Open Source Construction Techniques for Craft Aesthetics

[NKL]

IIRC, When you are coupled with docking port, and you decouple, you have to go outside of a certain radius for the magnetizing system to reset. The purpose of this behavior is obvious. You can't decouple off your space station easily without.

 

[Sharpy]

Sooo... you were saying that landing legs are broken, right?

[Yukon0009]

9 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Sooo... you were saying that landing legs are broken, right?

Oh, wow. That's pretty ingenious, 

[Sharpy]

Edited August 8, 2016 by Sharpy

[sgt_flyer]

@Sharpy - you share interesting designs, but it would be even better if you shared the design techniques you used  (for example, a step by step album) - after all, this thread is more for showcasing construction techniques more than just sharing images of the .crafts . maybe you could write some description of why you created this design and how you balanced it  

 

Edited August 8, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[Sharpy]

Okay. So a technique I found Purely aesthetic, because the addition is "physicless", totally a ghost to other objects.

Shrouded engines. If, for whatever reason, you want to keep the engine covered in its shroud, while retaining its full functionality.

It's fairly easy.

Place your tank, or whatever element you want the engine attached to.

Attach the engine UPSIDE DOWN.

Use the Rotate tool (key 3) to rotate it 180 degrees, then move it to the position where it belongs using the Move tool (key 2).

And voila!

(unfortunately?) the shroud doesn't provide any protection, or attachment surface. It's there just for the looks.

[Majorjim!]

3 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Okay. So a technique I found Purely aesthetic, because the addition is "physicless", totally a ghost to other objects.

Shrouded engines. If, for whatever reason, you want to keep the engine covered in its shroud, while retaining its full functionality.

It's fairly easy.

Place your tank, or whatever element you want the engine attached to.

Attach the engine UPSIDE DOWN.

Use the Rotate tool (key 3) to rotate it 180 degrees, then move it to the position where it belongs using the Move tool (key 2).

And voila!

(unfortunately?) the shroud doesn't provide any protection, or attachment surface. It's there just for the looks.

NIce! This reminds me of my old technique for no engine fairings. We didn't used to have the option to remove them when placing engines.

[Dman979]

2 minutes ago, Majorjim! said:

NIce! This reminds me of my old technique for no engine fairings. We didn't used to have the option to remove them when placing engines.

Oy. I remember those days. We had to use cubic struts to flip the engine into place. Not fun.

[Rath]

so do I

[Rath]

On July 20, 2016 at 11:58 PM, Majorjim! said:

Yeah they are less than ideal. 

 Well wheels blocking will be gone soon man and the suspension issues are know so should be being looked at. It's a very promising idea indeed, keep working on it!

Wait, wheel blocking will be gone! Rejoice!

[HafCoJoe]

On ‎8‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 0:26 AM, Majorjim! said:

NIce! This reminds me of my old technique for no engine fairings. We didn't used to have the option to remove them when placing engines.

XD I actually pulled up my oldest VTOL the other day doing some deep cleaning and it had like 4 octags and various other parts that it had purely to offset parts - And don't forget the stacks of fins inside fins inside fins I had at the nose and tail lol

[Sharpy]

"Temple" - (non)-slanted towers.

No instructions because the picture is pretty self-explainatory. Just some rotating and offsetting stuff.

Each side cargo bay has a Vector and three LV-Ns inside, and the openable door serve as extra landing legs to prevent tipping sideways.

If you rotate the slanted connectors and nosecones 180 degrees, you achieve more of a Jester Hat look.

Also - the surface-attach was applied through the cargo bays; there are struts tucked right in the crook where the slanted connectors touch the main hull, otherwise the side attachments wobble precariously.

If you don't want to use cargo bays with engines on the bottom, but build down some more, the MK3 structural plates can be used as a kind of small (inaccessible/unopenable) service bay - there's some empty space between the plate and the connector, with three free attachment nodes inside. In my version LV-Ns occupy the three nodes, the slanted connector takes the middle node, the cargo bay is attached to the central node on the opposite side of the plate, and the Vector is on the cargo bay's inner node.

