ArmchairPhysicist

I have a question regarding the space plane parts. I just unlocked both the thermal ramjet/turbojet node, and the thermal launch nozzle, but neither have been much use to my aviation division. What purpose where these engines built for? I'm sure they have some niche job, but I'm having trouble justifying the ssto research if my rockets work way better.

How exactly is your kerbstine not working?

TBH I've never used the timberwind. It's too big with too little isp. Maybe I would use it if I was dead set on a big middle stage atomic rocket, but in these cases I just mount a bunch of nukes radially.

I feel kind of stupid asking this, but I need help. I need some help understanding why the ATILA thruster is useful. I recently unlocked it in my career game, put a test probe in space with about 35k units of xenon. When I fired the engine I got about 10 seconds of burn and those 35k units of xenon vanished. I only got 1-1.5k dv out of it. My ion ships can get exponentially better range off of that much gas, so I'm wondering if I'm using the thruster incorrectly. Many help is appreciated Edit. Same question with the pure plasma and vasimr engines, I get better performance with the stock ions, so I must be doing it wrong

One of these days I'll have a career mode with permadeath. But not today

I just did a little save reverting.

It's a good thing my ship was fully self sufficient (besides the blueprints needed from HQ) because this laythe colony just splashed down hard. The lander snapped in half, broke my science stuff and gave me a lot of paperwork. This just turned into a survival movie. 22 kerbals stranded on a water world with no way home. Gotta try to build them a boat to get to the nearest island, great.

Sadly jeb is no longer with us, neither is about 20 other kerbals. They all were victims of the viscous Minimus reality Kraken. This Kraken has a habit of vanishing ships or stretching them across space and time. I've lost 5 ships to date. Curently the remaining 3 orange suits and two classes of white suits are on a one way mission to the hook system to build a new space center. Just did the 3k dv burn and I'm about to set a course for laythe

At the moment I'm building a mega class rocket to put a K&K based space center on laythe. I've never been to laythe before and have only visited the hook system once. Is there anything strange about laythe that I should know? I know it has an atmosphere, but how thick is it? Whats the gravity like? etc etc

I know irl even a stable orbit will decay from many factors, but by orbiter was in a 100 kilometer polar orbit. I did this because I was getting a kerbnet ping from duna's southpole. Didn't realize the ping was from an incoming Kraken and not an anomaly

Unless Ike has an SOI bigger than Duna itself, that didn't happen, it was in a stable ldo Yeah, I've learned to not fly ramjets with physics warp. Automated flight abort systems suck

As the title says, I've found out the hard way that the space kraken is alive and well even today. Lately I've been building a second space center on Minimus to take advantage of the fuel savings of launching there. The base has been ridiculously successful, although it's apparently successful enough to attract a Kraken, and this one is made of pure evil. To date 4 kerbals have died and two probes have been devoured. (Unfortunately I don't have pictures) Case 1. I placed a simple survey probe in a polar Minimus orbit at 26 kilometers. Probe worked great, did its job. I came back later to check on it, only to find it stretched across space and time. The probe core was fine, but the engines, fuel, equipment etc etc were orbiting a few hundred meters ahead of the core, only by time warping would the probe "reassemble". I shot the probe down and intend to launch another. Case 2. I built a Duna orbiter probe for a flyby contract, launched it from Minimus mun base, got it to Duna with a little cheering and some more money from the contract. This lead to another contract that needed a Duna lander. So I built one, launched it and made the Duna transfer. Only when the lander reached Duna it found no single from the relay capable probe that went before it. My orbiter simply vanished from reality. Case 3 and 4 Heres where things got real, and why Minimus outpost now has military grade antiair laser turrets and S.A.M. Batteries. When I built the outpost I sent in two super heavy landers. One built for operating a science lab, the other to serve as the fuel factory until I built a separate one for the outpost. They did there jobs perfectly. One day I sent the science lander to another biome for science. Once done I went to my tracking station to clean up debris. I set the filters to display broken debris only as to avoid terminating any kerbals. When I finished I went back to the outpost, only to find that jeb and three white suits had vanished, along with their vehicles. Never to be seen again. Mission control finally took notice and sent the outpost blueprints for the AntiKraken DefenseHub, an addition that gave my base lasers and nuclear missiles, just in case the beast returned for more. They have begun calling it the Magic Kraken, due to its ability to completely vanish spaceships from reality. Beware space pioneers, The kraken lives.

The biggest hazard with a mass driver wouldn't be atmospheric drag (unless its putting a package into an escape trajectory) it's the g-forces. Space guns could easily put a drone into orbital altitude, where it could be retrieved by a station or another drone, or it can stabilize its own orbit.

Quick question, are there any plans for non rocket launch capabilities in this pack? It would be nice to put cargo in orbit with a space gun.

