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Performance seems to vary from flight to flight with no obvious pattern. One test the drive refused to pull anything more than 4.5G, but the majority of tests so far have been over 8G.

My record so far has been 9.8G! I really like your K Drive... I've done 10 test flights so far, and although the speed has varied slightly from flight to flight there have been no breakages or failures (touch wood). All in all, a very impressive drive!

Hmmmm, not all K Drives are born equally it seems. Can you check the subassembly to see if the two struts are reconnecting properly? It should look like the pic below with a strut on either side of the drive. I've found that when the subassembly loads, they're sometimes unconnected. I'll post a new download link if that's the case.

DD8thsvl.png

Otherwise, it might be because one or both of the legs aren't engaging properly. First, try placing another cubic strut between the capsule and the drive as shown in the pic below. Afterwards I was getting more consistent acceleration, though it still seems to vary from 7 to a whopping 11.5 g's for some reason :confused:

ii6c1dQl.png

If you're turning the drive off and then back on, remember to give it a few seconds for the legs to properly reset. Also, if you're getting low g's, I've had some luck turning the ship with the drive engaged. The lateral acceleration sometimes frees any stuck legs. The problem may be inherent to this drive though. If you can't get it running smoothly and you want to tinker with it a bit, I suggest changing the vertical position and angle of the legs by very small increments until you get the desired result.

Fq9l8adl.png

I recreated your ship to see if I could reproduce the problem. How'd I do? Loving the Canary homage as well btw :D

Edited by Narcosis
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Hmmmm, not all K Drives are born equally it seems. Can you check the subassembly to see if the two struts are reconnecting properly?

Sure, will do.

Otherwise, it might be because one or both of the legs aren't engaging properly. First, try placing another cubic strut between the capsule and the drive as shown in the pic below. Afterwards I was getting more consistent acceleration, though it still seems to vary from 7 to a whopping 11.5 g's for some reason :confused:

Sounds good, I'll add another cubit strut and see how it goes - I'll be more than satisfied with this little ship if I can break 10g! That's a nice round number. :D

I recreated your ship to see if I could reproduce the problem. How'd I do? Loving the Canary homage as well btw :D

Looks about right. With so few parts it's pretty easy to replicate. Aesthetically what do you think?

A little voice in my head keeps telling me to strap a command chair to your drive and see how fast that goes... but I'd rather have something that looks a little cooler. (My kerbals sigh with relief... except for Jeb and Danger... they're well up for it)

Glad you liked the cage, it seemed fitting somehow and by far the quickest way to get to orbit without hyperedit (which I don't have), but at only 2 tons I have plenty of options!

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Aesthetically what do you think?

Very sleek. I made something very similar yesterday, but instead of the tail adaptor I used an FL-T100 fuel tank, an NCS Adapter and a single Rockomax 48-7S on the end.

A little voice in my head keeps telling me to strap a command chair to your drive and see how fast that goes...

Damn, now there's an idea :D

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Can you check the subassembly to see if the two struts are reconnecting properly? It should look like the pic below with a strut on either side of the drive. I've found that when the subassembly loads, they're sometimes unconnected. I'll post a new download link if that's the case.

Sure, will do.

You were right on the money! In fact, the struts are disconnected every time I use the sub-assembly. You might want to update the download link as you suggested. Good catch.

A little voice in my head keeps telling me to strap a command chair to your drive and see how fast that goes...

Damn, now there's an idea :D

Once of us will eventually! :wink:

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Hmmm... I was just thinking something.

While I'm reluctant to make any more large vessels that themselves are driven by K-Drives, has anyone ever considered K-Drive powered escape pods?

Lighter than fuel tanks, don't skew fuel level statistics (or clutter my TAC Fuel Balancer screens), and can return to Kerbin unassisted.

The downside would be a spike in the ships part count, which is usually a big deal on large builds already. Still, I find the idea intriguing!

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That's known since a long time ;) it's basically the pivot point between the krakendrives high reactionless thrust and hover / anchor mode - what happens is the krakendrive switches modes at this specific speed, it wants to instantly slow down to hover speeds (around 5 m/s) while the rest of the craft tries to continue flying at the same speeds :)

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I was able to rendezvous with the Yuki-Onna en-route to Eeloo, which is pretty amazing in of itself.

But it was also a good stress test for Narcosis' K-Drive as I had to activate and deactivate the drive a lot of times.

2014-03-29a.jpg

It past the reliability test with flying colours - both legs are still in perfect working order.

In fact I may use the ship now for reverse thrust when entering Eeloo's SOI as the last course correction broke one of the legs in the Yuki-Onna's primary drive, and I now have the option of saving the secondary drive for the trip home.

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the standard JD-Drive with two FL-A5 on the bottom don't work anymore (leg breaks instantly)

my modified JD-Drive seems to still work (at least in hover mode), with a standard docking port instead of a FL-A5 at the far end.

although, it seems to be much less reliable than before

EOiofpcl.png

edit : i replaced the remaining FL-A5 with the Z-1K battery - the drive seems to not be able to work reliably in hover mode, it can break easily.

however, it did not break once on multiple activations in orbit. (and with a 10g acceleration !) - though it's more sensible to sudden turns :P deactivate the drive before changing the spacecraft's attitude :)

8kq0h8Ml.png

i tried to slow down below the 750m/s mark - the craft almost instantly slowed down to hover mode speeds, the leg broke, but the craft stayed in one piece with the leg attached. (although falling down directly from orbital altitudes may not be the best way to land :P)

the effects were the same on the second try :

ApfYF86l.png

Hello Asteroid ! :)

OQHJpIMl.png

direct intercept in Kerbol orbit - after multiple correction burns from the JD-Drive (and fine tuning with the RCS) - although the sheer mass of the asteroid (class E, 1425 tons !) makes it almost unmovable by the JD-Drive :P

Edited by sgt_flyer
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  • 2 weeks later...
all my designs insta-break.

The mini K drives I built with junior docking ports still work. Though they still seem quite reliable they also need to be 'calibrated' for whatever you add them to, usually by moving the legs vertically by tiny fractions. The problem mainly arises when clipping them inside another object like a large nose cone or fuel tank. You wouldn't expect it to affect the behaviour of the legs if they never come into contact with collision mesh, but it does.

I've also discovered another very strange phenomenon of sorts. During test runs in LKO, my K drive ship acts differently when it is aligned with Kerbins horizon or not. When the artificial horizon is perpendicular to the actual horizon I experience no unwanted torque, but if the craft is spun so that the horizons are parallel it can be so strong that it overpowers a reaction wheel :huh:

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  • 3 months later...
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