Zosma Procyon

Eve's atmosphere is insanely thick. I'd prefer to shield my plane from it as long as possible. And anyway without the fairing, there is no reason to fold the wings.

I just ran test to see if my plan of landing my Eve sea plane on Eve's oceans inside a fairing would work, and the answer is a resound no. The folded up plane does fit inside of a fairing, but deploying the fairing while floating on the sea summons the kraken rather explosively. The best result I achieved is pictured below. The new plan is to blow the fairing around 10,000 meters, and land using parachutes. I was going to include parachutes on the actual plane anyway to enable more pin point landing.

I think I'm narrowing into a design for an Eve Airplane flying science base. It will mostly look like this older version. As you can see, the canards and wings are foldable. My plan is to launch this baby inside of a giant fairing, which in conjunction with several inflatable heat shields, will protect this during its entry into the atmosphere of Eve. Only when the fairing has safely splashed will it separate, leaving the plane floating on the seas of Eve. The main wings are the most complicated shape I've ever used, and offer excellent low altitude and glide performance, and a liftoff from water velocity about 15 m/s. They also both look cool and "feel" good to my autistic super senses. The ducted fans fold flat for transit. The final production version will have the fans mounted on the wings. Here is the current prototype folded up for an unfolding test. For the first time in my KSP career, I am using KAL-1000 to automate certain tasks. Currently there is a single controller on the prototype which controls the unfolding of the wings: First it unlocks the hinges, then the wing hinges unfold, then the fan hinges unfold, then the hinges all lock in place. This controller theoretically will only have to be used once in this aircraft's entire career, before its first flight. You will notice that in this version, the canards and the main wings are no longer in the same plane. I moved the wings up for two reasons: (1) They just look better with their roots above the science lab windows, and (2) to help keep the main wings out of the water during liftoff. In the real world, canards and wings don't have to be coplanar, and in KSP there only seems to be a 1 m/s speed penalty. Along with continuing flight and unfolding tests, I am trying to determine whether empty fuel tanks or crew cabins are more buoyant. This version currently uses an empty FLT-400 tank as a the fore end pontoon. The two aft pontoons use MK-1 Crew Cabins. If there is no difference in buoyancy, the fore will use another cabin to carry scientists. Eventually the pontoons will also carry container modules loaded with those new-ish deployable science experiments.

My quest to build an amphibious boat base for exploring Eve's oceans has been going in circles. My designs keep suffering from the ground vehicle shimmy. So I decided to try an electric sea plane base. I realized that with ducted fans my base doesn't need to carry mining and refining equipment. Two 8 bladed ducted fans using the largest size of rotor take 80 RTGs, which I routining load on my creations anyway. So this is what I have so far. It will cruise at about 70 m/s (158 mph). The low hanging pontoons let it hydroplane and take off from "water". And it has theoretically unlimited range. My design philosophy requires it to carry two science labs.

This is what I see. Now it works.

They don't seem to have that option anymore.

Do you ever try something that shouldn't work, only for it to work? I'm experimenting with amphibious boat bases for exploring Eve's seas, and thought that a hydroplane would work. I expected the pontoons to sink. https://imgur.com/a/ZGlwt1m Imgur change their link options. How to I post pictures now?

I just started playing KSP again after a year away, and I haven't gone through all of the patch nots. Are cargo bays and structural tubes water tight in the current game version? Also do structural wings hold together own their own or do they still have to be structed together?

The shimmy is the side to side jumping that occurs with some wheeled vehicles. I already have several orbital refueling stations in orbit of Eve. I really recommend the Ballute addon. They're comically large and really work to slow something down. The addon still works even though it says its out of date. https://spacedock.info/mod/1862/Inline Ballutes

My first mobile Eve base was a bit larger. The answer is almost as much lifting power and the real world Sea Dragon to get it off Kerbin and orbital refueling. To get though Eve's atmosphere you need a lot of inflatable heat shields mounted to a branching tree framework, and a lot of parachutes opened in a staggered fashion. I'l probably also use the ballute addon part for this "behemoth" down safer. It adds a few giant inflatable donuts to your part inventory. They inflate and trail behind your entry vehicle, and slow it down to a crawl. Anyway the hardest part of landing on Eve is jettisoning heat shields in such a way that they won't be directly under the lander on the ground.

