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BSC: Super-Heavy Lander - The next BSC will.....

Xeldrak

By Xeldrak
in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas

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mcirish3

mcirish3

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Posted (edited)

Here is my assessment of each Lander.

Mule fly 1

Very innovative design. Lots of Fuel too low of TWR for some applications. Has action groups but no description for them. too low of TWR to fly off of kerbin so not sure if she is stable loved the ability to carry extra pay load down to the surface I may use this craft for some Mun or smaller landing bases.

T-Class Heavy Lander

Cool ship love the down ward facing observation pod. Rather fragile however. Don't land hard. This craft has a good description with it.

Heavy Lander X

Cool classic design. Large TWR. return to Kerbin Capsule not bad to fly a little easy to tip over and don't pull the parachutes with out thrust engaged or you are not planing on leaving the planet. Good VAB description.

Orbiter Fast Lander

Simple yet effective not a lot of delta V and no parachutes. Very sturdy Lander. Good VAB description.

Utra-Heavy Colony lander

To low TWR for many applications. crazy huge super cool super not right for a stock craft. I would call this a hand stamp in a pencil competition.

Super Heavy Lander

No Landing Light and no VAB description Good ship otherwise.

Mendelev 3

Super COOL Design. Love the heat shield and landing legs. Too much part clipping for a stock craft though.

The Heavy

I did not test due to engineering addon was not taken off.

Pilgrim MK1

Too Part Clippy, no description, not much Delta V, Handles well.

7X Lander

I did not like the lack of landing legs on the main ship. Did not have a VAB description. Great TWR. Good ship.

Aeneas II

Really like this ship but not much Delta V and lots of Parts. Good ship over all though.

Gonzales Light Heavyweight IIa

Low TWR, simple ship . Good over all.

Heavy Lander MK4

Cool Looking ship. Love the drop tank. Great TWR but low Delta V. Easy to improve on though. Needs batter placement of RCS and a bit more Delta V.

SHIMA

Fairly simple ship but poor placement of RCS and Too Little torque for such a big ship. Also no Power Generation could be a problem with a probe core as the only control system. Also no landing Lights.

Teseus HAU

Low TWR for such a big ship. Good other wise.

Heavy Multi-Role Lander

Love the Design. Low part count but very functional. Good TWR, and very good Delta V. This is the ship I voted for. I was shocked it did not have more votes. But perhaps it is a pen in a pencil competition.

UFO1

Cool but no beginner ship and too much clipping.

Great Heavy Lander

Good ship But a bit of over kill on the landing legs.

Crew Transport lander

Has too low TWR

Too Low Delta V

Too Much part clipping, found it ugly.

IRL One

Cool looking craft. Low TWR but great otherwise.

Cruel

Simple but effective craft. medium TWR

Sagitta V2

My ship. Very Heavy with lots of Delta V and good TWR. Too Many parts. Sensitive on the landing though, don't land at more than 5m/s or you will loose an engine or two though it usually can spare a couple.

Edited by mcirish3
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MiniMatt

MiniMatt

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Posted

Obviously outside the challenge now, and ignoring that in a matter of hours a new KSP version is liable to make all entries obsolete, I knocked together a nuclear powered version of the Gonzalez Light Heavyweight:

ylDWFDfl.jpg

Vitals

21.93 tons

55 parts

6 kerbal capacity

3,563 vacuum delta-v

Sample TWRs: Mun 3.4, Minmus 7, Moho 1.4, Duna 1.9, Eeloo 3.2

Looking at the successful implementation of nuke engines in this challenge made me realise that their mass penalty is overcome by their efficiency in this size of lander (whereas this wasn't necessarily the case in the smaller two-stage lander challenge). Further, the combination of parachutes + nuke engines works really well - descent in atmospheres becomes more or less free, allowing the DV saved to be used in ascending at a lower efficiency than other engines.

The result is a craft with exactly the same capabilities of the regular Gonzalez, can land at and return to orbit around every body but Tylo, Laythe & Eve (one way trips naturally possible to the last two) along with a safe return into Kerbin atmosphere. It has almost exactly the same DV (37 less), almost same parts (2 less), almost identical TWR (slightly less, only a possible prob on Moho), exact same crew capacity but coming in at almost 11 tons less than the regular Gonzalez.

Perhaps reinforces my point that a super heavy lander shouldn't necessarily be super heavy - that mass must always be justified with value. The tyrannical equation with which we're all familiar demands that mass must always remain high in our priorities.

Craft file

Is here.

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Xeldrak

Xeldrak

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Primary elections are done! Time for the final vote! You can vote over

here!

Please drop a few line who you've voted for!

Final elections will run for another 48 hours.

Get the finalists .craft files in a singe .zip >>HERE<<

lsufj3N.png

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Xeldrak

Xeldrak

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AmpsterMan - Duna Lander X

+low part count

+>40tons

-Action group 3 and 0 are empty (now I will never know, what "prefilight check" does.

