Rover Ascent Challenge

[The Deep Space Kraken]

Kerbal Space Program Rover Ascent chalenge

Objective:

With a rover, ascend as far as possible up the mountains northwest of KSC starting from an altitude of 750 meters or lower. Scoring will be based on altitude mainly with added bonuses for other achievements.

Rules

Completion

1. You must start from a base camp* anywhere around the mountains northwest of KSC, but no higher than 750 meters above see level.

2. You may use any vehicle you like to get to your base camp but you may only use a rover to complete this challenge.

Mods

3. You may not use any mods to complete this challenge, but you may use them to deliver your rover to base camp.

4. Your rover may not contain any mod parts.

propulsion

5. your main propulsion must be rover wheels. If that is not enough you may use one Rokomax 48-7s engine.

6. you may use any engine in any amount to provide down force for your rover.

7. you may put wings on your rovers but no excesive use of infiniglide

*Your base camp does not have to be a base its just where you start from.

Submission Rules

For your score to be valid you must a picture of your rover at your base camp, a picture of your rover at the highest altitude it reached, and a picture showing your rover on the way there.

Scoring

Scoring is based on altitude gained after leaving base camp and bonuses you achieve.

To calculate your score take your altitude and add any bonuses you achieved to it.

Bonuses

Kerbal bonus: add 10 points for every kerbal aboard your rover (when you are at your highest altitude).

Road trip bonus(100points): drive you rover all the way to the mountains from the runway or launch pad (they must be your base camp for you to receive this bonus.

return bonus(double score): return safely to your base camp after completing the challenge.

No damage bonus(1 point per part on your rover): complete the challenge without breaking any part of your rover. (if you receive this bonus and the return bonus you double your entire score(without the no damage bonus)then add 2 points for every part on your rover)

weight bonus: rovers over 5 tonnes will receive 10 points for each aditional tonne above 5 (a six tonne rover would get 10 points)

My Attempt

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My score

altitude: 1736m - base camp altitude: 760m = 976m + kerbal bonus x 2 kerbals: 20points= 996points - 10 points for not following my own rules = 986

Leader Board

1. SirJodelstein - 11754

2. Spartwo - 10696

3. Bothersome - 9860

4. DaveoDefeat - 5116

5. Epthelym - 5352

6. The Deep Space Kraken - 986

7.

8.

9.

10.

Edited August 24, 2013 by The Deep Space Kraken

[DaveofDefeat]

You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get this thing up there!

Started with four kerbals and ended with two.

R.I.P those two kerbals who died.

[The Deep Space Kraken]

Nice view!

[Spartwo]

I'm just starting mine can there be a bonus for 0 damage?

Edit:Take two after crashing 2.7k up

EDIT EDIT:

Started at the KSC

Lunch break

Dem views

Plenty of grip

The climb was painfully slow(due to a bug)

At the second highest point of the mountains

A total of 5159 not including bonuses 79 parts KSC was base

EDIT EDIT EDIT:Time to go back than

Edited August 20, 2013 by Spartwo

[The Deep Space Kraken]

I'm just starting mine can there be a bonus for 0 damage?

Edit:Take two after crashing 2.7k up

Adding it now.

EDIT: Added the bonus, if you tell me how many parts are in your craft i'll apply the bonus to your score.

Edited August 20, 2013 by The Deep Space Kraken

[capi3101]

Started this challenge; my box is spontaneously shutting down though...last time it happened, it put me back at KSC. Annoyed; will try again tomorrow night.

[The Deep Space Kraken]

Started this challenge; my box is spontaneously shutting down though...last time it happened, it put me back at KSC. Annoyed; will try again tomorrow night.

Don't give up!

[alacrity]

you know its challenges like this that make me wish I had a way of telling stock from mod parts in the heavily overpopulated install that i run these days...

i will give this a shot and pic ya later

alacrity

[The Deep Space Kraken]

you know its challenges like this that make me wish I had a way of telling stock from mod parts in the heavily overpopulated install that i run these days...

i will give this a shot and pic ya later

alacrity

There are mods to organize parts and the wiki has a stock parts list.

wiki parts list:http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parts

EDIT: I just realized that every other post on this thread is by me.

[Bothersome]

You didn't specify if we couldn't use wings on our rovers, so... here is my answer to the challenge.

Base camp set up... Discussing best route and what equipment we should carry. We'll head out first light.

Climbing/Ascending shots.

At the top.

On the way back down, this was the easy part.

Back at base camp to share our stories.

Score (I guess this is how you do it): 5522 - 740 + 60 (kerbals) + 88 X 2 (part count no breakage and returned to base) = 5018

Both crafts are fully 100% stock.

[The Deep Space Kraken]

...Score (I guess this is how you do it): 5522 - 740 + 60 (kerbals) + 88 X 2 (part count no breakage and returned to base) = 5018...

I didn't write the no damage + return bonus instructions very well so I've rewritten them. Basically your score gets doubled before you add in the no damage bonus and then you add the doubled no damage bonus.

so your score is:

5522 - 740 + 60=4842 x 2 = 9684 + (88 x 2) = 9860

Edited August 20, 2013 by The Deep Space Kraken

[Spartwo]

Made a return trip without the pilot he wanted to be "alone" for a while

It doesn't look so big

The worst part

What's that on the horizon

home stretch

Back at base camp

Still no damage

Bringing the total to 10894

Edited August 20, 2013 by Spartwo

[capi3101]

Giving up on this challenge. Not particularly difficult, but my computer insists on spontaneously shutting down when I'm driving the rover (like I've overloaded the processor).

