Conarr

It's got to be a girly name. Ships are female. I'm sure it's an official rule written down somewhere.

Yes, It is built upside down and the lift vehicle for it goes under. I've just removed it for clarity in the pics. Plus the struts to hold it all together with the lifter is quite ugly.

Dude, I'd settle for a RALT that started screaming at me to slow the F down when i got close to the ground. I'd let Ivan kiss you for an actual scale!

So if I'm at my fuel station around Kerbin and I'm heading to Duna, the optimum orbit is 8701 according to your chart. So would my interplanetary ship have to sweep down to Kerbin 75km orbit and back out to take advantage of the Oberth effect or just burn straight away from the fuel depot?

Bah! Who needs more Kerbals? We need Kethane!!

@LongHairedHuman ... bwahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

My closest disaster just happened. without the Kethane lander they're all gonna be stuck until rescue comes. As it is, they missed a long wait by 14m/s.

that is so creative. major kudos to you

dude, I did the same thing on my drop tanks Mk 1. That is the reason there are now Mk 2

I'm not the best docker guy in the world, but I can get it done within a few minutes. I actually designed this off others I'd seen on the forums. I don't use RCS all that much anymore, actually only for my utility tug which goes and fetches the drop tanks then docks them to the station. I've just gotten so used to seeing them there, I didn't think of removing them. The crew lander bolts on to the single docking port between the three tanks and has a command module - so I was utilizing that extra torque. Good comment though, I should have thought to add that in my original description. You're absolutely right. I did stress test it. The drop tanks that snap on to the side dock ports are empty for interplanetary runs and weigh in at about 9 tons. The side docks don't even wiggle under full throttle. I originally had about 6 struts lashed all over, but backed it down after testing to reduce part count on the final ship (~420ish) Oh, sorry man, I didn't explain it well. I have a launcher that will push that junk into LKO. I'm looking to get the kN's up for running out to Duna or some other planets. I'll try out your other suggestions, but what you're saying here is what I was afraid of. I'm trying to squeeze every last ounce of performance and efficiency I can out of the ship, but I may be asking too much.

The RCS tanks are for extended operations on orbit around various planets. Think it's overkill?

I was wondering if some of you smart people could help me with my Interplanetary Drive Core. Here are some pics: and I have more if you need. Here is the craft file. The one requires mechjeb and KSPX mods. Here is the stock version I'm looking to make it more powerful without giving up too much in the way of efficiency or adding a bunch of weight. If I could get it to around 9k delta V, 1000 kN and no more than 180 tons, that would be perfect. I could actually give up quite a bit of delta V come to think of it since I use the Kethane mod and carry a Kethane drop tank attached to one of the docking ports. ps, I am adding a couple RCS blocks to it now to make it a bit easier to handle on orbit and solar panels so it won't die of electrical asphyxiation.

No, I get you. I've seen what you're talking about as well, I just move passed the part causing the symmetry to change and then manually adjust the symmetry back to what I want just before I place the new part on. The only fix I've found for the SPH-like symmetry in the VAB is to exit the VAB.

I'd love to know this so I can better plan the rest of my interplanetary ship, but I'm not smart enough in C++ / C# or whatever the programming language is here to find out. I'd also LOVE to know the shear strength on the Sr. Docking ports. I have this ship and I want an idea what it can take before the a ship docked on one the the ports pops off.

okay. most times I can just exit out of the VAB, or in the worst case bounce the game, and it clears up. I was wondering if it was prevelent and if anyone knew what mod may cause it - if not endemic to the game itself.

Has anyone else experienced symmetry issues in the VAB? I use 4x symmetry and it tries to put the struts in a vertical circle on the front of the tank instead of around the tank's horizontal circumference. It almost seems like it's SPH style symmetry in a way. I'm mostly wondering if anyone else has seen a mod or something that may cause this type issue

To what extent do the space tape struts add to the part count woes of a vehicle? In other words, does a strut running between two tanks take as much processing as the tanks themselves from a CPU or graphics processor utilization standpoint? Upshot, should we try to keep strut count to a minimum as well as part count, and should strut count be a greater or lesser concern than part count?

That should totally have been the rule from the very beginning. Don't let Jeb do ANYTHING except fly ... maybe.

Zathras understand... No. Zathras not understand, but Zathras do. Zathras good at doings, not understandings.

I use this one

Doh! I sit corrected. Sorry guys.

Amen my friend! And I seem to be a magnet for every kind of unfortunate event that can befall a spacecraft in the game anyway, so no thanks on making random crap attack me on purpose.

You know, looking at it again, all I think you'd need to do it poke a small strut right at the center of mass, attach a decoupler to that and build lifter with wings for stabilizers to offset the ramp's aerodrag. You only need to worry about that for a little bit, so you can punch the wings off with one of the earlier stages I'd think. Oh, and piles of space tape obviously

Hey sweet find! I wish I was in a position to drop bombs like this casually in an off hand twitter.

I've found that on smaller vessels putting the RCS blocks at the center of mass makes it pretty responsive, but on larger vessels the farther from the center of mass the better.