Prince of Rockets

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@goldenpsp: I'm glad you could get it in the air! @SHiftER2O: Right on. Now that I've made a really good base Mk2 model, I might take a break and try my hand at a Mk3 cockpit based space plane!

I've been playing around with space planes a lot lately and it occurred to me that something was missing... Wouldn't it be awesome to have a stock part that was a Mk3 sized cargo bay, but had a rear door that drops down like on a C-130!? You could build a giant cargo space plane, load up a rover, land it someplace, then just roll the rover out and fly away!

@waterlubber: Yeah, I really wanted to make something for the small cargo bay. I spent the most time playing around with the tiny lander. You could remove the lander and have a decent payload capacity for launching small satellites as well. @SHiftER2O: Thanks for the feedback, I'm all about functionality! What didn't you like about it visually? What did you have in mind for improvements? I was planning on making models that can do other missions, sort of a Masamune series. One that can make it to Laythe, one with a Gilly lander, etc.

Hello everyone! I had previously released a two kerbal SSTO called the A-2 Masamune, but it had various problems and the lander could only carry one kerbal. I looked at the feedback and decided to completely rebuild the A-2 from the ground up, fixing all the problems and giving it a proper two kerbal lander. I am happy to present the A-3 Masamune! Improvements over the A-2: ~ Better design produces zero torque ~ 5.4% less mass and 9 less parts (only 56 parts!) ~ Lander has more delta-v and 2 seats -Instruction Manual- 1. Use the air breathing engines to fly up to around 10,000m, while ending up around 350m/s in speed. 2. Get your nose around 5 degrees north of the horizon, then just let it ride to around 21,000m and 1,475m/s. 3. When you start losing power, press 1 to switch to closed cycle. Pull up to get your apoapsis above 70k before running out of oxidizer. 4. While coasting to apoasis, hit space to activate nuclear engines. Use oxidizer if any and nuclear to circularize your orbit. 5. Use your nuclear engine to do a orbital transfer to Mun or Minmus, then circularize your orbit when you get there. 6. When you run out of liquid fuel, enable the reserve tanks inside the wings while at zero throttle. 7. Press 3 to open your cargo bay doors. Then, have the two Kerbals go into EVA mode and board the "Bulldog" inside cargo bay. 8. Undock with the ship, switch to the Bulldog and use RCS to get out of the bay. Finally, click "control from here" on the probe core. 9. Press 0 to activate engines, then land and return to orbit. When close to the ship, click "control from here" on the docking port. 10. Lightly tap RCS to dock with the ship. The lander is extremely small and light, so only quick taps are needed. 11. Once docked, unboard the kerbals from the Bulldog and get them back inside the ship. Press 0 to disable the Bulldog engine. 12. Preform a orbital transfer back to Kerbin. You can easily aero brake to save fuel and / or slow down. 13. Once back in the Kerbin atmosphere, press 2 to disable your nuclear engine and 1 to enable your air breathing engines. 14. Cruise down to the landing site of your choice for a safe, powered landing. 15. *OPTIONAL: Build and load a refueling truck, then dock/refuel the A-3 to do it all over again! -Custom Action Groups- 1 = Switch R.A.P.I.E.R. engine mode / toggle air intakes. 2 = Toggle Nuclear engine. 3 = Toggle Cargo Bay doors. 4 = Toggle night time landing lights. 5 = Toggle ladder. 6 = Toggle docking port heat shield. 9 = Toggle cockpit lights. 0 = Toggle lander engine. -Basic Stats- Max Weight: 29,637kg Dry Weight: 13,857kg Max AB speed: ~1,480m/s (normal end of air breathing stage) Max CC speed: ~2,0??m/s (normal end of closed cycle stage) Delta-V left in 75k orbit: ~2,700m/s (nuclear engines) Variations in lander delta-V: 2,078m/s (with two kerbals, normal configuration) 2,225m/s (with one kerbal, unbalanced!) 2,397m/s (no kerbals, probe mode) Click here to DOWNLOAD the CRAFT FILE! Click here for SCREENSHOTS of a successful mission! What do you people think of my second generation SSTO? All positive and negative feedback is welcome!

