wildkittyv1

Update for tonight! Added the Narcissus I launch vehicle and shuttle. It\'s built using mods, but I\'m working on a stock version, just having difficulty since I need more rockets, and that means wider designs because of how weak the stock parts are on a size scale. With pad real estate already an issue with many designs, I\'m going to have to get creative to make this design work with stock parts. The dual-engine on the shuttle isn\'t necessary and only on this version for aesthetic purposes since I was using mods anyway. Also added the MD (Marathon Distinction) Hammerhead heavy aircraft. I wanted to build a Hammerhead design, and am working on another variation of it. I was happy with it, but wanted it to last longer in the air so I added the decouplable tanks. I haven\'t tested how far it can fly, but I want to say that it\'s at least capable of going halfway around Kerbin before running out of fuel if you\'re smart with efficiency and throttle control. Finally, added two new light aircraft, the Nubu Fighter and the Strongarm. The Nubu is obviously inspired after the Naboo fighters from Episode I of Star Wars, and the Strongarm is just a little craft I threw together since making tiny little planes is fun, they\'re fun to fly, and easy to fix any problems with. It has no landing gear if you detach them, but it\'s possible to do a controlled crash landing and survive with it. Thanks for reading! I have a few more designs to work on in the next couple of days, including a few more different launcher ideas for rockets and some more lander designs I want to try out. The hardest part with the lander designs is getting them into the air, as the connections tend to be relatively weak in them and they don\'t fit in fairings always. Working on different rocket designs to specifically fit the different landers. Also working on some plane designs that are more 'Kerbal-esque' like my Flightboy Nine. Cheers!

He meant as in an 'eastward' or prograde orbit, where you\'re traveling towards a 90 degree heading all the time in your orbit. Retrograde or 'westward' orbits have you traveling towards 270 degrees. Which type of 45 degrees do you mean? Do you mean intervals on the horizon or 45 degrees towards space/ground. After you establish an orbit for your gravity turn, you never really need to point towards anything other than N/S/E/W (0, 180, 90, 270 respectively on the gyroscope), unless you\'re trying to move or shape an orbit that\'s gone wonky for one reason or another (usually due to bad or awkward rocket design that throws you off, or a bad trans-Munar burn). You never really need to use the in-between headings unless something goes wrong or you\'re adjusting your ascent/descent to a body.

Not to sound like a dick, but what\'s original/revolutionary about this design? Looks like a pretty standard combination of parts in a pretty standard configuration to me.

That\'s not a way point; the purple dots are nearby craft and are most likely there for when you\'re doing pinpoint landings to try and build a base - it gives you something to reference and aim at.

Yeah, the Flightboy is my new favorite thing to fly. I\'m toying around with a second version with more fuel tanks so it can fly further, but I don\'t want to change the look too much. Haven\'t played with the rockets and railgun mods yet, but I might give em a try. I\'ll attach the .craft file so you can give it a spin. This guy is 100% stock. Only give it about 30% throttle on the runway the first time if you decide to give it a try (if you haven\'t rebuilt it by now, anyway) and as soon as you notice it start to liftoff, tilt the nose back down or else you\'ll quickly transfer into VTOL mode and it can be a bit difficult to recover from, but it\'s possible to recover from pretty much any type of situation with the craft once you get the hang of how it handles. Try flying it upside down or on its side! As for the design, I\'m probably going to be gearing for less-than-conventional/more Kerbalesque designs from here on out as I feel as though I\'ve expended my options when it comes to 'normal' craft on both the rocket and plane front. Toying with some lander designs based around the same concept as the Flightboy and am going to be reworking the launch vehicles for my orbiters in preparation for the Munolith race. Might give electrical energy/Z02 a try and go for an infinitely sustainable lander craft/munolith search vehicle. Edit: Oh, and I\'m also putting together a Munar landing rocket that operates solely on SRB\'s except for the landing phase, but incorporating the landing phase into the SRB design might be a challenge I\'ll tackle in the future. The miniboosters from Novapunch are amazing for this type of construction and help with small changes, along with the narrow radial decouplers that come with the pack. Thanks for reading

Aww yeah, Friday afternoon update. This afternoon we have the XJ-M3 Wind Clipper, another great flying, 99% stock aircraft to add to the XJ-M series. I went with a rear mounted cockpit this time (with one fueltank for 'realism' purposes as I don\'t think a pilot would want a jet engine pressed against their backs) and a more aerodynamic looking wing formation. I put high-atmosphere engines on it and it flies well at all altitudes up to about 12km. It flies just as well as the others in the XJ-M series and also has a possibility of being turned into an orbiter or Trans-Munar vehicle. The fun addition with this update is the Flightboy Nine - it looks wonky as all hell, but it flies incredibly well. It can fly in pretty much any direction and orientation except backwards and is surprisingly stable without needing any ASAS whatsoever. Landing is hit or miss because of how tall it is, but it is possible. The friendly competition between Jeb\'s Dream and Bob N Bill\'s Nightmare is on hold while I outfit the Nebo Orbiter I and the Silius Science Probe with some satellite mapping equipment and the Muon detector. I\'ve yet to mess with these plugins, but it will give me some direction with where to land the ships on the Mun while doing the dual-pilot race. Thanks again and feel free to request .craft files for any of the aircraft or rockets that might interest you. I can either tell you which mods each vehicle uses or put together a zip package containing the necessary parts, plugins, and the .craft files themselves.

