Perfect Orbit

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

Achieve a meter-to-meter orbit. (Example: 500,000m X 500,000m)

Yes, this is a terrible example... :\'(

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

and here\'s my entry (yet again). 12m difference 8)

[khyron42]

I\'m not sure if this is easier or harder at low altitude, but... 7m difference.

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

I\'m not sure if this is easier or harder at low altitude, but... 7m difference.

[Kryten]

That means \'you should try to deserve victory\', not \'you deserve victory\'.

Sorry, it was bugging me.

[Guest ThatCrazyPilot]

That means \'you should try to deserve victory\', not \'you deserve victory\'.

Sorry, it was bugging me.

FIXED

[Cepheus]

I\'m not sure if this is easier or harder at low altitude, but... 7m difference.

I can beat that.

4 meters.

[khyron42]

Hmm... 3 minutes apart, so you could have tweaked it in between the two screenshots. That\'s why Flixxbeatz and I showed both in a single shot by lining up the Pe and Ap, so that it was proven to be two points on the same orbit with no shenanigans.

Good job either way. The Mun is much harder to get into a circular orbit around than Kerbin.

I\'ve been thinking about the issues with this challenge. Right now, once I get really close to circular, my Pe and Ap start jittering around like mad; I get it as close as I can to perfect, and then turn it up to 5x time compression to smooth out the jitter, see what I have, take screenshot if it\'s better than past results, and then try again. The slower the orbit speed, the harder it is to do the tiny adjustments needed to circularize it. A heavy ship in low Kerbin orbit with RCS will be the easiest to adjust finely: a large ship + just a few RCS thrusters = tiny changes in orbital speed per use of the H or N key, low kerbin orbit = a really high speed to begin with so those tiny m/s changes make less of a difference in the Ap/Pe.

[Cepheus]

3 minutes apart, so you could have tweaked it in between the two screenshots.

Actually, no. I had time compression on 5x. any lower than that, and the orbits would spontaneously change. When I took these, I was doing a mission to determine the circumference and gravitational acceleration on the munar surface.

[Cezary]

12 meter difference @ 152,411/152,399. That\'s an orbit eccentricity of 0.0000394

[dbellmo2]

The best I\'ve done so far (today):

[samstarman5]

The best I\'ve done so far (today):

Jiminy Crickets! Any closer and you will need to marry the Mun. Bet Jeb was looking at the mountains you were just skating by wondering if he could survive the jump from module to peak.

[WX_Echo]

I\'ve only had the patience to narrow the difference to around 30m. Very nice results in the pics above.

As a tip for those attempting to do even better, try pausing the game to stabilize the periapse and apoapse jitters. You can still scroll the mouse cursor over the desired data without all the squirrel-on-cocaine craziness seen when the game is still running.

Also worth mentioning, the RCS is your best friend here. Very small prograde and retrograde tweaks will win the day.

[zarakon]

Jiminy Crickets! Any closer and you will need to marry the Mun. Bet Jeb was looking at the mountains you were just skating by wondering if he could survive the jump from module to peak.

The first thing I did when I got to the Mun after updating from an old version was to get my orbit as low as possible. At around 500m I just BARELY clipped a mountain ridge. It took off my engine, but did nothing else. Then I slammed right into the side of a taller mountain. Over all it was awesome

[Cezary]

The first thing I did when I got to the Mun after updating from an old version was to get my orbit as low as possible. At around 500m I just BARELY clipped a mountain ridge. It took off my engine, but did nothing else. Then I slammed right into the side of a taller mountain. Over all it was awesome

Is it wrong that my first reaction was 'I have to recreate this... Build a long orbiter and try to clip the Mun without killing my Kerbals'

[semininja]

The first thing I did when I got to the Mun after updating from an old version was to get my orbit as low as possible. At around 500m I just BARELY clipped a mountain ridge. It took off my engine, but did nothing else. Then I slammed right into the side of a taller mountain. Over all it was awesome

That\'s something we like to call around here \'lithobraking\'.

[samstarman5]

That\'s something we like to call around here \'lithobraking\'.

That\'s something others call durandal bombing.

Jeb approved, Jeb tested.

[Huojin]

This is as circular as I\'ve ever gotten an orbit, regrettably. It got more circular, but only by a little bit, so I didn\'t take a screenshot.

[Tosh]

Didn\'t plan to participate in this challenge, was just preparing to land this thing:

But... still 19 meters. No RCS, LFE only.

[Cepheus]

Good god man.

[that1guy]

within a few hundo metres, fun times

[Wombatlord]

After a little time floating around trying to get it dead on, this is the best I could do, gonna try again with RCS I think, hopefully that\'ll make a difference and I can smooth out the last 21 meters. 8)

Getting into orbit & orbital manoeuvring was all done with stock parts if that matters, the only mod parts were on a landing craft, legs and suchlike.

[dan724]

6m here,

its around the mun, I know, but for some reason that seems easier to me.

[dan724]

This one is around kerbin, and while it is a much higher linear distance at 89m; percentage wise the difference is much, much smaller: 0.00078%

My munar percentage difference was 0.0042%

So I guess it depends on how you score ;P

[Winston]