SkunkTwerks

Thank you! I will add one soon. Until then, you'll just have to test it yourself!

Okay Kerbal Engineers, gonna sound like a young padawan here, but are there any Jedi/Sith Lords who can direct me toward some solid tutorials/how-tos/explainlikeimfive/educational material on construction methods for various stock hinges/axles/bearings? Especially content that focuses on Thermometers vs RCS Ports, and Drone Cores vs Airbrakes? @ShadowGoat and I are collaborating on a swing-wing version of the V-Wing and trying to shake the wobbles out of the system. We've got a bit of "wiggle room" so to speak, but the axle still needs to be pretty small while still being reasonably hardy. I had landing gear-based axles/spindles pretty well figured out back in the days of v1.0, but outstanding projects like @klond's brilliant tracked rover and @Azimech's astounding V4 & V8 Diesel Catamarans have made it painfully apparent that rotating joints can be much sturdier, steadier, and more compact. I've taken a close look at their designs, but I'm still very curious about how they got their collision mesh tolerances so well dialed in... What's the magic spacing for thermometer or RCS-ball bearings that allows the hinge to rotate freely (instead of clipping & exploding) without introducing excess wobble? Was that all determined empirically through what my old research adviser liked to call "trial by error," or is there a more efficient method to the madness? Some kind of KSP part-distance measuring mod, or pure keep-trying-it-until-it-works? Also, will I need to do any modding or file editing to offset my hinge decouplers far enough away from the hinge itself? May the Force of curiosity be with you, -SkunkTwerks

What a huge project! Admirable dedication @Makc_Gordon. What software did you use to overlay the Eiffel tower schematic on top of KSP? It looked very easy to use!

Last year, while visiting family for Thanksgiving, I accidentally turned my young cousins into "Gerbil Space Program" super-fans when we built silly rockets that did funny things in flight. This year they begged me to build something even more amusing with them. Cousins: "Hey [SkunkTwerks], let's build an airplane!" Me: "Sure thing, easy peasy!" Cousins: "Yeah, an airplane that shoots kerbals!" Me: "Hmm, I'm not sure how I feel about shooting things at kerbals... They have feelings too, you know!" Cousins: *laughter* "No, an airplane that shoots kerbals out of the front of it!!!" Me: "Oh. OH. OHHH! Like, using the kerbals themselves as the projectiles?" Cousins: *mad laughter* "YEAAHHHH!" Me: "BRILLIANT!" *may almighty Kraken forgive me for my kerbal-slaying sins* So with the expert design help of my favorite little Kerbal Engineers ages 6-13, SkunkTwerks presents the KERBAL LAUNCHER 50000! That little dot on the right is dear Bob Kerman, traveling at approximately ludicrous speed. I can't switch controls fast enough to get an exact maximum speed, but muzzle velocity is at least 300 m/s faster than the KERBAL LAUNCHER 50000's airspeed. A close-up of the firing chamber. Since KSP treats engine thrust as very precise, laser-focused vectors, we used structural panels and four Vector engines (gimbals locked) to create an enclosure in which the kerbal has a high likelihood of being directly in front of at least one of the point sources. Firing sequence: 1) Select a kerbal from the Mk2 Crew Cabin (not the Mk3 Passenger Module) and go on EVA 2) Switch control back to the KERBAL LAUNCHER 50000 using [ or ] 3) *Briefly* toggle the Vector engines On and Off by double-tapping Hotkey 2. Failure to keep it brief may result in a full stall & death spiral. 4) Watch 'em fly! Repeat as desired. 5) Refill the Mk2 Crew Cabin from the Mk3 Passenger Module as needed. Hotkey 5 opens the Mk3 cargo bay door for easier crew transfer. Jeb gives the KERBAL LAUNCHER 50000 a great big twisted & tangled thumbs-up after being fired at the VAB. I've never broken a kerbal so badly! I felt a little bit bad for the poor guy, but my cousins thought it was hilarious. Here's to keeping the young kerbal engineers entertained! -SkunkTwerks

