Hotel26

(A very good question and I second it! I would add: how much does inclination matter also? I want to put a SENTINEL "inside" the Moho orbit to find asteroids anywhere within about 5-6Gm from the Sun. Can I use a zero-degree inclination, even though Moho's inclination is 7 deg?)

There. I condensed it for you. (w.a.d.r., you do know you are in the Shower Thoughts thread, right?)

"Objection, Your Honor!!" Claws can be used to refuel and also to pass crew members. Inasmuch as KSP allows this to happen (outside the Cheat menu), it is permissible. A claw, like a dock, is used to join two vessels together as one. At that point, transfer of crew and fuel is subject to KSP laws applying to a single vessel. KSP is a game. The game defines the rules of the game. In reality, that's how games work. They are fun. Not real. KSP is just a game, cleverly-tuned to be fun. Welcome to the Wonderful Wide World of KSP, oehxfudmf! (king of nowhere is correct about those dots and commas! Think of dots as Liquid Fuel and commas as Oxidizer: together they will launch your posts to record altitudes!)

As of Wednesday, earlier this week, I had heard of the 'Kraken drive', only sporadically, for five plus years... had little idea of what it was except that it was 'Born in Ignominy'. Kinda proud I had no idea how it worked -- and was not interested, dammit. Watched a video. Just one video. 'Zombi' something. The foot in the proverbial door. Thursday morning, I knew what I wanted to do. I never stay up past 11 pm. This night, I did. 3 am. On a work night. We (the human species: individually or collectively, it's all the same) made some kind of laughable mistake, a stupid oversight (as we do). "Unbalanced forces". "Computers stupidly obey us, even when we are even more stupidly clueless". "Violation of Newton's Third Law: 3 demerit points, 4 weeks to pay the large, bold-font amount stated below". "Read the fine print for how to arrange a court appearance." Now that I've had some experience operating an actual 'Kraken drive', I have begun to wonder. It doesn't seem to act as a solitary violation of physics. It's more akin to a small legion of devilish abuses working in concert: capped, below some mystical (& variable) altitude provoked to go berserker when attitude is kept stable likely to remain stable once stable unless disturbed and many others too numerous and too unknown/unproven/worthless to mention I find myself on the verge of reaching two catastrophic conclusions (and thus have come to 'Shower Thoughts' to share the damage)! this is no mere late-night coding blooper (two such accidents in a row; first, landing gear and, now, magnetic docking: "I hardly think so"...); this is intentional by some dark hacker, code-named 'Kraken'; THIS is an ... 'Easter egg' more than that: THIS is, ahem, 'Intelligent Design[tm]'. Aha! There. I've said it. THIS, was meant to be used. And; therefore; the Apocalpyse. I personally will now, in one month, achieve in KSP with this Zombie spawn, everything I had thought would take me the rest of my life... Ergo: GAME OVER

I gave all this a try and have called the result, Dirac: You can see the k-drive mounted on the cupola. There is a horizontal one mounted on the forward side of the aft Mk2 cabin. And the central column (pictured above) has the z-drive for hover control. About 60% thrust will achieve hover on the Mun. I also made a component, Dirac Drive. (I used two structural tubes but it can, no doubt, be abbreviated to 16x2 docks on a single structural tube.) [I'm just a packager but this was very fun. Thanks to all for the ideas!]

I just put it up on KerbalX. Dirac. (It's very rough, yet; just a prototype, but already fun to fly.) It has 3 such drives: 2 with skittles (the little wheels) and 1 with docking ports. Credit to DNBattley for his video referenced in zK Light Plane Mk3 Luxury Edition,

Tonight, my life changed forever. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Finished testing a new, "passive" Mercy drone, including experimenting with double-ended attachment: A standard (heavily-instrumented, fully-fueled) orange tank was used as test payload. The Mule brings a pair of Mercy drones to the distressed vessel, attaches them at each end and then provides the de-orbit impetus, before re-orbiting itself. Each Mercy drone provides 16 chutes, a 10m heat shield and a choice of large ring or claw docking. To avoid instability induced by duel heat shields, it appears to be optimal to deploy one as a tail drogue, while the other, still undeployed, takes the heat. If the vessel itself risks damage from excessive heat, the second heat shield can be inflated as the speed is, by then, hopefully manageable. [Click + arrows for slideshow] I can send 8x Mercy drones into orbit, with an accompanying Mule, using my Aquila VIII launcher.

