pTrevTrevs

Well, it's been released, the thread is still on the front page but I'll post a link to it anyway.

STOP RIGHT THERE. CLICK THIS BEFORE GOING ON! Many of you will remember my original U-boat, released exactly one year ago today. Although it featured a complete interior, it was unable to dive due to several factors. This new U-boat, although lacking an interior, is still a vast improvement over the last one. Not only does it look almost exactly like a German U-boat (hell yeah, it even has the holes on the outer hull), this one can dive. That's right, the use of a small mod created by @Fengist has allowed me to finally make a submarine that can dive and surface at will. The boat sits on the surface just like a real one would have (although it can take a little fiddling with the ballast tanks), and can reach a top speed of 10.3 m/s (8.0 m/s when submerged). The conning tower provides room for Kerbals to stand, and features an AA gun and two periscopes. I've tried a new method for building the rear railing; instead of struts, I've used loads of antennas instead. Although it costs more parts, it looks much more accurate and can actually prevent Kerbals from falling over the side. Overall, this is a much more practical craft (if... you know... a submarine in a game about spaceflight can be considered practical), and in my opinion, the removal of an interior in exchange for a much better looking, faster, drastically more functional craft is definitely a good trade off. The boat has around 540 parts, which is over 300 less than the old U-boat, and when combined with the benefits of 1.1's increased RAM limit, far more people will be able to try this boat for themselves. Now, let me outline a few technical details and procedures for the most efficient ways to handle the boat. LAUNCH PROCEDURE Make sure you have a mod that will allow you to move the vessel to the water. I recommend Vessel Mover (the link leads to the Vessel Mover Continued thread). Open the right click menus for the fore and aft ballast tanks and pin them to your screen. It may be helpful to move them to opposite sides of the screen so you can remember which is which( see above image). Move the Boat over the spot you want to drop it on and place the vessel. If the bow is too high, pump some ballast into the rear tank, if the stern is too high, pump ballast to the fore tank. Only minute adjustments are needed for this, so don't go too crazy with it or you risk making the tilting even worse. DIVE PROCEDURE Play this youtube (U-Tube?) video Press 1 to activate the water compressors. These will pump water into the fore and aft tanks and the boat will begin to sink. Pitch the bow down with the dive planes. This will point the engines downward, allowing you to use their thrust to help push the boat under. Speak rapidly in German and play the Das Boot soundtrack as loud as possible. Once the boat approaches the desired depth, halt the influx of ballast water (press 1 again) and use the dive planes to level the boat. If you're still sinking, blow a little bit of ballast (press 2). Watch the prograde vector to see which direction the boat is moving. SURFACE PROCEDURE Press 2 to blow ballast. Remember that a little ballast should remain in both tanks (10 in rear, 20 in fore is good for this), so don't completely empty them. Pitch the boat up with the dive planes, careful not to let the prograde vector slip too far upwards. When the boat is about the reach the surface (40 meters to go) press 2 again to halt the ballast pump. Try and bring the prograde vector to less than 20 degrees above the horizon. If it's too high, the boat will pop right out of the water and bounce a few times. I haven't had it to me yet, but I suspect that if this happened hard enough you could break something. DOWNLOADS The boat requires the WIP Make it Sink mod to work correctly, it can be found here The boat itself can be downloaded here Make sure to alert me to any problems and I will do my best to amend them. Feel free to post any pictures you take of the craft here, and please leave some feedback!

Peaches aren't in season right now. @legoclone09

Ja, mein freund, das ist ein Deustche U-Boot.

T-MINUS 3 DAYS* *Unless I have something to do Thursday night (regarding real life), in which case the release will be on Friday instead

Gemini-Titan uncrewed suborbital test flight. Not sure what I'm gonna do next. I guess this puts me up to 1964-65, but I still need to do Mariner 2 and maybe a few satellites (especially if I plan on updating this install to 1.2)

3D printed helicopter I made a few years ago. I designed it myself in Autodesk Inventor and printed it using a MakerBot printer. I made two, the other one is in my Engineering class as a demonstration piece for the printing equipment.

