H-O-R-S-E Challenge Game: Rebirth

[cyberklad]

Okay! Your challenge is to deliver a Kerbal to LKO with a rocket with no more than 3 stages, and preferably no larger than mine! (And preferably not just duplicating my design!)

...with the Kerbal holding onto the rocket (yes rocket, no air breathers) the whole time by a ladder on the outside of the rocket. The Kerbal can only be secured to your rocket by a ladder.

Proof of concept:

http://imgur.com/a/u7kBJ

150x500km orbit with a wee rocket. Kerbals on a ladder feels so much like cheating.

The stage that holds the capsules are discarded while on the launchpad. So It's technically a single stage to orbit as well.

Edited March 15, 2014 by cyberklad

[zarakon]

aw, i had posted mine a few minutes before

but i didn't realize it rejected it for 10 character limit

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[cyberklad]

The next challende is to rescue the kerbal left in space after the last challenge.

Use the provided craft file to launch a kerbal into orbit. Then you need to build a rocket with an empty seat and go rescue the kerbal that was unlucky enough to get caught on the ladder.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvl3bzuoz63fnin/Ladder%20challenge.craft

If you have problems with the kerbal falling off the ladder during launch you just have to change to him and walk onto the ladder while the ship flies itselfe on sas. Then trothle down and change course and accelerate again and change and walk onto the ladder.

Good luck with the rescue operations.

[zarakon]

(you have to do the challenge yourself first)

[OTehNoes]

aw, i had posted mine a few minutes before

but i didn't realize it rejected it for 10 character limit

http://imgur.com/a/jAACZ

I see no proof of a stable orbit! Only orbital altitudes!

[zarakon]

I see no proof of a stable orbit! Only orbital altitudes!

altitude, speed, and heading

from that you can deduce the orbit

[cyberklad]

From the speed and height it's pretty clear

[cyberklad]

(you have to do the challenge yourself first)

One should submit a proof of concept yes. As I got the challenge craft up to orbit in the previous challenge. And The concept of shooting another craft into space and rendevousing with the craft is quite familiar to everyone, I see no need to prove that part viable.

[zarakon]

One should submit a proof of concept yes. As I got the challenge craft up to orbit in the previous challenge. And The concept of shooting another craft into space and rendevousing with the craft is quite familiar to everyone, I see no need to prove that part viable.

It's not about whether it's viable or not, it's the definition of the game, to prove that YOU could do it. This challenge concept comes from the basketball game called H-O-R-S-E. In that game, you challenge someone else to make a shot by first making it yourself.

But here, I did it anyway

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Next challenge soon-ish. It will involve using the RAPIER engine

[cyberklad]

But here, I did it anyway

As far as I can see you are missing the first part. The part where you shoot the craft supplied in the challenge into orbit.

[zarakon]

Forgot to add those shots to the album. Fixed now. You could see the "Ladder Challenge" ship marker in one of the screenshots already though!

[cyberklad]

Forgot to add those shots to the album. Fixed now. You could see the "Ladder Challenge" ship marker in one of the screenshots already though!

Well excecuted challenge. looking forward to see what you come up with.

[zarakon]

New challenge: Orbit and land this SSTO rocket using one RAPIER engine.

Rocket parts (6 total):

1 Mk1 Lander Can

1 Circular Intake

1 FL-T400 Fuel Tank

1 R.A.P.I.E.R. Engine

2 Z-100 Rechargeable Battery Pack

- You can leave off the battery packs. They aren't really necessary unless you accidentally leave SAS on while time warping

- You can use a different command pod if you want, but it must be one of the enclosed manned pods. No putting your kerbal out on a ladder or chair to reduce weight.

- No adding wings, more intakes, more fuel, more engines, or parachutes.

- You may only add batteries, solar cells, reaction wheels, lights, and landing gear.

- No mechjeb

- You may tweak the fuel amounts. I used 180 liquid and 176 oxidizer.

Achieve a stable circular orbit, then land somewhere with the rocket completely intact. You can land anywhere you want, ground or water. Kudos if you land at KSC, but it's not required

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Edited March 15, 2014 by zarakon

[kahlzun]

Wow, you guys have been busy overnight!

First try: ran out of fuel circularising

Second try: got into a 115x67 km orbit (after circularising). Been aerobraking for the last 20 minutes an hour.

[EDIT] Didn't have enough fuel to brake

Edited March 16, 2014 by kahlzun

[cyberklad]

Well. managed to get into orbit with a good amount of fuel. But having to stick the landing within 2m/s is a bit of a pain.

[cyberklad]

Finally got the landing down.

[zarakon]

Yeah, landing in airbreathing mode is hard because it's very slow to react to the throttle. My first landing attempt I tried to switch to rocket mode as I got near to the ground, but quickly ran out of fuel

The engine has an impact tolerance of 20 m/s though, so it's not too hard to land on

[cyberklad]

Yeah, landing in airbreathing mode is hard because it's very slow to react to the throttle. My first landing attempt I tried to switch to rocket mode as I got near to the ground, but quickly ran out of fuel

The engine has an impact tolerance of 20 m/s though, so it's not too hard to land on

The engine allways survided. But the air intake floats very well. So if one hit the water at more then 2-3m/s then it ripped the command pod of the rest of the ship and destroyed it. Probably a good bit easyer to land it on land.

[cyberklad]

This challenge will be to see how many G you can pull with a rocket. This must be a manned mission. And the kerbal must survive. No infinite fuel or other cheats. You can stick mechjeb on the rocket for information. But fly the thing yourself.

The highest G number within 24 houers wins.

[zarakon]

The "Most Gee Force Endured" readout is not accurate unfortunately

I'm pretty sure this is around 100 Gs. But it doesn't register as anything

Edited March 16, 2014 by zarakon

[OTehNoes]

The "Most Gee Force Endured" readout is not accurate unfortunately

I'm pretty sure this is around 100 Gs. But it doesn't register as anything

http://i.imgur.com/g8uw3Ymm.png

http://i.imgur.com/GmjshLMm.png

I don't think the G readings work properly in space either...

[OTehNoes]

My best effort, managed 20.6G! Engines blew up on landing though!

It's a shame you can't get a the accelerometer to give a max reading or something, as that is pretty damned accurate, and constant too, maybe if you could plot its output to a graph or something?

EDIT: For anybody interested that has Microsoft Excel, this is pretty good! I've managed to get a peak of 21G which in atmosphere at least I think is about as good as it'll get.

Edited March 17, 2014 by OTehNoes

[kahlzun]

For 'powered' acceleration, the highest potentially possible is the TWR of the seperatron, which is about 145 just before burnout.

What would be best would be to collide with an atmosphere going as fast as possible, i've seen kerbins atmosphere reduce a 15kms rocket to 200ms before it hit the ground, which is a lot of G's.. (Assuming it's going straight down, it would cross the 70km in about 5 seconds, so it'd roughly be 300G)

Edited March 17, 2014 by kahlzun

[SRV Ron]

A two stage SRB from NovaPunch mods hit 32.2G at second stage burnout around 68,000 meters. Unfortunately, Jeb is in solar orbit crossing Moho.

Edited March 17, 2014 by SRV Ron

[kahlzun]

Interesting result, SRV Ron, but unless the challenge specifies otherwise, it's stock parts only.