KerbService

@swjr-swis I think that we should fire those guys in mission control who should be doing this for me but are all standing outside having a cigarette and a beer.

The radial 9 is a 3x3x3. Which would still be slow to change on the fly. Best to do it in the build or with action groups. But before the explosion...

I looked for the math and found this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DHE8RnsCQ8 A different application but the math is the same (think n=24).

Balanced symmetries for 1-12 engines/stages/whatever... These are all combinations of the normal 1-2-3-4-6-8 symmetries. Any combination of balanced symmetries that do not directly overlap are also a balanced symmetry. All of the engines/stages/whatever in a single 1-2-3-4-6-8 group must mass the same but the other groups need not be the same components. One of the symmetry 7's above is a 3x2x2 combination that allows a group 3 of mass x, a group 2 of mass y, and another group 2 of mass z. I kinda like the symmetry 10 that allows groups of 4(really 2x2)x3x2x1 and the symmetry 6 that allows groups of 3x2x1. These are not all of the possibilities for 1 to 12 and there is no need to stop at 12. All but 1 and 11 have radial options, but a radial 11 is possible. I leave that to you. 5 way symmetry that looks unbalanced - but it is not...

@Pecan ... Your implementation of twisted candle makes for an easy and fairly efficient booster build for payloads of up to maybe 500 tons. I would guess that with a bit more development of the idea (or maybe a lot) a payload ratio of 25% would become the norm. So this has mostly answered the question of my initial post. The real advantage of Sensi's idea seems to stem from the ignition of all engines simultaneously while having the ability to dump them with the empty tank as a stage is used up. Everything on the booster is being used all the time from launch to orbit. Nothing wasted. Some considerations: -- Engine placement on upper stages can cause heat death of lower stage engines (BANG!) -- Staging results in TWR dropping which might require the strongest engines on the upper stages instead of the lower, this might cap the stage count -- K.E.R. and MJ would need updates to use those mods with this staging system (at least on my installation of KSP) So my new booster targets, accept 20-25% and aim for 30. Thanks man. Thanks to everyone who replied.

Scales up quickly to a 360,000kg payload too! (file under ludicrous lifters)

This is based on your post with a few modifications... The entire vessel is 507,350kg with a payload of 117,590kg for a payload ratio of 23.1% with a starting TWR 2.20. But I can not tell you what the total deltaV is because this type of staging does not register well with either K.E.R. or MJ. But I did launch it to a LKO of 80k. And it is simple with a total part count of 44, the booster using only 37 parts. Seems to fly pretty well too. And after a little experimentation I found that for this and asparagus the FTX-2 fuel ducts are not needed. Using the tank's flow priority settings and the decoupler's crossfeed settings results in the same effect. Here, the S4-128 tanks have from the bottom up priorities of 40-30-20-10 and the bottom 3 decouplers have enabled crossfeed. All engines fire until that stage is dropped and the fuel drains from the bottom up. So this is not quite the nightmare I thought. Entire Mass - 507,350kg Payload Mass - 117,590kg (decoupler, unusable fuel in top stage tanks, RGU, battery, pointy end) Usable Fuel Mass - 304,000kg 9 S3 KS-25 engines and 3 RE-I5 engines

Good call... Just tried that. Hover, Click and hold, do not drag. It does advance T in very fine increments. So I clicked in various parts of the node circle to see if it was possible to retard T. That did not work. And no way to affect the rate of change. All of that adjustment works for the other axes. Routing the mouse wheel events for any hover activated part of the node (in this case just adding T) should be a trivial code change. I live in hope.

Thanks... I tried what I thought you meant but no joy. I am using the PC version and the UI for the nodes is consistent on the X-Y-Z axes but not the T adjustment where only dragging is allowed. Adjustments while dragging on the X-Y-Z axes of the node remain consistent no matter the zoomed distance from the active node. But the rate of change of T when dragging the entire node is greatly affected by the distance zoomed away from the node. Hover and adjust on T would make the UI fully consistent and handy for adjusting timing on nodes well zoomed out in the background. It is on my wish list. That could make life easier as well.

@Pecan I looked at twisted candle... I am having nightmares now.

I tried to build something that was better than I have built before that did not blow up. This excrements is fun.

