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Building Ideas and solutions to possible problems you have for Breaking Ground


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So I've been thinking about some ideas for Breaking Ground and maybe some solutions for ideas. Let's get into it. If you would, when contributing, please leave your idea, a short description of your idea, and when Breaking Ground comes out, please come back and edit your post to say if your idea worked. 

Problem 1:
-Rotors/Servos too slow to be used as propellers. [evidence = watch ShadowZone's review]
Possible solution:
-Put the tiny jet engines on the rotor and set the rotor to free spinning/free pivot mode. 
-Crossfeed seems to work from what I've seen his ShadowZone's video, or at least I saw no fuel lines. Anyway, the jets would be completely perpendicular with the aircraft, meaning no jet thrust would be propelling you. If this works, it would spin the rotor fast enough, possibly, for props to become actually viable. I would suggest going for a 3 bladed prop with 2/3 jets spinning it. You could even pull a trick with making a radial engine possibly. 
Worked: Yes, it works, but the rotor osculates with the jet engines on. I did a test. One rotor with just the motor, one rotor with jet engines, and one rotor with both jet engines are the rotor. 

The rigs:
Rotors: EM-64 Heavy Rotor
All 3 rotors have 3 Elevon 1s set to about 45 degrees roughly.
2 rotors have 3 J-20 jet engines set perpendicular to the rotor.
All 3 rotors have Aerodynamic Nose Cones.

Test results: 
Rotor with only motor: Average: ~299RPM Max: ~299.1
Rotor with only jets: Average: ~337RPM Max: ~340
Rotor with both jets and motors: Average:~387RPM Max: ~394

Conclusion: Jet powered rotors with the assistance of the motor do work, but are unstable as they osculate pretty badly. Use with caution. 

Problem 2: 
-Some of the parts seem weak [evidence = watch ShadowZone's review]
Possible solution:
-Put multiple of the same part then attach the parts using struts. If struts are immune to the stretching glitch that fuel lines seem to have that is. If the Struts hold and don't stretch, I think they could be able to aid the first robotic part.
Worked: TBD

Problem 3: 
-Rotors provide torque, meaning for a artificial gravity ring, you would need two
Possible Solution:
-Instead of two gravity rings, make one and add two more rotors in front and back of the ring, spinning the opposite direction to counter the torque rotation
Worked: No, not for me at least, couldn't figure out how to get the rotors to cancel each other out. 
Actual Solution: Stick two rotors on the gravity ring center piece, one on each side, and then place Girders going from the part in front of the forward rotor, to the part behind the rear rotor. Now attach struts to the girders and the station parts, make sure not to attach it to any of the gravity ring parts. This cancels out any torque caused by the rotors since it can't spin the station parts now. 
Important Note: You do need TWO gravity rings in order to cancel out the torque completely, one spinning in each direction. 
Important Note 2: Set the RPM limit to 10 for a comfortable speed.  Don't leave it at max at all, it will be too much and not even the counter rotations will stop the torque as the rings are heavier than the station and the torque wants to spin the lighter object. Wouldn't hurt to take a few reaction wheels. 
Side note: Time warp STOPS the rotation dead in its tracks, but it will restart again. 
Build advice: 
-Make sure that the small rotating disk is touching the GRC and not the big spinning disk. 
-Build your gravity rings like this:
-Make sure no struts are touching the rotor or the gravity ring center. Struts won't let the rings spin at all. 
M - Motor set to clockwise
GRC - Gravity Ring Center
M - Motor set to counter clockwise
Spacer part (Fuel tank, crew compartment, etc)
M - Motor set to counter clockwise
GRC - Gravity Ring Center
M - Motor set to clock wise

Craft File for anybody who would like to study my design and learn how it works: https://www.dropbox.com/s/78322rrpgykejh3/Artificial Gravity Ring Tester.craft?dl=0
Picture of the internals: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1756796840
Made a tutorial video on how to make a gravity ring station (Not the same one as the craft file above): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdJxUUbcWSE&feature=youtu.be

Idea 1: F-14 Tomcat
Idea 2: The drill ship from the movie The Core
Idea 3: Reverse thrust on a leer jet style plane using the tiny jets and rotors/servos. 
Idea 4: B-36 Peacekeeper - 6 turnin 4 burnin
Idea 5: Thunderbird 3 
Idea 6: Any and all rovers
Idea 7: Restackable rockets - Think SpaceX Starship and Star Booster. 

 

Edited by GoldForest
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Problem one possible (truly Kerbal) solution to slow rotation of the rotors/servos.

 

Combine  multiple rotors together on top of each other.  If one spins at 600rpm then if you attached another in front of it together they would achieve 1,200rpm.  Keep adding to desired speed?

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Rocket Farmer said:

Problem one possible (truly Kerbal) solution to slow rotation of the rotors/servos.

Combine  multiple rotors together on top of each other.  If one spins at 600rpm then if you attached another in front of it together they would achieve 1,200rpm.  Keep adding to desired speed?

FWIW, that might only work to a certain speed. I think the prop guys who were doing this figured out that there's a hard limit for rotational speed in KSP at 50 rad/s which comes out to 750 RPM (I think). So even if you did stack a crapton of rotors, I wouldn't be surprised if you hit that limit.

