BSC Challenge: Rover + Skycrane - Yet another winner!

[Liowen]

This thread has a pogo stick on it I think

Back on the topic at hand I just realized I suck at landing sky-cranes, that is on me I know but at least I did try. I will vote soon-ish.

[Xeldrak]

Well, thanks Kasper.

But back to topic: Tested some of the entries and was rather supprised that noone I tested uses a second probe core on his rover to makes sure that the Navball points to where the rover is heading, instead of just up.

[Liowen]

Well, thanks Kasper.

But back to topic: Tested some of the entries and was rather supprised that noone I tested uses a second probe core on his rover to makes sure that the Navball points to where the rover is heading, instead of just up.

I used an antenna at the front and a dish on the rear, since I built it in sandbox so they serve no real function other than looks and knowing where the front is. The dish was more to make it look like the timemachine from The Time Machine.

Even looking down on the navball you can know if you are going if you know North is 0, or the orange line (sorry I am use to using compasses so looking down is easier for me than looking at the horizon line.)

[Kasuha]

Tested some of the entries and was rather supprised that noone I tested uses a second probe core on his rover to makes sure that the Navball points to where the rover is heading, instead of just up.

I found the upwards aiming probe core exactly as useful as horizontal one. You can see both your heading and inclination on it, the only thing missing is the prograde marker which is not all that important for a rover. Actually I found the vertical "compass-like" navigation almost more convenient than the horizontal one.

And there's also the different way how torque and steering controls collide with each other. But they are bad in both cases.

[antbin]

Finished my reviews! And checked the results to find bombo1 in the lead with 40 votes . You're not fooling anyone by ballot stuffing.

Xeldrak, good point about the probecore. I reckoned that landing was the more crucial mode to support - better to "point at retrograde" to land than the alternative. And newbies will probably have trouble choosing a "control from here" option. Finally, since I built my rover to be pretty much a tank, all the squishy delicate stuff had to go on the inside of the 'sandwich', and the probe cores were too fat to fit!

I really enjoyed some of the skycrane designs in this challenge. I was surprised though that so few included landing lights. Do people just not land on the dark side of planets? Also, a lot of the skycranes were quite heavy compared to the landers, and had a lot of thrust. The combination of twitchy throttle and heavy skycrane was several crushed wheels on touchdown. Without a kerb to fix them, that's a mission loss...

The crewed vs. no crew dilemma makes this challenge a bit hard to judge. I totally respect the pocket-sized mini rovers. Very useful and elegant. But if you're not good at pinpoint landing, trundling over to a new biome at 4 m/s gets old real fast. And if you're going to build a rover around the 24m/s capable ruggedized wheels, it looks all out of proportion unless you use at least the 4x4 structural panel elements. I felt my rover was about as small as could be, given the wheels I was building around. And at that point, might as well add a crew seat! Leads to a very different design than a "cram a probe core inside a 2.5m stack" origami rover, and hard to decide which "class" of rover to vote for!

Edited December 9, 2013 by antbin

[Rhomphaia]

Well, thanks Kasper.

But back to topic: Tested some of the entries and was rather supprised that noone I tested uses a second probe core on his rover to makes sure that the Navball points to where the rover is heading, instead of just up.

Mine does.

[Xeldrak]

Mine does.

Well, I didn't get to your lander yet, but this will get you a plus

Yeah, you can drive a rover with the navball pointing up, but I like if the navbal does not suddenly work in a diffrent way, and the roll control does not suddenly turn into the yaw controll

I did Mun-exploring that involved some jumping and intuitive midair (midvaccum?) position controll suddenly becomes very important. Thats why I allways but a second probe core on a rover.

(note the navball)

Edited December 9, 2013 by Xeldrak

[Spartwo]

antbin:

Spartwo - Endeavor

No Description.

Looks simple aside from partclipped parachute.

Decoupling tricky.

No landing light.

Minimalistic

-I should do one.

