Autopilot: Best flight without doing anything

[witeken]

Make the best flight without doing anything: Choose your throttle and hit that space button!

Categories:

- Longest mission time

- Total distance travaled

- Highest altitude & speed achieved

-...

#Extra points for leaving the solar system

#All addons permitted

#Multistage crafts permitted

#(A)SAS not permitted

You can do everything: Nice kerbin orbits, leaving the Solar system, going to the Mun and so on

My first try: stock craft, 3 fuel tanks and an engine

5 Mins, 32 Secs

188 m/s

40,640 meter traveled

3,209 highest altitude

[MC3craze]

Wait, can you still maneuver?

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

Make the best flight without doing anything

You can do everything

Wait, what?

[foamyesque]

He means that the mission can be anything, but you aren\'t allowed to touch the controls-- apart from, I presume, spacebar.

[samstarman5]

This would be an interesting exercise in performance-specific stages(even if some stages are only used for bare seconds), not to mention interesting looking ships. I will give this one some thought.

[Guest E_Snap]

This reminds me of an 'autopilot' idea I had a few days ago (though I\'m sure you won\'t allow it in the challenge)... Has anyone ever tried recording a macro of a flight, or pieces of a flight, to be used as a sort of 'pseudopilot' type thing..?

[Katalliaan]

This reminds me of an 'autopilot' idea I had a few days ago (though I\'m sure you won\'t allow it in the challenge)... Has anyone ever tried recording a macro of a flight, or pieces of a flight, to be used as a sort of 'pseudopilot' type thing..?

Yes - there\'s a video on Youtube somewhere where a person did just that. Don\'t remember just what it did, though.

[FireCheetah]

Reporting on my try:

Rocket was built using stock craft.

Rocket name: Vortex IIc

Parts list

1 x Command Pod Mk1

1 x Mk16 Parachute (was not used in mission due to rocket stuck in Kerbol orbit)

5 x TR-18A Stack Decoupler (4 for protecting LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engines on launchpad)

32 x FL-T500 Fuel Tank (12 - first stage, 20 - second stage)

8 x LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine (4 - first stage, 4 - second stage)

40 x TT-38K Radial Decoupler (4 - first stage decouplers, 4 - second stage construction, 32 - vortex structure deformation)

8 x EAS-4 Strut Connector (structure reinforcement)

4 x FTX-2 External Fuel Duct (second stage fuel system)

Both stages started at launch pad. First stage decoupled after fuel depletion.

Second stage fuel depleted at 00:05:11, rocket reached 3361.8 m/s at 313 km altitude.

At day 27 time 15:03:52 perfomed manual mission override due to rocket flying around Kerbol (Kerbins star)

Kerbol orbit: Apoapsis: 14,873,270,065m, Periapsis: 9,483,453,603m

Highest Speed Achieved: 12,239 m/s

Total Distance Traveled: 25,160,733,496m

Most Gee Force Edured: 3.5G

[Tosh]

Are .CFG-edits allowed?

\'cause if they are I gonna fly around the world in atmosphere without ASAS and without pressing a single button =P

[witeken]

Are .CFG-edits allowed?

\'cause if they are I gonna fly around the world in atmosphere without ASAS and without pressing a single button =P

Yes

[Tim_Barrett]

I remember a video awhile back of an off-balanced ship that strategically plotted their paractute points and weight.

And it landed on the VAB!

[Tosh]

Are .CFG-edits allowed?

Yes

Okay then. Let\'s abuse game rules a little

Knowing that Drone UAV flies perfectly straight steadily keeping course and altitude the first thing I thought of was to give it infinite fuel and attach a command pod to it. Moreover there must be some force to lift its camouflaged butt off the launchpad and tilt it to horizontal flight. I chose JAWRD Wasp missile glued to drone\'s back to serve as such a \'Force\'. Then went CFG edits:

• [li]Pod: mass 0.01, drag 0.01.[/li]
  [li]Wasp: mass 0.01, dryMass 0.01, drag 0.01, thrust 2, thrustCenter 0, -0.5, -0.15 (otherwise it tilted too much).[/li]
  [li]Drone: stack allowed, node_stack @Y = 2.3 to connect to command pod, thrust 6.2 to make it go faster, fuel 1e30, consumption 1e-30.[/li]
  [li]Drone wing: deflectionLift 0.41 to make it fly higher.[/li]
  [li]Drone fins (L and R): deflectionLift 0.39 to keep it stable.[/li]

Wasp and main engine were fired up simultaneously. Wasp took the plane off the launchpad (main engine isn\'t powerful enough to do it alone), pitched it down to 30 degs and accelerated to 80 m/s -- and then went off. Drone then climbed to its cruise ceiling and gained some speed.

Here\'s that machine after a half a hour flight. It diverted a course (was 270), but steadily keeps its 4200 meters and 155 m/s. As it did not significantly roll I conclude it can stay aloft virtually forever circulating above an ocean.

UPD. 45 minutes. 500 km traveled, speed and altitude still the same. Should I continue?