Kerbal Dynamics: It's A Lot Less Bovver Wiv A' 'Ovver

[ihtoit]

Precision Skill/Endurance Challenge: design and fly a passenger-carrying VTOL which is capable of hovering, and take it to an altitude of 1,000m directly above KSC.

THE REAL CHALLENGE:

Once at altitude, hold and maintain a relative surface speed of ZERO. As in, park your aircraft in a stationary hover.

Hold it for as long as possible.

THE RULES:

- No infinite fuel, hack gravity or any other cheating method known or unknown.

- Any structural part valid.

- Any propulsion part valid as long as it consumes some sort of fuel.

- Any control method valid, MechJeb highly advised.

- Minimum passenger capacity MUST be at least 4 Kerbals, you may fly with just one.

- Capacity MUST be enclosed in capsules, external command seats not acceptable.

- Kerbal survival not essential, but will affect your score.

- Aircraft survival not essential, but will affect your score.

- You score NOTHING if your hover is not within +/- 5m of 1000m AGL and your relative velocity is not less than 0.1m/s

- As a universal design handicap, I have decided to add mandatory deadweight to all vehicles. As such, you MUST add TWO Inline Clamp-O-Trons (deadweight: 2t) on your vehicle. This is not optional.

SCORING:

Time Score: MET at start of terminal descent-MET at altitude reached and stabilised, both rounded UP to the nearest whole minute.

(ie if you reach altitude in four minutes and you manage a 32 minute hover, then your time score is 28)

Modifiers (subject to revision):

-15 vehicle sustains damage (including jettisoning of parts during flight/) on landing but is demonstrably able to take off again, or at any other point

-30 loss of vehicle on landing or at any point

-30 loss of Kerbal(s) on landing or at any point

-60 failure to show landed state

+15 All Electric (solar, microwave or RTG powered)

+30 All Electric (nuclear powered)

(my Jet-A powered Mini can hover for hours... but it only carries two and no deadweight)

[TJPrime]

By 'nuclear powered', what do you mean? Also, may I make suggestions to the rules?

+5 for each kerbal more than the requirement

+10 for every KM higher than the requirement

[rtxoff]

I guess nuclear powered generators from the Interstellar mod.

[zarakon]

- Any propulsion part valid as long as it consumes some sort of fuel.

+15 All Electric (solar, microwave or RTG powered)

ERROR! Does not compute!

[Redrobin]

ERROR! Does not compute!

Disregard, I misread.

[ihtoit]

solar/microwave/RTG are all electric generators. An electric rotor from eg Firespitter *consumes* electricity reserve as fuel. That electricity has to come from somewhere.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess nuclear powered generators from the Interstellar mod.

yes. There are possibly other sources for parts such as these as well.

[ihtoit]

By 'nuclear powered', what do you mean? Also, may I make suggestions to the rules?

+5 for each kerbal more than the requirement

+10 for every KM higher than the requirement

"Nuclear powered": utilising fission or fusion (or even antimatter) reactors and thermal generators from the Interstellar mod.

1. Nope, this is going to be difficult enough without having to worry you with keeping 10 Kerbals alive just to cheat the Kerbalcide penalty. Capacity is the rule, the penalty is the same whatever number you fly, no bonuses for flying a fully loaded school bus. Also bear in mind that Kerbals have mass!

2. Nope, 1000m +/-5m is it. The higher you go the thinner the air gets, and remember if you're going nuclear-electric you're looking at lifting and hovering maybe 13 tons, that's going to be hard enough to control.

Edited May 6, 2014 by ihtoit

[Darren9]

Why does nuclear score more that solar? It's much harder to lift 4 internal kerbals + 2T deadweight with solar/RTG, the 62.5cm antimatter reactor and generator can power multiple 80 thrust electric rotors and they weigh virtually nothing. Is the 2T of deadweight interchangeable to anything with equal greater mass? FireSpitter rotors have a "Hover" function that I've never tried, there's some other height control capable mods, even Fuel Balancer, although it wont aid flight control will aid craft design/balance. I'm guessing nothing like that is acceptable? Lastly, internal Kerbals have no mass last I checked, their external mass magically vanishes when they go inside.