I'm unsure how aerodynamically symmetrical it is though; if you plan to use it as a singular nose cone technique, let me know. Nevertheless, it seems fairly non-draggy. The whole stack is node-attached, so occlusion rules should apply despite the fact the MK3 connector is nearly "floating in the air" offset a good distance from its attachment node and tilted to match the plate visually.

[Sharpy]

Did anyone notice, how Dawn fits perfectly in jr. docking port?

 

[BT Industries]

On 05/09/2016 at 2:44 AM, Sharpy said:

Did anyone notice, how Dawn fits perfectly in jr. docking port?

Damn!!!

That looks sweet...

Does the docking port still work (fingers crossed) or does the game think the dock is obstructed?

 

 

Edited September 22, 2016 by BT Industries
Spelling

[Sharpy]

4 hours ago, BT Industries said:

Dam!!!

That looks sweet...

Does the docking port still work (fingers crossed) or does the game think the dock is obstructed?

Yes, it does. The Dawn must just be moved so that the edges (not necessarily the extended middle) sit below the port surface.

In my case (pictured), the whole engine is actually below the port face - I rarely don't stick something into the docking port nowadays, so when two ports come into contact and the two things inside bump, dock can't be made. But as long as they sit flush with the face or below, it still works. And if you know for a fact the other port will be empty, you can push it outside up to port's full depth (which in some cases - e.g. the inline mk2 - is quite impressive), Just leave clearance along the edges - dawn doesn't; at best it would be a very tight fit.

downside is that I need to do zoom clipping magic to rightclick Dawn to e.g. shut it down or adjust thrust limiter. Not that in its case it's a very needed functionality. Nevertheless, leaving something sticking out of the port is something I do only rarely, sticking it out as little as I can and sinking the rest of stuff more than strictly necessary. 

Example: that very rover model sits currently docked to the Engineer's House, stuck to its "universal port":

The mood light doesn't conflict with Dawn the least bit.

Additionally, while for Jr. and standard ports, the 'occlusion zone' (rightclick reaction surface) is flush with the front face, where the docking occurs, in Sr, ports its center is withdrawn a bit from the edges.

It's not visible here (precisely for that reason) but the pictured 'Orange Tank Drone has its probe core ( RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit ) in the center of the docking port, sunken enough that it can still easily dock with a second such drone just fine, while the probe is still selectable. (rule of thumb: if you can rightclick it in VAB without zooming tricks, you can rightclick it outside VAB,)

Edit: I actually worried that Dawn wouldn't work, occluded by the port. But only because I forgot I absolutely notoriously stick unidirectional RCS thrusters into docking ports, and always sink them so much only the orange tip sticks out. They would be occluded too. (and I'm especially touchy with these as that was my first failure of sticking something into a docking port. I left the thrusters at "default depth" and sticking outside a bit, then two craft with these were unable to dock.)

 

ps. Remember to stick the docking port onto Dawn, not Dawn onto docking port. Otherwise, "Decouple Node" can have unfortunate consequences... And even if you don't pick "decouple node", the port with its upper node occupied and the part not decoupled (regardless of where it is) just won't turn its magnet on.

 

Edit2: I was totally surprised to find THIS still works!

The engine is extended over the port surface more than the target port's depth. Indeed, if I move it even a little notch farther, the ports won't dock, the top port sticking to the engine and leaving quite a bit of visible gap. But here apparently during the docking procedure the game actually clips the engine's top into the arriving port.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Sharpy

[Wjolcz]

Anyone got some nice way to fold the wings for a parasite fighter? I want to make a small Laythe exploration plane that fits in a MK3 cargo bay. I was experimenting with docking ports, but to no avail. What would be ideal is this high aspect glider-like plane to save as much fuel as possible and to have take-off/landing speeds as low as possible.

[Majorjim!]

