Raptor's Craft Download Catalog - Tested & Proven

[Raptor9]

3 hours ago, Jester Darrak said:

Although I like the reduction in size and probably biting off a big chunk of the launch cost I must say that the revised ScyCrane looks kinda clumsy, it not fat.

It actually turned out to be about the same size as the previous skycrane/rover, but heavier and almost twice as expensive.  But the launcher is cheaper, which saves about 27,000 in the end.  The gold fuel tanks are a bit oversized for the craft, but I don't think it's that far off given our limited options in the stock parts.  The Skycrane is actually quite nimble, with it's RCS thrusters and balanced layout.

     

The previous skycrane was quite lazily thrown together, as was the orbital Cruise Module.  The new skycrane is so well balanced that if you were to place it on the runway (with gravity-hacked to emulate Duna's) and hit the gas without the SAS on, it would barely drift in attitude as it climbed.  And with the propellant load placed precisely around the center-of-mass, it retains the balance throughout it's fuel burn.  All in all, I was very happy with how stable it turned out considering the asymmetric nature of the skycrane as well as it's payload.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Raptor9

[Raptor9]

Some updates and some new craft files published.  In the M3V area, the 'Ike/Dres Logistics Kit' is updated and redesignated as the 'Ike/Dres BiPropellant Logistics Kit', and supplemented by the new 'Ike/Dres TriPropellant Logistics Kit'.  The only difference between the two is either the HLV-5B or D model included in the kit.

Additionally, more brand new craft are posted as part of my Satellite/Probe Revamp Project.  The first is an analogue to the "Dawn" Vesta/Ceres probe, and the second is an analogue to the "Juno" Jupiter probe.     

Regarding the 'Emerald Sky', during my final verification mission I ended up with just over 1,000 m/s delta-V remaining after getting into a stable polar elliptical orbit around Jool.  This required a gravity brake maneuver around Tylo, but it is quite feasible with plenty of dV wiggle-room to get the probe into an orbit around Jool.  All in all though, it taught me some more skills in interplanetary trajectories...and patience.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Raptor9

[Jestersage]

Question: You mentioned that the LV-2D/2E used to be monoprop, but because of the rebalancing, you changed it. So:

1. The rebalancing for 1.4 is only for the Radial attached tanks, right?
2. In general, when would you use monoprop instead of LFO engines?

[Raptor9]

25 minutes ago, Jestersage said:

The rebalancing for 1.4 is only for the Radial attached tanks, right?

It adjusted the dry mass and propellant volume capacities of the 0.625m and 1.25m stack monoprop tanks as well, to be consistent with other KSP tank mass/volume ratios.  The dry masses were reduced, but with monoprop's horrible Isp to begin with, the propellant capacity reduction really had a negative impact. 

The same was done with the xenon tanks, but had the opposite effect.  The xenon tank dry masses are also now less, but the capacity increased; resulting in a fairly significant delta-V increase for ion-powered craft

25 minutes ago, Jestersage said:

In general, when would you use monoprop instead of LFO engines?

Usually when I'm trying to limit myself to one propellant source for both attitude control and propulsion; for logistic reasons.  This is usually the case when I don't require a lot of delta-V or TWR (like a lot of my Soviet/Russian inspired station modules), such as simple orbital adjustments or landing someplace of really low gravity (like Minmus).

The KSP v1.3 LV-2A 'Grasshopper' had so much delta-V that it could hop through several biomes in one sortie to Minmus.  Now it has enough for just one trek to the surface, and not much maneuvering around at the bottom.  But the gravity around Minmus is so low it didn't nix the craft design entirely.  The former monoprop-powered 'Cricket's in v1.3 had only limited delta-V margins for landing on the Mun (LV-2D) and Ike (LV-2E), so the monoprop balance nerfed them hard.  But that's ok, it allowed me to streamline my lander line-up resulting in better designed landers and less mission overlap.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Raptor9

[Raptor9]

Another productive day.  The M3V 'Gilly Logistics Kit' is updated.  The updated IV-2A 'Badger' ISRU rig has a new fixed landing gear system that is wider and doesn't have to contend with the suspension effects of landing on the ultra-low-gravity Gilly.

