Flimsiest Lander Chalenge!

[thereaverofdarkness]

The challenge is to build the weakest, most squishy lander possible, and crush it in a soft landing on the lowest-gravity body you can bring it to. Points are going to be done more or less by the seat of my pants, but I'll give out ribbons for crushing it in a soft landing on level terrain on various low-gravity worlds. Soft landing means you touch down at a descent rate less than 1 second of free fall. More points awarded for more thorough destruction of the lander. Lander structural components stock only. All mods used for transporting the lander to the destination allowed. Must include screenshot immediately before landing showing speed, or other proof of soft landing. You do not have to land it on its "feet", wherever they may be.

The ribbons are as follows:

Tylo: black ribbon (bonus points for Tylo if you perform an actual orbital descent and soft landing!)

Moho: brown ribbon

Vall: red ribbon

Mün or Eeloo: orange ribbon (bonus points for Eeloo if you flew there!)

Ike or Dres: yellow ribbon

Bop: green ribbon

Minmus: teal ribbon

Pol: blue ribbon

Gilly: white ribbon

This challenge was inspired by the time I landed my ion craft on minmus without landing legs. I managed to stand it up sideways on the tips of its flimsy 1x6 solar panels. In fact, try as I might, I was unable to roll it hard enough against the surface of Minmus to damage them.

Leaderboard:

1. thereaverofdarkness: -75 points

- 2x inverse teal ribbon

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CHALLENGE PART TWO **************************************************

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Part two of this challenge is to land the flimsiest-looking lander possible onto the heaviest gravity you can without it breaking under the gravity. Once again you may use any mods you want to get the craft there, including teleporting and save game editing, but only stock parts may be used as structural components on the lander. The same colors apply for the ribbons, but will be listed as part 2 ribbons. The white ribbon is the greatest part 1 achievement, whereas the black ribbon is the greatest part 2 achievement. Scoring will be done also by the seat of my pants, so use any visual tricks you can to trick me into believing that your lander should not, under any circumstances, hold up under the gravity. Taking a pic immediately after setting the craft down and before it crashes into a pile of rubble is totally cheating but I can't prove you did that, so I'll have to use the honor system.

Edited December 2, 2013 by thereaverofdarkness

[thereaverofdarkness]

I fail at my own challenge...

Coming in for a gentle landing:

1x6 Photovoltaic Panel "feet" buckling and swaying under the weight, but still holding:

Swaying the other way:

Managed to break the panels off by using the reaction wheels to slam the panels against the ground:

Nothing else ever broke, but it does bounce a lot.

[Epthelyn]

You underestimated the strength of panels and beams. The only stronger landing legs you could've had are actual landing legs

So we need to drop a lander on any non-atmospheric moon or planet as gently as possible, then destroy it by rolling it around on the surface?

[thereaverofdarkness]

It's supposed to break under the gravity alone. Rolling it (like I did) constitutes cheating.

[Dr. RichMoneyBucks]

This challenge is near impossible, unless you edit the part configs to lower the stress the parts can take before breaking. Even if you do build a craft flimsy enough, it will probably break apart attempting to land. Making something incredibly tall that will tip over and be destroyed may work, but it would be a pain in the butt to get it to someplace like gilly. I would change this challenge to creating the most durable lander possible. Rules are up to you.

[thereaverofdarkness]

Nah I like it like this. It is tough, but I'm certain it is possible even on Gilly. Hopefully we can see some really brilliant strategy from someone like I have seen on a few of my other challenges. I'll keep trying and see if I can at least come up with a proof of concept. I'll do it on the Mün if I have to, but hopefully I can manage it on Minmus.

That does give me an idea for part 2 of the challenge. I'll post it above.

Edited December 2, 2013 by thereaverofdarkness

[SunJumper]

What if you were to land on landing legs made of toroidal fuel tank concertinas....

[Ghostbird]

How did you bend the 1×6 Solar panels? Or is that a mod part?

[Whirligig Girl]

it's a bunch of structural panels.

[thereaverofdarkness]

The 1x6 solar panels are the little things that were sticking out past the 1x1 structural panels. They were the "feet", and the structural panels are the "legs". The solar panels bent at the base but didn't break under the weight of the ship.