I'm embarassed to admit this but I've never really played with spaceplanes before. It's always been all rockets all the time. I've made some meager attempts but always end up giving up trying to build the damn things.
Not today.
BEHOLD: My first ever SSTO that can totally go to space. Getting back seems to be a problem thanks to deadly re-entry, but never mind that.
It has enough Delta-V to pull off a good mun fly-by, and if I outft it with a docking port it could pretty easily hook up to my space stations in orbit for refueling.
I'm embarassed to admit this but I've never really played with spaceplanes before. It's always been all rockets all the time. I've made some meager attempts but always end up giving up trying to build the damn things.
Not today.
BEHOLD: My first ever SSTO that can totally go to space. Getting back seems to be a problem thanks to deadly re-entry, but never mind that.
It has enough Delta-V to pull off a good mun fly-by, and if I outft it with a docking port it could pretty easily hook up to my space stations in orbit for refueling.
That could probably go interplanetary a long way if you replace the middle rapier with a nuke engine.
It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you of the tragedy that befell the Duna Explorer just as she was about to get underway.
The Explorer Propulsion Module in the VAB
Duna Transfer Habitat Module en route to docking with EPM.
Duna Pioneer Vehicle makes orbit.
Here, Duna Explorer mission crew Benjamin, Barski, and Macley Kerman on the KSC pad just prior to liftoff. Not much is known about the incident that resulted in the total loss of the entire ship with all hands. What investigators have been able to piece together is that, after a routine docking maneuver in low orbit, all communication and telemetry from the Duna Explorer was abruptly lost. When it was re-established after a few moments, the entirety of the Duna Explorer had inexplicably fallen out of its 100km orbit and was plummeting to the ground at near terminal velocity. With only a few hundred meters of altitude remaining, there was no time for the crew to escape and they all perished when the Explorer impacted Kerbin's ocean.
While an inquest was quickly formed to determine the nature of this disaster, concerns at Mission Control turned towards the fate of the Duna Vanguard/Explorer program. The departure window was closing quickly and it would be some time before another attempt could be made. Fortunately, it turned out that there was an entire set of spare Explorer modules and launch vehicles already at KSC because, as our contractors are fond of saying, "Why build one when you can build two for twice the price?"
As such, the Duna Explorer II was hastily assembled in LKO and the backup crew consisting of ace test pilots Jeb, Bill, and Bob Kerman stepped up to complete the mission for their fallen comrades. (Also they didn't want all those snacks that Vanguard prepositioned on Duna to go to waste.)
Duna Explorer II blasts out of Kerbin's orbit
A look at the entire craft
The launch was not without issues. First it was discovered that Mission Commander Jebediah Kerman has somehow snuck aboard the Duna Pioneer Vehicle, which was supposed to have launched unmanned, and proceeded to hide all the choice snacks. Then, while the crew were EVAing into the Duna Transfer Habitat, Bill's backpack had a malfunction that sent him right through one of the ship's secondary solar panels, totalling it. After that, however, the excursion went more or less according to plan.
Ike managed to get right in the way of Explorer's entry into the Duna system, requiring a few small correction burns to reach proper aerobraking altitude. A total of three passes were made through Duna's thin atmosphere, bleeding off 1300m/s of velocity and saving Explorer quite a lot of fuel.
Finally at their destination, the Explorer crew prepares to disembark and travel down to the surface.
Well the whole ship was assembled and the crew were docking just prior to departure. I was doing my usual "tell mechjeb to point both ships target prograde" docking maneuver and it was off a bit I guess, because the ports didn't connect solidly and started doing their awkward mating dance, like two teenage virgins fumbling around in the dark. Rather than backing off with RCS and having another go at it, I elected to just let it play out figuring they'd eventually link up properly. I got up and made a sandwich, and when I got back the game had locked up hard. so I restarted, and when it loaded in the entire ship (and the orbital tanker that was parked nearby) were at 5,000 meters plummeting into the ocean. And my quicksaves were back at Duna, during the hab module descent.
Pro tip: turn off SmartASS right before docking, or it'll keep tilting your port away from the other one.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
Hex Truss System is a great mod for building some really cool looking stations. They attach beautifully to 2m parts, and also has a great looking adaptor to attach 1m parts. Once FusTek is updated, these two can combine to make unbelievably beautiful stations
To store things in line instead of attaching to the side of my ships, I've been using a lot of the 6S Storage System. Says it's .23 only, but I haven't had any issues in .24.2 yet, but of course ymmv. Place mechjeb or science doodads on the bottom side of a tank, then place the compartment over it for some nifty storage. Should also cut down on drag if you use FAR or NEAR.
Really liking the design of the BobCat Industries HOME v3 base (scroll down a bit). Not much to it other than being a cool little place to keep your kerbals while on another world. Oh, and a fancy little rover, too.
