Thunderbird

well,ok,i was generalizing,but fact is both 'blocks' stole a LOT from germans when Nazis died out and then integrated it to their research or built on it... spoils of war though,i can understand that

so was the U.S. one.... im still going to make fun of Nazis, not of german scientists though

everyone makes fun of Nazis,dont get your panties in a twist ;P

Hello, i was wondering if it is actually 'possible' to build a VTOL gunship-like craft (yes,even missile racks and stuff) in this game... I`ve been trying to create one for few hours and while i can actually get it up into the air (with off-axis boosters), its very hard to control and the RCS i chose as the main propulsion (it has 2 low power engines meant only for point-to-point travel) doesnt seem to be powerful enough to keep it in the air... Basically im asking for any proof-of-concept tips/hints in relation to my idea, as im having a hard time balancing it... but it actually SEEMS possible, even though way too hard for me to figure out... At this moment it can get in the air with the boosters,glide for a bit while braking,but it tilts forward,and im not really sure how many more RCS should i slap on it and where :-D i simply lack experience i guess. Please take a look,speculate,discuss... =P File attached, mod parts used: C7 parts mainly, carbon struts, i think SIDR parts (mini decoupler,booster?),tuned SAS please refer to screenie for details

ohhh thanks for the tip..... but... i wanted fuel recharging non-thrusting ones.... eh... edit: i looked at the cfg files, Silisko panel is only decorative,but i want fuel recharging ones,just ones without thrust im asking if i can reduce the max/min thrust to zero flat or if it will stop working and/or break something

always worked for me... (nice box)

thats something id like to know... probably not so fast since its that far out... (in relative terms anyway,weve been staying close so far) hohmann transfer is the safest method so far i think, and essentially what i meant but was too dumb to realize it... Either way,i dont think many people (including me) will manage the right direct orbital transfer course offhand (wrong terminology?), especially since the required velocity will be halfway to escape velocity or something like that... Im also pretty sure that if i try the brute force approach ill either miss the moon by few thousand K or create the Dumbass Crater.

hence why my ship has tons of solar panels on it and a twin bertha engine.... =P

Hi, im using your solar collectors for fuel recharge... i was wondering... they do have a very tiny thrust,and i do get messages that they damage something sometimes, is it possible to reduce the thrust to 0 to stop the damage entirely or would that break the whole thing?

in that case am i right that the best method is archieving a eliptic equatorial orbit and then wait until you can chase the Mun with a tiny burn, then do a smaller braking burn for Mun orbit?

effective or not,that thing is freaking awesome 8) makes me want to scream STAR WARS LANDSPEEDER!!!

its.... beautiful.... *sob* i always admired people that can build lightweight specific purpose ships... i always clutter it with multi-purpose stages and redundancy... (or end up building a self-sufficient abomination at around 50 gigatons)

i always fix that by putting struts between the fuel tank and the engine.... or add M0AR BOOSTERS and sit the rocket on them

Thanks,ill take a look at that fairings/ring, and for the tips... The reason i was asking is because i wanted to cover the 1/3m adapter-lander section AND the top section,while leaving the fins to stick out of it... the 4 panels unnecessarily too far apart from the hull around the heavy SAS rings are there purely for effect and are meant to be this far away 8) (looks a tiny bit like a FTL drive reactor,does it?) But... i dont mean to be rude, but that rocket is built to look cool,not be 100% efficient... generally my builds are multi-purpose and that means heavier than necessary, with redundancy in them... The first stage is 12 liquids built under the solids for ease of operation,they are attached to the solids,best way i could figure out how to attach them... the solids are there because the 2nd stage is built for efficiency, final orbital insertion in stratosphere and above for maneuvering boost before the actual IP craft engines kick in for final adjustment (only gets it up to LKO but the Farseer IP craft recharges fuel anyway). The last stage actually has Aerospike engines in a 7-slot adapter (long slow burn for less weight,but i might take a look at the engine type again now that you mentioned it...). The SRBs on it serve to give it a kick across the highest atmosphere layers (less air drag in that altitude). As for the fins... yeah they look cool 8) i dont know about stability but this thing flies on SAS alone,i dont have to touch the controls unless i want to change course and it only waves a tiny bit around very slightly without affecting the flight characteristics... The adapter below the actual lander is there because standard hollow decoupler was not working,dragged the whole thing with it for some reason.... and the other (stronger) adapter is just too big to fit under the lander... The only single problem i actually had with this ship is that it tended to snap between the lander and the orange fuel tank (at the SAS/RCS tanks) during orbital maneuvers before detaching the last ascent stage, i pretty much fixed that by replacing steel struts with carbon fiber ones,and adding 2 more sets of steel struts That was because the whole thing is too thin and top section,being more independent parts,has more RCS than the rest of it... might need some further fine-tuning but it doesnt snap when firing full burn for orbital anymore atleast... and yeah... sorry for the wall of text ;D

