sal_vager

There seems to be a sweet spot with thrust to weight ratio, I always seem to get the best overall performance with 1 gimballed engine per 3 fuel tanks or equivalent weight. I haven\'t really used the big engine much after I found I could reach a marginally higher altitude with the more efficient engine. Edit: I\'ll just put this here so as not to clog up the thread, I think foamyesque needs to be clear about what we can count as payload, I thought as you have to have a capsule no matter what, it shouldn\'t be counted, nor should empty tanks as they held the fuel you used to climb, even something like the ASAS is affecting the rocket as it helps keep you on course, wobbling loses efficiency. He said 'dead weight', so I think that means anything that didn\'t and couldn\'t contribute to your flight, except negatively.

I feel so stupid, I used to know how to use these formulas but now it\'s all gone Anyway, I used the ship pictured, the payload is the bottom middle tank which will still be full when in orbit, with a weight of 2.5 kilo, in fact the top middle tank will also have about 1/5th of it\'s capacity remaining. The pipes transfer fuel to the center tanks, and the RCS is only for getting back down, but this ship can be reduced in weight a lot if you don\'t mind killing Kerbals. All three engines are the gimballed type for a total launch thrust of 525n If you can put the orbital energy calculation in a format I can understand I\'ll be happy to use it. Edit: I revised my ship to leave 3 Kerbal skeletons with the fuel delivery, now it only needs 5 fuel tanks to put 1 full tank into orbit, and with only 2 gimballed engines. Edit 2: I only counted my full tank as payload, everything else was affecting performance including the capsule as it provided the SAS. (2.5 * ((0.5 * (2 294.8^2)) - (3.5284E12 / (70 849 + 600 000)) + 5 865 441.54)) / 350 = 23 134.937 (Thanks jebbe and Closette) Lower numbers are better right?

Munstrosity? That is a brilliant name for a ship

Kigwig was almost bouncing down the stairs to the factory floor, trying hard to suppress his excitement. 'Boy\'s, drop everything and come up to the office, there\'s something I want to show you!' Kodger, eyebrow raised, set down his mug of tea and biscuit carefully, he was never one to rush. Kanley though, being young and keen, was already halfway up the stairs by now. 'Oh, oh is it a new pipe boss?' 'Even better Kanley, even better!' 'Two pipes?' Even Kigwig didn\'t know what to say to that 'Just head up and wait for us oldies will you lad?' Kigwig turned to Kodger as the young Kerbal disappeared into the office 'Young Kanley, he\'s alright is he? Gets out in the air enough if you know what I mean?' 'He\'s just excitable boss, his hearts in the right place, this place is like a home to him' 'Yeah, he\'s a good kid, anyway come on or Kanley will find my surprise!' They found Kanley sitting on his hands and swinging his legs on one of the offices chairs, as Kodger took a seat Kigwig stood next to the flip chart normally used to display pipe designs, whatever Kigwig wanted to show them was hidden under an old sheet. 'Boy\'s, you have done me proud with the rockets you have made for Ker-Flow-Full sewerage and pipeworks, but I couldn\'t let you have all the fun, so I have been reading up on rocket design' said Kidwig, waving to a thick tome on his desk, Kodger and Kanley could make out the upside down title \'Rocket design for dummies\' 'Okay are you ready for this? Ta dah!, I call it, The Kolvo!' Kanley started clapping the moment the sheet was pulled away, slowed, then just sat looking with his hands mid clap, Kodger raised his other eyebrow and peered over his half moons at the chart. 'It\'s a little heavy isn\'t it boss?' 'Well, a little, but it has to have all the mod cons, air conditioning, cup holders, sat nav, and look here, a wardrobe for your executive suit' 'Sorry to break it to you boss but it\'s too heavy to fly, all that stuff\'ll have to come off' 'It\'ll still be too heavy even after that guv, it\'ll still be too heavy boss, you\'d need to take the chutes off, an the RCS, an even that decoupler \'less you want to just sit on the pad for ages burnin fuel!' 'Kanleys right boss, if you cut all those bits out you might just lift off, an that\'d be with full power on that little engine you got on there' Kigwig, crestfallen, sat heavily in his big chair 'So it\'s no good then? I worked really hard on it' 'Sorry boss' Kanley, busily crossing things out and scrawling numbers on the chart, piped up 'Actually boss, you could have a lot of fun jus\' floating around, hovering even, you could sorta hop from place to place, you could call it the Hopper!' 'What good is that?' 'Kanleys right, that\'d make a really good ship for training I reckon, could be useful for anyone wantin to land on the Mun, they could get their hand in so to speak' 'It\'s not useless? we can sell it?' Kodger smiled 'Yeah boss, it\'s a good\'un' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Practice your throttle control and hovering skills before you reach the Mun. (Stock) I built this because I wanted something like the flying bedstead, or like those vtol rocket powered craft they play with in the Mojave desert, it started out with add-on parts but a stock version is better as anyone can try it out. It\'s deliberately heavy and underpowered, the idea is you\'d fly this with ASAS on, manage your thrust, tilt slightly with WASD, and practice hovering and landing. It\'ll get lighter as it\'s fuel is burned away, so you will have to keep an eye on that, and if you build up too much speed it\'ll get away from you, just take it easy and the skills you learn flying this can be taken to the Mun. In fact, if you fly your lander like the Hopper, you can easily travel around the Mun, and with the lower gravity your fuel will last ages. The version pictured has a slightly different strut arrangement to the final craft, as I thought it might be stronger, but weighs exactly the same, also it doesn\'t have RCS, party because the gimballed engine is more than enough both on Kerbin and on the Mun, and secondly because RCS is very ineffective on Kerbin, it\'s better on the Mun but is still far weaker than the vectoring main engine. Flying Bedstead at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Bedstead GENIE vtol rocket: An Imgur gallery of the Hopper, click here to save KSP bandwidth: https://imgur.com/a/uBtPg#0 Edit: Added an RCS version for RCS practice, it\'s slightly heavier so either wait for some of the fuel to burn off or use the RCS to help get off the pad, as I said though, RCS is not really suitable, it may be due to a combination of atmospheric pressure and drag acting on the rig. RCS controls: Use H and N for vertical thrust, and I J K L for lateral thrust. Also, I have reinforced it a bit as in 0.14x4 it had a tendency to collapse. The Hopper on the pad

