Guys, guys, guys,
There is no Proxima Centauri. I only said “reach Proxima Centauri” as a symbol of going interstellar. The whole point of the Voyager Quest Challenge is simply to reach Sun escape velocity, and that can be done in base game, in any version, and any OS.
Also,
Isn't that called being efficient? Isn't this an efficiency challenge?
Yes, but we’re not talking about the same type of efficiency. I am talking about
efficient construction, you are talking about
efficient navigation.
They are not the same.
To make an efficient craft just basically means don't use Hawk or Titan engines in space. That pretty much it. An efficient space voyage is different. So the challene is to make an efficient craft then right? In that case, I agree
By that I meant you can't just pile on fuel and engines, you need to find a good ratio of fuel to engine, its not that hard to do that.
There you go. Once again you proving yourself wrong in two paragraphs right next to each other.
>In the first one you say efficient crafts are just not use Titan and Hawk.
>In the second you deny that and you say that efficient crafts aren’t just made out of a bunch of fuel tanks and engines.
By my experience in this game, if you just throw some fuel and engines randomly without having any clue on what you are doing, you’re not getting anywhere, or at least you are gonna come up with something massive which then you can’t put into orbit.
And I genuinely know some people that would do just that (stacking a bunch of fuel and a cluster of engines) and struggle to give 4000 m/s of deltaV to a supplied payload. THAT is the purpose of this challenge: to prove that you have a minimal idea on how to build efficient spacecrafts, not that you can do efficient space navigation. We have other challenges for that, specifically the Mercury challenge.
but I’d be interested in figuring out more of the specifics and limitations that would be imposed on each challenge to ensure that someone doesn’t just throw together a huge but inefficient rocket, or just slap on a bunch of ions to get the job done.
Well, that’s one thing I genuinely forgot to say, and I hope people agrees, but Ion engines aren’t allowed. They definitely would kill the challenge.
As for the details, we’ll obviously discuss them later. For now we are just discussing what type of challenge are we going to make. Later we can design a specific scenario for that challenge and we’ll discuss all the details.
Also, I'm a bit surprised about the "no gravity assist" rule. They are not mandatory of course, but this is not the easier way to do it in my opinion, this requires some skills and practice.
Same as before. You are absolutely 100 hundred percent right. Space navigation does takes time, skill and patience. I’m just saying that we already have OTHER challenges especifically designed for that.
The purpose of this challenge is different and gravity assists as well as Ions and aerobrake would kill it.
Guys, is not like I’m banning gravity assists off the rank-up challenges, or off the forum... I’m just banning them off this specific challenge, because they would kill it, and because we already have other challenges for that.
I also have a concern about this one. What is the purpose:
- To transfer 4000 m/s of delta-V to the payload?.
That’s the one. It all happens in Earth’s SOI.
What we will determine later is if we are going to supply a quicksave with the payload on its initial Low Earth Orbit, and make people dock to it and do the challenge, or we are just going to supply the blueprints for the payload, and people has to do the mission all the way from the launchpad.
Once again, for now we are simply choosing what kind of scenario we are going to set.
Same challenge. If you can punt 4km/s into LEO then you're going extra-solar. This would need managing as well location wise. Just leaving Earths SOI increases your indicated speed from roughly 2km/s to around 6km/s. However, accelerating 4000m/s inside an SOI is going to limit you TWRwise cos there'll come a point where your orbit is outside of Earths SOI and you can't come around again.
So it'll have to be worked out mathematically, especially as different locations will have different oberth advantages.
Don't think this'll be that hard. Especially just throwing yourself into the Sun.
This one looks the most interesting. Hopefully just the station is supplied, not the launch system. However, depending on the definition of 'single launch', non-DLC players are going to be at a huge disadvantage with how much rocket they can use if they're not allowed multi-launches to get sufficient ΔV into orbit to transfer into LVO.
Because gravity assists are a crutch, heavily leaned on. Same with ions. A good efficiency test hasn't been done already.
Just putting this out there, the non DLC engines are better than the DLC engines. If you know what you're doing.
I think the ΔV budget required should be increased so you can't do that single stage. Make the challenge so it needs planning and staging to be completed.
Yes. No ions. Ever.
Horus, your post is too long and I can’t be bothered to edit and quote all of that speech point by point
So, I’ll answer I’ll your points one after the other.
1. All these challenges are roughly the same. What changes is the scenario, payload and the destination. The first three were designed by Altair, the last one is my idea.
2. Yes, all the acceleration takes place inside Earth’s SOI. So you also need to take TWR into account. Otherwise you’ll leave Earth’s SOI before you reach target speed and your challenge won’t be valid.
3. Yes, only the station will be supplied, then you need to design your launch vehicle. The deltaV budget is much less, but you start on the launchpad, so it’s a bit more challenging.
4. No, no Ions, ever. They are OP as fuck, broken as hell, unrealistic as heaven.