gyro2death

Just wanted to say thanks for your efforts, I've been missing intersteller and I'm glad someones picked up the mantle, I just hope all the people not following directions doesn't up and make you uninstall KSP in a fit of rage. Anyways much appreciation.

Well I\'m glad it wasn\'t intended to be rude. As for the efficiency of the designs combing through some of your threads (specifically the bare min mun trip) i\'ve learned quite a bit about things I was curious about such as optimal TWR, which the rocket actually does very well on (TRW 1.94 climbing to a peak of 2.5 as fuel drains at around 35km). Also I tried redesigning my rocket to have greater TWR (aiming for scaling near to 3 which someone calculated as optimal at the upper edges of the atmosphere) by keeping all the engines and just staging off tanks, but this seems to have too much thrust and wastes much more on delta-v on drag (TWR was 2.05 sea level, 2.5 at 12km and 2.8 at 34km). Also I\'m very curious to see how you would design a rocket for this, I\'ve gotten into quite a pattern of using 6-symmetry be interesting to see another design.

Well to start off you\'re being quite rude, second feel free to build an efficient heavy lifter. This rocket is only labeled as 'The most fuel efficient' since there was no other fuel conscious designs that I\'ve seen and until someone else builds one more efficient the title isn\'t misleading at all. I\'m welcome to constructive criticism but you could try to be a bit more polite when posting in someone\'s thread.

OK, just updated my lifter to version 2.0 and as such it is pretty much a flat out better in every way lifter. Enjoy.

I wish to submit my super lifter design to this forums http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=14990.msg226054#msg226054 It lifts 70 kerbal tons into low orbit and anything less into high orbit.

Got curious so I did some test flights, if you use the aerospikes on the outside and LTV-45\'s inside you can actually cut off 6 tanks in the center (2 rows) and 3 off the outer stacks (1 row) provided you stage the aerospikes in the stage them with the second set of SRB. Because your a row short just move the winglets in to the center stack, they weigh nothing and help prvent excessive loss of thrust while you gravity turn. This gets you into a 130+km near orbit with a good gravity turn before you drop off the main launch stage which then takes only half a tank to circularize it. But this is of course being very skimpy on the launch stage fuel, you can just leave 3 (1 row) tanks more in the central stack to be safe as your build is highly redundant. Also using LTV-30\'s over aerospikes lets you do the exact same thing but you\'ll have only around a single tank left after circularizing if you cut 6 from the center and 3 from the outside. But overall its a nice rocket, some optimizing of staging and fuel and this things pretty lean and gets a very nice lander into orbit.

The thread is labeled [sTOCK] so it should be stock regardless. He should simply change it.

Took it for a flight, not bad at all. Works like a charm till you lose the gimbal engines, I would switch them to the inside, you won\'t notice a difference much in stability and you\'ll get much better control for fine tuning an orbit. Also you could probably cut off a row (3) fuel tanks off the center stack and still reach orbit as if you want to be debris-less you\'ll finish your circularizing your orbit with transit stage and with a good gravity turn you\'ll be in great shape (less weight also helps launch). For bonus points you can replace the non-gimbal engines with aerospike engines as they\'re flat better in every way (though some feel this is unbalanced though it weights more), if you do that you can cut another row (3 more tanks) off the top of the outer stack assuming you move the gimbal engines inward. (Note if you do this you need to move the outer stacks upwards because aerospike engines support no weight and will break if they touch the ground) As you might imagine I\'m a bit of an efficiency nut but overall its a great rocket, I like the landing gear trick to upright the vehicle its quite clever.

Yeah honestly until the balance out jet engines TSTO is definitively the most efficient way to get to orbit using jet engines. At 20 times the efficiency and the same thrust under 10km using it instead of a booster makes orbit very easy (I have a design up atm that\'s just barely over 1.1:1 fuel ratio to get to orbit with 28 fuel tanks). But I\'m gonna not use them till they\'re changed as its a bit too broken since as someone stated, jet engines really can\'t put out equivalent thrust to a LFE in reality.

