Orbit Boot Camp

[Chequers]

Update

I've updated the image of the Kerbin Crescent on the OP with some of the more recent adornments, including the Pearl Escutcheon and 1st Class Insignia, for those that want to know what these look like 'in the flesh'.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Chequers

[mystifeid]

6 hours ago, Chequers said:

I've updated the image of the Kerbin Crescent on the OP with some of the more recent adornments, including the Pearl Escutcheon and 1st Class Insignia, for those that want to know what these look like 'in the flesh'.

Cute. How good are you with transparent backgrounds?

RUsureaboutthis4 with a launchpad dV of 1154 m/s. Possibly one of the more ludicrous rockets I've made with an ascent profile to match.
Took 5 successful launches before I recovered 2581 to stay under 5000 cost. Mission cost - 4590.

 

[Chequers]

6 minutes ago, mystifeid said:

Cute. How good are you with transparent backgrounds?

I've made it have a transparent background, if that tickles your fancy. Unless you were asking generally... in which case... 'pretty good, I guess.'

Regarding your latest entry, congratulations on what I agree is a ludicrous submission! But ludicrous or not, it shaves off the 1m/s of dV needed to reclaim the Gold Florettes! Well done!

[mystifeid]

12 minutes ago, Chequers said:

I've made it have a transparent background, if that tickles your fancy.

It does tickle...now I've put it there and forgotten to ask - did I do everything? Is it ok to use it?

[Chequers]

1 hour ago, mystifeid said:

It does tickle...now I've put it there and forgotten to ask - did I do everything? Is it ok to use it?

You can use it however you like! 

[Chequers]

Update

Now we have a fairly robust list of 'additional adornments' for challengers to collect, I've been thinking about some more unique adornments for those wanting to compete. Two new unique adornments have been added:

Opal Festoon - Highest DeltaV (atmo) at Launchpad
Cobalt Stripe - Heaviest Payload Delivered (some restrictions apply. See OP)

The Kerbin Crescent Adornments image has been updated.

For fairness, these will be applied to new entries, rather than retroactively. Good luck!

Edited April 22, 2020 by Chequers

[CBase]

On 4/19/2020 at 3:51 PM, bayesian_acolyte said:

Nervous Energy 4

Since I think the idea for this ship is incredible, I did try to rebuild and fly your design, however I am completely failing when it is time to turn the ship for the Spark: It takes me quite long and I am loosing at least 150 m/s speed during turn around. Can you give any hint how you pilot that thing ?

[CBase]

While browsing the parts I noticed Rockomax to Kerbodyne tank adapter is pretty cheap for its content, so an idea was born: Fatty I

6 parts, 4873 funds on launchpad give 3803 m/s dV atmo dV and 934m/s in orbit, 3706 funds recovered with a runway landing.

Now that I think of it, I spent propably more fuel to hit the runway than the 2% increased recovery was worth . But it gives a nice picture

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[bayesian_acolyte]

2 hours ago, CBase said:

Since I think the idea for this ship is incredible, I did try to rebuild and fly your design, however I am completely failing when it is time to turn the ship for the Spark: It takes me quite long and I am loosing at least 150 m/s speed during turn around. Can you give any hint how you pilot that thing ?

The ascent profile is important. Before the whiplash cuts out you want an AP at least 50 km and ideally more like 60 km (70+ km also works but is less efficient), and you also want a surface speed of around 1500 m/s at 20km. It's mostly about getting the right ascent angle early on which can take trial and error. The wing attachment angle is also very important here; I'm not sure it's possible to get this ascent profile with wings that are attached straight on, and if they are tilted too much you can't get enough speed, so that might be your problem. Here is the craft file (you probably want to add more fuel though, the margins are slim): https://kerbalx.com/Bayesian_Acolyte/Nervous-Energy-4

IIRC you want to flip at like 43 km for a 60 km AP. There is less drag if you flip using yaw from the side (as opposed to flipping with pitch). You may want to rock the opposite way a bit first to make the turn more forceful and quicker. Having it stick on retrograde can be a bit tricky, especially if you are flipping at a lower altitude, so try to time some counter-rotation.