Ever wanted to make some fancy iridescent patterns on your ships hull? Well GlowStrips is your mod then. They don't create any light to illuminate any surrounding parts and are purely cosmetic, but they really do make planes are rockets that much cooler in the dark.
Ever find yourself missing or forgetting to do an experiment? ScienceAlert will have you covered then. It will give you a warning and stop warp when a science experiment you haven't completed is possible, and it will let you do those experiments with a simple push of a menu button instead of going through the process of right click -> run experiment (or setting up an action group). It is so incredibly handy, I don't think I would want to play without it anymore.
Similar to Mechjeb, and extremely useful for skycranes, the Automatic Vertical Vertical mod is an excellent way to tell your ship to hover at a set altitude over a planet. You can also use it to control your decent (or ascent) by telling it exactly what speed you'd like to be falling at. combine with KAS for full SkyCrane goodness.
For a little extra realism, there's Kerbal Construction Time. This adds a build time to planes and rockets based off the number of parts used, and how often those parts are used and/or recovered. Something like 2 or 3 day build time for a small rocket or plane for it's first build, and then a third to half of that for it's second and even less on it's third. Using parts that has previously been recovered from an earlier launch will dramatically drop the build time those parts add to the total. And a mod that has split off from Construction Time that everyone needs with .24.2 is StageRecovery. Attach at least one parachute to a stage that is dropped during launch, and it can be recovered for a partial to full Fund recovery. It can also get science from any dropped experiments too. Stage Recovery is included in Construction Time.
More of a mod for modders to add to their mod, but Connected Living Spaces is extremely cool. CLS itself just puts up a GUI telling you what parts your kerbals could live in and what they are connected to, but combine this with Ship Manifest and it lets you easily move Kerbals from one compartment to another without leaving the station, but unlike ship manifest without CLS it doesn't work by magic. CLS tells Ship Manifest which parts a Kerbal can move through. No connecting two pods with Girders and swapping kerbals without EVAing, which ship manifest lets you do when CLS isn't installed. Ship Manifest and CLS work well together (except this latest update, Ship Manifest broke the symbioses accidentally), with Ship Manifest disabling it's own crew moving component when CLS is installed. Ship Manifest will also let you transfer science experiments to pods without EVAing and can fine tune resource transfers by specifying the exact amounts instead of the slider stock KSP uses.
Runs on a single turbojet and three radial rockets. Climbs vertically until 12km, then noses over to 20 degrees and accelerates like a bullet made out of other bullets. It's already at 1800 m/s by the time the air runs out, so it kicks in the rockets and climbs the last bit. After circularizing it has 800 m/s delta-v to play with, more than enough to snag a wayward Kerbal out of orbit and land him anywhere on the planet.
The only modded parts are the RealChute inline parachute and the radial intakes from Spaceplane Plus, but they're simple enough to swap out for stock parts.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
I remember making a girder cage back in .18 and crashing that into the moon at like 400 m/s and having the pod survive. Couldn't hit any higher than like a 5 degree angle, and it bounced and rolled for a couple hundred km, but when it finally stopped Jeb walked out of the capsule.
Amazingly, he didn't spill his beer. Chips were a little crumbly though.
Edit: Jesus christ, 65 hours in the last 2 weeks?! Can someone send me some help? I may have a problem.
Houston, do you copy?
Houston?
Veevee on
0
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I remember making a girder cage back in .18 and crashing that into the moon at like 400 m/s and having the pod survive. Couldn't hit any higher than like a 5 degree angle, and it bounced and rolled for a couple hundred km, but when it finally stopped Jeb walked out of the capsule.
Amazingly, he didn't spill his beer. Chips were a little crumbly though.
Edit: Jesus christ, 65 hours in the last 2 weeks?! Can someone send me some help? I may have a problem.
I remember making a girder cage back in .18 and crashing that into the moon at like 400 m/s and having the pod survive. Couldn't hit any higher than like a 5 degree angle, and it bounced and rolled for a couple hundred km, but when it finally stopped Jeb walked out of the capsule.
Amazingly, he didn't spill his beer. Chips were a little crumbly though.
Edit: Jesus christ, 65 hours in the last 2 weeks?! Can someone send me some help? I may have a problem.
Houston, do you copy?
Houston?
"BRB, playing KSP."
You joke, but I work in a hotel that is the primary hotel for attendees of the Saturn Science Conference. These guys are honest to god rocket scientists and engineers from around the world, and when I brought up KSP with a few of them they turned into kids in a candy store. For the most part they do what they do because they love it, and something that makes it easier to do what they do, even virtually, just makes them very happy. At least for the scientists and engineers I've talked to about KSP.
