OgreMagi

I made 2 landings on Tylo with my Tylo Prime Lander I used 3 mods, MechJeb, Kethane and Kommet Nucleonics. The lander was designed with 2 main engines clusters, Cluster One had four FtmN 40Kn Atomic engines and Cluster two had 2 Aerospikes and a lot of fuel. A heavy lander to be sure but I went for OverKill on thrust and counted on refueling on the ground. The landing was complicated by several factors, First I needed to scan Tylo for a Kethane patch I hoped for a path on the 0 degree inclination but didn't get one . Secondly mechjeb was behaving badly when I tried to land. My first attempt I aborted as Mech jeb kept turning off the Aerospikes and I had to refuel at the mother ship. What I did was make a burn the nuke in the general direction of a Large kethane patch and set up a orbit above it, then burned for a while with the nukes to get a high angle descent and let mechjeb land using the land somewhere setting. It was a wild ride, I burned 95% of my fuel to get down and I didn't have confidance it was going to work until about 4000m when mechjeb showed my DV of fuel was slightly greater than what was needed to land. But My second landing didn't make it I had to make a restart it as I burned too much fuel setting up the landing and ran out of fuel about 900m with over 400m/s Dv needed to land. Take off was no problem, with the kethane refueling the lander but I used 80% of the fuel to get back to orbit.. Tylo is difficult to land, and anyone who makes it should be proud of the achievement

not use about using a basic jet engine the air is thinner, I would try a Turbojet think you will get better ISP...

well given the tech of Starwars is rather extensive and they built a small moon for a battle station ( death star) coruscant is rather small potatoes... it is the capital of a galactic empire..

when you forget to add the battery when you add the solar panels so when your landing in the dark you run out of power and cannot control your craft..... ( yep happened to me on my 3rd mission...)

I hae thought long about realistic accomidations for long ranged flights and tend to use the Hitchhiker as my core Command Module on any mission beyond the mun. I have a lander I use for long term missions,uses the Rovemax XL3 as legs and its large but mobile I use a hitchhiker as the command module with 2 MK 1 lander cans-----as quiet rooms------ so at least they can get away from each other if needed.

I have decided to enter the challenge but I decided to go for simple. No Mods, except MechJeb for showing the stats, Dv ect ect. and to show that a simple space plane is a capable design and all those mods do is just add weight, the bane of every aerospace engineer. SO I give you the Puddle jumper. While Jeb loved his rockets Bill was allways a pilot and wanted something to run around in but inorder to get funding he needed to make it space capable. Taking the shuttle cockpit, so he could bring friends and the odd investor, he added fuel, and simple wing and flap, some air intakes, and a single turbo jet engine. Part count 55. major parts one Turbo Jet engine, two Rocomax 48-7s rockets 4 ram intakes, 4 radial intakes, one advanced inline stabilizer and MechJeb. Seats 3 and carries a few extras,.... 2 extra batteries for running the DVR and the avionics, ( hate when you run out of power and cannot control the ship. 2 stratus V monopropellant tanks powering 6 RCS ports ( for fine control while docking). 6 solar panels ( never know when you might need them) and 2 PB-NUK radioisotope power generators ( yea had to please the atomic workers union) Stats..... Trw 2.39 max thrust 285. mass 12.134 t. max acceleration 23.49 DV. fueled on the ground (Note the rocket and turbojets are NOT CROSSFED each has their own fuel supply.) engine atmo Vac Turbojet 13089 19634 Rockomax 1342 1565 Hot Keys. 1. turbo jet 2. Both Rockomax 48-7s 9 forward Ram intakes 10 aft Ram Intakes. SSTO Ground to Orbit Flight profile. max out the throttle and hit one, pull back at 80 m/s and lift off. Gear up at 200M and up to 45 degree climb until about 15k m nose down between 30-20 degrees watch you vertical speed and keep it between 40-50m/s climb to 30k m then nose down between 10 to 20 degrees keep vertical speed around 10-20m/s typically I can get 1900 m/s around 29-30km, and you can tweek it to get about 2200m/s activate mechJeb and go for orbit when above 30Km and Orbital speed above 1950 m/s. Overall a simple ssto design, not struts needed only a pair of cubic struts behind the rear ram intakes to mount the Rockomax 48-7s with some built in safety, ( extra batteries, radioisotope power). If you don't want to go to orbit you can remove the oxidizer and save on the weight. This is my base craft from which I have developed all my other SSTO space planes and I have found that the basic airframe is very adaptable with only minor changes. currently I have several mods on this design. a Kethan modded variant that can self refuel as long as it can land in a kethan patch. a nuke variant replacing the rockomax engines with a pair of nuke engines, ( the LtbY 14KN ) doubles the DV in orbit. a Fast variant with 3 Turbo jets and a pair of LV-909 rockets that can make it to orbit in about 1/3 of the time.

hmm quick save,, hope x4 physics works ( it usually doesn't, keep forgetting the MHOR STRUTTTSSSS) then I just let it burn and read the forums......