I will submit this [not my own work] for consideration: https://imgur.com/a/iUkIgWq I think likely two things may be observed readily: it is heavily clipped the level of thought, judgement and skill exhibited herein is strikingly impressive This is a genre of creativity that is difficult to ignore, isn't it?

Thank you, James, and to all the contributors of this thread!! Thanks also to the Moderation Team for supporting the community so well.

Hear! Hear! Loved the KerbalX banner! As a grateful fan of KerbalX, I would love to cheat carefully maneuver such a thing into permanent orbit around the Mun in my 'Orbit' world. It's beautiful and it must have taken some time (as well, of course, as the very professionally made video)!

My Lake Tahoe exploration continues... [click,arrows for slideshow] Cousteau is quite easy to trim out for level "flight", making 11 knots[1]. I noted with satisfaction that the KER radar altitude shows depth below the keel, so it's easy to plot depth. My first "production world" high-energy transfer is converging on its destination: 1) Ion Exchange enroute from Kerbin to Eve, 2) periapsis was 5 Mm, inside Moho's orbit, 3) capture burn will require 4.4 km/s dV Vehicle has 6 km/s remaining. I've just put a Hedgehog into a 100x100 km orbit. It's destined to be loaded with a dozen Mercy killer drones and then sent out to GKO (geosynchronous Kerbin orbit) to await duty... I'll be revamping my Mercy system to make it more effective. The basic idea is that permanently-lost debris is rescued from the Kerbolar expanse and returned to Kerbin geosynchronous orbit by Divine Providence. Rules Apply. What can I say? It generates employment. [1] 1 Kerbal knot = 3.6 Kerbal km/h [Why are my Daily Updates starting to read like a comic page? Is it the format? Or the content?]

On my way to a new adventure, I came across Sawtooth Mountain Ridge This great big seabird is a Long Umpire and was designed and built by @Brikoleur... it's been especially set-up for oceanic research. Approaching the target area. It's Heavenly Valley! Our cargo is air-dropped over the middle of the lake... A refueling station (with a one-kerb capsule at the nether end); and a 4-kerb submersible, called Cousteau... I'm excited about exploring the depths of a good-sized lake. We'll see how deep it is. That's all the science we need. I forgot to load any crew in either of these, but my Heavenly Valley base is not far away and has a Tern-R VTOL that can drop a couple of frogkerbs into the water. The Long Umpire is already safely parked at the HVN base. So far, so good.

[Ahem. Truman has been very lazy, lately; at least, about the Craftyard. Look at that: nearly 5 months since the last post! Procrastinating about doing some clean-up here in this site. "Rome wasn't built in a day", and other excuses.] OK, I have been on a kick lately with VTOL, learning a lot from some of the masters of that particular craft. In an earlier post, I outlined my 1-2-3-Hover[tm] control scheme for VTOL control. I have used another scheme as well that I call GoHover and my VW Beetle of VTOL machines, Hexapen, is a very good example of its use. In its very simplest form it is as follows: k1 toggle horizontal thrust k2 toggle vertical thrust k3 toggle boost k4 VERT reference SAS Hold 'F': HORZ reference This is 4 keys to do what is normally done with 6. (Since the HORZ ref selection is overloaded on SAS Hold, which still operates for that purpose, it doesn't get counted.) First observation is that the VERT engines are set up in Boost (turbocharged; wet) mode in the SPH, while the HORZ are defaulted in Normal (dry) mode. For VTOL, there are circumstances in which you wish to operate both sets of engines (during the transitions to/from hover) but you are never going to require Boost on both sets simultaneously. It'll be one or the other. Therefore, the Boost key toggles boost between the HORZ and VERT engines; one set or the other. Second observation is that, when you are entering the hover and wish to select the VERT ref, you will then select SAS Radial Out, which will hold a neutral reference attitude for the hover. Leaving SAS Hold selected, you can 'blip' control movements for small inputs and rely on SAS Hold to return your attitude to neutral. This is a big assist with the pilot workload while targeting the soft touchdown. You can tap 'F' to exit SAS Hold and still retain the VERT ref to continue using a WASD helo cyclic control scheme (explained below). But, as a result of the likelihood that SAS Hold may be engaged while in Hover mode, it is absolutely essential that SAS Hold of Radial Out be CANCELED before changing to HORZ ref. Therefore: binding HORZ ref selection to the 'F' key not only saves a key, but ensures the pilot faultlessly transitions into Go mode. So a note about the VERT ref. If a vertical-facing dock is not available (generally not on atmospheric VTOL), then I plant a cubic octastrut on the fuselage somewhere; attach an Okto2 to it; and then rotate it and shift-gizmo it into the fuselage such that one end of the octa strut is barely visible/clickable (to pull it out for maintenance such as re-assigning the VERT ref key binding or changing parts, etc). The important task is to orientate the Okto2 such that a standard QWE/ASD control function scheme is presented to the pilot. My choice is to place the Okto2 such that the "OKTO2" caption faces the stern of the aircraft and is right-side up. That gives WASD as a helicopter cyclic control: W nose down, same as conventional flight S nose up, ditto A roll left (just like Q in convention flight) D roll right (ditto E) that leaves Q & E controlling the less-important yaw and operating in reverse: Q yaws starboard and R yaws to port Hexapen uses a slightly more complicated variation of GoHover in which k1 & k2 "activate" the HORZ and VERT jets, respectively -- and toggle the other set. So tapping '1' gets you ready for conventional flight and tapping it again repeatedly yields control of the VERT jets. Tapping '2' makes your VERT jets the main set but allows you to control the HORZ on and off by repeated toggling. This can be quite intuitive actually. Fly Hexapen, if you want to try it in the cockpit. The only consequence of this is that you need another key to shutdown all engines. On Hexapen, I bound it to the ladder key. Make sure you are already on the ground when you put the ladder down!! Make sure you pull the ladder up before you start engines for flight!! For craft with no ladder, or by preference, I also bind it to Abort, as a reasonable choice.