You did an excellent job of it! This was the best I could do in stock KSP a while back: No folding wings, pretty crude in comparison to your craft. But it is a very curious and amusing plane, and was a lot of fun to try to build! I'm glad you had fun creating one of history's more ridiculous planes. Have you managed a successful re-docking of your XF-85 with the B-29? According to this article, "Two main reasons contributed to the cancellation. The XF-85's deficiencies revealed in flight testing included a lackluster performance in relation to contemporary jet fighters, and the high demands on pilot skill experienced during docking revealed a critical shortcoming that was never fully corrected."

@BaronRodri Having once made a pure stock "Wobblin' Goblin" of my own a while back, I salute you for going the extra miles to put it in the B-29. I don't have the mods installed to test it, but it looks great!

(credit again to unusualsuspex on deviantart for these beautiful orthos) I have a prototype VTOL Z-95 Headhunter almost ready to go! Just a few minor handling issues to work out before release. @ShadowGoat How's that swing-wing V-Wing coming along? Feel free to PM me a screenshot or a craft file if you'd like to collaborate. The V-torrent features *radically* anhedral wings... and those never bode well for stability. With crazy wing angles like those, I worry that all it's going to want to do is, at best, fly upside down. It's possible that the vertical/middle wing will be able to prevent that, but I'm not optimistic. I've been wrong before... but don't hold your breath on this one.*** *** So after writing that, I had to try it (I'd hate to be wrong on the internet ). And dang, I really hate being right. All this thing wants to do is corkscrews. No control whatsoever: Sorry ShadowGoat, this one just ain't gonna fly. (Yes, I know that middle wing should be longer, but the landing gear needed to go somewhere... The Aurek would be much more stable, albeit potentially tough to balance CoM and CoL. I might also see if I can add some AIRBRAKE-actuated hinges to swing the wings in and out. Meanwhile... My little cousins are begging me to do Kylo Ren's Upsilon-class Command Shuttle. I'm much more optimistic about the dihedral wings on that one. This one looks like an ideal candidate for an AIRBRAKE-actuated hinge system and a VTOL system. In other words, great practice for techniques I'm trying to master! That said, the Twerkshop will be on limited holiday hours for the next month or so, so... patience young padawans. May the Force be with you, -SkunkTwerks

Thank you! I've tried to build large-scale Star Destroyers and really struggled with the geometry and structural integrity. It never occurred to me that thinking *smaller* would actually result in a much better-looking craft. This craft is a beauty, excellent work Yukon0009!

I'm glad you agree! I'm slowly creating VTOL versions of other crafts I've posted, so you can look forward to a few more of those in the coming weeks.

The Twerkshop has been running on very limited hours as the holidays approach, but I did manage to do a quick retrofit of an old favorite: the T-65 X-Wing. Because as well-loved as it has been, it was definitely missing something important. Something I think every Rebel pilot will appreciate... The SkunkTwerks T-65 X-Wing ATMO+VTOL The same craft you know and love, but with 1/3 as much fuel and VTOL CAPABILITY. Still perfect for destroying pesky TIE Fighters, Death Stars, and Vehicle Assembly Buildings, but now you can land on the roof of the Space Plane Hangar when you're done. The astromech droid's head (we'll call him V3RT) doubles as a vertically-oriented Stayputnik for those tricky vertical landings. Make sure to start your retro-burn early and descend slowly, as maximum vertical TWR is not particularly high. Still packs those quadruple KX9 Laser Cannons... Han and Leia may have gotten old, but strafing the VAB hasn't. May the vertical takeoff and landing forces be with you. -SkunkTwerks

