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How do you transport the M700 survey scanner?


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Well I'm playing with FAR, so the voxel based aerodynamics make transporting weird shaped things a real troublesome "thing". Especially for "deep space" missions like to duna/gilly it's hard. The probe that will orbit duna is based around the 0.625 meter parts (oscar tank). With two out of shape parts: a reflector KR14 (from remote tech) and the survey scanner. The reflector at least has the width of a 2.5m part. So adding a 2.5 meter fairing would work for that.

 

However the survey scanner is so out of balance. Putting that to the side makes it stand out about 4.5 meters, so I'm adding a massive fairing with mostly empty space, just to make the thing aerodynamically balanced.

bSNjULK.png

Is this the best solution?

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Why is there an engine on top? Move the engine to be on bottom, then put the scanner on top instead of the side.

Are you aware of fairing interstage nodes? That lets you use a smaller fairing as the skeleton for a probe; it replaces the structural girder you used. Put a fairing on top of an engine and fuel tank. Enable interstage nodes for the fairing, drop a relay on one interstage node, drop an M700 on a different node, then shape the fairing to cover.

I agree that the M700 can be an annoying piece of hardware.

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I always put it at the top of my vessel, in a fairing. If for some reason you can't do that, I suggest you put it on an interstage node of a fairing, either like how @DeadJohn did it which is clever but not the way I do it, or all by itself with a docking port so you can dock it to your vessel once in space and don't care about drag.

EDIT:

For your ship as is, you could attach it to the engine at the top with a docking port, and then put a docking port on the craft where you currently have the scanner. Then, when in space (assuming you can do that without that top engine) you can do as I described above without using interstage nodes in the fairings as I think you're using Procedural Fairings and I don't know if they have interstage nodes like the stock fairings do.

Edited by 5thHorseman
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If you have BG, I've used hinges to keep the  stack narrower by folding the scanner parallel to the stack, then swing it out to deploy it facing out from the stack.

Or, swap places and move that mod part to the side (use a cubic octagonal strut if you need a node) and the scanner at the top?

Edited by StrandedonEarth
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I always stick it on top and put the dish in a service bay, although I usually launch a survey scanner as part of the same mission as a trio of kommsats, so the kommsats have a big dish to communicate with Kerbin, and the scanner only needs to be able to talk to the kommsats.

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1 hour ago, DeadJohn said:

My earlier reply showed how I do it with fairings. The Tundra Technologies mod (a small companion to Tundra Exploration) has a probe core with built-in survey scanner. It's called "Paneer" and resembles the real New Horizons probe.

LjCX9BE.jpg

 

That might have been  a mistake tho :ph34r:

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