Pause of certain Team Hawk missions, and planned rank improvements.

[Mooncrasher]

The following team hawk missions are on pause, new submissions will not be accepted for the present:

• Shuttle mission
• Reusability mission
• Replica missions

You may have noticed that submissions these missions are not being effectively reviewed and frequently wait a long time for an official response, this is my fault. The problem with these missions is two-fold:

1. The requirements are not very clear and often subjective, so submissions are frequently rejected. It hasn't helped that they are full of "quick fixes" due to effects from game updates, which make everything messy.
2. They are tedious to review in their current form, so the people making submissions for these missions frequently wait too long for a review.

So please bear with us as me and Altaïr rework them.

If you have already posted a submission before I made this post and it's still awaiting review, you have the choice of continuing under the old rules, or waiting for the new rules and re-posting a reworked submission at that time.

You can still get Team Hawk without the paused missions, there are still three missions available.

We are happy to read any suggestions you have for these missions, so if you have something relevant you'd like to say, please do say it.

This is all part of a larger overhaul to make the ranking system clearer, easier to understand and review. But for these three team hawk missions, a need for a reworking is most keenly felt by both users and staff.

We also hope to also come up with a solution that satisfies the staff team for team judges to be able to officially judge team hawk missions, it will quite possibly be done via coming up with a new top rank to achieve before being able to officially judge team hawk missions.
If you have any ideas about missions or other challenge methods to make this hypothetical top rank a harder challenge than team hawk in its current form, you're welcome to post those ideas.

Happy building!

 

[Ayansh Kothari]

Nice idea

 

[floatingfuel]

Ah, so that's why several shuttle challenges (mine included) aren't being reviewed lately. I understand the situation now, thanks for clarifying.

Personally, I think that Reusability and Shuttle should stay, or make them one level above Team Hawk.

• The Reusability challenge requires building, planning, and flight skills, all at once. It can't be easily be done, and can't be mastered in one night.
• The Shuttle challenge is more about building and flight.
  • I have to agree that the rules aren't specified thoroughly. I think 10% payload mass should be mentioned.
  • One key aspect in this challenge is balancing, occurred during take off (especially side mounted ET) and reentry, which is difficult. (Probably restrict this challenge to side-mounted only?)
  • Lastly, is beauty, which is subjective, but I concur that Shuttles should look good. The border of a legitimate shuttle and 'glue some heat shields to a rocket' is hard to define. I think at least three judges should agree whether an entry should pass or not.
• Replicas are another skill, but mainly focused on building. Maybe convert it to a single badge? Like a 'super-interesting but doesn't hinder the main quest' side quest. Not gonna lie, those extremely good at building got me jaw-dropped when I first saw their creation.

That's what I could think of now. Hope for the best to the Mods and Staffs, I believe something exciting will came out of this overhaul!

 

[Axiom]

Replicas are another skill, but mainly focused on building. Maybe convert it to a single badge? Like a 'super-interesting but doesn't hinder the main quest' side quest. Not gonna lie, those extremely good at building got me jaw-dropped when I first saw their creation.

I think the replica challenge is fine, as I think that team hawk is meant to be a test of all skills in SFS

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

One key aspect in this challenge is balancing, occurred during take off (especially side mounted ET) and reentry, which is difficult. (Probably restrict this challenge to side-mounted only?)

Ah balancing, yes kind of have a hard time trying to balance weight, some people use RCS. I have mixed views as a non-DLC player on the topic, if we should change to side mounted only.

Lastly, is beauty, which is subjective, but I concur that Shuttles should look good. The border of a legitimate shuttle and 'glue some heat shields to a rocket' is hard to define. I think at least three judges should agree whether an entry should pass or not.

Yes, I can agree with that. There are some people that do the shuttle challenge by having a rocket with some heat shields, but then they forget to add a payload bay, or a fin. The balancing act of weight and added details to make it a shuttle.

