Small fuel to orbit challenge

[Bothersome]

OK here is a new challenge that all can participate in.

Story background: Kerbin is in a bit of a financial bind and cannot afford to send a large quantity of fuel into space. There is also a new problem with the part supply system. There are no turbine blades to make jet engines and no extra pumps for fuel hoses.

Mission: Put as much fuel into space as you can but using as little fuel as possible. Must have docking port and active SAS to keep it aligned for ships to dock.

Scoring: Score is determined based on percentage of what you put in orbit (70km x 70km or better). To calculate percentage divide the amount you took to space by the total amount of fuel you started with and multiply by 100. Solid fuel counts as liquid fuel. Oxidizer is not counted at all.

To qualify you must post before and after pictures with resources shown in top right corner. Stock craft parts only and no jet engines or fuel lines. Autopilot mods are allowed as long as the craft performance is not affected. Any size rocket or craft is acceptable, solid fuels, Ions, RCS are OK to use if you like but not required. And of course, no cheating with debug consoles or other hacking also no infiniglide.

Here is mine and to serve as an example:

2883 / (16560 + 3464) X 100 = 14.4%

2883 is the liquid fuel that made it to space and is the only fuel counted, RCS, Xenon gas, Solid fuel is not counted.

16560 is how much liquid fuel that I started with

3464 is the solid fuel started with

Reduced Oxidizer Class

1st place: Hejnfelt - 40.87%

2nd place: Radam - 34.72%

3rd place: Bystander - 27.5%

4th place: Bothersome - 26.4%

5th place: SirJodelstein - 26.1%

Normal Class

1st place: Radam - 23.17%

2nd place: Jasonbail - 22.5%

3rd place: Slugy - 19.0%

4th place: eppiox - 15.9%

5th place: Bothersome - 14.4%

Good luck to all our contestants.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Bothersome
Update score

[Johnno]

You'll want to add 'no debug console' and 'no infinityglider' to your rules, otherwise either will quickly be used for a 100% result.

Loading up KSP to give this a few tries.

[Giggleplex777]

I made this for a challenge a while ago:

The payload is the orange tank (which it puts in a 73km orbit).

Edited August 20, 2013 by Giggleplex777

[Bothersome]

Thanks, just added it. I forgot about people are able to infini-glide to space. They could have taken a small amount to space like that for the perfect score.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Bothersome

[tavert]

Not counting Oxidizer means jet fuselages are the best payloads in terms of fuel per unit mass, slightly better than bipropellant tanks with the oxidizer burnt off before launch.

Giggleplex, looks like you're using fuel lines on that design, crossfeeding booster fuel to the center stage?

Edit: Read the original post more carefully and saw that yes, you're considering RCS and Xenon as free. I also found what I was looking for, what's the highest anyone's gotten with just RCS: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/32403-RCS-Power?p=427874&viewfull=1#post427874

Edited August 21, 2013 by tavert

[Bothersome]

No, the Xenon and RCS are free at launch, but they also do not count as liquid fuel in space. I thought of the that, where you might have people putting something up there with RCS for instance, but I don't think it will help much. If someone does manage to put some fuel in space using only RCS, then it might be ok for them to post it here just educate the rest of us that it can be done and how. Some fuel has to go up to get it in orbit. That and a docking port and something to keep the SAS activated. So I would think those things would put enough weight on the craft to overcome any useful RCS or Ion thrusting. Yeah a few percent might be gained from excessive use of RCS for instance, but those options are available to all contestants too. At the end of the day, we're all just having fun here.

Giggleplex hasn't provided an after photo yet so he's not been rated. It looks like he has a fuel line there but it could be the ground on the other side we are seeing? That brings to mind that someone might put things inside tanks or other. Running invisible fuel lines for instance. I hope that our contestants don't resort to cheating just to win a silly challenge. I'm not saying Giggleplex is cheating or suggesting it, but when I saw the picture, it made me think that those are some of the possibilities we might run into.

Edit added: BTW, how could get a craft to orbit with no oxidizer? Jet's are illegal.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Bothersome

[tavert]

You can either burn off the oxidizer pre-launch to reduce payload mass without reducing payload fuel units, or use a payload fuel tank that doesn't have any oxidizer to accomplish the same thing with slightly more efficiency and less hassle (though Mk3 fuselages are a heckuva lot smaller than orange tanks).