You got that right. The lag is exactly why I built the economy class, so people can still run the boat without the laggy interior.

Yeah, I've seen that one, it's only about seven hours away from where I live! It almost makes me want to go back. Anyway, it's time to make the jump to Hyperspeed! I... I'll see myself out

Hello, Spanish Inquisition? Yeah, we've got a little problem...

Well... I've got my first one, which was meant as a generic U-boat, and the second one, which is specifically intended as a replica of the Type VIIC. The other two main types of U-boats in WWII were the larger Type IX and smaller Type II, and both are similar enough to the Type VII that I'll probably end up doing replicas of them sometime as well. The Type XXI Elektroboot has always fascinated me, so I would also like to give it a try as well. TL;DR: A lot.

This mission is relatively unimpressive compared to a flyby of the Moon, but I still would like to share an image of my Saturn I suborbital test flight. I need not pay Saturn tax this time, the picture already displays a Saturn.

And I'm sitting over here working on a U-boat (for the second time)

This is basically it, they didn't look right when they were on the way they were supposed to go.

*glances at avatar and rank* Oh yeeaaahhh... This is a thing still... Better get back to work on that Stargazer.

I finally flew my Ranger mission, after numerous crashes and several reverts due to catastrophic issues. Saturn hype tax: Well, more like a Saturn hype image dump, but it's fine, hype is hype, no matter how large.

Started building the spacecraft for my Ranger mission, but KSP.exe seems to be particularly unstable for me today, so instead I have a picture of Friendship 7 flying into darkness. Also, I contribute to the Saturn hype (assuming it's alright with you, @Foxxonius Augustus).

>tfw you remember on September 21st that Talk Like A Pirate Day was September 19th. Apparently some donut shops will give you free food if you walk in dressed like a pirate, so every year I joke that I'm going to walk in wearing shabby burlap clothing, the the cashier right in the eye, and say "Look at me. Look at me. I am the cashier now". Never actually done it though.

Connect Island Airfield to KSC. Do it.

Yep, I considered reverting the flight, but then decided that I would get a more realistic mission by allowing the screw-up to remain. I think my next Lunar mission will be based on the Ranger program (hail liquid fuel stages), but I'm not really sure which parts in the pack go into the Ranger spacecraft. I've taken a look at the manual you've got on the OP but it only has the launchers and Mercury/Gemini/Agena based payloads. Don't worry, I know about the craft files for download too, but I would rather build it myself, even if it turns out exactly like the downloadable one.

T-Minus 10 Days

Lots of Saturn hype here, but let me take a moment to share my Pioneer 4 Moon flyby in SSRSS.

Well if you can, I would recommend detaching those parachutes, along with every other piece of equipment that isn't absolutely necessary for the ascent, before liftoff. I've never tried launching from Eve, but I know enough to tell you that every gram counts. If you weren't planning this already, make the ship that the Kerbal(s) return home on wait in orbit, so you make the ascent vehicle much smaller. If it doesn't have to carry all the fuel for the return trip it can be lighter and therefore easier to get into orbit.

I believe Scott Manley dos a series in which he flew a crewed mission to Eve, but I think it was before the aero overhaul, so I'm not sure how many of his design choices are still relevant. Also, why are there parachutes if it's meant to be the ascent stage? Are they for helping the craft descend or to preserve the boosters once they're jettisoned?

After getting distracted with other games (seriously, Tropico 4 was free on Humble Bundle last week!), I've forced myself back into KSP to gear up for the 1.2 update. The U-boat is making some progress. It still has problems, but it's still on track for a late September release date, assuming it doesn't get screwed over by 1.2. I'm still working on getting that crew cabin's hatch to work. I had the same arrangement when I did the Gato, but it just doesn't work this time. I had to spawn these three Kerbals in using Vessel Mover just to check if the Conning tower had room for them. It does, but the front edge is too high and the AA gun is too far forward to allow Kerbals to easily access the rear portion of the tower. Oh yeah, there's a deck gun now too.