Ignore below post.......... yep this qualifies as a end user error, apparently I saved it in the kethane folder as the game data folder, instead of gamedata folder to gamedata folder.... it works without any issues now. I will recheck the patch and see, but I have been using the Kethane mod for some time, and my stock lander/miner/converter doesn't work now. It will detect/map kethane, the drill works and my kethane tanks fill up and increase my vessel mass according to the mech jeb mod, but the converters will not work nor will the Kethane power generator function.

yea, I think I would watch a car rust, would be quicker.....

hmm having a issue with the kethane mod. I haven't played the game in a month and with the new update I could not process kethane. The detector, mining probes, seem to work I.E. I am detecting and mapping the kethane and I can mine and store it, (mech jeb showed my mass increasing) but I cannot use it to make the different fuels nor can I use it to power my Kethane power generator. I updated the mod but when I did I lost some of the functions. When I click on the processor all I get is the option to make fuel or to make monopropellant, where I get the options to make oxidizer, fuel, xenon, or mono. And it isn't a bad design, I have been using the kethane mod for several months and my stock designs, which worked well , do not process kethane Any ideas ?

well its Kerbal space program you can do what you want. Myself, I tend to try to make my craft look good but I do not spend hours tweeking each part ect ect ect. My first SSTO was a simple mod of the Aeris 4a ( called it the Hermes 4a) replace the nuke with a Turbo jet, replace the turbo jets with Lv 909 rockets and adding 2 more ram intake, ( total of 4 ) and removing the radial intakes. By most definitions here that is air hogging but SSTOs are a steep learning curve at first and it does not hurt to have a little extra air while your trying to get the design tweeked out abd learn wherer it break point is and how to fly it well. Now I can fly it with only 2 ram intakes it does take a while ( hate the wait to get up to altitude ) and its rather boring. I say have some fun with it and unless your in a challenge that limits parts then see what ya can do. =

No, but taking a break is usually a good idea. FUN that's the underlying principle, if its a chore then take a break other wise whatever you accomplish in the game will not be worth anything.

I week ago I went into work and was looking at some sales graphs a maanger had and I mentioned they looked like a beizer curve which started a 5 minute lecture from me on the how, why ect ect which lead to my new nickname the math teacher...... Yea I think I may need help ( still in denial )

I would like to see more planets from science fiction, Larry Niven of the ringworld series, one of my favorite authors, wrote about human expansion into the near by stars in his books of known space and describes several interesting worlds. Plateau A planet with earth normal gravity with no moon and a single very high mountain, about the size of new zeland, the rest covered with a very dense atmosphere. the livable areas are on plateaus on the mountain roughly 20,000meters above sea level . Jynx heavy gravity planet, roughly twice the earths gravity, egg shaped with a high rotation rate, the Poles are in vacuum with the equatorial areas venus like with a narrow band that support earth like atmosphere. wonderland system, primary world is 60% earth gravity good atmosphere but a lot of asteroids rivaling small moons. Canyon, a mars like world that has a deep crater, over 5 Km deep, that holds a near earth like atmosphere, roughly the size of California Baha peninsula just to think of a few...

I still have it, and it is a useful mod. the 40Kn rockets have some advantage on smaller craft ( if you have space for 2 nukes but don't want the mass of 2 Lvns then it works out well.) the 12 Kn variant is great on small probes and Space plane. Hope it comes back

I can see high altitude ballons late in the tech tree, and probably the only way to get a sample from the lower atmosphere of Jool.

well I finally arrived in the jool system, sent 3 impact probes one had a kerbal malfunction, seems I put the stack decoupler on backwards and it detached from the ship but not the probes engine. I tried to burn it off, it took damamge but didn't break off so I had to terminate it. the remaing 2 probes functioned as expected. I had on set up with a drogue chute and one with winglets and tried out powered flight. Man on man I would love to try jet engine in jool atmosphere, maybe even an kethan turbin but next mission... got the pics of my desent and will post it when I finish my mission. My only problem at the moment is fuel, I burned a lot using the auxillary aerospikes on the main bus, got bored of 2 m/s acceleration of the nukes. only have about 15 % of my fuel left but I think I can aerobrake and make my encounter with Val and have enough fuel to use the landers to refuel all the ships... let ya know how it goes.