I would like to make my rover craft file available in case anybody else would like to try it out. Can anybody recommend a good file sharing site? I use imgur for pics; I would use Dropbox for this but my understanding is that there's a few issues with it.

[Bothersome]

Well, I recommend Dropbox because it's easiest on the person doing the download. And you can do web pages too and it look like it's just another web hosting service.

Look at my Tylo mission report for a good example of a web document like a web site. It is simply an html document that is put into my Dropbox folder to make it available. The pictures are on that same account. But you don't see all the ad crap that you get with other space providers. All the craft in my signature are also on Dropbox and don't harass the downloader when downloading.

Get your Dropbox account here.

[capi3101]

Well okay...let's try it then.

My rover, the Burning Hearse 7. Begins on the launchpad. Seats eight. The side Il2 on the driver's side breaks off every time it starts moving (USA reckoning on what constitutes "the driver's side"). Ten wheels of utter madness...in the high-speed rollover tests around the KSC campus, both front driver-side wheels broke off and the center back wheel went flat; it could still keep going at 18 m/s though the handling started to suck. Includes SAS and there's nine RTGs under the hood (so it's a bit underpowered - I included a battery bank so she'd still have plenty of juice). Pulls to the right a bit but that may be associated with the aforementioned light breaking off for no apparent reason. One of the strut connectors in the back also needs fixing.

My base camp, the Kamp KIA 7. Begins on the runway. Seats eight. Mission profile called for the Hearse to drive to the end of the runway, everybody then piles out of the Kamp KIA and gets into the Hearse, and off it goes. The Hearse has a ladder on the back so the first two Kerbals can climb aboard and get close enough to the front seats for boarding (they do have to walk down the "aisle" a bit. Second two seats can be occupied from the top of the ladder; back four seats can be boarded from the ground.

Lemme know if those links work for y'all; if they do then I might start putting up craft files for folks once again.

[Bothersome]

Yep the links work fine.

[capi3101]

Excellent.

[Epthelyn]

Drove all the way there and got to 5219m. I probably could've got back, but the whole drive took nearly 2 hours (with crashing and reloading) so I didn't really feel like trying to get back. Besides, I'd been moving along at a steady 23m/s (or 92m/s with warp) on the way to the mountains and the 4-5m/s I was limited to during ascent wasn't much fun. That's 4-5m/s without warp. Physics warp did crazy things on slopes.

There was 1 mod part on the rover and that was the MechJeb thingy. I forgot to remove it after I'd noted down the mass and figured it would give me some numbers to look at on the way. No autopilot functions were used, promise

Altitude:

KSC Runway = 67m

Altitude achieved = 5219m

Altitude Score = 5152

Bonus:

Kerbals - 3x10 = 30

Road Trip bonus - 1x100 = 100

No damage - 1x60 = 60

Weight bonus (6.83t) - 1x10 = 10

Total Bonus = 200

Total Score = 5352

[blue_alien_bg]

Ok, guys. My first challenge! Please tel me if I'm doing something wrong.

So, starting with the statistics:

Starting point: 0m above see level (the beach next to KSC)

Parts count: 121 parts (all stock)

Crew members: 14

Weight: little over 20t

http://imgur.com/a/wTTnS#0

If I'm not mistaken the score must be like that:

5519m highest - 0m start + 121 parts + 10 x 14 crew members + 10 x 15 tons over 5t = 5930 points

I don't know if I have to count the 100 points bonus for KSC start. I drove all the way from KSC to the top, but my base camp was on the beach east from it.

It's up to you guys.

Edited August 22, 2013 by blue_alien_bg

[ihtoit]

I wonder how high my 40-someodd ton Caterpillar would get?

First challenge: turning the thing around...

oh, strike that, the Cat's a freewheeler - fan driven. I ain't changing out the wheels.

Edited August 22, 2013 by ihtoit

[ihtoit]

New design: I call it the Thunder Tank.

18.87ton on the runway (staging area), 118 parts, 8 driving wheels in roll recovery configuration, top speed: 10.3m/s, 5 Kerbals. Start altitude: 67m (look I know it says 69 but that's accounting for the elevated position of the cabin. Take two off the end height if that makes you feel better )

Didn't even make it to the mountains (note to self: don't warp with Rovers):

I make that attempt 186 points.

I'll try again later with the exact same rover. It doesn't half bounce good off the end of that runway...!

EDIT: PLEEEEEASE relax the MechJeb rule! Even this behemoth is ... hard to control without it, and it steers like a Sherman!

Edited August 22, 2013 by ihtoit

[ihtoit]

you know its challenges like this that make me wish I had a way of telling stock from mod parts in the heavily overpopulated install that i run these days...

i will give this a shot and pic ya later

alacrity

yeah it's challenges like this that make me want to install a vanilla instance... there'd be no debate about what part's from where then, or whether it'd been fiddled with...

[SirJodelstein]

Thank you for this great challenge, had a lot fun exploring the mountains for traversible paths. Here is my entry:

Mission Mountain Launch

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1 Kerbal: +10

Road Trip: +100

31 tons: +260

Max Altitude: 5507m +5507

returned to KSC (Jeb would have been proud, recorded on video): x2

----

11754 ! wooohoo

Science fact: Climbing to 5500m height reduced the fuel required to get into orbit by a significant amount. Launching the rocket from KSC resulted in a probe with 600dV left (vs 1300dV in the mountain-launched satellite)