EpicSpaceTroll139

Been working on my Saturn V and doing some stress testing of my new Microsoft Surface Book 2. Plays KSP with good settings and dmp and other typically lag-inducing stuff buttery smooth, but it also kind of sounds like a gas turbine whether I'm flying a plane or not. Main nuisance though is the touchpad and clicker buttons being integrated, so I can't slide my thumb over to right click a part without moving the cursor. (I mean seriously, why would anyone ever want that feature?) Ok, enough of that rant Also did some stunt flying. Yes I did make through. No I did not crash into the VAB afterwards. Lastly I discovered one of my old electric planes still works. I thought it was broken by an update long ago. Turns out it flies just fine at reduced prop rpm. Could perhaps stand to have the horizontal stabilizer adjusted though and maybe the bearing made a bit more sturdy. Anyways, that's probably all for a good while. Moving to college this week. Gonna be in the front of a pickup truck with 2 other people for 4&1/2 hours. Fun (not).

Have you tried different length blades? Sometimes shorter blades can spin faster and get more lift than long blades, but other times longer blades work better. I don't know what length is best though. Without increasing the turbine diameter though I'm not sure how much the lift can be increased. I believe on KerbalX I saw a glitched claw being used as a 360 bearing, allowing jets on the rotor to be throttled. Perhaps a tip jet heli might be worthwhile on Laythe, assuming the gyroscopic effects can be dealt with? Dunno

This is actually from a couple days ago (been away a while at college orientation), buttt.... I "flew" (only in the vaguest sense of the term) a plane in the corona. Did anyone else know parts could turn these colors? Spaghettified poor Doca Kerman upon attempting to use the EVA parachute in the corona as well. I also messed around with mini stock missiles on a BAE Hawk.

Not quite fully autonomous yet. I still have to do most orbital maneuvers, and the reentry fly-by-wire is more of a pilot assistant, or advanced SAS than anything else. Basically it keeps it from flipping out due to a center of gravity behind the center of lift. It would be really cool to have it able to land itself though. Maybe I'll get it to do that. Someday.

Did a full reentry test of the fly-by-wire (without interruptions) today. Removing the debug printouts on its own doubled the control loop cycle speed, so that's nice. It's really neat to see the elevons at the back deflecting down farther and farther as the angle of attack goes up. Roll control is rather sluggish though. I need to figure out what to do about that. I might also try setting up the split-aileron airbrakes to actuate with throttle. It's annoying that they're currently either on or off. I think tomorrow though I'm going to do a review for the KEA challenge. I haven't done that in a while.

@BadOaks Ok I am back from having my arm stabbed and inflated (repeatedly) by misguided return needles, so here are some better lit screenshots Here is the craft file if you want to try it out. I need to update the launch script and upload the fly-by-wire script though, so in the meantime it may be less than easy to fly. https://kerbalx.com/EpicSpaceTroll139/Orbitus-Space-Shuttle

I don't have any pictures of that particular launch (actually I used hyperedit for the testing because it took 10 attempts just to get the script to run without "UNEXPECTED EOI ON LINE 115. EXPECTED CURLYBRACKET CLOSE." or similar). I'm not at my computer right now, and thus cannot get good launch screenshots, but video has a launch at the beginning. Sorry for most of it being sped up... And dark I'll see if I can find better pictures and/or video in the morning... *Notices time is 12:02AM* Wait it is morning here. Make that when I wake up. Edit: Further make that when I get home from the blood drive

Finally got some time to do stuff in KSP inbetween all the scholarship essays and whatnot. Who knew summer could be so busy? Anyways, I tested a new kOS Fly-By-Wire script I wrote to give artificial stability to my space shuttle (which unfortunately is not perfectly stable on its own due to my OCD about both having good crossrange and not adding any dead weight to the nose). Everything was going well until I had to leave the computer for a minute or so to do something, and forgot to hit pause. I had left the shuttle with a slight down pitch trim, which was fine when I left it. At the time I left, the computer was operating on "Entry Control Law" and this kept the nose a bit below the 25 degree AoA neutral point used during the fiery portion of reentry in which I want to go in belly-first. However, while I was gone the computer transitioned over into "Atmospheric Control Law" which has a much lower neutral point of something like 2.5 degrees AoA for gliding flight. Since it still had the trim-down, this put the nose below prograde. By the time I got back to the computer, the shuttle was in a 45 degree nose dive at 10km doing Mach 3. Oh and the cockpit was looking pretty toasty too. Luckily the artificial stability allowed me to "safely" pull about 4g and enter a relatively normal glide at 8600m. If I hadn't had that computer the thing probably would have flipped and disintegrated as I had left more fuel than I normally would have in the aft OMS pods. Unfortunately the incident meant I came down short of the KSC. I think tomorrow I'll try working on the computing efficiency of the control loop, and possibly buffing the instructions-per-update config on kOS, because I feel like the control might be a bit more crisp if the control loops cycled more than 6 times per second (as it currently does). Idk... I'll have to look up what rate stuff works at on real aircraft.