On a side note, I got to spend about 4 hours listening in on a group of 5 talking about the problems of designing and engineering different kinds of landers and robots for most of Saturn's moons and the experiments they'd want to run on them. Fascinating stuff, including a fun little jaunt through fantasy land with "wouldn't it be cool to send a go pro camera through Saturn's north pole and watch the clouds and aurora tower before the camera is engulfed" from, I believe, Andy Ingersoll
+6
Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
RSP (Real Space Program) news:
"We're whaler's on comet 67P, we're whaler's on comet 67P, but there ain't no whales so we tell ancient tales and launch harpoons; we're whaler's on comet 67P!"
Rosetta has made it into orbit! Can't wait till November when we get to see Rosetta harpoon it launch Philae at it.
Ten years to make it there, and the only problem they had waking the probe up after such a long hibernation was a mono-propellant leak and a grouchy reaction wheel.
I hope this doesn't end up like that japanese astroid/comet probe where the lander thing bounced right off the surface and back into space
If it looks dire they'll just sit Scott Manley down at the controls and he'll bring it in for a three-point landing with 1.5 m/s delta-v remaining in the tanks.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
I have launched a lot of spaceplanes. However I am bad at knowing my delta-V budget limits, so there's been a whole procession of spaceplane design where I'm sending more up to rescue Kerbals out of the stranded ones.
Now the problem is I can return from the Mun, but since deadly re-entry and FAR will asplode anything that hits the atmosphere hard, they have to skim at 40 km to slowly drop the periapsis....then orbit the entire planet at like, 35km, continuously on-fire, to hopefully decelerate enough to come in for a landing.
I need a truck-cab cockpit so I can refuel them on the ground and send them back up without recovery.
So I'm in the process of making a VTOL cargo/kerbal transport ship. Here's a quick preview of the second prototype.
It uses the S2 parts from (i believe) B9 (cockpit, 6m crew cabin, SAS, Fuel, sliding cargo bay, raised tail), the landing engines from BobCat Ind.'s HOME base part pack which runs on monopropellent (and are a little over powered, if I have to be honest), and Infernal Robotics rotatron's to rotate the engines while a hydraulic cylinder can push out the engines to prevent clipping when I rotate it the full 90 degrees backward/forward. Using a combination of action groups (2 to lower and raise rear thrust, 2 to lower and raise front thrust, 2 to rotate the engines in either direction, and 2 to push out or pull in the engines from the hull) I'm able to vertically lift off, hover, then rotate the engines while using SAS to rotate the ship to get it going forward and up with ease. The long middle portion contains a cargo bay where the doors on either side slide up to reveal the cargo, and right in front of that is a storage space using the 6S compartment to store enough resources to have a full crew of 8 survive for 488 days (1300+ with just the skeleton 2 person crew) with the TAC-LS mod and enough power to last a full day without any sunlight on the solar panels (13 days with the skeleton crew). Everything but maybe the cargo bay and 6S compartments are shielded so it might survive a re-entry using Deadly Re-entry, but I don't use that mod as I tend to enjoy to slamming things into the atmosphere as fast and steep as I can.
Up until just about an hour before I left for work this afternoon I was using 2 Vesta engines from K&W on each rotatron to provide the thrust at about a 1.9 TWR, but there was no way to get enough delta-v to get anywhere with the highest delta-v I could reasonably get topped out around 3500 (prototype 1). I switched to the HOME landing engines seen in the pictures (prototype 2), which also act as great landing legs, and I think they gave something in the 2 to 2.5 TWR range. As I said earlier, they run on monopropellent so the fuel is lighter than the LFO tanks, and produce a great amount of thrust at a lower consumption rate than the Vesta rocket engines (overpowered, but fuck it). I didn't have time to really test them before work so I just took out the LFO fuel from the hull and ran the engines on their internal monopropellent supply without adjusting engine position or thrust for balance to do a super quick "will this even work" test, which they did very well, and I believe I can now easily reach orbit with more than enough fuel to spare. In the test the ship went from on the ground to the back flipping over the front and smashing into the ground in 3 seconds flat after activating the engine stage with power maxed.
There will be more testing and prototyping and kerbal deaths tonight and tomorrow, and maybe I'll get a quick video showing it taking off and getting to orbit if it all works out.
+8
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited August 2014
All of these cool ships inspired me to do a proper aesthetically designed Duna mission. I was going to just do a standard land and return designed after your bog standard ugly Apollo system, but pretty beats functional any day! It has not yet departed Kerbin orbit, but here's things so far!
Behold, the Duna Alpha interplanetary craft.
Poised on the launchpad
SHOOOOOMMMMM
I like ship-mounted launch cameras
In orbit
Style points
Lander for Duna's surface tucked away in the cargo hold. I'm pretty sure the parachutes and lander engine will be enough to get it to the surface - the ascent stage should also be enough to get it back up again.
