Hotel26

Platypus was a prelude for work commissioned by Admiral @chadgaskerman for his Project 432 and TEK-46 (the latter just because I like it). I have in mind to go for a simpler set of controls (at first) for these large submarines. Inspection of the TEK-46 shows it already equipped with fore and aft ballast (ore) tanks; 3 at each end. My initial plan will be to convert these to a set of two monopropellant tanks at each end: one main-ballast size and the other trim-size. Then add a Fast Flood/Vent control for the main ballast tanks (fore & aft). Then Slow Flood/Vent controls independently for fore and aft trim. Fine adjustments to total ballast can be performed by e.g. additional flooding into fore and aft tanks simultaneously. Then manually transferring some amount to/from main ballast. Possibly, the trim tanks will be over-sized for trim permitting a main ballast quota for adjustments, without the necessity of transferring to the main tanks -- as long as capacity for trim flood/vent remains for the primary function of boat trim. Priming the boat for dive operation would entail: an initial flood of main tanks to provide sufficient ballast for transfer to trim tanks to bring them to 50% each[1], then flooding main to overall neutral buoyancy condition, then diving to a shallow depth and leveling off to trim the boat for neutral attitude [1] performed equitably by flooding for'ard trim to 100%, deducting from both main tanks; then transferring (manually) 50% from for'ard trim to aft trim If there is a forseeable "pressure point" in this control design, it is whether fine amounts of ballast can be transferred accurately for small adjustments. It is attractive to start with a simple design and then augment it only when and how required. There is an argument, in fact, to begin with just fore and aft main ballast and determine whether manual pumping between them is accurate enough for trim. I will, in fact, start with this scheme and possibly using heterogeneous sizing to pre-dial some "one-size" trim into the boat for initial dive. This thread is certainly open to comments, as well as for showing project progress. UPDATE: the TEK-46 does work, as is.

Playing with my cookie-cutter airport-generator again. This is Magdalene at 23N 143E. (Literally, one command line to create a new airport.) Normally a 1700m runway, but I manually scaled this back to 850m, and removed all the usual artefacts (control tower, radio tower, admin building et al) and added a bare Observatory triangular base and one of my Kontrol towers. Also removed the 4th and 5th map decals at the ends to minimalize the local terrain disruption. "Verily, it is easier to destroy than to create." Words to live by. The script has a runway length parameter (unused) and it will soon be used to auto-scale the (KerbalKonstructs) airport.

I liked the look of Some_KSP_Player's 'Kerman Station', so I split it into 4 components and then launched them each separately on a Minimus + Marvel + X200-8 tank combination[1]; the hub and 'DOM Avionics' module first. I think it may be the very first time I've downloaded and built someone else's space station -- it was a fun build (wiping out Saturday afternoon). I did bust it down to 1.11.2 which meant substituting the much smaller 'solarPanels4' 1x6 in place of the new 1.12 'solarPanelOX10L' 1x5. Ptthhh. [1] pretty much a "Wham... Bang! Space...?" auto-ride experience, launching on half throttle, pitching down at 30 m/s, instantly slamming the go-lever to the fore-stop... yahoo. ERRATUM; ahem. well the badge in my signature says adsii1970's Sandbox Micro Challenge was the first alien station I built. Pardon me!

Kerbal Konstructs See this invaluable guide to its usage And Capetown comes from The Airport Exchange

This is another episode in the life of Capt. Jerfry "Lucky" Kerman. He has just maneuvered his trusty ASR Revere II inside the 100m perimeter of the Simplicity booster. This puts the booster in range of his ASR Debris Dematerializer device that will send its components back to KSC for reuse. The previous recovery had been performed just 20 klicks west and so he had chosen to fly at 20m ASL. Slowing down on approach to the target, he dialed in 2m on the autopilot (you can see where this is going). Then he made an impulsive decision to avoid a head-on impact with the target by dialing in a 1-degree heading change to port. Too late, he thought about wing clearance as the port wing swung down to shake hands with the Great Briny... A ferocious cartwheel with the spray subsiding to reveal everything intact. Except the vertical stabilizer. Oh oh, and the elevators. No more flight for this machine. Rules of ASR now make this Revere II (and its hapless pilot) in need itself of Air-Sea Rescue (nicknamed by some KSC wags as the "Fetch-Quest Unit"). After a good deal of RT negotiation (i.e. begging), Jerfry has convinced High Command to permit him to try a high-speed water taxi to Cape Horn AFB, about 40 more clicks eastward. I am going to go out on a limb here with the prediction that this Captain has a promotion and pay raise in his near future -- to a desk job. If he gets back alive...