I've tried a few partial air-breathing configurations (RAPIERs, Whiplashes) but kept coming up 750-850 m/s short. You are correct, the drag is just TOO REAL. So I tried some pure rocket-fuel Vector+Aerospike versions on a typical rocket ascent profile. By trimming down nonessential parts (safe landings are no longer an option), adding fuel tanks, and ditching a pair of vertical engines (this makes takeoff tricky) I've gone from missing 75 km LKO by 750 m/s... to 360 m/s... to 100 m/s... to... this. SO CLOSE!!! With MechJeb's ascent guidance (and smoothing the craft's wobbles with manual input), I'm coming up just 21 m/s dV short of a 75 km LKO. Which tells me that this is totally doable. But I'm exhausted and it'll just have to wait for another day. May just a little bit more Force, a little less drag, and possibly a slightly different ascent path, be with me next time. -SkunkTwerks

Thank you kindly! For an atmospherically-optimized version with even better aesthetics (not to mention a bunch of other Star Wars SSTOs) and much-improved handling, I hope you'll check out my SkunkTwerks Star Wars Replica thread. What do you think, SSTO-lovers? Does my new Defender-class Light Corvette stand any chance whatsoever of becoming SSTO-capable? Because against all advice, the Twerkshop is trying! -SkunkTwerks

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, before I got hooked on Star Wars replicas, I tried to make a replica of a real-life flop of an aerospace flying saucer: the Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar. Intended to function as a "flying jeep" in combat, it quite literally never got more than a couple feet off the ground. But what doesn't work in the real world can often work in KSP! Not sure it's what you're looking for, but here's my version in action: VTOL, for atmospheric flight only. This one could reach top speeds of ~35-40 m/s in level(ish) flight, but just like the real life version, it was pretty finicky. l'd be happy to upload it if you're interested. -SkunkTwerks

The Twerkshop is delighted to present its boldest high-fidelity craft build yet: the Defender-class Light Corvette. Only you can say for sure, but I believe I've managed to outdo my X-Wing, my Delta-7 Aethersprite, and my V-Wing with this new craft. Thanks @ShadowGoat for suggesting it! I really enjoyed building this one. Here's the SkunkTwerks Defender-class Light Corvette VTOL This heavy-duty Corellian starfighter is Jedi-tested and Kerbal-approved as a mobile operations base, a potent source of firepower, and a guaranteed way to impress the bajeezus out of visiting contractors. Despite initial Twerskhop engineering assessments that predicted this ship would never actually fly, the Twerkshop is thrilled to report that flight is remarkably smooth, controllable… even downright enjoyable! Per ShadowGoat's request, seating Kerbals in the forward crew cabins affords them a nice view from the bridge. The craft also features a @Jett_Quasar-inspired AIRBRAKE loading ramp. Includes two sets of dual laser cannons armed with 4 staged shots (count carefully to avoid accidental parachute deployment) and just enough fuel to reach the island base. Hotkey 10 toggles the loading ramp and solar array. SkunkTwerks recommends controlling the craft from the horizontal RC-L01 Remote Guidance Unit in the nose of the ship during takeoff and flight. Set SAS, throttle to full, then hit stage to start engines. Hotkey 1 toggles the vertical engines, Hotkey 2 toggles the horizontal engines. Landing this beast can be a bit of a Jedi mind trick. (These are not the easy landing instructions you were looking for.) The parachutes will slow your descent significantly, but not quite enough to prevent everyone from dying. And by the time you’ve burned any significant amount of fuel in this craft, the center or gravity will have shifted far enough aft that the four main vertical engines will be too misaligned for safe landing. You’ll probably want to use thrust-balancing mods or the Twerkshop’s “Anything But Guaranteed” clunky workaround stock solution: an additional Vector engine positioned under the rear section of the ship, with a default thrust limit of 0. Pin the tweakable window to your view, and adjust thrust to a rough proportion of your remaining fuel level (see screenshot above) and adjust on the fly as you land. Depending on how much fuel you’ve burned, the craft will likely require significant amounts of “additional pilot input” to keep the craft level during final descent. It's normal to blow a few lander legs on a successful landing: that's why this craft has 28 of them. May the Force be with you, but not *too* forcefully. -SkunkTwerks EDIT: At @qzgy's request, I've added that quintessential cool blue glow to the main engine pods and the loading ramp.

