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Open Source Construction Techniques for Craft Aesthetics


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You don't have to use "landing legs" as actual landing legs. The quad coupler structural piece makes for some nice "feet".

No clipping needed. This was just structural fusealages + quad coupler. It also uses radial attachment points onto more structural fusealages, and then a nosecone plus avionics to round out the look.

Back before there were launch clamps or landing legs I did the same thing with the tricoupler on the base of my first stage

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Yes, they do not require fuel lines to work :) - but you need to create two versions of the subassembly : one built from the top down, and the other from down to top, in order to make them work in both conditions : when the rest of the craft is built after the command pod is placed, and the other one for when the command pod is placed after the rest of the spacecraft.

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@blue : here's an attempt for 2.5m escape ring (with only the nozzles protruding, like on my small escape ring):

the escape ring in this form weights 1.8 tons.

I made one but haven't taken a screenie-- it used six Rocko-24-77s fed from an FL-T100 and hidden inside a large ASAS, along with some RCS. It also was attached to the command pod via a large docking port to save vertical height.

I didn't use an Octagonal strut because I keep having decoupler issues with those little bastards.

The RCS was balanced by having the arrangement of two RV105 RCS blocks with two Place-Anywhere-7 RCS ports on the "front" and "back" sides, balanced with two Roundified RCS tanks on the "left" and "right".

Edited by Blue
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I made one but haven't taken a screenie-- it used six Rocko-24-77s fed from an FL-T100 and hidden inside a large ASAS, along with some RCS. It also was attached to the command pod via a large docking port to save vertical height.

I didn't use an Octagonal strut because I keep having decoupler issues with those little bastards.

The RCS was balanced by having the arrangement of two RV105 RCS blocks with two Place-Anywhere-7 RCS ports on the "front" and "back" sides, balanced with two Roundified RCS tanks on the "left" and "right".

Would like to see this.

Today I found an awesome technique for using stack parachutes AND still having an LES. I'll post pics tomorrow.

Does it involve the ever-useful radial attachment point?

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Would like to see this.
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The first version was what I was referring to, which is shown second in that image album. It weighed 2.6t but also had significantly more fuel and RCS. It is most easily identified by the fact that it has a large ASAS to accommodate the fuel tank and RCS tanks. Notice the tiny probe controller partially embedded into the underside of the large docking port. That's how it naturally clicks in there. It's not noclipping connected to the upper one-- it normally partly clips into the port.

The second version is smaller and lighter at only 2.01t. Its fuel is much more limited but saves a great deal of weight. Both use six Rocko-24-77 engines because four was an inadequate amount of acceleration in my eye, relative to the needs for an abort system. The whole design is supposed to be all of a Deorbiter, Orbital manoeuvre, or an Abort system. (Guess I'll call it the DOA ring, nicknamed the "Dead Or Alive" ring)

Notice the struts that mount the fuel tanks and engines-- the root strut which is mounted bi-symmetrical to the side of the probe body. The branch strut on which the engines and fuel tanks is attached to the root at exactly the lateral middle of the strut and its connection is inverted to the normal. This was done by connecting the branch strut to the root with the root mounted on the node of the probe, so that the branch would be snapped to the lateral middle. Then once the branch was properly connected to the root, I moved the root to the side of the probe with symmetry on and rotated it.

Neither can be recovered, for they do not have parachutes or enough fuel to land themselves (beyond descending from 500m) and neither have power generation systems. They only run off of their batteries.

Now I guess our next ambition is to either build one of these for a 7-man pod (3-Command Pod+Hitchhiker Container), or build a SpaceX Dragon-style propulsive lander system, complete with retractable gear, that still fits into a Decoupler. Or better yet, a Stack Separator.

Edited by Blue
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So, before I reveal the technique, I wanna explain some about parachutes and how they are modeled in KSP.