Welcome to the forum! I would suspect the mass/inertia. I would Mod-F12 two of them into orbit/rendez-vous, one full fuel and the other with no LFO, but just MP for the RCS. For comparison and also as a translation reference (though you said that's working). See if the lighter vehicle rotates at all and any better than the heavy one. For a vehicle like that, you might consider using the LFO-powered Vernor RCS, which is more powerful. I would also almost certainly be using some number of the large size RW for that size ship.

High Command insisted on this. Nobody here in the SPH was 'onboard'... Capt. Jerfry "Lucky" Kerman ("unlucky in love and unlucky at work") drew the short straw to fly the maiden flight. If that 'asymmetric' thrust thingy in the brochure is that little vent near the tip of the RACL ("Rocket-Assisted Carrier Landing"), Jerfry better have cinched his straps extra tight coz he's in for a helluva ride on this bronco...! It's on wrong. [Flight's paused right here as we enter this into the Ops log. We're about to find out... Brace yourselves.] FIRE TRUCKS! Assume your stations!!

Would love to see your rendition of this (coz I want to avoid taking it on as a challenge myself). Any chance you would post something to KerbalX...? T'would be of interest to many, methinks. UPDATE: we just crossed paths. So you might like this Whiplash-plus-NERV combination: Geist. Ah, yes, and Poltergeist, which simply switched the Whiplash to the centerline thrust position.

Yeah, wiki: "The highest peak on Eve since version 0.21.1 is 7540 m high, found near (25° S, 158.5° W)". I just sent a Tardis 2 exploration vehicle there (7506m, dubbed "Eve Max") and am waiting for sun-up to find the exact top. 25S is a long way from the equator. Is that much of a handicap for ascent? I have a base (so far unused) on top of Mauve Mountain, located at -0.52 +167.51 6415m, which I had selected for equatorial launch...

