colmo

The author is up to his eyes in exams I think. Give it time. I\'m putting the finishing touches to a mobile Mun base using largely parts from this pack. It looks the part. It just needs more decoration with solar panels and radio dishes. This is an old screenshot, the base now has 6 Katerpillar wheels on hardpoints around the base, and 6 small lander engines from this pack on radial attachments. It can take a landing of at least 20m/s without damage! A lot of these parts have loads of fuel - I think my base had 3150kg of fuel last time I checked!

The DA VJturbines are rather good on space planes - they get this one to 18km before engaging rockets.

The K prize challenge by boolybooly has been bugging me for sometime - Colmo-Korp has gone from strength to strength, with biplanes, helicopters and now VTOL jets, but space planes had proven elusive. Some research, a few failed prototypes and a rethink finally spawned these: CK Kotal (Kerbal Orbital Take-Off And Landing) TwinTurbine MkII Space Plane: Able to take-off well before the end of the runway, and with turbines that can take it to 18km before engaging the rocket 2nd stage, allowing shutdown of the turbines beyond 20km, achieve orbit, deorbit and land and still have 250kg plus of fuel to spare, this is a deluxe space plane. Further testing will be performed to establish if it can reach the Mun or Minimus. Requires Damned Aerospace and the C7 bicoupler (not a stock item). CK Kotal SP Stock MkI Space Plane (K prize finisher): While it does not quite have the performance of the Kotal TwinTurbine model, it won\'t burst the bank by using commonly available parts. It has just enough fuel to achieve orbit, deorbit and land. Activate the rocket 2nd stage when the turbofan runs out of steam at around 15km (depending on your ascent angle)

Did the challenge, realised my plane was not legit, started again, realised it STILL wasn\'t legit, third time\'s the charm: I think I only qualify for the landing on terrain prize - I haven\'t yet figured out how to de-orbit a space-plane so I land on the same continent I\'m aiming for...

That would need a tail rotor for sure to counteract the torque effect - fortunately, also due in v2.0.

Is this to the part.cfg, or the craft file?

When life gives you lemons.... you need MOAR BOOSTARS!

AFAIK, yes. All the other parameters are the same...unless you edit those too. I had a thought about how to do this - create several copies of whatever engines you use, edit the line of code, and rename them as Group A, B, C, etc. This way you can use engines of the same type, but with an individual toggle for each Group.

That means by using that one line of code, we have individual control of EVERY different type of engine with a click....? Oh...now that, I can use...

You could use the VjTurbine from the Damned Aerospace - note that you would have to edit the cfg to make it usable in vacuum - I note the parameter efficiencyVacuum = 0.

I\'m wondering if attaching something with a suspension, like landing gear, would mean the \'hug\' would be more effective? Grabbing stuff with the claw is like picking up peas with scissors - sometimes they\'ll scoot out, and sometimes you\'ll damage them.

As this mod basically needs MechJeb, would adding MechJeb code to the extra pods\' cfg files be the best way to go? The radial and AR202 MJ units are basically free anyway, so might as well integrate their functionality in to the extra pods.

Does the 500m asteroid still work? Because I\'ve just pictured it in keostationary orbit, over the KSC, with a load of structures attached reaching down to the planet surface.... Yup, a space elevator.

I think I\'ve seen something like this tried. It\'s very doable in KSP - pontoons and Damned Robotics struts to suspend the main cockpit, with some sort of crane/claw structure (Damned Robotics) slung underneath. The only real departure would be propulsion - I believe props work better out of the water?

To be fair, millions of dollars that have done their job and is never likely to be useful again. The important thing is it doesn\'t crash on the rover!

NASA brought to KSP. I thought that last one was never going to stop exploding. It was the crash that kept on crashing. Unfortunately, we have nothing that can simulate the tether than lowers the rover from the skycrane - the Damned Robotic extending cylinder is the nearest thing we have to it, but it would fold up small enough, and is not flexible.