Does It? I'll look.

Having just reenter the KSP universe from another more strategic one far afar, The vehicle I am currently designing is s three hull amphibious boat base for explore in the seas and islands of Eve. This vessel will have many more acts to trigger that the acton bar can provide. So I am in need of an add-on that allows the user to create custom floating screen boxes showing functions that have been slaved toin thougha screen very similar to the actual group set up. I want something as easy as mechjeb is for navigation. So is there an add-on that will allow me to create customize floating boxes with commands I proram?

Hello there, I have just returned to KSP after a year playing Stellaris, and have decided to pick up where I left off. I am trying to design am amphibious mobile base to send to Eve, so I can explore her oceans. I have experience with amphibious mobile bases sent to Laythe, but in those I used unpowered landing gear and relied on jet engines for motion on land and sea. Obviously I need to use an electrical engine for propulsion on Eve's seas, but for motion on land I would like us powered wheels: specifically the TR-2L wheels as they work rather well on Eve (even without cheating). Now to make this base more streamline in the seas, I would like to have them retracted or otherwise moved up out of the "water". My current plan, actually the thing I was working on before I tried Stellaris, is to have the wheels attached to the end of XL girder segments which are in turn attached to G-11 Hinges. When floating, the wheels swing up at least 150 degrees and are out of the "water" and the more streamlined boat base can cruise happily along. But predictably, I have run into my old nemesis, the KSP Shimmy, which I really hoped would have been solved by now. Attached are screen shots of what the current prototype looks like. This design was based on an idea I had while growing bored with a game of Stellaris. In Stellaris, after year 2380 the AI players kind of crap out and the human player will most likely win as long as you control at least 1/8th of the galaxy and have a few subject civilizations. Anyway I remembered what I was working on in KSP when I switched, and realized there was no way the very wide twin hull pontoon style boat would fit in a fairing or behind a heat shield, meaning actually getting it through Eve's atmosphere would be difficult. I could do it, but it would be a lot of work. So I decided to see if a single hull, basically just the center portion of this design, would be stable in the water, and it isn't: It rolls over on its side immediately. So I added the outrigger hulls to stop it from rolling over and to mount the wheel levers eventually, and it now floats great. Actually early tests that used the turbofan engines and just ditched the wheels in the water proved this to be my fastest boat base design yet. Obviously the final version will need more wheels than this to support this thing on Eve. In this boat base, all parts are rigidly connected, but only about 15 are autostructed to the heaviest part, which is one of the tanks in the lower half of the main hull. So I don't think over autostructing is the problem. And one possible clue is that in the aforementioned easier testing where I just detached the wheels after it drove into the sea, I had the shimmy occur when the wheel mount girders were mounted on the sides of the outriggers, but not when they were mounted on the smaller girders attached to the bottom of the outriggers. So here is the question: How do I eliminate the shimmy with my wheels mounted like this? Or if I can't, does anyone have other suggestions for retracting powered wheels out of the water on an amphibious boat?

I was having trouble with the steering on water, because rudders kept hitting the ground and breaking off. Then I remembered that the new servos can be linked into the steering. A little tinkering and it turns fine. Just for this test, I put manned pods on the rotors. Bob got to experience 370 rpm.

I just had a test that went too well. Full disclosure: The side tanks (pontoons) are empty. And they would be empty or nearly so if I sent this boat to Eve. The reason the test went too well is this boat was cruising at 30 m/s in this test. Make me suspicious.