Dhalphir on
+10
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Oh yeah, and it's hilariously overpowered for a Duna mission. 9k delta/v in the main ship, not including any fuel in the lander. It's only 1k from Kerbin orbit to Duna, so I'll quite probably move on to other destinations!
+4
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
And while I wait for the escape burn Kerbal Alarm Clock alarm, time to go farm Minmus for the remainder of its science.
Now I'm going to create mini missiles to put on all my probes.
Tweakables mod will let you take a SRB and shrink it down to the .65m size, attach that to the ship with your radial decoupler of choice and it makes some pretty decent, if uncontrolled, rockets.
so I installed the Space Shuttle Engines pack which features engines where you can set the trim (thrust angle) to make proper asymmetric space shuttle launch vehicles. These are pretty damn challenging to get right! I thought it would be easier than designing a big cargo SSTO, but nope! It's harder!
Naturally I completely avoided any baby steps in this process and dove right in to building one of those ludicrously massive Michael Bay monstrosities from Armageddon.
Meet the Condor Heavy Lift Shuttle:
As you can see she weighs over 1100 tons on the pad. Go big or go home.
The orbiter module is all B9 HL fuselage, which is essentially a 3.75m core with the sides chopped off. I have LFO tanks running down the sides because I hate wasting space that could be storing valuable fuel. Wings are B9 and Procedural Wings for the tips. The outboard engines are tucked away beneath some Spaceplane Plus panels.
The orbiter's lifter engines are a cluster of seven of the 1.25m shuttle engines for ~3500 thrust. They default to a trim setting that points thrust towards the center of mass between the orbiter and external fuel tank. The trim can be turned off with an action group so they can provide thrust after the tank is discarded.
Primary boosters are six of the KW Rocketry Globe X-10L Thor II SRBs which run at 80% thrust so they don't waste power struggling against terminal velocity. Mechjeb is set to reduce liquid engine throttle at TV, and most of the initial liftoff the orbiter & tank engines are idling down from 50% to 5% power so I think that's pretty good.
SRB sep. Six separatrons each keep the huge boosters away from the orbiter. The SRBs all have parachutes so StageRecovery picks them up for reuse. Except the one that always seems to get taken out by its neighbor after booster sep, no matter how many separatrons I throw at it.
Closeup of the opposed engine clusters on the orbiter and tank after booster sep. The orbiter's engines aren't sufficient to lift it, plus the tank, plus the payload (two full orange tanks) after SRB separation, so there's an identical cluster of engines mounted under the external tank with trim reversed, pointing towards the orbiter. This makes for an extremely stable climb.
Gravity turn. I have to start it rather high (20km) or it gets dragged down towards the horizon too much as the center of mass shifts from the external tank emptying out. The real shuttle's engines are balanced much more professionally than this hack-job.
External tank separation. No chutes on this section because the real shuttle's tank burns up on reentry.
Lighting up the six LV-Ns for circularization, as the spent tank recedes in the background. This takes a while since the Condor weighs 215 tons with full fuel and payload. I'd like to use the Shuttle Engines with trim disabled (so they point straight ahead through the center of mass) but for some reason their gimbals are hyperactive and they start the shuttle spinning, so it goes on NERVAs alone.
In this case it can't get all the way to a 100km periapsis, but we get above the atmosphere so that's good enough for the first orbit.
Circularized at 100km, cargo bay opened. The Condor has over 2,700 delta-v left over, enough to go places. The orange tanks are connected by decouplers too, so they're not figuring into that calculation.
Payload ejected. Delta-v now nearly 4,900.
Deorbiting. This thing handles like a pig on reentry, probably because the tanks are still 80% full. Once it got low I needed RCS to keep the nose up. Probably could stand to use some canards.
I missed the window for KSC by a bunch, and was on course to land at impact the mountains to the west, so I powered up the engines and burnt off 75% of the fuel changing course to a flat-ish bit of land to the south. It was a pretty hairy descent. She's a big, angry baby.
Stuck the landing, though. 87km from KSC. Somebody send a chopper, we're out of snacks.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
+11
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Space Shuttle Engines is an awesome mod, they're what I used to do a more normal sized shuttle a while back. That truly is a monster.
All of these cool ships inspired me to do a proper aesthetically designed Duna mission. I was going to just do a standard land and return designed after your bog standard ugly Apollo system, but pretty beats functional any day! It has not yet departed Kerbin orbit, but here's things so far!
Behold, the Duna Alpha interplanetary craft.
Poised on the launchpad
SHOOOOOMMMMM
I like ship-mounted launch cameras
In orbit
Style points
Lander for Duna's surface tucked away in the cargo hold. I'm pretty sure the parachutes and lander engine will be enough to get it to the surface - the ascent stage should also be enough to get it back up again.