-Would reduce landing d/v by a fair bit.

-My goal.

Rhompania:

Endeavor rover

Launcher included, I tested only from the FL-A5 and up

Mass 1.2 parts 39

No description, launcher should have been removed, not sure the point of ditching parachute as engines fire would have been better to keep it till the next stage, kept getting hit by it.

Cute little rover/skycrane

2m above and below

Land up to minmus, anywhere with atmo.

No independant control of skycrane, if the parachute misses this could hit.

Rover sturdy though can flip at speed.

6m13s full operation, unlimited standby

-Curiosity has the same problems:P

-Thanks!

-Huh?

-Cool never tried Minmus.

-Never happens unless you land on a perfectly level surface.

-Sorry.

Ravenchant:

Spartwo - Endeavor:

The lifter may start off slower than an overweight penguin, but you get plus points for the engine setup

Has a nice delivery system as well, dunno if it can land on the Mun - should be possible with assistance from the

transfer stage. The rover could use a bit of stability, though (nitpicking again... )

-come on you gotta love slow lift offs,It was even intentional.

-Yep it is first half will have to be transfer assisted.

-.5 tons is hard to get stable(I will try)

Edited December 9, 2013 by Spartwo

[sploden]

sploden - Kuriosity

Good description.

Looks good, but not inter-stack mountable.

No landing lights.

Lovely fairing, too bad about clipped rockets.

Tiny, tippable rover.

It has landing lights. I only noticed serious tipping problems if you turn on RCS, and turning on RCS voids the warranty...

[antbin]

Yeah, you can drive a rover with the navball pointing up, but I like if the navbal does not suddenly work in a diffrent way, and the roll control does not suddenly turn into the yaw controll

Yeah, that can happen, especially if the craft is built with the skycrane (not the rover) as the root part. When decoupled, the game sets the rover "root" part to whatever's closest to the skycrane decoupler. Not necessarily the probecore! If that closest part is rotated 90 degrees, then it's yaw-roll mixup time. I haven't heard back from the devs if they'll fix that bug. I would have saved 9 parts and left my rover with just the M-beam as a rollover cage if it weren't for that bug.

Thanks for the reviews and the votes! Please take The One Way Ticket for a drive, at least around the KSC. Put it in Docking Linear mode with SAS on - you'll find it's as rock solid as they come.

I hope nobody thinks that the Mk2 lander-can is supposed to be part of the craft - it's just a dummy module to make sure that you get 2 crew for testing launches, and to let the rover + skycrane be saved as a subassembly. For a real launcher, the main Command Module would go up there (or the rest of the rocket).

Since XolotlLoki pointed out that the skycrane is hard to separate on Kerbin, some supplemental Instructions for on-the-pad testing:

• EVA the Kerbals one at a time from the Mk2 lander-can. Right click on the rover seat to get them to take seats.
  
• Put the controls in Docking mode, turn on lights
  
• Stage the Mk2 lander can
  
• Drive forward or back to roll the Mk2 lander can away, put on parking brake (admire F1 style brake light!)
  
• Throttle off. Stage the skycrane motors (used for de-orbit burn). Next, stage parachutes. Finally, stage the parachute decoupling.
  
• Throttle up until suspension lifts (but rover stays on launch pad).
  
• Stage the skycrane, watch it fly away.
  
• Press "4 4" to toggle 4-wheel steering off, then DRIVE!
  

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Edited December 9, 2013 by antbin

[Ravenchant]

And checked the results to find bombo1 in the lead with 40 votes . You're not fooling anyone by ballot stuffing.

I don't see what the problem is. His rover handles nicely, at least on Kerbin, and he included two separate, easy to attach skycranes. It has no transfer stage, but then, neither has mine

Edit: wait, I do have a transfer stage... o memory, why hast thou forsaken me today -.- But still!

