Commander Zoom

Looks great! The KSP thanks you for this fine bit of engineering.

That\'s not crazy, that\'s Kerbal.

Glad for the bump. Love the manual.

Nice design and a great write-up.

Whereas I like the Apollo-era styling, considering we\'re going to the Mun and all. (The more modern stuff, eh, not so much, but that\'s me.) And comparing the SIDR textures to the stock ones (and yours), I frankly don\'t see that much difference in the level of 'polish.' If the stock textures were rough and hand-drawn, with rusty irregular plates that look like they were joined with a nail-gun, maybe... but no, they\'re just as even and symmetrical and clearly made with a fancy graphics program. I think some of us like to overstate just how clunky and ugly these parts actually are, especially in the descriptions, but the neat-and-tidy in-game textures don\'t bear that out. IMO, the only really 'ugly' thing about the stock parts is how many it takes to build a decent rocket. It\'s like trying to build a (full-scale) pyramid out of dice or sugar cubes rather than stone blocks. I don\'t want overpowered broken parts, just usefully upscaled ones. Sunday Punch\'s parts and yours are, IMO, the best add-ons out there. I\'d really rather not see one of my favorite creators get in a slap fight with the other.

I use Silisko\'s parts (SIDR), above, as well as Sunday Punch\'s 'Wobbly Rockets' pack: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=79.0 As I\'m still playing with proper rockets, not these crazy newfangled spaceplanes, these two parts packs suffice for my purposes.

(My only guess, mechworks, is that you\'ve just got 'too much rocket'. Your designs look extremely ambitious and possibly overpowered. You might want to try smaller and simpler for a while, until you have that guidance problem fixed.)