As hinted above, I'm still fine-tuning what might be my most ambitious build yet... But in the meantime, I thought I'd share a curious craft pair I made a little while back. While scanning through the amazing library of Star Wars ship orthos by unusualsuspex on deviantart.com, the Nantex-class Territorial Defense Starfighter caught my eye. Not because it looked aerodynamically plausible, but because I thought its shape was both appealing and *very* unique. The priority of aesthetics over practicality has always been one of my favorite parts of building Star Wars crafts. Just looking at it, two things were immediately apparent: the Center of Lift was naturally going to want to be WAY too far forward (so much forward wing area!) and the Center of Mass was going to want to be WAY too far back (just look at how far aft that landing gear sits!). There is no realistic way to reconcile those facts, so I knew that the hardest part of the craft design would be getting the CoM behind the CoL. I hated to do it, but after a few failed versions without trickery, I had to hide a couple wing elements, add some reaction wheels, and do some creative fuel balancing to pull the CoM forward. Anyway, with those design constraints in mind, here are the Twerkshop's versions: The SkunkTwerks Nantex-class Defense Fighter ATMO+VTOL, also known as the Genosian starfighter While it may not be the fastest ship, or the best armed, even the kerbals working over in the Tracking Station agree that the Genosian starfighter is one of the more unusual crafts to look at as it flies dangerously close to their satellite dishes. The laser turret doubles as a Stayputnik for easier control during vertical takeoff and landing. Flight notes: A nice mellow ride that handles pretty well, albeit with a strong tendency to lawn-dart without SAS. I had to abandon an earlier version with a pointier nose because the pointy wing elements brought the CoL so far forward that it was capable of only one thing: endless backflips. Of course, also I made the obligatory SSTO version SkunkTwerks “SSTO Or Your Galactic Credits Back” Guaranteed Ascent Profile: Engage SAS and throttle to full before starting engines. After takeoff, pitch up to 15 degrees and hold 15 degrees climb until 8,000 m altitude. Pitch down to 5 degrees to begin level flight, then hold 5 degree climb. Switch RAPIERS to closed cycle (Hotkey 1) as soon as velocity begins to drop, then allow pitch to drift up naturally until desired apoapsis is reached. More efficient ascent profiles may exist, but will void the warranty. After trying an earlier version with three RAPIER engines and a heavy VTOL engine block, I decided to pare if back down to one stacked Whiplash-RAPIER and no VTOL to keep it more streamlined. I hope you'll enjoy flying this not-so-famous ship, but I won't blame you for flying the X-Wing to work most days. @ShadowGoat Yep, as far as I'm aware, that's the unavoidable downside of using reaction wheel as hinge drivers, but I just don't see engine-driven or AIRBRAKE-based hinges working well in this case. Until the shiny new Corvette is ready, may the force of creativity be with all of you! -SkunkTwerks

Sounds like you're making some solid progress! Projects like these never work out quite the way I think they will, but I almost always find a way to make it happen! I agree that reaction wheels will probably be much more reliable and appropriate than engines or airbrake-levers. And there's nothing wrong with craft switching --- that's easy enough to do. Feel free to post or PM some screenshots as the build process progresses! Also, @ShadowGoat, I think you're *really* going to like the current project in the Twerkshop hangar... the Defender is turning out far, far better than I had dared to imagine. On initial aerodynamic assessment, I was certain it would be a "display only" model. But a little bit of clever tweaking and re-balancing, it not only is it capable of atmospheric flight, it's actually pretty good at it! Still needs a bit more fine-tuning before it gets the SkunkTwerks mission flag, but it's coming along beautifully. Stay tuned!

