Keldaria

Nice! I like the air intakes on the tail =D

Lol, TBH I was actually thinking, 116 parts? Damn Rune must be feeling sick, thats kind of up there for him on a craft like this =) Awesome stuff none the less

Ok, First, Thanks to Rune for the input on control systems for my puller lift system. I haven't had a chance to experiment or even tinker with that design yet but its on my list and will be the next thing I work on. Second, I was able to build a crude proof of concept craft last night based on some idea's that were rolling around in my head. Normally when I launch payload into orbit I build whatever it is I'm making then I just slap some rockets under it and maybe setup an asparagus staging system if I truly need to maximize capacity or something. All essentially custom, generic and uninspired. I've only briefly toyed around with standardized lift engines or cargo hauling craft/shuttles (as seen from my last posting). The normal fatal flaw I run into is getting my payload to fit or meet the specifications of the rocket I built prior... Far to many times I find trying to strap a standardized lift engine or cargo hauler to ether require completely rebuilding the payload to fit, adjusting/breaking the size up, or not having the power to push an oversized load where I want it, which is why I normally revert back to generic, special made design. Well for this craft I wanted it to be different so instead of my normal "Hey lets throw some stuff together that looks cool and have lots of Delta V and hope it will be useful" design efforts, I've instead started with a list of requirements I want this craft to accomplish and with them a generic mission profile for the craft. This is the results Requirements Payload Launching Ability to carry Large Objects (Sized Bigger than MK3 Hulls or Extra Large Tanks) Ability to Lift 72-100 Tons of Payload to an elevation of 200-300k Payload to be shielded from Atmospheric Flight Capable of 100% Landing & Recovery in as few of pieces as possible (Fairings included if part of the design) Payload Recovery Ability to Launch SSTO without Payload Ability to Recover Objects of Large Size (Sized Bigger than MK3 Hulls or Extra Large Tanks) Ability to Recover Objects of 32-40 Tons Safely Secure Recovered Objects Recovered Payload to be shielded from Atmospheric Flight Capable of 100% Landing & Recovery in as few of pieces as possible (Payload included) [*]Multi-Mission Flexibility Ability to attach boosters in a safe manner to extend range or lift capacity on pad With those in mind this is the proof of concept craft. Tweaking is still needed and some of the items are still necessary to add to meet my goals.. but the core seems to be stable and successful at being capable of accomplishing all items of its mission. Standardized Lift, Launch and Recovery Platform v0.1 This is just after a successful launch to a 300k orbit and return to a safe landing. Please note no actual landing systems have been installed yet. As a result engines and drag provided 100% of the landing capabilities. The outer skin of the craft is still needed, I intend the outside will be completely covered so the payload which will go under it will shielded from atmospheric flight. Let me walk you threw a series of test flights and what I was testing. Here we are launching straight up with a 72 ton dummy weight.. yes it still has enough TWR to lift it off the pad And here we are at 267k Aposis with a full tank. No we aren't in orbit.. I just went straight up, I also held back 1k Delta V for reserve on landing needs.. so far MechJeb only needed about 250-300 to land but thats without any chutes soo I have hopes I can almost eliminate that. Point is I can get it up there and expect the finished craft could go further safely without jeopardizing the landing.. Technically the payload was still attached so that 1k Delta V was probably more like 1.4k after I dump the payload. Honestly the only limiting factor I'm seeing on this side of things is the starting TWR, its already pretty tight soo I could lift heavier cargo into vacuum but I'd have to play with fuel levels to conserve weight or strap a few boosters on for the starting life. Now I know what your thinking.. whats the point of being that high if your not doing a gravity turn and pushing yourself into orbit? Well I didn't really intend for this to be a SSTO hauler on the lifting side.. I actually envision it as more of a mobile launch platform... so I tested that. I'm sure they get toasty but with the mute button you can barely hear their screams Here is the liftoff with a small craft with a large 72T tank and Large Engine. Now this Vessel technically takes up the entire cargo length but in my next evolution I intend to nearly double my cargo length.. Just need to find a way to do so without destroying my weight... but thats a problem for tomorrow. Houston we have seperation Made it to elevation, Still a full tank of gas in the payload section. Now I cut loose and launch my "Real" rocket from the vacuum of space. This experiment I used one of the extra large engines, but you could easily and quite effectively use some nukes which benefit the most from being launched in vacuum. Burn baby Burn And to orbit with my test rocket.. don't mind its uninspired design or the use of mechjeb as a nose cone (honestly I just slapped it together as a quick test, my actual payloads I like to think are slightly more thought out). Unfortunately this time Mechjeb's landing protocols picked a bad spot for the launch vehicle (something I'll be able to adjust manually when I add in a proper landing chute system).. but I won't deny you guys a good explosion And it bounced.. Whoops there goes the pad... well shoot now I launched 3 Kerbals to orbit on a test craft that I never bothered to setup landing or docking systems on, and now my launch site is in ruins so I can't roll out another rocket to rescue them... I hope they packed snacks because I didn't really plan for that ether =P Now, don't get me wrong. I still have a lot of development to do here and many systems to install (Landing Systems, Skin for Atmospheric Flight, RCS, Payload Length Extension, Safer Landing Procedures, Aux Recovery Craft/Systems), Ideally when finished I'd like the landing sequence to enter the atmosphere head first using the skin as a "heat shield" then slowing with chutes and flipping the craft with chutes when under 8km to land vertically with slight engine power. However as a test vehicle, I think the proof of concept is valid enough for me to push on with the next stage of development. Hopefully I'll have some real time this weekend to install and tweak a good chunk of these systems. Overall, I'm satisfied with the test flight results given the time I put in.