Edited December 9, 2013 by Ravenchant

[briansun1]

I don't see what the problem is. His rover handles nicely, at least on Kerbin, and he included two separate, easy to attach skycranes. It has no transfer stage, but then, neither has mine

it's called the skycrane and rover challenge not the rover challenge...

[Ravenchant]

it's called the skycrane and rover challenge not the rover challenge...

Exactly. But while the rules require only one entry per contestant, I don't see anything speaking against adding subassemblies. You load the rover and attach one of the two provided skycrane versions...is that too much to ask of a beginner?

[Rhomphaia]

Exactly. But while the rules require only one entry per contestant, I don't see anything speaking against adding subassemblies. You load the rover and attach one of the two provided skycrane versions...is that too much to ask of a beginner?

For a beginner starting fresh, yes, since there is no provision in game for a pre-built subassembly (subasseblies are tied to the save)

[Kasuha]

In my opinion, giving two skycranes is against the challenge rules. The challenge is to provide one skycrane.

It's too easy to post multiple designs, each suitable for a different task. The challenge was to post one design suitable for all specified tasks.

[Ravenchant]

For a beginner starting fresh, yes, since there is no provision in game for a pre-built subassembly (subasseblies are tied to the save)

Oh well, I just threw 'em into the Subassemlies folder of an existing save and it worked fine.

It's too easy to post multiple designs, each suitable for a different task.

Fair enough

[Spartwo]

For a beginner starting fresh, yes, since there is no provision in game for a pre-built subassembly (subasseblies are tied to the save)

No there isn't,but that is a good idea.

[antbin]

Ah, my mistake! I forgot that I had to unzip bombo1's entry, and didn't get around to copypasting the skycranes into the subassemblies folder. Will review it.

[Andrew Hansen]

I don't see what the problem is [regarding bombo1 and all the votes he has]. His rover handles nicely, at least on Kerbin, and he included two separate, easy to attach skycranes.

Wow! That makes me feel better. At least I know that those votes are probably legitimate now.

In other news, I sure wish I would have been able to enter this challenge a bit earlier and do some tinkering with my rover. If I could have, I would changed my entry and used this design.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Andrew Hansen

[Xeldrak]

Hm, well I've been thinking about disqualifying bombo1 on the "on entry per capita" rule. He basically submitted two designs you have to stick together yourself.

Well, I'll think about it for a day. Voting is still open for ~45 hours.

[bombo1]

Hm, well I've been thinking about disqualifying bombo1 on the "on entry per capita" rule. He basically submitted two designs you have to stick together yourself.

Well, I'll think about it for a day. Voting is still open for ~45 hours.

I can merge the two skycranes if you give me 24 houers.

[Deathsoul097]

But the challenge is finished. If you get to merge your sky-cranes, Which you could just be saying to make it better (Considering you only posted pictures of the rover), then everyone should be able to re-submit their rovers with improvements.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Deathsoul097

[Andrew Hansen]

...everyone should be able to re-submit their rovers with improvements.

Man, I'd like that!

Actually, I agree with you.

[zekes]

yaaaay some people like the Lorrie!

[Liowen]

In my opinion, giving two skycranes is against the challenge rules. The challenge is to provide one skycrane.

It's too easy to post multiple designs, each suitable for a different task. The challenge was to post one design suitable for all specified tasks.

I have to agree with you, have one basic skycrane that the player can modify as they feel is needed. I know some will argue that the player should have everything, but straight out of the box the player is going to want to test and learn things on their own. That could just be me though.

But the challenge is finished. If you get to merge your sky-cranes, Which you could just be saying to make it better (Considering you only posted pictures of the rover), then everyone should be able to re-submit their rovers with improvements.

While it would be nice to change up things, I do not feel that is in the spirit of competition since the build phase is done. That standing if someones design was overly complicated, given the rules, they should not be able to change things, even in sports you cannot replay a game just because the team didn't like outcome.

As a new player I like the rover design, but too many sub's making the choices for me rather than letting me learn what I like.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Liowen