This is the Platypus Dive Research Vehicle. I will give an overview of what is inside and how it works. Pilot Control Overview fast-flood main ballast tank fast-vent main ballast tank fine-flood main ballast tank find-vent main ballast tank trim for'ard (moves mass from the aft tank to the for'ard tank) trim aft (moves mass from the for'ard tank to the aft tank) Craft-File Editing: Resources The distinctive monoprop tanks are actually, from fore to aft: XenonGas, Oxidizer and MonoPropellant. The first of those two tanks was edited to include a new Resource section for the desired contents and with capacity expanded as desired. I retained the original MonoPropellant section but zeroed amount and maxAmount and inverted all the booleans (True to False and False to True) to nullify them. It's possible to simply remove them but for some kind of stock tanks, KSP defaults the 'known' resource back into existence if it does not appear at all. The for'ard trim tank is 24,000 units of XenonGas and the aft trim tank is 600 liters of MP. Respective densities are 0.1 kg/liter and 4, giving a 1-to-40 ratio in terms of mass. The 'standard' C7 Brand Adapter LFO tanks have been modified to contain a pure 800 liters of LF each. They power the Wheesley for conventional propulsion. I did just remove the Oxidizer section in these tanks and expand the capacity in liters of LF to be the sum (360 + 440), such that the total did not expand. Worth making a distinction here that this Adapter is a standard tank in the machine used for a conventional purpose, so I never 'cheat' when 'monkeying' (research term; look it up) with the contents of such 'for convenience'. The ballast system tanks are 'open season' because they are part of the 'magic'[TM] side here. There are mods for this kind of thing, but I generally find it desirable to avoid e.g. config files that others might then have to download. Craft-File Editing: Engines for resource production Apart from the conventional propulsive Wheesley, the following engines can be identified: two Twitches, a Puff and a Dawn. Their ModuleEnginesFX sections have been modified to set independentThrottle True and independentThrottlePercentage to a calculated (hugely) negative amount. The Twitch supplying OX for fast-flood of main ballast is geared to -40404.0391%, for example. The fine-flood Twitch uses -12121.212%. The OX is pushed to the central main ballast (yellow) tank. (The catch is that LF is also produced by this technique!) A worked example is worthwhile. I wanted to produce 250 liters of OX per second. The Twitch is rated at 1.125 liters/sec (LF + OX) fuel consumption. We want a percentage thrust. Hence: -250*20/11*100/1.125 = -40404.04.04 and you will realize that the multiplication by 20/11 (LF:OX being in a consumption ratio of 9:11) is intended to scale the OX component up to the total fuel production of the Twitch. The Dawn produces XenonGas for the for'ard trim tank and the Puff produces MP for the aft trim tank. Main ballast buoyancy control is relatively uncomplicated. Two Twitches producing LF/OX at different rates are employed for flooding and the OX goes directly to the single main ballast tank. Venting simply opens one of two drain valves on the OX tank, selecting the appropriate rate. The wrinkle, however, is that, while flooding the OX tank, LF is being pushed into the twin fuel (LF) tanks. Two opposed LF drain valves on one of the LF tanks, set in Vessel-draining mode, are opened to exactly vent the same amount of unwanted LF as is being produced by the running Twitch as a by-product. There are two sets of these LF valves, matching the two flood rates. Trim adjustment uses a similar technique for different reasons. Trim For'Ard produces XenonGas for the for'ard trim tank, adding mass. An equivalent mass has to be removed from the aft tank, so this is done by venting MP via a drain valve. Trim Aft works in reverse. So a note about the initial priming of the trim ballast subsystem. When those tanks (Xe and MP) are empty, Either of the Trim modes will fill one tank while venting an already-empty tank: a no-op. Thus, you can prep for ocean-going by filling one trim tank, while loitering on the surface. Filling the tank takes a while, but the advantage of completely filling it is that that total mass in the trim tanks is now exactly half of their total carrying capacity. That gives a) a known quantity consistent across every dive, and b)the greatest 'leverage' on trim balance via the greatest trim range. After priming, the opposite Trim command can be employed to balance fore and aft equally or, better yet, when the sub has been tuned to known quantities, that known balance can be dialed in, ready for dive operations. Submersible parameter tuning A trim ballast subsystem is possibly not so necessary on small, simple craft but ought to alleviate a lot of work at design time for large and/or complex submarines. Furthermore, dynamic trimming for differing fuel loads or to compensate at speed for unbalanced 'aerodynamic' drag may become important. A primitive guide to trim while in motion and with SAS engaged is to observe the plane angle and trim until is it neutral. The overall best and easiest way to tune is to take a submersible in its initial sea trials to the seabed (as an easy way to arrest/reset motion and attitude. Vent main ballast until the craft slowly rises. Patiently true out the vertical speed to zero. Release SAS and then observe attitude drift: bow (nose) up or down. Be patient but it is quite easy to find settings in which the sub hangs motionless in the water, with zero degrees attitude. Note the numbers, main and trim quantities. Planning and Design I ran a spreadsheet on everything to make it easier to adjust settings when anything unexpected forced a change. I'll expand on this in the near future... Issues and Future Work KSP truncates drainRate values into the range 1-20%. This is the annoying kind of 'fact-checking' that modern programmers must do to comply with corporate standards for making bland, boring, unimaginative, creativity-suppressing products. Where would we (I) be without the imaginative lack of concern displayed by Squad programmers when they wrote the code that trusted the human-editable craft file when it specified a vastly negative throttle setting, hey?? OK, so this forced me to have a faster fine-control vent rate than I wanted. Particularly as this was ultimately determined also by the LF fuel capacity for LF/OX production reasons. Adding valves (doubling up) can conceivably lift the 20% limit (although not very relevant to subs unless you wanted emergency evacuation in less than 5 secs). I noticed that the drain rate on one of multiple tanks, when set in Vessel-drain mode, appears to take the percentage on the tank (part) it is connected to, and disregards the total capacity of that kind of tank across the vessel. This suggests that a small, auxiliary tank can be added in some circumstances, with a vessel drain and a rate set, calibrated on the size of the small tank, such that an effective drain rate significantly less than 1% can be achieved. (I have assigned an underling on my staff to look into this, but he is known for laziness; well it will be his last chance!) This will work when like tanks are being filled/emptied uniformly. Another item to note relates to why trim ballast on Platypus is this strange platyputtian mix of Xenon and MP. The original intention had been to use MP uniformly across the two trim tanks and in the main ballast. Filling the for'ard trim tank would require producing MP for it, and the aft and the main, in the desired amount scaled across the total capacity of the three tanks. The main would simultaneously drain what it received and the aft trim would drain twice what it received. Unfortunately, fuel produced is not stored in the ratio of the individual tank's total capacity, but in the ratio of the tank's remaining capacity (i.e. emptiness). (A desirable way to do things, really, and exactly what my mod, Telemagic, does: to each according to its need and from each according to its ability.) Platypus unintentionally flies. Badly. With its puny wingspan (staying that way), its approach speed for a conventional landing would resemble a ballistic projectile. It can currently be flown to a dive site and enter the water, nose-first, under chutes at about 9 m/sec. Chutes repacked, and after a submerged vertical speed run, it can get airborne again and could be flown to KSC and ditched offshore and then taxied onto land. It is probably not hard at all to change the chute arrangement for it to perform a vertical gear-down landing on land (easy). The superable challenge would then be to effect the belly landing on water without breakage. I think a v3 update will add this capability shortly. Acknowledgements The first time I heard of the engine negative-gearing for resource production idea was from Dr @swjr-swis. (See the furtively beautiful Anion.) When I ran into the first set of issues with the original objectives (listed in Pilot Control Overview), I ruminated on what would be necessary to overcome them (and would eventually find an additional issue (unwanted production of LF)) but decided to publish Platypus in a slightly-restricted form ("publish or perish" re grant schedules, you know). Gratitude again to Dr @swjr-swis for the "push" to go the whole mile.

