EpicSpaceTroll139

@Aragosnat you could check their right click menus to be sure that they're working. Probably what's going on is simply Minmus gravity = horrible rover traction. Even small ones don't get much grip.

Are you referring to me? If so, I have a self imposed rule not to use it for gain in my career save.

I lost a Kerbal in my career save today. I was supposed to rescue Eilchelle Kerman and her craft from orbit around the Mun. Because I was too focused on making a cheap rescue craft and not on making a good one, she died when her craft disintegrated on reentry. So I made a memorial. Now I need to make a rescue craft for the other rescue craft that I sent to save another Kerbal around the Mun. I should also try lowering my res settings or something, the mini-lag-spikes when recording is getting annoying.

Does Kerbal's EVA suit count as a spacecraft? Because if so I once in a previous version I got launched by going on EVA from a spinnning lander can to... I think it was the edge of the universe because my speed ended up as zero, and I was at 262144 Exameters or something like that. It was some number that looks like what you would get from the limits of binary. Did I mention this happened within the span of the tiny lag spike from leaving Kerbin's SOI? If the EVA suit doesn't count I really have no idea.

Did some messing around in DMP. Blew up. Landed some planes on an aircraft carrier. Didn't land others. Blew up more. Edit: I meant to include this in that compilation darnit:

Had fun with helicopters. Made my second video ever. Happened to be playing in a save made by DMP. Apparently somebody made Kirrim Kerman an orange suit. Need to finish installing Lightworks so I can start editing these things.

The way I built the large carriers was that I would first build one half of the thing, then set a part at the end of that section that is going to be the middle, and use the offset tool to move it to the other end of the SPH, then continue building. This can be done multiple time depending on how large you want it to be. Another (easier) way to do it would be to install Hanger Extender (I would put a link but I can't seem to find it at the moment), which allows you to move you camera far outside the SPH and thus build very large vehicles. The small plane does indeed have flaps, mainly because I was attempting to play using FAR at the time that picture was taken. A few seconds later I discovered some kind of bug with FAR (understandable, since it's still in dev for this version) that causes any ship in the water which you come within 200m of to just... disappear, and the game to lag and eventually crash. Either that or it's an incompatibility between FAR and DMP. Wouldn't be surprised at all by the latter. In stock though the flaps on this thing aren't really necessary, as it is super light and can float in at about 35m/s and the brakes stop it in something like 7m. Flaps definitely are useful on other planes for keeping the nose down other planes that risk tailstrike at high angles of attack. They also help to produce drag when you need it.

Glad to see that you've taken the Mk3 fuselage route for the hull/deck. A lot of people do it with structural plates, and thus end up with laggy 1k part monstrosities. I've made a few aircraft carriers myself using that method. You can get large decks with reasonable parking space using it. This particular carrier has a deck about 140m long (about twice the length of your test article I believe) and generous parking wings for under 400 parts. If I removed the fancy geegaws like guidance LEDs, paint stripes (fuel lines), deck edge smoothing and "safety railings", it could probably be more like 300. I once managed to accidentally land a medium sized cargo plane on a smaller version of the carrier. Damaged the carrier on takeoff though due to a tailstrike. BTW is that a Gloster Meteor you've got there?

Tail looks like it could use a little more tapering, but other than that, fantastic! Anyways, I finally got around to making a video of a flight (my first video ever! ) of my E-24 heli, since a couple people had asked for one. I only just now realized that it's almost 16 minutes long, so please skip through if you're getting bored (or if you don't like it ). I will try to edit it or something tomorrow. It's getting late. I also just figured out how to get rid of my cursor. lol I'm such a newb Note: My game is not usually this stuttery. Recording is. Edit: May take a while to figure out how to edit.