my first mission to the MUN used a stock lander and decided to try to orbit and land a second time, ran out of fuel about 50 Meters from the ground, and made it worse because I forgot to change the RCS settings and tumbled the craft before I got it under control . But I only broke one of the lander struts and it was the start of my first rescue mission..

settings, change the setting to zero debris and reload

Thanks for the help and Yea apparently I do not know up for down.... errrr no no lets blame it ont he assembly engineer yea YEA that's it I TOLD THEM TO FOLLOW THE BLUEPRINTS..... Not only that I placed it wrong on both ships..... New KPS remember Sr docking ports do have a UP or down.

Space Plane Sins SAS, it is way too useful but I am starting to use it less ( hard to see if a space plane is stable when you cant fly it without SAS) Mech jeb above reasons. Rockets... mech jeb to dock I just don't ant to waste the time ( harder now that I am building larger rockets and it doesn't work well) Building rockets way to big when a smaller one will do just as well. just so much easier since the stronger attachment was added kill the occasional kerbal instead of reverting the flight, hey some times its just a bad design and it needs a kerbal to die to prove it.

been having a problem using them to dock larger craft, they simple do no seem to work at all. Is there a problem with them?

thank for the info I will try that and for my next submission and that is right now since I have completed the main bus vehicle for the Jool mission I give you the Kerbal Atomic Ascension Bus zero zero Mod or the K.A.A.B 00 M and the Laythe Base lander Took a lot of work to balance out the ship and add what I wanted, seems like I went though a hundred variations until I got this one but it covers all the bases. I will launch it with mostly empty tanks ( probably 1/3 in the main orange tank) should make orbit...... Well I plan to try to keep the large SRB's to help with the boost for Jool but If I am short of orbit I can use them to boost myself up have to see how it goes........ Planned dockings 2 Tylo capable landers one on each side using the triple docking clusters, the plan is to use the two Tylo landers to provide additional thrust when boosting/orbiting for Jool and they will detach when they arrive. 2 Hermes A4 SSTO Sea planes for exploring Laythe and the Jool system. and one Laythe Base lander to remain on Laythe Other features.... THe KAAB 00 M has several mounted vehicles to help it accomplish it mission, 1. The nose mounted ship, the Jool mini, will be used as a system explorer and a emergency return craft if we lose all other vehicles but if it is not needed for the return to Kerbin then the Jool mini will stay in system orbiting Val or Laythe. 2. The 3 probe cluster on the left consists of 3 Jool impactor probes , 1 with a drogue chute, 1 with a standard chute and one with Wings. 3. the 5 Probe cluster on the Right are heavy duty ComSats that will be deployed in system to monitor Jool and its moons and provide extra comms for the mission. Main Bus Mission Once stripped of its docked craft the KAAB 00 M will be used as a mobile base with the landing craft to ferry samples and Fuel to it, While it should have enough thrust to land on Bop and Pol and perhaps even Val its primary mission is as a return vehicle to Kerbin. However is something is discovered, alien ruins , elvis ect ect then It can be landed to be used as a ground base . Rational and shaky logic Yea I know I built it waaaayy to big, the atomic engines are a mod , Kommet_Nucleonics , but I decided to use the smaller less efficient varients to perhaps get around the -100 point penality. The main thrust comes from 2 clusters of Four FTmN 40 Nuclear rockets, stats are Isp 770 in vac, mass 1.52 so they arnt as efficient as a LVN rocket so maybe ....... Who knows I plan to try it again using standard rockets but I wanted to try this out first. One thing was that all my craft have kethan mining/processing/storage equipment on them, part of it was simple redundancy. If I lose one craft I have others but another reason was a simple fix the the atmosphere requirments of the Kerbals. since we currently don't account for it I added the kethan processors as a combination processor/atmosphere scrubber. the extra weight of the kethan equipment I feel would simulate the mass of atmosphere processing equipment. Long post but I am taking my time to explain some of the reasons why I am building it this way.