Oh, what about using large decouplers or stack separators as a zero-fuel launch mechanism? Combine that with a small RCS payload and maybe you start approaching orbit-capable? I'm just being silly and trying to find loopholes here, sorry.

[Bothersome]

That's OK. It makes us engage the brain, which is why we play this game in first place.

I see what you mean by dumping the oxidizer from the payload. I hadn't intended that but I hate to go and change the rules. The Kerbin Space Administration wouldn't appreciate docking there ships to the fuel tanks and NOT having oxidizer too. It kind of defeats the purpose for putting it up there in first place. I guess we'll find out who is just after the numbers.

It doesn't bother me for people to use any silly method to get it up there. It's actually quite entertaining to see whacky ways to accomplish a mission. I'd just hope the contestants would at least stay in the spirit of the competition. That's why I posted a back story to the challenge.

[Cruzan]

I'm up to 12% at the moment. I could probably do better, but I swear I'm going to get this "radial engine/poop staging" strategy working

Fun challenge though. Every fiber of my being wants to do asparagus staging so badly when I do any kind of efficiency challenge.

[BisnessPirate]

Well I got 51,11%(368/100*100%) here are the pictures:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171431019

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171431202

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171431746

To get this spaceship into orbit took me about 8 tries. I could probably get another 1 or 2% if I would fly even better but I'm to lazy to try to perfect it and it's a pain in the ass since if you make a small mistake you gotta try over from the start. Oh yeah and you spin A LOT in your first stage tough I was able to get it back to no spin in the second stage

[Bothersome]

Uh you got some of your math wrong there... I'll help ya out.

starting fuels: 720 liquid, 10200 solid = 10920 total fuel

orbiting fuel: 368

So... 368 / 10920 = 0.033699633 then X 100 = 3.4% -- Basically you have to count the solid fuel you started with too.

But you got second place so far. Just re-submit if you get it up there better.

[Hejnfelt]

Well I got 51,11%(368/100*100%) here are the pictures:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171431019

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171431202

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=171431746

To get this spaceship into orbit took me about 8 tries. I could probably get another 1 or 2% if I would fly even better but I'm to lazy to try to perfect it and it's a pain in the ass since if you make a small mistake you gotta try over from the start. Oh yeah and you spin A LOT in your first stage tough I was able to get it back to no spin in the second stage

I think you forget that solid fuel counts as liquid fuel making your score 368 / 10920 * 100 = 3.37%

[BisnessPirate]

Uh you got some of your math wrong there... I'll help ya out.

starting fuels: 720 liquid, 10200 solid = 10920 total fuel

orbiting fuel: 368

So... 368 / 10920 = 0.033699633 then X 100 = 3.4% -- Basically you have to count the solid fuel you started with too.

But you got second place so far. Just re-submit if you get it up there better.

Yeah I noticed that I just after I posted it but it didn't show up yet(because my post needed to be reviewed by a moderator or something like that(probably because it was my first post)) so I edit my post. I will try again later today. And I will probably not be able to keep for long.

[Bothersome]

Not a problem and welcome to the Forum BisnessPirate. Yeah after 6 posts your posts will show up immediately. It's an anti-spam measure being taken to keep the spam bots from and spammers from posting stuff not belonging on the forums.

[Cruzan]

Getting closer...

14.03%

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[ihtoit]

Sadly I no longer have the craft file for this, but:

Ragnar Fuel Station. Start mass: 526 tons. This shot taken at the moment the intended 150km orbit was achieved thirty flight-minutes after leaving the pad (and having burned 16.6% of the liquid fuel it started with). This station was unmanned, and was going to be left as a waypoint station for high-orbiting and interplanetary missions.

This one I do have the .craft file for:

It's actually about four or five launches by this point; the first fuel stage with hab and hitchhiker cans (left) went up first, then the truss connector, then the hub, then the solar array with more fuel and RCS. The orange tank on the right is disposable and not part of the station. The two shuttles with the RCS payloads are docked on opposite sides of the hub to maintain balance. As this is a multi-launch project, I don't even know if this would qualify as a Gatecrasher - but it does have a lot of ports.

