Chakkoty

I haven't used spaceplanes a lot, but I find them to be more practical for getting payload into orbit efficiently (or at least out of the atmosphere, where it can circularize with efficient vacuum-optimized engines like the Wolfhound). However, I am very impatient and I like big booms. So, for anyything other than orbital delivery, I'll probably use rockets. It's easier to build a bigger rocket for a heavier payload than to reinvent the wheel with a new spaceplane whenever your current design can't handle the increased payload mass. In the long term, though, I'll probably go for something of a mix between starship concepts and spaceshuttle: vertical, booster-assisted takeoff, gliding during reentry and then a vertical landing. Big F...alcon? Rocket with more wings.

I might give it a shot when I'm back home. On Sunday -.-

@Mars-Bound Hokie Now that is a badass looking spaceplane. How much DeltaV you got in there?

I've been wondering who prefers which - they both have their fields of expertise, but when it comes to stuff both spaceplanes and rockets do well, what do you prefer and why?

I want to mention Near Future Technologies (and any mod from Nertea, pretty much) as well, just because I enjoy them so much. I build my space stations and deep space vessels out of pretty much 90 % Nertea parts. The only stock part I can't live without is the Wolfhound. It's just that good.

I imagine the ST members who read forum posts must be quite amused by now. It's like reddit.com/r/dankmemes trying to find out Elon Musk's username since he's known to lurk on Reddit. It could be everyone. It could be me. But then again, would I tell you if I knew? Would I hint at it just to play with your feelings? Does this make me suspicious or does it give me an alibi? How do you interpret such postings without knowing how Star Theory members write? It's a dangerous game you play.

I believe it would be very fun to discover other forms of life - as in completely different chemical makeup. Hydrocarbon-based microorganisms on a Titan-equivalent, for example. Or simple organisms (think space plankton) feeding off of radiation or electric charge in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant - can be either water based or ammonia based, like in Elite:Dangerous. And don't restrict it to a planet's flora being restricted to chlorophyll-using plants, either. Have purple plants, adapted to the high-radiation environment of an Earth-like world orbiting an F-type or M-type star! Imagine plants that don't perform photosynthesis, but use radiation instead. How awesome would that be? Tidally locked planets with a thin ring of habitable surface, cloaked in eternal twilight! Paging @Galileo - any thoughts? They do expect you to outdo them by week two, after all.

Done! Works like a charm, as always. o7 It's 3 parts liquid methane and 1 part liquid oxygen - 1.875 units per volume LqdMethane, 0.625 units per volume Oxidizer. Since KSP doesn't really deal with volume, I use whatever values I can get from the files. COULD boot up the game and look it up, but where's the fun in that? The LFOX tank type has a tankMass = 0.000625 and LMOx has a tankMass = 0.000490377. It's already the combined "density" of methane and oxidizer, so I just need to calculate the multiplier: 0.000490377 / 0.000625 = 0.7846032 So I just multiply the LFOX fuel mass of any applicable tank (Rockomax Jumbo-64 has 36 tons full, 4 tons dry, so 32 tons of LFOX) with that: 32.0 t * 0.7846032 = 25,1073024‬ t of LMOX. Theoretically. Also, using the formula you gave me for calculating the ffuel flow of (electric) engines, the 25-1 BE-4 equivalent (2600 kN thrust, 328 Isp surface level) uses approximately 808 kg of fuel per second, or 202 units. So the Jumbo-64 tank would last for approximately 31 seconds at full throttle. Same values if U use 6400 units of fuel and the 202 units per second. So they are more fuel-hungry (or rather, have less fuel mass per volume) than LFOX, but have a better TWR with fuel density taken into account. ...I just really like doing the math. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I want to use the NF Launch Vehicles engines with the Methalox patch (for dat Immershun) and I was wondering if anyone has the fuel values for Liquid Methane & Oxidizer tanks. Can I just use my regular lift vessels? I checked the .cfg files (again) and since the Methalox patch increases Isp as well, I should TECHNICALLY kinda get the same Delta-V, right? EDIT: @Nertea @Streetwind So if LFOX has 1 unit per volume (LF and OX having the same density in the game for simplicity I suppose) and MOX has 2.5 units per volume, does that mean it occupies 2.5 times the volume as LFOX? So for the 1800 LFOX fuel tank it would have...calculation noises...720 units instead of 1800 and would need a tank that holds...more calculation noises...29,500 units for the same mass? Did I get my math right?

