Hotel26

Very nice job! It's reminding me of an early Citroen some how...

I'm not much a rover guy but I finally decided my derivative of the stock Prospector was too slow and too damage-prone... I'm pretty happy with the new model, dubbed Invader Surveyor. It features Oscar fuel tank, 4 fuel cells, PB-NUK, surface scanner, Okto/reaction wheel (of course), spotlight, dual docking (front/back), a Bon Voyage nav unit, twin chutes for air drop, plus jump seats for 8 troops Kerbals. I can get two of these rovers into my Ursa military transport.

I went off and spent a year playing Minecraft, too, at one time. I'm glad I came back. And glad you got your things sorted out, too, to make a triumphant return! Have fun! See you around the traps!

Nice weekend. I finished sea trials on Seaspray II (will post soon); did Skylon on an impulse in a spare couple of moments; some further study on Reverse Engineering (a.k.a. copy-catting)... usual victims... flattery and all that. I started this latest career back last January. (All my careers have been sandbox.) I just checked in on an Eeloo deep-space relay probe. It's at 14Gm. Destination is 70Gm. (Kerbin is 13Gm) It has 3y+ to go. I'm only <300d into this career. If anything goes wrong, it will be pretty hard to know why! So I call this career, Management Mode. Here are the rules. Take Sandbox mode. Add One Rule: do not warp more than 30m. 30m is plenty of time for a launch. Or to return to a terrestrial rover and continue a leisurely exploration. The result is dozens (hundreds) of subsidiary projects, all going at once. Long ago, I purchased and read the book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes, to try to learn how the Manhattan Project (Oppenheimer) was managed. Interesting on many other facets, but no cigar. I think playing KSP in Management Mode gives some kind of insight into what NASA is like as an organization. Projects sometimes culminate after the instigators have retired... How is it managed for continuity until each and every goal is achieved?

double-plus-like.

Skylon! RULE BRITTANIA!! All stock (3x Rapiers per SCIMITAR?): Not my first attempt at Skylon, but this one inspired by JadeOfMaar (= "copycatted from'), now a hero! Thank you, sir! I don't usually duplicate craft for missions and already have an efficient 16-pax SSTO (Peregrine), but I think I'll replace the cargo bay in this one with a Mk-3 MP reservoir to take up and replenish space station supplies. @Geonovast welcome back! (Missed your slide shows!)

"I am not worthy, Master!" I got this to work only when I connected the term "base of the fairing" with "surface attachment", which means the outer rim of the fairing part. But your instructions were consistent and complete and saved the day. Thank you very much! This is brilliant! After conversion, I have this: You can see the "internal" hard point highlighted in the screenshot above... Thank you all!

In Will's defense, youse guyz take a lot of hazardous, mountainous work (that nobody else wants)! I'm gonna take a lesson from this and splurge for a tail chute for my Triop C1 and see how it performs... (Yes, I pop them still a few feet off the ground.)

Dr Triop, sir. May I ask a question? Uhm, where's your nose cone and who was driving at the time? (Must have been co-pilot, Will Kerman, right? )

The first Kannonball run, made by engineers Kasey and Richfrid Kerman and konductors Lenbro and Geofdun Kerman, safely delivers Kannonball #1 to Honshu Depot after a 700km sea voyage followed by a treacherous, unsurveyed run through the eastern foothills of Kyushu. (Well, a damage report will have to be filed for the missing nosecone!) Honshu is reasonably large and flat so we will be mapping out a high-speed route consisting of straight legs delineated by flags giving next direction and max safe speed. Once surveyed, Kannonball's full potential for high-speed intercity link operations will be tested. Trials will take approximately one week before the locomotive is released for public service. What a lot of unexpected fun this craft is!! Yes, and in case you are wondering, the konductor's duties are 1. to repack the chute after emergency decelerations, 2. change his shorts if time permits... Both konductors did go Kerbal-overboard a couple of times while stopped on the water.