There are actually 4 different meshes there. The base, cap, chutepartial, and chutedeploy. The cap is the nose cone part, the base is what you see after it has been used, the chutepartial is partially inflated (which is often a rescaled version of the chutedeploy mesh to save memory), and the chutedeploy which is a fully inflated chute. ONLY the base mesh has a collision mesh. Now to reveal. Look through these:

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Basically, what you do is take a command pod, add an octagonal strut. Then attach a parachute to the bottom node (with part clipping). snap your LES, whether made of stock parts, or otherwise (I used a KSPX escape tower), onto the top node of the strut, which is hidden by the chute. I also mounted mine on a decoupler. Now, you can proceed to launch and when things go bad, hit abort. You can ditch the used LES before or after chute deployment as the chute itself will ignore the tower, thus making the decoupler optional for smoother appearances (I can add pics of this too).

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The first version was what I was referring to, which is shown second in that image album. It weighed 2.6t but also had significantly more fuel and RCS. It is most easily identified by the fact that it has a large ASAS to accommodate the fuel tank and RCS tanks. Notice the tiny probe controller partially embedded into the underside of the large docking port. That's how it naturally clicks in there. It's not noclipping connected to the upper one-- it normally partly clips into the port.

The second version is smaller and lighter at only 2.01t. Its fuel is much more limited but saves a great deal of weight. Both use six Rocko-24-77 engines because four was an inadequate amount of acceleration in my eye, relative to the needs for an abort system. The whole design is supposed to be all of a Deorbiter, Orbital manoeuvre, or an Abort system. (Guess I'll call it the DOA ring, nicknamed the "Dead Or Alive" ring)

Notice the struts that mount the fuel tanks and engines-- the root strut which is mounted bi-symmetrical to the side of the probe body. The branch strut on which the engines and fuel tanks is attached to the root at exactly the lateral middle of the strut and its connection is inverted to the normal. This was done by connecting the branch strut to the root with the root mounted on the node of the probe, so that the branch would be snapped to the lateral middle. Then once the branch was properly connected to the root, I moved the root to the side of the probe with symmetry on and rotated it.

Neither can be recovered, for they do not have parachutes or enough fuel to land themselves (beyond descending from 500m) and neither have power generation systems. They only run off of their batteries.

Now I guess our next ambition is to either build one of these for a 7-man pod (3-Command Pod+Hitchhiker Container), or build a SpaceX Dragon-style propulsive lander system, complete with retractable gear, that still fits into a Decoupler. Or better yet, a Stack Separator.

Awesome.

I'd love to try my hand at a Dragon-style lander with hidden landing gear. For some reason, hidden landing gear is like my KSP holy grail right now.

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Basically, what you do is take a command pod, add an octagonal strut. Then attach a parachute to the bottom node (with part clipping). snap your LES, whether made of stock parts, or otherwise (I used a KSPX escape tower), onto the top node of the strut, which is hidden by the chute. I also mounted mine on a decoupler. Now, you can proceed to launch and when things go bad, hit abort. You can ditch the used LES before or after chute deployment as the chute itself will ignore the tower, thus making the decoupler optional for smoother appearances (I can add pics of this too).

That abort tower doesn't look stock. Still, quite neat. I can't wait to try this out, and maybe make it also capable of hiding a docking port.

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of course it's possible to do LES which covers both a docking port and a parachute :)

1 way to do it is to attach the parachute upside down, on the top attach point of the command pod, then, just add a docking port radially on top of the command pod. you can then use the lower attachment point of the docking port to put a decoupler and a launch escape tower (for easier mode snapping your decoupler on the lower attachment point, simply connect an I-Beam on the upper one) - just don't forget to strut the escape tower to the command pod, as docking ports are kinda wobbly :P

here's one of the stock launch escape tower i did, by 'sinking' the parachute inside the command pod (basically, a cubic strut connected 'inside' the command pod top attachment point, and a drogue turned in the good way attached onto the lower point of the cubic strut. (note, all my escape tower use more or less the same system i used here : there's 12 separatrons at the bottom of the escape tower (clipped 3 by 3 with x4 symmetry inside each other - only for the looks :P), x2 symmetry separatrons at the top of the escape tower, and 2 other separatrons at the top, this time with a slight offcenter (one of the two is a bit more to the exterior than the other one, but they have the same angle) - this slight assymmetry of thrust allows me to curve the escape tower trajectory away from the rocket in case of abort - also, now that we have pod torque systems, i usually add the 'disable' line of the pod inside the abort action group - this way, the SAS cannot correct the command pod's angle anymore after abort - regardless of the SAS state, if it's turned on or note.