Might I suggest testing use of the Big-S elevons as rotor blades, or at least as control tabs on the rotor blades? They might look ugly but they respond 60% faster than the Fat-455.

Nice work! I've tried working on a cyclic script every now and then, but I never really dedicated enough time to actually make it work. Glad someone did. I too have been having problems with blades hitting parts that aren't visually near them. Currently having that problem with my tandem rotor heli. I fixed the bearing itself since 1.4 broke it, but the thing still blows up. The f3 menu says my rear rotor's blades are hitting the fuselage, but the fuselage is several meters below them when they spontaneously explode. I think it means I need to completely rebuild the thing because I recall I had the problem once before when I originally built the thing and that's what fixed it. Ugh. Edit: @luizopiloto Does the cyclic script allow the helicopter to fly without reaction wheels?

I don't object to the idea, but I don't see why we need an in-game community-created mission browser any more than we need an in-game community created craft browser. It's not too hard to find either craft or missions on KerbalX, and missions can also be found here on the forums anyways where one might come to look for regular challenges anyways.

The old parts still exist in the game. You just have to look for them in the additional sort by manufacturer (or other) tabs. I think you can also find them by using the search bar. I do agree there should be more texture options on the tank textures though.

I'll admit I've probably missed some of the stuff on this as I've been away studying for exams, and I feel like you said something about this before, but would it have not been safer, faster, easier, and less expensive in the end to have made VTOL? Or even just an airplane with a whole bunch of parachutes for landing?

Test Pilot Review: @ItCameFromDuna's J4NK37-A5S Price: 18,220,000 Fuel: 1160 Kallons Cruising Speed: 320m/s* Cruising Altitude: 2,000-3,000m* Fuel Burn Rate: 0.16 Kallons/sec* Range: 2,300km* Review: The first things the engineers noticed when they were giving this aircraft the once-over were the large intakes on the wingtips. They surmised this must mean the aircraft was designed for high altitude where the air is thin, however the flight manual suggested otherwise. There were apparently no controls in the cockpit for the thrust reverser and engine shutoff, so a couple struts were re-purposed as makeshift control linkages. During preflight checks, the test pilot grumbled a bit about the trend of linking all control surfaces to all inputs, but otherwise these went well. Takeoff performance was good, and in the air, the J4NK flew nicely for the most part. The large wingtip fuel tanks give it a rather high moment of inertia in the roll axis, so while roll rate is good, one has to plan in advance. Maneuverability was otherwise good. *The plane did perform as specified at the cruising altitudes found in the manual, however the pilot had a suspicion that the aircraft might be more fuel efficient at a higher altitude. So donned his oxygen mask, opened the depressurization valves (he was unsure what pressure differential the hull was rated for), and began to climb. Eventually he found the aircraft could cruise nicely at 6.4km at a speed of 274m/s. While this is significantly slower than the rated cruise speed, it cut the fuel burn rate in half, increasing the range by a little over 1000km. The pilot was later informed that the hull was quite strong and there was no need to depressurize for flight at those altitudes. KEA's engineers suspect the range could be improved even further by virtue of drag reduction if the wings were given an angle of incidence of about 3 degrees or so relative to the fuselage and the wingtip pods were given aerodynamic trailing edge fairings. Landing may require a little pilot training as the wingtip fuel tanks make it easy set up a pilot-induced roll oscillation, however as the gear are also located at the wingtips, this is only an issue of passenger comfort and not of risk to the aircraft. All this being said, the aircraft is already very economical. The 32 parts and single engine are easy on the maintenance front, and fuel costs are average despite the high cruise speed. On a test flight with passengers, a few in the rear compartment complained some noise and vibration (albeit dampened) coming through the fuel tank into the cabin, however they stated it was not at all bad for the prices displayed on sample tickets. The verdict: KEA sees much potential in this aircraft for low cost operation between small to moderately sized airports with solid runways as a commuter's plane. It will order 7 and keep options open for more if it proves popular, and if the wing's angle of incidence can be optimized.

