The Newbie Efficiency Challenge

[LordCurlyton]

Hey there, all. I figured I'd make a fun challenge thread geared more towards newer players like me but still providing maybe an interesting mental exercise for experienced players. After unlocking the whole tech tree in my first career game, largely fueled by the overpowered Outsourced R&D strategy (Funds --> Science), I've started a new one where I've had a simple goal: do the primary contracts as efficiently and quickly as possible. A bit into this career, I thought, "Why not make a challenge out of this?" And here we are.

The rules:

The good folks over at KSC Administration do enjoy counting beans (which would explain their love for three bean salad) and also enjoy not having to file large or complicated expense reports. They also like stuff done as quickly as possible. And then your poor kerbal schmuck of a self just happened to wander in, at which point you became the new Head of Operations at KSC. Now you have to land on the Mun, and they want it done yesterday. Time to roll up your sleeves and get to it. I mean, its not like its rocket sci....err, oh.

There will be separate leader boards for each of the "big" contracts (Explore X). No mods that modify the stock parts or add new thrust/fuel/power/any other resource parts is allowed. Anything that does the actual flying and landing for you is also disallowed; ones that assist in plotting courses/maneuver nodes are allowed. Informative mods like Kerbal Engineer or Kerbal Alarm Clock are allowed. In fact I'd recommend getting Kerbal Engineer to show the relevant stats easily. For the record, the mods I have are: Editor Extensions, Alarm Clock, Engineer, and Procedural Fairings. Strategies are not allowed, so no Aggressive Negotiations.

To submit an entry, you must show the cost and part count of your rocket in the VAB, which must be able to fulfill the contract, and provide the relevant tech cost necessary to unlock all of your parts. The provide a photo of you landed on the target. If you do not include a comm device on your build, you must show a picture of your return to Kerbin to prove that you sent and recovered Science data from the target.

The leader board for each target will be arranged by Funds, Parts, Science, and Relative Overall Efficiency (ROE). EDITED: See end of post for clarification and update of ROE scoring. My apologies for the bad math. :-/

If you are able to launch and return to Kerbin, you may deduct the recovered funds amount from the recovery screen from your total (provide pic of the recovery amount). No Experimental parts; all parts used must include the science cost of unlocking their relevant technology.

There will be a separate board for manned and unmanned flights, since it is obviously more costly (and harder) to lug poor Jebediah around, not that he seems to mind.

There are also Honorable Mentions which will be handed out for each category, all of which require proof of accomplishment: Most Science recovered and/or transmitted from a mission, shortest one way flight time, shortest round trip flight time, most Kerbals sent and recovered.

There are also non-category Honorables I'll give to anyone who cares to try them out: most able to recreate the Mun or Bust loading screen, Reusable (able to complete more than one mission using the same build), Hopscotch (able to complete more than one mission with the same build in the same mission--will create leader boards for various Hopscotches if it becomes necessary), Perfect Landing (land back at KSC from a mission), Perfectly Perfect Landing (land back at KSC AND get a 100% recovery value), Better Than Perfect (recover 100% of your total funds spent when landing back at KSC---i.e. single stage to target and back with no lost parts, sans fuel cost), Godlike (land back on the Launching Pad itself in KSC without damaging it).

Most of these Honorables are meant more as stretch goals/enticements for veterans; the meat obviously is the primary challenge. Now here is my kickoff entry for the manned Mun landing, which I know can be beat:

Newbie Challenge Part 1

Newbie Challenge Part 2

And here is a slightly different version which should be able to do the same as above, but will illustrate ROE:

Newbie Challenge Part 3

EDITED away due to obsolescence.

Anyways, I hope this interests others, and I'll set up leader boards and Honorable Mentions as needed.

EDIT: I should also state that no exploits are allowed (it was late and I forgot in the initial post), so no Infinigliders that I've read of or "explosive decoupling" or any other I am not aware of.

EDIT2: Just to note, if you are going to deduct a recovery cost, the value to be used is specifically for the flight being submitted of the vessel in question. Apologies for the lack of clarity. Also, if you submit a vessel + run and then later attempt it with the same vessel and do better, you may resubmit freely with the better run. And obviously, anyone may submit as many different vessels with associated runs as they please.

