[0.25] The Maximum Destruction Challenge!

[Yakky]

Woohoo, Economic Boom (f.k.a. 0.25) is here. Time to unleash the mayhem!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to destroy as much of the KSC launch complex as quickly and efficiently as possible in a single launch. Rapid destruction with a cheap vehicle will achieve a higher score than slow destruction with a large and expensive vehicle. Your final effectiveness score, or destruction coefficient, will measure how efficiently you have rained fiery mayhem down upon the hapless sods who have labored so hard to usher Kerbin into the space age.

RULES:

1. Requires KSP 0.25. Aww, yeah!!!

2. Stock parts only. Mods that don't convey special advantages to achieving the goals of this challenge should generally be OK (e.g. Kerbal Engineer, Kerbal Alarm Clock, DRE, FAR/NEAR, visual FX, life support mods, etc). Mechjeb and other autopilot aids are not allowed if you're going for the orbital/landing bonus points.

3. Note that as of 0.24.2, the mission timer appears not to start until all launch clamps are released. If this is true under 0.25, any launch clamps used in a challenge entry will be required to be released as part of the initial launch event, with no later launch clamps allowed.

4. This is not about using cheats or glitches to

KSC, the planet, or the entire universe. This challenge is to "legitimately" reduce the buildings to smoking rubble through good old fashioned explosions.

5. Post screen caps or vids to document your achievement. Gratuitous "mayhem pics" also encouraged because Moar Boom!

6. [Rules to be updated once we get a better look at 0.25!] I unfortunately am traveling and haven't had a chance to sink my teeth into 0.25 yet. Be advised there may yet be minor tweaks to the rules.

SCORING:

You are rewarded for destroying more, doing it quickly, and doing it cheaply.

For each building destroyed, you will get (1,000,000 points)/(seconds required for its destruction). Thus if you destroy a building 20 seconds after the mission begins, you would get 1,000,000/20 = 50,000 points for that building. Your destruction coefficient is the sum of scores for all buildings destroyed, divided by the total cost of your vehicle.

Timing for each building destroyed will be determined by the destruction timestamp shown in the F3 menu (assuming Squad logs building destruction times in there... hopefully?)

BONUS POINTS:

(1) "The Ultimate KSP Experience" bonus: Destroy all the KSC buildings and still get Jeb into orbit, all from a single launch! (Bonus score will probably be 1.25x.)

(2) "The Charlton Keston Planet of the Kapes Surprise Ending Special": Land Jeb from orbit back at KSC after its destruction to walk amid the post-apocalyptic ruins. (Bonus will probably be 1.5x for landing on top of a destroyed building after completing at least one orbit.)

(3) [Awesomeness] Shoot the Mun Club: First land on the Mun, then destroy all KSC buildings on your return to Kerbin after landing on the Mun. All parts used to destroy buildings must land on the Mun first (no orbital rendezvous), and a Kerbal must also land on Mun and return safely to Kerbin. 5x multiplier and special recognition in a separate leaderboard! Your destruction timer starts when you pass below 3 km on your return (get screen cap for time stamp verification).

STANDINGS:

1. Scott Manley (via pre-release

): Destruction coefficient of 0.43. Explanatory post here. (preliminary, subject to revision)

2.

3.

4.

5.

More to come as we learn more about Release 0.25!

Edited October 8, 2014 by Yakky
Updated scoring normalization after reviewing Scott Manley 0.25 video

[MaverickSawyer]

Uhm... How are we supposed to do this with only 0.24.2?

[Orbiter]

It sounds like this challenge is intended for 0.25 when it comes out, so for now we just have to wait . All aboard the hype train!

[Othuyeg]

Time to bring out my orbital Karpetbomb.

[Yakky]

Uhm... How are we supposed to do this with only 0.24.2?

You're not supposed to be able to do it yet. We all have to wait for 0.25. But you can get ready or practice now by designing a bomb rocket that hits all the buildings, although for now the shrapnel will just ricochet off harmlessly.

[Whirligig Girl]

This challenge officially endorsed by GregroxMun, the HypeTrain Driver.

[Wanderfound]

I'm thinking an unmanned bomber that splits into a multi-warhead cruise missile cluster after deploying its payload might have some promise. Should get the whole thing launched and done in a minute, too.

Gravity bombs or a dozen downwards-pointing RT-10's? Hmmn...

[Lhathron the Elf]

Question: Can I use mods? Not mod parts, just... Mods.

[Kulebron]

Can someone post a link to that broadcast with destructions? Or it was just text?

[Yakky]

Question: Can I use mods? Not mod parts, just... Mods.

That sounds, er... dangerous. While in most circumstances danger is encouraged in this challenge, to the question of unrestricted mods I'm going to have to say no in order to keep the playing field leveled. (And I do mean "leveled".) But some mods are OK.

Mods that don't convey special powers of destruction or positioning might be OK, subject to refinement. So no Hyperedit, no mods giving you non-stock parts, no infinite fuel or other cheats, no weapons/demolition mods, etc. And no Mechjeb or positional/flight aids if you're trying to go for the orbit or landing bonuses.

Mods that should be OK would include Kerbal Engineer, FAR/NEAR, DRE, visual FX mods, life support mods, and pretty much anything which doesn't convey some special advantage in blowing things up or reaching space. I've updated the rules to reflect this.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Yakky

[Jovus]

Props if someone resurrects the Rods from God mod to do this.

[technicalfool]

Question: Can I use mods? Not mod parts, just... Mods.