Edit - Have you done it ihtoit, held it below 0.1m/s for an amount of time? I was struggling so I sent MechJeb up and let him have a go, the pitch and roll adjustments are so small to keep it stopped that you can hardly see any movement, neither the nav ball, nor any input method I have seem capable of such finesse.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Darren9

[ihtoit]

Why does nuclear score more that solar? It's much harder to lift 4 internal kerbals + 2T deadweight with solar/RTG, the 62.5cm antimatter reactor and generator can power multiple 80 thrust electric rotors and they weigh virtually nothing. Is the 2T of deadweight interchangeable to anything with equal greater mass? FireSpitter rotors have a "Hover" function that I've never tried, there's some other height control capable mods, even Fuel Balancer, although it wont aid flight control will aid craft design/balance. I'm guessing nothing like that is acceptable? Lastly, internal Kerbals have no mass last I checked, their external mass magically vanishes when they go inside.

Edit - Have you done it ihtoit, held it below 0.1m/s for an amount of time? I was struggling so I sent MechJeb up and let him have a go, the pitch and roll adjustments are so small to keep it stopped that you can hardly see any movement, neither the nav ball, nor any input method I have seem capable of such finesse.

1. because nuclear requires a lot more cooling than solar. Heatsinks weigh a LOT.

2. no. The inline clamptron deadweight is it. Everybody has that part, it's stock and weighs exactly 1t per unit. No substituting.

3. yes, they do, and it's very useful.

4. yes, refer to the rule that says any control mod valid.

to answer your edit: yes, I have - a precision dock-grab/lift and VAB roof set of a pair of empty Jumbo64 tanks using the Mini with the Bear rotor.

[Koolkei]

1. because nuclear requires a lot more cooling than solar. Heatsinks weigh a LOT.

2. no. The inline clamptron deadweight is it. Everybody has that part, it's stock and weighs exactly 1t per unit. No substituting.

3. yes, they do, and it's very useful.

4. yes, refer to the rule that says any control mod valid.

to answer your edit: yes, I have - a precision dock-grab/lift and VAB roof set of a pair of empty Jumbo64 tanks using the Mini with the Bear rotor.

sooooo question......

would any more kerbals or more dead weight adds up to more score?

[ihtoit]

sooooo question......

would any more kerbals or more dead weight adds up to more score?

no. Capacity is 4 minimum, you can fly as many as you like - as long as at least one is in control of the aircraft.

[Fengist]

Either I'm seriously missing something here or....

Would you mind giving your definition of 'relative velocity'? If you expect someone to sit and hover perfectly still at .1 m/s I think you're expecting too much from this game. Especially vertical speed and without using that memory hogging Jeb. Now, if you're talking horizontal speed...

You better rethink your 'electric/nuclear' option.

Tied to add a

tag here but doesn't seem to work on their version.

Because I'll be DAMNED if I'm gonna sit here for nearly FOUR YEARS watching this thing hover just to get score of 99,997,200 +60

Oh, and 13 tons is nothing, this is over 25 tons with a capacity of 6 AND a cargo bay. And this isn't even with the props in cargo mode. It can lift LOTS more.

And as for solar power... How many seconds are there in a Kerbal day??? 21,650.813??? No, I'm not sitting here for even SIX HOURS watching this thing hover.

Theoretically both of these are possible so for me, this becomes more of a challenge of which I'd prefer, flying this or watching paint dry.

And just for my own curiosity, I tried this same basic design with two B9 VTOL engines. Theoretically, 26+ hours with no user interaction once it's set.

I'm not trying to bust your challenge bud, Really I'm not. Maybe I just found the easy way to hover using just SAS (distribute your center of mass outward from the center of the craft for the same reason tightrope walkers use poles). I will say this though, without Jeb, B9 or Firespitter, this challenge is pretty much undoable. Trying to find the exact throttle spot where you can hover at 0.1m/s and then, adapting to the mass change as fuel is consumed? Wow. I won't even try that.

*** EDIT ***

Oh, I see why this is difficult now. You might want to disallow VTOL's like the one I have above. I just fired up the Bird of Prey VTOL I did for the Star Trek challenge (pictured below). If you build your VTOL horizontally like it is, it's a pain to get it stable and get to 0 horizontal momentum. Your nav ball is pointed toward the horizon and it's a bit of a challenge to get it to stop moving forward or backward because you're pitching back and forth trying to stop that motion. But, if you build it VERTICALLY like the one above and have the navball pointing straight up. For whatever reason, it's pretty easy to sit in one spot. In hover mode, your vertical speed will still bounce around a bit (+/- 1m/s) but horizontally, it's like a rock. You either crank up the thrust or let it drop like a rock in order to center the navball and then turn on the hover and it'll stay over the same spot for.... years.

Sorry ihtoit, but most all of my VTOL's are vertical VTOL's and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why this was such a challenge.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Fengist