CLOSED -- Flying Duna AGAIN (Thanks for Participating)

[Northstar1989]

OK, so that design didn't work out too well- it couldn't climb past a certain point, and eventually ran out of Argon before making it out of the atmosphere.

Convinced that I needed a higher fuel fraction, a lower wingload, and a better TWR; I made the design even longer, and improved all those factors in doing so (the cockpit, crew cabin, and reaction wheel together weigh in at almost 5 TONS- but I don't need more of these no matter how long my plane gets)- and came up with this:

By the way, the new design was my heaviest yet- but only weighed about 29 tons total- meaning the payload/cockpit part of the plane was still over 1/6th of total mass... (5.7 tons more were in the turbojet engines, 4.2 tons were in the escape engines and associated electrical systems, 4.18 ton were in Argon fuel tanks- though as I've said, these are only marginally denser than structural fuselages- and the other almost 10 tons were the wings, control surfaces, air intakes, landing gears, wing engine mounts, and a small heat radiator)

It flew, but turned out to be a lag machine of death on my weak computer (it had 92 parts). After making it to its peak cruising altitude of 30,250 meters; and max landspeed of 1,080 m/s; I spent a good while dolphining about my maximum cruising altitude, trying to see if I could cruise any higher, and building up as much speed as I could. Then, just as I was about to start my escape burn, I got a really bad lag spike, and the game ended up drastically overexaggerating a minor course correction (I was holding "A" at the time of the lag spike)- leading to the craft entering an unrecoverable tailspin and my reverting the flight... And wasting over an hour and a half of my time (recorded flight time was less than that- but lag slowed the passage of time significantly).

Rather than try THAT again, I've followed one of the allowances made here, and fused some parts. Well, sort of. Not exactly sure how to fuse my ten Arg-100 fuel tanks into a giant one, or even fuse two or four together; instead I upscaled the longer variant of 1.25 meter Argon tank by a factor of 2, and increased its mass and resource capacity by 8-fold to match (you get four times the cross-sectional area and twice the length when you upscale 1:2 like that). Essentially, I created a long 2.5 meter argon tank- and after increasing its joint strength to match the other 2.5 meter argon tank (2.5 meter parts normally have four times the joint-strength of 1.25 meter parts, according to the other configs I examined: apparently to match their four times greater cross-section), and giving it a clever description of its own, here is the part- and a WIP on my Mk3 of the Advance Spaceplane in the background:

I hope this is allowed- I did it to save part count and lag, though I also found that the upscaled part did not fall precisely into the normal 1:2:4 length ratios of 2.5 meter parts- instead falling in at between 3.3 and 3.8 times the length of the short 2.5 meter variant that NearFuture mod already had (it doesn't have any longer 2.5 meter tanks than the Arg-100's I had previously used- or I would have just used them).

Using the longer fuel tanks, I was able to safely extend my fuselage a little longer still without making the part count too high for my computer. I also eliminated all small wing components I could (even though they often have a better lift:mass ratio than the larger wing components- the tiny little Heavy Control Winglet I liked using so much in my previous designs in particular has the best ratio in the B9 Aerospace/Firespitter/Novapunch2 set of mods I am using), instead opting for the larger winglets to try and provide the necessary control. Here is what I've come up with so far for a Mk3- though I don't know if it will fly as well as the Mk2 (which, if not for lag, *certainly* could have made orbit) given all the tiny wing parts I skipped out on that I normally use to fine-tune and optimize my designs...

These spaceplane designs are getting unimaginably long, and past a certain point in scaling them up I'm just going to be better off with an LFO-propelled escape system (the minimum weight with which I can build such a system is getting to be only slightly higher than my increasingly large Argon-based systems).

Of course, much more of this and I'm just going to abandon the SSTDABK spaceplane idea entirely- it's good enough just to strap a couple of my smaller planes to a rocket and send them to Duna that way...

Sorry to keep spamming the posts here. Geschosskopf, let me know if I'm allowed to upscale an argon fuel-tank like that, as long as I upscale the mass and all those other parameters to match- as you said in the rules fusing parts are allowed. I did my best to ensure I wasn't changing the balance at all from just using a bunch of the Arg-100's in a row (or a quad-adapter and a bunch of the Arg-10's, more precisely in this case) If it's not allowed, I'll be a very sad puppy, of course- it's not my fault my computer is pathetically weak (even on my current 54-part Mk3 design, I expect a lot of lag. I get quite a bit of lag on anything over about 28 parts).

