Dropship challenge

[Sillychris]

Build a dropship. Drop as many Kerbals as possible onto Kerbin from orbit in one ship.

+1 for every surviving parakerbal. 1/2 points if they land in water without harpoons. Double points if they land on land with guns.

[Sillychris]

Ship is not permitted to dock with other ships.

[cyberklad]

You should probably read the challenge subition guide.

[robopilot99]

What? Is this a mod?

[quietsamurai98]

First: There are no stock eva parachutes, guns, or harpoons.

Second: This sounds like an interesting challenge, assuming that it is modified so you are dropping and actual ship, not evaed kerbals.

[Sillychris]

First: There are no stock eva parachutes, guns, or harpoons.

Second: This sounds like an interesting challenge, assuming that it is modified so you are dropping and actual ship, not evaed kerbals.

Yeah, mod your brains out. The parakerbals don't need to have the parachutes attached to them, personally. My first dropship used a bunch of command modules to deploy troops. I will look at attaching parachutes to external comman seats in my next version. I'm hoping someone makes a gun mod.

[Sillychris]

[Sillychris]

The above submission would have gained me 20 points if I had bothered to put it into orbit first, and if I had aimed for land, and if I had filled all the pods with Kerbals.

It's an obvious design... what I am interested in seeing is the creative stuff people come up with.

[quietsamurai98]

Hmm, does each kerbal have to be in an individual capsule? Ie; Is it allowed to land something like your second picture in one piece?

[Sillychris]

There is nothing necessarily prohibiting a single giant dropship, or using larger command modules with more Kerbals in each, or have external command seats strapped to probe cores etc. The challenge is intentionally open ended.

Your goal is to get troops into orbit and rapidly deploy them to a target. Ship doesn't need to break up, but it sure is fun watching command modules spread out and cover a football field's worth of ground.

[quietsamurai98]

So, I did it... and scored 25 points. I was carrying 50 kerbals.

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[Norcurion]

156 Points

Also to be used as Headquarter and/or Shopping Center

(i used Mechjeb, cause i'm lazy)

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Disclamer: The whole "Stack Hitchhicker's until the CPU melts" idea is from some other designs in the forum

[cyberklad]

Somone should make a modded hitchiker container to allow it to carry a couple of million or billion kerbals. Then you just stick a number of those together and hyperedit it into a 100x20km orbit. Should give a nice score. And since this challenge has no rules or anything other then it need to fall out of orbit specified it seems to fit the "challenge"

Oh yeah. Would need some parachutes too.

[Sillychris]

156! Great score! Think you can make it blow apart after re-entry so the drop pods are a little more scattered?

I also REALLY like the modded hitchiker idea. The "Clown Car" of drop ships.

[Landge]

Hmm... maybe by adding some seats inside my crates...

Ps: This was a proof of concept test for mock supply drop.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Landge

[Sillychris]

Hahaha, I love it! Berlin Airlift, much?

[Sillychris]

I give you: PARAKERBALS:

A couple of them did die. I TOLD them to stay strapped in!

Edited February 25, 2014 by Sillychris

[Landge]

Man I couldn't wait to get home and try adding the seats inside the crates only to remember the VAB doesn't allow adding Kerbals to the seats.

But I thought wouldn't it be cool to have Drop Pods like they had in Battlefield 2142 so I came up with this...

Presenting my HALO (High Altitude Low Open) Drop Pod. Made with the Structural Fuselage, Nose Cone and small chute. I reset the chutes in the VAB to open at 30m (min setting).

This pic was taken the second they opened. I wish I had video. It was a sight watching them fall only to open at the last second to impact.

Now if I could figure out a way to mod the Structural Fuselage to hold Kerbals, peal open on impact, and have a Kerbal pop out.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Landge

[Landge]

I give you: PARAKERBALS:

clip

A couple of them did die. I TOLD them to stay strapped in!

LOL! That's awesome! How did you add Kerbals?

[Sillychris]

LOL! That's awesome! How did you add Kerbals?

One at a time... there are a bunch of hitchikers with ladders in the first stage.

[Sillychris]

I love the HALO pod!

[leafty]

That's what I have in mind when I hear 'dropship':

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I built this some time ago, and of course it doesn't qualify per the 'drop from orbit' rule, but it looks quite stupid, so here we are.

[Sillychris]

So it poops Kerbals. "GET OUT!!"

[Darren9]

That's what I have in mind when I hear 'dropship':

~snip~

I built this some time ago, and of course it doesn't qualify per the 'drop from orbit' rule, but it looks quite stupid, so here we are.

That was my first thought as well, perhaps a sign of my age, for me dropship is from Aliens not Halo. I had a dropship that "dust-offs" an APC from orbit, it would only score 5 points for this particular challenge. 5 points is 5 points though

[Landge]

I'm really loving those designs!

Here's some more of my work in progress:

More experimentation on my HALO (High Altitude, Low Open) Drop Pods. In the VAB I placed the command seats on the outside surface of the structural fuselage and rotated them 180 degrees so that they sit inside. Due to the size of the fuselage I placed 2 seats per pod. You can see the bottom of the seats sticking out of the side. Here's some pics the results.

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What surprised me was no casualties! I wasn't sure if any would survive being placed in a part that wasn't made to house Kerbals! Another surprise was most of the squad automatically bailed out on landing, standing next to their pods at the ready. Only a few had to be coaxed out of their seats. I must say early testing has proved very successful. All I need now is to build a proper troop transport (and figure how I'm going to load more Kerbals).

Edited February 26, 2014 by Landge