I like the design here, but how did you fit a 1.25m lander inside the B9 Mk2 cargo bay? Every time I've tried to do that, it inevitably clips through the bottom.
That's the spaceplane plus cargo bay, which is streets ahead of the B9 one by virtue of having much, much thinner walls so you can cram more junk inside.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
In the "I can't believe this thing makes orbit" category
I threw this together in about two hours and it boggles my mind that it was so easy. It practically flew itself into orbit on the second ever launch (the first launch determined that, no, two RAPIERs were not sufficient).* For a spaceplane with no vertical tail or yaw control beyond cockpit torque, it's absurdly stable. The massive wing lift, large number of control surfaces, and four canards tucked away under the nose mean it jumps off the runway at less than 90 m/s and goes straight into a 45-degree climb like it ain't no thang. I need to work on the ascent profile some more, because as it stands it accelerates like a bullet after the climb to altitude and I run out of intake air while still at 25 km.
I figure it'll make a good crew transport shuttle. I might be able to replace the crew cabin, docking port, and central LFO tank with a 6m cargo bay but haven't tested it yet. All those wing surfaces attached at odd angles make swapping fuselage sections a pain. The underside of this thing is just silly with intakes, struts, fuel lines, and equipment.
(I love Spaceplane Plus so much you guys)
*For comparison, the Condor shuttle took the better part of a day to build and dozens of test launches to tweak engines, separators, and ascent profile.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
man this game is more confusing than dwarf fortress, and i don't even use mods
might have to start though because career mode is slowly killing me. I'm trying to be fiscally responsible with stages now, but it appears strapping parachutes to my boosters is not getting them back to kerbin in one piece
man this game is more confusing than dwarf fortress, and i don't even use mods
might have to start though because career mode is slowly killing me. I'm trying to be fiscally responsible with stages now, but it appears strapping parachutes to my boosters is not getting them back to kerbin in one piece
No you need a mod for that. Th game despawns objects that get too far from what you are pilotting. Seriously don't worry about it, money is not too big of an issue.
Posts
Shogun Streams Vidya
Not today.
BEHOLD: My first ever SSTO that can totally go to space. Getting back seems to be a problem thanks to deadly re-entry, but never mind that.
It has enough Delta-V to pull off a good mun fly-by, and if I outft it with a docking port it could pretty easily hook up to my space stations in orbit for refueling.
You stopped, didn't you??
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
That could probably go interplanetary a long way if you replace the middle rapier with a nuke engine.
My kerbals are going to be so badass.
It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you of the tragedy that befell the Duna Explorer just as she was about to get underway.
The Explorer Propulsion Module in the VAB
Duna Transfer Habitat Module en route to docking with EPM.
Duna Pioneer Vehicle makes orbit.
Here, Duna Explorer mission crew Benjamin, Barski, and Macley Kerman on the KSC pad just prior to liftoff. Not much is known about the incident that resulted in the total loss of the entire ship with all hands. What investigators have been able to piece together is that, after a routine docking maneuver in low orbit, all communication and telemetry from the Duna Explorer was abruptly lost. When it was re-established after a few moments, the entirety of the Duna Explorer had inexplicably fallen out of its 100km orbit and was plummeting to the ground at near terminal velocity. With only a few hundred meters of altitude remaining, there was no time for the crew to escape and they all perished when the Explorer impacted Kerbin's ocean.
While an inquest was quickly formed to determine the nature of this disaster, concerns at Mission Control turned towards the fate of the Duna Vanguard/Explorer program. The departure window was closing quickly and it would be some time before another attempt could be made. Fortunately, it turned out that there was an entire set of spare Explorer modules and launch vehicles already at KSC because, as our contractors are fond of saying, "Why build one when you can build two for twice the price?"
As such, the Duna Explorer II was hastily assembled in LKO and the backup crew consisting of ace test pilots Jeb, Bill, and Bob Kerman stepped up to complete the mission for their fallen comrades. (Also they didn't want all those snacks that Vanguard prepositioned on Duna to go to waste.)
Duna Explorer II blasts out of Kerbin's orbit
A look at the entire craft
The launch was not without issues. First it was discovered that Mission Commander Jebediah Kerman has somehow snuck aboard the Duna Pioneer Vehicle, which was supposed to have launched unmanned, and proceeded to hide all the choice snacks. Then, while the crew were EVAing into the Duna Transfer Habitat, Bill's backpack had a malfunction that sent him right through one of the ship's secondary solar panels, totalling it. After that, however, the excursion went more or less according to plan.
Ike managed to get right in the way of Explorer's entry into the Duna system, requiring a few small correction burns to reach proper aerobraking altitude. A total of three passes were made through Duna's thin atmosphere, bleeding off 1300m/s of velocity and saving Explorer quite a lot of fuel.
