Mun Race - First ever live streamed KSP competition! Prize for the winner!

[jimutt]

Hi!

This is the first ever competition hosted by "Kerbal Space Race" which you can read about here: <a href="http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/22328-Live-streaming-Space-race-competitions-interest-check">Live streaming competitions - interest check</a>

You will find the website here: <a href="http://kerbalspacerace.sytes.net">http://kerbalspacerace.sytes.net</a>. (a dedicated domain will be bought for the website when possible)

This is a completely new concept which basically works like this:

<ol>

<li>The competitors sign up at the KSR website and apply for the competition through sending a mail to <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>.</li>

<li>Before the competition begins the competitors set up the required video streaming equipment. (this is free and easy)</li>

<li>When the competition begins, a dedicated web page for the competition's video streams is created and the competitors will now live stream their games to the Kerbal Space Race website.</li>

<li>The competitors live stream their games until they have completed the mission.</li>

<li>Next the winner is appointed and he/she will then be able to claim the prize for winning the competition</li>

</ol>

<h1>The competition</h1>

Here are some basic information about the mission:

Objective: Construct and fly a spacecraft from Kerbin to the Mun as fast as possible. Shortest flight time wins (this will be measured by the in-game clock).

Date: 2012-10-20, 18:00GMT (preliminary time)

Parts allowed: Only stock parts

KSP version: 0.17

Competitors: 3 - 15

<strong>Prize: <a target="_blank" href="

">McPixel</a> (Steam account needed for claiming the prize)</strong>

<h3>Detailed rules</h3>

Your objective is to build a spacecraft and then use it to land safely on the Mun. You must launch the space craft from the space center facility. To complete the mission you need to take a screenshot of your spacecraft standing safetly on the Mun with all Kerbals alive. There will also be both a time limit and a maximum number of allowed attempts.

On the screenshot you must be able to see the in-game mission timer in the top left corner of the screen. This will be used to elect the winner.

The spacecraft used must only consist of stock parts and you are not allowed to use any kind of plugin or mod. You must also construct your spaceship while streaming. This means you can not choose a pre-built spacecraft. The ship must also carry a minimum of one Kerbal, who must survive the mission.

Participate

Send a mail to [email protected] where you tell me that you want to join the competition. There are no fees or anything. The only thing requirement is a working streaming setup. You will find a tutorial for how to setup the streaming equipment in the profile page under "streaming settings".

I will probably add a few things to the rules and modify them a bit before the competition begins. So please keep yourself updated by visiting the competition page on KSR: http://kerbalspacerace.sytes.net/

<h4>The project</h4>

The idea with this project is to bring a more competitive style of gameply to KSP. I also want to make it possible for spectators to watch the competitions.

Though this project is in a very early stage. There is much work to be done on the website and there are many features that I have not had the time to implement yet.

If you like this project and want to help me out in any way there are a couple of things you can do. 1st of all you can donate through the donate button on the website. Donating will allow me to get a dedicated domain and hosting for the website. And it will also help for fixing prices for the competition. Because right now I'm paying for both the hosting and prices myself. And this will get a bit hard for a student like me in the future.

You can also contribute by rewriting the texts on the website and write them in good, correct english. I will be very thankful for all help I can get.

Edited October 8, 2012 by jimutt

[Chickenkeeper]

Sounds interesting, I might join. I like the idea of live competitions, it seems to counter the problems that having in-game multiplayer would bring

[swiftgates24]

Hmmm...sounds interesting...I might join too

[EndlessWaves]

Typo, price should be prize.

Does the mod restriction include information-only mods like Kerbal engineer? I can understand no new parts and no autopilot but trying to come screaming down to the moon as fast as possible without knowing the exact distance to the surface will be awfully tricky and having to keep swapping to the map every 5 seconds during ascent to check apokee is a pain. Perhaps a custom mod just showing the essential information for the challenge?

For future competitions I would keep the objective secret until it starts, announcing it beforehand means people can refine their designs in the weeks before and are simply rebuilding it on the day which isn't as fun.

It's not clear on where exactly the streams finish, is only a single attempt allowed or are people free to keep going until they get something they're happy with?

I think the domain name, site accounts and similar are rather premature at this point. I would keep it open initially and get the competitions up and running first and then if they prove popular you can add the stuff needed for it to be successful when it goes big.

[jimutt]

Typo, price should be prize.

Does the mod restriction include information-only mods like Kerbal engineer? I can understand no new parts and no autopilot but trying to come screaming down to the moon as fast as possible without knowing the exact distance to the surface will be awfully tricky and having to keep swapping to the map every 5 seconds during ascent to check apokee is a pain. Perhaps a custom mod just showing the essential information for the challenge?

For future competitions I would keep the objective secret until it starts, announcing it beforehand means people can refine their designs in the weeks before and are simply rebuilding it on the day which isn't as fun.

It's not clear on where exactly the streams finish, is only a single attempt allowed or are people free to keep going until they get something they're happy with?

I think the domain name, site accounts and similar are rather premature at this point. I would keep it open initially and get the competitions up and running first and then if they prove popular you can add the stuff needed for it to be successful when it goes big.