EDIT! I removed this image because I just went in and did a launch and realized I made the image backwards. After I finish this mission I will redo the image correctly and reedit it back into this post. I apologize if anyone used it as a reference and it didn\'t work. What you want to do is launch when the tangent is 30 degrees off the parallel I showed in the image. This gives the orbiting body 60 degrees left to travel which is what you\'re aiming for. In the image, I had you burning at a point where the body would only have traveled 60 out of the 90 degrees, leaving you 30 degrees ahead of it. Sorry if I messed you up, but it does work and is reliable, I just wasn\'t thinking when I composed it. Here\'s a little image I just drew up quickly. !!NOTE!! These are not to scale, nor is the orbital path nor the 60 degree line entirely accurate; I just threw it together and eyeballed everything and you normally burn before you would pass into a new 'quadrant' on the bottom of the image - if you continue to draw the tangent line beyond the quadrant dividers, it passes into the one before the pink dot on both images and that would be the case if the orbit was wider, which it probably should be. When you draw the tangent line across Kerbin surface and through your orbital path, you are burning at the pink dot. Pick a spot where it crosses your path and draw directly towards the planet. Pick the spot it intersects with the surface and use whatever feature is on the line as a guide. I do this every time before I do a TMI and then double-check with Mun rise just before I do the burn. You can normally flip the map so it\'s horizontal instead of being top-down for the view after you\'ve done your corrections and gauge if the spot you picked is going to coincide with Mun rise. I basically do it this way just because it\'d be nice to know how to do it in case I don\'t have that luxury. I figured out that 60 degrees was the optimal distance to let the orbiting bodies travel by using some simple math. I saw how long my average craft took to get to their altitude, what their orbital velocities were, and then how far along their orbit they would\'ve traveled in the time it took an average craft to arrive. I grabbed numbers from the wiki and both planets came out to about 60 degrees. If you want to adjust your orbital horizon to reach Minmus, that\'s an entirely different matter, but also not difficult once you understand why you\'re doing what you\'re doing to correct stuff.

I used to do something similar when I first started trying for Munar encounters, but it is indeed very fuel inefficient. Mun rise is a very good point to do a burn, and you want to do it closer to Kerbin than that far away. There is also another way to measure both Munar and Minmussian trajectories I\'ll explain briefly below. As for where you want to be when you burn, it\'s a lot closer. You only need your initial AP to be around 75k (just to escape the atmosphere entirely) and you don\'t want to burn straight up the whole time. I don\'t have it perfect, but I start angling at about 10k (only maybe 5-10 degrees just to keep me pointed in the right direction), which is normally after my SRB\'s have just finished. Then after about 30k I\'ll angle at about 45 degrees and hold that until my AP gets to around 75k. About 10 seconds before I hit my AP, I\'ll angle to about 10 degrees off 90 (10 degrees off the horizon towards spaces) and burn into the AP so it\'s always ahead of me; keeping the AP a few seconds in front of you will prevent you from fighting gravity as you won\'t be losing altitude. Keeping your initial orbit lower also allows you to gravity turn more effectively. At about 75k you can easily keep any craft over 2000m/s and it costs much less fuel to accelerate into your Munar burn than if your orbit was further. You say you\'re dipping to around 50k at your PE - this is a bad idea. It\'s a bad idea because below 70k you\'re back in the atmosphere and it\'s going to slow you down and you\'re fighting gravity at some point (even if it doesn\'t de-orbit you, it is slowing you down), which is wasting fuel. It might not be the best way, but it\'s a good way to stay close to Kerbin and use its gravity as a slingshot, and staying just above 70k gives you the most use of its gravity without dipping back into the atmosphere, which is basically like diving into a body of water. As for measuring your burn, both the Mun and Minmus will travel about 60 degrees around their orbital circumference in the time it takes you to get there from a ~75k Kerbin orbit. For the Mun, it works out that that\'s pretty much exactly when it rises, but it\'s hard to use that as a gauge for Minmus because you can\'t see it. Basically, go onto the orbital map and rotate it so the target is directly to the right of Kerbin (aim top down). Eyeball out a 60 degree advance (2/3 of the way before it would be 'above' Kerbin - at the top of the map) and draw a line from that spot so it\'s tangent with Kerbin\'s surface (not tangent with your orbit!). Continue the tangent line past the planet and draw it through your orbit. Wherever that line passes your orbit, that\'s your burn mark. I can draw up an image if you want. Sorry if the last bit sounds convoluted, but it works reliably.

Added two craft, both from the same series of vehicles - the XJ-M1 Outlander and the XJ-M2 Claymore. I was looking at concept aircraft photos and came across a few that inspired me. I went with the forward swept wings for the Outlander, and after it flew so well I took it a step further with the Claymore. I wasn\'t even sure the Claymore was going to get off the ground, but I was laughing myself to bits when I realized how well it actually did handle. These things are great fun to fly and if anyone wants to give them a go then I can try to alter them so they\'re 100% stock (just need to change what the landing gear are mounted on and the truss ties) or include a small .zip with the three non-stock parts I used. I\'m going to be experimenting with these aircraft a bit more and see how they fly with some more engines/fuel, and give them a go with different types of engines as well. I only flew each one for a few minutes, so I\'m not sure of their distance capabilities, but they both glide fairly well and should be quite conservative on fuel since they\'re single engine. I imagine if I put a rocket engine or two on there I can get both to the Mun. Thanks and tomorrow night I should have some photos of Jeb\'s Dream vs. Bob N Bill\'s Nightmare - still tweaking Jeb\'s a tiny bit before doing the competition.