In my Satellite/Probe Revamp project, the 'Specter' Eve orbiter/lander and 'Echo' Eeloo flyby probe are published.  These are a bit more difficult to use than some of the other probes.  First off, the 'Specter' probe requires experience with Eve incremental aerobraking to safely get the lander on the ground without burning up.  Some details covering this from my final verification mission are included in the 'Specter' Engineer's Notes in the OP.  Full disclosure, there is a stack of batteries clipped inside the 'Specter' lander's Stayputnik core.  The reason being is the atmospheric science experiment requires so much power to transmit the results back to Kerbin.  Even then, it can only be done during the day so the solar panels can provide a few moments of juice to fight the battery drain.

With the 'Echo', the propellant margins are pretty tight.  The 'Thunder 2' upper stage is required to perform the entire burn out of Kerbin, so if you screw that up, you're not gonna make it to Eeloo if you're banking on the probe being able to correct the botched trajectory.  After getting the probe into a stable 90km orbit around Kerbin, I had 2,560 m/s dV remaining in the upper stage according to Dmagic's modlet.  After the burn was completed, I had a few hundred m/s left in the upper stage, so you have some wiggle room to spend either on the launch to orbit, or if you want to shave off a little time from the multi-year trip to Eeloo.  Almost all of the 1,430 m/s dV on the probe itself is used for the plane change burn, with 90-100 m/s left for final adjustments before the fly-by.

This is the last batch of pre-completed probes for this project.  All of the probes I've been releasing the past week or so were just waiting on final post-1.4 tweaks and a full-up test mission.  This isn't the end of the project however.  There are still more I want to do, such as some more orbital probes and comm relays for Eve and Duna, along with possibly a few more for the Mun or Minmus.  I've had more fun than I expected with these craft, mainly learning how to build small but detailed craft, squeezing as much performance as I can out of them.  They've also forced me to learn a lot of skills I never even tried before, such as incremental aerobraking, interplanetary flybys, gravity brakes, and multiple maneuver node planning months or years in advance.
_______________________________

EDIT: M3V updates: All EV-6 'Windjammer' Kits, EV-6 Support Kits, and Advance Equipment Kits are now updated.

Additionally, I updated the EV-2L craft file with a small change.  To hopefully prevent an accidental, and irreversible, staging of the capsules from the rest of the craft (where the heatshield meets the decoupler), I disabled the staging on the decoupler itself.  The last thing I would want is for that to happen when in an interplanetary transit.  Now, whenever you are about to re-enter the Kerbin atmosphere and want to jettison the auxiliary service module to expose the heatshield, simply press ABORT as if you were going to use the launch escape system during launch, and the capsule will separate as it would otherwise.  Piece-of-cake.

I'm probably going to update all the rest of my crew capsules this next week with this feature to prevent accidental staging.  At least with staging the parachutes in space, all you have to do is right-click and select "Disarm" in the PAW.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Raptor9

[Jester Darrak]

There is also the option to decouple service modules manually.

What I was wondering for a long time now, did you ever consider your Atlas analogues to use a double engine setup instead of the single Mainsail? Maybe the Twin Boar or a similar solution? That would make the Thunder 3 and 4 series even more different.

[Raptor9]

26 minutes ago, Jester Darrak said:

What I was wondering for a long time now, did you ever consider your Atlas analogues to use a double engine setup instead of the single Mainsail? Maybe the Twin Boar or a similar solution? That would make the Thunder 3 and 4 series even more different.

I was hoping to use the LV-TX87 Bobcat engine as a dual engine solution for the 'Thunder 3' family, but it ended up being less powerful than I expected.  The Twin Boar would have been extreme overkill for something like that.  I'm not necessarily trying to make them more different, outside of the capabilities of the upper stages.  The upper stage on the 'Thunder 3' has a little more performance, but has a less precise orbital placement capability with only 3 axes of control.  The upper stage of the 'Thunder 4' has less performance, but carries more monoprop and has 6 axes of control, allowing very precise orbital placement (although this is mitigated by having an extended core stage with more fuel).

