Whackjob

Sometimes if ya wanna build big, you gotta build small.

I didn't play today, but I remenisced on old, old designs, made well before I had any idea what it was I was doing. I did have the occasional early success, though.

I never did a grand tour, much less an SSTE. One day, I'll get around to doing one, I hope. Except it won't be single stage nothing. A tower lander, for every surface! Spent stages and trash everywhere! It could be fun. Very well done, Kergarin. That's a brag-worthy feat of engineering.

This. It wasn't my biggest lander (by far), the fastest, or the most efficient, but it's my favorite screenshot out of all the ones I took from any game or any flight here. That's the original Arkingthaad tower lander, on Duna, refuling via the Kethane mod.

I'm partway there already.

I feel the need... the need fer... schpeed.

The trusses are part of the truss cage reinforcement system I pioneered. It lets you launch really large and asymmetrical things without giant chunks calving off.

I'll have to go to old archival screenshots.

I notice I failed to actually answer the question. I first got it when I watched the Scott Manley videos. I kid you not, that's what got my career really going. Once I learned how to orbit and rendezvous, that was that!

Welcome aboard! You are good enough with English. You have no reason to worry!

If I'm making a tower lander, it's some version of Arkingthaad. If it's a round flat plate with fifty to a hundred engines or higher, it's an AEIA (An Exercise in Absurdity) MkWhatever. If it's a big rover, it's a Whackamo. If it's something else, it's a Brick.

Okay, this thread is Whackjob bait like no other. I'll contribute. ... when the smartest place to put the crew can is on the *bottom* of the rocket. ... when the rover you want to launch requires unique embarking procedures. ... when you build tall enough to smell the grass burn while the air at your head is as thin as your hair.

Welcome aboard! There's two schools of thought in KSP engineering. The smart folks choose, "What's effective and practical?" I am not a smart man.

Engineering exercise. It never left Kerbin, but with it, I learned how to move about large masses on wheels in a stable manner.

Well, I *did* have a rover like that once. [

Yes! That's one of my favorite design innovations. Putting the crew container on the cheeks end of the rocket. Why climb all the way from the top? Just gotta put the actual engines safely out to the side.

The outside columns are actually combination lander legs and thruster cores. In landers past, while I'd have reinforcement thick like I usually like, there would still be just one main reinforced "spar" going out to the leg. I've gone multiple in that regard. I'm exploiting engineering's greatest secret: Triangles.

I'm dabbling with lander legs that can handle several times the weight I normally work with.

God, I can't remember. Did I test things after this update? I honestly don't remember. The past months have been such a blur! I still owe you guys a new thing that's very big with lots of pictures of it flying and/or kerploding. Maybe this update will make bigger stuff possible.

It uses a truss cage. Long story short, when I started building real big, I learned the best way to keep huge things together was not to go from, say, tank-strut-tank, but rather tank-truss-strut-truss-tank. It can flex enough to where the weight doesn't shear everything, and enough of them can give you the semblance of a rigid ship. With it, you can launch everything. If you mean the first one, the huge stack, there's a whole *ton* of reaction control wheels clipped into the tanks. Wanted that one to look clean, for some reason.

I figured I'd weigh in ever so briefly. I don't this thing will work. I think the readings they've gotten are either instrumental or human error, and that it will be tracked down eventually. I don't think we've stumbled upon a magical machine that violates known physics. Which is a bummer. I'd infinitely prefer something small and easy like this to open the universe to us. I wish it were real.

Yep. Melted the proc right out of my laptop doing stuff like and

Good lord. It goes deeper than that. I'm a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt, now. Why? Well, the girlfriend and I have bought a house. We've been busy doing minor repairs and such to get the occupancy permit from the city before we can move in. Hell of a thing, eh? I went from presumed bachelor for life to live-in-boyfriend to one heck of a lady. I know I've started and then failed to finish a number of projects. I can't but apologize profusely. Life, you know? That and this makeshift machine I've been using since I burnt up the processor in my old machine, it's getting rickety. I need replacement with something modern, but that's not gonna happen this year. Such is life! But, I do drop in now and then, if only briefly. EDIT: You guys deserve a picture. Edit 2: I've also have built so big, that I needed to make custom seperatrons to move huge stacks. So, I made one out of a mainsail engine: Here it is in use:

For me, probably putting one of the Arkingthaads down on Duna in a bad spot and very low on fuel.

A thousand apologies to all who are interested. The project is delayed for some time. Reason being, I am now a homeowner. With my girlfriend. Fixing, spackling, base coating, painting. Moving at some point. Holy heck. I now have a home. And all the responsibility that comes with it. And she will be there. Technically, it's her mortgage (she got a better rate than even the V.A.) with both of our names on it. My future is officially 1,000% cooler.