The Eve Rocks Challenge (v0.90 only)

[Mister Dilsby]

Thank you Perry, what a very nice thing to say! Of course it was easy compared to yours, since I landed at altitude and you went somewhere you could check helmet seals

Edited April 14, 2015 by Mister Dilsby

[Red Dwarf]

Thank you Perry, what a very nice thing to say! Of course it was easy compared to yours, since I landed at altitude and you went somewhere you could check helmet seals

I'm with perry on this one. That ascent vehicle is one of the prettiest, simplest Eve rockets I've ever seen. I hope it survives the aero overhaul in the 1.0 switchover, 'cause I plan to steal it >

[Mister Dilsby]

I hope it survives the aero overhaul in the 1.0 switchover, 'cause I plan to steal it >

The ultimate compliment, thank you!

I think it will survive aero just fine, but the thrust-in-atmosphere correction will put it and all other Eve designs at risk. In the case of the Evorama lander I'd expect the thrust at liftoff of the Kerbodyne KS-25x4 core to be about 12% lower, ~2800 rather than 3200, which would be worse than losing two aerospikes.

Unless there are some other changes to thrust and Isp to compensate, this will drive every V1.0 Eve lander to aerospikes--and before we all start making pancakes, remember that the new drag model will likely doom such endeavors to failure. Eve Rocks is going to be a whole new big purple ball game, and I for one am looking forward to the challenge

[Starhawk]

Unless there are some other changes to thrust and Isp to compensate, this will drive every V1.0 Eve lander to aerospikes

It depends a lot on the rebalancing they are doing. Sea level on Eve will be the place most affected by the aero changes. My understanding is that the aero changes will make the delta-v requirement much smaller. Whether thrust reductions are significant or not, this should make the requirements very different than they currently are.

Laie once indicated to me that his hunch was that more realistic atmo will make Eve ascent much easier.

We will see...

Happy landings!

[Red Iron Crown]

It really depends on how thrust scaling is implemented. If it continues to get worse above 1 atm of pressure, Eve will become a very tough nut to crack.

[Mister Dilsby]

Laie once indicated to me that his hunch was that more realistic atmo will make Eve ascent much easier.

Eeeenteresting. Honestly my dream for Eve was always to ascend from sea level to ~30km in an ion glider, then shoot a capsule to orbit from there. I went the way I did because I didn't want to develop any more planes on a soon-to-be-obsoleted aero model... and yeah, based on my early experiments with ion gliders I think the fixed lift-drag will help quite a bit for a winged craft.

But I hadn't considered the effects of new aero in Eve on a craft without lifting surfaces. I suppose you and Laie are right; having the drag penalty tied to mass instead of area/Cd really does hurt Eve ascenders. I for one hope that the balancing makes Eve Rocks as hard as ever, we can't have all these whippersnappers coming in after the fact and stealing our purple thunder.

- - - Updated - - -

It really depends on how thrust scaling is implemented. If it continues to get worse above 1 atm of pressure, Eve will become a very tough nut to crack.

I've got it! A set of huge-S electric fans that reduce local pressure in a bubble around the ship to 1ATM. In stock, please

[Starhawk]

It really depends on how thrust scaling is implemented. If it continues to get worse above 1 atm of pressure, Eve will become a very tough nut to crack.

I hear little birds... It sounds like they're saying that thrust will continue to scale with pressures above one atmo. We shall see.

Even then, if the ISP values were left as they are, that would simply force one into the all-aerospike solution. But that's boring, so I hope we see significant changes there.

Happy landings!

[Mister Dilsby]

Even then, if the ISP values were left as they are, that would simply force one into the all-aerospike solution.

Never! I will abuse the 25km physics range to build a ginormous tower. It will have one lander can bolted to the top of the platform and one at the bottom so I can do instantaneous crew transfers and not have to place ten thousand ladder rungs in the VAB.

[Starhawk]

Never! I will abuse the 25km physics range to build a ginormous tower. It will have one lander can bolted to the top of the platform and one at the bottom so I can do instantaneous crew transfers and not have to place ten thousand ladder rungs in the VAB.

LOL. What can I say... Just lol.

Happy landings!

[Deutherius]

I've got it! A set of huge-S electric fans that reduce local pressure in a bubble around the ship to 1ATM. In stock, please

Wouldn't it be easier to just use the giant fans as propellers for a lifter plane?

