FlazeTheDragon

Was making a rover for the minmus challenge, and ended up making a pretty neat universal rover. Rovers can be pretty difficult to make since wheels seem to have basically no power (hopefully will be addressed by the devs), but this thing seems to handle most planets and moons fairly well. It will do 100km/h on kerbin/laythe, climb 35o hills on the mun and pop wheelies on minmus. I mostly designed it around being able to fit inside of the XL cargo bay. Rover specs: Weight: 15.25t Parts: 84 Dimensions: 3.4 / 4.55 / 7.5m Notes: Wheel friction needs to be adjusted based on the planet/moon youre driving on. Theese are the ones ive tested: Kerbin/Laythe - 0.2 (also benefits from stiffer suspension), Mun - 1.5 rear, 2.0 front, Minmus - 3 For best results, set cockpit reaction wheel to ''sas only'' when driving. Craft file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/c1w3eszddvgajj9/minmus_rover_v1.1.json/file

Nope, my kerbal is now one with the craft.

Considering that planes are probably the single biggest upgrade over stock ksp1, i figured id make a challenge that would incorporate them nicely well providing unique challenges to both new and experienced plane builders Once atmospheric heating is enabled, the maximum speeds that people will be able to achieve will likely be a lot lower, so this is a limited time opportunity to set an all time record that likely wont be broken in the future. The eVe.max challenge is: achieve the highest speed possible on eve under 1000m (sea lvl) Rules: 1. It does not matter how you get to eve, cheats are encouraged for eve transport. Id recommend using lazy orbit to ''land'' your self ~2000m above eve's surface to start the run. 2.The speed record MUST BE below 1000m, higher altitude runs will not count. 3. V.max must be reached in level flight (no diving). 4. No infinite fuel. 5. Craft doesnt have to be manned, but it will need a powerful enough antenna to maintain legit contact with ksc if you choose to make it a drone. 6. There will be separate leaderboards for kraken drive craft. 7. No staging How to enter: 1. Submit a picture of your craft at its highest top speed with both the speed indicator and altimeter (set to altitude above sea level) visible. 2. Have fun Leaderboards Vanilla: ID Date V.max Alt. 1 Sequence 3/21 472 951 2 3 4 5 6 Kraken drive: ID Date V.max Alt. 1 2 3 4 5 6

So i got 2 different variants of the same craft in here, one of them is a slightly lighter variant that also looks a bit more proportional (tho they both h craft, so both have big chungus vibes), the other one is the full fat 10k lko one. To get the additional 1k d.v i needed to add over 10t's of hydrogen... pretty deep in to diminishing returns, so i figured id include both :p Notes: Both of these craft tend to randomly explode on the runway, so if that happens to you, revert to vab and try to launch again. Draken galaxy S LKO d.v: 9000m/s Parts: 74 Weight: 77.4 / 33.6t Dimensions: 6.1 / 22.5 / 24.6m Draken galaxy 10k LKO d.v: 10000+ m/s Parts: 92 Weight: 91 / 36t Dimensions: 6.4 / 22.5 / 28.4m Craft files: https://www.mediafire.com/file/c7a7dvbvjcydp0y/draken_galaxy_ssto.7z/file

Very interesting insight... even tho half of it goes over my head xD I wonder, would it be possible, and have you guys considered adding DLSS in the future? It seems like it would be a very welcome addition to the game, and it would allow for some absolutely insane fidelity visual mods in the far future.

It actually flies pretty good, its pretty stable at slightly higher speeds and has a pretty low stall speed. Doesnt freak out sas either. Only real issue is that its got excessive slip angle at slow speeds if you try to roll, but its not enough to be a problem. Oh yah, and its also supersonic xD

Updated the download

Wet: 0.5t (0.41t with out kerbal, idk which one were going off, probs need to clarify) Dry: 0.39t Thing lands quit well, tho it does tip over once you come to a full stop :p Tho not really a big deal since nothing brakes. Very fun little challenge! Edit: Forgot to come up with the name : HMS Jebediah

Oh rip, forgot wetransfer links expire. Will update the download link once i get off work.

Lol havent encoubtered that bug. I got node and joint rigidity raised by 100x i think

God bless procedural wings Glad to see you like 'em I post most of my more interesting ssto's here if anyone wants to try them out.

