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Getting all biome science from Laythe time effectively?


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The question:

 

I want to visit every biome on Laythe and retrieve all the science, including surface samples. There are a million ways of doing this, but I’m wondering which is the most time efficient one (in real time)?

In other words:  i would rather fly a heavy inefficient ship that's gets the job done in say 3 hours than sail the seas on light cheap-as-free solar energy and spend weeks getting the same results.

Do you guys have any experience with visiting every biome on Laythe? I won´t be able to use the RAPIER, but I think I have all other engines at my disposal. 

I would love to hear your ideas.

Edit: I'm trying to build something from stock parts only.

 

 

My current ideas so far

 

I´ve been thinking of the following strategies, but they all have certain pros ans cons...

·         Seaplane: cruising the biomes with a large winged plane. Afterwards I could send the data (and Kerbal) with a separate rocket to a mothership orbiting the planet.

o   Pros:  Low part count, elegant, cheapish

o   Cons: Biome hopping 10 biomes at mach 1.5 takes a lot of time

 

·         Reusable dropship: From orbit I decouple a dropship that descends towards a certain biome, performs  science and the gets back into orbit where it is refueled again. Rinse and repeat

o   Pros: low weight, low part count

o   Cons: 10 rendezvous procedures which take a lot of time

·         Biomehopping spaceplane: build a high tech spaceplane that performs sub-orbital flights to get from biome to biome

o   Pros: pretty fast.

o   Cons: Requires a high tech node (which I don’t have yet (see picture below)), fuel consumption will be pretty high. Getting out of the water could be pretty difficult

·         Miner/refiner: land an all-purpose miner, refiner that has enough delta v to get to at least 2 biomes and is able to make its own fuel.

o   Pros: time efficient (real time)

o   Cons: very heavy, high part count

·         …???

 

 

Some background info

 

I’ve been working on a career game where my goal is to unlock the entire tech tree with all reward sliders at 10%.

I’m currently visiting the Jool system and I want get all the science from Laythe.

I don’t have all the tech nodes unlocked but here is my current tech situation.

 

aJ7yjNW.png

NOTE: I also want to note there is a batch of 1500 worth of science points heading to the KSC so I will be able to unlock several new tech nodes! YAY!

I'm currently trying out some nice designs with advice @Cunjo Carl gave me. it's a sub orbital spaceplane with whiplash engine.  it's able to land and take off from land and sea... but i don't know if I'm able to visit all biomes with a fuel budget of 22km/s. the whiplash is pretty inefficient down in the souposphere and getting out of the water is tricky. 

I'll post a craftfile and a picture of the ship tomorrow. 

 

Edited by xendelaar
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I think I'm already attempted something similar with this, if I remember, it was a long time ago (KSP 1.1) where I'm on a mission to gather science from multiple biome around laythe. I'm using a spaceplane that's being flown like a normal aircraft in laythe atmosphere (there's 4 whiplash on my craft) and performed biomehopping from suborbital trajectory. My personal opinion about this method is, it's quite efficient and you can get from biome to biome very fast. Sadly, my mission ended when the spaceplane crashed on one of laythe biome and I mistakenly press save instead of load :(

Edited by ARS
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Game time or player time?  Which one you are concerned? 

For game time probably multiply vessels is better. For player time a spaceplane doing suborbital hop (maybe isro capable)  is probably better. 

In any instance remember to use biomes boundaries to your advantage. 

Also,  just checking, it's stock or there's any mod that can influence which method you'll use? 

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The last time I flew a high-tech spaceplane at Laythe to visit all the biomes, it worked great.

I think if you just get a lot of suggestions for spaceplanes, you will find a design that gets to Laythe OK, flies reasonably fast and takes off from the water very easy. You may have to refuel it to get it to Laythe, and refuel it again at Bop or Pol, before flying it to all the biomes. A whiplash engine can give you a nice suborbital hop where you can at least use 4x phswarp to cut the gametime down. Even a panther jet engine should give you mach 3 performance and decent high altitude hops.

 

 

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If you had the tech available (RAPIERs, nukes, ISRU):

 

Can cruise on the water at 100m/s or so, and with ISRU available you can take as many suborbital hops as you like.

You could do something similar in a lower-tech Mk2 form, but for that you'd want to leave the nukes and most of the LF in orbit, connecting via a nose or tail mounted shielded docking port on the spaceplane.