Firstly, don\'t come in for a landing at a harsh angle. Make sure your orbit passes over the spot that you want to land (roughly), and just before you reach that point in your orbit you fire a retrograde burn. If you don\'t know how to change your orbital path, you need to learn how to do that before you can begin to choose a landing spot. Shrink your orbit until your 'descent' line is touching on the area you want to descend. Your orbital line should be a very narrow looking oval shape - much longer than wide - with the ends nearly touching. Use small thrusts to change the landing zone. Come down as straight as possible. Make small adjustments as you get lower as others have said.

I guess I\'ll go with the fuel lines for now then until I get another response as to whether or not I mussed it up or if there\'s a fix. As for the landing, I\'m surprised I hadn\'t thought of lowering my periapsis so that my landing distance is shorter from the 'null point' where you cancel out orbital velocity. I guess there\'s a part of me that feels odd about coming to a halt from a single km up, it just feels wrong and that I should be a bit higher. I\'ll probably still do it from like 4k or so to give myself some time to adjust my landing site, but that makes sense and will still save me a ton more fuel since I used to descend from about 20k.

If you\'re knowledgeable on the Thor lander parts from Novapunch and/or knowledgeable on the Kosmos pack, please read the second question! Would appreciate help with this! Alright, I\'m fairly decent at designing and piloting my ships and have gotten to the point where I\'m fairly efficient at everything I do from a piloting standpoint, but I am still unsure as to which is the best way to descend from orbit to planets in regards to fuel consumption. Is it better to do a slow, controlled descent from a higher altitude and not do a heavy burn until you\'re close to surface, or is it better to wait until you\'re closer to the surface and traveling at a higher rate, then do a shorter, harder burn and disregard the controlled descent from higher up? Some mix of the two? I\'m trying to put together some lander vehicles with decent amounts of fuel in reserve so I can do a bit of exploring on a scale larger than feasible with EVA (besides, still playing on .15.2 a bit until more of my mods are updated to fit right since there\'s not a -whole- lot to do with EVAs atm). As for my second question, I first include a picture: Alright, there\'s really three parts at work here. The radial fuel tanks and their mounts are from the Kosmos pack. The mount is called the 'Powerpack' or something, and it is fuel crossfeed capable. The body is the TKS lander body also from the Kosmos pack and it is also capable of fuel feeding. Below those are the Thor landing tank and engine from the Novapunch pack; I like to do a mishmash with parts and see what I can come up with. Shuriken originally looked more like the object its named after, but I had to remove some fuel tanks so it would fit inside the fairing, but I digress. So yeah, I was doing a bit of Munar north pole exploring and touched down nicely, having yet to dip into the radially attached tanks. I decided to relaunch and head towards this suspicious crater, when I suddenly ran out of fuel and came crashing to the Munar surface. I was not happy. Staging is correct, and all of the parts involved are supposed to be fuel crossfeed ready. Is there something I\'m missing with the setup here? I could easily rectify this with fuel lines, but I want to keep the landing craft as light as possible regardless of how insignificant fuel lines are. This is supposed to work with the parts involved. Is there something about the Thor main fuel tank I\'m missing? The one in question is for the ascent engine. I really like this design and want to make it work without adding fuel lines, as both the ship and lander are fuel efficient and the lander is quite agile. Any ideas?

Bill makes the first jump towards the EVA Jebediah, the pilot, ventures over from the Pilgrim V to the Mayflower to complete the crew transfer. (Yes it took 5 different designs to get the damn crew up there. :/ ) Finally, A Successful Landing, A little left of where I wanted it, but a landing nonetheless. Awesome post! How far away were the two ships and at what altitude is the orbit? I\'ll try out the persistence tomorrow or something and give it a go myself. I ask because I did my first rendezvous in .15.2 (I mostly play it while I wait for mod packs to update to .16) and matched orbits. I got to 40m before pulling away and returning the rendezvous craft to Kerbin. I could\'ve gotten closer, but there wasn\'t really much more to prove as I could\'ve done an crew exchange at that distance anyway, I imagine.

Big update tonight - Bob N Bill\'s Nightmare vs. Jeb\'s Dream - check out the photos and story in the first post! Feel free to give some ideas or let me know some (very) general whereabouts of Mun Arches and/or Munoliths to have them race towards. Spent the last few hours getting some craft into the air to snap some screenshots and make them a bit more airworthy. This was mainly an avionics update and you can see the new craft in the second post. There\'s a few heavy aircraft and a few experimental ones. My favorite in this batch of vehicles is probably The Soarer, the experimental single stage to Mun from the runway craft I\'ve put a little bit of time to. It can get to orbit quite easily with approximately 3 fuel tanks left to burn. I think if I throw another set of the mini-boosters on to activate once I get my TMI trajectory, I should be golden and also have return possibilities. I will be putting a small RCS system on to make non-atmsopheric maneuvering easier. Anyone with any tips on the Dragonfly XL craft, I\'d appreciate it as I really want to make that thing fly. If you want to give it a go, let me know and I\'ll upload the .craft and tell you the mods I\'m using. The only things non-stock on it I believe are the nosecones and the tail cone. As always, thanks for reading.

Cool stuff, creative use of the wing connector parts to make the research station - gave me an idea for something to play around with using the damned aerospace joints and making a flower petal type design for a rover lander.