[Chequers]

Congratulations @CBase on passing out of Orbit Boot Camp with your aptly named rocket, 'Fatty I'; a well utilised knowledge of the fuel-filled adaptor, which I don't believe has been done before in OBC. Thank you for your screenshot mission report - you certainly get the quirked eyebrow of approval from the OBC Committee for bringing your craft safely back to the tarmac. You are awarded the Kerbin Crescent, adorned with Zircon Chevron, Amber Leaves and Crossed Swords. You are also the first to claim one of the new unique adornments - the Opal Festoon, for setting the benchmark for the highest d/v vessel.

---

@bayesian_acolyte, thank you for going into more detail about how you pilot Nervous Energy 4. Demonstrating that this challenge isn't simply about building a low-cost vessel - but having the knowledge and skill to pilot it to orbit and back.

[CBase]

8 hours ago, Chequers said:

You are awarded the Kerbin Crescent, adorned with Zircon Chevron, Amber Leaves and Crossed Swords.

Sorry, I forgot to mention the science feature in my description, but you can see the temperature reading in the mission report , so I do hope to qualify for a Silver Claw too. And mission cost are 1176 funds after recovery.

8 hours ago, Chequers said:

the Opal Festoon, for setting the benchmark for the highest d/v vessel.

Thank you, I just discovered this new addition. Since I am the first and only one, may I suggest a change on this: Reward the highest dV in orbit, rather than on launchpad. Adding a Juno for instance would blow up the launchpad rating, but is hardly helpful and provide assistance to other players by bringing up clever designs.

Edited April 23, 2020 by CBase

[Chequers]

1 hour ago, CBase said:

Sorry, I forgot to mention the science feature in my description, but you can see the temperature reading in the mission report , so I do hope to qualify for a Silver Claw too. And mission cost are 1176 funds after recovery.

Thank you, I just discovered this new addition. Since I am the first and only one, may I suggest a change on this: Reward the highest dV in orbit, rather than on launchpad. Adding a Juno for instance would blow up the launchpad rating, but is hardly helpful and provide assistance to other players by bringing up clever designs.

My humble apologies for not noticing the temperature reading - and confusing your recovered costs for your final mission cost. You are absolutely awarded the Silver Claw (with Kelvin Ribbon) for your temperature experiment; I've updated your entry, and its cost, on the Honour Roll.

Regarding the highest delta-v; - yes, you're absolutely right, and I believe that's why I didn't have that unique adornment originally: thanks for reminding me! I like your suggestion: I've amended it to 'Highest dV remaining in orbit'. You still currently hold this unique adornment; with 934 m/s remaining once orbit had been achieved.

Thanks for taking part!

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Chequers

[CBase]

10 hours ago, bayesian_acolyte said:

Before the whiplash cuts out you want an AP at least 50 km and ideally more like 60 km (70+ km also works but is less efficient), and you also want a surface speed of around 1500 m/s at 20km

Thank you for all your tips, I am getting pretty close but lack ~80 m/s on final speed with orbits of 60x2km at best. The flip is still $*%&* , but I never manage to get your speed and AP altitude.

When I look at your screenshot from 18700m, with nearly same pitch my drag readings are 3x higher although AoA is only 0.1 instead of -0.09 and lift is about the same while my surface speed is 50-60 m/s slower.

Maybe some more tries tomorrow

[CBase]

One challenge is about lowest dV on launchpad. Well since we all know that physics require you to have at least ~2250 m/s orbital speed and you will loose some dV due to drag and gravity: This is really about lying with numbers, make your rocket look bad to KSP

Lets try: Boosty shows only 785 m/s and has mission cost of 4383 -1708 =2675 

but still reaches orbit

Spoiler

Here are the other pictures:

Even worse dV at 0m VAB reading !

Good is good enough, without extra weight for any control surface this is fine.

 

[mystifeid]

5 minutes ago, CBase said:

Lets try: Boosty shows only 785 m/s and has mission cost of 4383 -1708 =2675

Nice one, but we're using Mechjeb now?

