Angelo Kerman

One more: This is the antimatter warp tanker that flits between Jool and Kerbin. I had to use a folding warp ring to launch it because the boosters hang from the outrigger pods. It's an odd launch configuration but it works and is nice and stable.

Nice! I like how you've created space for so many kerbals. I've just achieved warp for the first time, so I built a new Deep Space Exploration Vessel, the Nautilus (DSEV-3). First, here is my uninhabited antimatter tanker plane, built using Porkjet's wonderful Spaceplane Plus Pack. If you look carefully on the back, you'll see the part that I created (not yet released, depends upon interest), a Mk2 form fitting 1.25m generator. I plan on adding a Mk2 form fitting thermal receiver with single and twin 1.25m ports. This is the engineering hull of the Nautilus, complete with warp drive, one of Porkjet's small centrifuges from his Habitat Pack, Scansat scanners, and DMagic's Orbital Science pack. There's enough life support modules from TAC Life Support to support 2 kerbals for 8.4 years, though Nautilus has a flight crew of 3. It sports twin quantum vacuum plasma thrusters for major orbital maneuvers. The ship also has a drilling rig with kethane scanners and drills. It has a pair of antimatter-powered thermal turbojets for SSTO operations and is capable of landing on Eve to drill for kethane if needed. It also has a lazor system for resource transfers. Finally, here is the SSTO crew lander. It has a pair of antimatter-powered thermal turbojets as well as a quantum vacuum plasma thruster for the ship's main propulsion. The crew, Bill, Bob, and Jeb, are housed in an ALCOR module. I wanted a 2.5m lander can (think MK2) that could support a crew of 3 but couldn't find any, so I may have to build one. The lander is capable of landing on Eve and lifting off again. If you look closely, you'll see that all three sections use my custom made quantum vacuum plasma RCS thruster. I'm still testing it; when I activate RCS, it drains all my electric charge! Finally, here is the completed ship. She's waiting for an antimatter tanker inbound from Jool to fill up her antimatter supplies before heading out on a grand tour of the solar system.

I can respect your point of view, though I haven't gotten to that point yet. I just achieved warp for the first time, and find the plasma thrusters a refreshing change from hauling fuel everywhere. Since I'm at the endgame, there isn't much left for me to do except a grand tour mission, and QV plasma is part of my ship design. Given where I'm at, the plasma thrusters are fine, especially considering that after my grand tour, my current play-through is done. Regardless, I'm having fun learning how to make parts for KSP.

That did the trick, thank you.

Here's an update to the plasma RCS model I'm working on: I've got the model built and the texturing is in progress, and I'm researching how to create the transforms for the RCS thrust module. I'm also going to build a custom module that will automatically switch between monopropellant in an atmosphere to quantum vacuum plasma in, well, the vacuum. I already know I can specify Megajoules for propellant, so finishing the model (which I hope is similar to zzz's artwork but of course much smaller) is the last step.

I understand that there are some transform objects but I'm unsure of how to place them. In unity, would I create a GameObject to point in the direction of the RCS thrust? Thanks for the help!

Yup! Roboo's design is fantastic. I made a variant of it that gave me more cargo space.

This plane is based on Roboo's skylon-inspired spaceplane. It uses my new Mk2 electric generator that I finished today. I haven't figured out how to add a normal map yet (I have the bump map ready), and I don't know how to make glowing lights, but it's a start.

I spent the day today finishing up a 3D model and learning how to add it as a part into KSP. For my first part, I made a Mk2 fuselage compatible electric generator to complement the parts being made by Porkjet for his awesome Spaceplane Plus pack. Right now I don't know how to add a normal map, and I can't figure out how to make the lights glow like those on zzz's models, but it's a matter of time. Help appreciated on figuring out the normal maps (I have a bump map already) and the glowing lights. Functionally, the part is working. Here are a couple of screenshots showing the spaceplane I built with the new part and Porkjet's parts pack:

Thank you, that definitely helps. Now I just have to figure out the correct orientation for the hangar, and figure out the attach nodes.

Wow, that is a great tutorial!

I am getting ready to add a part but i'm a bit confused about radial size. Thw wiki uses radial size and diameter interchangeably (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Radial_size) so if I use 3ds max to make a part and my units are in meters, should I create, say, a cylinder of radius 1m for a 1.25m part, or .5 m to get that 1.25 m part? Is the part's diameter actually 2.5m in game for radius 1.25m? If I understand it right, it sounds like to make a 1.25m part, the radius in max should be 1m and the game's rescale factor is 1.25. So 2.5m parts are actually 5m diameters in game?

i have found that 6 to 8 impactors with 6 probes each having two impact sensors yields good results. I make a main spacecraft bus in 1.25m size with a snowflake pattern of probe bodies. I have six probes built as landers with two impact sensors. Then i have six probes built as impactors, and the bus becomes the seventh impactor. Usually i make a stact where the impactor is below the sensor so that the sensor probe detaches first. This stack is then radially attached around the main bus.