Unity Station! Just on the launchpad for showoff purposes until I assembled it in Orbit Edit: I just realized the lower solar panel rings have 8 instead of 4 each. Talk about overengineering.

I seem to have developed a very stressful immune response to rendezvous and docking. MechJeb helps. When MechJeb failed, i just sort of sat there amidst the floating parts of my (planned) orbitally assembled interplanetary vessel, cursing at MechJeb before realizing I put the Konstruction! welding port on THE WRONG WAY. So I had to get everything into orbit again after saving the crew from the now useless habitation module - except my rescue vehicle had no room for them. I thought "okay, I can still salvage this!" and sent Jeb to EVA, attempting to manually transfer him to the rescue vehicle. Due to my non-existent EVA skills and knowledge of how to control Kerbals in space, he drifted off into space, smiling all the while so i wouldn't be sad. I refused to let it end like that and Thanos-snapped the safe out of existence. Another time, I had to #SafeBobKerman from another failed crew module. Val went to get him and they safely returned to Kerbin. I really need to stop resetting the Kerbal universe.

Sandbox until i figured out how I want to play. I tried career mode, but it felt so limiting that i just gave up soon after. I'll be perfecting my mod list and pilot skills and then start a science playthrough - building big science vessels without any actual use for them feels kind if hollow...

I'm going to need two bolters for THIS heresy.

I...see. Huh. That's not overcomplicated at all. Thanks a bunch for explaining!

Didn't know where else to put this, so feel free to give this thread a kick over to the appropriate subforum if needed. I use several mods, among them Near Future Propulsion. NFP has .cfg files for parts, like "ionArgon-0625-3.cfg" For the GW3 Nested Hall Effect Thruster. Therein lie values like the following: // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 0.30 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.3 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 6 breakingForce = 200 breakingTorque = 200 maxTemp = 1700 emissiveConstant = 0.7 bulkheadProfiles = size0 tags = #LOC_NFPropulsion_ionArgon-0625-3_tags MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform powerEffectName = run_halla1in runningEffectName = run_halla1 exhaustDamage = False ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 8.40 heatProduction = 125.714825 PROPELLANT { name = ElectricCharge ratio = 0.687301 DrawGauge = True minResToLeave = 1.0 } PROPELLANT { name = ArgonGas DrawGauge = True ratio = 1.0 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 3300 key = 1 33 key = 2 0.001 } } From this I get thrust (8.40 kN) and ISP (3300). Then there are ratio modifiers for how much EC and Argon (custom fuel from the mod) the engine uses. I would like to know how to calculate the fuel flow/s and the EC/s from these values, if possible. All I really need is a formula of sorts, although I heard getting KSP to give straight answers as to how it calculates stuff is like interrogating the Joker.

@Streetwind It will be constructed in orbit using multi-welding Konstruction! ports. My ISV-1 made it to the moon and back with fuel to spare (I still plan to optimize for more dV, as the ISV-2 is supposed to go to Duna and beyond), but electricity is a problem. This one uses a fission generator (2000 EC/s), so it can run both VASIMRs at half throttle indefinitely or at full power for about 50 seconds (capacitors and battery). I'll have to see if I can find an efiiciency setting that maximizes dV. There will be a little weight added still - two landers docked at the port and starboard docking ports as this thing will never leave orbit. And yeah, that monopropellant gotta go. I use LF/O heavy RCS thrusters as anything else would take ages and lots of fuel to move this thing Edit: Goddammit I forgot supplied and fertilizer. I play in Sandbox mode because I'm all about building (just gave up trying to dock/rndv after half an hour and just let MechJeb have a go at it), but I need SOME realism in form of rudimentary life support. Can't have those fancy hydroponic modules go to waste!