OJLvJUY.png

 

HIfE1jr.png

 

If you base your seaplane floats on Mk1 LF tanks, you can carry a lot of fuel for your nuke. Remember that you'll be landing with tanks half empty; it doesn't matter if you're a bit overloaded for water landings while fully gassed up.

Edited by Wanderfound
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Wow, thanks for the great repsonses!

The replies

11 hours ago, ARS said:

I think I'm already attempted something similar with this, if I remember, it was a long time ago (KSP 1.1) where I'm on a mission to gather science from multiple biome around laythe. I'm using a spaceplane that's being flown like a normal aircraft in laythe atmosphere (there's 4 whiplash on my craft) and performed biomehopping from suborbital trajectory. My personal opinion about this method is, it's quite efficient and you can get from biome to biome very fast. Sadly, my mission ended when the spaceplane crashed on one of laythe biome and I mistakenly press save instead of load :(

@ARS 4 Whiplashes.. well that sounds heavy! Did it have enough fuel to visit every biome?  How did you get that heavy thing out of the water? :D I'm leaning to this method as well. It's a shame you weren't able to finish your quest because of a F5/F9 mistake. I guess you didn't feel like redoing the mission afterwards huh.

8 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Game time or player time?  Which one you are concerned? 

For game time probably multiply vessels is better. For player time a spaceplane doing suborbital hop (maybe isro capable)  is probably better. 

In any instance remember to use biomes boundaries to your advantage. 

Also,  just checking, it's stock or there's any mod that can influence which method you'll use? 

@Spricigo I meant player time. I do not care much about game time, since most contracts last decades and I don't use life support mods. Thanks for the advice. I will try to land near a place where biome-borders come together. I'm thinking I can at least get 3 biomes that way in one hop.

8 hours ago, bewing said:

The last time I flew a high-tech spaceplane at Laythe to visit all the biomes, it worked great.

I think if you just get a lot of suggestions for spaceplanes, you will find a design that gets to Laythe OK, flies reasonably fast and takes off from the water very easy. You may have to refuel it to get it to Laythe, and refuel it again at Bop or Pol, before flying it to all the biomes. A whiplash engine can give you a nice suborbital hop where you can at least use 4x phswarp to cut the gametime down. Even a panther jet engine should give you mach 3 performance and decent high altitude hops.

 

 

@bewing Getting to Laythe won't be a problem. I will just use a tug or something and refuel when I'm orbiting Laythe. There are multiple vessels already there waiting for the spaceplane to arrive. When I try to use phswarp on a spaceplane, the plane tends to lower its nose, which the hop less effectie. Do you have any ideas how to remedy this?

6 hours ago, Wanderfound said:

If you had the tech available (RAPIERs, nukes, ISRU):

Can cruise on the water at 100m/s or so, and with ISRU available you can take as many suborbital hops as you like.

You could do something similar in a lower-tech Mk2 form, but for that you'd want to leave the nukes and most of the LF in orbit, connecting via a nose or tail mounted shielded docking port on the spaceplane.

If you base your seaplane floats on Mk1 LF tanks, you can carry a lot of fuel for your nuke. Remember that you'll be landing with tanks half empty; it doesn't matter if you're a bit overloaded for water landings while fully gassed up.

@Wanderfound Oh my, what a behemoth! That's a really impressive plane you've got there. Unfortunately I don't have the RAPIER yet, so I won't be able to reproduce this awesome craft for this mission.

 

I believe the best and most efficient way of doing it is to build a propeller seaplane. That way, you get infinite total delta-V in the air.

@Joseph Kerman I've been toying around with stock propellers in the past but from my experience, they are more buggy than the surface of Gilly hehe. Besides that, I think it would take me days to visit all biomes with a stock prop plane. :) But you're right. It is a very efficient way of flying indeed!

My current iteration

Like I said in my previous post, I've been playing around with some designs as well. This is my latest design: The Patagium (Craft file)

irtLf3t.png

I'm still not there, but here are the some characteristics of the plane:

  • delta v budget: 22km/s (1200 Liqued fuel units, 200-300 units per hop)
  • stall velocity: ~ 50m/s
  • max velocity: ~1200 m/s (still figuring out which ascend profile is best)
  • max altitude during hop on Laythe: ~ 60km
  • inline docking port for refuelling pods
  • wings are tilted 5 degrees for better angle of attack.

