Fastest Thing On Wheels: Wheel-Driven Land Speed Challenge

[Reverie Planetarian]

So, I recently got this mod by the awesome TouhouTorpedo, and it contains wheels. These wheels are wonderful things and I love them because they have quite a bit of grunt and they're durable. They don't blow out, nor do the ones capable of propelling themselves require a power source at the time this post was made. They're wheels you don't have to worry about one bit for your rover, hauling or general driving needs.

This is good. Very good, in fact, because it means I can do this incredibly frivolous challenge and share it with you all.

Everyone's aware of the absolute land speed record. Currently it belongs to Thrust SSC, which used two jet engines to reach a top speed of about 763 MPH. Teams in the UK, USA and Australia are now attempting to develop and drive cars powered by thrust to be the first to break 1000 MPH. That, however, takes a lot of careful planning and the kind of resources that can earn access to jet engines and/or powerful rockets for the express purpose of going as fast as humanly possible.

There's another kind of speed record racing that gathers a lot of entrants due to how relatively easy it is to develop cars for the job: the wheel-driven land speed record. These are cars that have to transfer their power from their engine to the wheels for forward motion-you can't do it on pure thrust.

With Torpedo's wheels, it's possible to hit very high speeds safely, as long as you have the right car for the job. I've experimented with numerous setups to see how fast I can go, and now it's become a research project of mine to figure out how downforce works in Kerbal Space Program when applied to cars, since it seems to alter and greatly improve their driving capabilities, and thus make driving around on Kerbin and any other bodies in the system with atmospheres much more fun and efficient.

The challenge here is very simple: create a land speed record car driven solely by its wheels, with preference given to Torpedo's wheels to help you in this task since they're nice, big, and powerful, and drive it along the surface of Kerbin as fast as you can. Outside of using anything with thrusters or any kind of propulsive source that relies on the engines, you are allowed to use whatever mod parts you see fit to do this job, so long as you use all of them as coded. I'll say that again: nothing with thrust. If you want to put thrusters on your car, you will only be allowed to use them for the means of some sort of fancy ejection system.

Why add an ejection system? Your car must be manned: no land speed record anyone's willing to remember was set by something unmanned. Your whole car or at least an ejected, intact cockpit must survive the run for it to be valid. It's preferable that you have an intact car, as you shall see below.

Now, traditional land speed record attempts here on Earth have the driver doing one run over a mile after a flying start in one direction, then a return run in the other direction and the average of that speed is taken. As we're talking about setting Kerbal wheel-driven speed records here, you can quietly forget that rule. For a run to be valid here, you simply need to make one run however long you wish, driving as fast as you possibly can before coming to a (relatively, this is KSP after all) safe stop. You must make a recording or take a screencap of your vehicle and your flight record after finishing your drive to prove you've done a run.

So then, what will you be playing for? I have a selection of titles here, which you can put into your signatures or something...uh, well, I just thought I'd share this personal quest of mine with the KSP forums on a bit of a whim, so I'm kind of making it up as I go along. Still though, here's some challenge targets for you all to hit for bragging rights around these parts. After reaching a speed above these titles according to the following parameters, pick the one you like best and hang onto it:

Ultimate Challenge: Best Of The Best

Congratulations, you're the official wheel-driven land speed record holder! Not only that, but you've been able to preserve your car throughout the whole attempt. Bravo! Now you can...I don't know, make a version of your car that's up on a plinth or bronzed or made of solid gold or something. Shut up, I just make the challenges, I don't write the history books.

Current holder: Darren9

Penultimate Challenge: Fastest or Bust!

You're the driver of the fastest thing powered by wheels officially recognized by Reverie Planetarian and, in turn, the KSP forums! You pushed the limits of engineering and physics and came out on the other side! Your car didn't, but you did, and that's what counts!

Platinum Challenges

I Beat The MiG-21: You have punched all the way past 1000 MPH and gone to Mach 2: you have traveled at 680 meters per second or a hefty 1521 MPH, faster than the Russian Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-21 fighter. Jeb Kerman would share his waffle fries with you.

- Darren9

I Beat Them All To 1000 MPH: You have managed to get a maximum speed of 447 meters per second, which translates into 1000 MPH! It takes jet engines, rockets, a lot of engineering and a little luck to do this in the real world, and in the wacky world of KSP, it took...those four things without the jet engines-okay, that's three things-the last three things-NO WAIT, the last two things since you're not using rockets-a lot of engineering and a lot of luck to do the same thing without all those thrusters! Pat yourself on the back-you did great!

Reached By:

- 1096bimu

- MR4Y,

- Weatherman159

- jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ

Gold Challenges

I Kinda Beat The Bloodhound: The Bloodhound SSC is a British land speed record car engineered to reach and/or exceed 1000 MPH. You did...or at least you did and your cockpit survived the attempt. Try it again and this time, preserve your car.