How fitting. I just picked the name out of the blue, but I guess it\'s apt because I really love the Nova Punch pack, and I\'m assuming 'Wobbly Rockets' was an addition before it combined with Nova\'s pack. Regardless, I didn\'t intentionally steal the name , it\'s just a happy coincidence. Thanks

Great update this afternoon! Look through the last spoiler for photos about Wobbly Rocket\'s rendezvous mission between the Etola V R-R ship and the KLOSS IV space station for a crew exchange. Since this was in .15.2, I did not do a real EVA crew exchange, but I most likely could\'ve as I held a consistent 40m distance between the craft with matched speeds for a good while before returning the Etola V to Kerbin. This was really fun and a difficult maneuver to perform. I would\'ve gotten closer, but I didn\'t want to risk something going wrong. I do have a quicksave at 50m from the KLOSS, so I might try to get within 10m and take a few screenshots. Will update again with some shots of 'Jeb\'s Dream' mission, a rocket made up mostly of Probobodyne struts and liquid fuel engines. Going to be working on a ship that can safely land on the Munar surface using nothing but SRB\'s for everything except landing and return - should be fun! Will also be uploading some experimental and different planes for the avionics section to contrast with my rather boring designs uploaded at the time. Thanks for reading!

Sorry, I\'m kind of new around here (only been playing for about 2 and a half weeks), what\'s Wobbly Rockets a reference to? Anyway, updated one last time for the night. Added photos of the J.A.N.U.S. mission and an image of WRI\'s KLOSS IV, which needs to have a crew exchange done. This will be WRI\'s first attempt at an orbital rendezvous maneuver and we are very excited. Photos of the delivery and return vessels will be available after they clear inspection. Thanks again for reading Edit: Sorry for updating/bumping my own thread so much in one day. It shouldn\'t be as much in the future, I just wanted to get a few things up today, but I have a bunch more aircraft to display. Waiting expectantly for some .16 mod updates so I can rebuild/relaunch my space stations/orbiters and do some real EVA/transfer missions.

Edited both posts - added a launchpad picture of J.A.N.U.S. to the aerospace post, and posted some planes to the second post, our avionics section. I will be posting images of my satellites and orbiters and their delivery systems later on tonight, some of those are fairly impressive in scale and the KLOSS (Kerbin Low-Orbit Space Station) can be compared in size to the Methodios Base, albeit with a differently designed rocket. Thanks for reading

I will when there\'s adequate parts. Someone released some parts or a .cfg edit that upscaled some of the stock .16 stuff, so we\'re headed in the right direction already, but most of these craft can\'t be built with stock stuff. I have two installs of KSP right now, one for .15.2 so I can still build and fly rockets without stock parts, and a .16 install so I can play around with the new stuff. Outside of EVAs (which aren\'t really a huge deal to me atm since there\'s nothing you can really do), there\'s not much of interest in .16, so I\'ll mostly be playing on .15.2 until the mod packs are updated or there is more of a reason to switch over.