How\'s that meme go? Yo dawg I put a ship under your ship, so you could fly to the Mun while you fly to the Mun! The Skif can already do a Munar landing and return, scroll up for the \'Munar Skif + RCS return.craft\' file if you want a challenge I bet the TRIDENT/Skif hybrid would be perfect for a flight to Murs though

I\'d say the Shamrock is cutting it pretty close as an orbiter and definitely isn\'t a beginners ship, you must have seen how little fuel you had left once in orbit The Munar Skif actually started as an attempt to beat my own Little Sipper 9 tank Munar lander, as I thought someone might try to outdo me if it were possible, but it just didn\'t have the fuel reserves, as a Munar orbiter though the Skif is a joy to fly. But if you\'re talking about landing the Skif on the Mun and flying back on a single RCS tank and 3 thrusters, then you\'re in for some hard work conserving your fuel, its doable but I\'d definitely call the Shamrock the easier ship.

Gumball? damn I wish I\'d thought of that name, I should have had Kanley chewing gum Radial tanks wouldn\'t do me much good as there\'s no central tank to run the engines from once the radials are empty, the three you see are all you have. I like my ships short and sweet.

Hi Darkshadow Could you please add this ship to the repo. Name: Shamrock Type: Light orbiter Page: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7514.0

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Kodger stepped back from the factory\'s antique winch to admire his latest rocket, glinting in the last rays sneaking in through the high dusty windows. 'Now that\'s a job well done if I do say so myself' he said, his voice thick with pride. 'Who are you talking to guv?' Kodger turned to see Kanley walking in through the wide factory doors 'I was talking about this here rocket, not too anyone, just in general like, anyway where have you been, not seen you since lunch?' 'I been checking the stock out in the yard, the boss said to keep an eye on stuff, can\'t have the Flooyd boys nicking our designs he says, they pass off our pipes as their own he says, they just paints over our logo\'s and stuff' 'Yeah well what\'d you expect from a sewage company?' Kanley looked confused for a moment 'Ain\'t we a sewage company as well guv?' 'No we ain\'t boy, we\'re a sewerage and pipes company, big difference, for eg, we makes the pipes that moves the stuff, Flooyd just moves the stuff, an they put on airs' 'Airs guv?' Kodger gritted his teeth 'Yeah, airs, they call themselves a \'research laboratory of dynamic fluid flow\' when everyone knows they\'s just two lads in a shed wot moves brown water around' 'Oh right guv, so have you finished that rocket you were workin on, only it looks like you only just started?' 'Cheeky, it\'s finished, I\'m really happy with the way it\'s turned out to tell you the truth, my smallest orbiter yet' 'You\'re telling me, its tiny, no way that can get to orbit' The old Kerbal just shook his head 'Shows what you know boy, I did all the mathmaticals myself on the side of this pipe here, it\'ll fly and it\'ll come back down again safely' Kanley looked up, though not very far, at the new rocket 'So what\'s it called?' 'That I haven\'t figured out yet' Looking at the tiny crafts three fuel tanks, Kanley suddenly became excited 'Oh Oh I know what you should call it! that stuff out in the yard with the three leaves an stuff!' 'No need to get in such a kerfluffle Kanley, you mean the clover? 'No no that other stuff! the stuff on St Kirish day with the three leaves, an you have to drink kuinness by law!' 'Shamrocks? but that is clover you plonker, you know what boy, that name ain\'t half bad' --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Shamrock. An all-stock, lightweight, single stage orbiter from Ker-Flow-Full pipeworks. My smallest orbiter, I know three tank craft have already been done but I had to have pipes on mine This tiny ship will get you into orbit with enough fuel left to bring you back down again, all without stages or boosters, but she does prefer careful flying. A two tank ship has been done as well by foamyesque, but his was not survivable, at least not with my flying, this ship is guaranteed keep your Kerbals alive* Have fun flying *Guarantee subject to terms and conditions, void where applicable. Updated: Moved all pics to imgur as they got corrupted with the server move. Click the Spoiler for the pics of the flight.