[Chequers]

Well done on your entry, @CBase, but unfortunately, as @mystifeid mentions, MechJeb would be classed as a 'performance enhancing mod' - and after an embarrassing scandal at last year's International Orbital Engineers championships, the OBC committee have outlawed it. 

Are you able to complete your mission without it?

[CBase]

3 hours ago, Chequers said:

MechJeb would be classed as a 'performance enhancing mod'

Oh sorry, I never thought of MechJeb as this. Yeah of course I can, actually I am running a heavy modified personal branch where I touched most of the functions. I will make a video with MechJeb off, just to be sure, is Trajectories okay for landing at KSC ?

[Chequers]

44 minutes ago, CBase said:

Oh sorry, I never thought of MechJeb as this. Yeah of course I can, actually I am running a heavy modified personal branch where I touched most of the functions. I will make a video with MechJeb off, just to be sure, is Trajectories okay for landing at KSC ?

Having never installed a mod for KSP, I don't know how much it helps with your re-entry. Looking at it though, it seems to just give more information about your landing trajectory, but doesn't actually do anything for you - is that correct?

I'm happy to take your word on whether you feel it's enabling you to do something you couldn't do without it - or whether it's giving you an advantage over modless entries, but if you disabled it, then that'd remove all grey-area. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by Chequers

[mystifeid]

Using @CBase's trick, the dV Liar makes orbit with a launchpad dV of 225m/s. You'd have to say it's possible to keep refining this trick until you have only 1 or 2 m/s dV showing on the launchpad - just enough to deorbit.

 

Edited April 24, 2020 by mystifeid

[Chequers]

@mystifeid - it would appear this particular challenge has been broken: it might be time to replace that particular adornment with one less game-able. I'm open to suggestions.

[mystifeid]

I'd agree that it's time to take the Gold Florettes, give them Kerbol escape velocity and say bye bye. Not sure what to replace them with though.

[Klapaucius]

26 minutes ago, Chequers said:

@mystifeid - it would appear this particular challenge has been broken: it might be time to replace that particular adornment with one less game-able. I'm open to suggestions.

I always make a rule in my challenges that says, "Keep to the spirit of the challenge. I cannot think of every loophole. Don't go looking for them."

All challenges require out of the box thinking, but that is different from exploiting holes in the the programming. To me, unless stated otherwise, one needs to keep to what the physics is supposed to do.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Klapaucius
Clarity

[mystifeid]

I think that even at the best, lowest launchpad dV is a very contrived challenge and at the worst it looks like it becomes meaningless.

@Chequerscan take solace though in having found pretty hard limits for lowest launch cost and lowest overall cost.

[Chequers]

I’m with you @Klapaucius and I included the same rule, but it gets a bit subjective. One persons exploit is another’s understanding of the game engine. The original intent of the lowest dV adornment was to promote efficiency - not game the way it’s calculated. But that’s just the way it goes.

@mystifeid, you’re right - I think it’s run it’s course. Ill replace the Gold Florettes with a different challenge - perhaps ‘Highest Apoapsis’

Edited April 24, 2020 by Chequers

[CBase]

Actually when I played around yesterday late night I didn't really recognised that I found a bug about solid fuel calculation as mystifeid showed. In my head the main dV was still coming from the Terrier, just by factor of 4 disguised as it's ISP changes from 85s to 345s and I strapped on boosters in various configuration until I reached enough altitude to be over 300s.

6 hours ago, Chequers said:

The original intent of the lowest dV adornment was to promote efficiency - not game the way it’s calculated.

6 hours ago, mystifeid said:

I think that even at the best, lowest launchpad dV is a very contrived challenge and at the worst it looks like it becomes meaningless.

Actually I do think launchpad dV is hardly a good measurement for efficiency due to varying Isp.

What is your vision of efficiency ?

Is it about burning the least amount of fuel ? Maybe measure overall dry to wet mass ratio. An easy version is to simply take compare orbital mass to launch mass, but this strongly discourages staging. Up to you, if that is your intend.