doggonemess

I've done that.

How have I never seen this mod before?! Downloading!

I'm totally going to do this!

I made a little rocket that puts a Kerbal in orbit with 3.665t and costs 5,260 moneys. I'm betting it could be optimized more and get even lighter. Jeb doesn't look really happy about it, though. I can't find the screenshot for him in orbit. I'm going to redo the mission and get that now.

I may give this a try - it's a very cool idea. Getting the parts to act as a driveshaft might be troublesome, but it would be awesome if it works.

I am intrigued! Birds figured this out millions of years ago, I bet we can do it.

Did someone say "lawn dart"? https://kerbalx.com/LevAerospace/DART-1 I know this doesn't qualify. Just wanted to share.

I instantly thought it would be cool to do a snake. After a few hours of flailing around pointlessly, I gave up and made a sort of inchworm-inspired craft. This would fall outside of the standard "walker" class, but I wanted to show it off anyway. https://kerbalx.com/LevAerospace/Slither-3_1 It made the runway "run" in a blistering 7:33!

Maybe I can adapt the XAF-163S Thunder Chicken. Actually, probably not, since control surfaces seem to behave oddly on hinges.

This is the one time it sucks to live in New Zealand!

I'm interested in this, but I have a question. What is the problem with electrical storage at the start? Since there's no electric powered engines for atmospheric flight, I don't see what the issue is. I must be missing something.

I actually built a plane that meets these requirements a while back for some reason. It was modded, so I redesigned it with stock parts. https://kerbalx.com/LevAerospace/XRA-69S It flies better with SAS turned off - I don't think the game knows what to do with it. It actually handles pretty well, but doesn't like to pull up for some reason. It can go supersonic - just don't try to turn at speed. It also has really, really bad stall characteristics. You need several thousand meters to recover from a spin. Here's my incredibly "witty" description: Here at Lev Aerospace, we’re always pushing the boundaries of aviation technology. While examining one of our planes, an engineer remarked that maybe we had been building them all wrong this whole time. The XRA-69 is the realization of that idea. This S variant uses only officially sanctioned KSP parts. Not that it makes it any safer than the other version. The whole aircraft is backwards, upside down, and inside out. We’re breaking every paradigm with this one, and thinking so far outside of the box that the box is a dot to us! I posted a ship for that, too. It actually flies pretty well, but the controls are tricky.

Nice! Great job.

Awesome! They're open in perpetuity, so anyone is welcome to try their hand at them.

I had no idea this mod existed! Thanks very much for the heads-up. I would love to see this functionality in the stock game, but I am definitely going to add this to my mod list.

I definitely want to see some kind of part articulation. Hinges, pistons, and turning parts would allow for a whole slew of designs that aren't possible in the stock game. I haven't messed with Infernal Robotics in a while, maybe I'll take a look at it again. If no specialized parts for articulation, then allow attachment to the parts that move and have them move appropriately. For instance, attaching instruments to the underside of a cargo bay door; or attachment of parts to control surfaces. If that could be done, you wouldn't even need to make a new "hinge" part. I understand there is some physics issue with having a section of the craft that moves separately, though I'm not clear on why.

Delighted by the prospect of government military spending and unlimited cost overrun, Lev Aerospace is proud to present our entry to the burgeoning Kerbal Space Navy. For your consideration, the Kerman-Class Korvette, KV-1002. (Don't ask what happened to KV-1000 and KV-1001. It wasn't pretty.) The KV-1002 features an armored crew section with an escape pod, fuel-cell augmented reactor power plant, VTOL capabilities, Close-In-Defense Cannons (CIDC), two hull-mounted mass drivers, and six guided anti-ship torpedoes. It carries enough fuel to reach LKO or out past the orbit of Duna (but not both, you'll need a refueling station, which we're happy to throw in at lots of extra fees). Excessive maneuvering thrusters mean that it can turn 180 degrees on any axis in less than five seconds. Four Vector engines provide enough acceleration to launch the ship from the ground straight up or out of the way of incoming weapons in space. Crew quarters can accommodate two pilots and a complete engineering team or up to sixteen Marines. Ventral view - orange fairing contains the escape pod. Note the armor plating around crew module and drive section. The four VTOL engines are also visible. Reactor bay - also contains fuel converter for refueling from raw ore. Anti-ship torpedoes - side mounted launchers open to release weapons, close to keep in the explosive goodness. Escape pod - can be launched in a moments notice, in case of catastrophic failure (or stupidity). Escape pod - crew safely blasts away from the dying ship (well, three of them anyway; sorry Marines - you always get the short stick).

In case anyone is still collecting data on this, here's my computer info and results. Not great. FPS on the Launchpad: 20 fps FPS at 10-15km: 11 fps FPS at 70-100km: 23 fps looking at Kerbin, 30 fps looking at space FPS in 70-100km (after load): 23 fps looking at Kerbin, 30 fps looking at space CPU: Intel Xeon CPU E5-1620 v2 @ 3.7 GHz, 8 cores GPU: NVIDIA Quadro K2200 4096 MB GDDR5 RAM: 32 GB DDR3 1333 MHz DIMM Storage: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB OS: Windows 10 Home 64-bits In case anyone is wondering, my screen resolution is 1920 x 1080. Screen resolution doesn't really seem to affect the game performance for me, low or high, it's about the same.

Oh wait, it's free?

For our one participant, I'm happy to present the badge for the Asparagus Staging Challenge!

New challenge! ASPARAGUS TO THE MUN What could possibly go wrong? (Image from the KSP wiki) Your challenge is to send an Apollo-style mission to the Mun using asparagus staging! Primary objective: Land on the Mun and return safely! Optional objective: Make the trip without using a landing module, i.e., the entire craft lands on the Mun and returns to Kerbin. For those of you who are not familiar with asparagus staging, it is the process of carrying many smaller liquid fuel boosters that all feed fuel inwards via fuel lines and then dropping them in pairs as the outermost tank runs dry. The name comes from the appearance of such rockets, like a bundle of asparagus. Each booster has its own small engine, optimized for the ISP in which it will be used. For most rockets, this means that most of the booster engines will be efficient in the atmosphere, while the main engine will be optimized for vacuum. All the boosters are ignited at launch (and the main engine, unless it's a vacuum engine). (Image from the KSP wiki) The idea is that you can carry an enormous amount of fuel and a high thrust-to-weight ratio but efficiently drop the empty tanks and unneeded engines as you go, thereby keeping the TWR high while at the same time carrying only the required amount of weight to make it happen. This method was proposed (but not implemented) on the Falcon Heavy, but with only two boosters feeding fuel into the main tank. Of course, when we do it, we have to Kerbal the heck out of it. While asparagus staging used to be more effective, due to the aerodynamics model in KSP, recent updates have made it much less so. To get the most out of this technique, speed should be kept subsonic until you reach the thinner parts of the atmosphere, beyond 15,000 meters or so. Once the air thins out, you can throttle up to 100% and continue into orbit. See the KSP article here for more info: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Asparagus_staging The most important thing to remember is to check your staging carefully. You need to drop the boosters starting from the outside and working in. It's also wise to use Sepratrons to get the tanks clear after staging, as there isn't much room with this design. Happy explosions!

The challenge is now closed! Great work for those who tried it, I'll have the badges up soon. And, sorry to have missed the question about altitude - it doesn't really matter, the main thing was getting the craft to a starting point that worked well and could be replicated. Standard badge: True Belter badge:

I salute you, sir. I have been looking for a way to do this for years. Only just now have I discovered Module Manager and figured someone would want the flags off by default.

500 Kerbals?! Good god, man. That's insanity! I've gotta try this.

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