Kerbin Circumnavigation Challenge 2: Electric Boogaloo

[camlost]

flight time:35min 19s=2119s

The Acheivements:

2.) A Winnar Is You: completed the challenge and landed safely (-5s)

3.) Precision pilot: landed on the spaceplane runway (-6s)

4.) Wrong way, champ: landed on the spaceplane runway heading West instead of East (-7s)

5.) I SAID WRONG WAY: circumnavigated West instead of East (-10s)

6.) Monolithic: no decoupling or breaking off of tanks (-11s)

8.) Speed angel: hit a top speed of over 2,000m/s (does not stack with previous acheivement)(-20s)

FINAL TIME=2060s

mods: FAR, Taverio's pizza and aerospace, MJ2, Procedural wing

climb with ramjets

cruise with 40 x 40km orbit

sun set in the east

reentry

Landed at KSC

Result

Surface speed is 2500m/s, I believe that's about as fast as one can get

This is only the first try of my first design iteration. After the flight I still have 1/3 fuel. So if I use that for ascending we can get at least a few minutes to improve.

Also I used deadly re-entry so I was probably too careful for doing airbrake

Edited June 2, 2013 by camlost

[L0rdDaniel]

Can do this with shockingly little fuel if you just orbit at 44 km: http://imgur.com/a/XQo54#0 Don't even need more than 2 intakes, if the plane's small enough.

This is an entry for Little Baby Plane at 1.62 tons. I even had enough fuel left over that I could've replaced the 2 Round-8's with 3 Oscar-B's to cut off another 0.036 tons...

Time was 38 min, 15 seconds. Achievements were Winnar, Precision, Monolithic, and Speed angel. Could've slapped on a ladder or a seat and taken a Kerbal along for Going green, maybe next time (I think I'll try westward with more fuel for a speed run). So I believe my score should be 2295 - 42 = 2253.

Edit: Used MechJeb obviously, and Kerbal Alarm Clock is there but didn't do anything on this run.

Tried to re-create this, and quickly realized that 3 landing gear and the jet alone should total 2.7T. Way over the stated weight.

[Torham234]

Tried to re-create this, and quickly realized that 3 landing gear and the jet alone should total 2.7T. Way over the stated weight.

I may be wrong, but I think someone said that the landing gear does not have any weight in flight (although my experiments with ion planes would suggest it does ). So maybe mechjeb left it out for some reason...

[Kerbies_are_my_Minions]

I use Landing gear for balance out weight on several of my planes. If it didn't have weight in flight, that shouldn't work and my planes should pitch. but they don't, So I believe that they do have weight.

[L0rdDaniel]

Either way its a bit exploitive and should be noted. That said, it has inspired my Bumblebee who's first (successful circumnavigation) flight could have landed in the #1 spot had I 1) tried to record the flight 2) landed the little bugger facing west.

Mechjeb and clipping 8 intakes using the little cubic struts. Official entry planned.

[tavert]

They don't have mass in flight. Try making a rocket that barely has enough thrust to lift off the pad. Now add a bunch of landing gear. No change in TWR.

[L0rdDaniel]

Bumblebee

2186s until I crashed on the runway.

Oh so close: -4

Precision: -6

Monolithic: -11

Angel: -20

Wings?: -25

total bonus: -66

Adjusted Total: 2120

http://imgur.com/a/hrrVd

Should have had the no gear one too, but I botched my landing, which also added precious seconds... next time.

I used mechjeb.

Not sure how to do give the .craft, but its only 21 parts, pretty straightforward, however I clipped the 8 intakes onto the cubic struts, which stock KSP allows.

edit: However terrifying it was for Bob, he lived. Does that make me a Winnar.

Edited June 12, 2013 by L0rdDaniel

[tavert]

Another thing I forgot to note about the landing gear is the new map-screen knowledge base vessel info reports mass values that match MechJeb's numbers. Physics-less parts like cubic struts and aircraft gear don't get counted by either.

[Storm Technology]

The hardest part of this challenge is that when our highly trained pilot starts his descent late and over shoots the landing zone and runs out of fuel over water, and we have to repeat the entire thirty six minute flight all over again.