Dont have the DLC though, somebody probably will have to test it properly and see if that rotational speed limit still exists....

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I don’t think there is a hard limit.  I stacked about 10 on top of each other (column style) and as I turned on more and more units Jeb (sitting on top for science purposes) defiantly turned faster and faster.

 

Eventually the stubby wings I had on started to look like they turned one direction while jeb appeared to spin the other direction (always loved that optical allusion).

Anyways eventually (after 5 or 6 rotors are turned on) the whole unit starts blurring and then the column explodes.

 

Before it explodes you get some very weird optical items (mid way down the column it appears to spin off access like it is flying apart but things stay together).

 

Lastly In one iteration I had jeb jump out of his chair and he flew several hundred meters turning like a top but survived.

 

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Ideas I've been able to come up with so far (not even trying to pretend they're creative):

  • Propellers (air or water)
  • VTOL aircraft
  • Landing legs
  • Collapsible craft to fit better in fairings/cargo bays
  • Boom-mounted docking ports
  • Cranes (electromagnet from KIS/KAS might be especially useful for this)
  • Deployable ramps
  • Elevators
  • Catapults/trebuchets
  • Custom wheels
  • Kinetic hoppers for very low-gravity worlds
  • Self-righting probes, rovers, etc
  • Gadgets to deploy satellites (a la Starlink) or otherwise push ships apart
  • Multi-hinged solar panels for better solar tracking

 

 

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1 minute ago, Aegolius13 said:

Ideas I've been able to come up with so far (not even trying to pretend they're creative):

  • Propellers (air or water)
  • VTOL aircraft
  • Landing legs
  • Collapsible craft to fit better in fairings/cargo bays
  • Boom-mounted docking ports
  • Cranes (electromagnet from KIS/KAS might be especially useful for this)
  • Deployable ramps
  • Elevators
  • Catapults/trebuchets
  • Custom wheels
  • Kinetic hoppers for very low-gravity worlds
  • Self-righting probes, rovers, etc
  • Gadgets to deploy satellites (a la Starlink) or otherwise push ships apart
  • Multi-hinged solar panels for better solar tracking

 

 

For the crane idea, if you want to go stock, just use the claw... 
..

..

..

..

OMG! CLAW MACHINE IN KSP!

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2 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

For the crane idea, if you want to go stock, just use the claw... 
..

..

..

..

OMG! CLAW MACHINE IN KSP!

Good call.  I think I'm so traumatized from trying to use that thing to recover landed debris, I forget it even existed for a moment.

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Idea to autostrut a rover on a robotic arm :

 

My rover was wobbling like crazy inside the fairing during the ascent, what I did was use a TT38 decoupler with an M Beam 200 (the long one) and placed struts between that beam and my rover. This way I can decouple the beam when I want to deploy the rover once at the surface of a planet, as all struts attached to it disappears.

Idea to lower wobbling between robotic parts :

 

When I need to offset a bit one part from the other, I put an empty OscarB tank and use it as a link between those 2 parts.

You can see it below, I had to offset the tiny servo from the hinge but if I placed it too far the wobbling would be EVEN worse, so I used the tank and attached both parts to it :

 

1908cd.jpg

 

Edited by Kerbolitto
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

50 Hours just playing with bg parts and i can't make a helicopter, a single propeller plane or a proper working gravity station that cancels torque after docking. It feels like each new dlc is getting more and more half baked and floppy, at this rate there will be a dlc with nothing on it for 15 bucks!

Edited by winnermah
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  • 2 months later...
On 5/30/2019 at 7:48 AM, GoldForest said:

Actual Solution: Stick two rotors on the gravity ring center piece, one on each side, and then place Girders going from the part in front of the forward rotor, to the part behind the rear rotor. Now attach struts to the girders and the station parts, make sure not to attach it to any of the gravity ring parts. This cancels out any torque caused by the rotors since it can't spin the station parts now. 

Is it not possible to add pictures so that this alphabetti spaghetti makes sense?

On 9/17/2019 at 6:18 AM, winnermah said:

50 Hours just playing with bg parts and i can't make a helicopter, a single propeller plane or a proper working gravity station that cancels torque after docking. It feels like each new dlc is getting more and more half baked and floppy, at this rate there will be a dlc with nothing on it for 15 bucks!

Exactly how I feel.

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14 hours ago, GoldForest said:

You do realize this thread was dead, right?

Anyway, I dont have pics, but I do have a video.

 

Thank you! Btw, if you plan on making tutorials, I'd highly advise you choreograph these so you're not spending viewer's time on messing with the UI and correcting mistakes.

Edited by Bej Kerman
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9 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Thank you! Btw, if you plan on making tutorials, I'd highly advise you choreograph these so you're not spending viewer's time on messing with the UI and correcting mistakes.

It was a one off really. I don't really make videos.

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  • 1 month later...

I builts ya a claw crane.   Wheel steer turns it left and right.   Pitch and L/r axis controls the pistons.  F/B axis controls the hinge on top the cab.  U/D axis controls the hinges on top the first piston and roll axis for the last hinge.    Im useong enhanced addition so ull have to take my word for it.  I tried inserting a picture for u but it wont let me.   Id be happy to explain more or send pictures.   Just lmk

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