Well I can get to a stable 70k orbit with: Chute Capsule Stack Decoupler Fuel tank x3 Light engine With fuel left to de-orbit, and that\'s with my crappy flying, I read someone did it with 2 tanks and no chute or decoupler, but that\'s beyond me. Edit: The 2 tanks to orbit was done by foamyesque in this thread, his post: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=555.msg101237#msg101237 He didn\'t say if he got down safe, I\'m thinking the answer is 'No'

This is so Kerbal it hurts

Is it enough to just have 'orbit' show on your navball though or should it only count when you get into a non decaying orbit? I haven\'t really tried hard yet but I can get into a stable orbit with: Chute Capsule Fueltank 2 Double stacked fueltanks on radial decouplers 3 Light engines There seems to be a sweetspot of thrust to weight, something like 3 or 4 tanks per engine but I didn\'t want to wait that long.

Hi muskeg I thought I\'d have a go with some direct ascent craft I\'m working on, as soon as I think up some decent names for them I\'ll put them in their own thread. I managed the rescue quite fast, but I can\'t be sure how close I was to the stranded Kerbalnauts. Imgur gallery here: https://imgur.com/a/Tz0Br#0 Edit: There\'s no way I can top Boolybooly\'s attempt, my pc won\'t handle a ship that big, well done to that man.

I thought fuel lines didn\'t work with RCS tanks? I read that RCS tank placement doesn\'t matter as they will automatically feed from the lowest on up, maybe your tanks themselves snapped off somehow?

I managed a Munar landing and safe return with 8 tanks, 3 engines, 1 RCS tank and 3 thrusters (plus some wings to land on), my attempts with a 7 tank 2 engine ship could only get me to Munar orbit and back, just not enough juice for a landing as well. Here\'s the ship: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7229.0 I didn\'t think of trying to land without a chute and I can\'t land on the Mun without wings, so maybe there\'s room for improvement.

At least Jeb and co have a nice view while they wait for their air to run out I made a landing and return with a modified Skif, I had to add an RCS tank to get home with and four wings to land on, the .craft is above if you\'re up for a challenge as it\'s not easy with such a small ship. I think this is as far as I can go with tiny Munar craft, at least until there are new stock parts, next up I\'ll be trying to deliver a satellite (one full fuel tank) to a geostationary orbit as efficiently as possible. Have fun flying

I just made a successful landing on the Mun, and returned with all crew, with this tiny 8 tank ship and a single RCS. I had already landed the Skif before but didn\'t have enough fuel to return, or even to get into Munar orbit. After reading lawsonuw\'s post here regarding a 3 and 4 thruster, single RCS tank return from the mun, and after trying a 4 thruster return myself, I decided to give it a shot. lawsonuw\'s post: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7311.0 I was worried about weight so decided to go with 3 thrusters, in hindsight I might have been able to carry the extra 50 grams, I could have escaped Mun at 2 million meters and aerobraked at a higher altitude. As it was I struggled a bit with only 3, I needed the nose up quite high to keep from losing altitude. I flew as efficiently as I know how, only thrusting at apoapsis and periapsis except for one burn to avoid a Munar collision, when my \'apsis moved away from me I\'d stop thrusting and catch it up. All transfer orbits were of the Hohmann type, as I haven\'t mastered Bi-ellipticals yet, so I don\'t know if that would improve fuel reserves. And yeah I was bricking it when I was almost out of gas and thought I might hit land Edit: The server move has corrupted the images left on the site and this gallery was the only one I made before I made an Imgur acount, so I have to re-fly the whole thing. Here is the link to the old Imgur gallery, I\'ll update with pics from 0.14.4 later: https://imgur.com/a/WPNJ3#0 The Skif with an RCS return stage

I just tested this myself yesterday, to see if an \'8 tanks to the Mun, 1 RCS return\' was possible. Like you say, 2 thrusters wasn\'t enough, I could barely get off the delivery ship let alone get into Munar orbit , I can\'t remember my fuel levels during the flight but yours sound right. Any idea what the ideal number of thrusters would be? Edit: I successfully returned to Kerbin from the surface of the Mun and landed in the sea with just 1 RCS tank and 4 thrusters (+ chute and capsule of course)

You can hard mount SRB\'s as well, I only found out by accident but if you mount too may together you\'ll get fireworks. You can also hard attach LFT\'s to things like the ASAS, I\'m even using struts instead of radial decouplers because they weigh less. I just wish stack decouplers weren\'t so heavy.

