Pinhole Marksman Challenge

[GuzWaatensen]

Welcome to the Pinhole Marksman Challenge!

I got the idea for this challenge while participating in the Grinding the Crack Challenge.

Basically this challenge is comparable in objective to the above challenge but will require a bit more marksmanship.

The Objective:

Download the provided .craft file of the 'pinhole', attach whatever lifting stage you like and fly it to an atmosphere-less body of your choice. Once you have placed the pinhole on the surface of the chosen body, build a second craft (or use part of the craft you delivered the pinhole with) which is entirely of you own design, launch it to the same celestial body and fly it through the pinhole without touching the ground. Sounds easy enough right?

The Pinhole:

The pinhole is designed to fit a 1 person command pod "comfortably", a 3 person pod (shown for size comparison) is a rather tight fit...

Craft File: Pinhole.craft

Easy Mode Pinhole:

This pinhole was generously made available by participant Andrew Hansen, it's quite a lot larger and should be easier to hit.

Craft File: Larger Pinhole.craft

With Skycrane (in the picture): Larger Pinhole (with Skycrane).craft

The Rules (updated):

Stock Parts only.

No cheats.

You have to use one of the provided Pinholes, there will be separate Leaderboards.

The pinhole cannot be damaged in the fly-through...

Quicksaving /-loading like a Madman is ALLOWED.

You have to go from orbit through the hole back to orbit, no landing at any point.

You do not need to be on an orbital trajectory, however a orbital trajectory is the best way to score high.

Submissions:

To complete the challenge post a video of your craft passing the pinhole and emerge into orbit unharmed.

Rating criteria:

Your submissions will be rated by two criteria (with separate Leaderboards):

1. Your velocity.
   
2. The (game-)time between you last course correction and passing the pinhole.
   

The reason for the second criteria is that it rewards the marksman aspect rather than you being an excellent pilot, meaning the more ballistic your approach is the better.

good luck and have fun everybody!

Leaderboard:

Normal Mode (speed):

GuzWaatensen (420,8 m/s)

Normal Mode (balistic):

GuzWaatensen (8 s)

Easy Mode (speed):

Andrew Hansen (150,6 m/s)

Easy Mode (balistic):

Andrew Hansen (3 s)

Completed the challenge (earlier submissions first):

Andrew Hansen

GuzWaatensen

Edited December 5, 2013 by GuzWaatensen

[Spartwo]

Before anyone says it's impossible.

Not my doings BTW

[Epthelyn]

Sounds easy enough right?

It does?

This is going to be hard. You can't see the target from more than 2.5km away (accurately anyway, you can see the craft marker from a few more km away) and even Gilly has an orbital velocity of a couple of hundred m/s at ground level. That gives you no more than 10-15 (less everywhere else, about 3 on the Mun) seconds to adjust the orbit to pass through the hoop, since the map view markers aren't really going to help with the precision necessary for this.

Trying anyway

Before anyone says it's impossible.

[/video ]

Not my doings BTW

That only requires altitude which on Minmus remains fairly constant over large areas. This is more a case of doing that as well as passing over a specific point.

[GuzWaatensen]

Yeah, "sounds easy enough", was supposed to be snarky...

i haven't successfully completed the challenge myself (yet), but i think you can actually hit the pinhole - without seeing it - through reloading/practicing your approach, which is explicitly allowed...

Also: Cool video, i wasn't aware someone had done something similar already. This also shows that rating isn't going to be easy... Finding a spot for the pinhole is remarkably easier on minmus that on other moons....

[Epthelyn]

After failing a couple of times at getting anywhere near the hoop with the smallest projectile I could think of which still has a decent amount of dV for adjustments and suchlike

Here's a few er...problems.

To complete this challenge, you need to pass over a specific point at a specific altitude above the moon's surface. The easiest way to do this is to carry out the challenge perfectly on the equator.

As it turns out, that's really difficult to judge by eye

Ship renamed to avoid overwriting the save, forgot to change it back. It's the same look though

[Kasuha]

Hmm... how long does the ship have to be on orbital trajectory when passing through the pinhole? Because on Gilly I can land 50 meters from it, launch and already be on escape trajectory when passing through it...

[zekes]

<grabs popcorn>

[GuzWaatensen]

Hmm... how long does the ship have to be on orbital trajectory when passing through the pinhole? Because on Gilly I can land 50 meters from it, launch and already be on escape trajectory when passing through it...