On Laythe it's able to fly pretty well and is able to get out of the water. I think I can at least make 3 to 4 hops before I run out of juice. That means I have to send in several refuelling pods to keep things going. I've been trying to add more fuel tanks (without adding engines), but that makes the plane less efficient.
I'm also thinking of adding (3) more engines (thanks @ARS for the idea) so I can add more stacks of fuel. Perhaps I can make them detachable so I can lose some weight during the trip.

 

Edited by xendelaar
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OK, here's an example spaceplane from me to try:

https://pastebin.com/raw/mTz3HSt6

This one has similar performance to yours, but the fuel it carries should be enough to circumnavigate Laythe and then climb all the way back to orbit. You can store lots of science in it. :)

It lands in the water reasonably well. If you figure out the trick, it's not too hard to get airborne off the water again. As it burns off its fuel load, it gets easier to land and take off again, of course.

It doesn't have any docking capability. To refuel it, you'll need a klaw -- but you should only have to refuel it once, at most.

eLRgvUJ.jpg

Edited by bewing
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@bewing Thanks for the file! I will take a look at it tomorrow. the design looks really cool. Like a racer or something. I will sure check it out. I haven't been thinking of using an SSTO for this mission before... that's a very interesting idea.

 I've been busy as well! Here's my latest Itteration

I increased the delta v budget to 66 km/s and the plane has two detachable wings and fueltanks. It doesn't fly as agile as my previous design but maybe I can tweak it a little.

Z1QJXAF.png

some stats

  • delta v budget:  66km/s (KER readouts in picture  are not correct)
  • stall velocity: ~ 50m/s
  • max velocity: ~1300 m/s (still figuring out which ascend profile is best)
  • max altitude during hop on Laythe: ~ 80km
  • 2 detachable wings and fuel tanks
  • wings are tilted 5 degrees for better angle of attack
Edited by xendelaar
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It doesn't quite SSTO on Kerbin. You would probably launch it vertically with a couple detachable Kickbacks behind the two terriers. Maybe even a couple stages of SRBs for fun. But it will definitely SSTO on Laythe -- even full of fuel.

 

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6 hours ago, bewing said:

It doesn't quite SSTO on Kerbin. You would probably launch it vertically with a couple detachable Kickbacks behind the two terriers. Maybe even a couple stages of SRBs for fun. But it will definitely SSTO on Laythe -- even full of fuel.

 

I hope you dont mind, but messed with your design a bit:

https://kerbalx.com/Spricigo/B-Wing4ps

Docking port, RCS thurster, monopropelant(maybe a bit more than necessary), some extra liquid fuel and oxidizer.

A good pilot can find a better flight profile, however low imput ascent is part of my design philosophy.

Further development may be some wing incidence or aerospikes instead of terriers. But I'm satisfied enough with the current design.

 

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32 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

I hope you dont mind, but messed with your design a bit:

Heh. That's fine. RCS is for silly people though -- it adds drag and weight and cost, and is worthless except to make docking a tiny bit easier. And mine does have 2 degrees of wing incidence.

The original tech tree display did not have the advanced canards, or the wing strakes -- they are on the other aerodynamics branch from the whiplash, AFAIK.

This plane is almost never going to be on land (except to get "peaks" biome data one time), so I don't think bigger landing gear is justified.

And I tend to find that putting science devices inside a storage bay does more harm than good for drag. (It's also much less convenient to take experiments or to get the data back out.)

Did you test yours for water takeoffs? It looks heavier than mine, and mine was just on the edge of being possible on Kerbin. Also, it looks like you moved your canards above the waterline, and during my testing that just wasn't going to work, period.

 

Edited by bewing
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1 hour ago, bewing said:

Heh. That's fine. RCS is for silly people though -- it adds drag and weight and cost, and is worthless except to make docking a tiny bit easier.

Well, I don't mind to desgin to silly people also. So RCS for convenience... and sillyness.

Didn't notice there was incidence, probably inadvertidely removed while moving parts around.

Wing strakes are in the same branch of the windsplash, and standard canards can be replace for av-r8/tail fin with little of a difference if not available.

The vertical AV-R8 was causing to much pitch torque to my likings , but the wing strakes below the wing got to close to the ground with ly-10. Maybe I should just had put the landing gear in the wing strakes but I prefer the look with bigger gears.