For the shuttle challenge rules:

• 10% of Entire Rocket must be Payload Mass
• Must look like a shuttle (Though this is vague, the only thing I can say is that, it must have: Some form of cockpit, a line of heat shields, fin, payload bay with door that has a hinge or can remove itself and dock to another part of the shuttle)
• Does not matter how you launch it (Top or side mounted)
• If somebody had some balls to make a space-borne flying bathtub like Dream Chaser but with some form of cargo door on the side or bottom, IDK how they will do that.

I think the replica challenge is fine, as I think that team hawk is meant to be a test of all skills in SFS

Correct.

 

[ILovespace3]

Oh, so that's why I've waited a full month and my shuttle entry still hasn't been reviewed. Thanks for clearing things up!

 

[floatingfuel]

Ah balancing, yes kind of have a hard time trying to balance weight, some people use RCS. I have mixed views as a non-DLC player on the topic, if we should change to side mounted only.

Yes, I can agree with that. There are some people that do the shuttle challenge by having a rocket with some heat shields, but then they forget to add a payload bay, or a fin. The balancing act of weight and added details to make it a shuttle.

For the shuttle challenge rules:

• 10% of Entire Rocket must be Payload Mass
• Must look like a shuttle (Though this is vague, the only thing I can say is that, it must have: Some form of cockpit, a line of heat shields, fin, payload bay with door that has a hinge or can remove itself and dock to another part of the shuttle)
• Does not matter how you launch it (Top or side mounted)
• If somebody had some balls to make a space-borne flying bathtub like Dream Chaser but with some form of cargo door on the side or bottom, IDK how they will do that.

Correct.

My bad, I completely forgot non-DLC players. My apologies, thanks for the reminder. I myself was once playing without DLC, and building a shuttle within limited size and parts was excruciating.

I think those rules you posted is pretty solid. The outline for minimum typical shuttle shape is acceptable.

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

My bad, I completely forgot non-DLC players. My apologies, thanks for the reminder. I myself was once playing without DLC, and building a shuttle within limited size and parts was excruciating.

It's ok, sometimes we got to add different points of view to make sure we have the best for the forum community

 

[Lemniscate Biscuit]

If you have any ideas about missions or other challenge methods to make this hypothetical top rank a harder challenge than team hawk in its current form, you're welcome to post those ideas.

Team Ion moment?

We also hope to also come up with a solution that satisfies the staff team for team judges to be able to officially judge team hawk missions

I think that a basic summary of all team requirements in 1 handbook type resource that could be looked too to help judge the requirements. A list of things that are rejecteable such as not building 1:1 would also speed up the process. But with that being said, the mod team could also just rely on this one source.

Instead, the team requirement pages could be made shorter and perhaps easier to read since most people seem to just skim and scan.

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

Instead, the team requirement pages could be made shorter and perhaps easier to read since most people seem to just skim and scan.

I can agree with you as some people forget important rules to the challenges like the Voyager mission

 

[Axiom]

I would like to suggest a few things:

• If we are going to make a rank above team hawk (Which I will call team ion), maybe move the shuttle and reusability challenges to it. The reason why I'm saying that is because I think that Team ION should be team hawk but with harder challenges, and you can't really make a bp edit challenge harder without just making the judging stricter
• The Team ION challenges should be harder versions of the earlier challenges, let me suggest a few
  • Galilean Tour with only one buildscreen (maybe with no ions depending on how hard you want it to be
    • Base game should be either a venus + mercury landing in one mission or a mercury + mars + moon mission
  • A rescue mission with the person being rescued in a really bad place (going interstellar, low jovian orbit, crashed on mercury).
  • Low part count mission somewhere
• Add more choice to the challenges

This is just my (an idiot on the internet) advice so do with it what you will

Edit: With the rank rework can you do a name colour rework, a lot of the colours (like team titan and moon maker) are the same. And if a person has multiple things that would give them a colour would it be possible to have a toggle between them or something?