However, we here at Storm Technology are proud to present our official submission: the ST-X9 Nimbus

Fully stock, Five intakes, one engine, and an cruising altitude of thirty two and a half thousand feet (At a velocity of 2100m/s.)

Touch down time was 36 minutes, 40 seconds.

We qualify for: Winnar; Monolithic; Speed Angel;

Putting our adjusted time at 2164 seconds.

Lift off!

Touchdown!

Official flight statistics.

Sunrise on a circumnavigation.

There were little wisps of fire pretty much the whole flight.

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

Craft file is here:

ST-X9 Nimbus

Edited June 13, 2013 by Storm Technology

[Cal'Mihe]

Well, it got the K-prize, so I put in a shot for this as well, ran some tries yesterday and got in a good round today

Vessel : AF-2W Starspeeder

Pilot: Merrie Kerman

All parts stock (only mod is Kerbal engineer),

Touched down at 35:06 and came to a stop at: 35 minutes and 37 seconds

Qualifies for: Winnar; Monolithic; Speed Angel;

(I would dearly have liked to have gotten precision pilot as well, but I just rolled off the runway at the end after touching down, so can't really claim it)

Time before adjustments: 2137 seconds

Time after adjustments: 2101 seconds

I agree with Storm, the hard part is when to start comming down from 43k meters Most of the cruising is done at 42k and at 2450 m/s, with the nose pointing straight down, to keep speed above orbital ejection velocities, but still remain below the 45k.

I had a try yesterday that could go to 2550 m/s, but sadly I had messed up the weight balancing when empty, and it spun out and lost control just as I overshot KSC on comming back.

Reaching cruising position:

Cruising position, trusting down to maintain speed and altitude

The fireworks as we come down towards KSC with full power to the jet engines (I had too much jet fuel left)

Getting Mach effects comming down fast towards the runway:

Approaching runway:

Mission log at End of flight:

Apparently I bumped down just a tad faster than usual, as I had one of the engines come loose while touching down, then jiggling around as I rolled off the runway.

A shot of the bird in the hangar:

[Darren9]

Well, I flew a westward lap hitting 2,860m/s and 40.4Km high and crashed by the runway in 34:39 which looks like 2079 (-20 Speed angel) (-11 Monolithic) (-10 I SAID WRONG WAY) (-4 Oh, so close) = 2034

I'd planned for a VTOL landing on the belly and removed the landing gear, I forgot to reactivate the B9 air RCS and lost control and crashed It's OK though the cockpit and Kerb's survived. I'm not sure I'll do it again for the extra 50s of bonus a successful landing would have gained.

I've got MechJeb, B9, TV's Pizza, Sceppies mini-pack, ID's Strong Struts, Firespitter, Kethane (drills for 2T rear balance) and OI-Struts.

Edit - Seems I need a name for it - "Looks better than it flies"

Edited June 15, 2013 by Darren9

[STARSTRUCK]

So I figured I would do it in a rocket glider. This is the craft in question, the very unassuming Vixen, entirely stock aside from Kerbal Engineer.

It takes off like a normal rocket, i.e. straight up, which admittedly is a complete waste of time.

The gravity turn is done very early, the boosters are decoupled, and we'll soon circularize at 44km altitude.

Most of the flight is composed of babysitting the navball and keeping the altitude below the set limits.

Being really smart, I've overshot the KSC by quite a margin and there's no way to salvage it. In the immortal words of James May, "Oh cock."

I still manage to bring it around for a landing, wasting a couple of minutes on a tight banking turn.

Jeb's face says it all. "I'm not even mad."

Vital Statistics

Craft Name: Vixen

Flight Time: 2378 s

Achievements:

2.) A Winnar Is You: completed the challenge and landed safely (-5s)

3.) Precision pilot: landed on the spaceplane runway (-6s)

4.) Wrong way, champ: landed on the spaceplane runway heading West instead of East (-7s)

8.) Speed angel: hit a top speed of over 2,000m/s (does not stack with previous acheivement)(-20s)

11.) Jets? Those are like wheels but for air, right?: craft has no jet engines (-35s)

Final Flight Time: 2305 s

[Tex_NL]

Yesterday I did an electric attempt. Not on ions but with two electric Firespitter props.

