Unrealistic testing condition?

[Bubblegum]

So, I have foolishly accepted this mission which states to test an ant-engine in between 0 and 3000m.

The problem is that it also needs to be at least 980m/s fast. That seems to be pretty impossible imho.

Any Ideas?

[jimmymcgoochie]

1. Build a supersonic plane with Panther jet engines and one Ant on it somewhere.
2. Speed up to 980m/s, using afterburner mode on the Panthers (toggle mode in the right click menu or set it to an action group).
3. Stage or test the Ant.
4. Profit!

That is a bit of an odd contract though, the Ant is really intended as a vacuum engine for small probes and definitely not for sea-level use. 

[luna_cat]

You have to activate the ant engine through staging, but nothing says that the ant must be the only engine on the vehicle. That works whether it's on a plane or a rocket. One trick you can do is to set the ant's thrust limiter to zero. With this setting, you can put the ant in front, or on top of a vehicle. It just needs to be activated, it doesn't have to do anything useful. If you use the Tweak Scale mod, you can make test parts tiny. That also makes testing easier. If it's not what the customer wanted, they should have worded the contract differently!

[Bubblegum]

Okay thanks, seems to be impossible at this point, I only have basic airplane parts and it will take a while to get more science points.

The problem is air resistance, I already tried with all sorts of rockets and they can't speed up fast enough. I also tried to bring them to higher altitude and then drop+accelerate to the ground, but they either explode or are not fast enough.

[Zhetaan]

On 7/3/2021 at 5:49 PM, Bubblegum said:

Any Ideas?

This comes off as cheeky, but ...

... cancel the mission.

That's not to say that it can't be done--I'm a staunch completist, so I'd chafe immensely at the idea of quitting a mission in my own game--but one of the things that I've learned is that KSP often likes to throw improbable and impossible missions at you.  The improbable ones serve to provide crowning moments of awesome in the event that you do actually manage it, and the impossible ones serve to provide experiential learning in how to cope with frustration.

Also, you've probably got years in-game before the contract deadline, so you can afford to do some other missions, get some science points, and unlock technology that will let you do this mission ... provided that it is, in fact, possible.  You may want to prioritise upgrading Mission Control for the sake of more contract slots, though.

 

[king of nowhere]

put a fairing in front, and a bit engine in the bottom. turn your rocket horizontal immediately after launch. that should give you the thrust and heat resistance to reach that speed at low height. I did something similar once, I remember. In my case i was low in the tech tree, so I disregarded drag completely, and i strapped a heavy booster behind a thermal shield, with a bit of reaction wheels in between.

I have no idea how I avoided flipping the rocket. Maybe I put fins on the back too.