MeticulousMitch

Hey everyone, I think I should put these back up again since there has been a lot of interest. These are my vehicles, and the original thread was lost in April. Delorean DMC 12 Download DeLorean DMC 12 WV Kombi bus Download VW Kombi bus Mini Cooper Download Mini Cooper Formula One Download Formula One Reliant Robin Download Reliant Robin Porsche 944 Download Porsche 944 Land Rover Defender Download Land Rover Defender These have all been upgraded to 0.21 and now come with proper seats and kerbals for passengers. The images are from 0.19, and don't reflect the latest changes. Have fun!

Download Engine Module The Dockable Engine Module is a really easy way to create impressive motherships - all you need to do is launch a lightweight craft with a few Jumbo docking ports, and then start attaching Engine Modules. Docking 5 of these modules to a 30-ton craft (pictured above) will give you a delta-V of almost 8,000m/s, which equates to a return voyage to anywhere. The Dockable Engine Module features: - Balanced RCS for docking - Minimal part count (4 parts per engine module) - Compact launch vehicle - Parachutes and landing gear for re-use The main difference between this and previous designs is the removal of RCS systems from the engine modules, in order to achieve a minimal part count and weight once attached to the mothership. The slim profile of the carrier vessel allows engine modules to be attached right next to each other without collisions during docking. Enjoy, and be sure to post feedback and suggestions!

In their space suits they weight 90kg, not 25. Try clicking the 'i' information button in map view while on an EVA.

After getting the hang of it, docking is not difficult. It is still time-consuming, however. If you're launching station parts one at a time and docking them together, it can easily take 15 minutes of real time to get each component up there and attached.

It's a demonstration of the fact that currently, the specular highlights in the ocean shader make no sense whatsoever.

I've done the round trip twice without any issues. The screenshot in the first post shows the craft landed with enough fuel to return to Kerbin. If you're still having trouble, you could perhaps jettison the jet engines after you land on the Mun, but then it's not really a single stage craft anymore. My only suggestion is to practice on a more conventional spaceplane, although this is about as easy to fly as SSTO's get. Hit space to fire the LV-N at 1500m/s (surface), and gradually throttle back as your engines start flaming out.

Really? I've never noticed a big performance difference between the circular intakes and the ram intakes. The main reason I use circular intakes is that they take up less space - try fitting 24 ram intakes on this ship and you'll see what I mean. Part clipping wasn't enabled, although the editor is fairly lenient about intersections with the small cube trusses.

Ohh ooh! I can play this game! Here's a picture of my 800-part Star Destroyer in orbit around Kerbin: It even has a functional cloaking device!

Of course. I'd be happy to see this engine arrangement on other SSTO's! Like all jet-powered SSTO's, you need to use less throttle in the upper atmosphere to keep the engines running. Another trick is to fire the nuclear engine when you reach 1500m/s surface speed - this will 'supercharge' the jet engines by forcing them to travel faster than they can propel the craft. You should be able to get at least partial thrust from the jet engines up to at least 36,000m. At this point, shut them off and fire into orbit on the nuke engine only. Even though this craft doesn't have wings, you still need to fly a shallow profile above 20,000m in order to pick up lots of speed. You can't just go straight up into space.

Well I'm back here again after the April forum crash, and I'd like to present something I've been working on for the last few weeks: StaboJet - A revolutionary concept in SSTO Design Stability demonstration - simulated engine flameout: Because the thrust vector of each engine passes through the centre of mass, the craft will not spin or tumble when engines flame out at high altitude. This makes reaching orbit very easy, and allows heavier payloads. Download StaboJet Classic Download StaboJet Munar Download StaboJet Shuttle Download StaboJet Supply All craft can reach Minmus and return with fuel to spare. The Munar and Supply variants can also land on and return from the Mun, or reach the outer planets and moons. Enjoy! I'll be checking this page on a regular basis, so if you've got requests for additional variants or configurations (2 engine, 4 engine, etc), be sure to post a reply!

I like to make ships that have a lot of docking ports towards the rear, and then dock clusters of engines and fuel tanks to the mothership.