Regards,

Northstar

Edited November 18, 2013 by Northstar1989

[Sirine]

The only source of lift must be the result of aerodynamic forces acting on wings/rotors, so airplanes and helicopters are OK but anything held up by rockets, RCS, balloons, etc., is not.

Can I use ion-drive?

[Geschosskopf]

OK, sorry for a bit of lag but I've been at work the last few days. I'll now try to get caught up. I'm a firefighter and have a very irregular work schedule so expect similar lags in the future. Anyway....

The problem is, it's a blurry distinction between airplane and spaceplane with this particular model.

Whereas most spaceplanes reach orbit by pointing their nose steeply up, and raising their apoapsis above the atmosphere, that's not how this one works. Instead, at least in flight tests on Kerbin, it keeps gradually raising its altitude, and raising its periapsis instead- always near peak altitude- and keeping just barely enough thrust for the wings to keep it climbing very slowly. Its TWR is so low that it is incapable of reaching an actual ballistic trajectory- it can never climb much faster than 10-25 m/s. Technically, it's a super-high altitude plane with the plasma thrusters engaged: and simply is capable of flying at the very edge of the atmosphere.

... This, as you can see, kind of blurs the line between spaceplane and plane: at what point (other than where the atmosphere completely cuts out) do you consider a plane to truly be in space?

You're in space when you're out of the atmosphere. Then you're definitely ballistic . HOWEVER, it's quite possible to go ballistic within the atmosphere, even in horizontal flight, even with a TWR well less than 1. All it takes is just enough thrust to allow continued acceleration, no matter how slight, against whatever drag exists at the current altitude. If you have such thrust, eventually you'll build up enough speed that wings become irrelevant. You can tell when this happens by watching the NavBall in Surface mode. While still flying on wings, the prograde marker will stay on the horizon. When you cross into ballistic flight, the prograde marker will start to climb above the horizon while you haven't done anything to make the airplane climb, and you find yourself having to push the nose back down so you don't run out of Intakeair or even go to space before you want to. This is a very common occurrence with airhogging jets.

Long tangent aside, I haven't developed a rocket to carry the Eagle to orbit yet- but I did construct a Microwave Power Station (I mixed up my terminology before: Microwave *RELAY* stations are for bouncing the energy to reach places the power station doesn't have a direct line of sight on. KSP Interstellar adds these too- although I don't have any constructed at the moment).

I'm not at all comfortable with beaming energy into the airplane, at least if that happens on Duna (leaving Kerbin, no problem). It goes against the spirit of the challenge by taking part of the propulsion system out of the airplane. Had I known such things existed when I wrote the challenge, I would have expressly outlawed them for the same reason I outlawed infinigliders. HOWEVER, I didn't do that, and technically speaking it's just a resource transfer, which IS legal, so go ahead and try to make it work, especially given all the work you've already put into it. But if you CAN make it work, then please try another system that doesn't need external power .

Rather than try THAT again, I've followed one of the allowances made here, and fused some parts. Well, sort of. Not exactly sure how to fuse my ten Arg-100 fuel tanks into a giant one, or even fuse two or four together; instead I upscaled the longer variant of 1.25 meter Argon tank by a factor of 2, and increased its mass and resource capacity by 8-fold to match (you get four times the cross-sectional area and twice the length when you upscale 1:2 like that). Essentially, I created a long 2.5 meter argon tank- and after increasing its joint strength to match the other 2.5 meter argon tank (2.5 meter parts normally have four times the joint-strength of 1.25 meter parts, according to the other configs I examined: apparently to match their four times greater cross-section), and giving it a clever description of its own, here is the part- and a WIP on my Mk3 of the Advance Spaceplane in the background:

I'm afraid I have to veto this. You aren't welding parts, you're making entirely new parts available only to yourself. If there are no 2.5m argon tanks, you can't make your own. See rule 12.

Welding parts isn't hard. There are tutorials on how to do it if you search. Or you can maybe talk somebody into doing it for you. AncientGammoner did it for me

Of course, much more of this and I'm just going to abandon the SSTDABK spaceplane idea entirely- it's good enough just to strap a couple of my smaller planes to a rocket and send them to Duna that way...