Bear in mind, gentlemen, that rockets are not the only methods of propulsion in KSP. Ion gliders might just work after 1.0 is released.

[Mister Dilsby]

Ion gliders might just work after 1.0 is released.

They've been made to work in 0.90, there was one in the light lifter challenge that used IIRC 14x ions. My attempt was close, would have made it if launched from altitude:

ETA: but if ion thrust gets nerfed in-atmosphere, which has not been announced but is plausible... forget it.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Mister Dilsby

[Deutherius]

They've been made to work in 0.90, there was one in the light lifter challenge that used IIRC 14x ions. My attempt was close, would have made it if launched from altitude:

http://i.imgur.com/40LGOrA.png

I know, I've been there when you made this I meant work as an SSTO, but for some reason deleted that from the post. Derp.

Also, for this challenge it'd need a capsule, which would put a huge dent in the performance of that sweet plane

EDIT: Yep. Getting the Ion Isp nerfed in atmo would suck.

[Laie]

I vote for Laie's sanity over having a silly badge

Maybe "reason" would have been a better word than sanity. Problem with KSP is that it's become a huge time sink. While I still find myself looking at the clock in amazement after a design session, I'm much more aware of the time I spend posting or reviewing. Also, the forum is giving me ideas for things I could try. So that's what's been cut down the most. I should probably stay away entirely, but just can't do it.

I for one hope that the [atmo] balancing makes Eve Rocks as hard as ever, we can't have all these whippersnappers coming in after the fact and stealing our purple thunder.

Even if it remains hard, it will certainly be a totally different challenge. I kindly suggest that this thread should be closed once 1.0 comes around. Clean slate and all that.

[Radam]

Not sure if FAR has a problem, but putting a small aero cap on a lander can, largest tank and KS-25 beneath it gives it a terminal velocity of 700m/s at Eve sea level. Getting into orbit with like 6000m/s dV. Just trying things with hyperedit here.

[Mister Dilsby]

I kindly suggest that this thread should be closed once 1.0 comes around. Clean slate and all that.

That makes sense. Might I suggest that when we do so, we spread the work by setting up for peer review? For those that don't follow Jool-5, here is a recent post from Ziv that references the method: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-The-Ultimate-Jool-5-Challenge-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-mission?p=1838666#post1838666

We could even do peer review for the last few missions here, with Laie's approval and guidance of course. Anyone who's been to Eve and back without cheating should be able to look at anyone else's work, maybe ask a few relevant questions and have a respectful discussion about doubts, and finally say "yep, I think Mr. So-And-So really did get a Mk1 capsule to orbit by flinging from a trebuchet at the top of a mountain".

[Starhawk]

We could even do peer review for the last few missions here, with Laie's approval and guidance of course.

I'd be willing to help out if we get one or two more to collaborate. I am a bit concerned, however, that my reviews won't match up to Laie's exacting standards.

@Laie: What are the most significant things to look for when reviewing? TWR, delta-v... What else should we look for?

Happy landings!

[Norcalplanner]

I'd also be willing to help out with review. Laie, just give the word. Any reviewer should indicate which one they're going to review to avoid duplication of effort.

[Kelderek]

I've already done the challenge before, but felt like doing another trip to Eve. In case anyone wants to see my mission, I'll add a url link for it here.

I'm not asking for an official review of that, but I figure people working on this challenge might benefit from another sample example.

[Commander Zoom]

Nicely done, and with three kerbals no less! You definitely went big on this one, both with your "SSTO" launcher and your lander, which included its own launchpad.

Mounting the cans low was a good, if slightly riskier, idea.

[Kelderek]

Nicely done, and with three kerbals no less! You definitely went big on this one, both with your "SSTO" launcher and your lander, which included its own launchpad.

Mounting the cans low was a good, if slightly riskier, idea.

Thanks!

I find it to be a real pain to have very long ladders in this game, the kerbals are sooooo slow moving up and down and if the rungs are not perfectly aligned then they cannot proceed. They also cannot move sideways on ladders so you need to be able to have a straight path down the side of your vessel. My first Eve lander had 7 or 8 ladders in sequence and it took a couple hours just to build and test the long climb. I figured I could find a way to make the staging work with the cans at the bottom - it's probably the way I will always try to build my larger landers from now on.

