Ker-Bull Air Race (New Update to Better Gates)

[Tidus Klein]

haha I need to do this challenge! I have a plane that uses the b9 super thrust vectoring tech that can literally do a u turn at low speed, at high speed though it just throws its self in to a tale spin. whaa who cares i'm doing it!

[Tw1]

This challenge looks awesome! Tempted to try this in my mainsail plane, but it's probably not manoeuvrable enough. And it only flies for about 60 seconds.

[Darren9]

I'd be prepared to allow refuelling stops for a mainsail powered aircraft

[the_bT]

If you go big, you need to go BIG!

Gate 4 seems to be the hardest to get through with this, yet to make it...

[Person012345]

Erm... any chance you could make the placement/orientation of the gates a bit more intuitive?...

That was a cool crash

[the_bT]

Going BIG was postponed...

Got around in a small craft in 2:58!

(no screenshots for gates 6, 7 and 8 because i almost lost it at 6 and had no time)

[Darren9]

I was struggling with flying fast and getting screenies as well. That's a fast lap, I'll need to add another engine to my bi-plane to have a chance of getting close to it - I'll update the op.

[Psycho529]

Probably going to try a Harrier style jet with this (I can use damned robotics for the swiveling engines to slow down )

[Psycho529]

Now the real challenge... Do it with the Kerbal X!

I just tried it with the Kerbal X... it didn't go too well, mainly because it is insanely hard to control for something like this

[Sathurn]

While I love the idea of this challenge, I just can't "fly" space planes in this game. I hoping the new update will allow me too. However it will most certainly break the file.

I was thinking with extra-planetary launch pads mod you could expand this into a "league" with multiple courses on different planets.

[the_bT]

It would work a lot better with proper gates though. Maybe something could be made with a custom plugin?

Best in my opinion would be large columns in red and blue which also indicate your current lap time on fly thorough. Don't know if thats possible though...

The current gates are a bit wonky, for me they sometimes disappear when flying through. Maybe they could be strengthened with launch clamps?

How did you place them anyways

[Darren9]

It would work a lot better with proper gates though. Maybe something could be made with a custom plugin?

Best in my opinion would be large columns in red and blue which also indicate your current lap time on fly thorough. Don't know if thats possible though...

The current gates are a bit wonky, for me they sometimes disappear when flying through. Maybe they could be strengthened with launch clamps?

How did you place them anyways

Hyperedit landed them within about 2Km of the final positions, they had decouplers and wheels on the bottom and I drove them around the mountain (with an amount of failure ), I wanted the lowest final part count I could get. I'm not really skilled enough to make parts and certainly shouldn't let me near plugin code. I'm not sure why they glitch, it only happens sometimes and for me not the same gates - maybe I should've increased the mass once I'd moved them, I made them almost weightless for their size.

If you have ideas for parts that could be rescaled to make better gates I'd like to know. I could make another course in some more challenging terrain, there would be a bit of a trek to reach the course from KSC though.

[the_bT]

Was not my intention to imply you should write a plugin. Was just brainstorming a little, maybe I should finally cave in and take a look at plugin code myself.

As for Parts to make gates from. If they have to be shipped with the scenario anyways, there would be little to non drawback to just cook up something new would there?

I'm thinking colored columns 50 meters high (or maybe 70). So you have to go past a blue one on the right and past a red one on the left or something.

Obviously below it's top. Would be a little easier than Gates, seems to me it's a bit hard for many pilots... And it makes little to no difference if you want to go as fast as possible because then you stay as close as you can anyways. Maybe (this requires some testing) they could be configured as launch clamps (totally fixed position) and placed through editing the savefile...

I could try and cook up a pair of such pillars if there was any interest, without any plugin code for the time being though...

Would look (hopefully) similar to this extremely well and not at all ms paint made sketch:

[Darren9]

They'd need to stand up on uneven ground, I'm not sure what can be done with launch clamps, I've seen a part with the center of mass outside and below the model (the Bobcat bike), if that's possible you wouldn't need wider legs at the bottom and there's a small chance if you clip it lightly it'll just stand back up. There's other options as well, for instance the real red bull gates don't kill your plane if you hit them, we could just have a collider at the bottom.

