Corona688

Dude, you need to reduce the fuel in this by factor of 5 or somesuch. I made it into orbit and back with nothing but lunar lander parts. (and the pod of course.)

My video card is crap.

Since my original orbiters don't work in v9, time for me to submit something else. I wanted to build a rocket on a similar design to them out of stock parts, but dang it was hard. Having to use solid motors instead of the nice inline-three couplers added SO MUCH extra weight, and so much pointless extra thrust when you need it the least. But I made it, because it makes deorbiting much simpler -- two engines on either side of a center core means you can deploy the middle something without leaving your engines in orbit too, and maybe even have fuel left over to deorbit. You're probably noticing the lack of a satellite. When I say stock parts I mean stock parts It actually deploys a full, unused SRB into orbit. The bottom solids get it high enough above ground that the main engines can actually lift it. Don't let the main engines push it faster than 120m/s until you exceed 12,000m, then accelerate as fast as you can. The fins are not decorative. You have to make your gravity turn well inside the atmosphere, 20,000m or so, still burning the main engines. Don't bother being gentle about the turn, you don't have time, thrust at a right-angle to your current path and use all three SASes to hold yourself roughly there. You'll be out of the atmosphere quickly enough anyway. Once the second stage burns out, reduce the engines a bit, aim a little higher than a perfect right angle, and run until you've achieved orbital velocity (2,300-ish at 42,000-ish.) You'll probably have to adjust the angle of thrust a lot to keep the velocity meter near zero. Once you've reached orbital velocity, kill your thrust. You should have enough fuel left over to make minor adjustments into a near-circular orbit. Once you've done so, aim yourself opposite the direction of orbit and switch stages once. The full SRB will be deployed into orbit. Then ramp up your engines again to deorbit. Once fuel runs out, switch stages again and the last remaining SRB's will deorbit you something fearsome, from >2000m/s to <900m/s.

I have my doubts. It's way too straight and rational. If I blast off and find the clean design wobbling like jello, then I'll be a believer.

...sky. SKYwinder. I apparently had the old first-revision with the nosecone-barfing feature, something they added a bit extra clamps on later to fix. So fun though. I gotta fly that thing again!

I still don't understand this obsession with huge rockets. Beyond a certain point, adding more mass hurts you.

That station looks entirely too competent. We need to make it more somehow.

Specific impulse would be a better way to categorize them I think. Or total energy. Lots of modded engines throw math out the window, you've got enough fuel and thrust to do anything you want, up to and including infinite fuel. But categorizing them like this would also show just how balanced or unbalanced some are.

I think you know what I mean. Alter the direction or strength of the force by config file.

Probably because the ejection charge is gentle enough to not damage a flimsy plastic parachute or the flimsy cardboard tube its sitting inside.

But not other rotation? The game doesn't support that (yet).

More memories... attending a high-power model rocket launch in Alberta... One rocket went totally kerbal, veering almost horizontal then hitting a windshield! But the windshield was way stronger than the cardboard+balsa rocket, causing no damage and bending in half. Another just plain vanished from sight, then dropped a piece of metal that dented somebody's truck. I don't think they ever found the rest of the rocket. Some nut tried an F motor in a 1-foot rocket, and the thing didn't make it more than 2 feet off the ground before inverting and burying itself deep. Lots of rockets shedding fins in midair. And a very impressive on-pad explosion where, after 4 or 5 failed attempted ignitions, the motor finally started burning -- backwards. Parachute pops out, smoke and orange fire roars out the side, finally burns to the ground.

Very nice! Boy that brings back a lot of memories... My first launch ended up inside an area fenced in with barbed wire, then bulldozed over D: I still have an Estes Sidewinder around somewhere... not the kind that looks like a sidewinder a missle, the one that folds out helicopter blades instead of a parachute! ....and sometimes hails its weighted nosecone down onto the ground as a dangerous projectile...

