[stock]Infinigliding Kraken Drive Challenge

[goduranus]

Infiniglider and Kraken drive are two powerful kerbal contraptions, one able to propel crafts in the atmosphere, and other requires 800m/s of speed to operate but is able to accelerate a craft infinitely through space.

So far, I have been able to make separate kraken drives and infinigliders, but not the two together and make it go fast enough to activate the kraken drive.

So here's a challenge: Combine the awesome power of infiniglider and kraken drive, carry a crew capsule using the least number of parts, take off from KSC and reach Jool or Eve without burning any fuel.

Rules:

1. Craft must carry a crew capsule;

2. No parts can be detached;

3. Craft must be able to take off from KSC, and accelerate to Eve or Jool intercept without burning any fuel, xenon, solid, or monoprop;

4. Stock parts and stock physics, except for autopilot parts

5. No use of alt-f12 during flight;

Scoring:

1. Number of parts used to achieve the above, with a lower part count being better;

2. -10 bonus points for Eve landing;

3. -20 points for obtaining Jool lower atmosphere science;

4. -10 bonus points for returning to KSC after accomplishing the above;

5. +5 point penalty to discourage use of alt-f12 for part clipping during construction

Leaderboard:

1. QuesoExplosivo - 6 parts (46 Part, minus 40 for Jool low atmo science, Eve landing,Kerbin Return)

2. Tsevion - 453 parts

3.

4.

5.

Honor Role:

1. spacepigu - Best looking craft

An example of my kraken drive craft on curseforge

http://kerbal.curseforge.com/shareables/223310-stock-reactionless-drive-craft-event-horizon/images

My infiniglider with kraken drive, which fails to reach the 800m/s

Edited October 5, 2014 by goduranus
Updated Score

[Yakky]

At the risk of sounding stupid: Can you give a basic description of how a kraken drive works and how to construct one (or references to good posts/wikis on the topic)? I understand the general concept (and have heard them mentioned in many posts), but have never actually seen one in use and don't know what the specific mechanism that's exploited is.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Yakky

[Nemrav]

I think you need to add a rule about no using unbreakable joints, because if that rule isn't there, than I may have already won.....

edit : video, but entry probly not suitable......

edit2: I did redo this manned, but for now its confirmed that my entry is not suitable

Edited September 26, 2014 by Nemrav

[Redshift OTF]

I've made some crazy infinigliders in my time but I have no idea how to make the latest Kraken drives after they updated the game a couple of times. If you could include the craft file of your current drive I might be able to come up with something. Adding a crew capsule might be tough though.

[goduranus]

@Nemrave, yeah probably should rule out use of Alt-F12

@Yakky, Redshift, an example of my kraken drive added in the opening post.

Most kraken drive designs involve multiple landing gears that when deployed, clip into the very edge of another part that is joined by a slightly flexy joint to the part that the gears are attached to. By flexy joint I mean docking ports or 0.5 meter parts. The suspension of the landing gears should be in the direction of desired kraken drive thrust.

I suspect kraken drive thrust to be caused by physics being calculated on a part by part basis, instead of the whole craft at once.

With the landing gears deployed and clipping into the edge of a part, when the physics for any one landing gear is calculated, each gear is clipped and feels a force parallel to its suspension. On the next frame, this force propagates through the ship, twists the flexy joint slightly out of alignment, and causes the collision mesh of the landing gear to fall of the edge of the part, so that when the physics of the part that the landing gears are pushing is calculated, the force exerted by the landing gears is no longer there. Thus the craft only feels a force in the landing gear direction, and moves.

just my guess though.

Edited September 27, 2014 by goduranus

[Tsevion]

Well, I played around with this, but no real success... I first built my own Kraken drive, then tried yours... both seem to work on their own. When I turn them into infinigliders though, whenever I activate the Kraken Drive they just explode. Yours does it, mine does it... not sure why, but at high speeds activating Kraken drive just summons the Kraken. This even applies once outside the atmosphere on a suborbital trajectory (80 km)...

[Tsevion]

Hrmmm... I've actually figured it out... apparently they only work when going STRAIGHT up. If you head east like a normal launch profile they explode horribly, but if you go straight up they seem to work. I'll post a video of mine later.

[Tsevion]

Alrighty, no video because my framerate was kinda a slideshow anyhow.

453 Parts, and while I kinda land on Eve, I don't think it counts. So 453 for score.

Even if it hadn't spontaneously exploded in Eve's atmosphere, I didn't really have a landing strategy... no landing gear, no chutes... and with that many control surfaces, it'd handle like a bucking bronco near the surface... good thing Kerbals have hard heads. He may be waiting a while for a rescue though.

Craft File

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[goduranus]

Beautiful! Yours could be the first successful kraken-drive-infiniglider on the forums.