https://imgur.com/a/p6TtP there are the pics to my Laythe SSTO space plane it took a while but I am now working on the landers and main ship. that should go much easier. but here is my post Unshamming BLOG of advertismant for the ...... Presenting the Hermes A4 SSTO, Pride of the JunkWorks Space plane demolition and assembly yard. The Hermes basically a modded Areas A4, with Kethan parts, a single turbo jet, and 2 Kommit Nuclenics LtBY 12k nuclear engine with a lot of capability built into the craft. It is capable of SSTO from sea level, able to search, mine, store and process Kethan, make standard landings, parachute landings and conduct operations on water. YES it is capable of Floating/Landing and Take Off from sea level, the reversed radial intakes make great floats and since they are mounted in reverse they provide air intake with zero Drag. Notice that the landing gear is mounted low, on octaginal struts , for clearance when landing on water. Supplementing the radial intakes are 4 Ram intakes which left off until high in the atmosphere. Aircraft like cars are dependant on fuel to move, like the saying about old cars they can pass anything on the road but a gas station. However the Hermes isnt dependant on a mother ship to refuel. The Hermes can self refuel as long as there is a kethane field within its flight range. With its kethane equipment added, the small kethane detector, standard small drill, small processor, and 2 small kethan storage tanks the Heremes can refuel itself in a few hours. In addition it mounts a kethan power generator which adds the supplemental power needed to run the drill and processor without having to add a ton or more of solar panels. In flight the Hermes is stable and resistive to roll but sensative enought to make water landings when needed. Take off from the runway is easy and the craft lefts at 60 m/s with lift arround 75 m/s. Flight testing of the Hermes demonstrated it can move at 70 m/s on water, making it as capable as a hover craft over short distances. If there is not enought level ground to pit down on the Hermes carries a parachute landing system however parachute landings on water will damage the aircraft and shoudl only be attempted in the most dire circumstances. Water landing do require a gentle touch as the plane is tail heavy and too fast decent will cause damage to the engines and drilling probe. Dont have a pilot, not a problem the Hermes carries the state of the art in electronics with hardwired Probodobodyne OKTO2 linked to the cockpit capable or remote piloting of the craft and with the advance communication gear, the communitron 88-88 and COMMS DTS-M1 ensure solid carrier signals from ground, orbit and interplanetary. Rational of design. Yea i tried to build it all in one package, took a bit but it can do most of everything i want it too. Took a while to get it working but I spent way too much time trying to build larger complicated planes with little success. Had too many roll over crashes and uncontrolables until i remember an article about military aircraft. short version the military modded many of thier best designs simple because it was easier to work with a stable, reliable aircraft. so that got me thinking i should use a stock craft and simply modify it . Specs ... Max take off weight is 24.46 t with the kethan tanks and all standard tanks full but i fly it with less than the max fuel load ( 18.62 t take off wieght) to keep the mass down. Note that the center tanks feed the jet engine and the outer tanks feed the LVN 14Kn. Typical fuel load for SSTO 100km orbit arround kerbin is to load the forward center tank FL-t800 with 252 fuel and no oxidizer, the rear center jet fuel tank with 90 units of fuel, the outer 2 FL -T400 tanks half load ( 90/110) and the 2 FL-T200 tanks full (90/110). you burn 3/4 of the center tanks to get to orbit and not much of the outer tanks and easily enough left over to fly to the mun and back and make a powered landing. If you need more space Delta V you can load the forward center tank with oxidizer and fill the outer tanks this gives you 4700 Delta v over an HOUR of thrust more than enough to move between the moons of Jool . Handling is easy, some slight instability issues when between 12, 000 and 25, 000 Meters but x3 physics while climbing is easily done. Turning is slow but not hard but its not a aerobatic flyer stick to basic manuvering and you wont have too many problems. As mentioned water landings are difficult you have to desend slowly and be careful of landing at too high of angle as it will tear off the drill assembly ( if your lucky and the engines if your not). This is why the landing gears are mounted so low, and the radial air intake mounted to the landing gear. One side benefit from them is mounted in reverse the do make intake air but for zero drag. Once landed on water takeoff is easy nose up at 50m/s and air born by 70m/s. But for the simplest landings use the chutes. Parachuts landings are the easiest way to land and the chutes are placed in order to make level landing easier. I also wanted a plane that wasnt tied to a mothership so i added the kethan parts to it, the kethan generator was a nice wieght saving addition, since it would take 3 to 4 Large solar arrays to power the processor and the drill and each XL solar array weighs 0.35 t , the Kethan power generator only wieghs 0.3 t. so what ya think. Ill try to post more pics once I figure out how to place them on the page but just check out my imgur picts

