Starship Too v3

[CrashTestDanny]

I discovered that early in the game, crew accommodations are lacking.  You have your mk-1 command pod and your mk-1 crew cabin and nothing else for quite a while unless you sacrifice some more important tech mods.  If you want to perform multiple rescues or EVA multiple kerbonauts, the crew cabin isn't the greatest thing because its doors are inline and usually obscured by things attached to its nodes.  This early-game ship allows you to take 17 crew up with an exposed egress point for each crew module.  And it looks great doing it!

The Starship Too v3 is designed to allow enterprising young Kerbals to conduct up to 16 LKO rescues and return your new slaves Kerbonauts safely to Kerba Firma!  She doesn;t require high levels of tech or lots of funds to operate, just a pilot!

If you have already unlocked the tech node that has fuel hoses (I hadn't when I designed it) you can increase the delta-V by adding a couple.  You could probably add a couple more tanks to the first stage, too, but as-is, this ship will get to LKO with 3k delta-V to spare.  You will need to burn about 1300 delta-V during re-entry as she has no heat shield, but slowing down with the engine is very effective - remember to do that high (69km-40km) as the poodle will be most effective then.  Pop the drogues as soon as their safe followed by the main chutes as soon as they are safe and the landing is a breeze (as long as it's on water or flat and level ground).

 

Download the craft file from KerbalX!

Danny.  How do you get 16 rescue contracts active at once?  Use the moar contracts modlet!

 

 

Spoiler

@Contracts
{
    @AverageAvailableContracts = 50
}

 

Edited May 6, 2016 by CrashTestDanny