Congratulations to new challenge leader Max Schram! Very efficient rocket by the looks of things, and I especially like the detachable fuel tanks. Won't be long now before I'm booted off the leaderboard... Fried, I'm having trouble reading the speed on your picture. It looks like 73,101.x m/s, but I can't read the number after the decimal point. Can you confirm for me what the full number is? Also, mechjeb aside, I assume this is using modded parts judging by that odd-looking capsule. Again, hard to tell from the low-quality screenshot. @Zarakon: You should try this challenge in 0.17 - sundiving is a lot of fun with the new sun model.

Sorry SunJumper, but I'm going to limit this challenge to 0.17, or whichever patch is current in the future. Note that the mods leaderboard is not about 'cheating', or exploiting bugs in the game. It's more of an 'unlimited' category, where you can enter ships which have infeasibly high delta V. It also gives the stock entries something to aim for!

Leaderboard updated. Nice rocket andydouble07 - I assume it's stock (apart from the mechjeb)? Anyway, you've beaten me. 1of6Billion - That's more like it! Maybe we can get under a millennium with a few more tweaks!

Wow, that thing is just obscene. I was about to try getting one of my larger ships into Minmus orbit when I noticed you'd already made the first entry. Mine would have been barely 100 tons. By the way, how do you get that info in your screen displaying the mass of the craft? Is it part of a mod? I had just been adding up the part masses in the VAB and subtracting whatever fuel I'd burned, but that looks way easier. Great job getting that much mass into Minmus orbit... I don't think I'm quite in that league

A couple days ago I tried to construct a ring of debris around Kerbin, in order to see what would happen when I went into a 270 degree orbit. I made a spacecraft specially designed to release small decouplers as space junk. Unfortunately, all this debris brought the framerate down to a slideshow, so I had to delete the persistence file and start over.

I can't speak for everyone, but there are a few issues that turn me off: 1.) The lander can't reach space, let alone Kerbin orbit, without modification. 2.) The staging doesn't seem to make much sense if you're launching from the pad - ie the parachutes deploy before the launch clamps release. 3.) Your first post implies (perhaps unintentionally) that this craft is a 'Single Stage to Orbit' vehicle, when it's clearly not. 4.) The design has numerous inefficiencies, like excessive landing gear, redundant upside-down nose-cones and unnecessary weight in RCS tanks. 5.) Personally I prefer challenges that require me to build my own craft to solve the challenge. Was it your intention that we build a rocket that can get this lander into orbit, or to another planet? That's a fair bit of work, and not nearly as fun as designing one's own lander and rocket from scratch. The aesthetics of the lander are actually quite good, but I just can't see it being functional at the moment.

Thanks everyone for more great entries - the leaderboard has been updated. Congratulations Mars90000000 on the first (intentional) modded entry, and (I believe) being the first to exceed 100,000m/s!

Those NERVA's do overheat quite easily, but I've never had them go critical. Might be a problem on Moho though. Some shots I took while roving around on other planets and moons:

Straight to the top of the leaderboard for you! Fantastic score, well done! You're welcome to use mods, in fact since we don't yet have any modded entries I'd encourage it. Pics or it didn't happen

Bluejayek, you can actually get huge increases in velocity by diving close to the sun and accelerating at the periapsis. I reckon your rocket would smoke mine if you did that!

Hi Inquisition, you can just tap 'A' or 'D' twice to rotate the part 180 degrees, and then it will automatically attach upside down.

Feel free to divide the travel times by 11 if you wish, but this challenge is really about velocity. Listing results as absurdly long travel times was my attempt at putting the vastness of space into humorous perspective, and give us some concept of just how far away the REAL Proxima Centauri is. Thanks to the three who have attempted this already - keep 'em coming folks!

Hi Phoenix_ca, that sounds fine to me but I think I'll have to stick it in the mods category. Looking forward to seeing your entry!

Thanks for playing Bluejayek! That must be an insanely powerful ship - from the looks of the mission timer it appears you didn't even use a sun slingshot manoeuvre (because that takes quite a while). Any chance of seeing the full ship on the pad?