How to get fat heavy things into orbit with stick kerbal and only 30% science tech

[jpinard]

KSK, I haven't unlocked the larger liquid fuels tanks yet. Should I use the medium size liquid tanks... like 3 in a row to compensate? Or the smaller ones and go with like 5 or 6?

Also do you use FAR? If so, do you do any tweaks to the fins? Thanks for the help!! I now have 2 designs I'm going to save and keep for all my future Kerbal games.

[KSK]

KSK, I haven't unlocked the larger liquid fuels tanks yet. Should I use the medium size liquid tanks... like 3 in a row to compensate? Or the smaller ones and go with like 5 or 6?

Also do you use FAR? If so, do you do any tweaks to the fins? Thanks for the help!! I now have 2 designs I'm going to save and keep for all my future Kerbal games.

Not a problem

I'd go for the biggest tanks you can manage, so I'm guessing the FLT400s? I'm honestly not sure how well my design will work with those but I'll test it tomorrow. It might require a bit more strutting. I don't use FAR and actually I think it will make my design more viable - you may even get away with shortening the second stage tanks a little. The fins are standard - no tweakables applied. Last point - if you're using this to put a probe in orbit, you may need to add another reaction wheel or two to beef up the available torque.

[jpinard]

Not a problem

I'd go for the biggest tanks you can manage, so I'm guessing the FLT400s? I'm honestly not sure how well my design will work with those but I'll test it tomorrow. It might require a bit more strutting. I don't use FAR and actually I think it will make my design more viable - you may even get away with shortening the second stage tanks a little. The fins are standard - no tweakables applied. Last point - if you're using this to put a probe in orbit, you may need to add another reaction wheel or two to beef up the available torque.

The main difference to me with FAR is that rockets are a bit more unstable. Rockets that are a bit top of bottom heavy are more likely to tip over or wobble. When they wobble, Frizzank said to disable roll on the fins. I'd never heard of adding additional reaction wheels. Does it matter where they go?

[Taki117]

The main difference to me with FAR is that rockets are a bit more unstable. Rockets that are a bit top of bottom heavy are more likely to tip over or wobble. When they wobble, Frizzank said to disable roll on the fins. I'd never heard of adding additional reaction wheels. Does it matter where they go?

no it doesn't. Any reaction wheels on a craft wil help increase the rotational energy of the craft and help stabilize it.

[KSK]

no it doesn't. Any reaction wheels on a craft wil help increase the rotational energy of the craft and help stabilize it.

Naively, I would have thought that putting the reaction wheel as far from the centre of mass as possible (for greatest turning moment) would be best but I'm not sure how that works in practice. So building them into your payload (which you'll probably want to do anyway ) should work well.

Apologies for the delayed reply (probably too late now) but yes - the design I posted earlier does work fine with 2xFLT400 tanks replacing the FLT800s. Plus your rocket gets a nice stripey paint job!

[Dust]

Naively, I would have thought that putting the reaction wheel as far from the centre of mass as possible (for greatest turning moment) would be best but I'm not sure how that works in practice.

There's a big difference between RCS & SAS. RCS is using propellant to push at the point where it is mounted. Imagine taking a big finger and pushing your craft at the point where the RCS is mounted. SAS uses angular momentum. Imagine standing on a lazy susan - or any spinny thing - holding a long metal bar, then turning it.

[KSK]

There's a big difference between RCS & SAS. RCS is using propellant to push at the point where it is mounted. Imagine taking a big finger and pushing your craft at the point where the RCS is mounted. SAS uses angular momentum. Imagine standing on a lazy susan - or any spinny thing - holding a long metal bar, then turning it.

Ahh. I may have been getting mixed up with precession - prod a gyroscope along one axis and get a force along an orthogonal axis (I think). But yes - conservation of angular momentum. Thanks for the correction.

[SpaceGremlin]

Here's how to get a fat payload up with a low tech rocket. The highest tech in it is Heavier Rocketry (tier 5, 160 science), which can be easily farmed up with a Mun landing or two.

and without the fairing

The massive fairing is for FAR, but it has enough dV to achieve orbit in stock. The payload is those 7 Rockomax 32s + a Skipper (130 tons). The bottom stage is 19 Skippers, the second stage is 7. You can see how I ran the struts in such a way that they relieve stress on the decouplers. Each ring of boosters is strutted together and to the inner ring. Yes, there are a few mod parts on it, but the basics of it are stock. Hope this helps.

[Dust]

Otherwise, why do you need to lift fat heavy things into space in one piece? Unless it's your mother, disassemble and use on-orbit assembly.

Ooooooh! Moded!

[Azunai]

clamp p tron

[mcirish3]

How big you want? No real limit on it other than your PC's Power. see!