Wobbly Rockets Inc. Avionics Division Latest News New Aircraft under Light - Nubu Fighter and The Strongarm New Aircraft under Other - Uwizz-R, MD Flying Squirrel MK II New Aircraft under Heavy - MD Hammerhead New category - The XJ-M series of extremely capable and fun to fly aircraft, ORDER NOW! XJ Series Craft - Great Flying 99% Stock craft XJ-M1 Outlander - XJ-M2 Claymore - XJ-M3 Wind Clipper The XJ-M (Xperimental Jet - Model#) series craft were designed after the experimental model Elegance 2S. We considered lumping these guys together in with either the heavy or experimental craft, but for as bulky as they look they don\'t fly like heavy craft and they are leaps ahead in terms of development than our other experimental craft. These puppies fly like a dream, and with only one engine they\'re quite fuel efficient. ((The only non-stock parts on both craft are the structural parts I used to attach the gear as they\'re pretty much perfect height for most of my craft, and the struts to tie it together since I use the Kosmos one because it shows up in the list first. I can either make the planes stock compatible if people want the files (and they\'re REALLY fun to fly!) or include the three parts in a small zip file.)) XJ-M1 Outlander Inspired by the Elegance 2S, our engineers began working on an aircraft with forward swept wings. We didn\'t have anymore on hand, so they tacked together a bunch of leftover parts and came up with this sucker. Honestly, they were happy the thing even got off the ground, but when it did it did! The hardest part of your flight plan is going to be taxiing it down the runway during takeoff. [img width=800 height=600]http://i.imgur.com/dWjYY.png/img] XJ-M2 Claymore This magnificent air vehicle makes the Outlander feel like it handles like a Buick - yeah, really. You can see in one of the images below that it\'s in near vertical ascent well before the runway taxiing road from the hanger. It gets off the ground quick and it\'s damn near impossible to lose control of. It\'s got all kinds of computers and gizmos on board, but none of our pilots have ever really needed them. Our guys in R&D are tinkering on a version with more engines and more fuel for a potential Munar visit, or Kerbin circumnavigation. Just put in an order already! XJ-M3 Wind Clipper Our engineers kept moving forward with the strapped together wing idea and have come to find it\'s pretty damn effective at making almost anything they throw together flyable. With this little venture they moved the cockpit to the rear of the craft and threw a few high-atmosphere engines under the main fuselage. It flies just as good as the other aircraft in the XJ-M series, but with the added benefit of being able to switch between high and low altitude. It can fly with just the single, center-mounted low-altitude engine at its rear, but it has a tendency to dip and is better suited for flight around 11km. As with all of the aircraft in the XJ-M series, WRI is doing some toying around with the possibility of turning this into an orbiter or trans-Munar craft. **New** Light Aircraft **New** Nubu Fighter - **New** The Strongarm - K-51 - The Palmer 13 **New** Nubu Fighter Yeah, we weren\'t inspired by anything at all for this. Handles very well, as all light craft should. Not much more to say about this other than that it\'s great at aerobatics and the triple engine design with little additional weight means it goes pretty fast. **New** The Strongarm Inspired by the triple fuselage style of the Nubu Fighter, our engineers decided to throw some extra yaw control on this guy instead of the additional engine power. It\'s arguable to say that it has a bit less power, but more control than the Nubu. The one thing you\'ll notice is that the landing gear is detachable after liftoff on this craft. We didn\'t really think about a way to get the pilots safely to the ground, so either a controlled landing is in order, or we might through a decoupler and \'chute on there at some point. ((Possible to do a controlled landing and not die.)) K-51 The K-51 was modeled after an aircraft called the P-51, apparently it was in some wars or something in some far off, distant galaxy, or perhaps an alternate universe, with physics laws somewhat similar to our own. We don\'t know where the reference material came from, but we tore it apart and put it back together and came up with this little number. It flies alright by WRI standards, so we\'re comfortable showing it off to the public. Here\'s a nice shot of the K-51 after stalling in the middle of a barrel roll during an airshow at the KSC. The Palmer 13 The Palmer 13 was named after the father of pilot/engineer Mitsy Kerman, a medal recipient pilot in Kerbin War I. Though that event is long in the planet\'s past , its heroes are still remembered to this day. The Palmer 13 is a fine achievement in the avionics field, and it is easily the most stable aircraft in the WRI repository. Mitsy Kerman was kind enough to give an interview during his father\'s commemoration ceremony, and is on record stating, 'This is the best plane I\'ve ever flown.' **New** Heavy Aircraft **New** MD Hammerhead - Elegance 2S - Little Swifty **New** MD Hammerhead The Marathon Distinction Hammerhead is a long-range aircraft designed with fuel tanks meant to be dumped after their depletion. The power to the engines comes from these tanks first, so fuel is not wasted. The decouplers work in two stages, as the front tanks are eaten up faster. This vehicle is multi-capable if the engines are mixed and matched. It\'s entire distance capability is undetermined at this point, as none of WRI\'s pilots can be bothered to fly for that long. Here\'s the Hammerhead after jettisoning its final tanks and switching over to its fuselage and main engine fuel. Elegance 2S From below, the Elegance 2S reminds me a bit of a fabled superhero cruising through the skies with his cape flapping behind him. From inside the cockpit, the Elegance 2S reminds me of a confusing mess of switches and monitors that even our best Kerbal pilots have trouble keeping track of. It flies fairly far and smoothly, but our engineers are working on a 3S model with some rocket engines tacked on to get it even further, or possibly turn it into a orbit or capable of reaching the Mun. [img width=800 height=600]http://i.imgur.com/LmjrX.png[/img Little Swifty At first glance, there\'s nothing little about Swifty, so you might be wondering where the monicker originates. We thought it was a joke, but apparently this retro-inspired craft is lovingly named after a similar, yet more compact version of the same craft. Snap off the layered wings and the bits on the end and you\'ll have a good idea of what we\'re talking about. Here she is from the rear, and what a beautiful rear that is. Little Swifty, for such a weighty looking plane, flies surprisingly smooth and little, if any computer aide is needed during piloting. **New* Other Aircraft (VTOL, Gliders, Experimental, Etc.) **New** Uwizz-R - **New** MD Flying Squirrel MKII - Flightboy Nine (Fun!) - Dragonfly XL (WIP) - The Soarer (Trans-Munar, WIP) **New** MD Flying Squirrel MK II The Flying Squirrel was manufacted as a bit of a challenge. Normally at Wobbly Rockets Inc., we\'re more concerned with how many engines we can strap onto a thing, but this was an interesting direction to head in and we may explore it further. Our goal was to see how far we could get a powerless vehicle after launching it at height from a booster system. Here\'s what the guys living out back came up with: The Squirrel, after the jettison of its boosters. An image from our flight computers - Here, the Squirrel is still traveling at over 250m/s and is only dropping altitude at appx. 1.5m/s. The glider was ejected around 10km up, but rapidly lost height and our engineers questioned their design. However, at around 5km, descent had declined to 10m/s loss in altitude, and at around 3km had nearly diminished to just 1.5m/s loss in height. The pilot ejected shortly after this image was taken, as he had to bring his daughter to ballet rehersal. ((All stock except for the bit connecting the rockets to the wings. Used Kosmos connecting jigs as they\'re easier to use and more aesthetically pleasing. Radial decouplers should work just the same if pure stock was desired.)) **New** Uwizz-R The Uwizz-R is 'not quite a VTOL', to quote our engineers. They were originally going for a pure VTOL design, but their 'form over function' motif that haunts our hallways made it all but impossible to balance the thing with this type of wing layout and it needed a bit of forward thrust from the launch. Thankfully, the engine at the rear of the craft allows for high speeds once stability and height is achieved. Here\'s a screencap from our computers. You can see the horizontal velocity of the craft here peaking at around 650m/s. This is after some time in flight, achieving horizontal stability, going full throttle on the rear-mounted engine and tilting the rotary fans forward to aide in acceleration and speed. On a side note, the Uwizz-R had not even gotten through 1/5 of its fuel by this point and is in line to join our MD class of aircraft. The fans are from a nearby company, Damned Aerospace, and the rotary joints to which their mounted are from their sister company, Damned Robotics. We at WRI strongly suggest working with them if your engineers are interested in something besides your run-of-the-mill propellant systems. Takeoff is a bit sketchy, but the maneuverability **New** Flightboy Nine - Stock Download: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16740.0;attach=28132 Ever fly a kite? Strap some jet engines and ailerons it and you\'ll have an idea of how the Flightboy Nine handles. We\'re not sure where the blueprints for this thing came from, but we imagine it had something to do with Jeb\'s trip to the 'Mun-Shine' since they showed up on our desk the same night he took off on his impromptu adventure to the Mun. Here is the Flightboy Nine doing its best impression of a VTOL. ((This thing actually flies pretty dang well for how awkward it looks. You can fly it rightside up, upside down, sideways, vertically... it\'s pretty damn cool!)) Dragonfly XL - WIP It looks like a dragonfly. It gets off the ground That\'s about all it does. Well, it also crashes. It doesn\'t turn, though. The tomb of the unfortunate pilot is down the road. ((Working on balance and stability - this thing is nice to look at and I really want to make it work, but it just flips around like mad after takeoff. ASAS will stabilize it, but it\'s impossible to turn or pitch more than 10 degrees without going into an alligator death-roll.)) The Soarer - Single Stage to Mun - WIP Taking a few tidbits of information from they learned with the B.O.B., our engineers put this mother together. Well, they also stole some rockets ideas from the aerospace department and scraped together some refurbished tanks and engines to stick together. They literally stacked wings on top of each other and threw a Kerman brother into the cockpit and waited to see the outcome. They were pleased; this sucker reaches orbit and is likely capable of getting to the Mun. You remember what happened to Icarus, right? ((Took it for another spin and got to the Mun. First time trying a horizontal landing and it failed miserably - at least it gets there, right? Tweaking it a bit to try and land/return - was low on fuel before landing attempt.)) The avionics team is putting together mission plans for the B.O.B., Soarer, and Elegance 2S after a few more tests and tweaks. Updates will be put in the aerospace news feed above to keep everything together. If it gets too crowded up there, avionics and aerospace missions may be separated.

