Campaign: forum controlled KSP campaign: Space race to the Mun!!

[DonLorenzo]

Turn 6 submitted!

[pit_muc]

Sadly I have to pull out of the campaign. I currently just don\'t have the time to continue. Thanks togfox for doing all this.

All of you who continue, have fun and good luck.

[UmbralRaptor]

Turn 6 submitted. Sadly, my options are limited to fundraising until I can afford more advanced missions.

Unmanned craft don\'t need to return and they don\'t need Zoxygen.

A manned flight needs to jettison something into orbit then land for an award. An unmanned craft IS the object in orbit so there is nothing to jettison.

Clarification request: does this apply to other missions? (eg: altitude, distance) It won\'t affect me on turn 6, but will likely be important for turn 7.

Also, the latest mission chart confuses me. I thought RCS couldn\'t be used before TL4?

[Nomad]

Should have posted this, but i am out of the race, not enough time. Need to focus on year end high school stuffs.

Keep at this togfox, i found this fun, and challenging!

[sjwt]

Turn 6 submitted. Sadly, my options are limited to fundraising until I can afford more advanced missions.

Clarification request: does this apply to other missions? (eg: altitude, distance) It won\'t affect me on turn 6, but will likely be important for turn 7.

Also, the latest mission chart confuses me. I thought RCS couldn\'t be used before TL4?

RCS Is Tech 3, at lest on the spread sheet Tog sent out, but is listed as 4 on the first post.. interesting, good thing I looked at both before saying anything.

[DonLorenzo]

Speaking of the RCS mission, do you need just the one RCS thruster block, which would satisfy the \'with RCS\' bit, or would you need four of them, to satisfy the \'for docking\' (one block is not very controllable )

[sjwt]

Speaking of the RCS mission, do you need just the one RCS thruster block, which would satisfy the \'with RCS\' bit, or would you need four of them, to satisfy the \'for docking\' (one block is not very controllable )

I used two, because you can still roll the craft to go the other way, but one is totally unusable.

[UmbralRaptor]

RCS Is Tech 3, at lest on the spread sheet Tog sent out, but is listed as 4 on the first post.. interesting, good thing I looked at both before saying anything.

Ahah. You can tell that I only looked at the first post... ^^;;

If they\'re out at fairly high altitudes (KSO?), would 2 power sats around Kerbin (plus KSC) be enough to get 24h coverage of a probe? There would be a minimum altitude issue, but still...

[sjwt]

Clarification request: does this apply to other missions? (eg: altitude, distance) It won\'t affect me on turn 6, but will likely be important for turn 7.

As a note, all the Altitude (including 11,400kms) Say \'and descend safely\', I would assume this means Kerbin(not land at the Mun), But I could be wrong.

The rest of the missions that don\'t say \'and descend safely\', I would guess can be done with remote control and no return needed.

[togfox]

Nah. Descend/land safely simply means no kerbal casualties. Any mission can be done remotely and the remains can be smashed into the nearest hardest surface.

[sjwt]

Nah. Descend/land safely simply means no kerbal casualties. Any mission can be done remotely and the remains can be smashed into the nearest hardest surface.

But dose it require return to Kerbin, Kerbin OR the Mun or neither?

[togfox]

If it is unmanned then it doesn\'t matter as there are no salvage rules. The kerbal press will be equally impressed.

[sjwt]

Mission 6 has been flown,

HEADLINE: SKRAM takes to the skys, and skrams paint off new craft.

[togfox]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=11419.0

WHOO HOO!!! I encourage each participant to investigate this tool for bugs, and usefulness. I certainly will!

Turn ends in about 7 hours.

[togfox]

Hmm - I\'ve only got four entries for this turn - down from seven last turn. That means everyone is busy or the campaign is boring or too hard.

I\'ll wait one more day and re-assess but I\'ll respond to those that have submitted on time.

[Awaras]

Turn submitted. Sorry I\'m late...

[Crowzone]

Today\'s the first day I\'ve had time - Turn will be incoming shortly.

[Crowzone]

Submitted, sorry for lateness.

[UmbralRaptor]

I\'ve been running some numbers on power sats for unmanned operations. It looks like 360° coverage is possible with just two in KSO, though there\'s a dead zone at low altitudes. Unfortunately, *getting* the sats to the appropriate positions look to require inefficient high ?V ascents, and/or suicide missions.

