Goddess Bhavani

@sal_vager Wow, I didn't know there was a repository of all the old versions. I remember playing the last free versions with C7 Aerospace parts! Fun fact - there was no wheeled landing gear yet, only skids.

It's nice to see someone optimize subsonic planes like I do. Without positive incidence, a lot of subsonic designs with higher wing loadings require excessive elevator trim to maintain cruise attitude. They also look silly flying at excessive angles of attack and incur a drag penalty that way. Positive incidence wings ftw

Do you know I've been clicking all over your most awesome signature for the past few days? It's full of buttons!!!1

@Tw1 Thanks. The comms mod I'm using is AntennaRange, which recently added the pretty RemoteTech style lines RT seemed quite heavy on processing resources last time I used it in 0.90, and I'm pretty fine with the featureset of AR. Things have been better in the Real Life universe lately, I finally got a job after venting my frustrations at staffing firms who sent me to nearly half a dozen interviews over the past 2 months - the majority of which I got along just fine with the hiring managers as they weren't very much older than myself. The reason for my unemployment frustrations is the staffing firms bickering with the employers over their commission and other petty squabbles. I got sick of being kicked around and have family responsibilities they are expected to understand; the industry I'm working in doesn't do a lot of direct hiring at the entry level thus I would 'remind' the recruiters their responsibility towards ensuring a stable income for me. Not their own commission. It helped to get a perspective on the other side of the fence before I aired my dirty office politics; hiring managers are disappointed their HR staffing firms throw masses of applicants ill-suited for the job scope and expertise required! My overseas friends residing in the US and UK are thankfully, really helpful understanding that frustration is related to anger and related to depression in some order or another. I used to study applied psychology in my spare time last year and I like to help people who are facing depression from relationship related issues as I used to have no end of problems with that in an earlier stage of life. So that's how I've been managing - talking about the problem, helping others with the same problem, with a different cause, and they in turn help me by reminding me optimism can be useful sometimes ------------- Anyhow back to the adventures in the small planet with little green astronauts: I've been having an obsession with turboramjets lately. A Facebook acquantance of mine started learning the arcane arts of Blender and produced some custom parts for KSP lately, so I started looking at supersonic transport aircraft. Coincidentially in the real world, the Airbus patent for a Mach 4+ jet/rocket propelled airliner is a trending topic this week. Besides fitting in with my new workplace the other important thing this year is X-Com 2 scheduled for release this October. To which I paid homage to the truly excellent X-Com remakes from the past few years by seeing if the fat and stubby Skyranger can work in KSP. Despite a most humorous discussion in a KSP General Discussions thread over the obesity of this airframe, I had no issue at all borrowing a craft file from a KSP forumer, taking his design apart and re-engineering it over the course of a few hours, putting it back together into a Mach 3.5 capable intercontinental STOVL transport. I could make it VTOL by cramming in a few more basic jet engines in the VTOL propulsion bays, but I wanted to illustrate VTOL is an expensive and wasteful capability when STOVL is much more reasonable - the more mass I expend in cramming in vertical propulsion, the less fuel and payload I can carry. And a Skyranger using conventional propulsion needs all the fuel it can carry racing across oceans to respond to extraterrestrial threats on a far off continent.

I saw a screenshot of an ancient version of KSP that had bright blue water in the oceans, anywhere I can download a copy of that from Squad?

I am tempted to build my own barn using stock airfoil parts and release the craft file. You can then do fun things with it, like drive it around on a trailer, send it to orbit, colonize the mun with sheep farms, etc.

I've taught small kids (both boys and girls) to play KSP successfully. Never underestimate the intelligence of young padawans

I read KSC as Kerbal Space Center and thought you had located it in real life. Maybe on this street?

Yes, I always use that community science text. It's hilarity all over the universe

A variable incidence wing can help with low speed approach and control, see F-8 Crusader. Tilting the tailplanes or wings of a craft can also help to maintain a proper trim angle for certain configurations that would be 'uncontrollable' at zero incidence. It can also be used to affect the flight attitude of a craft - Fw-190 for instance had a famous nose-down flying attitude due to angle of incidence. This gives better visibility from the cockpit, as otherwise some frontal view would be 'blocked' if flying at positive angles of attack. I also change the incidence to ensure proper positioning of CoL for a given payload rating. (Yes this ship is unstable for a reason - I need the CoL right there both for STOL performance, and to allow this design to cruise at 15,000m close to Mach 3.0 to match original source material) Notice the wings have a slight negative angle of incidence. This is because I am maximizing body lift as the wings are extremely short! The F-35 has stubby wings and a blended wing design, so does this (somewhat!) If you look very closely there is a set of very small basic fins mounted on the nose. They have a large positive angle of incidence to optimize airflow and supersonic trim.