Finally got around to giving this its long overdue test drive. This is absolutely brilliant. Once again, redefining the limits of the stock KSP engine! Magnificent work. @klond I'm still a bit of a newbie when it comes to axles, is it the centrally-mounted RTG that's transferring power from the reaction wheels to the RCS balls, or the external-facing themometer-RCS axle at the rear of the tank, or both? Because if it's mostly the RTG functioning as a notched gear, that's really clever and I never would have thought to use it that way. And isn't that kind of a fragile part at just 7 m/s impact tolerance? I'm impressed it doesn't explode!

This would be amazing @ShadowGoat! There's just enough room on the Rockomax adapters to mount some clamp-o-tron juniors, and the wings can be pulled closer to the hubs to allow them to lock into position. I'm still fairly new to axles and hinges, so I'm stoked to see your vision for it, be it wheels or thrusters. Balancing the CoG and CoL was enough of a trick in the first place that any significant work will require a pretty significant rebuild, but don't worry, the Twerkshop loves rebuilding things to make them even cooler. So knock yourself out, go nuts, let's see what we can do! Excellent suggestions! The Z-95 Headhunter is definitely high on my list of relatively simple, yet awesome-looking crafts to build. But right now that Defender-class Light Corvette looks like a bigger and more interesting challenge! I think I'll have to take you up on that, because I really dig Corellian ship aesthetics. @Jett_Quasar built a phenomenal stock Sith Infiltrator and posted it to his Star Wars replica thread back in June --- that was actually one of the ships that inspired me to share my own replicas with the KSP community. It's one of my all-time favorite models, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant for its use of orbital scanners as folding wing elements.

Just in case you missed it, the Twerkshop got off on an SSTO kick and somehow managed to get the SkunkTwerks Anakin's Podracer SSTO into stable 80 km LKO. I posted about it in the SSTO forum here, along with detailed instructions for getting it into orbit: Admittedly not my most polished work, with far more blatant construction trickery than I usually prefer. But the sheer entertainment value of getting a poor, terrified kerbal into orbit in an open-cockpit podracer was worth it. In other news, the Twerkshop has finalized fine-tuning of the new SkunkTwerks Alpha-3 Nimbus-class V-wing ATMO+VTOL I based my design on this schematic from https://unusualsuspex.deviantart.com/gallery/36423420/Star-Wars. I want to thank unusualsuspex for his incredible library of brilliant work, which I have used heavily for reference and inspiration in the vast majority of my builds. I'll be editing my old posts soon to add these reference pictures in the very near future. Affixing landing gear to this design was proving quite difficult, so since I've been a huge fan of @Jett_Quasar's VTOL crafts, I decided to try my hand at it. Pretty thrilled with how it came out! Loyalist kerbonauts agree that this fast, nimble fighter is great for taking down separatist starfighters, and its VTOL system makes it a great getaway ship after stealing all the snacks from the R&D fridge. Flight notes: Quick, maneuverable, and responsive. Those huge vertical "radiators" work rather nicely as stabilizers/elevons, and the ship flies well in almost any orientation. I've set the two Advanced Reaction Wheels to "SAS only" to increase the emphasis on realistic(ish) aerodynamic performance, but pilots craving extreme supermaneuverability may wish to set them back to "normal" mode. The unobstructed cockpit means this one is very flyable from first-person internal view. The Vernor engines on the lower vertical "radiators" offer more impact resistance than wheels, so while they look a little funny, they serve as remarkably good VTOL landing gear. The astromech droid doubles as a Stayputnik for easier piloting during vertical ascent and landing. And of course, the SkunkTwerks Alpha-3 Nimbus-class V-wing SSTO was a natural follow-up: SkunkTwerks “SSTO Or Your Galactic Credits Back” Ascent Profile: Engage SAS and throttle to full before starting engines. After liftoff, pitch up to ~35 degrees and hold 35 degrees climb until 10,000 m altitude. Pitch down to 5 degrees, then allow pitch to drift up naturally as craft accelerates. Switch RAPIERS to closed cycle (Hotkey 1) as soon as velocity begins to drop. Allow pitch to drift up naturally until desired apoapsis is reached. Clamp-O-Trons on the wingtips (hotkey 5) allow for orbital refueling. RCS sold separately. The hardest part of building the SSTO version was keeping the CoG ahead of the CoL. Stacking Panthers on RAPIERS to make sci-fi engines tends to result in a lot of mass at the tail of the craft. I ran out of clever ideas to compensate for that, and had to hide an ore container in the nose to keep it balanced. Flight may still be pretty touchy on low fuel, so consider adjusting fuel flow priorities if you plan to use this for atmospheric flight on nearly empty tanks. It would be really cool if I could get the radiators to swivel like the real deal, but it would require two different axles (one to rotate the upper radiators, and a separate one for the lower ones) and some very thoughtful weight balancing. If you have any clever ideas on how to make it happen, I'd be thrilled to collaborate with you. Until next time, may the Schwartz be with you! -SkunkTwerks