Trying to make the double-engine setup isn't as important to me, since I would be making a lot of design compromises just for the sake of having a twin-engine.

26 minutes ago, Jester Darrak said:

There is also the option to decouple service modules manually.

EDIT: Doesn't matter if a person wants to do it manually or not.  The command is gonna be left over anyway from the abort sequence using the launch escape system.  So either way, I'm just trying to declutter the staging list.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Raptor9

[Raptor9]

Two updated landers today, the LV-3A and LV-3B.  The slightly refined look of the new LV-3A is closer to the "Altair" LSAM from the Constellation program (or at least the particular concept of the "Altair" that I preferred, since there were a handful).  The LV-3B didn't change much, but the changes between the lander pair is a result of a further refined strategy.  Namely, the lack of an onboard rover on the LV-3A, and the shifting of the materials bay to the LV-3B.  This allowed me to focus on the performance of the LV-3A; and as such, it's capable of landing and returning the crew to orbit on any air-less planet/moon in the entire Kerbol system with the exception of Tylo.

Since it doesn't have to worry about a large ramp system or rover, the LV-3A can also be re-used if necessary.  On bodies with weaker gravity (like the Mun, Ike or Dres), the descent stage has enough delta-V to return the crew to orbit; or use that additional dV budget to conduct large inclination changes to other landing sites from the staging orbit, and then use the ascent stage to get back.  With bodies of higher gravity (like Vall or Moho), the lander can still be used normally as a two-stage lander, or refueled on the surface to return the entire lander back to orbit for another sortie.     

The LV-3B's major change is a different onboard rover.  The new ER-3 'Mongoose' is the most capable rover yet, with the ability to carry 4 Kerbals, operate in complete darkness with it's fuel cell, it has a strong HG-5 antenna for transmitting onboard science data, and can be remotely-controlled like the ER-2.  It also sits low, making it compact for shipment in the LV-3B's rover bay, and the wide wheel base reduces rollover tendency.  To refill the LFO (for the fuel cell) on the ER-3, simply drive it back into the LV-3B's rover bay and stop over the floor-mounted docking port.

Edited November 23, 2018 by Raptor9

[redmonddkgamer]

Which plane has the best STOL capabilities?

[Raptor9]

1 hour ago, redmonddkgamer said:

Which plane has the best STOL capabilities?

The ones that can takeoff vertically. 

In all seriousness, I don't know.  I've never really done a comparison test.  The more recent straight-wing utility aircraft I made are decent, like the C7 120, 124, and 130.

[Jestersage]

I was wondering why you choose to use Mk1 lander can instead of MEM for your LV-3A, until I realized I tried it once already, and ended up need reaction wheels (which you disabled) and plenty of weight shifting since MEM is heavier than the cabin and thus require a vertically stacked configuration.

[Raptor9]

14 minutes ago, Jestersage said:

I was wondering why you choose to use Mk1 lander can instead of MEM for your LV-3A, until I realized I tried it once already, and ended up need reaction wheels (which you disabled) and plenty of weight shifting since MEM is heavier than the cabin and thus require a vertically stacked configuration.

Because the Mk1 lander can looked better.  It would be rather odd to have an extra angular, bumpy front half of the LV-3A ascent stage, with a smooth passenger cabin back half, not to mention all the random RCS thruster blocks and the embedded gold donut on the bottom of the MEM you wouldn't be able to remove.  It would just look really out of place.  Plus the door between the Mk1 "cockpit" and the passenger "living quarters" lines up real nice.

In general, I really don't see myself using the MEM for anything other than a standalone lander pod like in my LV-2 family.

