ARM pack Lifter Challenge (Stock)

[kurt]

ALP [A(steroid Redirect Mission) Lifter Package]

My favourite part of KSP is probably designing lifters. I was so excited when I found the Temstars Zenith Rocket Family. I love the little chart he has with it, so professional looking. I used them for a while to get my own design ideas. Soon enough even the SuperNova did not have enough lifting power for me! As I started designing larger lifters I noticed the part counts skyrocketing. My computer was not happy. With the new ARM pack pieces though, we should be able to make behemoths that aren't lag machines. This in mind my challenge is:

Payload / Parts per Craft

broken into categories of roughly the new largest fuel tank.

At the end of the challenge (with your permissions) I would like to make a mash-up lifter family for all to use, so let’s keep this stock people! (Feel free to use Mechjeb, but don't leave it on the craft)

*=must, otherwise listed things will be for an arbitrary amount of points

Leaderboards will be calculated by Payload taken to 100km circular orbit divided by Parts at Launch points are for fun unless I can figure out some way to balance them

Do your own points, unless you want me to test/fly it, keep in mind I am not very efficient. Honor system!

One more thing, this is my first post on any forum, ever, so be gentle.

Build

*Root part at the top, Decoupler/Stack Separator/Docking Port

*Battery

*Remote Control

*Some amount of RCS

Parts includes Launch Clamps

Struts

+4 points each

(make it stable!!)

Stages

-20 points each

Launch

So simple Kur- I mean a Kerbal could fly it:

Straight to 10km(A) tilt to 45

°

by 20km, stay on heading to 70km(

, do whatever you need to circularize a 100kmx100km orbit©. I made a little picture to help you.

+500 points

Clean space: no junk left in space

+500 points

Extras

Payload/Parts x400 points

An explanation of throttle used

+20 points

Simple Throttle (ex. Punch it all the way!)

+50 points

Name the ship according to Payload @100km

+100 points

Build a series

+100 points

(to each craft in series)

Build a series with lifters outside the challenge categories (20T,50T etc..)

+cool points

Make a cool poster for it

+100 points

Know the max Payload to bottom of LKO with a decent pilot

+ 50 points

Mechjeb

+0 points

Extra tonnage over category:

+2 points per ton

Jeb seat (you know the one)

+cool points

*Cannot use Fuel/RCS/Power from Payload

ALP Leaderboards (@100x100 orbit):

90T

1.

2.

3.

180T

1.

2.

3.

270T

1.

2.

3.

400T

1.

2.

3.

500+

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

[Lord Banjo]

Awesome job for your first post! Just a few critiques i can think of.

The joint system in .23.5 is improved a lot so the strut rule may not be needed and could be easily abused.

Maybe make it stages over 2 or 3 because everyone will have at least one stage.

The pictures you post have to be linked from a site such as Imgur or they don't show up for other people.

Clarify what remote control means.

Do people need pictures? Such as on launchpad, orbital view on launchpad with parts and mass tab open, picture in orbit with payload.

May want to add that you can update rules at any time to avoid annoyed contestants.

(Sorry if double post)

[mhoram]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for hosting this challenge!

Nice challenge, unfortunately I can not participate with my Lopac lifter family because I left out docking ports (I provide a large flat area for multiple payload attachment points) and RCS (there is more than enough fuel for deorbiting available and I have enough SAS parts for rotating the ship) and designed them with a target orbit of 75km in mind.

However I tested the Lopac 52 V0.8 with a payload capacity of 520 ton and 161 propellant parts and took this picture in a 100km orbit with enough dV left to deorbit the final propellant stage:

I have a few annotations about the challenge.

Please clarify "divided by Parts at Launch": Do you mean propellant + payload parts or just parts of the propellant without the payload? I would recommend the second variant to make this measurement independend of the payload.

"Struts +4 points each (make it stable!!)": Stability is not a function of struts. I would leave out this rule, becaust this favours people who put struts on the ship because of the points and not because of stability.

There are parts like thruster blocks or aircraft cockpits with a drag coefficient < 0.2. Are they allowed in the payload? (they have a reduced air resistance)

Edited April 2, 2014 by mhoram