GoodGameHunter

Cool, I see you used the new intake, I haven't tried it yet, my craft was build before the last update. Have you tried the long lateral intakes? They seam to have better airflow on paper.

For the sake of having some fun, and in the great interest of Kerbal science, here's a challenge to anyone willing to undertake such venture: a) You must upload 6480 liquid fuel + equivalent oxidizer, to a stable 100km orbit around Kerbin. It does not matter in what tank or configuration, just get the fuel up there. The total cost of a flight must be less than 80.000 kerbucks, including fuel. I managed to get under 50k but I know that's hard to achieve so 80k should be an easier goal for everyone. To clarify, "flight cost" means how much kerbucks are lost for a single orbital delivery (including the delivered fuel itself), so if you're recovering your rocket, you're only paying for the fuel and boosters or whatever else you're using up. In my case, the Hercules craft costs 500k but the vast majority of it is recoverable and the flight and fuel itself only costs roughly below 50k. c) You are only allowed to use stock parts and no other mods except MechJeb and FlightEngineer (or other mods that do not provide any technical advantage but will help make your development and rocket flight easier). Obviously also no mods that modify part costs d) It does not matter what means you use to achieve the previous goals. Recoverable rocket, disposable rocket, space plane, whatever you want to do, the goal is all about costs, load the required fuel, and keep the costs as low as possible. Oh and it must be done in a single flight! Good luck! ---------------- Here's my entry to the challenge: http://goo.gl/y1x2HY And a video with a not-so-great commentary

I doubt they'll ever be able to add multi-thread support to this game, actually I guess the Unity guys must do it for their physics engine.

Interesting solution for opening the doors. Also, it's good to see someone actually found a use for the large plane cockpit, I never could make anything of it, it's heavy, ugly, and not compatible with 99% of the parts in the game, I was beginning to wonder if the devs aren't just trolling me with it

Yeah you need to have a strong computer to fly that thing, lots of hi-tech avionics involved I got an I7 and you can see it's not doing too great.

Have you tried putting a SAS on it so that it keeps the thing vertical while you step? Ah nevermind I just read the other posts

Yeah I barely got it to fit in the hangar, the tip is almost poking through the roof lol. Which raises the question, how do the kerbals get it on the launch pad, since it's larger than the hangar door...

I built the Hyperion with the following goals in mind: - maintain a beautiful, aerodynamic design; - do not abuse asparagus staging (must look like an actual rocket); - carry as much fuel as possible into a 250km orbit, within a single run; - autonomous control; - able to relocate on its own, anywhere within the solar system; - full connectivity with all docking port sizes; - all-round lighting for no-headaches, dark side docking operations; - electrical autonomy without bulky solar panels that get in the way of docking maneuvers; - dual axis large docking clamps to allow chaining with other stations/ships on both ends; - able to function both as a disposable fuel tanker/tank, fuel station or as an interplanetary tug. What I managed to achieve, is a hangar-tall rocket with a sleek aerodynamic design, 70MN thrust and 2.6 mil kerbucks cost that can put 68k units of fuel into a 250km orbit and has efficient space-based engines that can carry it anywhere within the solar system to act as a disposable fuel base. From an economic point of view, it is cheaper to have a very large mobile fuel station that you can move anywhere you need it and dispose of it once its fuel has been used up, instead of making multiple smaller launches. However, the Hyperion fuel hub (what I call the actual station module) can double as a fully functional space station so it is up to you if you decide whether to keep it in orbit and refuel it once it's empty, or drop it and launch another one to replace it. Stock craft download: http://goo.gl/012BRi Enjoy!

Hi, here's my attempt at what I like to call a PEZ staging setup. This particular prototype is not too efficient due to my persistence to have a reusable main-body, which means that pretty much everything except the tanks had to be safely returnable to the ground. The 5 tanks at the bottom are linked to each other through large docking ports which are reinforced with struts and are action linked to keys 0 through 6 and have to be manually triggered when the tanks empty up in order to drop them, which makes it a bit difficult to fly the rocket manually and focus on dropping the tanks at the same time, not to mention keeping the thing balanced. The rocket had some stability issues hence the detachable tip for stabilization purposes. Also, when I build launch systems I use fuel-locked tanks as weight in order to simulate a heavy payload, so this particular rocket doesn't have anything on top aside from 2 tanks, out of which one got almost fully burned on orbit circularisation, which means we only lifted roughly 36 tons of payload into orbit (1 tank), which isn't bad for a mostly reusable rocket but it's not the best efficiency either. I do have plans of taking another crack at this staging system and I'll post the next version here too, it's probably going to be another reusable system but I haven't made up my mind yet. FULL HD VIDEO: CRAFT DOWNLOAD: http://goo.gl/84W0Jq Some screenshots (slightly earlier prototype versions, before the one in the video):

Behold the mighty Atlas Mk.13! 2259 tons of pure power developed with the sole purpose of lifting a massive amount of fuel into orbit in a single trip. I saw there were a lot of heavy fuel lifters out there created by other people but I wanted to create one that also looked good. After running through a couple of faulty design concepts, ironically, the 13th version was a grand success which not only lifted the required amount but actually got into orbit without hitting the final stage and with 50% fuel on the pre-final stage. Roughly 7.5 orange (jumbo) tanks totaling 270t of tank mass and 21270 fuel units. I'm sure that with a little more optimization work, and reworking the 2 final stages a bit I could get it to 8 full tanks in orbit but I don't really care about that much, originally I was aiming for 6, so 7.5 is more than a success for me, plus I like the design so much I wouldn't want to change it anyway. FULL VIDEO: CRAFT DOWNLOAD: http://goo.gl/ZPxxDZ (sorry I think the old download link was bad, edited)

Hey very nice rocket, I think you beat my personal record of 7.5 tanks Thanks for mentioning the editor extension I'll install it too, been looking for something like this especially for the vertical snap

Yeah the scooter is not designed to move stuff around, just to move kerbals in a stylish way The docking port is just so you can park the thing, it wasn't originally included in the design until Jebediah took a short break at the orbital station to get a drink and his scooter flew off into the depths of space heh.

Thanks, I posted a reply on the SSI thread.

Hah, epic ships man. I built a lifter/crane of my own but went with tri-engine configuration instead of bi-engine, and the thing is a bit hard to maneuver. You inspired me, so I'm gonna try a bi-engine version this weekend

That's a fun design. I played around with different configurations of this too but I can't say I got any special efficiency out of it. Well, that's maybe because of my stubbornness to use a recoverable platform. Still, I find the model to be a bit too complicated for no extra benefit from a classic design, except for being fun to play around with. Here's my design (codename Babel) for anyone that wants to download and have fun with it: http://goo.gl/84W0Jq I'm currently shooting a video of it, will upload in a bit and post the video here.