Thanks for pointing that out. Information-only mods could possibly be allowed as they will not make it much easier to cheat. Though I think I will go for only stock parts and no mods for this challenge.

The idea about keeping the objective secret could be a good idea for some competitions. Thank you for that idea.

About when it all "finishes". Restrictions for that will be added. There will be both a time limit and a maximum number of allowed attempts.

"I think the domain name, site accounts..." I do understand your thoughts about that. But I will still need a platform to publish the actual competition on. And instead of building it all after seeing if it get's popular or not I decided to make a simple foundation to continue from first. Another reason for that is that right now I have at least some free time. But I expect myself to be quite busy the following months. So I will not be able to devote that much time for programming the website then. Though it's much easier now when I don't need to start from scratch again.

Edited October 7, 2012 by jimutt

[-Gamah]

I'm all for stock-only. Make it about piloting/visual queue skills. Having information mods allow you to cheat in that you know when to thrust and where exactly your ship is going in such a way that isn't available currently with the core game experience.

I will definitely participate if this is stock only.

[jimutt]

You've got a point there -Gamah. For this challenge I think it might be the best option to go with only stock parts. As this mission is so easy to complete after all.

[Nooblet68]

I honestly don't see the need for any sort of a prize for this competition. If there was none, it'd be much more convenient for the purposes of hosting more.

[jimutt]

The reason why I added a prize was because I wanted to add an additional motivation source for participating. Just because I was afraid many people might find it too tiresome to set up the streaming software just for doing a challenge. Though I promise that more competitions will be hosted no matter what, if I'll get the minimum of three contestants for this competitions.

[EndlessWaves]

Make it about piloting/visual queue skills. Having information mods allow you to cheat in that you know when to thrust and where exactly your ship is going in such a way that isn't available currently with the core game experience.

I would have said it's the other way round for a pre-announced challenge. Having the information available instantly means that those just doing it off the cuff are going to have a good chance to get their timing almost as good as those who have prepared in advance.

A rough time for the competition would be handy even if you don't want to pin it down exactly, just so that people outside your time zone know whether it's worth entering or whether it's likely to happen in the middle of the night for them. Morning? Afternoon? Evening?

[jimutt]

Yes, that's right. A time need to be set. Therefore I will set the preliminary time to 18:00GMT. I believe that it will at least not be in the middle of the night for neither european or american players.

[kamilDrakari]

It's not the middle of the night, but in US Central time that's around noon. As long as it's on a weekend that's not such a problem, but not ideal either.

[EndlessWaves]

It's not the middle of the night, but in US Central time that's around noon. As long as it's on a weekend that's not such a problem, but not ideal either.

There isn't any time that's ideal for everyone though. America is 5-8 hours behind, India is 5 1/2 hours ahead and Australia & New Zealand are 8-12 hours ahead so there's always going to be a large chunk of the English speaking world asleep at whatever time you pick.

Edited October 8, 2012 by EndlessWaves

[jimutt]

It's not the middle of the night, but in US Central time that's around noon. As long as it's on a weekend that's not such a problem, but not ideal either.

Yes, I understand that. But if I set the time for the evening in CST it will be in the night or very very early in the morning for european players. So I'm trying to compromise a bit.

[jimutt]

Just putting this thread to the top of the list again.

Please tell me if you are interested to participate.

[ramipro]

I have it all set up already, so I'm a go for it. Let's hope nothing unexpected emerges!

[joshblake]

I'm curious about the viewing experience. Are all competitors going to be streaming at the same time? Are we supposed to pull up 10 or more different streaming windows in order to watch all the competitors? That will be pretty difficult to manage and will be bad on bandwidth. Also consider that even though it is live, individual streams may be 30 to 60 seconds behind other individuals watching due to different buffering times.

I love the idea but I would think that it would be much better to do a championship format with 2 or maybe 4 at most simultaneous competitors. Have them scheduled and run them back to back, so pair/group 1 has an hour, then group 2, then group 3 for a three hour max session. This could even take care of the time zone issue for some if you had more than one session. The final champion could be either the best time out of any session, or a finals competition with the winner from each group plus an unannounced twist or additional requirement to change it up. The twist could be something along the lines of minimum mass of the lander, or return back to KSC, or rescue 5 stranded Kerbals (provided a starting persistence file with the setup.)

Of course if there are only 5 people competing, this isn't as big of an issue to stream them all at once. Any more than that I'd prefer breaking it into groups.

Also, listening to the competitors talking or voice chat among competitors would be awesome to listen in to. Skype maybe, and add it to the stream.

[zarakon]

I would have said it's the other way round for a pre-announced challenge. Having the information available instantly means that those just doing it off the cuff are going to have a good chance to get their timing almost as good as those who have prepared in advance.

It would be cool to see challenges where the objective is not pre-announced.

Quicksave/Quickload should probably be disallowed?

[EndlessWaves]

Please tell me if you are interested to participate.

I'm thinking about it, have you decided on the final details yet? I don't want to sign up only to have to pull out again.