rnyboy

First off, what a fantastic mod!! I first used it for the BDB Saturn V and just started using if for the CA Shuttle. But... I have a problem. For some reason unknown to me the launcher base sets way too high on 39A. I watched your video and moved the base of the FSS below the floor of the VAB but no matter what I've done so far it just keeps showing up too high. You could fit a bit over two additional launch bases in the gap between the top of the pad and below the bottom of the launcher base. I imagine it's something stupid I've done but I sure don't know what. Thanks for any help here.

Thanks SpaceToad!

I decided to try to make as close of a replica of a large Fireball XL5 using stock parts, about 300 parts in all. The main compromise is that I used the large space plane fuel tanks instead of the large round rocket tank to use one large round tank above the Rino engine to make it look a bit more XL5-ish. The one used in Fireball XL5 had a slowly tapering round fuselage after Fireball Junior. I've attached two files, one of the Fireball only, and one with the booster that will easily get it into a fairly high Kerbal orbit leaving more than 1/2 the total fuel after docking to a space station or whatever. It's all stock except for the AR202 that comes with MechJeb 2. I've pasted in three jpgs, one of just the XL5, the XL5 with boosters, and one of three XLs (XL3, 5 and 7) attached to my Kerbal International Space Station (KISS). Boy, did frame rates suffer on this one because there are three XLs, one large tug, one moderate tug, and one small tug, all docked to the KISS at the same time (KISS includes a Cupola to give the Kerbals something to look out of). The two craft files are stock except for the AR202 (attached to the command pod) that comes with the MechJeb2 mod. It can be removed but you'll have to add kerbals to pilot the XL5 or add a remote separate stock guidance unit, probably up by the nose clamp-o-tron. The XL5 alone can almost (maybe could if lucky) get to very low Kerbin orbit (~70km). I would have preferred to use smaller engines than the "vectors" on those outboard tanks but I couldn't find another combination that stayed true to form and still have enough thrust to lift a large non-staging spacecraft to near orbit without boosters. Anybody is free to change the engines to something else if they wish but even with the boosters I designed it then may not have enough thrust to get into orbit after dropping the empty boosters. Sometimes I use the Alt-F12 unlimited fuel/RCS cheat for launch to use the XL5 alone to get into any orbit radius or whatever else I feel like. In the TV program the XL5 was launched using a rocket assisted horizontal sled/rail system. It could land on it's own using vertical rockets but good luck with doing that using stock parts but still keeping reasonably true to the original look. Fireball Jr can be detached, survive reentry with heat-shield, and land back at Kerbin using two parachutes. The craft in the files have the decoupler between Fireball Jr and the rest of the XL5 disabled. You will need to manually enable decoupling in order to return Fireball Jr to Kerbin. (EDIT: I forgot to mention that it has two "Dawn" ion engines with a lot of xenon fuel under the back wings (they helped fill in the look of the XL5 as well). Sort of a StarTrek-like impulse power idea just in case you run out of fuel for anything else . Only 4 kn of total thrust but better than nothing I suppose. And I'm considering dropping the thrust in my craft files for the four outboard "Vector" engines to something like 75%. Under hard acceleration those outboard tanks will start to wobble and I think they would eventually pull themselves of the wing,strut and girder attachment points they were left to run all out for too long. Everything combined just on the full XL5 alone without boosters is a fair amount of TWR (can't remember exact value) as it currently stands. It's a BIG craft and even with lots of RCS and inertial guidance it takes quite a long time to translate and rotate. Even MechJeb needs some help with rendezvousing because it does a poor job anticipating really long translations and rotations (planned maneuvers with countdowns too short and going retro to slow down when matching velocities with the target craft are the two biggest hurdles for MechJeb).) For those that don't know about Fireball XL5 go and google it. It was a GREAT! program back in the early 1960s when I was a kid. A friend bought me the DVD set of all the shows a few years back. I soooo wanted to become an astronaut back then but I eventually settled on becoming a scientist (Analytical Chemist) after my height (too tall) and poor eyesight (myopic) prevented the astronaut dream. I would get so excited watching Fireball XL5 I'd have to rush off to the bathroom at the 15 minute commercial break to go pee. (Silly now I know). Future wishes (with some editing): I hope in a future version of KSP they allow typing of an identifier on the outside of the spacecraft. I'd like to put a panel on the outboard engines with big XL# labels as IDs. Also I wish there was an easy way to "cheat" on engine and fuel capacity values that just go with the current craft. For example, I'd like to put a small engine on the back of Fireball Jr (really I'd like to get three or four vertical thrusters plus landing gear that are hidden until used to have it land horizontally on the surface of whatever) so I could detach it and rear end down with landing gear on surfaces. I guess I'd need two very large new docking ports as well to allow docking/undocking Fireball Jr to the rest of the fuselage. The cockpit would have to allow setting a certain amount of fuel and different thrust/ISP values for the engine. There are probably mods to do this but I'd like to stay as close to stock as possible; ideally all stock.) (This is my first posting to KSP Spacecraft Exchange, so here's hoping it all works. Keeping fingers crossed...) Here are the jpgs... http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/610604005659096160/88EA5798FD01F4DA1AAAE19C6D296871DFA9F908/ http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/610604005659094207/504B4EFE10C14ED6A03388C64A29F00A2983ED42/ http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/610604005659098524/BE2E498FD493A8F6D25A978830265091BB3CB14A/ And here are the two craft files... http://kerbalx.com/crafts/9634/edit http://kerbalx.com/crafts/9636/edit