Longest Ballistic Trajectory

[Entroper]

What is the longest ground distance you can cover using:

Command Pod

Parachute

Stack Decoupler

2 LFT

1 LFE

EDIT: Your Kerbals must land safely. If you want to risk a powered landing, you may ditch the \'chute and the decoupler, but you\'ll need to save enough fuel to land safely. Any landing your Kerbals can walk away from is considered safe.

My best is about 650 km ground distance, with a peak altitude of around 250 km. Bending to the east, I just barely can\'t make it over the next land mass.

[SteevyT]

Two liquid engines and one tank? What?

[NightKev]

Probably a typo, assume he meant 2 LFT and 1 LFE.

[Jarnis]

Hmm.... *ponders if that would be enough for an orbit...*

To the VAB!

Edit: Ah, never mind. Can\'t be enough, due to the decoupler weight.

If I could dump that, it would be possible to reach muuuuch further away.

[Entroper]

Two liquid engines and one tank? What?

Derp. Strike that -- reverse it.

The idea is, it\'s a craft that can get pretty far out of the atmosphere, but not into a stable orbit.

[BitPoet]

So, using decoupler to handle the sticky pad and we\'re off to the races!

After a couple tries, I\'m getting close to orbital speeds. A little refinement in technique might just make it. I\'m sure with good thrust control I can squeeze a hundred or so m/s out of it.

[andydouble07]

it shouldn\'t be possible. the entire rocket has about 2300 m/s of delta v

[Entroper]

Shouldn\'t be any sticky pad issues with this TWR.

[Eat Uranium]

I present the results of my furthest flight.

[r4m0n]

Already got around 545Km ground distance, but I can\'t seem to get close to the OP\'s (claimed) distance... Still trying, after playing with the experimental version a little more

[frogger]

My best so far is 463,717.8 m Distance over ground. Ill add the photo proof soon. .. No idea how to get anywhere near 650km over ground. still 200km short.

Ok so now i have got 496,723.9 m Distance over ground. Still having some troubles on the photo uploads.

Edit: finally got photobucket working. now got pics.

[UmbralRaptor]

What is the longest ground distance you can cover using:

Command Pod

Parachute

Stack Decoupler

2 LFT

1 LFE

My best is about 650 km ground distance, with a peak altitude of around 250 km. Bending to the east, I just barely can\'t make it over the next land mass.

Can you use fewer parts (No decoupler or parachute), or arrange them oddly (decoupler below engine)?

[Entroper]

Can you use fewer parts (No decoupler or parachute), or arrange them oddly (decoupler below engine)?

Well, the Kerbals must land safely. If you can make a successful powered landing, you can ditch the decoupler and the chute, but my guess is that saving fuel in order to land will sap your distance more than the weight of the added components. But I\'d be happy to be proven wrong.

EDIT: I made it 593.7 km using this method, but I feel I could go longer with the standard setup.

[Eat Uranium]

By the way, I think you are confusing total and ground distance covered.

[Entroper]

By the way, I think you are confusing total and ground distance covered.

Oh, that\'s odd. I figured it had to be more than my previous attempt, which did not clear the land mass, and this one did. I know slight angle variations can affect that, but both attempts were pretty much due east. I\'ll fix that post.

[r4m0n]

Oh, that\'s odd. I figured it had to be more than my previous attempt, which did not clear the land mass, and this one did. I know slight angle variations can affect that, but both attempts were pretty much due east. I\'ll fix that post.

If due east is going to the left on the default launchpad camera, then my tries at around 595Km ground distance also cleared the land mass, and at around 660Km total distance would probably suggest that your distance in the OP are also total distance, not ground distance.

I should have screencapped those tries, looks like I didn\'t do that bad after all.

[Entroper]

East is to the right, isn\'t it? Am I reading the gimbal backwards?

[r4m0n]

East is to the right, isn\'t it? Am I reading the gimbal backwards?

I initially supposed so, but taking heading 0 to be north (which I think is the correct), then going right is to the west. Not sure about that, though.

[Zeroignite]

Right (~90 degrees on the navball) is east.

[r4m0n]

Right (~90 degrees on the navball) is east.

My mistake, looks like I was reading the gimbal all wrong all this time ???

[starplayer]

Could someone please post a map viewer pic of the your 500 000 ish landing spots? Cos I think my Kerbal is broken in reading the distances, sometimes if I go further, the ground distance is less wtf. So I want to know what is the correct 500 000 distance. I\'d really apreciate your help guys.

In my game it says this is at a ground distance of 192665.9. Is it about right?

[Salda007]

Could someone please post a map viewer pic of the your 500 000 ish landing spots? Cos I think my Kerbal is broken in reading the distances, sometimes if I go further, the ground distance is less wtf. So I want to know what is the correct 500 000 distance. I\'d really apreciate your help guys.

In my game it says this is at a ground distance of 192665.9. Is it about right?

When you\'re launching more-or-less due east; 500km puts you in the ballpark of the next major landmass. I\'m on my laptop, so I don\'t have the game handy to put up a screenshot.

While I haven\'t confirmed this myself, I think the issue is that in .11x1 and .11x2, the time acceleration feature isn\'t playing nicely with the distance over ground and total distance calculations, so if you decided to speed things up mid-flight, that may be throwing off your numbers.

[starplayer]

Seems like the problem was indeed with time compression. 4x time compression works okay though. Got 1 338 702

Beat me

[starplayer]

No one beats me? I want a challenge

[texasyojimbo]

I just realized that if you splashdown with the 2 LFT and LFE attached, your crew will KIA; you need to hit land (not water).