[the_bT]

They'd need to stand up on uneven ground, I'm not sure what can be done with launch clamps, I've seen a part with the center of mass outside and below the model (the Bobcat bike), if that's possible you wouldn't need wider legs at the bottom and there's a small chance if you clip it lightly it'll just stand back up. There's other options as well, for instance the real red bull gates don't kill your plane if you hit them, we could just have a collider at the bottom.

Standing back up after light clip would be epic though I'm not sure how well that can be realized... Just did a quick test with a launch clamp, was able to place it somewhere in the mountains pretty easily (hyper edit and then drove there with a small rover, then hacked the quicksave to have the clamp instead of the rover)

Not in the same height as it was on the launchpad though, the clamp is as long as it was on the pad but underground. As it's just there to anchor the actual pillar that's ok I guess. Will do a second test with a bigger pillar, to see if that causes problems.

If the pillars would be set up like this, uneven terrain is not a problem anymore...

[Sathurn]

My try to send a scout rover to get placement, and exchange it with the gate later.

[Kerbies_are_my_Minions]

you could custom an Ibeam or a cross member by simply scaling it up. that would result in a pretty tall pillar. it could prove hart to see though, so maybe edit the texture for it to load a bright color instead of the dark gray.

or if you really want to get fancy, there is a way to merge multiple parts into being only one. this would cut down the part number. I could maybe do that for you with the structural body you used there. I could make them 10 pieces long, but only be one part.

[SDIR]

Are we allowed to dump fuel prior to the race to save weight and thereby increase acceleration and handling?

[Darren9]

Are we allowed to dump fuel prior to the race to save weight and thereby increase acceleration and handling?

If you're going for points it'll be the final weight at the last gate, racing for time though you just need to do a complete lap - anything before or after is fine.

[the_bT]

Decided to give it a shot and try to make a pair of pillars to be used as gates.

Doesn't look to bad I think:

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Don't know if the colors are the wrong way around, is that kind of thing standardized? Wouldn't be that hard to fix...

[Darren9]

It looks good, how easy are they to move? If you want to create another course the_bT I can add it to the OP in a new category or build it in the existing scenario and I'll update it so there's two to try, you may do a better job than I would.

[thirstyemu]

i've been loving this scenario, although haven't been anywhere near decent enough to post a time, but, point is...

i hope this gets re-done for .21 because if anyone hasn't seen yet, the new mountains near KSC are absolutely nuts and look perfect for this challenge.

again, props to the OP for one of the best challenges i've done in a long time!

[Darren9]

i've been loving this scenario, although haven't been anywhere near decent enough to post a time, but, point is...

i hope this gets re-done for .21 because if anyone hasn't seen yet, the new mountains near KSC are absolutely nuts and look perfect for this challenge.

again, props to the OP for one of the best challenges i've done in a long time!

Yeah, I just loaded up .21 and had a look - I'll be making a new course with the archways and hopefully we're getting the_bT's pylons as well.

[the_bT]

I have jet to look around the mountains, was testing ways to set up the pylons when the new version hit. Thing is, right now the pylons are structural parts. They can stand on their own, at least on level ground, but will fall over when hit. I planned to set them up with a launch clamp or two and hack the complete setup into position by modifying the savefile. That did work but was cumbersome. I replaced a dummy vessel that I had driven to the site that the pylon should be. Unfortunately the pylon would inherit the attitude of the dummy which I couldn't easily fix without something breaking on load. Had ghetto solution for that though it might not be working in the new version yet (depends on a mod).

Will see what I can do.

EDIT: To elaborate on the Ghetto fix: As I couldn't keep the pillar from inheriting the attitude of the dummy, I made the had the dummy be oriented perfectly level/upright. That I did by suspending it with KAS.

Edited July 26, 2013 by the_bT

[zombiphylax]

I am preparing for the .21 course. Thanks for this, guys, it's a great idea.