Well, good luck. Flying high and fast on Duna isn't hard; there's low gravity and very little air resistance. The hard part is flying slow enough to land safely, especially at 2500m ASL and above. In my early attempts, I made all sorts of jets that could enter the atmosphere and fly around just fine fast and high, but which always died horribly when attempting to land, or at least broke off too many parts to be flyable again. You need a horizontal speed less than about 50m/s combined with a vertical speed less than 5m/s. Any faster horizontally and you'll almost certainly faceplant into the side of the next dune. Any faster vertically and either the plane with break or it will bounce very high in the low gravity and probably flip over.

Therefore, I quickly discovered that instead of designing my planes to fly fast, I needed to design them to fly slow, which is why I switched from jets to props. Also, I saw a big need to learn how to control them at low speed while in close proximity to the ground. This is why I highly recommend using HyperEdit, because the Duna end of this is all about landing, and the only way to know if that works is to test it at Duna.

[Geschosskopf]

Can I use ion-drive?

Sure, give it a try. But I don't think it will work very well. Ion engines have VERY poor performance in atmospheres.

[Northstar1989]

OK, sorry for a bit of lag but I've been at work the last few days. I'll now try to get caught up. I'm a firefighter and have a very irregular work schedule so expect similar lags in the future. Anyway....

You're in space when you're out of the atmosphere. Then you're definitely ballistic . HOWEVER, it's quite possible to go ballistic within the atmosphere, even in horizontal flight, even with a TWR well less than 1. All it takes is just enough thrust to allow continued acceleration, no matter how slight, against whatever drag exists at the current altitude. If you have such thrust, eventually you'll build up enough speed that wings become irrelevant. You can tell when this happens by watching the NavBall in Surface mode. While still flying on wings, the prograde marker will stay on the horizon. When you cross into ballistic flight, the prograde marker will start to climb above the horizon while you haven't done anything to make the airplane climb, and you find yourself having to push the nose back down so you don't run out of Intakeair or even go to space before you want to. This is a very common occurrence with airhogging jets.

Thanks for the clarification, that makes sense.

I'm not at all comfortable with beaming energy into the airplane, at least if that happens on Duna (leaving Kerbin, no problem). It goes against the spirit of the challenge by taking part of the propulsion system out of the airplane. Had I known such things existed when I wrote the challenge, I would have expressly outlawed them for the same reason I outlawed infinigliders. HOWEVER, I didn't do that, and technically speaking it's just a resource transfer, which IS legal, so go ahead and try to make it work, especially given all the work you've already put into it. But if you CAN make it work, then please try another system that doesn't need external power .

It's definitely not for leaving Duna- the plane can easily do that on its own power- and would probably be too far away to get any significant amount of power from my Microwave Station orbiting Kerbin anyways, even if I tried. As part of my long-term colonization plans, I'll eventually set up such a station above Duna- but not now, and it's not necessary for the spaceplane to make a return trip. So, we're cool?

I'm afraid I have to veto this. You aren't welding parts, you're making entirely new parts available only to yourself. If there are no 2.5m argon tanks, you can't make your own. See rule 12.

Welding parts isn't hard. There are tutorials on how to do it if you search. Or you can maybe talk somebody into doing it for you. AncientGammoner did it for me

I'm afraid you misunderstood what I did. There ARE 2.5 meter Argon tanks- all I did was create a *stretched* variant equivalent to using several end-to-end by up-sizing one of the long 1.25 meter tanks so I wouldn't have to use literally 10 of the short 2.5 meter tanks normally found in the mod end-to-end. I haven't changed the ratio of ArgonGas to mass- so it's essentially the same thing as my design using *TEN* Arg-100's (the tanks already found in the NearFuture mod) stacked end to end. As I showed in the first screenshot, I actually designed such a craft using TEN of only the Arg-100's stacked end-to end, and it flies great except for the lag.

If you didn't notice, I've been using 2.5 meter Argon tanks since the beginning- and none of these designs until the latest one included up-sized or in any way altered parts. The mod *DOES* come with a short 2.5 meter Argon tank- which suits my purposes just fine, except for the lag it creates when using a crazy number of them...