Yes, mine is considerable heavier, If I'm not  mystaken 850kg more dry mass and 3.350kg more fuel(including mp) than yours, the few times I tried to splash down the material bay splashed hard and got destroyed. So the used Is advised to stay dry and use the fact the plane dont require much ground to takeoff and landing. (fortunatelly, contrary to popular belief, Laythe has land)

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2 hours ago, bewing said:

And I tend to find that putting science devices inside a storage bay does more harm than good for drag. (It's also much less convenient to take experiments or to get the data back out.)

Only if they're bugging out and the game is treating them as unshielded. This bug isn't as common as it used to be, and you can test for it by looking at the aero data in flight and seeing if it's shielded. Placing things carefully inside the bay will avoid the problem altogether.

I usually set an action group to trigger all experiments, and you can carry a science pod if collecting the data is too much hassle.

 

2 hours ago, bewing said:

Did you test yours for water takeoffs? It looks heavier than mine, and mine was just on the edge of being possible on Kerbin. Also, it looks like you moved your canards above the waterline, and during my testing that just wasn't going to work, period.

 

With foils or a planing hull, water takeoffs are no more difficult than land.

But you want almost as much tail clearance as you'd need on land; small ships can get away with just the lift of hull-mounted foils, bigger things appreciate some lowered floats to mount the foils on.

Think of it like large and small landing gear. You need the ability to rotate for takeoff without dragging your tail through the water too much.

Edited by Wanderfound
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On 7-5-2017 at 9:32 PM, bewing said:

OK, here's an example spaceplane from me to try:

https://pastebin.com/raw/mTz3HSt6

This one has similar performance to yours, but the fuel it carries should be enough to circumnavigate Laythe and then climb all the way back to orbit. You can store lots of science in it. :)

It lands in the water reasonably well. If you figure out the trick, it's not too hard to get airborne off the water again. As it burns off its fuel load, it gets easier to land and take off again, of course.

It doesn't have any docking capability. To refuel it, you'll need a klaw -- but you should only have to refuel it once, at most.

 

@bewing I just took a flight with your SP4 ship and it really flies well! I do have some questions though:

I see you use the AV-R8 winglet as a cancard and rudder. Isn't that thing more draggy than the small flaps? You also don't seem to use dedicated flaps for rolling the craft? isn't that necessary to make a "proper" plane (i guess not cause I just made nice trip with it hehe)?   Aren't the science parts mounted outside the ship kind of draggy? or isn't that an issue on Laythe?

So many questions.. so much to learn :D

In any case, thanks for the help!

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4 hours ago, xendelaar said:

@bewing I just took a flight with your SP4 ship and it really flies well! I do have some questions though:

I see you use the AV-R8 winglet as a canard and rudder. Isn't that thing more draggy than the small flaps?

No, all control surfaces in the game have the same basic amount of drag and mass per area. They are all equal, AFAIK. The AV-R8 has twice the area of an Elevon1 and only costs 50% more.

Additionally, for a seaplane, decent-sized canards are vital. They lift the nose up out of the water to provide initial acceleration, and then they lift the nose completely out of the water at takeoff speed.
 

Quote

You also don't seem to use dedicated flaps for rolling the craft? isn't that necessary to make a "proper" plane (i guess not cause I just made nice trip with it hehe)?

A canard wing design is improper to begin with, so you might as well run with it. Every part that you add to a plane adds drag, mass, and cost. There are some spots on the plane where you want to add drag, but the typical places that people add flaps and other things are not the proper spots. For an SSTO you need to generally minimize drag, mass, and cost -- so it is pretty vital to throw away everything that is not absolutely necessary. Most of the time when people add flaps, they end up with way too much roll control. The canard wings give a nice amount of roll control without adding a single extra part.

Keep in mind, of course, that this is a science-collecting seajet, and not an acrobatics stunt jet. So it's not intended to be super maneuverable, or perfectly controllable. So don't go crazy with the maneuvers. :wink:

 

Quote

 Aren't the science parts mounted outside the ship kind of draggy? or isn't that an issue on Laythe?

To make a nice stable plane, you want very low drag in the front end, and plenty of drag at the back end -- straight behind the CoM. So, yes they are a little draggy back there, but the drag they provide is in exactly the right place; so even that drag is serving a purpose. Adding an extra service bay to stick them in adds mass and cost -- and then you need to add stuff at the back end of the plane again to add more drag to make the plane stable in flight. So what did you gain?