The ramp on my E-24 retracts and deploys now. Sometimes it will even retract again, but then it breaks. Need to figure out a fix for that. The payload is very close to my earlier estimate. It can lift 102 metric tons in heavy-lift mode. It can lift about 70 in economy mode. Its endurance fully fueled and unloaded is about 2&1/2 hours, similar to my E-50A Triton. Also just been having fun in general. Also just discovered something really cool. This thing, like a real helicopter, can land if its engines cut out, although I don't think it's truly utilizing autorotation. I suspect a significant portion of the lift comes from the wing panel belly.

Errm... Going to Duna in the Kerbal universe is hardly comparable to going to Mars in real life. The ∆v required to get to Duna is roughly comparable to what it takes to get to Low Earth Orbit. Duna's atmosphere is way more helpful at slowing your craft down and doesn't cause significant heating like entry into the Martian atmosphere. In KSP there is no possibility of solar flares or ionizing radiation in general. There is no life support in stock KSP. Nor is there cryogenic propellant boiloff. Parts are also 100% reliable. The only way to make this even somewhat comparable would be to require the use of Realism Overhaul. Even then, I'm not sure that part prices are comparable. (What exactly is a in $?) Sorry if I sound like I'm trying to tear your challenge apart, but I just wanted to point out that stuff is way harder in real life.

Maybe I could do something like that except with the Juno pointing backwards, to cancel out the portion of the rotor thrust that makes the heli want to drift backwards. Theoretically the Wheesley forward motion jets could do it too, but I'd have to tweak them down by a lot when doing this

I'm not sure that we're both looking at the same topic. What I'm trying to say is that, as far as I know, neither of our helicopters can hover in a purposely nose-up attitude without drifting backwards. Juno or no Juno, and regardless of the location of the center of mass, the rotor disk and thus the overall thrust vector will still be inclined slightly to the aft, resulting in the helicopter moving backwards. With a short ramp designed for gear-up use on level ground, my helicopter would be required to hover at the edge of a mountaintop/roof/whatever in a nose-up position to take advantage of the grippy wheels to keep it in place while the player works with the payload (or Kerbals). Unless I add a second set of wheels that just barely stick out below the fuselage to act as rubber grippers... that might actually be a good idea. Anyways, with the nose-up attitude, the heli wants to roll backwards even with brakes on, which causes problems. A full length ramp however can reach the ground with the wheels extended while the helicopter is level, thus allowing it to remain stationary. Maybe I'll be able to devise some better lightweight anchoring system, but until then I think I'll want to have the gear available to help. Anyways, I should probably get back to that secret project I mentioned soon.

...uh... Not exactly sure what you're getting at... If your heli was put in a nose- up attitude (say, 5-10°) it would start to move backwards, would it not?

I should rephrase. It distorts the floor of the helicopter when any weight is put on it. So if I did that, I would just postpone the problem until I retracted the gear. Maybe I could find a design of fixed ramp that doesn't do that, but besides, if I make the ramp shorter than the gear, the grippy tires won't be available to keep the heli in place when doing things like this. Note that unlike in real life I do not have cyclic available to tilt the helicopter like that without going backwards, so I would be level.

Yah I've considered leaving it off. However, it seems I've gotten it to a point at which exchanging the ramp/door for a fixed ramp doesn't change the speed much (goes from about 85m/s to 87m/s), and the fixed-down ramp design seems to have a problem in which it can permanently distort the floor of the helicopter during takeoffs and landings. It's kind of bizarre, I'll have to get a screenshot.

It's not the weight that's the problem (I've used them on plenty of Helis before, and my new design is actually slightly heavier), it's the shape. I'm trying to avoid the rounded bottom edges of mk3 bays, which make it harder to drive/fit rovers inside. With the square corners of my design, the wheelbase can be up to the full width (3.1m?) of the inside of the bay, instead of just the relatively narrow (2.4m?) flat part of the regular bays. Also, with the new spine conveniently having some lateral area, I might widen the bay a bit to about 3.6-3.7m.