The first products of the KSP were simple test rockets: single stage, two stage, solid and liquid fueled, carrying nothing but instruments and radio guidance. Jebediah Kerman kept pestering the engineers for a kerman-rated vehicle, and offered considerable input on the design of the original dummy capsule (which soon became the one-kerman capsule). He often pushed for eliminating safety features to save weight and cost; some considered it a minor miracle when he agreed to putting a parachute on the spacecraft. They\'d expected ol\' Jeb to simply crash the thing and walk out of the flaming wreckage. (Orbiter 1, built entirely with stock parts - originally flown with a stock pod, but the Mercury-style model was used for this \'historic\' recreation. The SRBs were placed by hand, and the rocket has a tendency to spin.) Orbiter 1 was 'a little wobbly' according to Jeb, mostly due to the difficulty of aligning all of the solid rockets in the first stage, but somehow he got it up and secured his place in history as the first kerman in space. The flight plan called for him to make only one orbit before dropping into the sea east of the space center; he later complained that he 'could have gone around a couple more times, easy.' The proof of that was left to Bill Kerman in Orbiter 1a (a revision that added more bracing to the SRBs), who completed two orbits before losing his nerve and another before ground control finally gave him the procedure to come down. Jeb was already looking forward. 'We\'re gonna make the next one bigger,' he proclaimed confidently. 'Bigger, higher, faster.' A series of extremely expensive failures followed. Several unmanned rockets blew up on or above the pad, detonated by the range safety officer or their own unstable and volatile configurations. Jeb and his fellow kerbonauts, riding in the new three-kerman capsule, had to parachute to safety twice when likely-seeming prototypes spun wildly out of control. In the end, Jeb was forced to concede that his company just didn\'t have the parts and the know-how to make his vision of the next Orbiter a reality. Reluctantly, the program was opened up to outside contractors. Many companies submitted bids, all of them eager for a cut of the money and prestige now associated with the program, even though none had ever built rockets before. KSP, naturally, went with the lowest bidders. (Orbiter 2, built with parts by NovaSilisko and Sunday Punch. The 3-to-5x1 baseplate for the main rocket really should have a streamlined fairing, but I couldn\'t find an appropriate part, and it makes no actual difference in flight.) While built along the same general lines of its predecessor, Orbiter 2 was, as promised, bigger in every respect. Double-sized solid boosters were ringed around a first stage carrying more fuel in two big tanks than Orbiter 1 had in six, feeding five engines in place of three. The redesign of the upper stage was more conservative, using one large fuel tank instead of two and an experimental engine that might (or might not) be slightly more efficient, as well as the now standard capsule. A stabilization module was considered at several points in the design process, but ultimately nixed by Jeb, who insisted that the multiple engines should keep the massive rocket very stable... assuming they all worked, of course. Orbiter 2 did not disappoint. The first launch was perfect; the rocket went up fast and straight, shed its spent boosters in a six-fold flower and kept going. This was a considerable improvement over Orbiter 1, which often stalled out right after SRB jettison (as the liquid engines strained to lift full tanks) unless the pilot immediately went to full throttle. Jeb described it as 'one heck of a ride.' The upper stage eventually achieved an eccentric but stable orbit with an apokee slightly over 328 km and a period of almost an hour. (Bob spent most of that time praying.) There was ample fuel remaining for a deorbit burn, though the crew, not used to such a high orbit, overshot the recovery area. 'That rocket\'s a wonder,' Jeb told the press. 'She could probably lift double the payload we got on her now. Somethin\' for the boys to think about.' He went on to say, 'Bigger, higher, faster - we\'ve done that. Now I\'m thinking... longer.' Orbiter 2\'s next flight did not start as smoothly. Jeb was, by his own admission, 'pretty sloppy' with the orbital insertion: slewing the upper stage around, wasting fuel, bleeding off speed, and almost dropping back into the atmosphere. His task was further complicated by the need to keep slapping the other two kerbonauts\' hands away from the ABORT handle. Once Jeb finally had the craft under control, he proceeded to put it into the best orbit yet, with an apokee just a hair under 50 km and a perikee of 48.5 km... and kept it there for the next eighteen hours* and thirty-odd orbits, shattering all previous records. After splashdown and recovery, all three kerbonauts had to be taken out of the capsule on stretchers; Bob and Bill were babbling, while Jeb promptly went to sleep, saying that he hadn\'t been able to get any shut-eye with the other two going on like that. [*Note that this feat was accomplished before time compression, by letting the game run all night and the next day.] (Once we have a Mun to shoot for, I\'ll post my designs for getting there.)

Loving the new orbital map and time compression. And the water looks much better too. (I still prefer the way it was in 9.0, but it\'s getting there. ) The splashdown effects are a nice touch.

I used 'sounding rockets' to cover my initial, dead-simple, stock-parts-only designs - pod + one SRB or tank-plus-engine. These weren\'t really supposed to be kermanned or to scale or anything; they were just so that I and/or the KSP could get a feel for launching stuff.

Great post! It actually looks a lot like my own Orbiter 2, which I expect to post later/this weekend.

Looking good!

Confound these ponies, they drive me to drink.

mm, mylar. shiny.

I'm Commander Zoom, and I'm a bottle rocketeer. I found out about this game about a week ago - I honestly can't recall where, now - and downloaded it right away. It's been great fun. After a few test rockets, I managed to build one out of stock parts that made it into orbit (with a bit of seat-of-the-pants flying). I've since built a bigger and better one (with some of Silisko and Sunday Punch's parts) and am looking forward to what the future may bring. Born in '70, about the same time as Apollo 13's fateful mission, I've been a fan of the real space program from an early age. One of the older books in my library, perhaps the first I bought with my own money, is an illustrated history of manned spaceflight up through Skylab and the Shuttle, which was then about to begin flight testing. I played some early Shuttle simulators on the Apple ][ and the Atari 2600 (by Activision!), but Orbiter is too much for me; KSP is more my speed. My forum handle comes from my years in charge of an online X-wing fan squadron, back around the turn of the millennium; it seemed to fit here as well.