By the Seat of your Pants

[greghorst]

The tech boys came out of their lab and told Jeb and the crew all about this new invention of theirs. They called it, a "chair!" Jeb was intrigued, so he decided to test it the only way he knew how.

The exhileration! The thrill. Nothing between him and the rocket. It was amazing. While he felt the re-entry effects washing over his helmet, he thought of a great challenge for the rest of you all.

Who can go the highest with only the "chair" for guidance. No pods. No Probes. No ASAS. No Mechjebs. Nothing but a Kerbal and his wits.

While Jeb was never one for math, Bill pointed out that bigger was better so here is how we'll score this up:

1pt for every 10km of highest altitude above Kerbin (Max 8416pts for escape from Kerbin)

+100 pts for every additional Kerbal brought along for the ride.

+1000 pts for orbiting a moon during the trip (per moon)

+5000 pts for landing on a Moon (per moon)

+10000 pts for orbiting another planet (per planet)

+50000 pts for landing on another planet (per planet)

+10000 pts for returning a kerbal safely to Kerbin (+5000 per additional Kerbal)

First to each place will receive the honor of First and be recorded on the bathroom wall for bragging rights.

Jeb took a snapshot of his first ride so he comes away with 6 pts.

High Scores:

1) Ojimak 8716 pts

2) Atanar 703 pts

3) greghorst (me) 6pts

4)

5)

Firsts:

"So long suckers!" - First to leave the Kerbin System - Ojimak

Edited May 25, 2013 by greghorst

[Ryu Gemini]

So basically, its a manual control challenge with the added challenge of ALSO not being able to use gyroscopes (i.e. the SAS that is present in command pods and even to a lesser extent in probes) to conveniently control your ship's turning in space (chairs don't have that handy SAS function in them after all, though I'm not sure if the kerbals themselves do)?

Took a few seconds to realize that actually. At first I considered saying something along the lines of "eh, we can just throw a chair on any old ship and replace its pod with a nosecone and be done with it, then."

Something tells me we will be wanting to bring along gimbaled rockets and RCS.

[Atanar]

I tried it finally:

First I made a Rover for all the kerbals that I wanted to load in:

And drove it to my rocket waiting on the launch pad:

Loaded my kerbals onto it:

But then my transport vehicle I got hit by the space kraken (I dropped a kerbal seemingly too hard onto the launch pad):

So I took off with the 8 Kerbals I got cause I did not want to load it with kerbals again:

Highest altitude:

Funny thing is,7 out of 8 Kerbals survived the impact back on the planet:

I earned myself 703 points. The point system you posted is flawed I think. It boils down to how many kerbals you can get over 10 kilometer altitude.

Edited May 25, 2013 by Atanar

[greghorst]

The point system you posted is flawed I think. It boils down to how many kerbals you can get over 10 kilometer altitude.

That is one way to get points yes, I'm just sort of surprised that many lived. It kind of breaks the intention of the challenge but you are in the lead now.

[Ojimak]

My first try:

(who needs control when you can just make yourself spin?)

score: 4 Kerbals on an escape trajectory out of Kerbin = 8416+100*3 = 8716

On the pad (note the separatrons ready to dispose of the capsules and the crew manifest icon in the top left):

With the crew added, dropped to their seats, and the capsules disposed of:

altitude after running out of solid fuel:

orbiting the sun:

The point system you posted is flawed I think. It boils down to how many kerbals you can get over 10 kilometer altitude.

I must say, I think it simply boils down to how many Kerbals you can get on an escape trajectory out of Kerbin.

-Ojimak

Edited July 8, 2013 by Ojimak