About exploding in atmosphere, was it above 800m/s? But then again, the lower speed limit for not exploding may be dependent on frame rate as well.

Edited September 27, 2014 by goduranus

[Tsevion]

About exploding in atmosphere, was it above 800m/s? But then again, the lower speed limit for not exploding may be dependent on frame rate as well.

With mine (the one posted) I tried speeds ranging from 400m/s to 1200 m/s, and when going east it always exploded the second I deployed the landing legs. Using your drive as a base I think the fastest I got was around 700 m/s using flaps. I put a rocket under to test and it also exploded at 800 m/s and 1200 m/s when going east... when going pure vertical it worked fine.

[GoSlash27]

Tsevion,

Congratulations! You've just invented the first successful flying saucer!

Any idea on why it disassembled over Eve? I see by the screenshot that it was headed mainly down and the kraken drive was off. Just too much speed for the control surfaces? Maybe if the nose had been pointing up?

Best,

-Slashy

[Tw1]

I have a prototype Eve SSTO which is sort of infiniglidy, but its main source of thrust comes from ladderforce. Someday I'll get around to using it....

[Tsevion]

Any idea on why it disassembled over Eve?

The Disassembly was almost certainly because of the control surface twitching getting out of control. I was being too aggressive keeping SAS on, with a craft like this speed control is done by toggling SAS, and I just pushed it too hard, while too low. Keeping it under 1000 m/s once under 20k would be the smart move.

[goduranus]

Your craft could win first place in the cheaty Eve SSTO challenge, if you add a small rocket to get it slightly off the ground to maneuver the infiniglider.

Also, I think part count could be reduced if large control surfaces are used? they are heavier, but have more lift rating per part.

[GoSlash27]

^ His craft *did* win first place in the Eve cheaty SSTO, and he didn't need a rocket boost to make it happen!

-Slashy

[Spacepigu]

I think i have a cool idea for this...

Challenge video soon!

[Yakky]

@Nemrave, yeah probably should rule out use of Alt-F12

@Yakky, Redshift, an example of my kraken drive added in the opening post.

Most kraken drive designs involve multiple landing gears that when deployed, clip into the very edge of another part that is joined by a slightly flexy joint to the part that the gears are attached to. By flexy joint I mean docking ports or 0.5 meter parts. The suspension of the landing gears should be in the direction of desired kraken drive thrust.

I suspect kraken drive thrust to be caused by physics being calculated on a part by part basis, instead of the whole craft at once.

With the landing gears deployed and clipping into the edge of a part, when the physics for any one landing gear is calculated, each gear is clipped and feels a force parallel to its suspension. On the next frame, this force propagates through the ship, twists the flexy joint slightly out of alignment, and causes the collision mesh of the landing gear to fall of the edge of the part, so that when the physics of the part that the landing gears are pushing is calculated, the force exerted by the landing gears is no longer there. Thus the craft only feels a force in the landing gear direction, and moves.

just my guess though.

Thanks, this is very helpful and exactly the kind of explanation I was hoping to get. I may mess around with building one of these sometime.

[QuesoExplosivo]

I'm working on this. I've managed to build a pretty lightweight yet powerful Kraken drive, currently under 2 tons with the crew capsule. I just need to make the infinigider part.

Update: There are structural issues, to put it mildly.

Edited October 2, 2014 by QuesoExplosivo

[Spacepigu]

Could i get the subassembly for that kraken drive? it would help a ton with my endeavors.

[QuesoExplosivo]

I've solved all the problems! I have achieved orbit and am working on going to Jool and Eve. Mass of ship is 1.87 tons. Part count is 60 (of which 48 are control surfaces).

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Edited October 2, 2014 by QuesoExplosivo

[QuesoExplosivo]

I've landed on Eve fine. However, the ship explodes when I try to take off (pics will come soon). I think the infiniglide is too strong. I'm going to try Jool next.

[Andrew Hansen]

I've landed on Eve fine. However, the ship explodes when I try to take off (pics will come soon). I think the infiniglide is too strong. I'm going to try Jool next.

If its infingliding capabilities are too strong, then don't enable SAS when taking off. Just manually control it until you get high enough to activate SAS without causing explosions.

[Tsevion]

Mass of ship is 1.87 tons. Part count is 60 (of which 48 are control surfaces).

I'm puzzled... I can't seem to see your Kraken drive at all... is it clipped into the pod or SAS units or something?

[goduranus]

That thing looks like it might be the winning entry. Looking forward to your Jool attempt. Could you share your methods for miniaturizing the kraken drive?

Also, note that infinigliders often can't land against the grain their control surfaces, so if you've built the infiniglider for vertical ascent, you'd probably have to do a horizontal landing.

[QuesoExplosivo]

The Kraken drive is between the SAS units, using micro landing legs.

Update: I've managed to trim the part count down to 46.

Edited October 2, 2014 by QuesoExplosivo