I'm taking a Marketing course at the Univ. of Western Podunk so, for credit, I prepared a couple of "concept" craft for posting to KerbalX... Cruise and Gizmo: Cruise is a deployment shell. It sits on any 2.5m-capable booster and the payload goes atop the shell in the fairing. Orbital or sub-orbital to the general milieu; then Cruise at low altitude (range > 1,000km) to pin-point the target for a payload air-drop. Gizmo, what can I say. 7 rockets launches in one. Bean-counters at work, cutting Mission Control costs...

Good deal, thank you. So after release the only part still attached is the QO strut. Even gizmo'd internally to be invisible, maybe it still has some drag but it seems like the best you can do to use a fairing, doesn't it?

I had a ship get low on fuel, so the "torpedo" was actually for an emergency airborne fuel drop. It worked pretty well after some messing around in the water to find a connection point (an air intake, finally). I'm in 1.3.1 and couldn't get the hardpoint method to work but the thing I've learned is that the fairing interstage nodes are bi-directional, not omni-directional. So you have to approach to attach from a particular direction. @bewing As for the drag, I was hoping that everything inside the fairing was shielded from drag. Not so? In any case, what worked relatively nicely was to attach a Quad Octa strut to a tank and then two Junior docks to it. One dock to release the strut and one to release from the fairing simply for the aesthetic reason of not leaving it hanging in mid-air after release as the cargo plane was flown back to base. Both docks staged together, releasing the "torpedo" and the dock jetsam. Naturally, I used the gizmo to move the QO strut deep into the torp after placement so as to be not visible at all once the torp had gone into autonomous mode... Thanks for all the expert advice!

Here's a question that is vexing me! Expert advice required! Please think of a torpedo-like craft. The body is made up predominantly of Mk1 fuel tanks. The for'ard end is a Klaw. The aft end is a Juno. I want to stow it in a fairing and deploy it to jettison it in mid-air. I can't get a separator to attach to the Juno! There's no convenient end of the "torp" to get a dock onto for attaching it into the fairing staging nodes. I tried re-rooting to the Juno but it didn't expose a node for connection. (I've done this in hokey way with a radial coupler and a dock and then gizmo'ing into position but did not make myself happy. Is there no better way?) Good ideas??

Valkyrie has been kicking around in my head for months. I'm really happy with it except that I have to refit it for 2.5m fairings as this prototype 1.5 is too small. In this shot, Valkyrie circles back to encourage the rover it just laid, mid-air, to head for the ground. Mach 4+ with a 1.24 kal/sec draw and 5,500 kallons onboard. Rotation is a bit late at 60 m/s (probably a nose-low attitude on the runway) but it lands like a feather (35 m/s).

Kannonball sea trials. (Because, of course, a "train" must be able to negotiate oceans! And how else is it going to be deployed to any corner of Kerbin?) Alas, Bon Voyage doesn't operate without rover wheels. Setback. 51m/s and very stable; quite agile getting out of the water even on steep slopes. I added a jump seat for the conductor so that it can repack the chute after turns... And the test engineers (this is my Lab world, populated by crash dummies) have opened her out on land now to 118 m/s (425 kmh). (Didn't end well: unplanned jump... incredibly smooth ride up until that point. )

OK. This looks a bit more promising! I've signed it with the Hotel26 signature, "Ugly". I figure once the routes are surveyed as a series of straight legs with flags at each section indicating next direction and max speed, a run should be fast and fairly fun and require use of the Wheelsey's thrust reversers approaching the end of each section. I've had it to 75 m/s already fairly easily with no roll instability. Before you ask, Jeb insisted on the peacock tail; it doesn't need it. Oh yeah, the leading double bogey is raised off the ground but should contact any sudden uprise first and ease the jolt... that's the theory. I'll post Kannonball when and if I get a satisfactory result.

