The Heavyweight Challenge!

[Affan]

Welcome to the Heavyweight Challenge!

In this challenge the goal is to get the largest weight you can from Kerbin, to another celestial body and back in one piece.

Rules

Your mass is the mass you return to Kerbin's surface.

The whole of the mass you return to Kerbin must get in an encounter or orbit with your celestial body.

The whole of the mass you return to Kerbin must land on the celestial body if you decide to land. If only part of what returns landed on the celestial body, then you can do the points calculations for each part of the ship separately.

No aerobraking except on Kerbin return

You cannot simply send just a Kerbal with the RCS pack to the surface of Minmus and back.

You do not get the points for getting in orbit round Kerbin.

Points accumulate (so you get 1710 points if you land on the mun, 860 + 210 + 640).

Your craft must make it back to Kerbin.

If you feel any of the points are unrepresentative of the difficulty of the task, please tell me in a post and I will edit it.

Point System

Your points are determined by the Delta-V you used on the mission. Refer to this map:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/25360-Delta-V-map

To get your score follow the line you took and add up the numbers along the way. Read the information on the post for more info.

To get your final score you multiply all the points you got from above by the weight of your craft safely returned to Kerbin in one piece.

My Attempt

I was unable to get good screenshots of my craft so I will be doing the mission again and will post my entry soon.

Leaderboard:

1st :

2nd :

3rd :

4th :

5th :

Edited November 9, 2013 by Affan

[Johnno]

This seems like an ok enough challenge however the points list needs some serious work.

- Minmus is far easier than Mün to land on, takes less delta-v for a return trip and with low gravity you could easily land heavy ships.

- Returning from Eve is one of the hardest things in the game, scoring the same as Duna makes it a very undesirable option.

- Jool means what, any of the moons, all of them? The Jool system isn't that hard to get to, with aerobraking you can put heavy stuff into orbit, landing on one of the smaller moons isn't all that hard and you'd be able to return with plenty of mass.

- Eeloo isn't all that hard to get to, nor return from. Consider just bringing back a Mk1-2 pod from there, mass is what, 4 tons for the pod alone? 4x8000 for just returning the pod, compared to how you'd have to bring almost 107tons back from Mün to get the same score, that's nearly three full orange tanks.

Also what's unclear is if the entire mass has to land on the surface, or only a Kerbal/lander. This would make the challenge even more skewed since you could leave heaps of mass in orbit, land with a simple lander and then return home with the interplanetary stage, which even empty could weigh a lot. It's understandable that you want to keep the score calculation simple, but it really skews things unless you introduce a rule that the entire mass has to land on said location.

If you were to do that though, you'd have to figure out a better scoring list, depending on delta-v required to reach the planet/moon and its surface gravity.

The challenge itself seems fun, but I would suggest a rework and clarification.

[Affan]

thanks for the advice, making the changes now. Sorry for any inaccuracies, this is my first challenge.

[Kasuha]

I'd suggest to roll the scoring system from delta v needed to access/return from these bodies.

Also your pictures don't prove much - I don't see that you encountered Mun with your craft and I don't see how much did it weigh, neither on Mun nor back on Kerbin.

The weight itself is an issue - your lander's weight is going to be larger before descent than after it returns from the surface - simply by the amount of fuel you spend on braking and liftoff. Plus what about stages you may drop during that liftoff? How does their weight on surface count to the 50% you're supposed to bring back? Or are we supposed to dismantle the ship down on Kerbin to check that the lander part is at least 50%? What if I transfer fuel to it so its tanks are full and it weighs more, will it be considered cheating or not? That fuel was not down there, or was it?

I would suggest to drop the 50% clause - your score comes from complete weight which visited the other body and returned to Kerbin, nothing more. And you're supposed to deliver that with no fuel at all.

[sparty48]

I summon WHACKJOB. But won't this soon break down to a computer fight? My machine can't handle heavy lifters, putting me at a disadvantage already.

[Affan]

Thanks, adding these changes now.

[Affan]

Also your pictures don't prove much - I don't see that you encountered Mun with your craft and I don't see how much did it weigh, neither on Mun nor back on Kerbin.

Sorry, I didn't take those screenshots with making a challenge later in mind. I just put that in. Very soon I will do a mission for this challenge.

[Smoke]

Do you include the 4500m/s for launching to LKO? A 2nd time for landing? That would be 9000m/s for launching to LKO and getting back to the ground.

[Affan]

Do you include the 4500m/s for launching to LKO? A 2nd time for landing? That would be 9000m/s for launching to LKO and getting back to the ground.

You do not get the points for getting in orbit round Kerbin.

That should answer your question. Although not mentioned, you do not get the points for return.