The Supreme Leader of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (i.e. North Korea) would like to have a word with you

Lol @ bomber comments. I -like- the ugly mashup of structural panels, because that's exactly how early Soviet bombers were constructed. The TB-1 and TB-3 along with a whole range of other early transports and bombers all had corrugated metal fuselages and appeared to be styled by designers of railroad cars. There are also no cockpits worthy of replicating the TB-3's unique 'open air' concept with the cockpit section of a cigarette boat! This however is my new favorite screenshot of all time - replicating a X-Com dropship flight cutscene with a KSP replica of the X-Com dropship in flight. Some of the blended wing geometry is referenced from the F-35 program.

It's a space program game. Why not build 1930s heavy bombers? You know, to serve as propaganda for hard-working combined workers soviets triumphing against the arrogant bourgeois?

Here I was daydreaming we'd have Zeppelin-like spaceships the size of a Star Destroyer deploying hundreds of Valkyr flying saucer strike craft in a meteorblitzkrieg against the planet below.

This Atlas texture? I love it to bits! I use it for everything from 1930s planes to 21xx rockets! Look at it, it's the only metallic texture I have! So pretty! I want more metallic stuff. A bright shade of "aluminum overcast" all shiny and chrome! (Like USAAF WW2 aircraft that flew without paint for weight savings) .... and maybe a wooden keg texture just for lulz? I would also like a more stockalike SRB too, something like the Kickback's with the giant sized segments.

Didn't play KSP, first day at a new job. Unwinding by writing a render request for the brilliant esinohio http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93628-Esinohio-s-Blender-farm?p=2123454&viewfull=1#post2123454 Yes, it's X-COM related. Lol.

Request: Alien Terror Attack on Kerbin City Alternatively: X-KOM Rescue (See Exhibit 3/Conclusion at the end) Background: At approximately 0230hrs last night eyewitnesses reported several small meteorites landing in the vicinity of Kerbin City, causing minor damage to local infrastructure. At approximately 0235 hrs crowds gathered around the impact zones, observing spherical capsules suspected to be of extra-terrestrial origin emitting green electroluminisence but otherwise inert. At 0243hrs local fire and police departments were swamped with numerous panic calls emanating from the industrial sector of Kerbin City, followed by a complete power and telecommunications blackout covering the City and adjacent areas, but not before City authorities signalled their distress to local military units which are currently mobilizing. By 0300hrs, real time imagery from surveillance drones confirm widespread damage to certain local neighborhoods around the impact sites, with toxic gas clouds of unknown composition enveloping the area. Energy weapons fire of unknown type have been observed targeting civilians attempting to flee the area, while local police are ill-equipped to contain the incursion. In view of the extra-terrestrial nature of this event, the Council of Nations has seen fit to deploy X-KOM forces into the terror site in order to safeguard civilian lives, identify and engage the alien threat. A prototype Skyranger-class dropship, the X-4 Enforcer, was soon observed streaking skywards above the Kerbal Space Center in the heading of Kerbin City. Stock Craft File: http://kerbalx.com/pandoraskitten/X-4A-Enforcer-Assault-Transport ---- Fluff aside, on to the render request. The craft in question is the X-4 Enforcer assault transport, which is based on the X-Com Skyranger. It is coming for landing amid a ruined city street, for simplicity, just make it a deserted industrial zone, basic factory buildings on each side of the street, tall derelict chimneys (some half collapsed or damaged) looming into the night sky lit by green incandescent gas under a full moon. The transport is hovering above the street (the render perspective is from street level observing the X-KOM assault landing), has both main cargo and side bays open and 6 lift jets on full power spewing afterburner flame and kicking up all sorts of dust, debris and flying papers or something. From the main cargo bay, 5 or 6 Kerbals in black spacesuits with red (!!!) helmet lights are fast-roping down all at once, Edge of Tomorrow style, with the first two dashing for cover behind an overturned KMC M-1 general purpose truck that looks like it's damaged, parts missing and wrecked. Parts discarded from the truck can be placed around it like it's been hit by a heavy weapon and destroyed. I'm not sure if you have any models in hand that look like assault rifles or other personal weapons, but maybe just improvize with a simple model that looks like an XM8 carbine. The Kerbals dashing for cover are armed with these rifles in hand, while the ones fast-roping from the transport would have them slung behind their backs. For a cameo appearance, one of the Kerbals could be Valentina wielding dual Colt M1911 style heavy pistols. Among the wrecked buildings on either side of the street, there are Krakens hiding in the shadows, their tentacled forms loosely visible. A trail of green slime and some hint of a Kraken tentacle should be visible in the foreground of the scene - a second wrecked KMC M1 truck placed on the side of the foreground can allow this Kraken to hide from the X-KOM soldiers for now, but one of them are pointing towards its slime trail! Stock Craft File: KMC M1 Truck http://kerbalx.com/pandoraskitten/KMC-M1-King-Cab---Stock --- Inspirational X-COM concept artwork / screenshots Exhibit A: Alien Dropship that looks like a forerunner to the humans' Skyranger deploying troops in The Bureau: X-COM Declassified This scene shows what a dropship disgorging elite troops looks like. It has a Black Hawk Down vibe to it. Exhibit B: This scene from X-COM Enemy Unknown depicts the Skyranger landing in its underground base. Note engine vfx. We can have our Enforcer transport landing side-on to the camera for better perspective of its design and VTOL equipment - best would be landing in a traffic junction to explain why the X-KOM operatives are using an overturned truck as their first tactical cover - the streets would be too small to safely allow a 40-60 ton transport ship to hover low to the ground. Exhibit C - X-COM concept art by Piero Macgowan This scene depicts an advanced VTOL ship in a rural area. This perspective is exactly what I had in mind. If the urban setting is too difficult to design, perhaps just scrap it and make a re-creation of this scene. We can make it look like the foreground on the left has a Kraken tentacle and green slime covering it, and another Kraken in the house sihouetted in the light from one of the ground floor windows, while a Kerbal damsel in distress looks out of the upper floor window! Conclusion: On hindsight a replication of the Exhibit 3 picture would be easiest to do, furthermore there will be no need to design a complex city-scape, and the KMC M1 truck can still make an appearance in the same position as the old truck in the picture. And that windmill, and the long grass, and the rain. OMG. Yesh. Please make this. The scene can be modified for this render by flipping the truck over, destroying it and having the Kraken tentacle and slime slithering all over it. And the field of view should be reduced, so as to show the X-KOM landing craft and Kerbals landing in more detail.