 

[New Horizons]

10% of Entire Rocket must be Payload Mass

That's not what it is supposed to be. If a rocket is 100t, we add 10t for the payload, then multiply by 0.1 to get 10% of its mass, we get 11.
The payload must be 10% the mass of the whole launch vehicle. (for the shuttle mission)

 

[Axiom]

That's not what it is supposed to be. If a rocket is 100t, we add 10t for the payload, then multiply by 0.1 to get 10% of its mass, we get 11.
The payload must be 10% the mass of the whole launch vehicle. (for the shuttle mission)

Well the unclearness is part of the problem

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

That's not what it is supposed to be. If a rocket is 100t, we add 10t for the payload, then multiply by 0.1 to get 10% of its mass, we get 11.
The payload must be 10% the mass of the whole launch vehicle. (for the shuttle mission)

Well I said 10% of the entire rocket.......

 

[Mooncrasher]

Say 10% of the lift-off mass to be absolutely unambiguous.

Great responses so far everyone.

I want to address something here, to give an example of how you can think more outside the box...

[Snipped]

• The Shuttle challenge is more about building and flight.
  • I have to agree that the rules aren't specified thoroughly. I think 10% payload mass should be mentioned.
  • One key aspect in this challenge is balancing, occurred during take off (especially side mounted ET) and reentry, which is difficult. (Probably restrict this challenge to side-mounted only?

[Snipped]

Ah balancing, yes kind of have a hard time trying to balance weight, some people use RCS. I have mixed views as a non-DLC player on the topic, if we should change to side mounted only.
[snipped]

• Does not matter how you launch it (Top or side mounted)
• If somebody had some balls to make a space-borne flying bathtub like Dream Chaser but with some form of cargo door on the side or bottom, IDK how they will do that.

[Snipped]

So there's an opinion that side-mounted shuttles are harder than top-mounted and often very cool. That's absolutely correct.
But it doesn't seem appropriate to disallow certain mounting points, because STS and Buran are not the only concepts in real life for shuttles!
A possible alternative: slightly different requirements for different mounting types. We can say, for example, a minimum of 10% of the total mass of a side-mounted shuttle needs to be payload.
Buuuut, for a top-mounted shuttle, the requirement could be raised to 15% or even 20%! There's lots of room to set a limit, 27% is achievable with an optimised normal rocket, so even 20% for a shuttle should be possible.
So, that's one way to close the "easy option" without disallowing certain shuttle styles...
There could be others as well. Any ideas?

Team Ion moment?
View attachment 120428


I think that a basic summary of all team requirements in 1 handbook type resource that could be looked too to help judge the requirements. A list of things that are rejecteable such as not building 1:1 would also speed up the process. But with that being said, the mod team could also just rely on this one source.

Instead, the team requirement pages could be made shorter and perhaps easier to read since most people seem to just skim and scan.

Clarifying and simplifying all requirements in the ranking system is high on the priority list indeed! We also need to evaluate whether some requirements are obsolete and should be disposed of, and correspondingly, whether we need any new requirements.

Last thing I want to talk about is difficulty. The hypothetical new upper rank definitely should require more skill than team hawk, but we should also wonder whether team hawk itself is of an appropriate difficulty. Some missions are hard indeed, but some are not so hard, and you only need to do 3 out of 6 missions for the team hawk badge, so it's a big question whether hawk is difficult enough overall...

 

[Lemniscate Biscuit]

Last thing I want to talk about is difficulty. The hypothetical new upper rank definitely should require more skill than team hawk, but we should also wonder whether team hawk itself is of an appropriate difficulty. Some missions are hard indeed, but some are not so hard, and you only need to do 3 out of 6 missions for the team hawk badge, so it's a big question whether hawk is difficult enough overall...

I'm gonna be real here. Under Pressure is really easy if you really think about it. For one, gravity assists are not at all hard to plan. Secondly, If you know how to use gravity assists then it becomes easier than it seems at face value.

Fly Me to the Moon is a bit more subjective (as said previously) as one has to be reasonably good at building to 1.) make a vehicle that looks like a shuttle and 2.) functional as to carry 10% (agreed upon payload value) of its mass. I'm really just too lazy to do this challenge lol.