yup,thats exactly my problem with the Stargazer... Mk3 is on hold and Mk4 is simply too big to test :-D I reinforced the hell out of it and it still went out of control,so i thought it MIGHT be the Firelark engines, but to be honest,my initial stability problems up until the Mk3 were actually with the Ion drive gondolas... they were wobbling a bit under the massive stress and that caused the whole craft to bank ever so slightly,making the thrust go sideways for tiny fractions of a second... i thought i solved that,but i cant really be sure Then again, Mk2 still had SRBs for the initial takeoff stage... the moment i dropped them, the ship slowly went into a cartwheel.... the problem was still there when i intentionally didnt drop them but slightly reduced.... i tried making the ship longer and placing the Firelarks further down the hull but that had no effect as far as i was able to tell i deleted the Mk.2 but i still have the Mk3 ship file if you want it... theres one here http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=3534.0 not sure if its current but probably close enough...

BOOSTERS! i like it... which lander parts did you use?

it needed a whole lotta struts to not fall apart one question though, are your engines centered right? that thing went into a spin and nearly fell apart while exitting atmosphere,every time, i redid the ascent stages with 36 normal engines + Bertha and 8 boosters, but as the firelark version was hard to test because of FPS drop,this one is pretty nearly impossible (15min IRL translates to roughly 6-8 ingame seconds,depending on how many pages i have open in my browser... and yes,my PC sux), and its also 20% taller and nearly 30% bulkier ;P (EVEN M0AR STRUTS!!!)

winrar sucks at opening zip files and routinely says that,even though the file can be fine download 7zip

care to tell me how did you do the long detachable panels? i somehow never managed to put panels on top of each other,and my ships are usually too bulky/cluttered to attach panels directly to hull... the panels above the orange fuel tank are purely decorative,but i still want to have plating over the entire space stage until its released....

what,the ion drive section is not big? ;D edit: because i think the Firelarks are unstable,i will have to eventually arse myself to redo the whole lifting section with 'normal' parts... ill repost it when i get around to it i guess....

it is? P.S.: its unstable, tested it yesterday (took like forever),and from tests on a different ship i think the Firelarks are just plain unstable by themselves,ill need to completely redo the ascent stage and make it even bigger just to test it :\'(

nice rockets, mine are never this smooth and 'ordinary' looking,always stuff sticking out a suggestion tho; WHEN IN DOUBT, USE MORE STRUTS!!! often prevents wobblyness for me, simply by making the ship act as a straight tower-ish thing instead of a banana/piece of rope

I present to you, my least exploding most reliable, and in my opinion the coolest, ship to-date: The Farseer-Enigma Farseer section is my first attempt at a lightweight standardized IP craft - thats the orange fuel tank and up The Enigma launch vehicle probably is inefficient, oversized, and just a bit crazy, but it works well enough and has enough power to get the Farseer to LKO or even further. The lander itself needs some fine-tunning possibly,as im fairly sure landing on boosters is a BAD idea, but i dont have any legs for it atm and i was lazy tuning up the whole contraption first, finished and tested it just now :-D Behold the monster!

defeats the purpose,vanilla doesnt have long duration sustainable engines... ions on this last forever (if it even works,wont know until optimizations hit the updates )

THANK YOU!