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Andetch

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  1. Andetch
    Going for the Minimalist award here.. Playing completely stock KSP 1.2 I designed a single seat SSTO, fully re-usable, and if you are a good enough pilot (and maybe with autopilot mods) capable of landing back at KSC, or on flat-ish terrain. The images taken here were not specific for this challenge, just for my amusement. But let's see, eh? If y'all want me to do a specific flight, I will. The Wingless Wonder. Complete with safety and anti spin features listed below; 1) TBA 2) TBA 3) Bailout possible if over water?
  2. Andetch
    Not sure I really understand the idea here? I see KSP community is somewhat obsessed with putting payloads into LKO..... Where as I find LKO (70 - 200 km) just a pain in the cheeks to do anything in, I don't tend to leave anything there! I play completely stock, no mods. I don't refuel in LKO, the Delta V for RV is too high for day to day activities, and other than for being able to have one, I don't see why I would want a massive station in LKO.... I tend to have my main activities focused around Minimus. That being said, I have designed a ship that allows me to recover both the SRB stage that puts it into a suborbit, and also the main passenger ship. My only lost parts are 4x FLT-800 and x1 X200-32 fuel tank, costing 6,200 kbucks, so a flight only costs 6,200 + fuel. I use it to drop survey and coms sats off where-ever they need on it's route, although it does need to meet a refuelling rig depending on where it is going. It goes as far as Duna or Ike (so far). Of course, not using mods it is a challenge to land back at KSC especially when you only have aerobraking for the final approach, but usually I can get within sight of the KSC with the upper stage, and of course the SRB's usually land in Korea. Does it count? Pictured is on the pad, but if it counts, I will do a special mission for this thread!
  3. Andetch
    @*MajorTom*, your machine has real nice graphics there! My KSP looks like it is ran on a C64 in comparison! Also, loving the low tech aspects! I must say I prefer the challenge of low tech craft - getting to mun with very limited science is the biggest challenge, harder than getting to Eeloo on Sandbox.
  4. Andetch
    I LOVE the landers..... That is a great concept.... *nicked
  5. Andetch
    Gave it a shot. Tried, failed.... but the concept seems promising.... I kinda lost control on the way up. Pictured is pre separation, separation moment, and a nice shot with the chute coming out with the launch vehicle in the background.... Will need to play around with the angles to get it straight, and possibly swap to outer LV series engines for vectors, and add a lot more fuel to the orbiter. Anyway, is a start on the idea.... Also, pics are twilight, sorry.
  6. Andetch
    @eloquentJane that's a shame..... Well I hope you can see the death star more clearly here! For when you wanna put an orange tank into orbit (not quite first attempt, gonna try with a tiny bit more fuel), try the 3Chal4U! Hope this counts as the orange tank doesn't have engines....
  7. Andetch
    @eloquentJane, you can't see the death star? Hmmm..... Try turning your screen brightness up, and room lighting down. Lol
  8. Andetch
    Never found a work around.... Kept happening every contract so I restarted and rebuilt from square one. Got a better infrastructure in place too Also I noticed that when you do an interplanetary burn, say to Duna, because you have the intercept you're not strictly speaking in orbit so it wont work, so you gotta take a special trip with no intercept! I did try that work around you mentioned, and also with new launches... controlling them over the event, but twas not to be... Glad you fixed it though! restarting hurts.....
  9. Andetch
    Best SSTO ever.... Although using a planned exit from the vehicle over water you could do away with the parachute
  10. Andetch
    I have another design too! Although, not sure if it counts. Only got one picture of it, just after the separation.... It involves one central fuel tank, with a core, battery and chutes, and four radially mounted orbital runabouts, complete with chutes for a landing. It is designed for 4 Kerbals on a space flight come death pact. It launches on the engines from the runabouts (the central tank has no engine) and is damned hard to get to crossfeed enough fuel from the center tank into the runabouts! Have a look and tell me if it still counts? P.S sorry for night shot
  11. Andetch
    I have added the finished landing of The Holy Grail near KSC shot, although further away than my 1st attempt note I have marked the KSC with a scattering of debris to make it easier to find Also
  12. Andetch
    I will add that photo to the gallery. I suggest people look at the gallery as I don't wanna chug up the board with too many pics, but... epic mission, ending in laptop failure again Gallery http://imgur.com/a/Hw0ii Ship https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxP5XMEnEjPiNkJrWG81RFpqSEE I launched the ship into LKO, successfully recovered the SRB stage after suborbital flight albeit with a little damage. (Laptop crash, reboot), back to main ship, go to minimus, land on minimus, refuel in minimus orbit going to the tanker - it is important to me that tankers do not have to move from their parking orbits (not full as I went to the wrong tanker silly me), due to the fuel issue I did a Mun flyby and then back to KSC. Landing very close to KSC on the grasslands... *takes screenshot - laptop crashes. Below are highlights
  13. Andetch
    So here is the reconjiggered design. With the added bonus of the fact that the first launch failed due to thrust misconfiguration, and that the escape facility worked just fine! Sadly on my way into orbit the laptop failed due to screenshots again, but I now have boosted the laptops cooling fan capacity using a desk fan I found so should be okay for another run - posting what I have here again. The last photo shows separation of the first stage LF tanks okay, and I confirmed that the next tank hanging underneath was draining (being pumped up) and am confident the upper stage would have reached Minimus just fine... As for recovery of the SRB stage, I would love if unmodded KSP would allow it, but it doesn't unless it reaches sub orbit, which I doubt it will however it is carrying a core, reaction wheels, coms and batteries. http://imgur.com/a/M5e4D
  14. Andetch
    As I said, it was my standard bus launching, with the added chutes on the lower stage. The whole upper thing comes back and lands whole. I guess I can modify it some.... Watch this space (and YAY, something to do with KSP rather than trying to take my spaceplane all the way around and back to the runway by hand... on attempt 376, done it once....).