Leaderboards are found here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97793-The-Newbie-Efficiency-Challenge?p=1502534&viewfull=1#post1502534

Ok, so my bean counters were busy feeding me faulty beans when I originally explained my ROE scoring system. I blame sleep deprivation. And possibly alcohol. What I MEANT to explain originally is that each category (Funds, Science, and Parts) will be normalized by making the largest value in each category 1 and dividing all values in that field by that value to get fractions of 1. This means that the smaller the value, the better you are in that category. At this point one can then freely weight the categories and add them together, since the max possible score from weighting would be 1, which would be dead last. Since I personally want the board to have 1 = best ship, it is then necessary to normalize the ROE scores in relation to the SMALLEST score (i.e. best overall ship). I will use my two example ships to illustrate my new and improved point:

Ship 1 is $19513, 47 parts, 533 science

Ship 2 is $19353, 51 parts, 373 science

Normalized scores for the two:

Ship 1: 1, 0.9215, 1

Ship 2: 0.9918, 1, 0.6998

Now you can tell already by looking at the normalized scores which ship is more efficient even without weighting, but other ships might not be so clear cut. So lets continue.

Weighted values added together:

Ship 1: 1/2 + (0.9215/6) + 1/3 = 0.9869

Ship 2: (0.9918/2) + 1/6 + (0.6998/3) = 0.8958

Now let's make it pretty for me and normalize the ROE scores in respect to the smallest (victorious) score:

Ship 1: (0.9869/0.8958) = 1.1016

Ship 2: 1

Ta Daaa! I will update the leaderboards with my new, improved methodology when I have the time, and if anyone spots an error with my scoring system as it is, definitely point it out. I want to be fair to all entries and yield an unambiguous result.

Edited November 1, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[carazvan]

Well to get this started I'd guess I posted some craft that kindof fall under these lines.

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Links to craft + descriptions are in Area K51's Hangar

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

I think you might need rules about difficulty... For example, one new user just wants to get in as quick as possible, uses default-everything, and jumps straight in. A second user decides he's going to savour every step of his journey, so tweaks everything - give himself max. Funds (500,000) and max. Science (5,000) - instantly there is a big gap between 2 brand new players!

So maybe having a rule to set 'normal' difficulty, or something...

And there is no mention of the use of the F12 cheat menu (admittedly, you may not know about it as a new player!) but as it stands I can use tier 0 tech to visit evey single planet and moon in the game in one big grand tour and return for 100% profit!

Please don't take any of this negatively, just a few suggestions to help you get your challenge firing on all cylinders, as it were

[LordCurlyton]

Hah well, i figured "no cheats" would be sort of implied (did not know of the cheat menu though). I really don't care how you start the game funds/science-wise; the challenge is in the rocket itself. make one that is cheap, basic, and not complex, and try to achieve the grades of achievement set out. I'm not asking for someone to document every flight used to garner pre-launch science and funds (I sure am not doing so), they just need to document the science cost of all techs used in the construction of the vessel.

I should also state that no exploits are allowed (it was late and I forgot in the initial post), so no Infinigliders that I've read of or "explosive decoupling" or any other I am not aware of.

Edited October 23, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Yeah, I thought so too when I did my first challenge!

alt-F12 accesses the menu, and has some interesting and useful things as well as infinite fuel, including a debug window, which I guess is used by the devs and people who make their own mods... It's easy to see why most people ban it's use

and your reply makes things much clearer, I'll have a go at this when I get time

[LordCurlyton]

@carazvan: and I just learned there is a thrust limiter on rocket parts by looking at one of your craft and wondering why the burn time was so high. Learn something new every day heh. If there are any you want to submit please feel free to do so. The early ones look like they lack the dV to successfully explore the Mun/Minmus (fulfilling all the parts of the contract).

[carazvan]

For Mun/Minmus the craft is Explorer 3 - Mun Visitor (visited both Mun and minmus contracts) ... for Mun only had deltav for 1 landing and for Minmus made 4 stops at different biomes before returning; all others are just for LKO trips and science close to Kerbin. I'm making a Duna/Ike Explorer now so that'll probably go up next, and then probably I'll be making some SSTOs

[Pecan]

Well done on a sensible and well-presented challenge, it is nice to see. There are so many people new to the forums who post 'challenges' without even vague reference to the submission guidelines and without thinking them through.

Yes, there will be questions and quibbles about the rules but you're off to a fine start.