You are right, i'll add a paragraph to the rules to eliminate that...

Basically i'm just going to out-rule landing. If you want to build a craft that can hover over the surface to the gate then that will probably reflect in your speed rating...

[Clouds]

Before anyone says it's impossible.

Not my doings BTW

Can't tell if proof, or Hyperedit.

Just sayin'.

[GuzWaatensen]

Sooo...

I've now tried to do the challenge myself and I think it might actually be impossible to do, at least on the mun. And not because the pinhole is impossible to hit, i think i would have been able to make the necessary corrections, but there were reasons I stopped trying after a certain point...

Below is the footage I was filming for my entry (Spoiler: I didn't make it), the reason why though is not really obvious...

Skip to 2:45 if you just want to see why my attempt failed. I don't know if it's sonicspaceboom or just the Kraken, but it seems high velocities and collision detection don't mix.

I actually think that it's just because i'm going way to fast, so I will have another go at this on Bob or Pol where i can be considerably slower. Until then feel free to participate, but know that it might not be doable...

[Scarecrow88]

That Minmus video isn't proof that this mission is not impossible. For one, the hoop is quite a bit bigger. Secondly, you'll notice that the hoop is on wheels. My bet is that the person who made that video, set his orbit up first, and when it was low enough, moved the hoop in to position so that the orbiting craft would go through it.

The rules for setting challenges state that the poster should include his own result to show that the challenge is possible. By his own admission the OP has stated that he hasn't been able to do this challenge yet.

[Epthelyn]

The rules for setting challenges state that the poster should include his own result to show that the challenge is possible. By his own admission the OP has stated that he hasn't been able to do this challenge yet.

"So test your challenge yourself first to make sure it is possible, you don't have to be successful but you'll soon know if the challenge has a hope of being completed."

Actually they say that the poster has to attempt the challenge to see if it has a hope of being possible, not necessarily to be successful. The OP has actually tried and come within a few metres of the target, although with weird results*. Besides, we'd never see challenges like this if they had to be proven to be possible, simply because not everyone who thinks up a challenge is capable of completing their own challenge and want to leave it as a bit of fun for everyone else to try. The slight ambiguity in the guideline mean that this can happen. As it is, the challenge is theoretically possible because it's theoretically possible to pass over a single point just above the terrain of a planet or moon such that there just so happens to be a loop there to pass through.

*Regarding the video, er...that's strange. I'm guessing it might have something to do with the fact that you're traveling through the physics range of the pinhole in less than 4 seconds, and therefore by the time the physics have sorted themselves out you're already leaving range.

[sal_vager]

I think this is possible, but as Epthelyn says you'll likely be between physics ticks when passing through the eye

[GuzWaatensen]

So what would you suggest? Should one go slower, so that the physics can stabilize. Or faster so that they never get evaluated in the first place?

[Scarecrow88]

My guess is that the math behind the physics engine isn't accurate enough to fine tune an orbit to the level of accuracy required to hit such a small target. Trying to get a 3 man pod through, there is absolutely no margin for error, which I believe would make that particular option impossible.

[Andrew Hansen]

If I were to participate in this challenge (which I think I will, considering how I really enjoyed the Grinding the Crack challenge), then what I think I would do is make a rocket with a very high TWR, and as soon as I enter the physics range of the pinhole at low velocity, I can speed up with 15 G's of acceleration or something in order to gain some speed while passing through it.

EDIT: I have a suggestion. I think that because the pinhole is 87 parts, it would increase the time that physics takes for it to load the object. I really think you could easily make a pinhole that has way less parts. I'm testing out one now that has around 15 parts.

Here's the link for the .craft file.

Edited December 1, 2013 by Andrew Hansen

[Andrew Hansen]

Well, as everyone else was saying, I think this challenge is impossible.

Yes, of course, there's the issue about physics lag and stuff, but I think there's an even more pronounced problem - the pinhole is too small.

Basically, there is practically no margin for error at all. Even with a probe-sized craft, I could never go through the pinhole at more than 20 m/s on Gilly (legitamately). It was possible for me to land right beside the pinhole, point up at it, then fire my powerful engine at full go and be speeding through at 80 m/s. Still, I didn't feel like making a submission because that's really rather slow. I think that the pinhole should be much larger. Perhaps 3x as large, to allow for some margin of error.

Also, I didn't notice any explosions when entering the physics range of the pinhole even at high velocities. I think 1,300 m/s is too fast, but perhaps 500 is not.