I will say that it did seem like sometime the controls seemed like would flip on me and left would be right and up would be down in mid flight.. but it was strange because for a good deal of the flight everything always seemed to function appropriately then the controls would all the sudden seem to flip. I do understand what you mean however, I had wondered the same thing but dismissed it because it wasn't until well into the gravity turn that control problems developed and I had figured that when my lifters main tanks were partially drained that the CoM just shifted down even further or something. .. I think I'll revisit the design with a few refinements I've made to the standard format model I was crafting... Ideally I was hoping to keep all the control functions with the lift unit on top so I wouldn't need to worry about adding and tweaking the cargo's control systems and that way the lift unit would be plug and play with cargo. Do you think thats still a possibility or will control elements be needed at the base to avoid that programming issue? Also, I started a sketch this morning for a new multi purpose launch system.. hoping to have some time this afternoon to build a test rig and see if the core concept is a functional one (I know, I'm being sketchy with the details but I want to flesh out the base of the concept before one of you masters shows me something similar and I end up trying to recreate it =P ) Anyways, Thanks for the info Rune.

In a slightly related topic, I've recently been experimenting with a "Puller" type SSTO for launching payload into LKO. I was hoping to create a new, unique type of lifter that would launch mounted on top of its payload, something that with minor adjustments could also be used to return cargo or land cargo on the various planets. The prototype I was developing was based on a jet / rocket hybrid lift booster I had developed to augment other lifters when I routinely overloaded them (essentially my last resort before completely ripping the lifter apart and rebuilding it for a higher capacity). Unfortunately, as I'm sure you guessed, it becomes unstable while performing the gravity turn, I think the CoM just catches up with it when attempting to do the turn eventually causing it to spin out of control if I'm not careful, or it gets stuck at too high of an angle. I had tried to slap on some RCS thrusters and additional SMS systems to compensate, but they just didn't cut it. So I decided to flip the design instead and go back to a traditional rocket. Although, I did like the look of this design better I still need to tweak it some. It will carry an orange tank into an 80k LKO with only sipping like 100-150 Oxidizer from the orange tank (no fuel since I drained most the oxidizer from the crafts standard tanks to save weight due to jet power being used most the lift.) I'm sure I can tweak the oxidizer levels in the standard tanks to compensate or even a better refinement in my gravity turn might do the trick, but I figure I should just add some more Delta V anyways since I still technically need to add landing systems for craft recovery. EDIT: Oh, and if you didn't catch it the lift system completely separates from the cargo section. I'm intending to set this up to be able to launch a full cargo container, detach in orbit and reattach to a used (old) cargo container already in orbit and return (or return without one). The cargo containers are also intended to be utilized as a swappable mission module for interplanetary missions.