thought I would try something different for my Jool mission and I wanted a space plane that was SSTO capable, able to conduct water born landing/flight and able to refuel itself. Unshamming BLOG of advertismant for the ...... https://imgur.com/a/p6TtP Presenting the Hermes A4 SSTO, Pride of the JunkWorks Space plane demolition and assembly yard. The Hermes basically a modded Areas A4, with Kethan parts, a single turbo jet, and 2 Kommit Nuclenics LtBY 12k nuclear engine with a lot of capability built into the craft. It is capable of SSTO from sea level, able to search, mine, store and process Kethan, make standard landings, parachute landings and conduct operations on water. YES it is capable of Floating/Landing and Take Off from sea level, the reversed radial intakes make great floats and since they are mounted in reverse they provide air intake with zero Drag. Notice that the landing gear is mounted low, on octaginal struts , for clearance when landing on water. Supplementing the radial intakes are 4 Ram intakes which left off until high in the atmosphere. Aircraft like cars are dependant on fuel to move, like the saying about old cars they can pass anything on the road but a gas station. However the Hermes isnt dependant on a mother ship to refuel. The Hermes can self refuel as long as there is a kethane field within its flight range. With its kethane equipment added, the small kethane detector, standard small drill, small processor, and 2 small kethan storage tanks the Heremes can refuel itself in a few hours. In addition it mounts a kethan power generator which adds the supplemental power needed to run the drill and processor without having to add a ton or more of solar panels. In flight the Hermes is stable and resistive to roll but sensative enought to make water landings when needed. Take off from the runway is easy and the craft lefts at 60 m/s with lift arround 75 m/s. Flight testing of the Hermes demonstrated it can move at 70 m/s on water, making it as capable as a hover craft over short distances. If there is not enought level ground to pit down on the Hermes carries a parachute landing system however parachute landings on water will damage the aircraft and shoudl only be attempted in the most dire circumstances. Water landing do require a gentle touch as the plane is tail heavy and too fast decent will cause damage to the engines and drilling probe. Dont have a pilot, not a problem the Hermes carries the state of the art in electronics with hardwired Probodobodyne OKTO2 linked to the cockpit capable or remote piloting of the craft and with the advance communication gear, the communitron 88-88 and COMMS DTS-M1 ensure solid carrier signals from ground, orbit and interplanetary. Rational of design. Yea i tried to build it all in one package, took a bit but it can do most of everything i want it too. Took a while to get it working but I spent way too much time trying to build larger complicated planes with little success. Had too many roll over crashes and uncontrolables until i remember an article about military aircraft. short version the military modded many of thier best designs simple because it was easier to work with a stable, reliable aircraft. so that got me thinking i should use a stock craft and simply modify it . Specs ... Max take off weight is 24.46 t with the kethan tanks and all standard tanks full but i fly it with less than the max fuel load ( 18.62 t take off wieght) to keep the mass down. Note that the center tanks feed the jet engine and the outer tanks feed the LVN 14Kn. Typical fuel load for SSTO 100km orbit arround kerbin is to load the forward center tank FL-t800 with 252 fuel and no oxidizer, the rear center jet fuel tank with 90 units of fuel, the outer 2 FL -T400 tanks half load ( 90/110) and the 2 FL-T200 tanks full (90/110). you burn 3/4 of the center tanks to get to orbit and not much of the outer tanks and easily enough left over to fly to the mun and back and make a powered landing. If you need more space Delta V you can load the forward center tank with oxidizer and fill the outer tanks this gives you 4700 Delta v over an HOUR of thrust more than enough to move between the moons of Jool . Handling is easy, some slight instability issues when between 12, 000 and 25, 000 Meters but x3 physics while climbing is easily done. Turning is slow but not hard but its not a aerobatic flyer stick to basic manuvering and you wont have too many problems. As mentioned water landings are difficult you have to desend slowly and be careful of landing at too high of angle as it will tear off the drill assembly ( if your lucky and the engines if your not). This is why the landing gears are mounted so low, and the radial air intake mounted to the landing gear. One side benefit from them is mounted in reverse the do make intake air but for zero drag. Once landed on water takeoff is easy nose up at 50m/s and air born by 70m/s. But for the simplest landings use the chutes. Parachuts landings are the easiest way to land and the chutes are placed in order to make level landing easier. I also wanted a plane that wasnt tied to a mothership so i added the kethan parts to it, the kethan generator was a nice wieght saving addition, since it would take 3 to 4 Large solar arrays to power the processor and the drill and each XL solar array weighs 0.35 t , the Kethan power generator only wieghs 0.3 t. so what ya think.