Just some progress news from the Platypus Dive Research Vehicle team. The initial objectives of attaining independent control of main and trim ballast have been achieved (fully stock). This means no fiddling. keys [1] & [2] provide fast flooding and venting of the main ballast tank. keys [3] & [4] provide fine flooding and venting of main ballast keys [5] & [6] provide trim ballast transfer fore and aft This the link to the current state of the Platypus DRV . (You'll notice some round-off errors causing miniscule cross-chatter into the conventional LF supply. Lots of panels open inside with wires hanging down. And all that paraphernalia cluttering the deck: what is that? Yeah, hey, it's research. Take a bus if you want 'conventional'... ) More seriously, this IS a research effort: so feedback is welcome. Probably here is a good place for any discussion.

Well this latest foolery has brought up the mystery to me of why and when Kerbals swimming in the deeps, ascending, will either 1) take off at speed like the old days, or b) crawl up at 0.123 m/s... So there seems to be a mode when the Kerbal is in the proximity of a craft (that it might be attempting to board) that prevents the sudden, speedy ascent. I've experimented briefly but have not yet cracked the code of how to reliably get away and commence toward the surface at good speed. I've opened Kerbals in proximity to sunken craft in case this causes any lengthy dissertation.

No doubt, the rules on this have changed over game versions, but I'm particularly interested in 1.12 (which is near enough to 1.11, which I play). This mechanism is important when trying to swim from one craft to another one, very close by, in order to board it. Kerbals seem to have a loiter-in-a-very-slow-climb mode that is quite annoying if they escape and begin crawling to the surface. Call that 'crawl' mode. Then they have a 'shoot' mode in which they rise rather rapidly. I have built underwater base experiments with e.g. 'verandas' or overhead arches to provide a 'safe zone', but don't really know what I am doing without knowledge of the 'rules'... Ideas?

I found this very interesting by comparison. It's similar to my Mule, which is based around the Mk3 Liquid Fuel Fuselage and is powered by 4 NERV. It lifts off with some unnecessary drag incurred by its format and with a light load of LF (3000) because it only lifts off once. ("No one hears your finger nails drag across the black board in space.") Mule carries only a small amount of OX (for RCS and to supply limited amounts to other craft. Once the decision to tolerate atmospheric drag was initially made[1], no service bay was required and the only part that might have really benefited from one would be the RTG (80kg) which is an adequate, reliable, lightweight power supply. (And no need to worry about its radiation levels under the circumstances!!) The particular detail I liked about your tug is the 180-degree alignment doppel-ganging with three engines providing an anti-collision phase shift! There is a subtle advantage in keeping three similar axis dimensions in terms of rotational inertia (Mule) but I doubt it really provides significant advantage in rotation-for-docking maneuvers. Here's another detail I do really like about your design: A Jumbo filled with 6400 LF exceeds the capacity of the Mk3 Liquid Fuselage. That's a tie-breaker, I think!! You win. You didn't say what your tug is named so, unless you tell the name, my rev'eng will be called Patenall... [1] done again, I'd put a fairing around the whole thing for launch.