@Pecan I have never built anything I wanted to lift in a single go that was 1000 tons. Most of the craft that I have built that I think are good are 100 tons or less or more. So this is just a game. How far can I take it before it breaks and I kill my favorite Kerbal and have to shill out the money for a bucket of flowers for the funeral. It is a challenge that is not going to get me laid anyway I win. Asparagus (bad vegetable)((Idon't like vegetables)) staging depends on the core stage delivering the required TWR for it's part of the ascent. But my dream of a space program is to lift BIG parts to LKO (LEO) orbit and bolt that together there then go somewhere fun. That initial climb deep in the atmosphere seems to to be better conquered by brute force. So.. (bad vegetable) staging is complex and kills frame rate and not used in real life for the same reason. You did 73 tons to LKO with 33 parts. How can that happen without the complexity of (bad vegetable) staging, how can it be made simple?

@Pecan Great link to the NASA page. Thanks! Just what I like to work with to see the progress I am making building boosters. My main rulers for progress so far have been explosions count and frame rate. And I have moved on to much larger boosters. My largest reliable is for up to 2000 tons and my best looking (maybe) is for 1000 tons. The most difficult problem for the heavy loads has been design of the booster core of the lowest stage. It has to still carry at low altitude the payload and maybe the multiple stages above it so requires many engines for the needed TWR it alone has to support during ascent. Here on IMGUR is a 5.00 to 1 -- 5000 ton booster of 419 parts for a 1000 ton payload dV of 3817 and on the pad TWR of 1.17 -- This I built in 1.4.1 + MH It lifts to 100k LKO and almost never blows up! Thanks again for the NASA link. P.S. All of that is auto-struted to Heaviest - one of my posts no one agrees with. Still, seems to work for me.

Maybe I should add that cost is not something I concern myself about. I have countless slave planets supporting my sandbox. But maybe part count for the rocket would be a good addition to the replies. I will try to compile the info I get from this topic into a general build guide. If people would like that. Here on IMGUR is a 5.75 to 1 -- 69 ton booster of 46 parts for a 12 ton payload dV of 3384 and on the pad TWR of 1.22 -- This I built in 1.3.1

6.25 to 1 sounds good. Do you find that lighter rockets need a higher ratio? And when you say expensive, where comes the cost?

I have seen and abused formulas for payload mass but that is not what I want to know. I want your best guesses for an efficient booster weight to payload weight ratio for : a) Rocket - no wings b) Payload reaches LKO at 85k c) any combination of STOCK engines/fuel - single stage/multi -stage no matter Please specify Booster Weight, Payload Weight, Atmospheric deltaV to reach 85k LKO, beginning TWR, and any comments you care to make. Example: 18.0 ton Booster with 1.5 ton Payload dV 3491 using LV-TX87 single stage. TWR 2.02 This is just for RULE OF THUMB - BACK OF THE BEER MAT guesses at general efficiency of a design. STOCK PARTS please -- Thanks!

SOE.... Thanks much. Tried that Airlock and it worked OK. Set my Kerbals free!!!

For prograde/normal/radial fine adjustments just hover and mouse wheel. Excellent! But not if I want to fine adjust the timing of the node on the orbital path. I can hover on the node and drag it forward or back on the orbital path but can not use the mouse wheel for fine adjustment. I would like to be able to fine adjust the time of the node using the mouse wheel.

Yes-Yes---- An attachable tether in flight mode would allow one to spin a pair (or group) of ships for inertial gravity. Good for the crew.

Got that History thing - Bigger tanks, Bigger engines. I have been building heavy lifters for a while. 1000-2000 ton payload weight boosters without (nasty tasting vegetable) staging. Wish I could post vids and pics on this site so others could see. Don't see how.

Holy feces, that quote thing worked! I want to try to forever use only stock parts. OK.. maybe silly. Stock..Stock..Stock.. Just me

Maybe I am beating the sh...t out of a dead horse, but --- When I started using auto-strut stuff exploded for me also. But only before I found out that the the problem was a combination of auto-strut and clipping parts. Now I can avoid the problem by watching what I clip. So if the developers read this, just a choice of default for the auto-strut thing would be nice. Thanks...

CIS... A part that can push and pull a chain of other parts gives me all kinds of good ideas. That Airlock, if you could attach something to the end could do just that. But, as much as I have tried, nothing seems to attach to the end of it. If I could attach the cubic thing-a-ma-whatsit then I could build a chain of parts to move the world.