Looking for some inspiration (Carriers)

[Somtaaw]

This isn't quite a rocket exchange thread, so I think this fits in more here. Looking for some inspiration on communication satellite carriers. I like having junior docking pockets on my satellites, so at later times, I can fly out to them and refuel and/or greatly change their orbits at need. Especially useful with some contracts stating an existing satellite needs it's orbit altered. Or you're just docking an upgrade to it, expanding it's capabilities.

 

 

But that docking port usage tends to mean my generally sleek rockets have these ugly, lumpy sticks extruded at somewhat random intervals and I just can't seem to design something that does the job, without looking like my satellite emplacers have cancerous tumors.

 

 

Note, I also usually play with RemoteTech mod, although sometimes I turn that off, so Im looking for inspiration on manned carriers, or something I can modify into manned.

[Norcalplanner]

I'll usually put an upside down 2.5m to 4x1.25m adapter on top of the rocket, stack the satellites on top of the 1.25m attachment nodes with docking ports or decouplers, then put a 2.5m fairing beneath the adapter to enclose everything. I also like putting Jr docking ports on my satellites for the reasons you mentioned, plus you can use them in lieu of a stack decoupler.  I've launched up to 8 satellites and probe landers in this fashion on a single rocket. If you wanted the carrier craft to be manned, I suppose you could put a 2.5m lander can in the stack also.

[septemberWaves]

Perhaps a good idea is to make reusable rockets with a Mk2 fuselage. What I have in mind would take off like a rocket but probably be able to land like a plane, and would make orbit either as a single stage or with the help of a couple of SRBs. The rocket would be able to have a Mk2 cargo bay of whatever size is appropriate for your satellites, or perhaps the option for a Mk2 crew cabin. Additionally, you could probably have a version of the satellite carrier which has a junior docking port situated inside of a cargo bay and pointed outwards on some sort of truss setup, to make it fairly easy to dock with a satellite without requiring awkwardly shaped lumps on the outside of the carrier.

[Van Disaster]

That was an entire RT set for Duna ( which is why it's aerodynamic ) in one shot, complete with mapping sats. Not sure you could fit the sats in a Mk2 fuselage, but maybe. The lifter plane was a scaled up B9 HL craft ( HL is what spawned current stock Mk3 ) so I'm not sure if Mk2 fuselages can fit in Mk3 bays either, but I'm sure there's some way of fitting it all together. No reason not to launch the thing vertically either.

Obviously easy enough to stick a cabin on the sat carrier somewhere.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Van Disaster

[Somtaaw]

That's the very sort of inspiration I was looking for Van, although adding another batch of mods for the sleekness is blegh. But hmmm, I never thought of possibly trying to stuff a full up rocket with say mk.2 cargo pods, into a Mk3 level SSTO... this is good thanks.

[Van Disaster]

Even if that sort of thing bothered me, Mk3 parts back then were very different so I wouldn't really have had a choice. Those octagonal S2 parts I still use all over the place these days, there's nothing like them in stock ( they're literally 2.5m parts turned into octagons ). The problem with Mk2 bays is you'd probably have to line the sats up horizontally, and I doubt you'd get ... I think 9 of them in there without it being quite insanely long/tall. I guess you could just assemble a carrier in orbit. Actually that wouldn't be a bad plan, you could drop pods of sats off so they ( the pods ) could get into individual resonant orbits. My sat carrier had a 2.5m nuke from some mod & a considerable amount of dV, so it wasn't really necessary.

[Somtaaw]

I might have to grab B9 parts now. I'd been putting it off, because I really, really hate getting mods that have parts.... and then forgetting to update the mod whenever I decide to patch KSP itself, and then losing everything.

 

I've been busy designing a form of stock satellite carrier, using a Mk3 long cargobay, and a pair of Mk3 to 2.5m adaptors with 2.5m docking ports. The only hard part is trying to design the new "standard sat" . I'll post some form of picture in the next day or so after I finish designing the new RT base satellites that will be docked into the carrier.