Wobbly Rockets Inc. (I play mostly on a non-gaming laptop - pardon resolution/quality) (Uploads will be from .15.2 until mod packs are updated for .16) (.craft files can be uploaded on request, but realize I make somewhat unwieldy rockets on purpose as they are already too easy to control) Here at Wobbly Rockets Inc., we\'ve put together a series of craft using stolen legally licensed parts from neighboring supply companies and have been forced requested by the Kerbin Government to release the designs of our craft. WRI prides itself on putting together the most unwieldy stable avionic and aeronautic craft on the face of our globe using an amalgamation of parts strapped together using only the finest velcro. Latest News Added a 'Missionless' sub-header for rockets without destinations - feel free to suggest ideas. Narcissus Shuttle and Launcher! Shuttle capable of reaching orbit using zero fuel! Please check our Avionics division in the news feed below for information regarding the Uwizz-R and some other new aircraft including a Glider. Jeb\'s Dream vs. Bob n Bill\'s Nightmare - On Hold! The friendly competition between the Dream and the Nightmare is temporarily on hold. Our spaceflight engineers are working on relaunching the Nebo Orbiter and the Silius Science Probe and equipping them with some new satellite technology. We will initially be scouting the Munar surface for the legendary Munoliths so our pilots have some idea of where to land. A few night ago, after the success of the Etola V R-R mission, Jeb strolled back from the local dive bar, 'The Mun-Shine', with a wicked idea in his mind. He raided a local rail yard and strapped together a mishmash of old trusses and girders onto some refurbished rockets and barrels filled with rocket fuel. He took off in the middle of the night and just returned back to Kerbin turf safely. In an interview with his brothers, Bob and Bill, they stated how outraged they were that he simply took off without them for a haphazard joyride. They decided to throw together their own design and have an equally unstable craft. There will soon be a friendly competition between the brothers to see which team can put together the most unlikely, yet successful craft and mission. Here are some preview snapshots of the craft from their respective launchpads. The tall and spindly mess is known as 'Bob N Bill\'s Nightmare' - yes, those are 1m tanks supporting the whole thing with little more than some support trusses anchoring each end. Thankfully the stage is supposed to burn out quite quickly, as they have seven engines strapped to the bottom of the thing all firing at once. This amalgamation of parts is 'Jeb\'s Dream' - It packs significantly more staying power through the stages than the Nightmare does, but the wonky angles everything is strapped together at tosses in a bit of exciting instability. Jeb is currently thinking of modifying the design and unwillingly throw some SAS modules on there. An undisclosed source tells us that Jeb\'s stated that this is purely a PR move and that the SAS modules will not actually be functional, but instead made of tin and painted over. Who will win in this exciting competition? What tricks does each team have tucked away up their sleeves and what missions do they have in store? Word has it they might be racing to find the mysterious Mun Arches, or possibly make a run at the fabled Munoliths. ((Both craft are capable of reaching the Mun, I am just trying to figure out where I want to aim each rocket and if there\'s some changes I can make to either in order to give me some time to maneuver around a bit on the Mun and look for the artifacts. I only know an approximate location of one Mun Arch, and am trying to find information that doesn\'t contain -too- many spoilers regarding the whereabouts of other arches or the munoliths. I plan on piloting both crafts at once, launching one after I have reached orbit with the first and controlling them both at once, albeit intermittently.)) **New**Missionless Craft Narcissus I - Shuriken MEV Narcissus I Shuttle and Launcher The Narcissus I was an endeavor to get a shuttle up to orbital height without using any of its own fuel. The WRI launchpad isn\'t exactly the biggest, and our old shuttle designs tended to tip over before we even got the liftoff sequence finished, so our boys in the lab had to throw some pasta against the wall and see what stuck. They came up with this ingenious solution. The mirrored rockets and bracing struts allow for a vertical takeoff, and the booster system provides enough power to get the shuttle up into orbit without using any of its own fuel. The shuttle has plenty of fuel for all kinds of voyages. ((Originally was trying to do this stock, but the rockets were too big for the pad - going to try again with a different configuration. Shuttle is all stock except for dual engine mod, which I added when I started using mod rockets.) Shuriken MEV The Shuriken MEV is a pretty simple rocket design, with the Shuriken MEV itself encased within a fairing system at the top of one of our basic, less-imaginative rocket designs. The cage at the bottom of the MEV houses a descent engine separate from the ascent engine, which is fueled by the radially attached tanks to provide extra fuel. With the descent engine, the MEV can land without using any of its exploration and return fuel, and as such has plenty of go-juice to scoot around whichever moon\'s surface it so happens to be on, and safely return to WRI. Series One - Methodios Munar Base - Success! Methodios Base Alpha - Gecko Precision Lander - Hermes MCTV Rover - **NEW** Nebo Orbiter I Methodios Base Alpha Here we have Methodios Base Alpha (our first Munar habitation capsule) performing its landing procedure near the equator of the Mun. Our scientists and engineers had quite the problem to work out while trying to figure out how to land about 10 tons of dead weight onto the Munar surface. The hulking monolith of a delivery vessel was, admittedly, too powerful for even our most powerful stabilization computers and modules to control, so this little bad boy had to be piloted by hand. It\'s current location is undisclosed just inside the western ridge of the Mun crater on its equator with the northward running scar. It touched down a little over a week ago and now houses three adventurous and brave Kerbalnauts. However, they needed supplies. The Gecko This is the Gecko Precision Lander and Crew Delivery Capsule. Shying away from the idea of 'bigger is better' that our engineers went with for the Methodios 'elevation system', they decided to pack as much power into as little vertical space as possible with the Gecko. This craft\'s purpose was