I Beat Thrust SSC: You have managed to exceed a speed of 341.1 meters per second, which is 763 MPH. You've beaten the Thrust SSC, the first car to officially break the sound barrier. All those years of research and world record attempts, beaten by some plucky guy at a computer. Virtually. Nice!

I Beat Reverie Planetarian: The Gold Challenges are attainable, at least. I know this because I got really, really close to breaking the sound barrier myself. Take this title if you've exceeded 337 meters per second-a tantalizingly-close 753.8 MPH. If I got here and you got past me, keep going!

The Donald Campbell Consolation Prize: Good news first: you're the fastest driver we've seen. Now the bad news: you didn't actually survive the attempt. You're down a Kerbal but you've furthered the quest for speed-that's got to count for something, right?

Silver Challenges

I Almost Beat Thrust SSC: You bailed out and survived a speed record run that went south. You exceeded the sound barrier, at about 760 MPH, and then crashed but you at least survived. Go back out there and try it again!

I Beat The Turbinator II: The Vesco Turbinator II is a turboshaft-powered streamliner trying to reach 500 MPH, or 223.5 meters per second, and you just did. Nicely done!

Reached By:

- dracklen

I Beat The Turbinator: The Turbinator II had to start somewhere, and started with the Vesco Turbinator, the current world record holder for the fastest speed reached by a wheel-driven car. You have exceeded 210.3 meters per second or 470.444 MPH and are now officially faster than the fastest thing powered by wheels in the real world. If you're an engineering talent, try matching this in real life! We on the forum will be watching. From way, way over that-a-way. We brought popcorn.

Bronze Challenges(is this bronze enough? I'm working with a limited palette here)

I Sort Of Beat The Turbinator: You exceeded 210.3 meters per second...then crashed. But you at least survived. Tune up your car, alter your approach, and take another shot.

I Beat The NHRA: The world's fastest drag racing pass was recorded by a top fuel dragster, completing a quarter-mile at a maximum speed of 336 MPH or 150.2 meters per second.

I Beat The Veyron: It lost its title once, but then had it reinstated-the Bugatti Veyron can reach a recorded maximum speed of 267 MPH, equating to 119.4 meters per second. You're now chasing the big wheel-driven boys. How's it feel?

To help you out, here's some extra things to aid you in chasing world speed records:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/racing-slicks-0-19-robaus-warehouse/ Alternate wheels which are good for up to 350 meters per second. If these help, go ahead and use them.

http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/speed/ A handy speed converter.

NOTE: Just because this challenge started with the wheels I pointed out doesn't mean it ends there. So long as your design has no thrusters for propulsion, if you can figure out how to make a wheel that drives your design, it works and it's in. Go wild and see how fast you can drive and survive the attempt.

Good luck out there-and good driving!

Edited June 7, 2013 by Reverie Planetarian

[Darren9]

You can get over 200m/s with un-edited TT or Robaus wheels and no other thrust? I had no idea they went that fast.

[zarakon]

is this restricted to specific mods, or can I just edit some wheels to give them 1000000 force?

[Reverie Planetarian]

You can get over 200m/s with un-edited TT or Robaus wheels and no other thrust? I had no idea they went that fast.

They can, or at least TT wheels can-it required some clever design and messing around with downforce using canards as active aerodynamics. I'm mystified by how downforce can so increase speed and am thinking about what parts of the engine must be working together to allow wheel-driven cars to hit such high speeds and see what the limits of this stuff really are. It's just so fascinating.

is this restricted to specific mods, or can I just edit some wheels to give them 1000000 force?

All wheels must be used as-is. It's no fun if we edit parts. Everything has to be as it was downloaded from the Spaceport, basically-the only wheels I knew of were the TT or Robaus ones.

[1096bimu]

I have a 500m/s design, finally a place to put it to use.

[Reverie Planetarian]

Well, make an official run and let's see it. I'm looking forward to seeing that. 337 was where I quit because I kept wiping out when I went any faster.

Would anyone like to see the offending automobile?

Edited June 4, 2013 by Reverie Planetarian

[jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ]

I used modified wheels though. To stop, I use the canards to lift myself off the ground and then deploy the chute. That's instant and safe stopping right there.

[Darren9]

Well, make an official run and let's see it. I'm looking forward to seeing that. 337 was where I quit because I kept wiping out when I went any faster.

Would anyone like to see the offending automobile?

Yes please, you can't increase speed by just adding downforce, no wait, what I meant was you shouldn't be able to increase speed by just adding downforce. With 1000 thrust engines I still only got to 270m/s with TT wheels - it seems impossible to me at the moment to do better with no extra thrust.

[1096bimu]

Nobody said I was using TT wheels.

The parts are used as-is, exactly like how I made them to be back in .19, I just updated them to .20.

The Downforce Mk.4, wheel driven 500m/s+ and stop without taking damage. maximum speed is around 560 but things start to fall apart.

To go over mach 2 I'll need a new chassis, this one I don't think will ever work at that speed. It was originally designed to go just under mach 1.