Nice work! I'd nearly forgotten about the request myself haha. I will definitely test this out soon.

True, but then you couldn't land on the VAB or something like that

Remember with 1.4 we have Kerbal parachutes so you can probably ditch the craft chute. Should help with the ∆v, if only a little.

I've been a bit busy over the past couple days, but when I get home from class today I plan to look at a few of the previously-reviewed craft to get a better feel for the judging process. I think I'll be ready then!

This applies to all versions of KSP with fairings.

I believe fairings make pretty good floats. In fact I don't think I've ever managed to sink one.

I would imagine you could probably find a line on priority for each command module or core in the persistent file if you did a search in notepad. I would recommend making backups before attempting edits though. Yah I'm definitely considering switching to lighter parts such as antennas and/or solar panels for the escapement, as I suspect a movement would be smoother with them, and they would put a lower load on the rest of the bearings, this reducing friction. I do think I'll do some tweaking of the Vernor escapement though because it hasn't been optimized at all. I was just lucky enough to build it "ok-ish" and it spun. The tourbillon was the hard part. Probably doesn't help the friction part that I went for a "flying tourbillon" setup with only one end of some of the parts having a bearing support.

Been testing a new RCS port bearing to replace the antenna-solar-panel bearing that broke on all my helicopters with the arrival of 1.4. I'm using my E-50 marine coaxial helicopter as a testbed for this. It seems to take most of what I throw at it, but it still needs a bit of work because I managed to make this happen once: No Kerbals were harmed! I think whenever I've got this fine tuned, and I'm applying it to my other helis, I'll try to flush out the problems with the cargo ramp on my E-23 (chinook-like thing), as I noticed it has a tendency to fall off. Also, I've made progress on that clock escapement thingy. It needs a bit of work to make it more consistent in the time it takes to go through a cycle. The motion isn't very smooth, so it kind of varies in speed. Obviously not great for timekeeping. Still cool to look at . Really can't get the Hammerwatch- Heroes Never Die by Two Feathers soundtrack out of my head, but I didn't want to copy Bogdan Pirsan's video. Note: my video is at 500% speed of what the thing was actually moving. Yah... not great, considering I want it to run on something as mundane as a falling weight. I should probably finish my pendulum clock before I continue working on this.

What I do to get the Soyuz descent module bell look is a heatshield on, then add radiator panels in 8x symmetry and arrange them like so: I also removed the ablator from the original pod, and most of it from the heatshield, as it is not really needed for return from LKO. The bell can be perfected a little more by offsetting the panels further outwards, if one doesn't mind covering up the hatch rivet lines on the pod. Also: the "tipping retrograde and exploding" sounds like a problem that would be caused by the center of pressure, or drag, being in front of the center of mass. Do you have a fairing around your Soyuz? A different problem could be the ascent profile. In pre-1.0 versions of KSP, an older aero errordynamics model allowed people to basically go straight up 10km and then tip over to 45 degrees and continue to orbit. This is no longer possible, and one must keep the nose of a rocket closer to prograde (preferably within 10 degrees or so in the lower atmosphere), lest it break up or flip due to aerodynamic forces. A screenshot of your rocket might help.

@qzgy According to wikipedia the V-22 can fully transition in as little as 12 seconds, however most videos I've found of it show it making the transition in somewhere between 15 seconds and 25 seconds. I'm guessing the low number of 12 second transitions is because that likely requires maximum power from the engines to accelerate the aircraft at the required rate, which would put unneeded wear and tear on them. So if we go for an average of 20 seconds, that would put the rotor tilt rate at 90 / 20 = 4.5 degrees per second. If we go with the minimum transition time of 12 seconds, that would give 7.5 degrees per second. Whatever you choose, if you're working on one, good luck! They're hard.

Well I presume one wouldn't be trying to tilt them forward very fast, maybe a few degrees per second? The aircraft needs time to speed up and slow down during transition after all, and you're probably going to need to adjust prop pitch at the same time. There may however be the asymmetric lift problem causing the tiltrotor to want to nose up once it's gained significant forward speed, but I think good elevator authority and temporary power reduction should be able to deal with it