Deja vu is a great challenge and I think that is the most challenging of the challenges. I just find it too long to complete lol. It's the recovery part that I find too long. Again, if you really think about it this challenge is not to difficult in the sense that it's mainly refueling, restacking and recovery that is hard. I plan on doing this challenge since I have lots of time.

Swingin' on a Star is self explanatory.

Copycat is also not very hard. Just getting the measurements and dimensions right.

Atlas is also not hard. Not gonna explain why.

In all, I think it's the subjective challenges that weigh Team Hawk down.

We also need to evaluate whether some requirements are obsolete and should be disposed of, and correspondingly, whether we need any new requirements.

Update the Fly Me to the Moon proof images. I would add "show shuttle and payload in buildscreen (if payload is clipped then unclip the payload)" as a clause.

I also suggest addressing the issue with the recent addition of challenges and the apparent hiding of the mission log, since many users complain about not getting a mission log as can be seen by the remark below:

 

[Axiom]

So there's an opinion that side-mounted shuttles are harder than top-mounted and often very cool. That's absolutely correct.
But it doesn't seem appropriate to disallow certain mounting points, because STS and Buran are not the only concepts in real life for shuttles!
A possible alternative: slightly different requirements for different mounting types. We can say, for example, a minimum of 10% of the total mass of a side-mounted shuttle needs to be payload.

Could the shuttle be an SSTO?

 

[Mooncrasher]

I'm gonna be real here. Under Pressure is really easy if you really think about it. For one, gravity assists are not at all hard to plan. Secondly, If you know how to use gravity assists then it becomes easier than it seems at face value.

Fly Me to the Moon is a bit more subjective (as said previously) as one has to be reasonably good at building to 1.) make a vehicle that looks like a shuttle and 2.) functional as to carry 10% (agreed upon payload value) of its mass. I'm really just too lazy to do this challenge lol.

Deja vu is a great challenge and I think that is the most challenging of the challenges. I just find it too long to complete lol. It's the recovery part that I find too long. Again, if you really think about it this challenge is not to difficult in the sense that it's mainly refueling, restacking and recovery that is hard. I plan on doing this challenge since I have lots of time.

Swingin' on a Star is self explanatory.

Copycat is also not very hard. Just getting the measurements and dimensions right.

Atlas is also not hard. Not gonna explain why.

In all, I think it's the subjective challenges that weigh Team Hawk down.


Update the Fly Me to the Moon proof images. I would add "show shuttle and payload in buildscreen (if payload is clipped then unclip the payload)" as a clause.

I also suggest addressing the issue with the recent addition of challenges and the apparent hiding of the mission log, since many users complain about not getting a mission log as can be seen by the remark below:
View attachment 120440

We should probably re-evaluate that mission log thing. Why is it required? So that we can tell if parts were damaged, and the places that were visited were visited when looking at the craft as-is at the end of the mission.
But generally you can tell the latter from the screenshot proofs, and maybe it's time to look for damage the same way....
Wait, why do we look for damage? We might need to rethink that also

I see your thoughts on the challenges. We want to make the subjective missions less subjective, so there's that.
But maybe some missions deserve to be in team frontier instead, and be replaced in team hawk by something new....

Could the shuttle be an SSTO?

Good question.
What requirements would you set for an SSTO variant of the shuttle challenge so that it is appropriately difficult? A certain payload mass %, has to be capable of being refurbished for another flight, or something else?

 

[Axiom]

But maybe some missions deserve to be in team frontier instead, and be replaced in team hawk by something new....

Wouldn't moving any of the subjective missions down to frontier result in the same problem that you guys had where everyone was forced to do a skill that isn't required in SFS?

Good question.
What requirements would you set for an SSTO variant of the shuttle challenge so that it is appropriately difficult? A certain payload mass %, has to be capable of being refurbished for another flight, or something else?

