Munar Landing Endeavour

[panzerknoef]

Munar Landing Endeavour

Okay, the basic mission is simple, land a craft on the mun and come back. But ofcourse several further challenges will be along your way. It will be similar to the Apollo style mission (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/39630-Doing-it-Apollo-style?highlight=Apollo+style) but with more design freedom.

So, some basics:

- No mods are allowed except for Mechjeb and Kerbal Engineer

- Use your own rocket (simply said, don't use stuff that other people built)

- One rocket and one rocket only, we don't want to overcomplicate things now do we.

Scoring will be based on the following goals:

- Mass of the original rocket

- Mass of the lander

- Amount of kerbals landed

- Equipment you bring along

- side goals

So now you guys have got an idea of what the plan is, if you're not interested or have any suggestion or possible improvements, either a) leave before we get more technical or comment down below.

The Score:

The Mass parameter:

Both the weight of your original rocket and that of your lander will be taken into account by the means of a calculation. I'd like to encourage people to take big landers (because it's a challenge you know, simpler is easier and it has to be a bit hard for sure) but lighter rockets. The calculation you need to do for your mass points is:

(Mass lander/ Mass rocket)*100.

For the sake of not abusing this rule, SSTO's or SSTM's in this case will be put in a different category because they have the same landing mass as their take-off mass which would give them a score of 100 on this parameter which might just be unfair in comparison to the people that use conventional staging rockets. As such the score of an SSTO will be:

(landed mass/ launched mass) * 100

The Kerbal parameter:

This one is rather easy in comparison to the first one. One kerbal equals one point, two kerbals equal 2 points and three kerbals equal three points. After this every additional kerbal delivered to the surface has a value of 0.25 points. So say that I land a ship with 13 kerbals on the mun, then my score will be 3+(0.25*10)= 5.5

The Equipment parameter:

I'd like to encourage you guys to take as much equipment with you as you can. So the scoring in this part will be like this:

+1 for every additional unmanned way of transportation you bring along (rovers, MMU's, ...), +2 if it can be driven by kerbals

+0.25 for every sensor you take to the surface

+0.2 for every antenna you take to the surface

+1 for every satellite you drop on your journey. The satellite ofcourse has to be in stable orbit around a body.

So for example I have a lander with two rovers, each equiped with 4 sensors and two antenna's and it's manned. Then my score here will be 2+ (0.25*8)+(0.2*4)= 4.8

Additional missions:

+ 1 for moving 2 kilometers away from your landing site on the surface in a transportation device.

+3 for moving 5 kilometers away from your landing site on the surface in a transportation device

+ 5 for moving 10 kilometers away from your landing site on the surface in a transportation device (the scores of distance are not cumulative)

+ 2 for landing near an easter egg

+ 1 for planting a flag at the landing site

+ 2 for planting a flag over 5km away

+ 3 for planting a flag over 10km away

+ 2 for reaching a speed of more than 60m/s in a rover on the surface and surviving

+ 2 for achieving a speed of more than 200m/s in a none wheel-based transportation device and surviving

+ 3 for docking to a module of your craft that was left in lunar orbit

Additional mission ideas? Post them in a comment!

Calculation of your final score:

This one is probably the simplest of all the calculations you have to do. All you need to do is multiply all of your scores. Your score is the number before the point, so if you get 946.6173792... Then your score is just 946.

I hope everything is still clear, because the explanation ends here! So get out there and fly towards the Mün!

Scoreboard: Staging rockets

1. purpleivan: 23546 points

2. TheBigFish: 2094 points

3. panzerknoef: 513 points

4. bobcook: 35 points

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Scoreboard: SSTO's (SSTM's)

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Edited November 28, 2014 by panzerknoef

[panzerknoef]

I will upload my own try soon, my latest rocket had landed but the command seat kraken showed up and Bob and Jeb were turned into debris... Upon reload both of them were killed in action, may they rest in peace. Bob is the only survivor and made it home succesfully

[spaceman1999]

What do you mean by make you own equipment?

[panzerknoef]

What do you mean by make you own equipment?