I must say, the simplicity of the design is nice and ever since you started posting these pictures I've been following this. I like the idea of using that as multimission interplanetary craft with configurable cargo and such (which I'm sure has been done before), but its soo nice to see one designed with such a sleek looking primary hull (so used to seeing mine looking like its pieced together from generic spacestation parts with no thought of design). I think I'm going to try redesigning an old craft of mine with the shuttle parts similar to yours, while I like your overall design, I think something a bit more flexible and interchangeable in the engines department would better suit my needs. The 4 Nukes are nice, but I'd rather have the flexibility to pop them off and replace them with another engine configuration (less nukes if you don't need to carry the weight of 4 or even other types of engines). Not entirely sure what it will end up looking like as I know you've got the creative juices in my head flowing but they are going in every direction right now =P

Thanks for the better explanation. I knew it had something to do with the moderator que and that makes much more sense since I never remembered VBulletin behaving that way on any of the forums I admin, but then again I normally don't have this kind of setup that attracts enough attention to actually need to put a moderator que into place so I must admit my experience with that aspect of Vbulletin is somewhat limited to basic functionality of it all =)

Actually, originally your post was stuck in the moderation que because you're new to the forums so until the moderators marked your post as OK, all everyone else seen was a topic with no message or post, AKA a blank post. After the Mods marked your post as being ok, it appeared above ours. Check around the forums, I doubt you'll find anyone bashing anyone over what seems obvious. This community is generally pretty helpful and supportive of new players so don't be too quick to rush to judgement.

Rune has unsatisfiable desire to minimize part counts. Mind you Rune knows his stuff and have developed quite a few craft that I myself love, but his motto is always do more with less. While it might not seem as fun at first slapping together minimal parts and calling it a day, the true challenge is in how you make the most out of those hand full of pieces. I myself tend to start building a craft and have it end up large and complex, there is ultimately nothing wrong with that approach. I find it truly difficult to refine my concepts down to the minimalist approach like Rune is famous for. I guess what I'm saying is Rune is Rune, he will always try to maintain a practical and functional approach. If thats not what you're going for, then just say so and ignore any sounds to the opposite. Just keep an eye on the suggestions as I've seen quite a few elegant design choices and suggestions come from Rune that I'd never have thought about otherwise. Build what you love, I always find your crafts worth a look Rofl, just like I find Runes crafts the same way.

I like the engine air intake system on this.. I might have to borrow this idea for a future design. +rep

I can relate to that comment right there. I always start out small and precise then I add a few pieces for style or because I want a different type of functionality, and before I know it I've got another monster sitting in my hanger that I can't seem to get off the ground or make it fly right. I'll be the first to admit some of my favorite rockets are the ones where I force myself to squeeze functionality into small packages resulting in small lights loads, but for some reason when I start making planes I can't help but make them huge.

My suggestion would be to try not running fuel lines between the 2 outer rockets. If they have the same fuel there shouldn't be a need to run fuel lines between them. Then I would try simplifying your routing on each of the boosters, run a line from the central tank into each of the side tanks so the central tank feeds them, then run a line from each of those tanks to the central engine so they can feed it.

Hmm, I honestly can't see the craft in enough detail to tell how you have it fuel routed =P I usually just refer to this post from the tutorial page whenever fuel flow is funky on one of my rockets and it usually helps me sort it out (usually me doing something stupid with my routing). Although I'm sure you're already well aware of that post and other advanced fuel routing soo I'm probably not much help =(

what mod lets you name the vessels? cause I like it.

Interesting.. It honestly didn't occur to me that nuclear engines generated enough thrust to weight ratio to lift off on kerbin, so color me amazed.