The huge first stage block of tanks and engines work a little better for me than trying to deal with any decoupling. By removing the need for decouplers and sepratrons, I can fit more tanks in a tighter space and keep the part count slightly lower. As you can see from the pictures, I also just let MechJeb fly it: with a horrible frame rate I find controlling it manually to be a huge pain. When you add in the autopilot, that huge block is kind of a "fire and forget" launcher that gets me all the way to space.

[Mister Dilsby]

I concur with the Commander, getting three Kerbals down and up is no joke--and yeah, I'm with you on the ladders. I managed mine with two extendables, some rungs, and a clamber over the FT-100s in the upper stage. Previous attempts with a bigger vessel, I had the escape vehicle up top as usual but transferred crew to a couple of cans on the bottom that I left behind with the landing gear and 'chute stacks. One assumes there was some kind of elevator built into the wall of the Rockomax tanks, or perhaps Kerbals have perfected transporter technology and we just don't know it yet.

[Laie]

I'd be willing to help out if we get one or two more to collaborate. I am a bit concerned, however, that my reviews won't match up to Laie's exacting standards.

@Laie: What are the most significant things to look for when reviewing? TWR, delta-v... What else should we look for?

Eve may be exacting, but my standards were not. I've basically only checked whether the numbers add up. As I was requesting a *lot* of pictures of the launch, and data display as well, there was little room to hide any shenanigans. I don't think I ever had to disqualify anyone for cheating. If someone has tried, she was flunked for not showing the resource panel. The rest was checkboxes: command pod? Stock parts?

I usually paid little attention to Kerbin lifters and the transfer stage, at least from a cheating point of view. If it looked alright, I assumed that it was. However, the overall mission design was a way for people to gather bonus points. I was more likely to overlook some minor issue if the mission displayed creative solutions or beautiful vessels.

However, the more difficult part about reviewing is finding a few pics where you actually have a good view. I often wondered "how did he do that" or "what's in that gap" yet in thirty pictures there often only were very few that allowed a glimpse of some important or interesting detail. Also, generally making sense of things can be demanding, even if the entrant has taken the time to write annotations.

But the hardest part was trying to find nice words and praise the entries as much as they deserve. The more so because I didn't want to keep repeating the same old phrases over and over again. People put in a whole week of hard work, and often a good deal of actual ingenuity, and all I had to give were three lines of kind words -- that never felt quite right.

Any reviewer should indicate which one they're going to review to avoid duplication of effort.

It would be great if you could make peer review work in some way or another.

[Mister Dilsby]

Eve may be exacting, but my standards were not. [...]

Sounds reasonable, and yes I think we can make it work. Here's a loose suggestion:

-- when a new entry is posted, one of the reviewers takes it on as primary reviewer and states so. Reviewers can queue and rotate (Alice takes the first mission in queue, Brett takes the second, Chaz takes the third, but if Alice grabs another one before Chaz gets a turn it shouldn't be a big deal)

-- while a submission is under review all reviewers (and I suppose anyone else on the thread) is encouraged to look over the submission and very nicely bring the group's attention to areas that are unclear or could be construed as shenanigans

-- the primary reviewer of course should look deep as possible into the mission himself and guide discussion on the thread concerning that particular submission

-- once the primary reviewer is satisfied on the particulars he or she makes the "well done take your badge" post, ideally with some appropriate and uplifting (but not necessarily unique, let's face it there are a LOT of similar entries don't be so hard on yourself Laie!) words

I'll leave it to others to determine the qualifications to be a reviewer; should a reviewer have completed the challenge? Either way I'd be happy to volunteer, pending officially "making it back" myself of course

[Perry Apsis]

At least recently, the rate of submissions has not been overwhelming. I'd be happy to review one now and then.

[Starhawk]

Eve may be exacting, but my standards were not...

Thanks for the guidance. I cringe when I think about how poor most of my pictures were.

But the hardest part was trying to find nice words and praise the entries as much as they deserve. The more so because I didn't want to keep repeating the same old phrases over and over again. People put in a whole week of hard work, and often a good deal of actual ingenuity, and all I had to give were three lines of kind words -- that never felt quite right.

That's exactly the sentiment that made this challenge so rewarding and made your reviews valuable. The fact that you care about the effort put in makes your comments much more interesting and rewarding.

It would be great if you could make peer review work in some way or another.

I think we have a sufficient system laid out to work with. I'll start on a review later today.

Thank you, Laie! I appreciate the time and energy you put into running this excellent challenge for so long.

I truly hope it was, on balance, a positive experience.

Happy landings!