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Teutooni

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Everything posted by Teutooni

  1. When a game is feeling too easy, I usually turn up the difficulty. If it's still too easy, I find some mods to add challenge. Works with pretty much any game with a modding community. With FAR aerodynamics, deadly reentry, TAC lifesupport, remote tech, etc. I'm hopelessly starved on funds, and wouldn't even dream of trading it for science. Just setting up a constellation of satellites for communications, for which the game gives 0 returns but is something that needs to be done for long range missions, is costing me a fortune. I am actually considering converting science to funds via the strategies because I can't purchase most of the parts I unlock anyway.
  2. Here I was afraid I would have to wait for a couple of days before the mods get updated to the new version. Or even worse, play with stock aerodynamics! *shudders* You, sir Ferram, are awesome!
  3. I may have been a bit over defensive. There are some amazing designs here that accomplish much more difficult things than my SSTJ5. No matter how you look at it, 700kN of thrust at 4000s ISP is massively OP compared to any stock engines, poor TWR or no. But that's the thing with the mods I'm using, they alleviate the rocket equation but add several extra layers of realism and challenge. Reentry heating and g-force limits, aerodynamic failures (as in your plane can get completely torn apart at high speeds), life support and managing many different fuels and heat. I found it a bit silly having a kerbal survive a straight-down laythe reentry at mach 15 completely unprotected in an external seat (not to mention sitting in said seat for years without food, oxygen, water or heating). To each his own. I like the ion lander, looks like a butterfly or something. I was going to ask how would it even be possible to get any altitude with TWR<1, but come to think of it, I have seen it before in some of my VTOL prototypes. I thought it was the wings, but your lander doesn't seem to have any? Or did it have TWR>1 for a short time with battery power? Can't remember how much energy ion engines need but IIRC 6 small solar panels aren't enough to run 100%?
  4. Thing about fusion engines is that they have abysmal TWR, they can barely lift themselves up - 1.84 TWR for just the engine with liquid fuel, bit higher for other fuels. And that is not counting generators, reactor fuel tanks, propellant tanks, auxiliary reactors needed for restarting them, heat radiators, etc. Try landing on Tylo with 1.0-1.2 TWR (relative to Tylo). Not exactly a sunday picnic. I think the ISRU refinery was much more "cheaty", and that is a technology they are actually planning for mars missions.I mean I don't think it is possible to build a plane with stocklike engines that goes to all the moons without staging at least some fuel tanks off or something. The point was to bring the entire craft back, in a more or less reusable state. (With my landing clearly less ) Would be absolutely fascinating to see someone be able to do it though. @DaMichel - http://imgur.com/a6edEPU Stock aerospikes, mounted downwards in one of the B9 cargobays so it opens and closes. Some of my IR mounted VTOL designs had problems with FAR aerodynamics, they would sometimes just fail inside a closed cargobay, which was strange.
  5. First off, this is not an entry into the competition. I used at least 2 illegal mods (interstellar up to fusion, infernal robotics). I don't think this would be possible with the allowed mods for this challenge (you are more than welcome to prove me wrong). This was just for the hell of it. In short: One launch from KSC, land the same vehicle on all planets, and land on KSC. Mission report: http://imgur.com/a/kDLEc http://imgur.com/a/SLJEy http://imgur.com/a/mSmcg enjoy!
  6. As part of my unmanned mission to Moho, I decided to include landing gear on the low-altitude probe and try landing it. The whole mission included 3 probes on different altitudes fitted with communications equipment and different science instruments and SCANsat sensors, so the landing part was just an afterthought. With nearly 4 minutes of signal delay introduced by the remote tech mod, I didn't think much of my chances. When everything else I could gather was done, it was time to try this. After a small deorbit burn, I instructed the probe to orient surface retrograde and burn for 1000m/s (all the fuel that was left) and throttled the engine to 0%. Then a few seconds later I instructed the probe to throttle engine to 10%, thinking there would be a 4 minute delay. Turns out there is no delay when you manually right-click an engine and adjust it's throttle. Manually adjusting the throttle in real-time would have made the landing trivial, if the probe was designed to land (centre of mass was off, and delta-v was short some 50m/s). It was the roughest landing I have ever done, hitting the ground 50-60 m/s and spinning wildly as I tried to burn the engine at 100% throttle every time the spinning probe pointed retrograde. Lost all of the solar panels, but by some miracle the extended communications antenna as well as all the science instruments survived - I think the spinning landing gear managed to absorb most of the shock. What do you think of this? Is it cheating to ignore the signal delay on throttle? Should there not be an automated landing protocol in a probe that is 4 light-minutes away? How would you balance landing a far-away probe so that it would be suitably challenging but not require excessive manual calculations?