Yeah jet engines have some balance issues currently, I imagine when they overhaul the in atmosphere flight again they\'ll address this. But yeah they\'re a reason no one at NASA straps jet engines to the side of the shuttle to launch it

Yeah they\'re going to fix using rocket fuel in turbo jets btw , and debrisless is kinda important too. But props on it, great idea using the tri-coupler and feeding fuel through it rather than using tanks, saves both weight and lets you be more flexible with the release point without wasting fuel (I use this design in several of my space planes) Would love to see your craft file, are you using part explosions to separate stages? There\'s a post about a bug where if you over-heat a piece with a LFE (Liquid Fuel Engine) that they seem to burn at around 1/6th the normal rate, a guy was able to get a rocket up to 200km rather than a mere 40km before engine cut off without this glitch Also a note about the efficiency of the launch angle. I still am trying to figure this out completely but mechjeb actually uses a poor angle of assent for crafts with lots of drag, while testing this due to several dozens of flights I started putting mechjeb on to launch it (just have to disable him in the upper part once the rocket starts to spin as it would lose control). But I couldn\'t get to orbit with its angle of assent. I looked it up and there\'s a whole set of formula\'s on it but the optimal way of doing a gravity turn is based on a load of factors. I bet there could be some improvement on mine for sure, but jeb\'s angle adds too much drag from the atmosphere with these kind of larger designs. I should play with jeb some more though, you can edit a lot about the launch angle inside it, but its quite time consuming hehe.

Thanks but what? I thought because of the eva\'s and such they were gonna add docking for space stations BOO...Oh well I guess my floating ring a fuel tanks can act as a jumping platform then...

Version 2 of the Super lifters I\'ve designed. This one is a straight improvement in every category; greater fuel efficiency, easier control, higher orbital altitude, fewer Stages, greater potential payload. To top it all off it still leaves no debris other than whatever you want to drop off! This still lifts 70 tons of anything (up to 28 full fuel tanks) into orbit but now has the following efficiency ratings: - 70 Tons to LKO (Low Kerbal Orbit [130-200KM]) - 389 fuel per ton put into orbit - Fuel ratio of 1:1.94 - Possible to fly safely! Without Load: With Load: To put this in earthy perspectives the Delta IV currently the most powerful rocket in service can put a mere 24 tons into LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Source: http://www.space.com/16362-air-force-rocket-launches-spy-satellite-nrol-15.html Feel free to critique or try and beat my design. Notes: It is quite easy to add another 2.5 tons to the load (1 more fuel tank) increasing the efficiency to (1:1.88 Fuel Ratio) and (376 fuel per ton) however this is rather difficult to get into a stable orbit and requires a near perfect gravity turn. As such I\'ve opted to make a more reliable rocket with a small hit in efficiency. Flight Video: Older Versions: Version 1 My first rocket I posted on these threads was a modded one with NovaPunch, and while great and awesome, having a good set of parts makes building things easy. As such I wanted to give myself a challenge. With docking coming in the next patch people are flooding this forum with heavy lifters for space stations and fuel depot for space. My task was to create the most fuel efficient lifter possible, the result.... Introducing a powerful and efficient fuel rocket is designed to get a massive load of 70 Kerbal tons (28 full fuel tanks) with an efficiency of 403.5 fuel per Kerbal ton lifted. Another way to think about it is 2.017 units of fuel per 1 that is put up. This means it only costs around 2 tanks to send 1 up into orbit. Best part about this lifter is it is put on top, even with placing a brick of fuel tanks on top it still flies (somewhat) like a champion. This is extremely efficient believe it or not, even use the NovaPunch pack I was only able to get it down to 2.1:1 fuel ratio (lower is better), but I have new plans now that I\'ve built this. To give some quick stats of it: -Lifts 70 Kerbal tons into low orbit -Efficiency of 403.5 per Kerbal Ton or 2.017:1 fuel ratio -Leave no debris in orbit -5 stage rocket using 56.5 fuel tanks and 25 engines -Near impossible to fly! -Comes with insane launch platform to hold it up free of charge! (Contributes to most the lag) Craft file - http://www./?dh9ej2uv6c8e4dj Quick note about my specs: i-5 2500 3.3 GHz 8 GB DDR3 RAM Radeon HD 6870 I get 15fps while flying this...good luck!

Better question why are there fuel lines connected to the tanks on top of tri-couplers which fuel already flow through. Fun looking though.

Actually I\'ve taken several looks at your plugin, just haven\'t used it much yet (I\'ve only been playing for a month so far), rotating engines sounds quite useful. I\'ve kinda feel like I\'ve reached a plateau (I did the same thing with stock parts, ran out of things to do) so I\'ve been looking at damned robotics and energy mods to give me more I can do. Though I really want a career mode so badly now, I need a goal to focus on, just being creative is rather hard also building cost effective ships would be a fun challenge.

Ah! That makes sense, can I put that on engines? If so I might modify the LFE to have that flag so that I can at least avoid having to do that silly retro-burn-to-fix-orbit-while-detaching maneuver that I have to do. At least till you add in heavy retro-boosters

No I agree this kinda of thing is better suited to SRB rather than liquid, I only used LFE because it was better for my weight to thrust for what I needed, but a really hard burning SRB would be perfect for this considering the range limitations. (I\'ll have to try the mechjeb thing out) Also I noticed the 'radial retro booster' (in C&C) can fire in the same stage as a decoupler while the 'backfire retro-rocket' can\'t (nothing else seems to be able to). I\'m not sure how you pulled that off but I love it, that would make deorbiting so much easier as you wouldn\'t have to first extend your orbit then burn it back and potentially screw up your orbit.