Not bad, you could shave a bit off the landers if you mounted the radial decoupler and wing as low as possible, you\'d only need 3 decouplers then, I usually add a strut to each of my wings just in case, radial decouplers seem to be just too bendy. Also how are you getting on with solid boosters? I tried to get on with solids but I don\'t really see a use for them, a single tank and engine not only burns longer and hotter, it\'s lighter and cheaper than the number of solids and decouplers needed to manage them you\'d need to match it.

Thanks for taking my craft for a flight DrLucky When I tried to land, I used my engine and actually raised up a bit, making my chute vanish, I could have made a purely powered landing at this stage after the chutes 'free' deceleration but I panicked, it didn\'t help that i was in the mountains either, next time I\'ll be more careful. I see in your last pic you were empty, the only way to land any capsule with stuff attached is to have power to slow the final descent, so try to keep some fuel in reserve Even a single RCS tank, if not used to decelerate, will still blow, capsules are tough but when other parts start blowing up under you even Jeb gets worried. Also I have tried multiple chutes on other craft, even larger and side mounted ones, and their effects don\'t stack very well. So go easy on the throttle, you need the gas Edit: Yeah what you said too I just had a quick go with the lander on its own, it took around half throttle to keep the speed at around 10mps, and i survived except the engine blew up, this was hitting land btw, water should be a lot more forgiving but at least it shows a hard landing is possible.

Nice piece of kit Very tricky when the controls get reversed, I\'m bad enough with RCS as it is.

Kodger looked over the top of his paper at Kanley, who was playing with the factory\'s ancient AmSparkz 464 computer they used to design pipes, the younger Kerbal was making odd noises. 'You look happy, what\'re you doing?' 'Making rockets' replied Kanley, not looking away from the screen. 'You know that old things only good for pipes, pipes is simple, you have two open ends and you joins them together' Kanley grinned 'I found a new command, it makes copies of stuff so you can makes more of em!' 'Let\'s see' said Kodger, getting up, he was a paper and pencil Kerbal at heart, and didn\'t hold with newfangled technology, even if it was over 20 years old. 'Look I can make new bits same as the old bits! And it\'s so easy!' At first Kodger couldn\'t figure out what he was seeing, the picture seemed to move glacially slow and there were fuel tanks everywhere, as well as lots of thin yellow lines. 'Those pipes?' 'Yeah!' 'There\'s a lot of em boy' 'I likes pipes!' 'Yes I can see that, not healthy, a boy liking pipes like that, should be out talking to girls like when I was a lad' 'Pipes is better!' Kodger sighed, which quickly turned into a whistle as he caught sight of the projected lift of Kanleys tinkering. 'Well won\'t you look at that, you might have something here Kanley' 'It\'s not finished, it needs more pipes' Kodger, laying a hand on Kanleys shoulder, said 'It\'s fine lad, I\'ll get the boss, He\'s going to want to see this' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I made a 9 tank Munar lander, time for something slightly bigger. Based on my High Altitude Test vehicle, the K-F-F fuel carrier takes the big stack of boosters and daisychain fuel system and gives it a purpose.... Heavy duty delivery to Munar orbit. Without a satellite or other big thing to lift, I went for getting fuel tanks to the moon, not just a handful of empties but 14 full fuel tanks. Thats 35 Kilo\'s, thats a lot of liquid. This, unsurprisingly, is a heavy ship, and has a lot of thrust, without the payload it\'d really perform but loaded down like it is you\'ll not be making any quick changes in pitch, also its a good idea to line her up for orbital maneuvers before you need it, she\'ll turn on one SAS but it takes time. The SAS, incidentally, blocks the flow of fuel from the payload to the rocket, so there\'s no way to drain them, and adding another pipe might mess up the staging so be careful. It\'s also an idea to leave RCS off until you release the payload, as it\'s your only way to get home. Update: I removed the \'feet\' from the ship, they trigger a bug in the experimental versions, and they are not needed anyway.

Yeah I know, I already have a version with the extra tank and another with ASAS instead of the stack decoupler seeing as they weigh the same. The point behind this ship was to see what 8 tanks could do, and I think if I was careful enough and did a bi-elliptical transfer orbit, the Skif could return from the Mun, but it\'ll be incredibly close. And anyway I already made a 9 tank ship, the Little Sipper

I had to try landing it. Trying for a Mun landing