-no lights

-RCS is somewhat unballanced (try to move sideways)

+drogue shute

+looks

A really awesome design, missing lights and an unbalanced RCS leave a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

My suggestions, Ampster:

1. Install landing lights

2. Balance RCS (maybe use RCS Build Aid mod)

3. Why not turn the ship or the capsule a few degrees and get rid of this inclined ladder?

Hejnfelt - 7X lander

-no description text

+>40 tons - she sure is super heavy ;)

-RCS somewhat unballanced

+7 kerbals

+117 Parts is actually not to bad for her size

-might be a bit too complicated

Now, I like this one too - but there are a few things that are nagging me: First: It feels more like a lander with a interterplanetary stage allready attached. More like complete spaceship instead of a lander. Second: Just too complicated, a duna lander can be done much more simpler. Im not talking about part count, but about the concept of the craft. Its a seven stage lander, with stuff like landing legs, that can be ejected . And tanks that can crash you ship if you eject them too early, because their engines are still running ;)

MiniMatt - Gonzalez Light Heavyweight

+57 parts, 3600 dV, 32.8 tons - looks like a really ballanced approach to me

-RCS somewhat unballanced (moving sideways seems to be really tricky to ballance)

+descirption text, although it is rather meager

+science

+looks

+6 kerbals

Hm, I really like this one too. Is a really neat designs, its so compact and good looking :D Also not really any flaws. The laconic description text is a low hanging fruit you missed however.

mpink - Pinks Heavy Lander MK4

-no description text

~probably our lightest heavy lander

-1500 dV seems meager

+creative design

+looks

-wasn't able to get back to duna-orbit

Well, this is one of these designs that are really cool and I would be proud if it was my design. I love the threefolded symetry design. But it doesn't really fit the challenge. With 1500 dV I wasn't able to get it back to duna orbit, wich is kind of a no-go for me in this challenge.

Sirine - UFO

Ah, well, you allready know what I will write, Sirine. It a cool lander (although it's lacking in dV and TWR), it looks incredibly awesome and it completely misses the point of the challenge.

After carefull consideration, I decided, that my vote should go to MiniMatt. I love Ampsters design for it's simplicity, but it has some mistakes, that the Gonzalez simply doesn't. Still awesome entries - all of you.

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MiniMatt

MiniMatt

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(maybe use RCS Build Aid mod)

Arrghh! Why am I only now learning of such wonders?! Fantastic tip, I've long struggled with these pesky ports.

Woo, yay, finals! Bit sad that some excellent designs didn't make the cut. Previous thoughts stand and I find myself shortlisting to:

  • AmpsterMan - Duna Lander X
  • Xeldrak - Cruel

Both feel like they could be stock, both have sensible mass, more than enough DV and look good whilst also looking clear.

My final vote goes to Xeldrak for achieving those goals with less mass and, crucially, with a wider, squatter & more stable landing.

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Hejnfelt

Hejnfelt

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Posted
Hejnfelt - 7X lander

-no description text

+>40 tons - she sure is super heavy ;)

-RCS somewhat unballanced

+7 kerbals

+117 Parts is actually not to bad for her size

-might be a bit too complicated

Now, I like this one too - but there are a few things that are nagging me: First: It feels more like a lander with a interterplanetary stage allready attached. More like complete spaceship instead of a lander. Second: Just too complicated, a duna lander can be done much more simpler. Im not talking about part count, but about the concept of the craft. Its a seven stage lander, with stuff like landing legs, that can be ejected . And tanks that can crash you ship if you eject them too early, because their engines are still running ;)

Whoa thanks a lot for the review :)

About the RCS. It is meant to undock (move backwards) for which it is balanced and once the outside tanks have been ejected it is perfectly balanced for re-docking the main stage or the return stage only.

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Blaster

Blaster

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Here is my assessment of each Lander.

...

Orbiter Fast Lander

Simple yet effective not a lot of delta V and no parachutes. Very sturdy Lander. Good VAB description.

...

I'm quite sure I put 4 radial parachutes on it with both staging and hotkey deployment. Did the .craft file not have them?

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AmpsterMan

AmpsterMan

Posted
Posted

First of all, thank you for all the critiques, praise, suggestions and votes! My life has been a little bit busy lately so I have not been able to test fly as many as i would have liked.

That being said, for me it was a close call between Xeldrak's design and Minimatt's Design.

In the end, I went with CRUEL. I really like the fact that it has a roughly pyramid-esque shape which I Like better. Either way, all designs really worked well. Sorry that I haven't been able to be more active :(

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Xeldrak

Xeldrak

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so whats the next BSC challenge? I feel that there is a lack a science stock craft.

While I feel, that you didn't realize how these challenges actually works :P I take one of these stock crafts and challenge all of you to come up with something better.

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Xeldrak

Xeldrak

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We'll see what I will do when we run out of stock craft.

Other questions, that still await answering are:

-What the to expect from a Kerbal 2 replacement? That it gets off the ground?

-Shall I do the Space Probe too? Since there allready was a competition.....although that never got finished.

Anyways - still ~2 hours left for the final vote

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Xeldrak

Xeldrak

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Even though you are all busy doing science, I just want to announce, that the 6th BSC-Contest has a (suprised) winner:

DaCfOKG.png

Didn't even expect to get into the finals with my design - let alone to become the winner. Thank you guys ;)

Congratulations to Ampster and Hejnfelt for second and third places - your designs are awesome :)

And of course thanks to everybody who has taken part :D

I will probably take a one weak break from doing BSC-contests, so that I too, can do some science. See you at the next BSC ;)

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AmpsterMan

AmpsterMan

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Posted

YAY!! Congratulations Xeldrak! I do believe that means you have two first place victories so far and I have two Second Place victories so far XD. Congratulations to everyone. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. These challenges have been my favorite thing about KSP lately. Can't wait for the next one!

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gm537

gm537

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Posted

Saw this competition a while back and it didn't catch my eye, but I must say lately I've really been looking for a good "Heavy-Lander" and the designs here are all pretty dang good. It's funny to see that what I eventually came up with for personal use is pretty similar to the finalists but with a little missing functionality that I will be adding ASAP.

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