Angelo Kerman

@ShnyrikLOVE those pictures and the discussion, thanks for sharing! I ran into similar issues with exploding wheels during testing. In my case, it was rover wheels. I was concerned that there was a fundamental design flaw in the flight deck system. It's good to know that it's a problem with the stock game too. It also means that I may need to create special rover wheels for Buffalo to allow rovers to dock on the deck. At the very least I'll put a disclaimer on the OP, warning people about the potential hazards of fixing aircraft to the deck. I noticed the rolling issue as well, and gave the gyro rings a major increase in roll control. That should help with aircraft operations. And I absolutely love those biplanes! I may have to create a follow-on release for Heisenberg that has 0.625m airplane parts. I'm hoping today to finish up the ISRU- it fits in that cargo gondola I showed earlier, and get a good ways done with the airlock module. With the exception of the wheel and docking port, the rest of the parts will be pretty easy..

Exactly. I am designing the gondola parts to double as large rover parts, and originally I wanted to make the bare minimum needed. Then I realized that December was slipping by fast and that I was really behind in DSEV, and realized that I had momentum with the Heisenberg. Knowing how I operate best, I decided to keep going while I still had the motivation, and added in the remaining parts to flesh out the rover side. I'm waiting for this stuff to be done too... Like the Buffalo's jump jets, the Bison's jump jets burn MonoPropellant and have a built in vertically oriented probe core for VTOL operations, so you should be good to go. My original design didn't have the extending engines for simplicity- and I promptly blew up the wheels beneath the part, heh. If I released that version, you know I would hear a lot of complaining. Quality takes time, and I'm willing to wait. The delay also lets me flesh out the Bison's role as a long duration rover. The Buffalo is the scout, the Bison is the follow on mobile base with capabilities similar to MOLE. Ideally I will have a docking port with flexible joints so that you can make a train. Just stuff the cars into a mk3 cargo bay, land them via the jump jets, dock them together, and go explore with your spacefaring wagon-train... Of course the kerbal wagon-train is a science vessel designed for peaceful exploitation...

Nothing's wrong. I simply haven't finished all the parts that I wanted to, and added some others. I was hoping to have it all done this weekend, but not going to happen. I might have something before the Christmas holiday but if not no big deal, I'll pick it up afterwards. It's not like this is a job, it's a hobby, and I want the parts list complete when I publish the next release. And no, I'm not creating a release of what is done, then I just get complaints that the parts are incomplete. I've had enough of all the complaints as it is, so it's done when it's done.

Bad news and good news. Bad news: I won't have Heisenberg 2.0 ready this weekend. I'm pushing it out to next week, just in time for Christmas. Good news: I've got a few new parts I'm adding including a drill, ISRU, airlock, shipping containers, radar, jump jet module, and (hopefully) a wheel. Here's the drill: And the Bison Jump Jet Module:

Certainly would. That was just a test flight, I didn't want to bother flipping the hangar decks upside down until I knew I had a working weapons system. Like so: It's just easier to place weaponry and such with the bays right side up.

I did this! The Valkyrie, sister ship to the Heisenberg, comes in for a landing. For some reason, she doesn't have her gear down. What are the vonKermans up to? Uh oh, this doesn't look good. Nope, not good at all! I'm finding that the airship is a stable weapons platform (yes, I know the weapons would work better with the hangar bays upside down). And with the proof of concept complete, here's a better design:

Thanks. That was the general idea, to be a reasonably generic design to fit both the airship and the rover/train role. I got the drill done today, then took a break and flew a test mission: The Valkyrie, sister ship to the Heisenberg, comes in for a landing. For some reason, she doesn't have her gear down. What are the vonKermans up to? Uh oh, this doesn't look good. Nope, not good at all! I'm finding that the airship is a stable weapons platform.

The plot thickens!

@colmo You can definitely make floating bases: AirPark will make it possible to run your kerbals around on the deck.

Shooting for sometime this weekend. Working on the last part, then some coding to do and then I'm done. :)

Try Pathfinder 1.3.2.2, see if that helps.

Have you tried going to Game Settings: Difficulty, and in the Wild Blue tab, disabling the need for resources to reconfigure modules?

Aiming for a weekend release.

I built an aircraft carrier:

Last images for the night:

And here's the Cargo Gondola: The ramp is independent of the doors.

Made some adjustments for the release and decided that building two sets of rover components, one for the Buffalo and one for the gondola/Bison, was just too much for me to do right now. So for now, the gondola parts are mostly going to remain gondola parts without the extras that the Buffalo has (jump jets, a dedicated airlock, and the like). You're still getting the hab, lab, and greenhouse. They effectively give you "MOLE on wheels." Of course that also means I can revisit the idea of a larger rover in the future, but I have other projects awaiting attention, including one that is top secret. Anyway, I finished the cupola/rover cab, and that finishes up the initial gondola parts with crew capacity (I could keep going but I'm just as eager to play with these parts as you are). It doesn't slope upward so that it'll also work as a rover cab and as an observation cupola for the flight deck. I'm also starting in on the Cargo Gondola. Here you can see it holding Buckboards. You can store up to 6 of the Buckboard 3000s or 9 of the Buckboard 1000s. It will have boxcar-like sliding cargo doors and an extendable ramp. Once I get this done, I just need to make a couple of gondola fairings, convert the textures over to DDS, and some bug stomping in WBT. I'm in the home stretch now, and tentatively aiming for a weekend release.

@Hooligan Labs Nice to see you saying hi!. Thanks to you and @JewelShisen, we get to fly airships around. Definitely loads of fun.

Sorry, but no. There are significant differences between KSP 1.1.3 and KSP 1.2.2.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no. I showed the proposal to my girlfriend and she couldn't figure out which way was forward. When I mentioned that the parts were modular and the cabins could be placed in any order, she found it even more confusing. So the greenhouse stays as is.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did actually try that and while it gives more windows to the greenhouse, it breaks up the lines of the gondola as a whole, and doesn't look right.

More progress: That's the new GondoLab (with the blue stripe) and GondoGarden (with the green stripe) forming part of the Gondo Bus. It lines up nicely with the Buffalo chassis. Those stock TR-2L wheels fit perfectly too. This is what I'm looking at standing in the way of Heisenberg's release: Convert to DDS textures Move decal code to WBT Bison Command Cab Gondola Fairings GondoLock: Airlock 2u with kerbal elevator and ladder Cargo Gondola: Doors Flip down and extend ramps. Alternately they slide horizontally and a ramp extends from the floor. Gondola Service Module: half-unit length SAS, VTOL probe core, docking port Almost there..

I did an integration test of the Heisenberg's new GondoHab (Crew cab, gold stripe), GondoLab (MPL, blue stripe), and GondoGarden (greenhouse, green stripe): As you can see, it integrates with the Buffalo rover system's chassis. And yes, that's a piano on the bottom floor of the GondoHab.

Thanks. Nice that you see the railway reference. I also did some research on gondolas and they have lots of windows. I think they were influenced by railway cars too. It's hard to see it in the pictures, but there is a piano in the lower level. We'll see about the cargo modules, sliding doors makes sense. Given that I can swipe IVA stuff that I did for MOLE, I should have a lab module before too long. Almost there, it's taking longer than expected because I'm making phase 2 and phase 3 simultaneously.

And here is the GondoHab: It helps that I can swipe stuff I did for MOLE.