Yeah, it is a bit under powered. What I usually do is immediately pull my nose up 40 degrees after take off... Then slowly push my nose down bit by bit when I start to lose acceleration. You should be at around 300m/s by the time you are at 9-10k in altitude. At that point, you want your nose closer and closer to the horizon and your speed should easily get above 350m/s. If you did everything right, a runaway acceleration takes place and you go from 400m/s to 1,400m/s very quickly. If you have a good angle while doing this, parts won't explode and you will bust out around 23,000m going 1,500m/s. @SHiftER2O I think 1.0.2 favors SSTOs, it's definitely a lot more fun to build them now. I used to play Battletech "the actual pen and paper RPG", and overheating was a concern. I think the new aerodynamics / overheating stuff really adds spice to the game. However, in the process, it ruined all my old rocket designs. So here I am making SSTOs!

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I definitely intend on improving my designs. The mini lander has a few flaws. It only has around 2,000m/s delta-v, which is enough to land, get back to orbit and dock with the ship, but with very little wiggle room. I always have less than 20 out of 240 units of mono-propellant left when I get back to the ship. Also, the probe core is always draining power on the lander, so you have to be mindful about sunlight and solar panel direction. If you actually do run out of power on the lander while in orbit, you can get off and your EVA suit's RCS has more than enough power to adjust the angle of the solar panel. But other than that, I think I did pretty good for a no-clip, stock lander that fits in such a tiny space! On a side note, I really want to make a two part ISRU mission involving Laythe. Like, Send a giant rover/manned base to mine ore and locate a nice flat spot to land. The problem is, I've been having trouble finding a place that both has ore AND is a good place to land. Laythe is hard.

I just started playing around with SSTO stuff when 1.0.2 came out and I wanted to share my first successful design... The A-2 Masamune! It has 3 modes of operation: Air breathing, closed cycle, and nuclear. It is designed to deploy a tiny one kerbal lander in Mun or Minmus orbit and then rendezvous with it later. I've flown two successful missions with it so far and it usually has more than enough fuel to return home for a jet powered landing. Basic instructions are as follows: 1. Use air breathing mode to fly up to around 21,000m. You should get close to 1,500m/s. 2. When you start losing power, press 1 to switch to closed cycle mode. There is enough oxidizer to get your apoapsis to 70k. 3. When you run out of oxidizer, hit space to activate your nuclear engine and use it to circularize your orbit. 4. Use your nuclear engine to do a orbital transfer to Mun or Minmus. 5. Around this time, you should run out of liquid fuel in your active fuel tanks. Enable the four disabled Mk1 fuel tanks while at zero thottle. 6. Circularize your orbit around Mun or Minmus. 7. Press 3 to open your cargo bay doors. Then, have a Kerbal go into EVA mode to board the mini lander that is inside the cargo bay. 8. Undock with the ship, switch to the mini lander, and right click on the probe core to "control from here". 9. Use the mini lander to land and return to orbit. 10. Once you are in a decent orbit and getting close to the ship for orbital rendezvous, right click on the docking port to "control from here". 11. Lightly tap RCS to dock with the ship. The lander is extremely small and light, so only quick taps are needed. 12. Once docked, unboard the Kerbal from the mini lander and get him back inside the ship. 13. Preform a orbital transfer back to Kerbin. You can easily aero brake to save fuel at this point. 14. Once back in the Kerbin atmosphere, press 2 to disable your nuclear engine and 1 to enable your air breathing engines. 15. Cruise down to the surface for a safe, powered landing! Here is the CRAFT FILE Here are some PICTURES What do you guys think? Is it good/bad? Is there something I can improve on? Let me know! UPDATE! This model has been replaced by the improved A-3 Masamune!

Of course! Sometimes I'll use a toroidal tank when using TR-2V Stack Decouplers, to hide the gap. Honestly, I could have gotten away with less than a thousand parts if it wasn't for the Radial Decoupler Bug. I built a 1 kerbal sea level lander for Eve with less than 600 parts before the bug appeared in 0.24.2.