[LordCurlyton]

Danke, I figured there was the sticky for a reason :-P

I do hope that it interests people, since not all of us are up to completing some of the epic challenges I see here (at least not yet).

@carazvan: ok so it can fulfill either/or in one go, making it possible to get the Reusable Honorable Mention, but not both in one go, qualifying you for Hopscotch? Remember, relevant pics are needed for it to count as a submission, as per my initial post. :-)

Edited October 23, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[silks]

Are spaceplanes appreciated? If so, I'll present Klutterfly.

Part count: 52 Science needed: 200 Launch cost: 35429(intakes and wings sure are expensive)

Pros:

low science requirement for an SSTO with payload

the trip could cost from $15000 to only $1070(recover everything except fuel)

Cons:

is a challenge to fly into orbit

flies like a rock when without payload

doesn't look quite plane-y

[LordCurlyton]

Klutterfly is most definitely allowed, and the video was excellent! That is a very creative and fun way to go about the challenge! Do you have a pic anywhere showing how much you recovered for that particular run (from the detached plane segment and the returned Munar lander) so I can put an exact score in for you? I'm going to amend the first post to make it clearer, but the deducted recovery cost is for the particular run that you document to submit. Since my kickoff entry is/was one-way (managed to touch down exactly as my fuel ran out) there will be no recovery cost for poor Jeb, at least until I can get a rescue craft close enough.

Since this is something I'm amending/clarifying on the fly, if you want to submit a new run of the Klutterfly (really just show me the recovery cost from it), feel free, especially if you think you can manage to plop the detached plane part and Munar lander onto KSC to get 100% value (without Strategies), otherwise I'll find a way to properly reward you, since you clearly demonstrated that both parts survived unscathed and returned.

Edited October 24, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[LordCurlyton]

Here is an official entry by me. Don't ask about NEWB-1 (Bill is currently waiting for his orbit to slowly decay at like 100 meters per orbit *cough*), but this an official entry into the unmanned Minmus exploration category.

Challenge 1

My vessel

Challenge 2

An orbit around Minmus that allows for me to get Science data with my thermometer.

Challenge-3

Touchdown on Minmus.

Challenge 4

The recovery screen

The stats:

Funds: $14740 launch, $4683 recovered, net cost $10057

Parts: 31

Science: 283

[silks]

Looks like NEWB-2 would be difficult to steer with all those solid boosters and 6G of acceleration.

trip #2 stats:

Funds recovered: 28633(Plane) + 2058(Lander) =

30691

Mission cost: 35429 - 30691 =

4738

proof:

Edited October 24, 2014 by silks

[LordCurlyton]

Steer? I just shot it UP with the boosters, used an LV-45 to get myself into a near orbit (hidden atop the boosters), and the LV-909 to get to Minmus, land, and return. :-P And danke for the screenies. I can now start leader boards, huzzah! If I'd been smart I'd have reserved a post for them, but oh well such is life.

Edited October 24, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[SRV Ron]

Mun and Minmus contract landers. Both can return to orbit to do data from orbit contracts.

Intercept burn

The manned Mun or Minmus Landers

Intercept burn completed

No landing at this time as I have started a modded career.

Edited October 25, 2014 by SRV Ron

[LordCurlyton]

@SRV Run: I do unfortunately need landing pics to qualify your entries, as well as a science cost and parts count.

[LordCurlyton]

Also, Leaderboards:

Manned Mun landers:

[TABLE=width: 500]

[TR]

[TD]Ship name[/TD]

[TD]Total Cost

[/TD]

[TD]Science[/TD]

[TD]Parts

[/TD]

[TD]ROE (raw ROE in parenthesis)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Antichrist (recovered on Kerbin)

[/TD]

[TD]$6558

[/TD]

[TD]20

[/TD]

[TD]16

[/TD]

[TD]1 (0.1795)

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Klutterfly (recovered on Kerbin)

[/TD]

[TD]$4738[/TD]

[TD]200[/TD]

[TD]52[/TD]

[TD]1.358 (0.2438)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Munbat/Munpod (recovered on Kerbin)[/TD]

[TD]$263[/TD]

[TD]4113[/TD]

[TD]58[/TD]

[TD]2.679 (0.4810)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]StarTech-4 (recovered on Kerbin)

[/TD]

[TD]$23639[/TD]

[TD]5[/TD]

[TD]68[/TD]