Maybe a payload fraction of 15%?
Edit: is your issue with that the fact that SSTOs aren't shuttles or that SSTOs are the easiest way to build a shuttle
If it's the latter wouldn't a stack shuttle be easier as it has all the advantages (no needing to balance with an ET) and without a disadvantage (doesn't have the crappy efficiency of SSTOs)

 

[Mooncrasher]

Wouldn't moving any of the subjective missions down to frontier result in the same problem that you guys had where everyone was forced to do a skill that isn't required in SFS?

Not to worry, the subjective ones are unlikely to be moved down.

Maybe a payload fraction of 15%?
Edit: is your issue with that the fact that SSTOs aren't shuttles or that SSTOs are the easiest way to build a shuttle
If it's the latter wouldn't a stack shuttle be easier as it has all the advantages (no needing to balance with an ET) and without a disadvantage (doesn't have the crappy efficiency of SSTOs)

15%? Fairly sure that's impossible with an SSTO.
I'm not sure 10% is achievable either!

The issue with SSTOs is that they are easy to build if the required perfermance is not high indeed, so the requirements for them have to be set high to compensate. But also their crappy efficiency means that performance targets have to be adjusted downwards.

Whatever the target is, we'd also need to reinforce the subjective shuttle features, because if you're not doing a booster of any kind, it seems reasonable to demand that more effort be put into the shuttle itself.

 

[Axiom]

15%? Fairly sure that's impossible with an SSTO.
I'm not sure 10% is achievable either!

True, we'll have to evaluate it

Whatever the target is, we'd also need to reinforce the subjective shuttle features, because if you're not doing a booster of any kind, it seems reasonable to demand that more effort be put into the shuttle itself.

Fair, like we don't want to have the shuttle challenge be too easy

 

[Darthan]

Is it possible to remove subjective elements entirely? They can be more luck than skill i.e. the applicants idea of 'looks good' happens to match the judge's idea of 'looks good'. For a shuttle, for example, specify what is expected e.g. fin, cockpit window, lands on side etc.

 

[Axiom]

Is it possible to remove subjective elements entirely? They can be more luck than skill i.e. the applicants idea of 'looks good' happens to match the judge's idea of 'looks good'. For a shuttle, for example, specify what is expected e.g. fin, cockpit window, lands on side etc.

Let me ask you this, is this a shuttle?

It has everything

 

[ilikespace]

and would this shuttle pass currently or no? just asking

 

[floatingfuel]

A possible alternative: slightly different requirements for different mounting types. We can say, for example, a minimum of 10% of the total mass of a side-mounted shuttle needs to be payload.
Buuuut, for a top-mounted shuttle, the requirement could be raised to 15% or even 20%! There's lots of room to set a limit, 27% is achievable with an optimised normal rocket, so even 20% for a shuttle should be possible.

That would be a good balance, but experiments on that criteria must be conducted, to see whether it's possible to build or not. I'm kinda worried for non-DLC players, their choice parts and building space are limited.

• The Team ION challenges should be harder versions of the earlier challenges, let me suggest a few
  • Galilean Tour with only one buildscreen (maybe with no ions depending on how hard you want it to be
    • Base game should be either a venus + mercury landing in one mission or a mercury + mars + moon mission
  • A rescue mission with the person being rescued in a really bad place (going interstellar, low jovian orbit, crashed on mercury).
  • Low part count mission somewhere
• Add more choice to the challenges

I personally think Galilean Tour in one buildscreen is entirely possible, but not distinct enough with Swingin' on A Star. Probably restrict the build limit?

Base game Venus + Mercury combo would be tight, but doable. This guy managed that, but with some lithobraking. I think DLC players shoud do this with base game parts and grid limit too. This mission also lands on Venus, which existence (so far) is to provide yeeting power to somewhere else . Another thing, people could learn aerobraking / aerocapture here.

Rescue mission is interesting. The forum did that, the Christmas Present rescue. This challenge would be a practice of timing, how to adjust apogee so the rescue ship can meet with the rescuee.

For Axiom's shuttle, it's missing the cargo bay; the wheels and engine are exposed. Shape wise, 90% a shuttle.

For ilikespace1111's shuttle, I'd say at 70-80% rate it would be accepted. In my opinion, the nose heat shield should be redesigned.