This is a very large rocket. With the Eve Buster Mk2, it's possible to do near sea level direct ascent missions to Eve. It can take the Mk2 Lander Can to the surface of Eve and back to Kerbin in a single launch. Here are some stats: 14,344,190kg mass 1468 parts 22,566m/s delta-v 17 stages 6,016,300 cost No mods were used except Kerbal Engineer Redux v1.0 to measure delta-v. Pictures and craft file below: CLICK HERE to see the rocket completing a successful mission in 2 years & 98 days CLICK HERE to download the craft file

Hmm, that's a toughy. How are you playing TF2, in the Linux version of Steam? I'm sorry you are having problems my friend. You can easily test to see if 3d games work in WINE by running any DirectX based Windows game. Try the Windows version of KSP in WINE and see if it works. You might try reinstalling your nvidia drivers manually, directly from the site, where you blacklist the old drivers and boot into run level 3 to install the new ones.

Are you running a 32bit or 64bit system? If running a 64bit system, you might need to ensure both the 32bit and 64bit xorg drivers are installed. Just curious, can you get ANY 3d games working in WINE?

What's Bruce Lee's favorite drink? Waaahtah! (water)

@ cbro2r, are you using the proprietary drivers from Nvidia? It definitely sounds like some kind of driver issue with your videocard. What happens when you try to run "glxgears" from the console? Do red, blue, and green gears show up? I have a similar setup (except Fedora) and the game runs beautifully.

I've found the Kraken will occasionally appear when "Reverting to Launch" from strange places. Sometimes it's even reproduceable until I restart the client.

Where is Marty Mcfly when you need him?

You should try a 1,500+ ton Eve mission, those train wreaks can sometimes take minutes to play out. You've also got Matrix like slow motion going on if your computer isn't a beast, increasing the effect.

98% is pretty reliable. For a while I only tested things 5 times, which allowed me to measure reliability to degrees of 20%. When I started getting into 300+ ton rockets, I found that sometimes things would test successfully 4 times in a row, and fail the 5th time for no apparent reason. Then, I started testing things 10 times, giving reliability in degrees of 10%. For something to have a 98% reliability, that means you would of had to test it 50 times.

Wow... O.O From the looks of it, you well exceeded the area of the launch pad. Did you have tons of stabilizers all around the sides holding it up? Or did all the struts just flex when it hit the ground and it stayed together? Bah haha, that has to be over 1,200 parts. EDIT: And I just noticed the smoke trails, very cool.

ROTFL Whackjob, the one with 100+ mainsails and X200-8 fuel tanks that looks like it's folding into itself is pure awesomeness! Something similar happened to me recently when I was trying to make a 270 ton lifter.

When I first started playing, I was lucky to get rockets off the launch pad... I think this is because I wanted my rockets to "look" cool. But as I started to get a feel for the VAB and piloting rockets, I started putting things through various quality control checks and tests. For example, on landing missions I'll make separate files for the lander and payload sections. With each section, I'll do tests until I'm reasonably confident they will do the job. Once I'm happy with their respective designs, I'll make a sub-assembly of one and add it to the other. I've adopted this mentality with all my projects now and rarely do I encounter failure during the actual missions. So, how do you guys do it? Do you just build something and hope for the best when you hit space bar? When you have something that almost works, do you simply launch it over and over until it does? Or do you critically analyse things, read the mission logs when there are failures, and employ reliability engineering techniques when something is flaky until you have a reliable design?

I never even knew about the quick save function until after I no longer needed it. For some reason, landing has never been an issue for me. I guess all those hours playing Lunar Lander and Solar Jetman as a kid paid off.

I just want to say I've been running this in Fedora 19 for months now and it works perfectly.

I haven't actually tried editing my CFG file, trying to stick with stock parts. But in normal situations these sorts of things can almost always be solved with struts. I can only assume that because you have boosted the thrust to 100X normal, you have exceeded the struts ability to helpful. Have you tried separating parts with Cubic Octagonal Struts, and then added strut connectors? Heck, maybe try adding a 650 I-Beam in there, those are ridiculously sturdy.