Only use stuff that you built, so for example I can't use the Munbug because i didn't design it. I'll make it a little clearer in the post

[bobcook]

I love doing Apollo-style missions to the Mun! Here is my entry. Its not anything particularly spectacular, but it was a lot of fun to do today.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Scoring (if I understand the challenge correctly):

9.472 tons (lander before descent to the Mun) / 298.450 tons (on the launch pad) * 100 = 3.173730943207

2 Kerbals landed (Bob & Jeb) = 2

(0.25 * 4 sensors) + (0.2 * 2 antennas) = 1.4

1 (for planting a flag at the landing site) + 3 (for docking to a module of your craft that was left in lunar orbit) = 4

Total: 3.173730943207 * 2 * 1.4 * 4 = 35.5457865639184 = 35

[Pecan]

For the sake of not abusing this rule, SSTO's or SSTM's in this case will be put in a different category because they have the same landing mass as their take-off mass (except if we make use of the weight after landing, but since some of you might not want to use a mod to check that out, that's an issue) which would give them a score of 100 on this parameter which might just be unfair in comparison to the people that use conventional staging rockets.

It is simple to check the mass of a ship at any time, without mods. Go to map mode and press the 'i'nformation button at the right of the screen.

ETA: Oh, and for light Apollo-style missions, see Mun Challenge (~4t for LOR return trips)

Edited November 23, 2014 by Pecan

[panzerknoef]

It is simple to check the mass of a ship at any time, without mods. Go to map mode and press the 'i'nformation button at the right of the screen.

ETA: Oh, and for light Apollo-style missions, see Mun Challenge (~4t for LOR return trips)

-facepalms- because I didn't remember that. Anyway, thank you very much for making me remember that it is indeed possible to do so, and such that system will be used for SSTO's

And thanks bobcook for participating in the challenge, I've added your score to the scoreboard!

[panzerknoef]

okay, so at last I got my entry ready. I used my newly developed STR-I rocket and went with an apollo-like design.

This is the result:

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my score is (10,040/309,897)*100= 3,239...

2 kerbals on the surface=2

equipment: manned rover+ 4 sensors + 8 antenna's + 2 satellites= 6,6

side goals: drove over 10km away+ planted a flag at landing site + planting a flag over 10km away + docking to a module of your craft that was left in lunar orbit= 12

so my total score is: 513 points

[bobcook]

And thanks bobcook for participating in the challenge, I've added your score to the scoreboard!

Thanks for making this challenge! I knew my score won't rival what other will do, but it was still a lot of fun to put together, a good afternoon's entertainment.

[purpleivan]

Here's my entry for an Apollo like, although not Apollo looking vehicle.

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I think that my point tally adds up like this.

Mass (rocket = 22276 and lander 3508) = score of 15.74

Equipment (1x rover, 5x sensors on surface, 5x antenna on surface, 3x satellites deployed) = 7.25

Additional missions (moving 10km from landing site, landing near Easter egg, docking module in orbit) = 10

Total (15.74 x 2 x 7.25 x 10) = 2282.75

One thing that made this mission a little more eventful than planned was that it was forgotten that the Mk1 Lander Can only has one seat, so Gregbert Kerman had to ride down to the Mun surface in a seat on the rover and then hang on the the ladder when returning to orbit.

As Gregbert has rather weak fingers it was decided that it was best to drop him off once a circular orbit was established and for James to take the Lander to rendezvous with the other lander can than had been left in orbit, to then take the docked pair of them to pick up Gregbert.

This challenge was a fun one, so I'm thinking of taking another crack at it with a vehicle that's more tuned to the points system than this one was, plus I'll remember to plant some flags as well

[panzerknoef]

Here's my entry for an Apollo like, although not Apollo looking vehicle.

-photos-

I think that my point tally adds up like this.

Mass (rocket = 22276 and lander 3508) = score of 15.74

Equipment (1x rover, 5x sensors on surface, 5x antenna on surface, 3x satellites deployed) = 7.25

Additional missions (moving 10km from landing site, landing near Easter egg, docking module in orbit) = 10

Total (15.74 x 2 x 7.25 x 10) = 2282.75

One thing that made this mission a little more eventful than planned was that it was forgotten that the Mk1 Lander Can only has one seat, so Gregbert Kerman had to ride down to the Mun surface in a seat on the rover and then hang on the the ladder when returning to orbit.