Since this has become a series of craft, figured I'd gather them together instead of making more posts in the big thread. It's weird to see how it's changed over time, as my piloting and modding skills have changed. So I'll post my thoughts here and reattach the ships the forum move ate. Mark I The Mark I was built when I felt I just had to use solids somewhere: Neither pretty, nor efficient, nor all that flyable; look at how many SAS it has. But it orbited. If I'd thought about it at the time, I probably could have saved more than enough fuel to deorbit by NOT carrying a deorbiter! Observe the Y-shaped upper stage -- the upper stage does shrink and change but the basic arrangement stays the same, since there's a sweet-spot in thrust versus time for two-engine arrangements. Also observe the SAS on the upper stage. I wasn't too confident in my flying then. The middle and outer 'slices' of inline solids fired at different times to avoid overheat. Mark II Replacing the liquids with solids solids with liquids made it almost respectable-looking, and much easier to control. The upper stage is still way bigger than sensible -- everything but the three inside engines -- but if you wanted to learn how to orbit, you could do worse than the Mark II. Plenty of room for error. Also the SAS moves from the upper stage to the lower. Mark III Then I decided to add payload to the equation and it became a behemoth again. Though the top stage diminishes, if only to make room for the satellite... See the three SASes -- it needed manual input to stay stable too. And it had a tendency to reduce the satellite to ionized particles if you weren't careful when switching stages. But it orbited, and put payload in orbit, with plenty of delta-v to spare. If you wanted something that made putting a sat in orbit simple, you could do worse. This is about the time I created the MTS tuned sas mod pack. So there's also a variant that substitutes the three stock SAS's for one 'big red' SAS. You had to add extra couplers on top of the left and right legs in place of SASes or else they'd flail like a dying bug until they flew apart. Mark IV Then I realized I could use the fork-shape to hold the satellite so you could drop the satellite without ditching the upper stage, and so not hit it by exhaust all the time. Otherwise the arrangement is unchanged. Mark V I had a lot of delta-V left over, so the deorbiter was redundant. Cutting it out saved a bit of weight, which let me shrink everything and replace one liquid engine with a solid, just so it can leave the pad. The SAS moves to the upper stage again, since I'm not used to flying the smaller arrangement. Mark VI The solid turned out to be unnecessary given all the reduced weight. Still, the extra delta-V it gave was nice, so I wondered if there was a way to squeeze out just a little more: Mark VII Which was accomplished by moving the SAS down to the first stage again so the second doesn't have to lift it into orbit. It's so light now that I can use my 'small' SAS. It's not quite as nice as the Mark III in that if you miss the window, you're out of luck, and don't have the delta-V to recover, but it's a lot lighter, cheaper, prettier, and easier to manuever.

The fact is a lot of folks (like me) jump in without reading the docs. This thread is thus useful It also helps to know why underscores are bad: The game uses them in save files, like partname1_partname2_partname3 -- so if your part has underscores in it it'll break part_name_with_underscores into 'part' 'name' 'with' 'underscores' and throw a fit when none of those parts exist. Dots seem to be okay.

I don't know how that happened. Fixed, thanks!

Bump for 0.3!

[edit] see OP.

Thanks for the hint. Here's a version without the _ in names. [edit] updating attachments, please stand by

Sigging this.

I don't think I can fix the wobbling just yet. see here. It's still an improvement on the stock SAS for large ships I think, even if it's not ideal. [edit] see OP

It seems to wobble on REALLY large ships though. Working on that. [edit] new model SAS added for that.

[updated the updated update!] MTS SAS Set 0.3(1.4MB) Now with the 'green' spaceplane model, for easy malingering maneuvering in-atmosphere! It stabilizes tumbling without holding to one strict course. Used for rocket-planes and the like. It's a fact: Different rockets need different Automatic Stabilizers. The stock SAS has your tiny upper stages weebling and wobbling with overshoot, but won't push heavy ones enough to keep them out of the drink. They don't lack force -- they push too much too soon, or too little too late. MTS Ltd can customize them for your applications. One stock-model SAS struggles hard to keep our Stargoose test-craft aloft: But the same craft with a model #2.4.6 'small blue' stays straight and level, even during stage changes! It also works well for tiny upper-stages that the stock SAS wobbles madly: And lastly, the part everyone's been screaming for: The Model #2.12.6 'big red'! A single 'big red' module can keep an entire Mark III Orbiter* vertical with no manual input -- a feat which took three stock models and manual input! Not reccomended for small rockets as it reacts slower by design. These are all tuned stock SAS's. We haven't needed to boost their force at all. Just remember that SAS aren't magic. If you can't fly a rocket with manual input, one SAS won't do the job no matter how well tuned. Also remember these are gyroscopes, not rockets -- they work best placed near the center of mass! Now includes the Spaceplane model for atmospheric maneuvering. * Mark III needs modded parts, the Joyeuse inline couplers and Stellarcom depleted uranium lawn gnome communications satellite. MTS SAS Set 0.3(1.4MB)

That's nice. Want to bother some other unrelated topics too?

I bet you landed on the dark side of the planet. Touching it is instant death! A bug, hopefully fixed soon. Otherwise, the fuel pod exploding is fairly normal for unpowered landings but the crew pod and nozzles should survive. I've also seen weird things happen like the pod and the fuel tank both exploding on the dark side, but the nozzle sitting there by itself hissing merrily until the (already-exploded!) fuel tank runs out of fuel.