[T-10a]

Since you have the parts now to do so, would it be possible to add premade launchers for a Titan 2/3 styled launcher or R-7? These could be new rivals for the long-standing "Big 3" lineup of Jeb's Junkyard, Rockomax and Kerbodyne's launcher families (Say, the R-7 style would be Probodobodyne's attempt to make a standalone launcher (Maybe the "Grizzly" family and vary it up to be either the Sputnik, Vostok, Molnya or Soyuz variants), and the Javelin could be expanded to a brand new 1.875m class launcher filling the role of Titan II (as seen already), the Titan III (1.875m SRB boosters using fairings, possible Thunder upper stage usage as well?), and maybe even the Jeb's Junkyard rival to the Thunder/Lightning launchers, the Javelin LDC in 2.5m emulating the Titan 3L2/3L4 or Barbarian proposals from the 80s!

Regardless, these craft files are really good and I keep coming back to use them as a basis for my own crafts!

Edited June 13, 2018 by T-10a

[Raptor9]

In order to manage expectations, I'm taking a break from KSP.  Besides real-life work being very busy the past few weeks, I've gotten kinda burned out on KSP.  After going non-stop with revisions and updates since 1.4 was released, I gotta take a break.

Right now my biggest frustration is this bug with the new structural tubes.  Everything was fine in 1.4.1 when I started using them, and since 1.4.2 the structural tubes produce abnormal amounts of drag (even when empty), severely handicapping my 'Thunder' rocket family, which is my primary lifter series.  I haven't seen this bug mentioned as being worked on yet (which I know doesn't mean it's not being worked on), and the tracker has had it listed as "Investigating" for 3 months.  I don't want to be just another player complaining about bugs, but even I have to admit the last few versions have been a little shaky on the stability.

When I'm not feeling inspired, I make crappy craft.  So I'm going to step back from KSP until I get my creativity back.

[SiriusRocketry]

Hello @Raptor9, it's a shame you're feeling like that. I'm the same at the moment- I love the forums, of course, but I'm totally burnt out right now. Hopefully you'll get back to the game we all love soon

[d4harp]

17 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

In order to manage expectations, I'm taking a break from KSP.  Besides real-life work being very busy the past few weeks, I've gotten kinda burned out on KSP.  After going non-stop with revisions and updates since 1.4 was released, I gotta take abreak.

While many of us admire your designs, don't give yourself the stress of us being dependent on you. Ksp is a game, not a responsibility.

The whole point of a game is to have fun. If you feel like playing is bringing more frustration than satisfaction, then take as much of a break as you need. Go and play something new/different that doesn't require too much creativity.

And when/if you return, do your thing at whatever pace you feel like. We will always accept your art with open arms regardless of when it is released.

[Raptor9]

2 hours ago, d4harp said:

don't give yourself the stress of us being dependent on you. Ksp is a game, not a responsibility.

The only responsibility I feel is making sure I release a craft that is thoroughly tested with sufficiently detailed graphics to describe it.  But the craft themselves have always been built for my personal use in my career, which is where my frustration has been coming from.

[RealKerbal3x]

Just step back and do something else for a while. Eventually the KSP bug will bite you again!

Edited July 6, 2018 by RealKerbal3x

[Jestersage]

Hey Raptor9, if we need some advice, can we still ask you? (I myself is less "stuck" and more of "too many good combination, don't know which one to pick")

[Raptor9]

On 7/7/2018 at 2:51 AM, RealKerbal3x said:

Eventually the KSP bug will bite you again!

No doubt. 

4 hours ago, Jestersage said:

Hey Raptor9, if we need some advice, can we still ask you?

Of course, I still like to conceptualize and discuss KSP and aerospace-related stuff.

[AppleDavidJeans]

Hey @Raptor9, I know you're taking a break from KSP for the time being, but I was curious as to whether you had plans to make some sort of Laythe-capable spaceplane or vertical SSTO that could be easily transported aboard a rocket to Jool's SOI and would be used as a shuttle from the surface to whatever space station I'd be putting up in space around Jool. I know there's the SR-19 and SR-21, but I consider those too unwieldy to bring to Jool aboard a rocket from your catalog. Another option I saw was the LV-4B, but that only contains 3 kerbals, whereas my future expedition would bring along 6 to 8, and I see it contains a heatshield, which I believe would limit the LV-4B to only a certain number of uses before it cannot survive re-entry. When you get back to KSP, I think a smaller SSTO or a vertical SSTO that could contain a greater number of kerbals would fill a significant niche in your catalog and greatly complement the SR-19 and SR-21 if it could also be used as a Kerbin shuttle.