As Gregbert has rather weak fingers it was decided that it was best to drop him off once a circular orbit was established and for James to take the Lander to rendezvous with the other lander can than had been left in orbit, to then take the docked pair of them to pick up Gregbert.

This challenge was a fun one, so I'm thinking of taking another crack at it with a vehicle that's more tuned to the points system than this one was, plus I'll remember to plant some flags as well

Thank you very much for entering in the challenge. Awesome design and already some extremely high points! I wonder how much you'll get when you make a vehicle tuned to the challenge . Looking forward to seeing it!

[purpleivan]

As I was busy with work stuff earlier in the evening, I won't have time to document my latest endeavour (I'll do that tomorrow), but here are a few pics as a taster.

I don't know if this quite in the Apollo spirit, but I think it's 100% Kerbal

BTW... it's not quite the points monster I had been planning, as I didn't do one thing I'd been planning on to maximise points and I didn't have time to take the 10km drive, although I did take a rover.

[TheBigFish]

I sent a big-massive mission to Mun, but I forgot to put parachutes and a decoupler on the Command Pod and crew cabin, and a rescue mission was required to get them out of LKO at the end. So I was thinking of subtracting the points of the rescue mission (24) from the points of the main mission (152) as a penalty, to get 128 points. I forgot to transfer 4 kerbals to the lander and just did 3, so the Kerbal Factor is 3. Then I brought 4 sensors(7 if mystery goo and sci jr. count as sensors),two rovers(that can be driven by Kerbals and 10 antennae to the surface, I also launched 12 satellites(6 around Kerbin and 6 around Mun) bringing the equipment factor to 22(or 25). Then after landing one of the kerbals drove 7.5 km on a rover(3 points) which then crashed, Then I EVAed the kerbal ~2.5 km more to plant a flag over 10km away(3 points) after that I flew the lander over to the kerbal, then rendezvoused and docked with the MUNARDUM orbiter(3 points) making the missions factor 9. Then I left for Kerbin.

That brings my total score to 76,032(or 86,400 if mystery goo and sci jr. count as sensors).

The score is ((376,208/246,892) - (15,668/63,305)) * 3 * 22 or 25 * 9 = 128 * 3 * 22 or 25 * 9 = 76,032 or 86,400 or none at all if the LKO rescue disqualifies me.

If you see a flaw in my math/logic, please tell me.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

If you can't see any engine particle effects, It's because Hotrockets has glitched.

Mods used: KER, KAC, Trajectories, Hotrockets.

Edited November 25, 2014 by TheBigFish

[panzerknoef]

Since you did manage to actually get to the Mun and back in one mission, i'll allow it, everybody forgets things from time to time, it's a part of being human. The Goo and science jr do count as sensors by the way. And congratulations on your score since it puts you all the way on top of the board! And as usual thanks for joining. Just one question, how can your lander outweigh your actual rocket?

Edited November 25, 2014 by panzerknoef

[purpleivan]

Here the details my 2nd entry that I posted a few images of last night.

The Mass Parameter was a full rocket stack mass of 29.219t (including the Hitchhiker Storage Containers that were left on the pad) and a lander mass of 2.92t which gives a score for this of ((2.92/29.219)*100) = 9.99

The Kerbal Parameter was 9 kerbals, so the score for this was (3+(6*0.25)) = 4.5

The Equipment Parameter was 5 sensors, 5 antenna, 13 satellites and 1 rover, which gives a score of (5*0.25)+(5*0.2)+(13*1)+(1*1) = 16.25

The Additional Missions Parameter includes landing near an Easter egg and docking with a CM in orbit of the Mun, which gives a score of 2+3 = 5

So I believe my total is 9.99 * 4.5 * 16.25 * 5 = 3652

The mission ended up being so fuel critical that after burning off all my liquid and RCS propellant, the periapsis was about 30km, so a little too high comfort, requiring a kerbal had to get out and push to bring it down some more.

