antbin

For example: this solid rocket booster ship can just barely make the Mun. Kosmo-not\'s ship can do the return trip on 5 tanks.

Eh, my bad, I meant an empty fuel tank.

It\'s tricky to make efficient rockets that aren\'t 100% symmetric. The tri-couplers do make your stack awesome, but they\'re hard to integrate cleanly. Without a totally symmetric rocket, you need a lot of heavy SAS modules. I\'d also recommend hard-mounting the fins to a stage that you\'re going to drop in the lower atmosphere. Radial decouplers weigh more than much a full empty fuel tank. Happy building!

The copy I downloaded had two unconnected struts... test flying, brb!

Success, with a reorbit and return! 8) http://imgur.com/a/pTPC0 The key was to bring only a small engine and one fuel tank to the Mun. That makes landing and re-orbiting much more fuel efficient. After adding a coupler, I loaded the ship with as much fuel as its T-30 main engine can get off the ground. Removing the half-tank might actually make it more fuel efficient, who knows. I tried doing the land & return challenge with only one engine, but as far as I can see, it\'s impossible. The T-30 is too heavy to take to the Mun fuel-efficiently.

With this ship I wind up about 10 m/s short of a proper TKI from the mun. Maybe I need to pack a mechjeb to make this flight...

FINALLY managed to complete a return Mun mission with this thing! What a ship. Now the Krew did push 19Gs on the re-entry, but that was my fault for burning 875m/s on TKI and wasting the last of my fuel. I think this ship will stand for all 14.4 as the minimalist Mun lander. Well done Kosmo-not.

Hey Kosmo-not! I\'ve got to thank you for all your tutorial videos. They\'ve given me both hope and a bit of knowledge. I still can\'t get Koelamos II back to Kerbin, though. Testing went OK... I should have taken screenshots of all the gruesome explosions. After deciding on the capsule/decoupler and 1 RCS, I followed three principles: [list type=decimal] [li]Lift SAS only as necessary (so none on the main orbiter). This meant having to split the SAS/ASAS units between two side pods. Luckily they have the same weight (and aerodynamics ignores surface area). [/li] [li]Don\'t hit the tower.[/li] [li]Exercise the full range of SAS/ASAS as each stage\'s liquid fuel tank weight drops from full to empty. I did this first by adjusting the mounting angle of the side pods to have only as much torque as 1 SAS unit could handle, then by shuffling fuel tanks between the orbiter and main drop tank to balance out the thrust difference between the large and medium liquid engines.[/li] Then there were some mistakes with not enough bracing, etc. But I couldn\'t have done it without Deimos II\'s inspiration!

Well, it ain\'t too pretty, but it makes orbit. Inspired by Kosmo-not\'s Deimos II space shuttle, I had a go at making a space-plane-like craft with asymmetric drop tanks/engines. It uses all three types of liquid engines, and even has ASAS on one side pod and SAS on the other. The lack of a tail is due to the current aerodynamics producing almost uncontrollable roll-coupling on ships with a single tail fin. The wobble on stage transitions can be a little hairy, but it makes orbit with a half-tank left. Instructions: [list type=decimal] [li]SAS on - this ship pitches down hard on launch and barely clears the tower![/li] [li]Full throttle all the way[/li] [li]The pitch handling is neutral between around 1250-2500 ft. Pulse SAS off (\'F\') and make your roll maneuver here, with your desired heading down. For now the ship starts to pitch up until the main fuel tank is empty. Hold her steady.[/li] [li]When the main fuel tank is about empty, get ready to separate the stages, and hold on tight![/li] [li]After main tank separation, the ship pulls pitch-down again. Pulse the SAS off to make your orbital turn.[/li] [li]As the side boosters are almost spent, the ship starts to pull pitch-up. Hold on tight![/li] [li]Congrats, you\'re in orbit. Too bad those wings are useless with the current aerodynamic model.[/li] Full orbital album here

OK, in the spirit of pole vaulting, I am raising the bar... by a tiny bit. 7+5+5+3 = 20 boosters to the moon and back, with a parachute! Now the moon touchdown ran into a terrain glitch, and the earth touchdown resulted in my collapsing the parachute 100m off the ground and killing all on board (too much retro thrust).... but the ship is good. My strategy was to try and stage the boosters to stick as close as possible to the 'optimal' fuel efficiency speeds in Kerbin\'s atmosphere. It got me into orbit with about 1-1/3 tanks and onto Mun intercept with just less than 1. ImgUR album

Hey Foamy, how do you deal with booster overheating? I tried copying your rocket but the launch stages can\'t burn to completion without frying... EDIT: OK, I understand how 'heat' works in KSP now... Every booster needs one strut \'heatsink\'? But your struts are either invisible, or not there!?

Very elegant rocket, it was a pleasure to fly. I made a small change - I re-stacked each fuel tank with its associated decoupler. That makes Launch Control\'s user interface a little easier to read, as each stage\'s fuel tanks are grouped together. Helps keep the launch on track (and non-fatal) without having to count empty fuel tanks and memorize how many are in each stage. :