I've not heard of ElectricEngineController. But with that said, if you're willing to live with the stock RCS 3D model for now, and can help test the solution, here's what I did: 1. Download the QVRCS zip file I created. 2. Unzip the contents to GameData/WarpPlugin/Parts directory. Final directory should be named QV RCS. 3. Play with the new part. I haven't balanced the part but I found that the standard RCS block lets you specify the resource it consumes and the amount. From the part config I created: MODULE { name = ModuleRCS thrusterTransformName = RCSthruster thrusterPower = 1 resourceName = ElectricCharge resourceMass = 0.0001 atmosphereCurve { key = 0 260 key = 1 100 } } The items in bold are the ones I need help play balancing. Once we've got that figured out, I can try my hand at creating a quantum vacuum RCS 3D model, and maybe Fractal will include it in an update. I think the disks idea is workable. The place anywhere variant will be the RT-100 Repulsor Hope that helps!

Well, I'm willing to dive into the code and build a 3D model for a QV RCS thruster. In the tech tree, I can see it being available when you've researched warp drive. Edit: So, it looks like there is a field for ModuleRCS called requiresFuel. It isn't persistent, but a simple module could set the flag to false upon startup. I think that module could then request, say, .01 MJ when RCS is running. I have WaveFunctionP's warp plugin source, I'll play with it and see what I come up with.

I can also see a M2 mission support module that is essentially a modified short cargo bay. The bay doors would open up to reveal solar panels, and the inner surface of the door would pivot outward to extend the panels. The doors them selves would pivot to follow the sun. Here's a picture of conformal solar arrays, though they're not built into the doors themselves: Inside the service bay you could have batteries, SAS unit, monopropellant tanks too. Do you have any plans to make parts for Kerbal Interstellar, such as a 1.25m mk2 compatible generator? If not, would you mind too much if I did?

This looks like an interesting idea. Sounds like there are challenges you're working on. Maybe what you could do is require line of sight between relays, and do something like Kerbal Interstellar's warp speed. Once you reach the target, do hyper-edit's orbit helper, which changes the orbit info of the vessel... unless that's what hyperedit does to rendezvous with the target..

I'm not familiar with KAX, what is that?

I just got to warp tech for the first time and wow, it's a blast! I'm figuring out how to navigate and it's definitely weird; the whole retain your momentum makes sense and creates challenges. I like how the plasma engines become quantum engines and it occurred to me that if KSPI had quantum RCS thrusters, then I'd not need monopropellant tanks. Do such things exist? Also, what is the optimal orbit around Jool for collecting antimatter? I've gotten to the 570mg/sec range but thought you could get up to 590mg/sec. Does Kerbol have a higher collection rate?

100 EC/sec sounds reasonable for the power generation portion. Also, a TWR of 30 (slightly better than the LV-N) would put my engine at about 12MT. Anyway, I don't want to derail Porkjet's thread, so I'll table the engine for now and start a dev thread.

I agree that the engine mass needs to be in line with the thrust. I'll have to calculate the T/W ratio of the stock LV-N and use a similar value. I didn't think the EC was out of line given that KSPI has 1000 EC for their generators, and you can't generate power while under thrust, but I am still tweaking the engine. A Mk2 compatible thermal receiver and MW receiver would be cool, I'll look at that too unless Porkjet is going to make those. Really, I'm making spaceplane parts because at the moment I don't know what else to make, and I am learning how to make parts for KSP. Heck, with the right texturing, my nuclear aerospike could be a combined thermal aerospike/thermal receiver/radiator.

I pulled the stats from the LANTRN engine, which has a thrust of 67kn with hydrogen, and 184kn with LOX "afterburner" mode, then doubled the stats because the part is essentially two engines. I thought that was in the realm of the stock nuclear's 60kn, which should be liquid fuel only, and is only liquid fuel/oxidizer because Squad didn't want to make liquid fuel tanks at the time.

I finally flew my first successful spaceplane using this mod: here you can see the open service bay, which is crammed full of stuff (so that the plane's exterior isn't cluttered). Normally, the service bay stays closed during flight. The plane uses its RAPIER engines get partway into orbit. When the switch over to rocket mode, the nuclear engine on the back kicks in. The RAPIER engines burnout about halfway to orbital velocity, but the nuke finishes the job with delta-v to spare. With Porkjet's generous pointers on how to make parts for KSP, I'm building my own nuclear engine for the plane: I'm using the stock NTR as a placeholder to test the module I'm writing, but as you can see, I'm building a 3D model for it as well. I'm hoping to make something that will complement Porkjet's artistic style so that it'll blend in.

Newbie spaceplane designer question: Do wings allow fuel crossfeed, or do I need to have fuel lines from tanks at the outer edges of the wings ?

Try adding wings or canards to the nose of your craft. I had similar problems with my spaceplane until I did that.