Sending that many kerbals isn't actually very point efficient, but it was just to fun not to do

In the end I didn't have time to do the driving/flag planting element of the challenge, plus I had a new vehicle in mind anyway.

One issue with my previous entry is that the mass for the lander I used in my calculation of it's points tally, was that in the VAB. Of course I assume now that it should have been the mass on landing on Mun, as that would make the Mass Parameter the percentage of the total rocket stack that is landed there. I don't have the landed mass of that vehicle, so probably you should removed it from the scoreboard... the new one has a better score anyway

BTW... a more heavily points tuned vehicle is already under construction, so watch this space.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[purpleivan]

I sent a big-massive mission to Mun, but I forgot to put parachutes and a decoupler on the Command Pod and crew cabin, and a rescue mission was required to get them out of LKO at the end. So I was thinking of subtracting the points of the rescue mission (24) from the points of the main mission (152) as a penalty, to get 128 points. I forgot to transfer 4 kerbals to the lander and just did 3, so the Kerbal Factor is 3. Then I brought 4 sensors(7 if mystery goo and sci jr. count as sensors),two rovers(that can be driven by Kerbals and 10 antennae to the surface, I also launched 12 satellites(6 around Kerbin and 6 around Mun) bringing the equipment factor to 22(or 25). Then after landing one of the kerbals drove 7.5 km on a rover(3 points) which then crashed, Then I EVAed the kerbal ~2.5 km more to plant a flag over 10km away(3 points) after that I flew the lander over to the kerbal, then rendezvoused and docked with the MUNARDUM orbiter(3 points) making the missions factor 9. Then I left for Kerbin.

That brings my total score to 76,032(or 86,400 if mystery goo and sci jr. count as sensors).

The score is ((376,208/246,892) - (15,668/63,305)) * 3 * 22 or 25 * 9 = 128 * 3 * 22 or 25 * 9 = 76,032 or 86,400 or none at all if the LKO rescue disqualifies me.

If you see a flaw in my math/logic, please tell me.

http://imgur.com/a/63z2U

If you can't see any engine particle effects, It's because Hotrockets has glitched.

Mods used: KER, KAC, Trajectories, Hotrockets.

Hi TheBigFish

I've taken a look at the numbers that you used to come to the 76,032 or 86,400 score and I think there might have seen a flaw or two with your calculations.

The first is that the numbers you've used for the Mass Parameter seem confused, in that this is basically a description of the vehicles' efficiency (i.e. what mass X at launch was required to get mass Y to the surface of the Mun). However your equation doesn't seem to show that, as 376,208/246,892 suggests that the lander mass was 376,208 but the mass of the whole stack including the lander was 246,892.

I believe that the calculation for the Mass Parameter for a successful mission (i.e. if the LKO rescue had not been needed) would have been 28,181/537,536 = 5.24

Additionally I come to a different number for the Equipment Parameter which you have as 25, including the two items you weren't certain about.

I think that the scoring for these should be as follows.

7 sensors x 0.25 points = 1.75

10 antenna x 0.2 points = 2

12 satellites x 1 point = 12

2 rovers x 1 point = 2

2 drive-able bonus x 2 points = 4

Total = 21.75

Using these figures, the total score for a successful mission I believe comes to (5.24 * 3 * 21.75 * 9) = 3077.19

I don't know how the cost of the rescue mission should be calculated, but my guess would have been to add the mass at launch of the rescue vehicle to that of the original vehicle at launch, as this was the additional mass at the time of its launch required to complete the mission. This would give a launch rocket mass of (537,536+107,254) = 644,790 and a resulting Mass Parameter of 28,181/644,790 = 4.37

Plugging all of that into the total points calculation would give a result of 4.37 * 3 * 17.75 * 9 = 2094

After posting this I really hope I got my figures right

[TheBigFish]

I see, I think that your calculations are correct.

What I got wrong with the mass parameter was I was dividing (Mass lander/Mass Launch vehicle).

What I got wrong in the equipment was that I am bad at math and remembering what the values were.

I was quite concerned that my points were close to 40x the size of the next biggest entry.