No you may not. We may be all mean and nasty here but I promise you we're as squishy as any other human (or Mudkip). The KSC would likely just gain a few splat marks, and then Rows would have to go get a whole new team.

[B787_300]

No you may not. We may be all mean and nasty here but I promise you we're as squishy as any other human (or Mudkip). The KSC would likely just gain a few splat marks, and then Rows would have to go get a whole new team.

oh no, I am FAR to young to be crashed into buildings...

[Claw]

Mods that don't convey special powers of destruction or positioning might be OK, subject to refinement.

What about The Claw? I've been known to summon the kraken from time to time.

Hopefully I'm still allowed.

[xtoro]

I destroyed all the buildings within 1 second. Yay! First to go on the leaderboard!

Sorry I can't prove it, they disabled taking screenshots in 0.25. Don't believe me? Try it! Well, I guess you can only try it and prove me wrong when you get a copy of 0.25....

[Lhathron the Elf]

No you may not. We may be all mean and nasty here but I promise you we're as squishy as any other human (or Mudkip). The KSC would likely just gain a few splat marks, and then Rows would have to go get a whole new team.

Okay, fine. I was going to use time warp and launch a really huge ship really high and then use time control to detach every single piece and then litter the KSC with that. I accidentally did it before, so I thought that it would work.

[Red Iron Crown]

The three responses from mods on this page amuse me greatly.

Lhathron, technicalfool was punning on your question, saying that you shouldn't use moderators (mods) to destroy buildings.

[Starwhip]

If you time it right, you could launch an OKTO2 or a very cheap capsule at the exact moment an asteroid is about to hit the KSC. Since it would take 0 seconds to destroy everything, you get a score of UNDEFINED and win by default.

If only vessels were tracked through the atmosphere.

[Yakky]

If you time it right, you could launch an OKTO2 or a very cheap capsule at the exact moment an asteroid is about to hit the KSC. Since it would take 0 seconds to destroy everything, you get a score of UNDEFINED and win by default.

If only vessels were tracked through the atmosphere.

Wow, now that is some impressive out-of-the-box thinking. Better still, wait around for several asteroids to all hit simultaneously, taking out all the buildings in zero seconds!

But hold on! Upon reflection, maybe one of the reasons for Squad build a destructible KSC in the first place is that future versions of KSP will actually require protective intervention after some number of years in order to save KSC from an inevitable asteroid bombardment? Maybe I'm a slow learner, but this just occurred to me and yet now it seems so... obvious! Go Squad! Yeahhh!

So maybe the odds of waiting around for this to happen aren't pinned at zero... though you might still be waiting for 0.26 or beyond for the necessary skewing of the "random" asteroid trajectories to make this likely within our lifetimes. (Cue Hypetrain!)

Edited September 29, 2014 by Yakky

[Deadpangod3]

I could do this but I'd only need kw for my rocket, I wouldn't be firing kw parts at the buildings.

Would this disqualify me?

[Claw]

Okay, fine. ...

Lhathron, technicalfool was punning on your question, saying that you shouldn't use moderators (mods) to destroy buildings.

Yes indeed. We moderators ("mods" if you will) were attempting to be funny by saying that we can't be used as part of the competition.

[/hijack]

~Claw

[cantab]

Inb4 Danny manages to do this challenge in .24

[Yakky]

No you may not. We may be all mean and nasty here but I promise you we're as squishy as any other human (or Mudkip). The KSC would likely just gain a few splat marks, and then Rows would have to go get a whole new team.

Uhhh.... Mods. I see. I totally missed this the first time around. Not enough coffee.

[PineApplePotatoe]

Time to get out my Atomic bomb or nuclear missile AKA Mr. Boom

[Yakky]

Scott Manley has posted a pre-release 0.25 video appearing to show destruction of three buildings from a single launch.

I'll use his flight as an analysis of a hypothetical score for this challenge:

Rocket Components (as near as I could tell from the video):

[TABLE]

[tr][th]Part[/th][th]Cost[/th][th]Quantity[/th][th]Total Cost[/th][/tr]

[tr][td]LFB KR-1x2[/td][td]16,400[/td][td]8[/td][td]131,200[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]S3 KS-25x4[/td][td]32,400[/td][td]1[/td][td]32,400[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]X200-32[/td][td]6,400[/td][td]8[/td][td]51,200[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]S3-3600[/td][td]7,200[/td][td]3[/td][td]21,600[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]S3-14400[/td][td]22,800[/td][td]1[/td][td]22,800[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Hydraulic Manifold[/td][td]700[/td][td]8[/td][td]5,600[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]TR 38D[/td][td]600[/td][td]3[/td][td]1,800[/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Launch Clamp[/td][td]200[/td][td]8?[/td][td]1600[/td][/tr]

[/TABLE]

Total Rocket Cost: 268,200

Buildings Destroyed:

Vehicle Assembly Building (26 seconds): Base score of 1,000,000/26 = 38,462

Spaceplane Hangar (26 seconds): Base score of 1,000,000/26 = 38,462

One science building (26 seconds): Base score of 1,000,000/26 = 38,462

Total Base Score (sum of building base scores): 115,385

Total Rocket Cost: 268,200

Final Destruction Coefficient = 115,385/268,200 = 0.43021

Edit: I realize that some of his other destruction tests in the video might have actually scored higher because they destroyed things sooner and/or had cheaper rockets, but I chose this one as the representative example because it best illustrates how the scoring mechanism works.

BTW his video also reveals that it's not going to be easy to take out the buildings.... serious force will be required! It's not yet clear if certain buildings will be easier to destroy than others.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Yakky
i get more out of the footage each time I watch it