Aye, this is what caught my eye too. I've always used small self contained RCS tugs (Like I'm sure many of us do) that would attach and control / manipulate payloads so I can manage them even if the payload itself didn't have RCS tanks, batteries, or their own control box. I would attach the tug first in my SSTO and then attach the payload directly to the tug. That way I could position and even attach the payload to orbital facilities / crafts then return my RCS tug back to my SSTO for return to the space center(I keep 1 in orbit at most of my orbital facilities also but I tend to take fresh ones up with every load and then I can offload extra fuel/RCS and return any thing left over that s not needed). However it never occurred to me that I could potentially attach payload doors to my tug in the above manner and essentially take the entire cargo bay with my payload until I ether attach it to its target or launch it on its own into space. The concept itself has me envisioning craft that essentially launches on a SSTO like usual then has the entire cargo bay just detach and act as the RCS tug I typically keep. I just need to find a way to make sure I can peel off the additional hull pieces for payloads that require odd attachment methods.. ofcourse I could release the payload at that point and attach another typical RCS tug that I typically use. Anyways, long story short. The craft is amazing as always Rune, and I love the Detaching Cargo Bay idea. I can't believe I never thought of that sort of thing, I guess I'm still stuck in thinking of space planes in the typical way of everything should stay attached at all times except the payload

Not to rock the boat any further but based on those assumptions you are saying buying 2 Orange tanks of fuel for $10,000.00 each is twice as good of a deal as buying 1 orange tank for $10,000.00. The problem lies in the fact that your not exactly getting any better deal here, you're just buying in bulk. If this was a Bulk launch challenge rather than an efficiency challenge I think you'd be ok. Take a look at the 2 existing scores. Yours you costed 13 times more to send into orbit and only brought up 3.6 times the fuel. Your entry was 23008 / (355906 / 23008) = 1487.38 And Pecan's was 6400 / (27269 / 6400) = 1502 Pecan could (in theory) tie 4 of his devices together and achieve a score like this. 25600 / (109076 / 25600) = 6008.28 But since he didn't, his score appears to be on par with yours. So in essence the formula favors quantity over efficiency. My suggestions (if you were aiming for an efficiency challenge) would be to simplify the formula and set minimum fuel loads to be transported to avoid having any entries which launch 5 gallons at a time.

Neat, Floofies apparently broken the forum database with his post. Red Iron is probably right, moderation que sounds about right, but not sure why the thread itself would appear before moderator approval. For those interested at least the first sentence of his post is visable on his profile page. "Firstly: I'm new to the forum. If this is in the wrong section, or does not follow the rules, feel free to delete it or move it. I read the forum..."

I'm not sure, if we're technically basing the challenge on the term SSTO, I believe a refueling before reaching orbit would constitute a second stage. Although, I would definitely be interested in seeing a suborbital docking/refueling in action because of just how hard that sort of thing would be I Imagine.

Meh, KSP is built on the idea of exploiting parts in a manner that they weren't originally intended to be used for. In the same way that the docks aren't exactly meant for this purpose, I doubt the small gear bays were meant for crane purposes ether. Is the physics resulting from the idea slightly broken? sure but a lot of the physics in KSP are broken (flying box planes anyone?), and the limited part options kind of force us to get creative when looking for ways to solve problems. Ideally we would all have very realistic 6 story tower cranes next to our assembly area's, but we don't have the kind of parts we need to make that work so these tricks are what evolve as a result. Each just as interesting as the next. KSP is about solving problems and finding creative solutions that shouldn't work but do... and in the process blowing up a ton of rockets. I applaud this gentleman's efforts and the resulting slingshot builds that could also result from this.. should be fun to watch.

How about a rocket that makes it into orbit using nothing but RCS thursters and Monopropellant? All stock

doesn't any ship piloted by kerbals count as a silly ship?

