Mastodon

Anyone have the link of the scott manley base vid? I couldnt find it.

firespitter has both the electric propeller posted above and an electric helicopter rotor. haven't used the helicopter one but I have used the propeller. god it makes an awful sound. very useful though.

if you can add oxidizer and a rocket engine (looks to me like a aerospike or 909 would be more than enough) without sacrificing performance that would be all you need. the torque from your cockpit should be enough to orient the craft in space without RCS.

Love it. I have plans for an interplanetary ship to use on a grand tour like expedition around the solar system but I want to do it in a ship like that. They look so much better than the other "ships" that just look like space stations with engines slapped on one end.

Best part about these engines is their length. Makes them look a lot better when they are radially attached.

I don't have access to my game at the moment so I don't know the name off the top of my head but the two seater cockpit where the pilots sit one in front of the other always lags the game for me. None of the other cockpits or parts do tho. Anyone else have this problem or know how I can fix it?

how I did it:

I will miss the Space Shuttle itself. but the program, no. it is time to move on. I think we are on the brink of a golden age of spaceflight that will make the Space Race look like small potatoes. especially if China makes bigger leaps and bounds and other countries start to get in it.

what M5000 said. below I have posted my SSTO, a small and basic design. of its 7 fuel tanks, only two of them are jet fuel only. the other 5 are the fuel and oxidizer rocket tanks. and those two tanks not only get me most of the way to orbit before I need to rely on the aerospike only, but they usually have enough fuel left over to fly back to KSC if I have over-or-undershot it by a few kilometers.

question: is there just the one new air intake, or am I missing any?

thanks guys, I will definitely check out firespitter. and awesome vids!

Hooligan, as a huge airship nerd, I love your mod. I have played around with it for a while but put it aside to do my large Mun expedition. however, as soon as I am done with that I am planning on doing an airship expedition (haven't decided where yet) and I was wondering if you could point me to some mods that complement your airship mod, specifically in terms of propulsion (I already have the airship anchor). it seems that what the game gives you is inadequate (jets only work for Kerbin and Laythe, rockets are too heavy and fuel inefficient, ion engines too weak). I have seen some mods for propellors but I don't know what I should go with. btw, I am going for a big airship. probably carrying at least two rovers and maybe some other stuff, like a prefab base.

only time I have used them is for my SSTO, as you can see below (center engine). but I honestly only used it because of its compact size and because that seemed to be what everyone else used. never tried any other rocket. maybe I should do some testing some day...

just as an Easter Egg for us loyal gamers. but there probably is a way to edit the game so that when you select launch from the VAB or SPH it would put you at KSC2 or the island runway. I have no idea though, that is not my forte.

some great pics and stories here guys. thanks for making me feel better.

I am preparing to do a big write up on an ambitious expedition of mine and I would like to use the names already given on this forum to various features on the Mun. unfortunately, the links on the first page no longer work for me. does anyone have a map with place names labeled they could give to me?

seems like the rover was put together better than the skycrane detail view behind view, getting some air off a jump

as others have said, go to the main menu, go to settings, and remap your controls. I went a different direction and made J and L my turn left and turn right and then made left shift and left ctrl my forwards and backwards. I like the fact that it forces me to use both hands on the keyboard at times as I too often get distracted panning the camera around with my mouse and end up wrecking. so this forces me to concentrate.

thanks for all the help guys. superm18, that's actually what I went and did a little bit after I made my last post (I said I had to take a break because of my frustration but who am I kidding, I can't put this game down). I put that small fuel can under the jumbo one and strutted it down with something like 6 struts. probably overkill, but after all those failures, I wasn't taking any chances. but anyway, success! thanks again guys.

I don't have any pics, but one day I decided to play around with planes that had solid rocket boosters attached (or, in the case of my fastest plane, as part of the aircraft). I hit about 300 m/s at an altitude around roughly 500-800 meters up. I got the mach effects and everything. plane was pretty stable too. I was able to turn around and fly back to KSC with the turbojet engine I had on it. and then crashed on the runway. those SRBs are heavy.

perhaps. I will have to come back to it later. I am trying to put a rover on the Mun with a skycrane and I have had about 10 failed launches in a row. Last time I almost made it but the mainsail overheated and exploded while in map view. I don't know if my rocket would have enough oomph if I throttled back for those last few seconds before I circularize. But I am too frustrated right now so it will have to wait lol.

now, I know that the main culprit seems to be when you put a mainsail directly on an orange tank, and that if you put a smaller tank in between, it will stop the mainsail from overheating prematurely. the problem is that when I do this, the connection between the orange tank, smaller grey tank and mainsail is pretty weak and that whole thing either wobbles to the point of throwing my rocket of course and shakes itself apart. any other work arounds? can I edit the file to stop the mainsail from overheating?