 

BTW, I disagree with cratercracker about ditching. Ditching a plane is really easy and safe if you do it right. Kill your engines. Fly down to level fight at 20m altitude. Scrub all your excess speed above landing speed. Fly down to 2m altitude, and go into level flight by pitching the nose up as much as you have to. Maybe add a tiny bit of engine thrust to keep from slowing down too fast. Then wait for the plane to gently splash onto the surface of the water. It works every single time.

 

Edited by bewing
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52 minutes ago, xendelaar said:

...your SP4 ship and it really flies well! I do have some questions though:

Clearly, I have some divergences in design philosophy from Bewing. But its a nice functional plane indeed. The only thing that really bothered me was the rudder, not because is big, but because it is too high resulting in (IMHO) excessive pitch up.

Anyways, if you find there is something you can improve try it. Its the best way to learn, just try to understand why the original designer did what he did, also try to understand why he didn't what he didn't (and asking question is a good way to do it).

An important thing: don't try to optimize a design to much, more often you will just make the flaws worse while not making any real improvement.

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There are quite a few people on these forums who build spaceplanes, and every single one of them diverges in their design philosophy. :D

So when you start asking for suggestions on spaceplanes, you're always going to get a bit of information overload as we all argue the design details. And the scarier thing is that every single person who is disagreeing with each other is right, because there is no perfect answer. :)

 

 

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On 07/05/2017 at 5:28 PM, xendelaar said:

@ARS 4 Whiplashes.. well that sounds heavy! Did it have enough fuel to visit every biome?  How did you get that heavy thing out of the water?

-have a way to carry the craft into lay the orbit (usually orbital tug) or make it multi-engine (rocket and jet)

-slightly angle the wings upward for easier getting out of water

-bring mining equipment (the smallest one, (smallest drill, tank and converter)) have a way to recharge the fuel

-I find that using jet engine in laythe atmosphere is more efficient than using rocket engine

-having a detachable parts to lighten the weight helps

Hope that helps :)

Edited by ARS
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Normally by the time you've got to Jool my entire tech tree is unlocked,  yet the OP seems to have very few airplane techs.

Normally I do laythe with a spaceplane with mining capability, which actually gives it the ability to planet hop to most of the Kerbol system.   The question is, what's the lowest tech level you can do that at,  and also the OP wants to explore the oceans, which I haven't normally bothered with.

My starting point was a mk2 fuselage with seating for 6,  and cargo bay large enough for a resource converter and science junior.  With ISRU ships, the key factor is not mining rate, but whether the ship can be trusted to mine by itself at high time warp or whether the drills shut down every night for lack of power and need to be restarted each morning (over the months it takes to refuel, that is seriously annoying).   As such it packs a serious amount of batteries to keep the operation going overnight.   RTGs are not an option at the OPs tech level, and fuel cells probably require the more efficient larger converter to be viable.

ydtEAoY.jpg

Then I put wings and panthers on , and verified it can take off from the water.    It can, thanks to the wing panels acting as hydrofoils on the bottom of the fuselage.  

u1s7k2O.jpg

Of course, the water takeoff test was done before i added NERV engines and extra fuel tanks, but it won't be taking off fully loaded for a flight back to Kerbin, for the simple reason you can't mine the sea.  With a modest fuel load and no oxidizer, takeoff from the water should be no problem.   The airplane would make a final call at one of Laythe's islands before brimming the tanks for flight to orbit.

You can make interesting shapes with these modular wings but i miss not being able to keep fuel there.    It was indeed tough finding places for more fuel that did not involve 

  1. lengthening the mk2 fuselage (drag), and major redesign.
  2. more fuel tanks at front of the nerv nacelles (makes us nose heavy when full with a significant rearward shift as fuel burns off)
  3. moving the nervs further back to make room for more fuel tanks on the centreline (makes dry CoM too far aft)

In the end,  i hit on the idea of putting liquid fuel tanks on the Terrier nacelles , which are droppable boosters to enable us to get off Kerbin (Laythe is much more forgiving spaceplane territory and it can manage a flight to orbit there liquid fuel only).   The Terriers use the oxidizer stored in the mk2 adapters of the main fuselage.   By lucky coincidence, the 1600 units of LF in the Terrier nacelles runs out at about the same time we run dry on oxidizer

Sg2jgPp.jpg

TIkcNN5.jpg

The plane makes orbit rather easily, on its first full test flight.   But again, we don't quite have enough fuel.   It could easily lift more , because the flight to orbit was easy and it accelerated convincingly the whole time, but again the question of how to modify such a tightly integrated design.   I suppose the easiest answer is put some sponsons on the wings around the CG. but at this point i've gotten fond of how it looks and don't want to ugly it too much.

aiOBvvk.jpg

Maiden flight, just about enough fuel for an encounter with Mun.     Another 300-400 m/s and we could reach Minmus and refuel.