Edited November 25, 2014 by TheBigFish

[panzerknoef]

Just to makes things a bit clear here, the lander mass wil indeed be the mass the actually made it to the surface on the moon, the landed mass. And new entries will always overwrite the old ones, okay?

[purpleivan]

Just to makes things a bit clear here, the lander mass wil indeed be the mass the actually made it to the surface on the moon, the landed mass. And new entries will always overwrite the old ones, okay?

Yep... I don't know why with my first vehicle I thought that the mass of the lander at launch had any relevance at all. As you've said, it's the mass that you get to the surface of the Mun that's important.

Talking of me making errors, I think I made one with the calculation of the points for my last entry, in that I forgot to include the extra point in the equipment section for a rover "if it can be driven by kerbals". I guess as I just drove it around the lander a little I didn't think about adding.

Ah well... I better not forget that in my next entry, as it has a lot of rovers

[panzerknoef]

Well, since you are planning on doing another even better mission, i'm gonna leave for what it is now, you're already first and i'll probably have to replace it soon anyway. But ofcourse, Good Luck!

[purpleivan]

Well, since you are planning on doing another even better mission, i'm gonna leave for what it is now, you're already first and i'll probably have to replace it soon anyway. But ofcourse, Good Luck!

Well the latest ship the "KSS Points Pirate" is now safely parked in Mun orbit, with a descent to the surface scheduled for tomorrow evening.

Some pundits are describing this as a serious scientific and engineering endeavour, while others are saying that it's a crazy stunt, that belongs in a circus.

Of course, only time will tell...

[Nahim]

Question: Can i participate with an Direct ascent endeavour? Like the soviet LK-700 or the very early Apollo?

[panzerknoef]

Question: Can i participate with an Direct ascent endeavour? Like the soviet LK-700 or the very early Apollo?

Yes, you absolutely can!

[purpleivan]

Well here's entry #3

The naysayers said it couldn't be done, the sane said it shouldn't be done, but by golly... they went and did it anyway.

The journey of the KSS Points Pirate.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

One admission is that I forgot to snapshot the mass of the lander after the landing on Mun, so I had to take one in the VAB with tanks drained to their landed amounts, which was the two large side tanks and the descent stage tanks at the base emptied, which is very close to the the state of the vehicle on landing. I had a little fuel in the descent stage tank (far too little for comfort) when I touched down, but thought I should leave them empty for the calculations.

I'd do the flight part again to show an actual landed mass on the Mun, but the framerate was so slow on the pad, that it took me almost 1/2 hour to load the 8 kerbals into the command seats.

Actually the hardest parts of the mission, were loading the kerbals before launch and then switching between them, and the rovers. debris, previous flights debris and flags at the landing site. Other than that it was fairly straight forward a flight.

Ok... here's what I believe my points tally is.

Mass Parameter

Rocket Mass = 84,018

Lander Mass = 10,646

(10,646/84,018)*100 = 12.67

Kerbals Parameter

12 Kerbals (3 +(9*0.25)) = 5.25

Equipment Parameter

34 Satellites = 34

8 Rovers (driveable) = 16

10 Antenna = 2

28 Sensors = 7

Total = 59

Additional Mission Parameter

Landing near easter egg = 2

Flag at landing site = 1

Docking in Mun orbit = 3

Total = 6

Grand Total 12.67 * 5.25 * 59 * 6 = 23547

I think that the key to a good score are satellites that score 1 point each and have a low mass and can be dropped off in Kerbin orbit and rovers which can be pretty low mass and if drive-able score 2 points each. However I am intrigued by the idea of some kind of mad satellite launcher with a lander, the surface of which is painted is completely covered in sensors

BTW... those little rovers look like fun go-karts, but they were a pain to drive as their center of gravity was so high, which is why I didn't go for any of the "drive a distance, raise a flag" additional missions.

Edited November 28, 2014 by purpleivan

[panzerknoef]

Very very nice, and as far as the satellite covered thing goes, I'm already working on it. The eventual fate of every challenge is to exploit it, ofcourse and that's hard to stop from happening, but it offers some really interesting designs.