So, with the clarification, are you OK with this? The difference between welding short fuel tanks, and welding solar panels, is that 2.5 meter fuel tanks can't simply be upsized to create longer versions, as they aren't flat and have three dimensions- and you'll just end up creating a 3.75 meter version instead (I actually did this by accident when trying to create a stretched 2.5 meter version, and kept the mistake for future Argon depots- though I definitely won't be using it in this challenge as it wouln't be legit). So you have to take a smaller version with the desired ratio of radius to length, and upsize it. That's the only way I know of to create a stretched version of the 2.5 meter tank *already found in the mod* at the moment. Once again, using four of the longer tanks is exactly the same as using about 15-16 of the Arg-100's stacked end to end (I made the fuslage a little longer after I could safely do it without adding too much lag.)

With the clarification, are you OK with this?

If not, I'd be more than happy to simply fuse 16 of the 2.5 meter Arg-100's already found in the mod end-to-end (it would reduce my part count even further- I still have to use four of the almost quadruple-length tanks in my fuselage for my current design) if somebody could show me how. I've got no idea how to do this though, and I have no clue where to find a good tutorial...

Well, good luck. Flying high and fast on Duna isn't hard; there's low gravity and very little air resistance. The hard part is flying slow enough to land safely, especially at 2500m ASL and above. In my early attempts, I made all sorts of jets that could enter the atmosphere and fly around just fine fast and high, but which always died horribly when attempting to land, or at least broke off too many parts to be flyable again. You need a horizontal speed less than about 50m/s combined with a vertical speed less than 5m/s. Any faster horizontally and you'll almost certainly faceplant into the side of the next dune. Any faster vertically and either the plane with break or it will bounce very high in the low gravity and probably flip over.

Therefore, I quickly discovered that instead of designing my planes to fly fast, I needed to design them to fly slow, which is why I switched from jets to props. Also, I saw a big need to learn how to control them at low speed while in close proximity to the ground. This is why I highly recommend using HyperEdit, because the Duna end of this is all about landing, and the only way to know if that works is to test it at Duna.

Yeah, I'm aware of the difficulties in landing. I did scout out a nice flat landing site purely by accident with an earlier probe landing though, and so I'll probably start off just by reactivating the (deactivated) probe as a landing marker, and try landing there first. It's well below 2500 meters though (about 350), so to meet the challenge requirements I'll have to take off again and land somewhere higher... Maybe near the face? It looked pretty flat in that valley there too...

It is OK if the *initial* landing happens to be below 2500 meters (if I can manage to make my landing site) as long as the plane can land and take off again at above 2500 meters on future landings/takeoffs- and I make those landings/takeoffs for the challenge- right? I'm pretty sure, form what I read on the Kethane Traveling Circus about the D'OH, that the only reason you started off landing at above 2500 meters is that you couldn't find a good Kethane field at a lower altitude. I'm not mining for Kethane (at least not yet- I might try installing the mod in the future), so I'm really not limited by such concerns. And as I said, I managed to find a much lower landing field with a probe, purely by accident. I'm also pretty sure the area below 2500 meters isn't very large (it's a depression at the end of a valley)- so that's probably why you couldn't find it on your orbitally-constructed map of the planet.

I'll post an image of the proposed landing site, just so we're clear, in a second (I've currently got my Mk3 of the Advanced Spaceplane on ascent in the background for another attempt at escaping Kerbin.)

If worst comes to worst (I'm horrible at lining up landings anyways), I'll probably just have to make a really careful landing on hilly ground. The spaceplane is perfectly capable of taking a bumpy landing- the problem comes when she tries to take off again, and is accelerating into the bumps- as the wings start bouncing off the bumps at an increasingly fast rate unless I cut the throttle (they have landing gears on them, so the impacts don't break them). This might take a bit more skill and patience on my part, but I'm sure she can get off the ground again after landing too (though, for the reasons mentioned above, she might be best off with a "ski jump" style takeoff at low throttle, kind of like the D'OH)

EDIT:

I've tried a welding utility- but it didn't work. I tried following a tutorial on welding parts- but that also didn't work with the argon tanks (I think I wasn't setting up the model file pathing or offsets on nodes incorrectly, but I have no idea why in the end).

I can't seem to weld parts: although I was able to weld three of the stock Rockomax-16's together with the welding utility, the number for drag and joint strength were way off when I looked in the configs... (and when I tried the argon tanks with the welding utility, it would give much higher resource capacities than that mass of tanks should have- which would kind of be cheating to use...)