@Nertea @Streetwind I optimized. Here's the result. I unintentionally made it look like a weird mushroom Kerbazord.

Don't you dare! To be accurate, though, that was for my Proto-Protodobotype probe (which, by the way, fiercely crashed and pompously burned into mun). My ISV-2 Protodobotype with 2.5 m parts is closer to 0.4 to 0.5, before the fockton of optimization I'll put it through once I'm home. @Aelfhe1m Well, I guess it heavily depends on what you optimized for (assuming you use electric Propulsion) - few, long, full-throttle burns? Needs heavy reactors. Several short, full-throttle burns? Capacitors galore. This approach severely improves TWR, but makes the vessel less flexible. When you mess up in between capacitor-fueled burns, you're pretty much screwed.

I know, I got very excited after learning about VASIMR. I'm still grumpy they don't work like they're supposed to yet (no high thrust mode yet). Then again, there's potential for RTG-like energy cells with a compound material that turns radiation into electricity that's currently being researched. Not thermo-electrical, but direct conversion. Here's a link to the article from a while ago. I figured. Went through TWR discussions in this post and realized I could just add capacitors instead of an Excalibur for every MPDT-25. My goal is to be able to run two MPDT-25s at half power indefinitely and at full power for however much my capacitors have to give. I only built my ISV-2 Protodobotype with constant thrust in mind, so several , shorter burns weren't even considered. I stand now corrected and shall optimize till I can't optimize no more.

Now I know realism and lore aren't exactly what KSP is about, but I gave it some thought and arrived at the following conclusion: Kerbals are, at least in part, a plant-based species. How come, you ask? No? I'll tell you anyway! Their skin is green. What causes green skin? Possibly copper-based blood, but the inside of their mouths are flesh-colored, so: Chlorophyll! Perhaps in the distant past, Kerbal ancestors had to adjust to scarce nutrients and evolved to use their skin for photosynthesis, just as humans (and other mammals) incorporated many helpful bacteria into their digestive system over the course of their evolution. This would also explain why they can survive/breathe on Laythe, where the atmosphere (according to science data) is not entirely like that of Kerbin. Their lungs aren't the only thing they use to "breathe", they use photosynthesis as well. Their heads are so large because that way, a lot of skin is exposed to sunlight - similar to how humans evolved to stand on all fours so they could see over the tall grass in the plains of Africa. Total [snip]... of course, but it's a fun thing to think about.

@Nertea I love all your mods, especially NF Propulsion and SSPX redux. The VASIMR-25 and MPDT25 thrusters are meant for large vessels as I understand it. I've been trying to build a 2.5m radial size Interplanetary Science Vessel (Lovingly nicknamed ISV-2) with the Excaalibur Fission reactor and the MPDT-25, as well as the Coriolis and whatnot else. I try to stick to necessary parts only, but the TWR is just not there. To run a single MPDT-25 (better ISP at similar thrust than VASIMR-25), I need a whole Excalibur just for that. That of course increases the vessel's mass considerably and lowers the TWR. I know these were intended for long burns, but a ~0.6-ish TWR in space (according to Kerbal Engineer) just doesn't seem right. The whole vessels mass is just about 90-ish tonnes. Any thoughts on this?

@Curveball Anders I just realized I'm an idiot who just built his rocket wrong. Dreadful sorry for the inconvenience! It all works now.

Since I absolutely suck at docking and rendevouz, I tried using MechJeb. It doesn't do anything, though. I have all the windows and the module installed, it even sets nodes but doesn't steer my ship or anything. Using KSP 1.8.