[TD]3.716 (0.6670)[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Unmanned Minmus:

[TABLE=width: 500]

[TR]

[TD]Ship name[/TD]

[TD]Total Cost[/TD]

[TD]Science[/TD]

[TD]Parts[/TD]

[TD]ROE[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]NEWB-2 (recovered on Kerbin)[/TD]

[TD]$10057[/TD]

[TD]283[/TD]

[TD]31[/TD]

[TD]N/A[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Edited November 1, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[Bill Zarr]

This wasn't really designed for this challenge, I built it recently to send a Mk1 command pod to the Mün and back for a small amount of funds. In my career save I've unlocked all the science so the tech level was irrelevant for the design. No doubt it could be done with somewhat more basic tech. The entire vehicle & lander are recovered with a runway landing so the only net cost is the fuel used.

Total vehicle cost including lander 26,365. (Total value of loaded fuel is 318). Cost of fuel used to go to Mün and return 263 funds.

Part count is 58 (7.1 tonnes).

I went back and calculated the science needed for it to be built and it comes in at a whopping 4113 science.

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[LordCurlyton]

Excellent @Bill Zarr! Amazing how the Science casts add up quickly, heh. Adding your ship to the leaderboards. For the record, to have been close to beating Klutterfly you would have had to spend a touch under 480 Science, since your amazing total cost gave you some room to play in the Science section. I will say that you have the prettiest vessel so far though. :-p

Edited October 30, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[LordCurlyton]

And as I've become feverishly obsessed with doing a manned Mun return on very little tech, here it is in its glory. MWAHAHAHAHA! Technically that should be the 5th iteration of the ship, but I forgot to change the name. Also, I was hoping activating the chutes when I detached that one stage would let me recover that section when I returned, but alas it seems to have not been. So, pics of proof:

Manned Mun 1

The glory of the low tech.

Manned Mun 2

LKO achieved, and look at all that dV left for my LV-909 to use.

Manned Mun 3

Moon orbit achieved, the only science I can get is EVA and Crew Report. Bill better make it back!

Manned Mun 4

Touchdown in Twin Craters! Had to turn SAS off to allow it to settle, but the cackling was in full force.

Manned Mun 5

Naturally, this moment must be commemorated. Also, shows that I got a nice juicy soil sample as well.

Manned Mun 6

Munar orbit reachieved, and plenty left to get me back to Kerbin.

Manned Mun 7

Recovery on Kerbin. Ah it feels good. A total mission time of only 3 Kerbal days as well. Not bad in my books.

The stats:

Funds: $26304 start, $2665 recovered, for a net of $23639

Parts: 68

Science: 5 baby!

And as you can see the ROE is still heavily in favor of Klutterfly. Unless I can find a way to shave a large chunk of my total cost off (I want to be slightly less than double his total cost at most), then Klutterfly shall remain relatively unchallenged.

Edited October 31, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[silks]

Hope to see more entries, meanwhile here's one to maybe beat Klutterfly, named "Antichrist". It's lacking the science Jr. part though.

cost: 9435 - 2917(recovered) = 6518

science: 20

parts: 16

Munar trip:

Edited October 31, 2014 by silks

[LordCurlyton]

After being pointed out in a PM that my ROE calcs were whack (depending on who you take first in the comparison actually changes who wins with the three Mun manned entries so far), I will be editing my first post to explain what I ACTUALLY was trying to do in my sleep addled head and recalculating the scores appropriately.

EDIT: Scores have been recalculated. As expected, my ultra-pricey (relatively speaking) StarTech-4 dropped to third.

Edited November 1, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[LordCurlyton]

Also, @silks: thank you for continuing to send in entries. Hopefully we'll see your craft on other bodies soon! I will update the boards when I can.

EDIT: Updated, congrats on the extremely efficient Antichrist. Would like to see it land elsewhere *wink wink nudge nudge*

Edited November 6, 2014 by LordCurlyton

[LordCurlyton]

By the by (and showing how much I have to learn), in your videos it looks like you are transferring fuel between tanks. I have tried to figure out how to do that in-game to no avail. How is it done?

[Wanderfound]

By the by (and showing how much I have to learn), in your videos it looks like you are transferring fuel between tanks. I have tried to figure out how to do that in-game to no avail. How is it done?

Right click on one tank, alt right click on the other tank.