You're welcome, I'm glad you found it entertaining! Thank you! I just wanted to see if it could be done. If it can work for a podracer, it can work for almost anything! If you get desperate, there's always the old "ore container in the nosecone" trick to help counterbalance the craft. Not the most fuel-efficient fix, but a heavy nosecone can solve a lot of stability issues

Okay SSTO lovers, you're either going to love this one or hate it, depending on your love of weird SSTOs and your hatred of dirty tricks. I've been building pure stock Star Wars crafts for some time now, many of which have included SSTO versions. (All versions on display here in my thread in the KSP spacecraft exchange.) But it's a lot easier to make SSTOs out of some models than others. While it's relatively trivial to make a conventional SSTO out of a Naboo Cruiser, other ships are astoundingly poorly suited to SSTO ascents. Craving a serious challenge, I chose the most difficult craft in my Twerkshop and tried to get it into orbit. With tongue in cheek, I humbly present the stupidest most ridiculous thing I've put into orbit in a single stage: the SkunkTwerks Anakin's Podracer SSTO. Now THIS is pod space-racing! This craft uses just about every dirty trick in the Kerbal shipbuilder's book short of Kraken effects (I was sorely tempted). Engine stacking, absurd clipping of wings and fuel tanks, excessive reaction wheels, unrealistic autostrutting, this craft has it all. But that's not the point. The point is, seven minutes of white-knuckled piloting is capable of bringing this craft to a stable 80 km LKO in a single stage, and voila, you have a podracer in space. With an open command seat cockpit, no less! SkunkTwerks "SSTO Because I Said So" Ascent Path (Full Imgur album with additional screenshots here: https://imgur.com/a/RsITv) 1) BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE, put on the brakes while you transfer your least favorite kerbonaut from the command pod to the external command seat. Jettison the command pod and shut your smart-aleck mouth, that doesn't count as a stage because the craft shouldn't even be moving yet. Kiss your kerbonaut goodbye, their odds of surviving the mission are anything but great. 2) Engage SAS, throttle to full, and pitch all the way up before activating the engine stage. If you don't pitch all the way up the entire time you're on the runway, the craft will swerve off the runway in a sudden and nearly uncontrollable manner. Even when you hold pitch all the way up, it will swerve like a drunken sailor. But 7 times out of 10, you'll make it off the ground in one piece. 3) Still with me? Awesome, the force is strong with you. Okay, now here's where things get even dumber more interesting. Immediately after takeoff, fight desperately to keep your roll and yaw under control while you pitch up to somewhere around 50-60 degrees. With absurd TWR and poor aerodynamic handling, the struggle will be real. Hold that steep climb angle until 10,000 m altitude. 4) Right around 10,000 m altitude, pitch down to ~10 degrees. You'll just have to fight for it. Try not to mess up too badly. Once your pitch is somewhere around 10 degrees, don't touch anything, and forget about fine-tuning. You're going to pick up speed *very* quickly. Watch the temperature gauge on your kerbonaut, the next couple minutes are going to be spicy. Whenever your Kerbal is on the very edge of vaporization temperature, give the craft a little pitch up nudge. Pitch up too far and you won't have enough dV for a stable orbit. Stay too level and your kerbonaut will cook. Ride that thin line in between like your kerbal's life depends on it. 5) Watch your velocity as you leave air-breathing territory around 25km altitude! As soon as it starts to drop, punch Hotkey 1 to toggle the RAPIERs into ClosedCycle Mode. 6) When your apoapsis reaches 80km, cut engines and use SAS to hold prograde. In the minute or so before apoapsis, use the tweakble sliders to limit the thrust of both RAPIERs to 50%. This craft was impossible to balance, and there's only so much torque I could mitigate with reaction wheels, so you'll need lower thrust for a steady burn. Then set your maneuver node. (Or set your maneuver node first, and use a mod like KerbalEngineerRedux to figure out your revised burn time). Perform your circularization burn. 7) If you haven't crashed on the runway, exploded in midair, burned to a crisp in the upper atmosphere, or run out of fuel during your circularization burn, CONGRATULATIONS! You're in orbit! As you can see here, I nailed it with 5 m/s delta V left to spare. Now that's cutting it close! The Twerkshop does not normally condone these kinds of over-hacked, barely-controllable shenanigans. But just this one time, I hope you'll forgive me in the name of KSP humor. May the Force be with you if you wish to confirm my flight path. If anyone has a better ascent profile for getting this into orbit, I'd be thrilled to hear it. -SkunkTwerks