I figured out why I couldn't get hinges to work properly: Autostructing. They can't be autostructed. I wonder if that means they won't survive a transit using BonVoyage. Anyway I slapped together a plausible design for an amphibious boat base using medium hinges to lift powered wheels out of the water. Something like this might get sent to Eve. At the moment it has no aquatic propulsion. I'd like to use wholly or partially submerged rotor propellers, but all previous experiments with rotors in water have resulted in either the blades exploding on contact with the water, or the blades just not spinning. UPDATE: Partially submergerged propellers REALLY didn't work. I have summoned many krakens on my day, but this was one of the most impressive. It launched this 150 ton boat about a hundred meters into the air. So obviously the best idea for propulsion here is a fan boat. Won't be fast, but it won't fly.

How did you get the rotors to spin in the water?

What does the damping on the new pistons and hinges do?

I've been experimenting with the new robot parts, specifically pistons and hinges, as ways to either retract (using pistons) pairs of powered wheels into the body of an amphibious boat-base or lift them out of the water (using hinges); but I keep having problems. The pistons won't deploy at the same rate (even if they're set to the same rate and damping), they don't always extend to the full programmed length, and they just aren't very sturdy when extended. My hinged experiments have been much simpler, pairs of wheels attached to the hinges by the long girders, but when I trigger their action group they don't move. They swing up eventually, but not all of them. At the moment my experimental base has about 20 pairs of upswinging powered wheels, and maybe my computer can't handle so many movements. Has anyone else had better luck with retractable powered wheels? I'm trying to develop an amphibious base for Eve, so the wheels pretty much have to be the TR-2L Ruggedized wheels and the experimental bases mass in the 90 to 200 ton range. This is what I'm doing with hinges. And this is what I'm trying with pistons.

I built an experimental amhouos base that might eventually be developed into something sent to Eve. It would use a duel counterrotating rotor system for propulsion at sea, and inside its flotation pontoons are 28 pairs of powered wheels for driving on land. If deployed it would be equipped with both Mechjeb and BonVoyage modules for automatic guidance on land. As you can see the majority of the pontoons are cargo bays, and the wheels are mounted on the new pistons. This design still has early problems. I don't know how to synchronize the pistons or the rotors, and then at sea it would be very slow; top speed around 15 m/s. Here it is at sea. And here it is at sea from underneath with the gear deployed.

Is there an addon, preferably a standalone mac compatible addon, that will allow me to spawn experimental craft anywhere? I'm trying to design and amphibious boat for Eve, but actually getting to Eve for testing is rather hard.

Not tailless. It has a standard delta wing for a vertical fin.

8 rotors each the 8 D-type wing connector blades, in 4 counterrotating pairs. Rather than being connected with in foremost rotors free spinning, the rear most are offset rearward and both are connected to the pylons. It isn't fast, in fact its annoyingly slow. I think I'll go back to using flaps in my experiments. EDIT: Further experimentation has demonstrated that not only should rotor blades not be rigidly connected, but they produce more thrust if they're offset away from the rotor.The physics of this game are weird.

I might be going a bit overboard with my electric rotor powered experiments. This plane uses 8 of the best rotor configuration I've found so far, in 4 counter rotating offset pairs. 4 pairs were needed because with just 2 the top speed was just above the stall speed. And I've determined that rotor propelled airplanes generally need RCS jets to make them more controllable.

I've been experimenting with electric rotor propellers, working toward an amphibious fan boat for exploring Eve's seas, and tonight my rotor test bed aircraft quite unexpectedly took off. Early taxi tests did not have enough thrust to get off the ground. It's loosely based off of the PBY Catalina flying boat. And here it is in the air, before I tried to maneuver and it fell out of the sky. The craft is propelled by 8 powered six blade propellers in 4 counter rotating pairs. Rather than attaching the forward most rotors to the ones behind them, both rotors are attached fuel tanks in the wings and the forward ones are just offset forward.