to deliver three more Kerbalnauts to the Methodios Base and test our new aerospace computers with precision landing for future Munar reconnaissance missions for the tracking down of the fabled Munoliths. The Gecko originally touched down approximately 500m away from the Methodios landing site, but it\'s hexagonal design with multiple attitude and altitude controlling devices allowed our Kerbin pilot to 'hop' the craft closer. Some tweaks have been made to our landing computers and the next craft delivered to Methodios base was much more accurate. Hermes MCTV This little vehicle is the Hermes Munar Cargo Transport Vehicle. In the images, you can see that it was delivered remotely in an unmanned craft (sans RCS - we at WRI have some strong opinions about using less weight and more power whenever possible), touched down approximately 500m (planned, to be sure my laptop could handle all the vehicles in one spot without exploding) away from the Methodios Base, and safely performed its Munar surface rendezvous. It was carrying with it some science equipment, spare remote controls for the rover, fuel, and additional housing materials such as food and toiletries for our beloved Kerbin heroes. The Hermes rover will function as a crew and cargo transport system, as well as a reconnaissance vehicle for Munolith searching when more Methodios (or other chosen names) bases are set up around the Munar surface. Nebo Orbiter I This little guy is the Nebo Orbiter I. After sending up the KLOSS IV into kerbosynchronous orbit, we launched this sucker. This is a long-term habitation module and is thus equipped with a centrifuge near the living quarters to help our kerbalnauts keep their fragile little minds in order. Unfortunately, we sent the thing into a retro orbit and that messed with our computers a bit and the centrifuge is making our kerbalnauts vomit isn\'t fully operational. We\'re sending up a rendezvous vehicle with a payload of fuel so those guys can sort this all out. Series Two - J.A.N.U.S. Habitation Module to Minmus - Success! J.A.N.U.S. Habitation Module - Silius Science Probe MM J.A.N.U.S. Mission Here we have J.A.N.U.S. - Journeyer for Advancing Noesis on Unexplored Satellites This craft was bound for one of the plateaus on Minmus to set up a brief habitation capsule for the brave Kerbalnauts manning the flight. Here are some images depicting how the mission went. Here, we have JANUS just after liftoff firing its initial stage, four 1 meter SRBs. The vessel using the last bit of the fuel left in its 3rd stage, the last before firing its final descent engines up. This stage was designed to carry a bit of extra fuel for orbital correction and slowing for as close to vertical descent as possible. The large fuel tanks have been jettisoned at this point, and the JANUS pilot is using a small amount of RCS on the lander to pull away from the new space garbage. The fuel tanks were eaten up by Minmus\' gravity and exploded quite nicely a few km from the projected landing site. JANUS is equipped with very little landing and RCS fuel - this was an all or nothing mission. A successful landing! The crew of the JANUS had to change their landing zone as it wasn\'t as smooth as previously thought. Currently they are sitting on the side of a slope off the edge of a plateau they originally aimed for. There are various mountain ranges and various small, frozen methane lakes nearby they will be exploring when their cargo arrives with additional supplies and a rover in a week or so. Pictures of the delivery craft will be available after the craft has passed inspection. K.S.H.A. (Kerbin Safety and Health Administration) had suggested that we send the rover first, but they\'re not the Kerbalnauts now, are they? Silius Science Probe MM This photo was taken by the J.A.N.U.S. team during their descent to Minmus. The image was relayed to the satellite and then relayed back to KSC through KLOSS IV. You can see the probe\'s camera aimed towards the surface of our second moon, scouting possible landing locations for the Minmussian team. Series Three - Rendezvous with KLOSS IV - Success! KLOSS IV - Etola V R-R Here is a photo of our KLOSS IV (Kerbin Low-Orbit Space Station). We sent up the Etola V R-R (Rendezvous and Return) vessel to dock at the space station, perform a crew and supplies transfer as the boys had been up there for about five Kerbin weeks, and return back to KSC in one piece. This was WRI\'s first attempt at an orbital rendezvous and we are proud to say that this mission was a success. Photo documentation of the mission is below. (On a side note, had this been in .16 I probably could\'ve done a real EVA exchange - I managed to match speeds and held a 40m distance for a bit before returning to Kerbin) Etola V R-R Rendezvous Mission The Etola V delivery vehicle just after launch. The Etola V dumping its second stage and performing an gravity turn to prepare entry into Kerbin orbit. Two images from our computers - the first is the initial orbital path the Etola V took, and the second is the altered version. When the Etola V crossed KLOSS IV\'s orbital path, it maneuvered once again to close distance. The Etola V and KLOSS IV 50m from each other in Kerbo-snychronous orbit. Just a nice photo of the Etola V and KLOSS IV preparing to sync up. Thanks for reading and watch for updates on future missions to the Mun, Minmus, and photos from our avionics team of their unique planes, both Kerbin-bound and inter-Munar equipped. We are also going to attempt to delivery large and heavy payloads via rocket to different points around Kerbin to setup satellite and communication systems. Information about attachments Methodios Base Alpha was attached to this post at the request of another user who wanted to fly it. It pretty much uses parts entirely from Novapunch and Kosmos packs, but may require either Powertech, Mechjeb, and/or Damned Robotics/Damned Aerospace. If you download the base and are having difficulty piloting it or want to know which parts you may be missing, feel free to contact me and I\'ll help as much as possible. Also feel free to request the files for any other vehicles of mine, but know that they are all built in .15.2 still. The only bit of piloting information I\'ll put in the post is that during descent, you will want to turn off the Kosmos prograde engines and use only the descent engine attached to the base itself. The stage before that is meant for the initial deceleration/munar orbital correction. The RCS and prograde engines are not entirely balanced on the craft, and are best for the last few seconds before touchdown as they may cause unwanted rotation. The vehicle should also reach Minmus with no problems.