Announcing the Kannonball Express Intercity Rail Link. Uhm. I have a few details still to work out... (The investors are actually hoping to provide a village <--> regional airport link with Krew Buses used to transfer Kerbals to/from commuter flights.. personally, I think they are krazy.) And... yes... those are twin Wheelseys... a good ole kero-burner. (And... Nellgard is an "engineer". Not a "pilot".)

So I tried a landing test with my Mosquito 'roid-hunter and it won't land with full fuel onboard with just 4x NERVs, although it's true it would be landing closer to empty anyway. With a full fuel load, I'd guess it can get off, but... since it needs help to get down (or has to unload some fuel), it raises the whole "assistance" idea. I have an Escort vehicle (4 Rhinos on 4 Kerbodyne S3-14400s) that is dedicated to punching stuff into interplanetary-bound escape trajectories. Any inclination for a target within Kerbin's SOI is going to be a piece of cake for it. So I think the answer is that a Mosquito going off-duty will return to HKO, refuel and pair up with an Escort, ready for the next job. Thanks for the thoughts.

A Hawk with a Klaw attachment has just plucked a Ladybug explorer from the MX1 munar space station... for delivery to the M98E mun base and has just been refueled at Mun Tower 1 for departure and return to MX1. Another Hawk had just delivered Dragon 1, my first Anisoptera ion flitter (in this career) to the Mun surface (too dark at M98E currently to picture). I have 5 bases on the Munar equator and plan to set up 3 each on the 45 degree north & south latitudes with polar bases as well and scheduling regular Anisoptera and/or Salamander flights to connect them.

Thank you much for integrating this! To clarify. first use of Waypoint used to cause a Pick operation. After that you could manually enter coordinates for a new target, rather than using the Pick button for a subsequent target. This edit simply makes it possible to enter specific (decimal) coordinates the first time and then activate the Waypoint without a Pick operation.

Yeah, but if that is via a free return from the Mun, then my first choice in the OP is half way done already and -- with refueling at the Mun -- avoids the ~830m/s expense. (Depends somewhat on one's preferred final destination for asteroids, but let's assume HKO.)

I'm new at asteroid-hunting but having fun going nuts with it. I'm thinking ahead to how to recycle an asteroid-hunter once its done with an asteroid (sucked it dry). Initially, one launches from KSC directly into the target's inclination. Not so easy to do on a second usage when the hunter is already in space. Two immediate ideas present themselves: landing on the Mun to refuel and relaunch for the next target ditto Minmus ditto Minmus advantage is less cost to land and relaunch. Minmus disadvantage is the longer orbital period. I'm thinking that, starting from a Kerbin moon, it should be possible to use Kerbin for a slingshot out of the ecliptic as required... Does anyone even bother to recycle? Land it back at KSC for credit...? Ideas/advice?

With the airplane empty in the SPH, check the Center of Mass and its position relative to the main gear. Make sure the main gear are behind the CoM. Close enough and rotation will be at a low speed. Too far back and rotate will not occur until a higher speed, yielding a longer take-off run. Too close to the CoM, or in front of the CoM, and your Triop C1 will sit on its rear... Incidentally, this airplane performs quite a bit better when you crank in one angle upclick on the angle of attack of the wings. I get 1260m/s @ 19km with a fuel draw of 0.76 kals/sec. It's a neat plane and hat off to Triop. It has some minor issues with yaw and landing speed, range is medium but it's the A-bomb for air-dropping rovers into hostile territory!

The flow check mark only affects engines (and other sinks) drawing fuel or not.from the source. It does not prevent "pumping" with In and Out. Of The resources you have open, either one and only one can draw in (from all the others), or one can pump Out to all the others that are open. You cannot simultaneously move fuel from multiple tanks to multiple other tanks. Can require a bit of strategy in figuring out how to proceed. Sometimes warp while you do it can be your friend (and can buy you time by stabilizing your assembly, warding off the Kraken, at the same time).