the partial clipping of the escape tower's base on the docking port will forcefully eject it when it's decoupled after abort. during normal ascent, i usually only use the top separatrons when i decouple the escape tower from command pod when it's no longer useful to make it go away from the rocket without risking damaging it.

here's the escape tower's album :

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here's the .craft file with the test system if you wish to take it apart : http://www./download/90p67g4otta9oqm/escape_tower_test.craft

(this escape tower use more or less 43 parts - including the struts) - the test system is 52 parts.

the abort sequence is set up inside this test system, the staging only shows the 'normal' escape tower separation from an ascending rocket. (press 0 to decouple the escape tower after abort, and 9 to deploy the parachutes - because it's too long to mash spacebar through all the stages when aborting on the pad, when your complex rocket starts crumbling under it's weight :P)

note : i used Z-200 batteries to build the escape tower's mast, because they are taller and lighter than the TR-2V's or TR-2C's i used before the Z-200 batteries became avaible :P - but you can still use the TR-2C blue and white decouplers to build your escape tower for the look it gives :)

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Hi all,

I'm not sure if this has been seen before but here goes.

You can attach docking ports directly to a parachute. like this:

A8C6CE3EA198DF2AFC46C81B8F602FC8A860D435

B071C985D523E74A5CE2C1E501A634BC807ECFCF

C40A0EB91B99CB0222A9D196F3E4F7A4F1411933

49FAE3CB9FADC080D396BA82A4187973F7C27AC0

It can be quite tricky to align the docking port correctly, but do it a few times and its easy.

MJ

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I was trying to find a way to mount LV909s to a 2.5m tank symmetrically, while having a decoupler still attached, without using fuel lines. This is because any fuel lines that one would attach to the engines become fuel lines from the tank into the decoupler, rather than from the tank to parts 'inside' the decoupler. While this doesn't always happen, it was a repeating occurrence in my testing, so I had to find a way around it.

Remember, the engines can't be mounted directly at node-height, because the end of the thrust bells of an engine must protrude farther than the bounding box of a decoupler in order to function.

So, the solution was to use docking ports.

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They change the height of the engine satisfactorily, can be mounted symmetrically anywhere, and do automatic fuel crossfeeding, meaning there's no need for fuel lines. It weighs more than using struts, but I think it's a great trade.

Also, no fear of accidentally disconnecting your engines, since they're inside the physics mesh of the decoupler.

Edited by Blue
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Interesting parachutes, but I prefer radial chutes for simplicity :).

Here, my solution for having lighter and more streamlined radial parachutes:

CompactParashutes.png

ShutesGood.png

This design require using "part clipping" from debug menu, You can acess it by pressing [ALT]+[F12].

We attaching strut cubes in symmetry and then flip the cubes (by rotating it) so they end on inner side of attached surface (strut cubes also allow putting attachment nodes on any surface You like), leaving only free node to use... in this case we use second node on strut cube, deeper inside pod.

After rotating MK1 parachutes on side 90* (+/- face the node on pod surface, otherwise node will not attach) we must push them inside to attach to deeper node on cube, so only small part of the cone will be visible.

ShutesSlim.gif

Also please mind that You CAN'T move or delete the strut cube when already put inside part wall.

Edited by karolus10
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I was trying to find a way to mount LV909s to a 2.5m tank symmetrically,

...

So, the solution was to use docking ports.

I can replicate what you've made, but the decoupler doesn't just decouple the tank below the LV909s, it decouples the LV909s too, so I think something's missing from the description?

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