You... what have you done?

Hey, I\'m not sure if you have this project on hold since .16 is new, but I was wondering if I could be placed in line to land a craft at one of the bases. I\'m not particularly attached to any of them, as long as it\'s Munar (though I\'m about 99% sure my chosen craft can reach Minmus): whichever base you feel it would fit in is fine for me. Anyway, I know I\'m new to the forums and don\'t have many posts, but here\'s an image of the craft post-landing near my first Munar base. There\'s still plenty of fuel left in the main tanks (the RCS is mostly for maneuvering during orbit/trajectory corrections - it doesn\'t help much as the craft is somewhat heavy), and I managed to get within 100m of the Methodios Base. Here is the Gecko Precision Lander and Personnel Delivery Vehicle The forums are a bit wonky atm with the .16 business, so I\'m just kind of throwing this up there while they\'re loading for me. I\'m not sure if I\'m going to have to wait for the mod authors to update the packs for them to all work with .16 or not so this thing can land there. As far as mods are concerned, I won\'t have to add anything except maybe a parts pack; I\'ll have to look and see what has been added and compare it to what I have on this puppy. The forums are just really slow so it\'s hard for me to look. Thanks in advance, and I hope I get to take part.

Yeah, I did some poking around in the craft files last night after making that post and found what they call for when figuring out which parts to use. I guess my question now would be if they are organized by the part name (the one you would have to edit that would break them) or are they organized by the folder names? If it\'s just the folder names then it\'s a pretty easy task of organizing, but if they\'re organized by part name then I\'m wondering if I can rename the part names in the craft files to match what I change them to to avoid breakage (this would be more tedious and require double/triple checking to ensure some of my more complex ships don\'t break). I do realize that each part also lists the parts it\'s connected to, so I would be responsible for changing more than just a few instances of the part name on each craft. For now, I suppose I could just do with renaming the part descriptions, as it\'s mostly some adapters and parts that don\'t exactly spell out their size in their name/description. But yeah, I need to find out if its the folder order or the part name which decides their listing in the parts list. And thanks for your help here and in my Mun base thread. I\'m going to be fiddling with that today and try to stabilize my Munar base. Most of this is probably thinking outloud, as I could just really test it with some parts I\'ve never used and see what happens. I\'ll probably have my own answer before you respond, but any additional knowledge is always appreciated. Thanks again Edit: Seems I answered my own question with a bit of fiddling. It looks like renaming the folders will change their positions in the parts lists, so that pretty much nullifies all the questions I asked above. Now, I just have to take on the task of organizing a good 400 parts with new folder names while making sure I know which packs they\'re from and keeping them grouped - shouldn\'t be -too- hard.