I have managed to cram 6  mk0 liquid fuel tanks in the cargo bay, but have yet to fly this config.  Hope that's enough.

Here's the WIP craft -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/93e76xjbxmaqci0/laythe mk2c.craft?dl=0

ag 1 - toggle solar panels and radiator

ag 3 - afterburner

ag 4 - toggle trim flap (nose up by a couple degrees)

ag 5- toggle nukes

 

 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On Thu May 11 2017 at 3:33 AM, AeroGav said:

Normally by the time you've got to Jool my entire tech tree is unlocked,  yet the OP seems to have very few airplane techs.

Normally I do laythe with a spaceplane with mining capability, which actually gives it the ability to planet hop to most of the Kerbol system.   The question is, what's the lowest tech level you can do that at,  and also the OP wants to explore the oceans, which I haven't normally bothered with.

My starting point was a mk2 fuselage with seating for 6,  and cargo bay large enough for a resource converter and science junior.  With ISRU ships, the key factor is not mining rate, but whether the ship can be trusted to mine by itself at high time warp or whether the drills shut down every night for lack of power and need to be restarted each morning (over the months it takes to refuel, that is seriously annoying).   As such it packs a serious amount of batteries to keep the operation going overnight.   RTGs are not an option at the OPs tech level, and fuel cells probably require the more efficient larger converter to be viable.

ydtEAoY.jpg

Then I put wings and panthers on , and verified it can take off from the water.    It can, thanks to the wing panels acting as hydrofoils on the bottom of the fuselage.  

u1s7k2O.jpg

Of course, the water takeoff test was done before i added NERV engines and extra fuel tanks, but it won't be taking off fully loaded for a flight back to Kerbin, for the simple reason you can't mine the sea.  With a modest fuel load and no oxidizer, takeoff from the water should be no problem.   The airplane would make a final call at one of Laythe's islands before brimming the tanks for flight to orbit.

You can make interesting shapes with these modular wings but i miss not being able to keep fuel there.    It was indeed tough finding places for more fuel that did not involve 

  1. lengthening the mk2 fuselage (drag), and major redesign.
  2. more fuel tanks at front of the nerv nacelles (makes us nose heavy when full with a significant rearward shift as fuel burns off)
  3. moving the nervs further back to make room for more fuel tanks on the centreline (makes dry CoM too far aft)

In the end,  i hit on the idea of putting liquid fuel tanks on the Terrier nacelles , which are droppable boosters to enable us to get off Kerbin (Laythe is much more forgiving spaceplane territory and it can manage a flight to orbit there liquid fuel only).   The Terriers use the oxidizer stored in the mk2 adapters of the main fuselage.   By lucky coincidence, the 1600 units of LF in the Terrier nacelles runs out at about the same time we run dry on oxidizer

Sg2jgPp.jpg

TIkcNN5.jpg

The plane makes orbit rather easily, on its first full test flight.   But again, we don't quite have enough fuel.   It could easily lift more , because the flight to orbit was easy and it accelerated convincingly the whole time, but again the question of how to modify such a tightly integrated design.   I suppose the easiest answer is put some sponsons on the wings around the CG. but at this point i've gotten fond of how it looks and don't want to ugly it too much.

aiOBvvk.jpg

Maiden flight, just about enough fuel for an encounter with Mun.     Another 300-400 m/s and we could reach Minmus and refuel.

I have managed to cram 6  mk0 liquid fuel tanks in the cargo bay, but have yet to fly this config.  Hope that's enough.

Here's the WIP craft -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/93e76xjbxmaqci0/laythe mk2c.craft?dl=0

ag 1 - toggle solar panels and radiator

ag 3 - afterburner

ag 4 - toggle trim flap (nose up by a couple degrees)

ag 5- toggle nukes

 

 

very stunning design @AeroGav! your answer is also very thorough! thank you for the advice and entertaining post. I'm sure going to download this baby when i get home from my vacation. 

i like the idea of using more than two different engines. it's a Shame indeed that the modular wings don't store fuel.  they do look really beautiful on this ship though.

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