Finally at their destination, the Explorer crew prepares to disembark and travel down to the surface.
Full mission album here.
(WTF happened?? Even the album doesn't say.)
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
Pro tip: turn off SmartASS right before docking, or it'll keep tilting your port away from the other one.
DERP - Deployable Emergency Reentry Pod - A cool little mod to stick emergency evacuation pods onto the side of your ships. Perfect for orbital stations.
Hex Truss System is a great mod for building some really cool looking stations. They attach beautifully to 2m parts, and also has a great looking adaptor to attach 1m parts. Once FusTek is updated, these two can combine to make unbelievably beautiful stations
To store things in line instead of attaching to the side of my ships, I've been using a lot of the 6S Storage System. Says it's .23 only, but I haven't had any issues in .24.2 yet, but of course ymmv. Place mechjeb or science doodads on the bottom side of a tank, then place the compartment over it for some nifty storage. Should also cut down on drag if you use FAR or NEAR.
Really liking the design of the BobCat Industries HOME v3 base (scroll down a bit). Not much to it other than being a cool little place to keep your kerbals while on another world. Oh, and a fancy little rover, too.
Ever wanted to make some fancy iridescent patterns on your ships hull? Well GlowStrips is your mod then. They don't create any light to illuminate any surrounding parts and are purely cosmetic, but they really do make planes are rockets that much cooler in the dark.
Ever find yourself missing or forgetting to do an experiment? ScienceAlert will have you covered then. It will give you a warning and stop warp when a science experiment you haven't completed is possible, and it will let you do those experiments with a simple push of a menu button instead of going through the process of right click -> run experiment (or setting up an action group). It is so incredibly handy, I don't think I would want to play without it anymore.
Similar to Mechjeb, and extremely useful for skycranes, the Automatic Vertical Vertical mod is an excellent way to tell your ship to hover at a set altitude over a planet. You can also use it to control your decent (or ascent) by telling it exactly what speed you'd like to be falling at. combine with KAS for full SkyCrane goodness.
For a little extra realism, there's Kerbal Construction Time. This adds a build time to planes and rockets based off the number of parts used, and how often those parts are used and/or recovered. Something like 2 or 3 day build time for a small rocket or plane for it's first build, and then a third to half of that for it's second and even less on it's third. Using parts that has previously been recovered from an earlier launch will dramatically drop the build time those parts add to the total. And a mod that has split off from Construction Time that everyone needs with .24.2 is StageRecovery. Attach at least one parachute to a stage that is dropped during launch, and it can be recovered for a partial to full Fund recovery. It can also get science from any dropped experiments too. Stage Recovery is included in Construction Time.
More of a mod for modders to add to their mod, but Connected Living Spaces is extremely cool. CLS itself just puts up a GUI telling you what parts your kerbals could live in and what they are connected to, but combine this with Ship Manifest and it lets you easily move Kerbals from one compartment to another without leaving the station, but unlike ship manifest without CLS it doesn't work by magic. CLS tells Ship Manifest which parts a Kerbal can move through. No connecting two pods with Girders and swapping kerbals without EVAing, which ship manifest lets you do when CLS isn't installed. Ship Manifest and CLS work well together (except this latest update, Ship Manifest broke the symbioses accidentally), with Ship Manifest disabling it's own crew moving component when CLS is installed. Ship Manifest will also let you transfer science experiments to pods without EVAing and can fine tune resource transfers by specifying the exact amounts instead of the slider stock KSP uses.
I really like my KSP mods.
Runs on a single turbojet and three radial rockets. Climbs vertically until 12km, then noses over to 20 degrees and accelerates like a bullet made out of other bullets. It's already at 1800 m/s by the time the air runs out, so it kicks in the rockets and climbs the last bit. After circularizing it has 800 m/s delta-v to play with, more than enough to snag a wayward Kerbal out of orbit and land him anywhere on the planet.
The only modded parts are the RealChute inline parachute and the radial intakes from Spaceplane Plus, but they're simple enough to swap out for stock parts.
Jeb is a fiend for snacks and speed.
Shine on you crazy Kerbal.
Nice. I'd just send the stock MK1(nose) and MK2(inline) cockpitswith one empty, but I think I like yours better.
Scott Manley performed a lithobrake in one of the early Interstellar Quest missions on Mun. I want to say it was around episode 17 or 18
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Amazingly, he didn't spill his beer. Chips were a little crumbly though.
Edit: Jesus christ, 65 hours in the last 2 weeks?! Can someone send me some help? I may have a problem.
Houston, do you copy?
Houston?
"BRB, playing KSP."