13 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Anyone got some nice way to fold the wings for a parasite fighter? I want to make a small Laythe exploration plane that fits in a MK3 cargo bay. I was experimenting with docking ports, but to no avail. What would be ideal is this high aspect glider-like plane to save as much fuel as possible and to have take-off/landing speeds as low as possible.

How about an aircraft stowed side on in two or three parts that dock together on the surface. That way you could have a large wing span aircraft for gliding and a tiny jet engine will be more than enough or laythe. 

Edited October 8, 2016 by Majorjim!

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Majorjim! said:

How about an aircraft stowed side on in two or three parts that dock together on the surface. That way you could have a large wing span aircraft for gliding and a tiny jet engine will be more than enough or laythe. 

Yeah, I was thinking about that, but would also like to have a system in which you only click one thing and everything snaps into place. Docking on the ground can get hard sometimes. I'll post something here when I figure it out.

Edited October 8, 2016 by Veeltch

[Sharpy]

Extending wings is a very tricky business, especially if you want to fit that into MK3 cargo bay. You could use Spider-hinged wings, retract them using a KAS winch on launchpad, before launch, then fix them into place with KAS struts...

but if you're using KAS, you're likely using KIS and that means you can just attach wings stowed separately...

A stock approach is to exploit MK2 being a lifting surface, give it some extra boost with some wing segments clipped in, and never extend the profile much beyond the frame of the plane.

(that thing is almost SSTO on Kerbin, would certainly reach the orbit on Laythe.)

[fourfa]

I spent a good bit of time testing this in Laythe 'simulation':

Fits in the Mk3 bay straight up.  However the margins are razor-thin, particularly when it comes to landing on the small islands and angled dunes of Laythe. Pay close attention to your cross-range capability, and landing speeds. You may even want parachutes so you can just get close in flight, and chute down the last few hundred feet. Now I'm working more on a design like this (some orbital assembly required):

Or do you mean more of a surface-based runabout?  Sorry, I've got SSTOs on the brain

Edited October 8, 2016 by fourfa

[problemecium]

I made something similar myself recently. It uses junior docking ports to hold the wings on, which I initially tried to have in pairs to ensure proper alignment, but for some reason that caused too much drag during ascent so now I just have to be really careful assembling it :\

EDIT: Scratch that! It turns out I DID make it work with doubled ports after all and had forgotten. Here's some screenies:

http://imgur.com/a/zr5xT

Edited October 10, 2016 by parameciumkid
Where'd the Embed Imgur Album button go?

[fourfa]

Yeah the drag on the sideways docking ports is pretty large - requires everything else to be dead minimal.

[septemberWaves]

I prefer to attach a Laythe plane dorsally to a Kerbin spaceplane and launch them that way. The only issue is that it only works nicely if I have Editor Extensions Redux installed so that I can attach the spaceplane docking ports together via a surface-attached separator that's clipped out of the way to be jettisoned before launch. Then the Laythe plane falls onto the one beneath and docks properly.

I really want to be able to attach directly to shielded docking ports when they're open in the VAB, it would make things so much simpler.

[problemecium]

Well the hard part isn't getting it to orbit (in some cases it can just launch itself) but carrying it all the way to Laythe. I could of course just slap it on the side of the mothership, but why do that when I can make it unnecessarily complicated? ;P

[Fred Cop]

This isn't exactly a "building technique", but it is a useful exploit;

 

You see this pod? The Mk1 Lander Can?

 

When it comes to obstructed hatches, this command module is...   ...well, a little more forgiving;

Spoiler

 

Lets say I want to make a stock airlock. The Mk1 Command Pod doesn't like that...

 

...and the "backdoors" of the Mk1, 2 and 3 plane parts won't have any of this crazy stuff either...

 

...but the Mk1 Lander Can seems pretty chill with the idea.

 

But other than airlocks, this exploit can be used for other things! Like...

 

...a door leading into a hallway...

Spoiler

...a...   ...ummm...   ...Kerbal launcher? (I have no idea how this happened)...

Spoiler

...and an instant death trap!

Spoiler