It's still a full minute and two crashes away though.


T + 8:46: After getting a wheel broken, I start cruising down the final cliff.


T + 9:01: Dashing up the final hill.


T + 9:21: I hit the pyramid and break the headlight.

FINISH: MET 9 minutes, 52 seconds. T + 9:22.

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

A pic from an attempt at stage 2: 137 m/s up a cliff! xD Summer is more than a bit nervous about this situation...

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[Pds314]

Re: going around the mountains and past Stage 4 instead of through them:

It looks to me like it's something like 45 kilometers vs 24.5 in the "ultra-direct" route. So you need about 80% greater average speed. Is it worth it? I don't know. Can I average >80 m/s over the dunes? I did an attempt and got 9000 meters in 112 seconds before crashing, so that's just barely in the acceptable range, but some of that I was bouncing around at 150,

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314

[DoctorDavinci]

8 minutes ago, Pds314 said:

Re: going around the mountains and past Stage 4 instead of through them:

It looks to me like it's something like 45 kilometers vs 24.5 in the "ultra-direct" route. So you need about 80% greater average speed. Is it worth it? I don't know.

Well I have managed to pull a sub 11 minute run doing exactly that so it might actually be worth it

Here's the very end of the run ... Note to self - Slow down before you get to the stage gate

Methinks imma gonna have to try this again lol

Edited January 3, 2020 by DoctorDavinci

[Pds314]

12 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Well I have managed to pull a sub 11 minute run doing exactly that so it might actually be worth it

Here's the very end of the run ... Note to self - Slow down before you get to the stage gate

 

Well that would seem to indicate that my route is faster since my current performance is 9:22. Then again, vehicle and driving style do definitely matter. It's a difference between needing to average 44 and 80 m/s though so the shortcut of going through the mountains may be well worth it. Especially since at least for me it can take as little as 60 seconds to go the first 8 kilometers toward the mountain if I'm going flat out thanks to the unusually forgiving terrain.

Edited January 3, 2020 by Pds314