[GuzWaatensen]

I'd gladly update the OP with a bigger pinhole if you would like to provide one.

Honestly i do think hitting the smaller pinhole is possible. As you said you were going rather slow and the faster you go, the smaller the change in direction a given amount of thrust will generate is going to be. So aiming actually gets easier at higher velocities.

Still making this Challenge the slightest bit easier is probably in any ones interest...

[Kasuha]

I'd gladly update the OP with a bigger pinhole if you would like to provide one.

Honestly i do think hitting the smaller pinhole is possible.

Do your own challenge and post the result. Then you may consider changing rules according to experience you gain during that.

[inigma]

I've been working out a scheme to pinhole the Mun Arch for the Mun Arch Master title in the Grinding the Crack Challenge...

I was successful with a HyperEdit setup. But I'll prob modify the Grinding the Crack Challenge rules to allow HyperEdit on submissions.

[GuzWaatensen]

Do your own challenge and post the result. Then you may consider changing rules according to experience you gain during that.

I did (you can find the video on the bottom of the first page), as I already mentioned there it might be impossible to do at the mun because the high speeds required, but might be doable on lower gravity bodies. i fully intend to try the challenge in it's original setup on another body with less gravity. But as I do not have much spare time during the week, this will have to wait to the next weekend. In the meantime i am fully ok with someone with the actual time to design a bigger pinhole to do so. This in no way invalidates any results someone (myself included) might have with the original setup. It's merely another difficulty level.

@inigma: Personally i think, in hindsight, the mun arch might have been the wiser choice in terms of targets and i will try to improve my entry to your challenge accordingly. I'd however rather do so without hyper edit...

[Andrew Hansen]

I created a pinhole a lot larger than yours and placed it on top of a Mun Arch, then flew through it at 150.6 m/s. It doesn't qualify for your challenge with the existing rules because I:

-Was travelling under orbital velocity

-Wasn't using your given .craft.

It was still a lot of fun though, and if the rules were to change, that could be an entry. I'm just not good enough to nail your tiny pinhole!

Skip to 2:00 to see me going through the pinhole in slow motion.

By the way, just getting the pinhole there was quite a challenge in itself. I resorted to using Hack Gravity to fly it on top of the Mun Arch. If you want, I can give you the .craft file for the larger pinhole.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Andrew Hansen

[GuzWaatensen]

that is still rather impressive.

Feel free to give me the .craft file for your pinhole, i'll update the OP with an "Easy Mode" (that might be the only mode if I can't hit my Pinhole this weekend).

Regarding sub orbital velocity i'm not ready to step down from that quite yet. If during my next attempt i manage to hit the hole at orbital velocity i will leave that as a requirement, if not i'll have the remodel the challenge a bit.

Anyway, thanks a lot of partaking in the challenge and i hope you had some fun!

[Andrew Hansen]

that is still rather impressive.

Thanks!

Feel free to give me the .craft file for your pinhole, i'll update the OP with an "Easy Mode"

Sure, I'll have it shortly. I'll just quickly have to separate it from the rest of the launcher.

Regarding sub orbital velocity i'm not ready to step down from that quite yet. If during my next attempt i manage to hit the hole at orbital velocity i will leave that as a requirement, if not i'll have the remodel the challenge a bit.

I understand that you don't want to make the challenge too easy. However, I do think that it's not so much orbital velocity that counts, but rather a certain flat velocity. On Minmus that would have been orbital velocity (I think). So perhaps you could instead make a requirement that you have to be going over 100 or 200 m/s for example.

Anyway, thanks a lot of partaking in the challenge and i hope you had some fun!

I did indeed have a heap of fun doing this! Thanks for making the challenge.

EDIT: Here's two .craft files - one with a skycrane and one without. I was thinking that you wouldn't need such a big skycrane if you're not going to be going to Tylo, for instance, so if you want you could make the requirement to just use the pinhole and not necessarily the skycrane.

Pinhole with skycrane (31 parts)

Pinhole without skycrane (21 parts)

Edited December 3, 2013 by Andrew Hansen

[GuzWaatensen]

I updated the first post accordingly...

Actually i just read that you used cheats to place the pinhole, which of course is against the rules. But i'm not ready to disqualify my only participant because of a technicality, still future participants should try to avoid that, in my opinion placing the pinhole in a good spot is also part of the challenge....