Thanks for the comment, this would be very helpful, Nova Punch does indeed have something like this but it puts out a minuscule 200 total thrust which really doesn\'t get the job done sadly. Also is the 2.5km shutoff of engines going to change potentially? It would be very useful as we wouldn\'t need to put out as much thrust as possible in a short time frame to deorbit (though I hear SRB will re-ignite if you go back too them). Novapunch has that. I in my haste to reply to Tiberion overlooked the irony of this since Tiberion does manage the novapunch pack

I thought it was pretty obvious, I have the whole launch on the channel as well, its linked as video response, I didn\'t wanna clutter the main post even more, but taking a look at the views I don\'t think your alone in not finding it.

Thank you, I\'ve had to delete my persistance file several times, and figured I should start focusing on debris-less designs. As for the parachutes you have to activate them in a stage BEFORE or DURING the decoupler that releases the parts, also if its in the same stage as the decoupler it needs to be before (lower in the list) than the decoupler in my experience. This is a bit awkward and I\'m hoping for a better way of it working. This also is a problem with decoupling stages with boosters you want to fire off (though novapunch has retro-boosters for stage separation that defy this), as you have to have in in a whole stage before, you can\'t do it in the same stage like with parachutes. You\'re free to try The problem lies it how long the rocket is and the fact that the ASAS is at the top which sways the most, this causes it to over-compensate for the tilt and causes a back and forth wobble that will blow any chance or orbit out the windows if not your kerbals Booster falling off is a weird bug I\'ve ran into as well, usually restarting the KSP.exe works out fine. To get it off the ground make sure SAS is on and throttle to full before you press space and start the launch sequence, its quite heavy, but in general if its working right should take off semi-straight for the first 1km. If you keep having problems apply some struts to the boosters, these break on stage separation and will help keep them on, and the SAS should be enough to stop spinning. If you still have problems let me know.

I very much like this pack, however I do have to wonder about the nuclear engine. In my latest ship that I detail here 'Advanced Kerbal Engineering' I make use of it and its pretty insane. If you get it to orbit it can make powered landing on both moons and back to kerbal again (even a powered landing if you play it right). While this is great I think its a little unbalanced, maybe reduce its thrust a bit more compared to its weight, fuel efficiency could stay the same since you would loss a great deal of delta-v to gravity loss.

I\'ve actually put a bit of thought about the possibility of getting into an 'Arm\'s Race' with someone over this. My next plan was to add missiles! Mostly to take out the very satellites I put into orbit but also as a potential deterrent

Thank you. I\'ve been playing for less than a month so far, just bought the game last month after playing the demo for a bit. That\'s a good possibility, I\'ll take a look at it, I assumed they would correct they\'re direction based on positioning but that might just be it. *edit* Nope, wasn\'t it, darn would have been nice, I could have fitted an ASAS and just not used it during take off and make it much more user friendly without mechjeb

Hello, this is my showing off my 'Debris-less combo launcher MK IV' the most advanced ship ever engineered by Kerbals! What can this great ship do? -Fully recoverable, every stage can be de-orbited back to Kerbal and has parachutes to soft land. -Debris-less! Never again look at your nav map and be unable to find what you wanted to put in orbit, and what you left in from launching your rockets! -Launch 2 satellites around any bodies (yes different ones even) inside The Kerbol System. -Powered landing\'s on all moon\'s in the kerbal system even while launching satellites, and traveling in fuel inefficient paths. -Emergency RCS lander with plenty of fuel and power to get off any moon or Kerbal orbit and get back home if you do run out of fuel. (Note: IF you put your self in orbit around the sun [Kerbol] this statement is voided) This great rocket does come at a cost, it requires the NovaPunch pack modded parts. Optionally Mechjeb makes life easier, but is NOT required and I have a separate craft file for those who would do without. (Does make it lighter but fuel isn\'t a real concern with this) NovaPunch pack: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4180.0 Mechjeb: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=14066.0 Craft files: Debris-Less Combo MK IV -http://www./?d4eba7c21xazcka Debris/Jeb-Less Combo MK I -http://www./?lk8af8mfe7at8c9 *Note* In all seriousness I don\'t believe this to the be greatest thing ever built by anyone, just myself *Edit* Here are the launch video\'s of it. I magically got the ability to upload longer than 15 minutes after the first one I uploaded so that\'s why the second on is so much longer