Edited November 18, 2013 by Northstar1989

[Northstar1989]

Here's the landing site I discovered with my light probe a while back (the tiny little thing you can just make out in the center of the screen)

Also, as you'll also notice, I've now installed MechJeb (I saw no rules against it). This was to take some of the tedious micromanagement of heading out of the long ascent climbs with my Advanced Spaceplane when trying to escape Duna. Here are a couple images of my latest version (Mk3) using the longer 2.5 meter argon tanks, by the way.

If anybody could show me how to weld a bunch (12-16 would be ideal) of the 2.5 meter Arg-100's from the NearFuture mod end-to end to save part count I'd greatly appreciate this. Already, with four of the quadruple-length argon tanks I made, the part count is nearly 60 (the upper limit for what my computer can handle)- and my current model could definitely do with a few more control surfaces- but I'm afraid to add them because it might make my computer too laggy with the current part count...

Edited November 18, 2013 by Northstar1989

[Sirine]

Sure, give it a try. But I don't think it will work very well. Ion engines have VERY poor performance in atmospheres.

Ok, Here is what I'm gonna do:-

1) Attach my Duna-flyer to a rocket and send it to Duna Orbit.

2) Land the Duna-flyer safely to Duna Surface (Via parachute, No flying here). - it just take too long to wait for it to land. You know what I means.

3) Lift off the Duna-flyer, proof of takeoff. Climb to 4~5km (Not sure).

4) Land back to surface in 1 piece, proof of landing.

Rules

7. Once at Duna, the ship must enter the atmosphere and make a safe landing at a minimum altitude of 2500m.

8. After the initial landing, the ship must be able to take off again from a 2500m altitude and, carrying at least 2 Kerbals, be able to maintain an altitude of at least 5000m in level flight, then land safely again.

No.7 is too time consuming, please allow me to skip it via "Wings", I just drop it like cargo.

Please check if this is okay.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Sirine

[Northstar1989]

OK, so I'm posting the first part of what should be my first challenge run.

I got sick of messing with my Advanced Spaceplane designs (as I'm sure you all got sick of hearing about them)- and decided to put that idea on the backburner for a while. Instead, I launched two Eagle MK2's strapped to the side of a 5 meter rocket (which proved surprisingly difficult just to get the editor to let me do- and in the end, I had to settle for a decoupler that clipped into the fuselage of the Eagle's)

Anyways, I don't think I presented this version of the Eagle yet (I made some changes, even vs. previous Mk2's), so here's an image of a flight test of the thing on Kerbin:

And here's a couple images of the launch rocket with two attached, shortly after liftoff:

As it turned out, it was a good thing I attached two of them. Due in part to the extreme lag this many parts created, and in part to the very high torques exerted by all my SAS wheels on the rocket (the Eagle MK2's each had two cockpits with SAS, and the rocket had several wheels of its own)- one of the Mk2's attached to the rocket snapped in half somewhere in the upper atmosphere (one of the cockpits and a service module snapped off one of them- killing two Kerbals). The other half of the Eagle, and its two remaining crew members, however, survived. And one of my Eagles (the one I'll use on Duna) was completely unharmed and intact upon making orbit.

The third image also captures a pic of my circularization burn (I relied on MechJeb for this- normally I'd do it myself, but I wanted to capture good screenshots, and it was too laggy for me to control well anyways- but MechJeb seems relatively undeterred by lag.)

And an image of the orbital map, in case you didn't believe me when I said it made it to orbit)

Anyways, the specs on the version of the Mk2 that I put into orbit:

Crew Capacity: 4

Cargo Capacity: 3 tons (LFO, Argon, and Mono-propellant were my chosen cargo- the Eagle uses none of these itself, but I can transfer them to other vehicles on Duna)

Max Altitude on Kerbin: >30,000 meters (without cargo), 20,000 meters with cargo (cargo equates to 23% of vessel mass when full)

Top Landspeed on Kerbin: .1360 m/s (I stopped counting after this point- the game's equivalent of Mach 4- also without cargo)

It should be interesting to see how much better she performs on Duna. My plan is to send the intact plane down to Duna empty first, maybe explore a little, and then send a cargo drop for her to fill up with and carry to my intended airbase (honestly, I doubt I'll land anywhere near that probe to start with- and there is NO WAY I'll be able to target a cargo drop mainly reliant on parachutes and a burst of thrust just before touchdown that precisely...)