I don't know. before the forums went down, I submitted my SSTO and so did a few others and he never updated the thread for about a week or so. then the forums went down.

Sorry if there is a thread like this, but I don't remember one from before the server crash and I would like to help get the forum going again with some conversation, specifically funny stories and pictures of our fails. Sometimes it is nice to see that even seasoned veterans that can pull off amazing missions and creations can have bonehead moments. Makes the newbies feel better, like myself. I will start with the story of my first Mun landing. In the "Post a Pic thread" I mentioned my first Mun landing and posted a pic, seen here: What I did not mention is what a cluster of fail it was and that it took two retries. First, I got frustrated after my three man lander repeatedly crashed into the Mun. So I decided to step back to a one man lander and slapped one together. I did so without testing it. This will be important later. I also thought I would get fancy and set it up with asparagus staged drop tanks and then later drop the outside engines and fly home on the central core. "But Mastodon", you might say, "there is no engine on the central core". Yeah, that was one of the fails, and why it is important you should test things first. So as I drop down towards the Mun everything is going well until the last few dozen meters. First I realize that I can't eject my now empty drop tanks because derp, I need the landing legs attached to them. I have also picked up a little lateral drift but got scared that I was too close to the surface and did not want to try and correct for it and smash into the Mun. so I am about to touch down, my lander is drifting, I am equally excited that I am this close to success, panicked that I am this close to failure and my heart is pounding in my chest. I thump down at a little under 11 m/s and OH GOD WHY IS THERE STUFF EXPLODING OH GOD I AM TIPPING. Fortunately for me the only thing exploding was the central engine that unfortunately stuck out below the landing gear because someone didn't bother to test the lander. Also, the lander tipped up on its two legs before settling back down gently. So Malton Kerman (my brave pioneer) climbs down, steps on the surface, explores a bit, poses for pictures and gets back into the lander for takeoff. He lifts off, ditches the drop tanks, tips over to begin his gravity turn, and is almost to a comfortable apoapsis and DEAR GOD HOW ARE WE OUT OF FUEL. Well, we aren't out of fuel. In the excitement of my first Mun landing I forgot to drain the fuel out of the central core (which no longer has an engine on it) into the outer tanks with engines intact. But I don’t panic. I mean, I landed on the Mun. I can handle this. So while my lander is gently floating towards apo I begin to transfer fuel to the outer engines one at a time. While still throttled up. So my lander proceeds to do loop-da-loops over the surface of the Mun as the other engine is still fuel starved. So I reload. Back to my descent and everything is going the same as before. I have some lateral drift, choose to ignore it, my lander touches down, center engine explodes, my lander tips…and falls over. Dammit. But that’s ok. I have seen plenty of people right themselves after tipping on their side. So I retract the landing gear and then extend them just as the lander is almost upright and voila. Upright lander. I skip the whole small step thing as I already did it and begin transferring fuel. Before I take off this time. Guess I have to learn things the hard way. So I get up to my apo, circularize, ditch the drop tanks, set up a direct Kerbin reentry from Mun orbit (because I like to come pounding through atmo at 3,000 m/s like a boss), ditch the engines, ditch the central core and then pop my para….OH DEAR GOD WHERE IS THE PARUACHUTE! Apparently, when I pulled what I thought was a slick maneuver righting my lander I knocked the parachute off. Which I am just noticing at Mach whatever. Malton did not go home that day. So I reload again and everything goes exactly the same as landing number 2, including my lander tipping over. But this time I am prepared and I am paying attention to the parachute, ready to rotate the lander (if I can) so I don’t knock it off. So I do the whole “retract and extend lander legs†procedure and…nothing. Try it again. Still doesn’t right itself. So there I am, my stupid lander jitter bugging across the surface of the Mun as I try about 7 or 8 more times. Finally it rights itself and the parachute miraculously stayed on. So I go through the whole process of fuel transfer, getting into orbit, getting into Kerbin reentry and…holy hell we actually made it. Yay! Tl:dr, details matter. Can anyone top that stupidity?

wings are also very easy to clip without having the debug enabled. in fact, its hard not to.