Welcome to the forum! You're new to KSP!!? Get ready for the ride of your life! Don't give up because things get easier until you are truly hooked (and there's no turning back...) Check out KerbalX.com, too, and download and play with whatever catches your interest. See you around. And have fun.

"Finger to the side of a nostril; blow hard..." Problem solved. NASA 101. [This one's for you, @kerbiloid: you've made me laugh so long and so hard...]

^^ this You've built a borderline/neutrally stable plane that relies on the natural weather-vaning of the empennage at lower speeds (while climbing) to keep it in a naturally-steady, efficient climb and stays stable at high-altitude in cruise because the lift-generating power there is only exactly enough to support the weight of the machine. You've got a stealthy Burt Rutan style design (carefully-tuned, high performance)! Careful flying makes this work. Detuning control authority would help prevent accidents, too, I think (although I can't recall ever seeing a machine of yours with the control authorities touched). Trim position in steady flight has to be the most accurate indication of balance there is? Additionally, your approach to aerodynamics is very much like the Wright Brothers (meant as a huge compliment). What actually works in KSP is what actually matters. It seems that, for endurance, what matters is: a) efficiency at cruise and b) the highest cruise altitude compatible with engine performance...?

I've heard of this being done by simply raising an airbrake out into the exhaust path to obstruct the thrust... If you connected those to the yaw controls (A, D), I have a feeling that AA would find it and learn to use it. It knows how to use airbrakes, when Speed Control is engaged, in order to slow to a target speed, for example. Anyway, I gleaned this from someone else's flying wing, so I guess that's proof of concept? Good luck!

Nope: past the critical angle, they lose lift; not airflow. I do understand you possibly mean "smooth airflow" (and you may mean e.g. "elevators" specifically and not include the whole stabilizer), but my statements, anyway, only referred to Lift. Drag becomes very important. Nevertheless, I understand the argument you are making. IF the CoL is behind the CoM (for stability), then the aircraft would tend to pitch down unless the tail pushes down against the fulcrum. You could state this as the CoL being the pivot point (fulcrum) on a see-saw and the CoM is a heavy adult on the short end of the see-saw and the kid is out on the long tail section. With a canard, the CoM is hanging between the two lifting forces, which are both working upward, contributing to the fight against gravity (if you're right side up). A canard may be more efficient at the cost of being more unstable. That probably explains why most planes DON'T use it and high-performance planes SOMETIMES use it. That might be an argument in KSP for endurance, as in this case, but I expect that good performance in KSP is, like real engineering, richer and more complex in solutions -- and not just a matter of choice of parts. That might be closer to the argument swjr-swis is making. Example: the closer you can bring your CoL up behind your CoM and still design your plane to maintain stability, the less the parasitic drag due to control forces will be. That then necessitates that your fuel load be balanced with respect to the CoM so that that delicate balance does not deteriorate as fuel is consumed. (This might not be a beginner technique, but I don't think it's hard to understand for the questing mind, either.) Only one way to settle it, too... As swjr-swis suggested: challenge! Nope. The canards bring the CoL forward. Full stop. They may allow you to position the wings further back but the CoL is the weighted summation of ALL the lifting surfaces, including the canards. You could argue that the mass of canards at the front instead of elevators at the back brings the CoM forward. That would be trivially and insignificantly true, I think. (In my early days, when I couldn't think of any other way to bring the CoL forward, closer to the CoM, I used to add canards. I now regard it as a technique of last resort.)