Regards,

Northstar

Edited November 19, 2013 by Northstar1989

[Geschosskopf]

It's definitely not for leaving Duna- the plane can easily do that on its own power- .... So, we're cool?

Yeah, I wasn't worried about returning from Duna anyway. I was concerned about flying as an airplane on Duna using beamed-in power.

I'm afraid you misunderstood what I did. There ARE 2.5 meter Argon tanks- all I did was create a *stretched* variant equivalent to using several end-to-end by up-sizing one of the long 1.25 meter tanks so I wouldn't have to use literally 10 of the short 2.5 meter tanks normally found in the mod end-to-end.

Doing cfg editing to convert a 1.25m tank into a 2.5m tank isn't allowed. Sorry. The only cfg editing allowed is welding parts, and that only if the sole benefit derived is a reduction in part count. This latter requirement is quite difficult to meet when it comes to fuel tanks because fuel tanks are usually major structural parts of the fuselage. Obviously, 1 long solid part would be much less likely to fail under thrust and landing impacts than an equal length made of multiple parts.

On the D'OH, I welded the solar panels on the upper wings (actually, AncientGammoner did it for me). These are not structural parts so no problem there, and in fact the welding made the plane more vulnerable to damage because the same impact could destroy the entire group of panels instead of just the 1 hit. But doing this did drop the part count by 46, which was a big help with framerate. This is an example of legal welding.

Yeah, I'm aware of the difficulties in landing. I did scout out a nice flat landing site purely by accident with an earlier probe landing though, and so I'll probably start off just by reactivating the (deactivated) probe as a landing marker, and try landing there first. It's well below 2500 meters though (about 350), so to meet the challenge requirements I'll have to take off again and land somewhere higher... Maybe near the face? It looked pretty flat in that valley there too...

The only flat areas I'm aware of are very low altitude, like you found here. At 2500m and above, there aren't any big patches of flat ground. Sometimes you'll find a dune with a relatively flat top a few hundred meters wide but that's it. Otherwise it's either all sand dunes or mountains. Check out the map of Duna at KSP Maps here: http://www.kerbalmaps.com/. In the upper right corner, hit the layers tab and select "colored relief". The resulting map is basically 3 shades of brown. The darkest areas are too low and the lighter the color, the higher the ground. 2500m-ish areas are the sort of medium-dark brown. Mouse over the map and it'll show the elevation under the cursor in the lower left.

It is OK if the *initial* landing happens to be below 2500 meters (if I can manage to make my landing site) as long as the plane can land and take off again at above 2500 meters on future landings/takeoffs- and I make those landings/takeoffs for the challenge- right?

Nope. Rule 7: Must land at 2500m directly from entering the atmosphere.

[Geschosskopf]

OK, so I'm posting the first part of what should be my first challenge run.

Well, good luck with it! Too bad 2 of the Kerbals died in the process. I await developments

[Sirine]

Ok, Here is what I'm gonna do:-

1) Attach my Duna-flyer to a rocket and send it to Duna Orbit.

2) Land the Duna-flyer safely to Duna Surface (Via parachute, No flying here). - it just take too long to wait for it to land. You know what I means.

3) Lift off the Duna-flyer, proof of takeoff. Climb to 4~5km (Not sure).

4) Land back to surface in 1 piece, proof of landing.

Rules

7. Once at Duna, the ship must enter the atmosphere and make a safe landing at a minimum altitude of 2500m.

8. After the initial landing, the ship must be able to take off again from a 2500m altitude and, carrying at least 2 Kerbals, be able to maintain an altitude of at least 5000m in level flight, then land safely again.

No.7 is too time consuming, please allow me to skip it via "Wings", I just drop it like cargo.

Please check if this is okay.

Can I do the "Initial" land via no wings? I just drop my craft like cargo.

[Northstar1989]

Yeah, I wasn't worried about returning from Duna anyway. I was concerned about flying as an airplane on Duna using beamed-in power.

Doing cfg editing to convert a 1.25m tank into a 2.5m tank isn't allowed. Sorry. The only cfg editing allowed is welding parts, and that only if the sole benefit derived is a reduction in part count. This latter requirement is quite difficult to meet when it comes to fuel tanks because fuel tanks are usually major structural parts of the fuselage. Obviously, 1 long solid part would be much less likely to fail under thrust and landing impacts than an equal length made of multiple parts.