1: Background is good, slightly textured but it doesn't take away from the rest of the site. Just need to make sure it doesn't blend with any of the text making it hard to read. I know you'll ensure that part later so I'm not to concerned atm if a few area's have a part or 2 thats hard to read like the stuff formally in the banner... mind you its not that bad but you understand what I mean. 2: good to hear, if you can't trust admins then I'm not sure why they would be admins anyways. 3: looks good 4: if that's what you like that's fine, I just felt it might look like a more polished site if clicking on images would blow them up in the window instead of taking to the image file, just a personal preference I think. 5: noted, I figured you'd be sorting a number of the items I mentioned out later anyways. 6: Hmm, not necessarily a choice I would have made, but I always find it difficult to make a website properly function without some sort of common menu bar. I've seen some websites operate pretty well with a minimalist style and functionality, but I just have never been able to make one work well myself, so my opinions here should be taken with a grain of salt I suppose. I guess we both have slightly different opinions on what a community repository should be, I always figured something more robust and more inclusive would be nice, focused on 1 or 2 specifics no doubt but built up with features that compliment those core functions. You seem to be more focused on just the task at hand, not a bad thing, just different strokes and all that jazz =). 7: Minimalist style is something I enjoy too, and when it makes sense, minimalist features to keep the site from getting its true identity confused. Profiles are an excellent example of where sites can go overboard, Vbulletin 4 IMO really went overboard when they almost created a facebook style profile setup for members. 8: Construction dust is just part of the process. 9: It appears to require that you register with Disquis or signin with one of their SSO plugin accounts. However maybe my browser is borked.. not too concerned tho, as I said, I just think the feature should ether be scrapped or merged under your login system if you want to keep it, as I don't like sites with features that are schizophrenic when it comes to using a login. Mind you its not a big or key feature here so this might not be a big deal to most. Feature Suggestions 1: That's fine, I just felt it was a natural extension of a mod repository as you would already theoretically have a fair share of the mods being hosted there and it would be convenient for users to just make a list by just selecting which mods they want to add to it. 2: Not sure why the modders would be/are against it. However I'll take your word on it. Just seems again like a natural compliment to a mod repository. Ship files typically make mods they use more popular as they might otherwise not get downloaded, so I thought it would have been the opposite. I'm still somewhat new around here tho, so what do I know =P. 3: fair enough, they weren't needed and to some extent would have created additional moderator work if they were to be monitored. So I can see why they would be left out.