Top speed: 140m/s at 10km. After about four hours (at 2x speed acceleration) I gave up and ended the flight. I was about half way round.

Yes, it can be done but you must be totally insane to actually do it.

[Darren9]

Seems like the B9 VTOL jets will be hard to beat, they produce 100% thrust at 32Km up with just a single RNM intake each. With up to -15 pitch I was able to sustain 3 - 3.3Km/s and stay below 32Km, the AP was half way to the moon. I made a 28:45, broke apart on the VTOL no gears landing again, the same bonus's as the last one for 1725 - 45 = 1680. I could of shaved about 5 mins off but I'm struggling dropping nicely onto the runway from 32KM up at 3000m/s.

Just MechJeb, B9, TV's Pizza wings, Firespitter airbrake and an OI strut.

[1096bimu]

The VA1 VTOL engine:

PROPELLANT

{

name = LiquidFuel

ratio = 1

DrawGauge = True

}

PROPELLANT

{

name = IntakeAir

ratio = 45

}

atmosphereCurve

{

// Based on Isp/TSFC data from NASA EngineSim, and Kerbin atmo.

key = 0 1731 0 -8600000

key = 7.5E-06 1675 0 0

key = 0.0006 1781 0 0

key = 0.11 1715 0 0

key = 1 1800 120 0

}

velocityCurve

{

// Based on Fnet data from NASA EngineSim, curve fitted with MuMech CurveEd

key = 0 1 0 -0.002

key = 500 0.67 0 0

key = 550 0.44 -0.01 -0.01

key = 605 0 0 0

}

The stock turbojet engine:

PROPELLANT

{

name = LiquidFuel

ratio = 1

DrawGauge = True

}

PROPELLANT

{

name = IntakeAir

ratio = 15

}

atmosphereCurve

{

key = 0 1000

key = 0.3 1800

key = 1 2000

}

velocityCurve

{

key = 1000 0 0 0

key = 850 0.2 0 0

key = 0 1 0 0

}

}

How are you getting so much IntakeAir, and how are you getting any thrust at all?

Edited June 18, 2013 by 1096bimu

[Darren9]

Haven't you used the B9 RNM/RBM intakes? I've stuck two on and got 0.1 intake air at 40Km pitched over at -70 which made a sustainable 5Km/s (an escape to the sun), never went above 41Km and returned to ground level, it just takes over a quarter of a lap to slow down. It's not my fault, I just DL'd a respected balanced mod pack and used the parts in it

[Starnite_IV]

Here is my plane. Not actually going to spend the nearly 19 hours (68400) seconds I estimate it would take to fly around Kerbin. The plane does have unlimited range, top speed of about 56m/s and can be built with only(!) 16 parts. The plane pictured used 18, adding a parachute and gyro leveler thingy from firespitter.

[tavert]

Haven't you used the B9 RNM/RBM intakes? I've stuck two on and got 0.1 intake air at 40Km pitched over at -70 which made a sustainable 5Km/s (an escape to the sun), never went above 41Km and returned to ground level, it just takes over a quarter of a lap to slow down. It's not my fault, I just DL'd a respected balanced mod pack and used the parts in it

Are you joking? A lot of people use B9, I'm not one of them, but from the performance you're getting it doesn't look even remotely balanced. Based on the part.cfg data 1096bimu posted, that engine should not produce any thrust at all over 605 m/s surface speed.

[Darren9]

Are you joking? A lot of people use B9, I'm not one of them, but from the performance you're getting it doesn't look even remotely balanced. Based on the part.cfg data 1096bimu posted, that engine should not produce any thrust at all over 605 m/s surface speed.

No I'm not joking, as far as I can tell I've got the same .cfg and I wouldn't edit one in a challenge that called for parts as they are in the pack. I didn't even know what the specific values in the velocity curve matrix represented. All I've done is tried the parts, made a nice looking jet VTOL and realised it's performing way better than any other engine so used that best performing engine and got the most from it I can. It's obviously unbalanced to get a Kerbin escape velocity on 1/4 can of jet fuel, but it's still happening with an un-edited engine which meets the challenge rules. Here's the .cfg, it's as I got it, for me it's producing 116 thrust as long as it gets enough intake air.