On the D'OH, I welded the solar panels on the upper wings (actually, AncientGammoner did it for me). These are not structural parts so no problem there, and in fact the welding made the plane more vulnerable to damage because the same impact could destroy the entire group of panels instead of just the 1 hit. But doing this did drop the part count by 46, which was a big help with framerate. This is an example of legal welding.

The only flat areas I'm aware of are very low altitude, like you found here. At 2500m and above, there aren't any big patches of flat ground. Sometimes you'll find a dune with a relatively flat top a few hundred meters wide but that's it. Otherwise it's either all sand dunes or mountains. Check out the map of Duna at KSP Maps here: http://www.kerbalmaps.com/. In the upper right corner, hit the layers tab and select "colored relief". The resulting map is basically 3 shades of brown. The darkest areas are too low and the lighter the color, the higher the ground. 2500m-ish areas are the sort of medium-dark brown. Mouse over the map and it'll show the elevation under the cursor in the lower left.

Nope. Rule 7: Must land at 2500m directly from entering the atmosphere.

OK, so I can't use lengthened fuel tanks because of reduced structural failures- that's kind of fair if it was a 1.25 meter fuselage like the Eagle, but 2.5 meter fuselages aren't very prone to structural failures under the kind of forces they are subjected to here- because they have 4 times the joint strength of 1.25 meter fuselages... So it really wouldn't improve the structural stability in the relevant force ranges. Plus, longer tanks are actually MORE likely to break, because of the higher torques they experience due to the inflexibility of the thing- using 16 short 2.5 meter fuselages I would be much LESS likely to experience a structural failure than using my 4 long 2.5 meter fuselages. The shorter the components the fuselages is made of, the more capability it has to bend without breaking in a spaceplane... Think of it as the difference between trying to break a twig, and break a bendy-straw... (unlike in a rocket- where shorter fuselages lead to less structural stability, due to the tendency for them to "pop" out of alignment with the rest- like happened to the joints next to one of the shortest components of one of my Eagle Mk2's during ascent on a rocket...)

As for the landing zone, once again, didn't you only land at that altitude because that's where your Kethane field was? It's not that I can't land at 2500 meters, I'm just saying, why ask everyone else to replicate something you did purely for practical reasons? There are plenty of low-lying areas on that map as I see it...

Technically the Kerbals aren't dead, but "Missing in Action"- nobody actually SAW them hitting the ground (and, in fact, the cockpit section that fell off most likely would have splashed down at less than its impact tolerance of 45 m/s in the ocean I was currently over- as I saw precisely this same structural failure in an earlier launch attempt, and the cockpit would glide along doing loop-de-loops thanks to its attached wings, until it landed at about 20 m/s- yet he probably drowned anyways since nobody saw where he landed. The guy in the service module was surely a goner on the other hand.)- but I'm sure that doesn't matter to their poor Kerbal families...

It was for a good cause though! Soon, 4 Kerbals will ride down to the surface of Duna on my undamaged Eagle Mk2. The Advanced Spaceplane, on the other hand, may have to be delayed indefinitely due to reasons of lag if I'm not allowed to use the longer 2.5 meter fuselages I created... Which I consider kind of unfair- because the strength or weakness of your computer really isn't supposed to be part of the challenge... (Even currently, with 8 fewer parts thanks to the longer argon tanks, and a part count of 60, the lag is almost unacceptable- and 8 parts more would push it over the edge. The 92 part version I launched with ten 2.5 meter argon tanks and a bunch more control surfaces earlier was so laggy I'm not sure I would have ever been able to land it...)

Edited November 20, 2013 by Northstar1989

[Sirine]

Update:...

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Forget to load Kerbal....relaunch...

[Geschosskopf]

Can I do the "Initial" land via no wings? I just drop my craft like cargo.

Sure. However, you get the thing on the ground the 1st time is OK, it just has to be at 2500m or above. Once on the ground, then you can start flying it like an airplane.

[Sirine]

Mission Part 1: Kerbin -->>Duna.

The last 2 slideshows that, there are no quick save/load perform 'Yet'. And I do hope that debris will get de-orbit to Duna and destroy.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited November 20, 2013 by Sirine

[Sirine]

Sure. However, you get the thing on the ground the 1st time is OK, it just has to be at 2500m or above. Once on the ground, then you can start flying it like an airplane.