You joke, but I work in a hotel that is the primary hotel for attendees of the Saturn Science Conference. These guys are honest to god rocket scientists and engineers from around the world, and when I brought up KSP with a few of them they turned into kids in a candy store. For the most part they do what they do because they love it, and something that makes it easier to do what they do, even virtually, just makes them very happy. At least for the scientists and engineers I've talked to about KSP.
On a side note, I got to spend about 4 hours listening in on a group of 5 talking about the problems of designing and engineering different kinds of landers and robots for most of Saturn's moons and the experiments they'd want to run on them. Fascinating stuff, including a fun little jaunt through fantasy land with "wouldn't it be cool to send a go pro camera through Saturn's north pole and watch the clouds and aurora tower before the camera is engulfed" from, I believe, Andy Ingersoll
"We're whaler's on comet 67P, we're whaler's on comet 67P, but there ain't no whales so we tell ancient tales and launch harpoons; we're whaler's on comet 67P!"
Rosetta has made it into orbit! Can't wait till November when we get to see Rosetta harpoon it launch Philae at it.
Ten years to make it there, and the only problem they had waking the probe up after such a long hibernation was a mono-propellant leak and a grouchy reaction wheel.
Shogun Streams Vidya
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
--Jeb Kerbal
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
If it looks dire they'll just sit Scott Manley down at the controls and he'll bring it in for a three-point landing with 1.5 m/s delta-v remaining in the tanks.
Now the problem is I can return from the Mun, but since deadly re-entry and FAR will asplode anything that hits the atmosphere hard, they have to skim at 40 km to slowly drop the periapsis....then orbit the entire planet at like, 35km, continuously on-fire, to hopefully decelerate enough to come in for a landing.
I need a truck-cab cockpit so I can refuel them on the ground and send them back up without recovery.
It uses the S2 parts from (i believe) B9 (cockpit, 6m crew cabin, SAS, Fuel, sliding cargo bay, raised tail), the landing engines from BobCat Ind.'s HOME base part pack which runs on monopropellent (and are a little over powered, if I have to be honest), and Infernal Robotics rotatron's to rotate the engines while a hydraulic cylinder can push out the engines to prevent clipping when I rotate it the full 90 degrees backward/forward. Using a combination of action groups (2 to lower and raise rear thrust, 2 to lower and raise front thrust, 2 to rotate the engines in either direction, and 2 to push out or pull in the engines from the hull) I'm able to vertically lift off, hover, then rotate the engines while using SAS to rotate the ship to get it going forward and up with ease. The long middle portion contains a cargo bay where the doors on either side slide up to reveal the cargo, and right in front of that is a storage space using the 6S compartment to store enough resources to have a full crew of 8 survive for 488 days (1300+ with just the skeleton 2 person crew) with the TAC-LS mod and enough power to last a full day without any sunlight on the solar panels (13 days with the skeleton crew). Everything but maybe the cargo bay and 6S compartments are shielded so it might survive a re-entry using Deadly Re-entry, but I don't use that mod as I tend to enjoy to slamming things into the atmosphere as fast and steep as I can.
Up until just about an hour before I left for work this afternoon I was using 2 Vesta engines from K&W on each rotatron to provide the thrust at about a 1.9 TWR, but there was no way to get enough delta-v to get anywhere with the highest delta-v I could reasonably get topped out around 3500 (prototype 1). I switched to the HOME landing engines seen in the pictures (prototype 2), which also act as great landing legs, and I think they gave something in the 2 to 2.5 TWR range. As I said earlier, they run on monopropellent so the fuel is lighter than the LFO tanks, and produce a great amount of thrust at a lower consumption rate than the Vesta rocket engines (overpowered, but fuck it). I didn't have time to really test them before work so I just took out the LFO fuel from the hull and ran the engines on their internal monopropellent supply without adjusting engine position or thrust for balance to do a super quick "will this even work" test, which they did very well, and I believe I can now easily reach orbit with more than enough fuel to spare. In the test the ship went from on the ground to the back flipping over the front and smashing into the ground in 3 seconds flat after activating the engine stage with power maxed.
There will be more testing and prototyping and kerbal deaths tonight and tomorrow, and maybe I'll get a quick video showing it taking off and getting to orbit if it all works out.
Behold, the Duna Alpha interplanetary craft.
Poised on the launchpad
SHOOOOOMMMMM
I like ship-mounted launch cameras
In orbit
Style points
Lander for Duna's surface tucked away in the cargo hold. I'm pretty sure the parachutes and lander engine will be enough to get it to the surface - the ascent stage should also be enough to get it back up again.
Will 11k delta v be enough to visit everywhere?
Now I'm going to create mini missiles to put on all my probes.
Tweakables mod will let you take a SRB and shrink it down to the .65m size, attach that to the ship with your radial decoupler of choice and it makes some pretty decent, if uncontrolled, rockets.