PART

{

// --- general parameters ---

name = B9_Engine_VA1

module = Part

author = bac9

// --- asset parameters ---

mesh = model.mu

scale = 1

rescaleFactor = 1

// --- node definitions ---

node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.5, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1

node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.4, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1

node_attach = 0.55, 0.98, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0

// --- FX definitions ---

fx_exhaustLight_blue = 0.0, -21.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, power

fx_smokeTrail_light = 0.0, -21.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, power

fx_exhaustSparks_flameout = 0.0, -21.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, flameout

// --- Sound FX definition ---

sound_vent_medium = engage

sound_jet_low = running

sound_jet_deep = power

sound_vent_soft = disengage

sound_explosion_low = flameout

// --- editor parameters ---

cost = 1250

category = Propulsion

subcategory = 0

title = VA1 VTOL Jet Engine

manufacturer = Tetragon Projects

description = An improvement over previously existing VTOL solutions, this engine is producing thrust from the same point in both orientations, making balanced craft design much easier. No, your VTOLs will still perform flips of death every time, it's just that you won't be able to blame the engine anymore!

// attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision

attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0

// --- standard part parameters ---

mass = 0.6

dragModelType = default

maximum_drag = 0.2

minimum_drag = 0.2

angularDrag = 2

crashTolerance = 7

breakingForce = 50

breakingTorque = 50

maxTemp = 3600

MODULE

{

name = ModuleEngines

thrustVectorTransformName = thrust_transform

exhaustDamage = False

ignitionThreshold = 0.1

minThrust = 0

maxThrust = 116

heatProduction = 600

useEngineResponseTime = True

engineAccelerationSpeed = 0.55

engineDecelerationSpeed = 0.85

fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.1

PROPELLANT

{

name = LiquidFuel

ratio = 1

DrawGauge = True

}

PROPELLANT

{

name = IntakeAir

ratio = 45

}

atmosphereCurve

{

// Based on Isp/TSFC data from NASA EngineSim, and Kerbin atmo.

key = 0 1731 0 -8600000

key = 7.5E-06 1675 0 0

key = 0.0006 1781 0 0

key = 0.11 1715 0 0

key = 1 1800 120 0

}

velocityCurve

{

// Based on Fnet data from NASA EngineSim, curve fitted with MuMech CurveEd

key = 0 1 0 -0.002

key = 500 0.67 0 0

key = 550 0.44 -0.01 -0.01

key = 605 0 0 0

}

}

MODULE

{

name = ModuleGimbal

gimbalTransformName = thrust_transform

gimbalRange = 1

}

MODULE

{

name = ModuleAlternator

RESOURCE

{

name = ElectricCharge

rate = 0.5

}

}

MODULE

{

name = ModuleAnimateHeat

ThermalAnim = engine_vs1_heat

}

MODULE

{

name = FSVTOLrotator

deployedAngle = 90 //the starting max value

maxDownAngle = -90 // Allowed rotation below the default parked state

stepAngle = 22.5 // How much each action group button press will rotate the engine

targetPartObject = engine_holder

availableAngles1 = 90, 0, 0 //max three values, use 0 to skip the value and shorten the list. The first value is the default, so smaller than default values should be the final numbers.

availableAngles2 = 0, 0, 0 // more angles, for a max of 6

}

}

[1096bimu]

I think the author forgot a line in that config, he forgot to enable the velocity curve and it isn't taking effect. I'd say this is an exploit.

[tavert]

I think the author forgot a line in that config, he forgot to enable the velocity curve and it isn't taking effect. I'd say this is an exploit.

Good catch, should report this as a bug in the B9 thread.

Darren9, totally not your fault, sorry bout that. Try adding

useVelocityCurve = True

between engineDecelerationSpeed and fxOffset, and it should hopefully act much more like a stock jet engine.

[Thatguywholikesionengines]

I almost did it, but for some strange reason my craft disentegrated, leaving only the cockpit and a fuel tank... It would have made it though...

[Vectura]

Holy necro batman

[Vanamonde]

Time to set this one aside. There are current threads with similar challenges, though.