Roger that. However...may I ask why 2500m or above?

Actually I'm power landing, so, the higher the better. (Less fuel spend).

[Geschosskopf]

OK, so I can't use lengthened fuel tanks because of reduced structural failures- that's kind of fair if it was a 1.25 meter fuselage like the Eagle, but 2.5 meter fuselages aren't very prone to structural failures under the kind of forces they are subjected to here- because they have 4 times the joint strength of 1.25 meter fuselages...

Be that as it may, the rules is the rules. No cfg editing to make new parts or tweak the stats of existing parts, so no turning a 1.25m tank into a 2.5m tank. Otherwise, folks could just as easily tweak other parts to have no weight, more lift, more horsepower, etc. Sorry.

As for the landing zone, once again, didn't you only land at that altitude because that's where your Kethane field was? It's not that I can't land at 2500 meters, I'm just saying, why ask everyone else to replicate something you did purely for practical reasons? There are plenty of low-lying areas on that map as I see it...

I made this rule because

1. a requirement for posting a challenge is doing it yourself, and I'd done this
   
2. it's more challenging than landing on low ground, and this IS a challenge, and
   
3. it's more useful for exploring Duna, the vast bulk of the surface being at least 2000m high. If you can't land there, you're stuck in the canyons, which is what most folks do.
   

But I fail to see why you're concerned about doing the 1st landing at 2500m. You still have to land at 2500m anyway. Remember, the purpose of the plane is to fly back and forth indefinitely between scattered bases. One of these is assumed to be at 2500m or above, which is why you have to land there to start with. So even if you do the initial landing lower down, you still have to land at 2500m eventually. Might as well do it the 1st time.

[Geschosskopf]

Roger that. However...may I ask why 2500m or above?

Because the bulk of Duna's surface is that high or more. If you can't land at 2500m or above, then you can't do very much with an airplane on Duna.

[Sirine]

@Geschosskopf

So, you have answer my query as well...(1 stone 2 birds).

Ok... Your , could you improve on its "aesthetic"? or could I offer my service?

[Geschosskopf]

@GeschosskopfOk... Your , could you improve on its "aesthetic"? or could I offer my service?

Well, if you want to try improving on it, feel free. But please keep the following things in mind. First off, pretend this is a patch to sew on your flight jacket, so it shouldn't be photo-realistic. And second, I drew it all by hand instead of importing images because I think that looks appropriately cartoonish and Kerbal, compared to some of the fancier challenge patches. So if you want to work on it, please try keep it that way .

This patch might not be fancy but it stands for IMHO a pretty difficult achievement. Like the Victoria Cross, the UK's highest medal, isn't very fancy, either, but still commands respect .

[Sirine]

Part 2: Duna -->> Landing 2 planes.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

@Geschosskopf

Sew on your flight jacket?

Seriously.... I just want it to be display here. In this forum. I don't have a flight jacket. and I don't have flight license...And if I do....I don't want it to be sew on my jacket....

[Sirine]

Part 2 Extra: Duna -->> Landing Duna transporter

The inefficient way.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Sirine]

Part 3: Duna --> Flying and Landing.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Took forever to fly....current max speed 140m/s++, air ceiling 6400m....or higher...

Eternal flying mode active and able to maintain 3000m floating...(no thrust generate from any engines). With 100m/s++ speed.

Yes, I'm confident it can circulate Duna...just will take very very long time. (with Eternal Flying mode active).

Please let me know if I'm still missing anything...

[Sirine]

http://www./download/g2itp11j1kdfgf6/Eternal_Flight_(Duna)2.craft

Free craft file download. Eternal Flyer (Duna).

Extra:-

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Northstar1989]

You REALLY might want to check the rules. I'm quite sure:

[*]The ship must derive its forward motion from an actual engine/motor of some sort. IOW, no infinigliders (sorry, Bothersome).

It's great if the plane can glide for a really long time due to high lift- but exploiting the way control surfaces work to generate infinite flying (that's what an infiniglider is- and that also appears to be the reason your plane can fly forever) is quite explicitly *banned*...

Sorry to rain on your parade

And, uhhh, how are those ion engines going to work during Dunar night, by the way?