Sadge to see none of my stuff made it here, but these are some very cool highlights

It would allow for nicer designs for smaller ssto's. Using dedicated vacuum engines outside of swerv is basically not worth it on ssto's atm, so it would be nice to have a more capable hybrid engine that would work for smaller builds.

these are all ksp2 builds so it do be correct lol

the pack has been out for quite a while Dont have any nuclear ssto's in there just yet, tho i do have some designs im working on, one of which is basically ready to do the Laythe challenge and pick up val, bop and pol on the way back as well. Got another one with about 7k d.v lko but im still figuring out how to make nuclear ssto's look good with out compromising on hydrogen so havent added any of them yet.

When building and optimizing rockets and planes/ssto's, having to constantly go on test missions and reach random speeds/altitudes to test your aerodynamic performance consumes a lot of time. It would be extremely handy if we could have a wind tunnel test facility, where we could control the air density, air speed and angle of attack of the craft to simulate various flight conditions, i think it would be a MASSIVE time save for a lot of people and a cool addition to the game example: Trying to optimize wing for a heavy ssto and having to literally fly it for 10mins every time i want to test wing rake change.

If you do a single cargobay piece thats at least 1 size down from the shuttle size parts, and cap each end off the cargo bay internally with the tiny nose cone, you can actually make cargoplane ssto's. They will still suffer from increased drag and anything inside the bay wont be shielded from drag, but its at least sort of functional then.

UPDATE Ive discovered a way to still have inline decouplers with out doubling your drag, tho its a bit jank and will likely require you to have modified joint rigidity. What you do is, instead of using a decoupler, you add a sacrificial ant engine, and once you want stage separation, you jetison the specific ant engine. Engines dont seem to be affected by the drag bug. The downside is that you cant do it over the staging sequence, but for something thats drag critical, like an eve ascend module, its basically the only viable workaround.

yup, im really looking forward to it as well

Pretty sad that the drag issues with reaction wheels/cargo bays/batterys etc etc is not in the patch notes. I really hope the fix for it will come soon.

Wait, is this correct? Air launch from Laythe? As in, get an ssto to Laythe and launch then? xD I mean, if you guys fix the cargobay drag bug then ill do it.

God, this took so much longer then i expected it to xD In hind site, the plane design aint the best for new bumpy af duna. If i ever make a v2 ima sweep the wings upwards instead of going for a low sweep approach, but at least it looks pretty cool and had a relatively low stall speed (for duna anyway). Here are some pics from the trip (plane still got 2.5k delta.v post landing so should be able to do 10km i believe )

Figured id share my most successful ksp1 ssto build in light of ksp2 ssto struggles and having to basically re-invent the tech Draken galaxy: LKO Delta.v: 6000m/s Parts: 80 Weight: 33t Size: 4.8 / 8.7 / 14m notes: SSTO can be reconfigured with science modules, additional crew, storage, drone core etc. Wet and dry center of mass is nearly identical so it doesnt have issues re-entering. Also has a re-entry probe core. I guess technically its not an ssto since its got a little drop tank for the first ~1min of the flight, but i recon thats within the realm of realism... we dont call a plane a rocket if it has a drop tank on it This thing is 100% stock and doesnt use any kraken drives etc. Download link: https://kerbalx.com/FlazeTheDragon/Draken-galaxy Have fun

Ya got multiple things going on here. First off, the shuttle sized parts got significantly more drag then the 1 size down parts, you can generally tell how much drag a part is going to have by the size of the connecting node, and shuttle parts got beefy and thicc nodes. Second, all of the cargo bays are bugged. With the smaller sizes, you can put an aerodynamic nose cone inside of the cargo bay on either ends (as long as its not stitched together and is a single piece) but with this bigger one, you need a large cone which has tons of drag on its own. Id suggest trying to take the cargo bay down by 1 size. you could check my ssto pack to see how i get around drag if you want some pointers.

personally ive been really enjoying the challenges of building ssto's in ksp2. (Outside of bugs, like every auxiliary part creating insane amounts of drag, including payload bays lol.) but having to actually optimize wing angles, wing spans, account for trans sonic drag, fuel mixing etc etc has been really fun. Currently working on an eve ssto (with out refueling, round trip), tho cargo bay bug, and abysmal performance with 6 rapiers is kinda of preventing me from testing it much.