("Or on a carrier...") "Egad! By the holy chilblains of Jove's kerbiloid arthritis!!" That's it! It's an e.g. P3 Orion carrier-landing RACL (Rocket-Assisted Carrier Landing)!? I used 4x Sepatrons on my 2021 Martin 'Top Deck' with a solid fuel supply on a carrier to recharge those retros for Navy 'catch and release' training programs. The Navy canceled the program when Admiral Chad Gaskerman @chadgaskerman torpedoed it -- reason: Seps have puny thrust (18 kN) and a long burn (5s). Whereas, a baby like this, eh, 'Launch Escape System'[1] delivers 750 kN for 0.5 seconds and that burn could be down-rated, tailored individually to suit most kinds of carrier craft. Fly approximately down the deck, 2m above it, and punch the STOP! button to drop the Lamborghini into the 'park' like a valet at a 4-star restaurant. Yowser, I like it. Methinks I should shower more often.

This is Platypus... It's wired up now with main ballast flood/vent at two rates: 500 liters/sec and 50 liters/sec. Next step is to add keys for Toggle Fore/Aft Trim that will pump 'seawater' (MP) between the front and back trim tanks. This will be a little trickier than first evident, because a pump will fill all three tanks at some rate, while two of the tanks vent at rates such that the main ballast tank does not change contents and one of the trim tanks will empty at the same rate that the other trim tank is filling. Fiddly but conceptually feasible with a little arithmetic. Sea trials so far have already been fun. This is a research project for technology for use in much larger submersibles.

Does this look like a missile to you? It looks like a missile to me. So, I am thinking, "why haven't I used a brace of these mounted under wing?" OK, so I know they fire with asymmetric thrust. In kerbalthink: "even better!!". (Kerbals underline everything when they get excited. Have you noticed that?) Four of these: So I do a search in the forum. (Here). Surely somebody? No...? Hmm. Maybe I'll solve this conundrum during my next shower, whenever that might be. Huh. Or maybe, "I'll just do it!".

I'm up for it as long as you are happy with a KERS[tm] stock solution which entails on-demand production of sea water (a.k.a. MP) as ballast and standard drain valves for venting tanks. For this craft, trim tanks might be required as well as main ballast.

Thank you, @Duke MelTdoWn and @Krazy1: I've learned something from your interchange.

Fugly is also in the eye of the beholder, and to my eye, that isn't anywhere near my own standard for fugly; but I will not quibble with obvious talent. Orange tanks are fugly, always; I will grant you that. And I see, your orange tanks look like "Intellitanks" to me. (You're pulled up at the red light and this 'thing' screeches up next to you and revs its engines awaiting the green and you look across and it's a double-fuel-tank. What the...?) That's well done, I say.

Trident ATV (will be an exploration companion for the new Deep and Deep-R underwater bases): Not yet confirmed but I am hoping the weight & balance will work out such that Trident ATV can be equally useful on land and ocean bed. It will do 39.7 m/s on land (as you'd expect from those rear F1 tires) and uses a kind of KERS[tm] MP drainage system for extra bursts of speed under water (or indeed propulsion on the surface). It has full buoyancy control (incremental flood & blow), fuel cell charging (not shown) and a Claude[tm] pit stop system. Looks like it can sustain 6.5 m/s across the ocean bed once KERS has broken the Kerbal ocean viscosity barrier. Here comes the critical test! Getting inside...

Text file editor: persistent.sfs. Make a backup first. Change *all* of multiple occurrences. On Linux, e.g.: sed -i 's/Jebediah Kerman/Jimmy Kerman/g' persistent.sfs

News of Deep-R has left my SPH design team quite crestfallen, I have to say. I have never seen so many of my engineers quite so distressingly crestfallen. Very, very crestfallen. As Chief of Engineering & Design, I had to give them a pep talk. Here's how it went.