That was a great trilogy, though there was some trippy weird religious stuff in it. Mars\' surface is not homogenous. I recently did an assignment (Open University) arguing why the Eberswalde Crater would be a good target for a rover mission (it has a fossilised river delta!!!), complete with landing site and suggested route. Miss your target by even a few kms, and you\'ve just added maybe a year to the mission. This article explains why the Gale Crater was chosen for Curiosity. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110623/full/news.2011.380.html This documentary shows just how important it is for the rovers to end up in the right place: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/national-geographic-channel/all-videos/av-11190-11390/ngc-death-of-a-mars-rover/

Thanks to my post on this thread, I managed to build a VTOL using DYJ\'s Vjturbine engine. I only noticed afterwards that it has no gimbal capability. Fortunately, use of ASAS and control surfaces (and a lot of care and testing) meant the plane worked a treat. I\'ll have to compare with a gimbal engine to see the difference. The problem with the big hinge is that the weight shifts quite a lot between V and H modes. That\'s why I went for the opposing rotatrons instead, and it paid off.

Sure, just check out my signature. That MkII model is now obsolete (there\'s still the torque-twist variant - which hopefully the new fenestron will consign to history come DA 2.0) - MkIII handles much better, and now has 3 siblings (and an ugly amphibious cousin) of different sizes! I do have an experimental tricopter for retrieval missions, still very much a prototype.

Untrue - crucially, Mars has an atmosphere. The video about Curiosity covers this - to paraphrase 'there\'s just enough atmosphere that we can\'t ignore it or it would destroy the ship, but there isn\'t enough to \'get the job done\'' That\'s why they need a heat-shielded module, parachutes (to deal with and make use of the atmosphere) and the skycrane (because it\'s very thin, can\'t slow the craft enough to land). The Moon could probably be done with just the skycrane. In KSP, a Marsesque planet would be a devilish landing (especially when they introduce atmospheric entry heat) for these reasons.

It would also increase margin of error for the landing site - given they have an exact spot in mind, not desirable to miss it.

I submit my Colmo-Korp Aeronautics VTOL-TwinTurbine MkI: Based upon RavingManiac\'s opposing rotatron wing mount idea, used for his Owl VTOL, and the principals of balancing centre of mass with thrust for vertical flight, and with centre of mass with lift for horizontal flight, Colmo-Korp\'s first VTOL emerged. It can take off and land both horizontally and vertically. The onboard ASAS unit means you can lock in your horizon to concentrate on controlling VTOL tilt and thrust for gentle landings. Conventional horizontal flight performance hasn\'t been ignored either, with a straight and true, attitude-neutral flight profile, excellent manoeuvrability, and plenty of power from the Damned Aerospace VjTurbines. Requires Damned Aerospace and Damned Robotics mods for the VjTurbine and rotatron. Floodlights from the Bigtrak mod, mounted to the underside for vertical landings, are highly recommended - place them front and back to maintain weight balance.

It was time to take on the ultimate challenge in Kerbal aeronautics...a VTOL! CK VTOL-TwinTurbine MkI & MkII: Based upon RavingManiac\'s opposing rotatron wing mount idea, used for his Owl VTOL, and the principals of balancing centre of mass with thrust for vertical flight, and with centre of mass with lift for horizontal flight, Colmo-Korp\'s first VTOL emerged. It can take off and land both horizontally and vertically. The onboard ASAS unit means you can lock in your horizon to concentrate on controlling VTOL tilt and thrust for gentle landings. Conventional horizontal flight performance hasn\'t been ignored either, with a straight and true, attitude-neutral flight profile, excellent manoeuvrability, and plenty of power from the Damned Aerospace VjTurbines. The MkII has increased ground clearance and a 4 point instead of 3 point landing gear setup to prevent the turbines contacting the ground on a hard vertical landing. Requires Damned Aerospace and Damned Robotics mods for the VjTurbine and rotatron. Floodlights from the Bigtrak mod, mounted to the underside for vertical landings, are highly recommended - place them front and back to maintain weight balance.

For vertical flight, you need to balance the thrust with the centre of mass - correct positioning of engines in the \'up\' position is crucial. For horizontal flight, you need to balance the centre of mass (engines \'down\') with the centre of lift - use of control surfaces front or back will shift this without adding too much weight and thus messing up your centre of mass.

I tried it last night - regular rotatron, trusses as levers (the rotatron is what gave the torsion, but in other respects, exactly like a torsion bar suspension), HSTW pontoons. It made for a very flexible and bouncy landing gear, which I could almost bottom out (that\'s the hight of the skids + pontoons) before anything broke.