The term "stall" has a nautical origin from sailing ship days and is simply a lack of "lift". This can be due to no/little wind over the airfoil or due to exceeding the maximum (effective) angle-of-attack. (You can stall a sail in a strong wind by hauling it "too close", or by tacking too close to the wind.) Coincidentally, both sailplanes and sailing boats utilize little strings of wool to indicate airflow, but for different purposes. On a sail, the wool flutters as (that part of) the sail reaches the stall. (On a glider's windshield, it's the most accurate indication of how "balanced" the turn is: yaw with reference to airflow.) The layman knows the term from a car that won't start but that has little to do with yachts or airplanes. (Cars don't have airfoils.) As a result, there are high-speed stalls in addition to low-speed stalls. Airfoils "bend" the airflow, generating lift. At the same time that the maximum, effective AoA is exceeded and lift quits, drag is headed north, square-ward (quadratically). In a "passive stall recovery", there is little lift to speak of but, simultaneously, the empennage -- those massive tail feathers -- are providing automatic DRAG, BEHIND the center-of-gravity, thus centering the nose back near the AoA:0 point; quelling drag; allowing flying speed to rebuild -- and achieving that "passive" stall recovery. All without the pilot's interference. The problem for the pilot, suddenly looking directly down at the ground, is that the natural reaction is to "Pull Up". The Instructor's duty, therefore, is to drum this notion out of the student pilot's head! "Release pressure on the controls" to allow recovery. Regain speed. Then non-precipitously regain control of attitude (lest thee stall again). Some altitude will be lost and the correct response (starting with "relax") will minimize that loss and, hopefully, avert disaster. The training is intended to prepare the pilot to recognize and react properly to the situation in order to minimize reaction time in a possibly critical situation. TL;DR: elevators do not use lift to produce down-force to raise the nose during a stall. (There is no lift available!!) They (and the whole empennage) provide drag to produce an "up"- (centralizing) force to lower the nose nearer to AoA:0 to "unstall" the wing. Designers use one strategy, which is to have the tail QUIT producing lift (negative or positive) shortly before the wings, precisely to bring on the recovery in a way that swings the machine "into the wind", even though that is usually[1] also downward. Another technique is a wing shape that causes the inner chord to stall before the outer: thus the turbulence of stalled airflow causes a recognizable 'flutter' that jerks the pilot awake, preceding the onset of full stall). Perhaps more importantly, the partial loss of lift causes the aircraft to sink, which is the first stage (not only of disaster but) of recovery. [1] but centrifugally in a high-speed turn (which brings us next to "spins", a kind of asymmetric stall).

Been fooling with planes most recently. I built a bizjet: Entered into a collaboration with @swjr-swis and he improved wings & tail and various: Very pleased how this has turned out and my thanks to swjr-swis!

Welcome to the forum and +1 for your first post! You can't go wrong as long as you have Fuel tanks + Docks. That's the bare minimum.

I can recommend Atmospheric Autopilot

My thinking, too. Thanks for your examples. My approach here is craft-file-editing to boost the ore capacity. Then I use ShipManifest to "flood" or "blow" those tanks with sea-water. (Until now, I have referred to this as the Tardis Effect...) Maybe this is a third category, clipping for possibility. Because I don't think reasonable submersibles can be made, especially not without buoyancy control, which opens up a whole new genre of "flight". [If this thread turns into a comparison/exposition of clipping techniques, I would be very glad! It's a very rich area within the KSP domain.]

On the subject of the Art of Clipping.. I was recently shown an elegant technique for clipping 3x (inline) Mk0 fuel tanks inside a small plane. But how do you refuel them? I will mention the ShipManifest mod, which I use to overcome the buggy KSP Crew Transfer feature. It could also be used to transfer fuel to internal tanks. Here's a mod-less technique that I think works. check the LF box in the Resources tab (with which I fly open at all times) Pin the internal tanks open Uncheck the LF box in the Resources tab. Pinned tanks stay open click-select the source tank for fuel replenishment. Pinned tanks disappear!! Briefly hover over the LF box in the Resources tab and the "pinned" tanks now re-open. Proceed with pumping fuel Don't know how well-known this is, but it's not very obvious and it could be very useful to those who need it.