Something along the lines of the HL-20 project would be awesome as a reference for your design.

 

Edited July 9, 2018 by AppleDavidJeans

[Jester Darrak]

@Raptor9, I just wanted to say that I love your Centaur upper stage analogue. All those 1.875m parts from MH allow highly capable but still very compact and economic crafts that I am twice as Money efficient than in my Last game. The bang for the buck really outclasses the larger parts/vessels for Kerbin SOI exploration. I built a small probe to complete 3 satellite contracts in one flight and still had enough go-juice to send it to Duna/Ike for the fourth contract. Outstanding Work there!

[Raptor9]

17 hours ago, AppleDavidJeans said:

I was curious as to whether you had plans to make some sort of Laythe-capable spaceplane or vertical SSTO that could be easily transported aboard a rocket to Jool's SOI.
[snip]
I think a smaller SSTO or a vertical SSTO that could contain a greater number of kerbals would fill a significant niche in your catalog and greatly complement the SR-19 and SR-21 if it could also be used as a Kerbin shuttle.

I've been trying to develop* a variant of the SR-21 for Laythe for some time now.  Specifically, with features such as VTOL or very short takeoff/landing rolls.  For a spaceplane-style SSTO, the ideal way of getting it to the Jool SOI would be launching it to low Kerbin orbit, topping it off on propellant, and then sending it on it's way on rocket fuel only.  After arriving in the Joolian system, the plane would again be topped off with propellant, to include the liquid fuel-only tanks; and it would start performing it's mission and refueled between sorties either on the surface or in Laythe orbit (depending on each player's ISRU strategy).  However, SSTO's/spaceplanes are not my strong suite at all; @Rune probably has several models of such craft that would be beneficial to you.

*pre v0.90 I had a working VTOL SR-21 variant, as well as an even larger cargo VTOL spaceplane, but that was before they nerfed the "Wheesley", re-sized it, and when it was still able to operate at zero airspeed without putting 30 air intakes on it. 

Both vertical- and spaceplane-style SSTO's have pro's and con's, but I would like to get to a vertical-style SSTO for no other reason than to simplify the capability to land anywhere on Laythe, to include floating sea platforms.  I actually just typed a three paragraph rant about the various design considerations of both, but I deleted it to answer your question concisely: yes, I have plans.

Edited July 10, 2018 by Raptor9

[Rune]

1 hour ago, Raptor9 said:

However, SSTO's/spaceplanes are not my strong suite at all; @Rune probably has several models of such craft that would be beneficial to you.

I have tons of those. In fact, my next thing to release, when I have the time to whip up a cool graphic for the family (somewhat blatantly copied from one of yours, or something similar), is the STELLAR family. In fact, some versions of some of them are already on my KerbalX page, look for star names. And of course, the family name is an bacronym: Sstos That are Expected to Land Like A Rocket. Couldn't help myself.

 

Rune. Can't wait to see what Raptor does with such a tight Mass Ratio budget, if he goes the chemical route. Should be awesome.

[ThreePounds]

@Raptor9 I'm continuously blown away by absolute beauty and detail of your craft. Looking for inspiration on a mining rig I found your M3V "Gilly Logisitics Kit" and was amazed at the design language, shape and execution. No matter where I look, I spot little details and all it's parts are thoughtfully put together. I just couldn't believe it was all put together with stock parts.

However, I have a few questions regarding the landing struts. I initially thought you'd placed the first connector on the Rockomax Brand Adapter, attached the second point to it's final location and then offset the first point to it's final position. However, I don't seem to be able to do that myself, not even with Editor Extensions Redux. The offset tool is still limited, even with the option enabled.

Could you share some of your black magic with me?

 

Upon further testing it works fine in 1.3.1. Is that the version of the game you're running?

Edited July 11, 2018 by Three_Pounds