I'm finally done with on-campus exams, so I took the opportunity to perform a spine transplant on my E-24 prototype. Instead of an I-beam spine, it now has one made from the large curved radiator parts, conveniently making it somewhat lighter. But more importantly: No more I-beams = no more magical-I-beam-in-the-aft-rotor problem. I kind of wish I could add a transmission to keep the rotors synchronized, but such a contraption would be only one more thing that could break, and would eat up internal space, for a minor aesthetic gain. Still need to actuate the cargo ramp, and hopefully figure out a better pitch control system for flight at above 45m/s or so, as even all those reaction wheels and those strange looking wing stubs at the back aren't enough to keep the nose down at that point. It is possible to keep it down by toggling one of the blowers on the forward rotor, but that results in an annoying yaw-left tendency due to the incomplete balancing of the aft rotor's torque. Although that might be acceptable, as it allows the helicopter to go 75m/s with ease. Edit: just realized the cargo ramp might be part of the pitch problem, because KSP errordynamics means that it produces significant downforce when the helicopter moves through the air at speed. That won't be good for the door mechanism either.

Thanks! The magical I-beams problem may force me to change the design a bit, but I think I might know some ways to minimize that. Anyways, I don't currently have a gif or video, but I did download OBS, so whenever I get around to installing that*, I'll be able to make videos of it and my other helicopters. *probably tomorrow or the morning of the day after tomorrow, as I currently have a whole bunch of school stuff I'm doing on the comp and don't have time to close and reopen everything.

Flew my new prototype helicopter twice today. Both flights ended the same way, with a blade on the aft rotor colliding with a non-existent I-beam, and me somehow managing to land it otherwise intact. I'm proud of the strength of the bearings on this thing. It was surprisingly controllable considering the violent rattling that the unbalanced rotor sent through the entire structure. Well, back to studying for the calc exam. Yay. Meanwhile new math is running around in my head.

Ah well, if I have to redo part of the fuselage, I guess that's ok because I kind of want to reattach the rotors with a 5° or so tilt so that the heli can cruise efficiently, and that will likely require some changes to the spine anyways.

Sounds like a reasonable idea. How would I know the false one from the good ones though?

Progress: Extended the fuselage, added the 3rd blower to each engine and changed the rotors out for a design that uses the extra power more effectively. Also shifted the rear motor down to the same level as the fore one, and used an extended mast to stagger the rotor. This helps to keep the forward rotor blades from hitting the rear motor's forward blower when they expand at high power levels. It's flying alright for the most part, when I don't fly it into things. I had a rather amusing incident in which I careened into the admin pool after hitting the flagpole I'm currently having a problem that blades in the aft rotor occasionally collide into and M-Beam 200 I-Beam, with the ensuing imbalance causing the heli to crash. It doesn't really make much sense, because the only I-Beams on this thing are in the spine of the fuselage, a good 2 to 2.5 m below the aft rotor plane, and hidden beneath a whole bunch of other parts. And the rotor doesn't seem to be flexing anywhere near enough to reach there. I'm kind of worried I might need to rebuild the fuselage to get rid of the problem.

Even though it's from the wrong movie, I've got Live And Let Die stuck in my head now. Actually I inexplicably have two songsstuck in my head, one being that, and the other being The Writing On The Wall. Anyways, I forgot to mention a day or two back I made this plane, which I called the "Really Ugly Duckling" or something along those lines.

In the time in-between studying for final exams, working on my Apollo replica, and preparing a project to [TOP SECRET] with [REDACTED], I've been working on a new helicopter. Basically it's supposed to be a bigger, better, badder successor to my old Titan Mk1-3. Plans are for it to include 50% more engine power (possibly giving it >105t max payload), better reliability, and a cargo hold and ramp better suited to rovers/tanks/stuff than your average Mk3 fuselage. Oh, and comfier crew accommodations. Prototype: To do: Add a 3rd blower to each engine. Insert another fuselage section. Install actuator for ramp.