Edited June 4, 2013 by 1096bimu

[dracklen]

I think I need a completely new redesign to make this beast go any faster, as if I try to add anything more to the length or the sides, the joints start tearing themselves apart near 200 m/s. But heres my record: 245.2 m/s (I've broken 250 but unfortunately couldn't break before the whole thing flipped over and exploded).

I'm really interested to see what other designs come out, as I've tried several others but they all seem to have either too little or too much downward force to achieve high speeds.

Slight improvements made and redesigned base yielded 287.2 m/s ... It seems the most troublesome thing so far is to provide as stable as possible a base, as even a tiny shift of the wings above 250 usually spells disaster

Edited June 4, 2013 by dracklen

[Weatherman159]

Well, here's my submission. It's ugly as all hell, but gets the job done.

Current top measured speed:

It could go faster, but I ran out of smooth land. It doesn't like bumps...or any kind of terrain really .

Edit: Currently in the process of transporting it to the North Pole in hopes of finding smooth terrain.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Weatherman159

[HoY]

Would I be disqualified if I used an infiniglide turbine with a bearing to propel myself lol. It's not an engine of any kind

[Reverie Planetarian]

Would I be disqualified if I used an infiniglide turbine with a bearing to propel myself lol. It's not an engine of any kind

What's an infiniglide turbine?

Here's a shot of the car as I made it. As you can see, those canards ahead of the drive wheels provide downforce and the vertical surfaces are for stability. I expected this vehicle to remain a sort of developmental vehicle. I didn't expect to hit the speeds I did.

This car loves to veer around. Originally it didn't have the vertical surfaces, but the sliding and skidding got so bad, even with fixed vert stabs that I added canards and an avionics package so I didn't have to keep steering the thing myself.

My idea was to go for an optimal power-weight ratio, which probably went south around the time I covered the thing with reinforcing struts to keep parts of it from splattering into the ground. It will actually glide for a bit if it hits disturbances in the ground.

It's even got an escape system, but the ejection system only really assumes I can punch out before the thing starts tumbling during a crash, and it never does go out in a nice eject-friendly manner.

I died and restarted several times just trying to demo this car once.

I actually managed to break my own record on this demonstration run I just did, and not only that, I broke the sound barrier! Trying to rein in this thing requires all my concentration, and it's not very comfortable trying to keep driving when imagining it will suddenly snap into bits at speed. It may be time to retire this design for something less scary.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Reverie Planetarian

[HoY]

Here's a quick example of one,, not one that I built but a turbine like this can be held on a rover with a free spinning bearing (0.19.1) and spun with command pod torque.

[Reverie Planetarian]

That sounds so incredibly odd. And since it fits the spirit of something wheel-driven, since ostensibly that will become your drive wheel, let's see what you come up with.

[HoY]

Good news, damned robotics was hotfixed by Two different people last night, just waiting for one of them to get the OK from R4m0n before they can post them. That means the free spinning bearing will be working on 0.20.2 soon

[jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ]

Testing a new escape mechanism. It's not terribly efficient or useful but it looks nice. That's also not the fastest I can make the thing go, I got it up to 350 m/s.

[jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ]

It looks like lightweight works rather well. I think it might be something to do with infiniglide. Once I reach around 150 m/s it speeds up to 570 m/s in maybe one second and then falls apart from all the downforce.

[jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ]

Mod note: would be nice if you merged these as I can't edit the posts that haven't been approved yet.

Did some further testing and it seems that highest speeds come from exploiting the infiniglide bug and not from the wheels. I stripped all the extra bits off my automobile to cut the weight down to 0.32 tons. I could get that going up to 780 m/s before it broke down. It would keep accelerating even without me throttling the wheels. This challenge seems a bit broken right now.

[Reverie Planetarian]

Ah, good. The more entrants and exotic designs, the better.

[jtyotJOTJIPAEFVJ]

I got a design to go as high as 607 m/s without losing the driver or anything else. It can go higher than that but the external seat tends to fall off at that point due to the huge downforce. Highest velocity I got it to go was 749 m/s but that was in the crash result window, the car being a mile long smear on the runway.

[MR4Y]

I find odd that the Thrust SSC is mentioned, as it's jet powered.

[MR4Y]

I'm trying and trying, but so far, all vehicles want to steer to one side.

[Reverie Planetarian]

Well, I'm looking for speed record benchmarks, irrespective of if they were thrust or wheel-powered. That and so far Thrust is the holder of the absolute speed record.

I got a design to go as high as 607 m/s without losing the driver or anything else. It can go higher than that but the external seat tends to fall off at that point due to the huge downforce. Highest velocity I got it to go was 749 m/s but that was in the crash result window, the car being a mile long smear on the runway.

Damn. So much for me and my flap about power-weight ratios, you may have me beat. What's all that stuff on the back? Or, uh, the front? I was looking at it the wrong way.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Reverie Planetarian

[Reverie Planetarian]

<double post, sorry>