Love the rounded nose on the A-Wing, very sleek! How's the ARC-170 coming along? You posted a teaser a while back and I'm dying to see the result.

Thank you so much Jett, it will be super cool to see the Naboo Cruiser in one of your videos. Can't wait to see what you have planned for it! Speaking of which, I was inspired by your clever loading ramp design using AIRBRAKES, so I installed one on the Naboo Cruiser ATMO for a more dignified entry to the craft. Here's Jeb testing it out: Just be careful when switching crafts or time-warping while the ramp is down. The ramp can collide with the ground when resuming control, resulting in "Surprise Assassination Attempts" that resemble the movie rather closely. But hey, maybe you can use that for your video... Today the Twerkshop finalized the promised SSTO modifications for the SkunkTwerks BTL Y-Wing SSTO, because why not fly your Y-Wing in space too? Perfect for fragging frigates, blowing up battleships, and making holes in the KSC water tanks. Just as easy to fly as the ATMO version, albeit a tad less nimble due to less thrust vectoring. SkunkTwerks “SSTO Or Your Galactic Credits Back” Guaranteed Ascent Profile: Engage SAS and throttle to full before starting engines. After liftoff, pitch up to ~35 degrees and hold 35 degrees climb until 10,000 m altitude. Pitch down to 0 degrees to begin level flight, then with SAS still on, allow pitch to drift up naturally as craft accelerates rapidly. Switch RAPIERS to closed cycle (Hotkey 1) as soon as velocity begins to drop. Allow pitch to drift up to 20 degrees, and hold at 20 degrees until desired apoapsis is reached. More efficient ascent profiles likely exist, but will void the warranty. Clamp-O-Trons at the tail of the ship and in the astromech droid’s head (hotkey 4) allow orbital refueling. RCS not included. Still fires those beautiful KX5 "laser" cannons! Higher Kerbin orbits can be achieved by firing those off before your ascent. May the Force be ever in your favor, -SkunkTwerks