Assuming the sats are in KSO (2868.4 km altitude), they can see KSC if they are up to 80° ahead or behind it. For 0° inclination orbits, this leaves a deadzone on the far side of KSC below 38.5 km altitude. Unfortunately, this deadzone grows rapidly if the sats aren\'t perfectly placed (eg: if they\'re 60° ahead and behind KSC, the minimum altitude is 600 km).

Incidentally, for 3 sats to give full coverage, they\'ll need to be at least 600 km up. Still an annoying ascent, given your limited contact with KSC.

[Alchemist]

I\'ve been running some numbers on power sats for unmanned operations. It looks like 360° coverage is possible with just two in KSO, though there\'s a dead zone at low altitudes. Unfortunately, *getting* the sats to the appropriate positions look to require inefficient high ?V ascents, and/or suicide missions.

I already have a unmanned launch vehicle that can deliver 1 PowerSat to KSO and costs less than 8000. And it gets directly to position ~80 degrees from KSC without losing contact

[togfox]

So the \'3 power sat\' rule factors in the KSP as the fourth relay station. The higher the orbit the more coverage you get and whilst 2 power sats is theoretically possible, it\'s not really practical. I also expect everyone to be launching power sats at (almost) the same time so getting 3 in orbit won\'t be hard I suspect.

Turn 6 saw a mix of missions. Some are banking their money and others clearly have their sights on the Mun. Someone took a big hit in investing tech 4 - I sense the formation of a plan!

Don made a killing in his mission making a $4800 profit on a super lean craft. Nice work. Crowzone and Alchemist had the highest income but a lot of that was eaten up by expensive parts. Awaras forgot to pay for his tech 1/2 a few turns ago so I\'ve deducted this in this turn. Truth is, he probably declared it and I didn\'t process it. Oops!

[pre]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| Player | Balance | Spent | Income | NewBalance | Turn | Claimed | Profit |

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| Alchemist | 10255 | 6850 | 8607 | 12012 | 6 | Achieve orbit with RCS onboard | 1757 |

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| Awaras | 10144 | 3000 | 0 | 7144 | 6 | Techlevel 1 + 2 | -3000 |

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| Awaras | 7144 | 5225 | 7697 | 9616 | 6 | Polar orbit | 2472 |

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| CrowZone | 12607 | 6500 | 7960 | 14067 | 6 | Equitorial orbit | 1460 |

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| DonLorenzo | 11317 | 8000 | 0 | 3317 | 6 | Techlevel 4 | -8000 |

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| DonLorenzo | 3317 | 2575 | 7448 | 8190 | 6 | 16,500 meters up | 4873 |

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| Sjwt | 11445 | 3700 | 7448 | 15193 | 6 | 16,500 meters up | 3748 |

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| STCatto | 11080 | 4000 | 0 | 7080 | 6 | Techlevel 3 | -4000 |

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| STCatto | 7080 | 4222 | 7448 | 10306 | 6 | 16,500 meters up | 3226 |

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| UmbralRaptor | 9864 | 3800 | 7448 | 13512 | 6 | 16,500 meters up | 3648 |

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We still have eight players - well done all. I sense someone will be on the Mun soon enough and then we can all take a step back and see how we (ah hem .. . I), could have done this better.

Turn 7 ends Sunday night in the USA.

[DonLorenzo]

Turn 7 submitted. The moon baby, the moon!

[Alchemist]

Accidentally launched an unmanned test vehicle into solar orbit . what category should it be?

Maybe there could be unmanned Munar missions without satellites if all the burns are performed in the direct contact with KSC?

BTW, Luna 1-3 probes were directly launched into translunar trajectory with direct guidance from the mission control.

[sjwt]

Is winning counted as a manned landing or the Rover?

[togfox]

You get the Campaign OOPS award for a Kerbal orbit. =P

A direct burn to the Mun in an unmanned rocket is theoretically possible but not very fun.

I think landing on the Mun and returning WITH KERBALS wins this campaign but for those who wish to, I\'ll continue on to the Rover mission if there is interest. An unmanned Mun landing is surely worth fantastic press but you\'ll never get a photo of a Kerbal boot tread in the Mun dust that way.

(unless of course the Kerbal landing was filmed in a Hollywood movie studio)