A few thoughts, these are just my thoughts so take them as they are 1: I like the redesign so far, the biggest change I like is the monochromatic background instead of a screenshot. Perhaps its just me but a busy background tends to distract from the rest of the site, especially if your putting text directly on it. If you like the style of a picture or image based background I'd suggest just having it show on the edges on higher resolutions and leaving the center underlayed with a single color to avoid eyestrain. 2: I like that some images from the mods can be shown in the backgrounds of the mod link on the mod selection screens so you can potentially see what you might be getting in part packs. However this also brings a possible ugly side effect as you probably need to include a way to report a mod that someone might put up with an undesirable picture, or undesirable file. Last thing you really probably want is a XXX picture posted on your front page for god knows how long because someone on the internet thought it would be funny. So an easy way to screen, moderate and remove bad content is something that needs to be considered (which maybe you already have and there is a background moderators functionality that I haven't seen.. I haven't really dug into the code so I would know). 3: The sliding overlays on the mod links from the selection pages seems to be an interesting feature but entirely random in how they are currently working and deciding where the base overlay is vs where it goes when it hovers. Some mods seem to show a full overlay from the start while others start half covered. It would be interesting to see this feature expanded however so when hovering over a mod link it will expand and show a mods summary description for ease of use. (NOTE: this feature seems to have become more consistent since I started typing this post, so I assume your working on this =P ) 4: Pictures in the actual mod area's are good, and clicking on the image sends you to the actual image. That isn't bad, but I think it would be a nicer approach if you set them up to enlarge in some type of overlay window. Just seems odd for them to redirect to the actual image file is all. You may also think about making an image gallery tab so users can toggle to it and see what parts and or functions a mod might be making available to them. The way that its setup now is great for a handful of photos mind you but you never know when more than a few would be nice. 5: Mods without images seem a little off on the selection area by appearing as a white box with text. You might try creating a generic image that gets applied if no other images are available. This image could also coordinate with a particular category of mod when those get added. It doesn't have to be anything dramatic, just something to soften the impact on those pages. 6: You've already adjusted the search bar which is great. I was confusing its submit button earlier with a button that would go to a mod submission page, so I'm very happy to see the button relabel to "Search" =). I would have probably still kept it in the menu bar at the top however so that it would always be accessible. 7: I like the fact that your account/profile remains private and not publicly viewable until you say otherwise. Mind you I don't mind it personally if all my stuff is public, but after handling forums and websites for many clans, I do understand that some people just like privacy. The profile itself is very basic yet sufficient enough to serve its purposes, but I always tended to like simple and basic for this sort of stuff. After all, we don't need every website to be a facebook style profile setup do we? 8: The profile page image appears to be the background, while not a terrible idea (I actually like it to be honest), I do feel there should be a slightly transparent overlay box for the text to be placed on for ease of reading. Case in point your profile page has areas where your background makes it harder to read what you've wrote. 9: I found a comment section on your blog section. I do feel that I should point out that if your comment system doesn't make use of your websites login system to post comments then IMO it should probably just be removed. Its just awkward signing into a website and then finding I need to sign in to a different service to comment on something at that website. ----------List of Feature Suggestions ----------- 1: allow users to create and share mod lists independent of their follow list. I know for many games that enable mods that I like to check and see what other people are using so that I know what to look at or try. Well why not formalize this by allowing users to create, publish and even vote/rank mod lists. These list should allow both the use of hosted mods from your site and the ability of the list creator to link to off site mods. Such lists would make it infinitely easier for friends to share their favorite mod setups, Make server owners for multiplayer servers easily able to show potential joiners what they need, and would allow for newbies to easily find that amazing mod list that makes things super realistic or find what others are using. These lists should also allow search tags or possibly categories to make them easier to sort and find what your looking for. 2: Its already been suggested that you expand to include ships/vessels. I think this is only a natural extension of a mod repository. You could even allow mod makers to link/post to sample ships to help users get into the mod easier. FAR for example, I found extremely hard to adjust to until I downloaded and experimented with a few ships that were made with Far in mind. It also helps everyone cure the "I wanna fly Apollo 11*" flu that I'm sure we all get from time to time (* replace apollo 11 with whatever ship you always wanted to play with). Ship creators could also link to mod list (if you set that up) so that users will know which mods are needed for the ship to work. 3: Comment system on mod page, it would be nice to have a limited comment system for mod pages. This should be limited, probably twitter style (140 characters) to keep the comments short and sweet and not promote forum style conversations. You goal should be to create a service that compliments the KSP forums and not something that tries to compete (which I'm sure you would agree with). Thank you for taking your time to look over my feedback, feel free to use or ignore it as you wish, I understand that its simply not possible to please everyone all the time so I take no offense if things get ignored or if you / others disagree with my opinions =) Nice work so far, I'm really feeling like its coming together. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

First let me preface this with the fact that, I don't have a mac, I don't use a mac, and I'm not sure how accurate this will be for you. However first you'll need to locate where your KSP install is, according to the web searches it should be something like ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/STEAMUSERNAME/Kerbal Space Program/ or ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Kerbal Space Program/ When you install it, you should get a popup on steam telling you exactly where your installing the game to, so for example you could install another game and see which folder that your basic installs are going to and proceed from there Next you need to drop the MechJeb folder into the Gamedata folder within your KSP install folder. Please verify what is inside your mod folder before moving it. If it contains a GameData folder inside, then you need to drop the contents of that into the gamedata folder, as its been packaged differently. Some Mods have folders that get dropped into Subassembles , Ships, or other folders just keep this in mind and make sure they all get to the correct spots. (I know this sounds confusing but trust me its pretty simple, just look at what folders are in the mod root folder and you should be able to figure out what goes where) Now for MechJeb, the features may not be apparent on load, any current vessels you have on a saved game won't have anything different. You can however build new vessels that use the MechJeb features, simple start with the MechJeb Probe Capsule, or add a mechjeb control box (under the controls tab with RCS thrusters & Control Wheels) to your ship somewhere and you will see a tab pop up on the right in the build menu. The tab when clicked will give you the windows you select. Please note there are even more windows available when flying a ship MechJeb equiped, so check it out there too. I hope this was helpful. Please note this might not be 100% accurate for you because, I don't use macs.