A long time ago (okay, a few hours), on a laptop far far away (depending on where you live), the Twerkshop decided to do a quick one-shot build with a very simple goal: complete the entire design, build, flight test, and upload process for an ATMO/SSTO craft pair in a single evening. Hopefully I didn't forget anything too important! The SkunkTwerks Naboo Cruiser ATMO (Less gracefully known as the J-type Diplomatic Barge. You may remember it as the ship that exploded on the landing pad in a failed assassination attempt of Senator Padme Amidala in Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars.) Perfect for picking up spiffy senators or wayward kerbonauts in luxury and style. Seats two pilots and up to four diplomatic VIPs. Fighter escort and security guards sold separately. Flight notes: Every bit as smooth as you'd expect an unarmed diplomatic vessel to be. Use caution with hard pitch maneuvers at air speeds over 200 m/s, or the wings may choose to withdraw from their alliance with the fuselage in a sudden, less-than-diplomatic manner. Not much yaw control, but it still beats the Naboo N-1 in that department. And the SkunkTwerks Naboo Cruiser SSTO Not quiiite as sleek & chique as the ATMO, since I had to swap out the forward FAT-455s for more heat-resistant Big-S wings, but infinitely more capable of reaching orbit. SkunkTwerks “SSTO Or Your Galactic Credits Back” Ascent Profile: Engage SAS and throttle to full before starting engines. After liftoff, pitch up to ~25 degrees and hold 25 degrees climb until 10,000 m altitude. Pitch down to 10 degrees, then allow pitch to drift up naturally. Switch RAPIERS to closed cycle (Hotkey 1) as soon as velocity begins to drop. Allow pitch to drift up to 20 degrees, and hold at 20 degrees until desired apoapsis is reached. Use extra caution when reaching high speeds at lower altitudes to avoid vaporizing the wings, as FAT-455 wing elements have a low temperature tolerance. More efficient ascent profiles may exist, but will void the warranty. Really though, you'll have *plenty* of fuel to spare, and there's a hidden Clamp-O-Tron in the belly of the ship (hotkey 4) to allow orbital refueling. RCS system not included... maybe I'll add it later if someone specifically requests it. Until next time, may the Force be with you, and you, and you... -SkunkTwerks

Well, it took a little longer than I'd hoped... mostly because I decided to do a last-minute total rebuild of both RCS systems. But here it is, the craft set every Kerbal Jedi dreams of flying: The SkunkTwerks Delta 7 Aethersprite SSTO+RCS with Syliure-31 Long-Range Hyperdrive Module (a.k.a. the Jedi Starfighter with Hyperdrive Ring) This is a 100% functional, high-performance vessel... but wait, there's more! It's actually two independently functional vessels stuck together! There's just one catch: you're either going to need Hyperedit, gravity hacking, or a rather unconventional booster to get it into orbit. Sorry folks, the Twerkshop normally believes in 100% pure stock playability, but in this case I decided that building an oddball rocket to get such a bizarre aerodynamic load into space just wasn't worth my time, which I'd rather spend on other StarWars crafts. Flight notes: Obi-Wants to remind you to disengage your docking assist clamps (AIRBRAKES) before decoupling from or re-docking with the hyperdrive ring. Mk.1 Illiminators have been positioned just inside each of the Syliure-31’s two Clamp-O-Tron Jr. docking ports to facilitate visual alignment of the ports: they should clearly illuminate their respective partners on the Delta 7 before docking (see picture below). Ensure that BOTH ports have re-coupled before making any engine burns. Failure to couple both ports may result in horizontal misalignment, which may lead otherwise-promising young padawans to Rapid Unplanned Disassembly, uncharted orbits, and/or the Dark Side. The docking ring is equipped with a QBE for autonomous control and an RCS system of its own. It is also equipped with two Clamp-O-Trons on the outside of the ring to allow for easier refueling. While not strictly canon, I figured it would be more fun that way. May the forces of your newly-rebalanced RCS systems be with you! -SkunkTwerks