I have a new-and-improved fuel station in orbit at the moment (check my

video for a flyby/docking). That was sent up as a single stage. Seven tanks, 12 Clamptron Standard and 1 Clamptron Senior ports, 6 Parom Twin RCS tanks (500u each), it's refueled four spaceplanes and one Munar mission by this point. I don't think you can actually make out how much fuel is onboard in this video, but even with the offloading it's still more than 75% full. Edited August 22, 2013 by ihtoit

[capi3101]

Here's my entry - the Barn Burner 7, version 2.0! Onion-staged goodness. Ordinarily would have fuel lines running from the outboard engines to the central stack, but I made sure to remove them in this case; just lit the center engine later in the ascent.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The last pic is how I would leave it; the penultimate pic is how I'm going to score it. 7,768/68,400 = 11.357%. Not bad all things considered. Not good enough for the top spot, but I wasn't really aiming for it anyway.

Beautiful thing about this challenge: it gave me an excuse to redesign the Barn Burner. It'd been needing a makeover since 0.20. I'll probably make it an operational craft now; replace the cylindrical RCS tanks with a large one, add the aft port, etc. Might even consider a proper asparagus.

[Bothersome]

Good Job Cruzan, putting you on the list for 14.0% (rounding to the nearest 10th unless you're tied with someone else).

ihtoit, I can't use all that space stations stuff. It's not got a qualifying launch picture (on the pad) and weight has nothing to do with the calculation. Need to see starting fuels and ending fuels. Also, on your starfighter SSTO plane has fuel lines going to the other fuel tanks and I can't make out the numbers from the video. So that's not a qualifying craft either.

capi3101, good job on the attempt. You didn't add the Solid fuel, but I'll adjust for ya. 7,768/68,464 = 11.3%. The reason your 64 units of solid fuel isn't counted in your final picture, is because it can't go through the docking port for offloading if needed. I wasn't real clear on that in the instructions, but that's basically what we're after. Fuel to be transported to space for later use.

Oh by the way capi3101, I really like all those pictures you provided for each stage. It shows a good and proper flight path to orbit which really can effect your performance in this challenge. I've noticed it's real close to my flight path too. I wonder if all our paths will be very similar? Is it the most efficient for this challenge or just most efficient for rockets in general?

Edited August 22, 2013 by Bothersome

[sweetpezak]

Post Deleted...

Edited August 22, 2013 by sweetpezak

[Bothersome]

Even though you are using fuel lines you are still only at 14.9%. There will be rocket designs that will beat yours even when using no fuel lines. That's kind of why the challenge was based on percentages. Bigger is not always better. And it allowed people with lesser powerful computers to have just as much chance at winning.

[sweetpezak]

* update: omg i am sorry i am terrible at getting these rules, not counting oxidizer too, so its ok to use just jet fuel as our payload then? i guess with just liquid fuel I'm only at 13.2%/13.9% couting leftover fuel in orbital stage, it's late though, giving up for tonight, will try again tomorrow

Bothersome you can delete my other post, here is my new submission with 15.26% efficiency and no fuel lines, flown by me (no mechjeb) and you might notice i have tacc fuel line mod but i'm not using it here:

Fuel: 24,840(L)+30,360(O)+7,698(SRB)= 62,898 (total @ launch)

Fuel in orbit: 4,320(L)+5,280(O)= 9,600 (total in orbit)

9,600/62,898= 15.26% efficiency (not counting fuel left over from the orbital stage - payload only)

At launch:

In orbit:

Leftover fuel:

Edited August 22, 2013 by sweetpezak

[Bothersome]

sweetpezak, I can't delete your post. Only you can do that. Just do an edit on it and delete all that's inside.

You don't count the oxidizer. So your score is: Fuel: 24,840(L)+7,698(SRB)= 32,538 (total @ launch)

Fuel in orbit: 4,539(L)= 4,320 (total in orbit) (you count all fuel, you don't have to disconnect lifter for the challenge)

4,539/32,538= 13.9% efficiency

[sweetpezak]

So why not just use all jet fuel for the payload then? Doesnt seem right to not count the oxidizer as fuel also...

[Bothersome]

In a sense you are right. All our score would have gone up just a tad if we used oxidizer. I didn't realize at the time the diminishing affect it was gonna have on solid fuels. By not using oxidizer, it in effects, reduces the usefulness of solid fuels. I didn't intend that but I had already started the challenge by the time I realized it.

At the time I made the challenge, I was trying to keep the math as simple as possible. It seems to have made it more complicated anyway.

[Hejnfelt]

My attempt:

1975 starting liquid fuel. 405 remaining: 405 / 1975 * 100 = 20.51%

MechJeb was used for guidance purposes and orbital info only.