I seldom design clearance for cargo bays as I usually don't cram multiple bays or hulls or fuselages into tiny spaces. But when I do, I angle and position the bay doors for close to an hour, fiddling with them so they all open nicely with centimeters of clearance!

Lol! I actually loled at bacon airbrakes! Maybe I Should make... Bacon winged aircraft? If you don't need to fly them you can eat the wings off

Oh my. I want that Earth as my wallpaper!

Previously in the thread someone rightly commented the X-Com Skyranger is so fat and stubby it should not be thinking of going to orbit... But oh my god after a few hours of work it becomes a Mach 3.5 intercontinental clipper, has STOVL capability, and I did not know something so fat could be so fast and agile! Thanks again @LethalShade for the idea and craft file! It was fun taking it apart and re-engineering it to the point it can dance like a butterfly, and sting like a bee!

Quick update before bed and a new job tomorrow - I didn't know a craft so overweight and stubby could be a joy to throw around the sky like a fighter jet. I need to practise more with the STOVL mode though. I just consider today as the aerodynamic proofing day, and more S/TOVL testing will take place this weekend.

I tried using the Poodle as per your original craft but the ASL ISP was nerfed so bad it generated nearly zero thrust - I thought basic jet engines would work perfectly for lift jets as they can be concealed neatly in Mk2 bays. The resulting wing setup reminded me of the F-35. It's stubby and thick with visible bays near the wing root, but it generates a lot of lift. I was very surprised at the flight performance of this craft. It mimics 2k Games' intended visuals and craft performance quite perfectly, with the exception of not being able to do a vertical takeoff when fully laden with payload and fuel (that would be very impractical, but for short hauls in the tactical AO, no problems with this craft doing limited range VTOL. I guess in hindsight X-Com could use the Skyranger as a VTOL, but with aerial refuelling before doing supersonic intercontinental hops. The takeoff roll is really short when fully laden, something that seems to be a trademark as I love STOL-like performance especially from large aircraft - real life C-17s look fantastic doing STOL full power takeoffs! I recorded enough inflight footage for a showcase video, so I will post and upload when I have time. Starting a new job tomorrow, and I'm glad to have finished the craft for you

I will be coming back to the Artemis soon - Today I helped a forumer redesign his X-Com Skyranger replica. Many changes were made to 2k Games' rendition of the Skyranger, in order to reduce drag and to adhere to stock KSP parts. Craft thread http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130695-X-4-Enforcer-STOVL-Assault-Transport-a-X-COM-Skyranger-Replica?p=2121041#post2121041

This is a KSP remake of the iconic in-flight scene of X-Com, featuring the Skyranger VTOL. Stock craft, release thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130695-X-4-Enforcer-STOVL-Assault-Transport-a-X-COM-Skyranger-Replica?p=2121041#post2121041