  15. Andetch
    I don't have radial mounted engines?
  16. Andetch
    So no idea whether this is relevant, but this is a quick reconfigure I did of my Holy Grail to incorporate recovery of the lifter stage. You will want to throttle down the kickbacks in the shipfile to get the grav turn correct. I got a lot closer to my original ideas this time, but lost the lift stage because the re entry was far too steep! I hope you enjoy the concept. Anyway I gotta go! Laters! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxP5XMEnEjPiYmN5eXVhY0J3SkE
  17. Andetch
    Meh, I am a purist so is a thing I will never achieve.... As for the original designs I lost them, but could put it into my current go to tourist ship, I put a small cargo bay with a simple core and aerial inside on the top of the stack of boosters all strutted together... think one kickback housing the core at the centre, and then loads more attached radially and strutted together nice and tight! Rest of the ship sits on top, which incidentally is a ship I have dubbed The Holy Grail, due to it's ability to go to minimus, land, refuel in minimus orbit, and then either go to the mun, land and go to kerbin, with a good recovery value landing far from ksc (I play unmodded so rarely get a ksc landing right), OR it can go to Duna instead, refuel at Ike, land on Duna, take off, refuel, go back to Kerbin. If I could land the kickbacks, and reliably land at ksc by hand it would be sweet, as then the only costs are fuel! There are a few variants I made with science, auto pilot, lab etc. I have a picture of the ship meeting the refueling rig around Ike, I took the picture because I liked it and I share it here for you to look at, and will dig out the designs and post the ship file. The one on the left is the same thing that leaves kerbin, minus the kickbacks...
  18. Andetch
    So with putting chutes on boosters that auto deploy etc, how does one get over the fact that if they move more than 20km from the controlled vessel in the atmosphere the game just removes them.... This is the issue I had..... lifter stage detachs at 30km high, vessel will get more than 20 kms away with both inside atmosphere, so game removes one. Unless there is a mod to stop this?
  19. Andetch
    Yeah.... Really they need to get the tech to do a skydive from space..
  20. Andetch
    Eva ship transfers work just fine IRL, right? Hehe...
  21. Andetch
    So a bit unsure of whether we're talking vert or horizontal launch here, and I made a design. It did fail miserably, however, the escape device worked great up to the point that the game locked my controls out due to taking screen shots and I got to watch them fall back and impact without deploying the chutes before restarting my pc. Some of the pictures are pretty though.... Not that imigur is letting me upload them, bastads.
  22. Andetch
    Orbiter recovery. Again, no splashdowns. The orbiter can have wings and landing gear, or it can come back and land vertically with landing legs. However, if it is going to land on its tail, then the crew cabin probably needs to be ejectable using landing-abort solids and chutes, since a tail-first vertical landing is a high-risk maneuver. The ideal solution is to have landing engines which (somehow) can vector or change orientation to allow a vertical landing in horizontal attitude, like sci-fi spaceships. This allows minimal-risk landing and immediate egress. So like slow down inside the atmosphere and convert horizontal flight into a vertical landing, like a Harrier Jet? VTOL style?
  23. Andetch
    So I tried with the aerospike, and remembered why it didn't work in the process.... It doesn't have enough power in the atmosphere, and I figured the choice between the LV series engine and the Vector was a no brainer.... hehe This is the version with the adjusted whiplash positions http://imgur.com/a/FPnJr
  24. Andetch
    Firstly, thank you for your compliment Thing with the aerospike is that I am impatient - I like the MAHOOSIVE thrust from the vector, although I will now give the aerospike a try. As far as control surfaces go, when you are up at 20km they make very little difference and wings create very little lift. I have actually made something I call a Wingless Wonder SSTO with virtually no wing. And by mounting the whiplashes further forward and repositioning the fuel tanks I solved the flipping issue, sort of. Lemme try the aerospike now and get back to you!
  25. Andetch
    "Spaceplane flight XQ070 burnt up on ascent to orbit because the pilot was playing football manager on his smart phone and forgot to throttle down" True KSP story
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