  7. My most expensive ship has to be an abandoned grand tour project ship (land on every landable body before returning to kerbin). Fully self sustaining life support loop, total weight of 700-1000 tons, depending on how much supplies it has for spare parts etc. Don't know the exact cost, but I estimate it was between 2 and 3 million. I used many small and highly cost-effective SRB based launches with around 50k each. The most expensive part was the engine and fuel, at 250+ tons weight and total cost of around a million. I abandoned the project because of how slow and unstable the game was with that much stuff loaded at once. Every rendezvous froze the game for around 10 seconds to load the ship. >_>
  8. For ordinarily shaped rockets with reasonable weight, fin stabilized SRB. If I need to lift something excessively heavy or oddly shaped, I break it into parts that fit said reasonable limits. I use FAR so can't make silly pancake rockets. Because asparagus staging hasn't been to my knowledge demonstrated to work IRL, I tend not to use it - Also drag.
  9. It's a robotics mod, couldn't resist. Now if only I could make it turn... EDIT: after some extra tinkering, made an 8-legged version:
  10. I was playing around with magic smoke infernal robotics. Created the biggest, heaviest lander I have ever made. Featured 20+ hinges, sliders etc. moving parts. Crew of 7 kerbals. Then I started playing with KW rocketry and decided to take the lander to Eeloo and back. The complete rocket weighed nearly 5 000 000 kg with 360 000 units of liquid fuel, and it cost me 2.2M funds (yes it was career mode). This has got to be the dumbest, most inefficient design I have ever made - made worse by the lack of mechjeb or any mods to help plot optimal routes. Made it home though, with less than 20 out of 360 000 fuel remaining. In retrospect I should have taken a shot with all 7 crew members out on EVA. A few extra random pics: http://imgur.com/a/GJKsw
  11. Cool planes so far! Here's another stock entry. Carries only 3 kerbals and no cargo. Went for a premium sportscar feel rather than high capacity. Alrai SSTO+VTOL, features: Pilot + 2 passengers. 152 parts, cost 105445, probably needs most if not all of the research tree open. Only stock parts, no mods required. 2 basic jet engines in a VTOL configuration. Fairly stable VTOL flight under all fuel levels. 3 stacked (no cheats, just a little clipping) tubojet engines ensure flameouts don't affect flight direction. 2 LV-N NERVA rockets with approximately 2000m/s delta-v (not sure, don't have mechjeb). 2 docking ports, shielded normal port located between VTOL engines and a jr. behind front wheel. Pilot escape pod, capable of slight orbital maneuvering, re-entry and parachute descent. 12 solar panels provide energy for extended flights. Flight characteristics: Aerodynamically stable design. Can be easily flown without SAS. Still, maneuverable enough that it can go out of control if you jerk the controls too much. No need to adjust throttle levels or air intakes, just go full throttle for the climb. Once 2 out of the 3 turbojet engines flameout at around 30+ km, turn on the nuclear rockets. Don't turn off the turbojets until the last one flameouts, they can still provide a nice bit of extra thrust at 40+km. I achieved 73km orbit with around 66% oxidizer and 50% fuel remaining. Which leaves plenty to rendezvous with silly inclinations or higher orbits. Pics! http://imgur.com/a/RovuA
  12. Yep, a one way ticket. The thing uses air breathing engines to get off ground, and there is no oxygen on Eve, so even if it had fuel left it would be impossible to leave. I wonder if you could make some rocket (aerospike?) based design which would refuel in orbit and once or twice in Eve orbit, to make a round trip? Even then I doubt you could escape Eve on stock parts like Amphiprion pointed out. It's like flying through jelly. I think I slowed down to 30 m/s before landing, without parachutes or powered descent. Achieving orbit in those conditions... Impossible.
  13. Well, didn't notice the post has to be validated by a moderator to appear. Come to think of it, if a mod did indeed validate, why on earth (kerbal?) did he validate all 3 attempts?!
  14. Here's something I like to call an SSTE (Single Stage To Eve). Without the extra orbital fuel tanks and heavy engines it can fly up to 2200m/s surface speed at 30km with the air-breathing engines. With the thermonuclear rockets... Yeah it can take off from Kerbin, climb to orbit, transfer to Eve and land there, without refueling. I call it "The Phoenix" for the re-entry flames. Atmospheric re-entry. Entry against Eve's night sky. Landed on Eve!
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