Thank you very much, I recall digging around in all the containers for LithiumHydride, but couldn't find it, I must have missed it. The reason I ask about Orion Engines it that my Megaships have become SSTOs because of the Nuclear Pulse Engines they use, it seems slightly too easy, but easy is subjective in this game. I was curious if you were considering your own, possibly more balanced version. Thank you very much, I recall digging around in all the containers for LithiumHydride, but couldn't find it, I must have missed it. I'm using a different NPP mod than you linked, might be why my MegaShips are capable of SSTO configurations. I'll give the linked one a try.

I'm going to start by saying that I love this mod, truly amazing, but there's two things I don't understand. First, can you produce liquid hydrogen from materials mined from a moon? And second, is there any way to carry more LithiumHydride on my ship? I researched the Kerbstine a long while ago but have yet to use it because my vista systems use liquid hydrogen, which is easy to carry lots of. But I haven't launched a single interplanetary vessel that used the kerbstine as its thruster because of fuel concerns. On a side note, have you considered integrating Nuclear pulse propulsion into your pack? Maybe make an Orion drive that fits the aesthetics of the other engines?

Today I'm beginning construction of the Vista 3. Although it's going to be different enough that it might merit a new designation, this one will include multiple landers, shuttles, probes and a few nukes for the road, never know if you might meet aliens.

Been testing Vista 2 for a few hours, so far she runs nearly perfectly. She completed a few years around the mun doing ambiguous science, performed an orbital rendezvous with an asteroid, and then entered a stable kerbin orbit to prepare for a tanker to top off its fusion reserves and refill its mono prop tanks. Rendezvous with the drone tanker went off perfectly. Vista 3 will include greatly increased power generation capabilities, greater monoprop stores, and come prepackaged with a mining lander to drop into a moon and collect lots of ore. I'll get more pictures once it begins its Duna burn.

Trying to post some pictures The launch of Vista Two View from the nose Doing some Sweet sweet science around the Mun Ive found that the Orion launcher is so effective that Chemical launch platforms are pretty much obsolete. Nuclear Proliferation for the win Theoretically with some attitude control modifications, I could actually land this on moons, planets would be a big no because the big heat shield isn't retractable

still working on pictures, but today's megaship consists of two Vista rockets as its primary movement thrusters and a nuclear pulse rocket used to atmospheric launche and interplanetary transfer

Quick question, how do you include photos or steam screenshots in a forum post? I just finished my nuclear pulse megaship and would love to share it.

Sadly I don't have pictures of the Vista 1, and the Oblivion was a failure. Vista 1 had the goal of being a universal interplanetary ship, it was built and launched fully built in career. Not sure of the obscenity rules on the forum, but just in case, this thing was a b***h to launch. I quite dislike orbital construction in this game do to the lack or rigidity of the docking ports, so I launched it using a tweakscaled mammoth stage that was iirc 10m wide. The Vista's maiden voyage took it to Duna where it deployed a few probes, did some orbiting and returned to kerbin. It worked well enough, but it didn't produce enough power. My next career game, hopefully with "biomes visible" being the only cheat, will center on putting the Vista 2 in orbit. Vista 2 (name not final) will be geared to multi planets tours. TBH, I wasn't entirely impressed with the concept of having a rocket engine as the main propulsion method of my mega ship, the prospect of running out of fuel is scary on those decades long missions. I'll begin work on a ship that is electric only. EM drives to the rescue. If only I knew how to collect lh2 from moons, then the vista program would be more viable.

Wow, and I thought my vista rockets were big Were those made in career or sandbox

As the title says, this post is to collect information about the player base's various megaships. This is because after installing KSP I.E. I've become fascinated by the idea of interplanetary starships, and my current goal is to build a ship capable of taking kerbals to any planet they desire to visit, carry out any science or exploration needed, and bring them back home to refuel and resupply to do it all over again. I'm loosely defining what a megaship is to allow for some variety. Some fictional examples of megaships The discovery from 2001 space odyssey. The endurance from interstellar. The USS Cygnus from Black Hole. Theoretical examples. The Daedalus starship. Project Orion nuclear pulse ship. My recipe for megaships is as such. Crew cabin with enough seating to carry 6-10 kerbals to allow for crew and contract passengers. Docking abilities to allow for refueling. Modular attachment of fragile/disposable parts to allow for replacement or upgrading. Fission/fusion power with back up solar emergency power. Fully kitted out science wing with mobile lab. Long range communications with the possibility of secondary relay probes to release along the way. Very large fuel reserves for its engine array. Does anyone else build ships like this?Does anyone currently have such a ship in their fleet? An idea I've had for my next ship is a lander that can land on a moon and mine for ore to refuel the ship mid mission.

Might have found the issue. I didn't have CAL or the physics range extender for BDArmory The 1.2 MT bomb that just blew up my space center tells me that I fixed it.