The ultimate awesome lifter challenge!

[quasarrgames]

Your goal is to design a lifter that can carry one full orange tank to low Kerbin orbit.

The scoring will consist of: 100 points for completing the challenge MINUS the mass of your lifter (in tons) PLUS any bonuses you do.

RULES:

You can use jet engines, but no more than three air intakes (of any kind) per jet engine. For example, you can have two ram intakes and one radial intake per jet engine.

You MUST bring a FULL ORANGE FUEL TANK into a 70,000x70,000km orbit at least.

You must have PROOF that you completed the challenge. I mean screenshots or videos when i say PROOF.

You MUST have at least a little bit of fun while completing the challenge.

For some challenges where you might want to try this, you may NOT use space tugs launched from other missions to pull your orange tank. Everything must be launched with the same lifter.

You may NOT use any of the fuel from your orange tank. EVER.

NO PART MODS. I'm sorry, it's just to make it fair for everyone. This rule may be lifted later.

If you do not follow all the rules, you will get a mark of ZERO.

BONUSES:

Bonuses are extra things you do to get more points. Every bonus you do is added on to your score.

TO THE MOONS: take your full orange tank into munar or minmar orbit with your lifting stage- 400 points plus another 200 if landed

GO FURTHER: get your orange tank into orbit around Duna, Eve, Ike, or Gilly -600 points plus another 200 if landed

GO EVEN FURTHER: Get your full orange fuel tank into orbit around any planet or moon besides Mun, Minmus, Duna, Eve, Ike, Gilly, or Kerbin -1000 points plus another 200 if landed

ECONOMIC SPACE PROGRAM: every stage of your lifter is reusable and can land safely back on kerbin -550 points

NO TO THE BIG PARTS: do not use any 3.75m parts on your rocket -50 points

EVEN NO-ER TO THE BIG PARTS: do not use any 2.5m or above parts on your lifter, except for the orange tank -100 points

SINGLE STAGE TO ORBIT: complete the challenge with a single-stage-to-orbit VTOL -400 points

MINIMALIST: the entire lifter is under 100 parts -600 points

CRAZY PILOT EARL: the lifter is over 700 parts- 50 points

PURE N' REALISTIC: if you have jet engines on your lifter, have only one intake per jet engine -200 points

SPECIAL CHALLENGELET'S MULTIPLY IT: launch more than one full orange fuel tank into orbit -for every challenge you do your score is multiplied by the number of orange fuel tanks. so say you got 2 full orange fuel tans into orbit around the moon with your 250-ton lifting stage. That means your score is (100+400-250) x2, so your score would be 300 points.

GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN!

Edited May 15, 2014 by quasarrgames

[EdFred]

Screen shots later. I'm not connected to my website.

Challenge: 50 (73 x 71)

Economic: 300

No to Big: 50

No-er: 200

Total: 600

Easy build. 24 aerospikes onion staged thrice with chutes on the 2 x FL-T800 the two dropped stages. Enough fuel remaining to suicide burn the orange tank back on Kerbin.

[SRV Ron]

All Stock in 0.23

Last stage booster is recoverable from orbit.

An older design not eligible but easily doable with stock.

[SRV Ron]

Then, there is five orange fuel cans at once to orbit.

Lots of fuel left in the orbital stage;

[SSSPutnik]

You should add a mass penalty but is OK.

[SRV Ron]

You should add a mass penalty but is OK.

That could be an efficiency launch to orbit. That would be based upon a ratio of launch weight and the weight placed in orbit, say about 100k circular, around Mun, or around a target planet.

While not specified, the fuel can payload should have independent maneuvering and docking capability.

[EdFred]

I attempted to get 4 orange tanks into orbit using only less than 2.5m parts and my computer did not like it at all. Crashed KSP every time.

[quasarrgames]

It has occurred to me that some aspects of this challenge may be a bit unbalanced...

REBALANCING! (sorry guys. I will calculate your scores once rebalancing is done)

oh and SSSPutnik good idea. MASS PENALTY IT IS!

so, what was the mass of all your lifters?

Edited May 15, 2014 by quasarrgames

[Mesklin]

Here is my lifter - "Super Hexagon", can deliver to LKO ~146 t (4 orange tanks)

Start lifter mass - 67.4t, parts count - 217, almost 3 intakes per engines, but less then 3 . 18 turbojets+3 RAPIERs

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