mellojoe

I'm sorry, yes. Not Orion. The Starliner.

I wish ... I WISH the Dream Chaser would be developed. Such a wonderful concept. But, it hit some major snags at crucial times, and just falls too far behind everyone else. I love the idea of being able to produce the Shuttle concept the way it should have been. For this poll, the obvious answers are SpaceX and Boeing. The Orion Starliner / CST-100 has already got a ton of backing with the SLS project. SpaceX is proven and working.

Not quite a Space Station, as I plan to fly it somewhere .... but this is my COLONY ship. Part count is becoming a problem, and my FPS are dropping as I dock these next habitats. Here's 4 docked, with room for 4 more. That would be 8 pods, 20 seats each ... 160 Kerbals. Not nearly as many as some of you guys with your massive colony units, but still loads of fun for me. I'll probably limit the number to only 10 or so (about 12 or 13 Kerbals per pod) to ensure they are comfortable. And here's what each individual pod looks like: Each pod has about 2,000 m/s delta-v with 20 seats and are created using four Mk2 crew sections surrounding a Hitchhiker can. The roof is a heatshield. The radio antenna is from the Asteroid Day pack, while the solar panels I think are Near Future Solar. The "skycrane" detaches after the pod lands and then flies away to crash somewhere in the distance.

Working on my COLONY ship: Part count is becoming a problem, and my FPS are dropping as I dock these next habitats. Here's 4 docked, with room for 4 more. That would be 8 pods, 20 seats each ... 160 Kerbals. Not nearly as many as some of you guys with your massive colony units, but still loads of fun for me. I'll probably limit the number to only 10 or so (about 12 or 13 Kerbals per pod) to ensure they are comfortable. And here's what each individual pod looks like: Each pod has about 2,000 m/s delta-v with 20 seats and are created using four Mk2 crew sections surrounding a Hitchhiker can. The roof is a heatshield. The radio antenna is from the Asteroid Day pack, while the solar panels I think are Near Future Solar. The "skycrane" detaches after the pod lands and then flies away to crash somewhere in the distance.

Working on a colony ship. Part count is rising, though, and FPS are dropping. Each of the "drop-pods" can house 20 Kerbals, and uses a combination of the thruster on the bottom plus a "sky-crane" pair of engines above to set it onto some planetary body somewhere in the galaxy. The main craft should have somewhere around 5,000 delta-V when everything is connected. The main cockpit is the 3-man pod that I scaled up to "Orion" size, and is now a 6-man capsule. Still need to launch and dock the rest of the pods. Then, send up a refueling vessel to top it off, although the thing is mostly full as it stands now.

If you look up the Dawn probe, it currently is using ION engines and has performed these types of maneuvers. This is my favorite picture from this mission, where it shows the trajectory and path of the craft: Also, the Dawn Blog is well written and updated often, and explains much of not only the science parts of the mission, but also the hardware and craft. Dawn.JPL.NASA.gov PS: My favorite fact about the Dawn probe? Its TIE Craft, similar to the TIE fighters of the Star Wars universe, except it is a TRIPLE-ION ENGINE, not just twin-engine like the Empire uses.

This is about as Kerbal as you can get, am i right?

[slightly back on topic] One of the things I love most about seperatrons, is finding ways to rotate them so that they fling parts off in pretty patterns. One of the things I love LEAST about seperatrons is how they cause damage when they point at the main craft. I keep saying I'm going to edit them to remove their thrust damage capability, but I always forget. I know, the damage is minimal, but it just uglies up the F3-event-log, especially when I'm looking for actual problems.

Inline Parachutes. Extending Docking Ports. 1.25m Jet Engine Larger "Orion / Starliner" Capsule Adapters and nosecones with fuel Inline Landing Legs Bi-, Tri-, and Quad- adapters with a central attachment node beneath and a single shroud fairing for the whole cluster. Sepratrons that don't damage the core when pushing boosters away A new nuclear engine that isn't so ugly Alternate Mk2 and Mk3 cockpit / crewpod options. [ps: several of these I've modified the stock parts to do what I want. For example, I scaled up the 3-man command pod by 1.6 to make it a 5-man version. I added fuel to a couple of the stock adapters, adding weight accordingly. etc]

It is literally 4 parts: large single-pane solar panel [lower part count since you don't need to spam the little ones anymore] large probe-core with built in 1000 electric units [just a nice looking satellite core, also helps part count by not having to stack additional batteries] fold-away antenna [just pretty, and a nice option in addition to the others] science attachment, the B-612 Foundation asteroid tracking camera I think it also has new contracts, but I haven't played with those.

It flies really well currently, even has a cargo-bay (bomb-bay?). I'd like to see if I can make it actually into space, but for now it is strictly atmospheric. Also, I hate the thickness difference in the wings. I wish there was a way to smooth it all over better ... going to keep working and see what I can come up with.

I don't use MechJeb. I DO use Kerbal Engineer. Really, I just want the Delta-V numbers during the building stage. Anything else is unnecessary. Kerbal Attachment is fantastic. I ended up using just a few parts out of the whole, and its great. I don't have it installed currently, but when I did the hoses and attchment points and add-on struts were fantastic. Asteroid Day Mod adds a nice antenna and a single larger solar panel, plus a nice probe body. Still considered "stock" in my opinion.

I want to use this in the same places I use the little Cubic Octagonal Strut. Why can't it just surface attach and still have all those pretty attachment points?

In the spirit of this challenge, here's mine. I am stock except for Kerbal Engineer at this time. Thus, I technically can't do it without two flights, or quicksave / reload just prior to payload detach. http://imgur.com/a/2Kh3D My rocket makes it to about a 175km x 165km orbit, with about 100 delta-V remaining, ending up around 4.3 tons. I suck at flying planes, but I did manage to get back near the KSC landing strip.

PS: The only way I managed a carrier plane fly-back with a stock install is if you actually run the mission twice. The first time, drop the payload, then swap back to the carrier plane. Ignore the crashing payload .... fly the carrier plane back to land. Then launch a second time, this time ignoring the crashing carrier plane as you control the payload rocket. I did this way back in 2013 on an earlier version of KSP. . . . I've started working on a new version, but i keep crashing it. LOL