easy challenge: Monster Rockets

[ihtoit]

OK, this is intended to be pure fun: build the largest rocket you can. Stock parts *only*, although MechJeb allowed. No: Hyperedit, infinite anything, null grav or any other physics cheats. No parts clipping allowed.

You *must* carry at least one Kerbal on your vehicle.

I want to see mass on the pad (hence allowing MechJeb) (no reason for this whatsoever except I want to see the complete rocket at some stage before launch just to see how crazily massive it is) and mass in orbit (any stable orbit accepted), use as many stages as you like, just bear in mind that the scoring is as follows:

Orbit Mass

Fun points for EVA'ing all your Kerbals in orbit and grabbing a screenie. 1 point per Kerbal

Rank* Name Orbit Mass Fun Points Total

=======================================

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

*In no particular order

Special Mentions:

~

Footnote: Yes, I'm aware that this can be skewed by throwing up a stack of hitchhiker bins filled with Kerbals, but who's gonna cheat their way to the top? Hm? Play nice

Edited September 7, 2013 by ihtoit
rule revision

[ihtoit]

My entry. Well, not an entry, just an example:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1263047_337569886379015_42232299_o.jpg

762.29t on the pad. Stage propulsion is: lots of solids, 14 Mainsails in the first two liquid stages and a single Skipper final stage

and in orbit, two Kerbals on EVA:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/622530_337569876379016_780660633_o.jpg

129.84t in orbit. Even had a full fuel stage to spare Broke one of my solar panels off when I EVA'd the first Kerbal tho...

So, my score would work out as follows: 129.84+2 for Kerbals in EVA gives me a total score of 131.84

Which would count because I'm in a near perfect circular 90km orbit.

Edited September 7, 2013 by ihtoit
score adjustment

[Bobnova]

Now this looks fun! I'm off to a going away party but I'll be back later. Probably less than sober. If there's a better challenge for LTSE I don't know what it is! (Well, in this game anyway. Dwarf Fortress turns out to be pretty incredible in LTSE mode)

Anyway, expect an entry from me in 4-5 hours, if I don't pass out.

[ihtoit]

I just thought of another even madder one: how many Kerbals can you get into orbit on one launcher? My answer: how many chairs can you fit on an orange tank?

[Captain Sierra]

Simple answer:

my Nova 1; reliably orbits 100 tons + (theoretically up to 120)

Very compact with good asparagus staging. 2 fuel cans(80 tons), some more fuel, and a mk 2 pod for 3 kerbals. Time to actually go launch the sucker and claim my score.

[ihtoit]

I've never really looked into it, but just how efficient is asparagus staging with stock parts?

[Captain Sierra]

7 mainsails, the equivalent of 14 Rockomax orange jumbp 64 tanks and 120 tons to orbit. Asparagus is over 5 times better than onion staging as proven by Scott Manley (I think, I actually forget which youtuber did that comparison).

EDIT: The fuel tanks weigh about 500 tons total so accounting for engines and payload, you are looking at 630 ish tons at launch(?). That gives you roughly a 20 percent payload fraction on a 120 on payload which is pretty good.

[tavert]

Based on your scoring system this is more or less a payload fraction challenge (though also counting the mass of any remaining stages in orbit), there's no incentive to build anything big here. You can take a SSTO jet lifter with a payload of low-drag RCS blocks and get to orbit with probably less than 10% of the pad mass in fuel.

[ihtoit]

that is good... to LKO I think my Monster Rocket design example runs about 17% lifter/payload efficiency? Obviously it'd totally suck to Munar orbit (if it would even make it - probably would, but forget landing, I didn't equip it for that) and almost certainly wouldn't make it back. Might even give it a go later, I left it in state in orbit.

[ihtoit]

I said fun, and I said big. They're the two words to work to here. The score doesn't particularly matter, I just wanna see big rockets.

[Respawn]

Yeh.. i have a small 8.925t rocket which delivers a kerbal to about 75km orbit.

With 3.1t mass left when in orbit (that's if it compleetly runs out of fuel). not a big rocket..

however according to your scoring thingy it would give me 2879 points

You should change the scoring abit if you want to see huge rockets...

Something like --> Pad Mass * (Orbit Mass/Pad Mass) would give you some huge rockets

[gm537]

Respawn (and others) you have the right idea, but bad maths as his current formula can't give more than 1000 (unless you bring a crap ton of Kerbals) you got the ratio inverted. The scoring suggestion was also my first thought but that is actually just Orbit Mass, as the Pad Masses cancel, and thus a heavy lifting challenge and lord knows we've seen a bunch of those. I would instead suggest something like: Pad Mass * Accomplishment. These accomplishments could be anything but I'm thinking of it as what you did with your huge rocket. The multipliers don't have to be large or even that diverse. Ex. Getting to Orbit is a x8 multiplier while a land and return from Eve is a x16 multiplier. The goals make it fun and the Pad mass driving multiplier makes people make large rockets!!! (Not just efficient ones)

[ihtoit]

ok... I'll simplify the formula...

right. Now it's scoring based purely on the number of kerbals you can get into orbit but the driving force behind the score is how large your orbital payload is.

Remember, it's stock parts, and for me getting that 129-ton payload into orbit was *very difficult*, especially nursing those Mainsail engines all the way up to keep the balance between just enough thrust to move and not exploding.

Edited September 7, 2013 by ihtoit

[Dave Kerbin]

This was for the original scoring. I did up a ship last night but since I haven't mastered ascending (I still do a lot of brute force correction at AP) I couldn't get it into a stable orbit. This ship helped me understand a bit more about how to pilot into orbit economically. I finally made a successful orbit this morning (after many PE 68km) when I figured out I should let my AP go higher then 70km, then after my altitude got to 70km I should just coast to almost the AP before continuing the burn. I did it one more time so that I could shut down the engines a second sooner (I needed to reduce fuel use by just 10kg) to meet my 50% of mass to orbit goal.

Final orbit is PE:72km AP:135km, launch mass was 17.24t vs orbit mass of 8.68t with one Kerman piloting. 8.68 / 17.24 = 0.5035, 0.5035 * 1000 + 1 / 10 = 503.6 (old scoring, stock parts, no mods, no mechjeb/engineer)

http://s8.postimg.org/rn16mgkxh/Orbit.jpg

Final orbit

Warming up to launch

First stage engines, straight up to 16km while burning 250kg of mass

Second stage engine, need the torque from the pod to keep it straight since there is no thrust vectoring

[Bobnova]

Here we go, this has room for 12 kerbals I forgot to install (oops):