Alternatively, there's a mod for that
Naturally I completely avoided any baby steps in this process and dove right in to building one of those ludicrously massive Michael Bay monstrosities from Armageddon.
Meet the Condor Heavy Lift Shuttle:
As you can see she weighs over 1100 tons on the pad. Go big or go home.
The orbiter module is all B9 HL fuselage, which is essentially a 3.75m core with the sides chopped off. I have LFO tanks running down the sides because I hate wasting space that could be storing valuable fuel. Wings are B9 and Procedural Wings for the tips. The outboard engines are tucked away beneath some Spaceplane Plus panels.
The orbiter's lifter engines are a cluster of seven of the 1.25m shuttle engines for ~3500 thrust. They default to a trim setting that points thrust towards the center of mass between the orbiter and external fuel tank. The trim can be turned off with an action group so they can provide thrust after the tank is discarded.
Primary boosters are six of the KW Rocketry Globe X-10L Thor II SRBs which run at 80% thrust so they don't waste power struggling against terminal velocity. Mechjeb is set to reduce liquid engine throttle at TV, and most of the initial liftoff the orbiter & tank engines are idling down from 50% to 5% power so I think that's pretty good.
SRB sep. Six separatrons each keep the huge boosters away from the orbiter. The SRBs all have parachutes so StageRecovery picks them up for reuse. Except the one that always seems to get taken out by its neighbor after booster sep, no matter how many separatrons I throw at it.
Closeup of the opposed engine clusters on the orbiter and tank after booster sep. The orbiter's engines aren't sufficient to lift it, plus the tank, plus the payload (two full orange tanks) after SRB separation, so there's an identical cluster of engines mounted under the external tank with trim reversed, pointing towards the orbiter. This makes for an extremely stable climb.
Gravity turn. I have to start it rather high (20km) or it gets dragged down towards the horizon too much as the center of mass shifts from the external tank emptying out. The real shuttle's engines are balanced much more professionally than this hack-job.
External tank separation. No chutes on this section because the real shuttle's tank burns up on reentry.
Lighting up the six LV-Ns for circularization, as the spent tank recedes in the background. This takes a while since the Condor weighs 215 tons with full fuel and payload. I'd like to use the Shuttle Engines with trim disabled (so they point straight ahead through the center of mass) but for some reason their gimbals are hyperactive and they start the shuttle spinning, so it goes on NERVAs alone.
In this case it can't get all the way to a 100km periapsis, but we get above the atmosphere so that's good enough for the first orbit.
Circularized at 100km, cargo bay opened. The Condor has over 2,700 delta-v left over, enough to go places. The orange tanks are connected by decouplers too, so they're not figuring into that calculation.
Payload ejected. Delta-v now nearly 4,900.
Deorbiting. This thing handles like a pig on reentry, probably because the tanks are still 80% full. Once it got low I needed RCS to keep the nose up. Probably could stand to use some canards.
I missed the window for KSC by a bunch, and was on course to land at impact the mountains to the west, so I powered up the engines and burnt off 75% of the fuel changing course to a flat-ish bit of land to the south. It was a pretty hairy descent. She's a big, angry baby.
Stuck the landing, though. 87km from KSC. Somebody send a chopper, we're out of snacks.
Obviously first I need to install the gatling gun mod in case one of them gets Space Dementia
I like the design here, but how did you fit a 1.25m lander inside the B9 Mk2 cargo bay? Every time I've tried to do that, it inevitably clips through the bottom.
I threw this together in about two hours and it boggles my mind that it was so easy. It practically flew itself into orbit on the second ever launch (the first launch determined that, no, two RAPIERs were not sufficient).* For a spaceplane with no vertical tail or yaw control beyond cockpit torque, it's absurdly stable. The massive wing lift, large number of control surfaces, and four canards tucked away under the nose mean it jumps off the runway at less than 90 m/s and goes straight into a 45-degree climb like it ain't no thang. I need to work on the ascent profile some more, because as it stands it accelerates like a bullet after the climb to altitude and I run out of intake air while still at 25 km.
I figure it'll make a good crew transport shuttle. I might be able to replace the crew cabin, docking port, and central LFO tank with a 6m cargo bay but haven't tested it yet. All those wing surfaces attached at odd angles make swapping fuselage sections a pain. The underside of this thing is just silly with intakes, struts, fuel lines, and equipment.
(I love Spaceplane Plus so much you guys)
*For comparison, the Condor shuttle took the better part of a day to build and dozens of test launches to tweak engines, separators, and ascent profile.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
might have to start though because career mode is slowly killing me. I'm trying to be fiscally responsible with stages now, but it appears strapping parachutes to my boosters is not getting them back to kerbin in one piece
No you need a mod for that. Th game despawns objects that get too far from what you are pilotting. Seriously don't worry about it, money is not too big of an issue.
Steam: Handkor