Sean Mirrsen

I'm currently wondering why isn't this whole mod compressed to just three base parts (plus fairings) yet. Custom fairing ring (4 points, flat), custom fairing base (2 points, raised), Interstage fairing ring (4 points, flat, decoupler). The set of customizations on the Interstage would make the different-radius fairing rings and bases superfluous if applied to them.

Using 23.5 here, interstage adapter works correctly. Do note that there are different keys that need to be held down for different changes. And there are 3 different "radius" settings.On that note: Not sure what's wrong. The setup looks fine to me. Maybe it gets stuck in the 2.5m tank's collision box due to the extra height? (I assume it's actually connected to the bottom of the LV-N?)You could try using a proto-interstage with two fairing bases facing each other. Edit2: The interstage is meant to act as a decoupler that conceals something attached to the decoupled stage. With that in mind, perhaps you should turn it upside down and put it above the adapter holding the LV-N, then connect the lower stage to the interstage and leave the LV-N hanging like that?

Well yes, the Affordable Space Program allows rocket SSTOs. But would that work for the K-Prize?

It doesn't have to be a spaceplane with wheels, but the requirement is that it begins its takeoff completely horizontally, or more importantly with no engines giving it lift.(VTOL craft are allowed, but they must be able to take off like a plane as well) You can immediately turn to a vertical ascent once you lift off, but you must start off horizontal.edit: It actually gave me a bit of a silly idea. What if you had a spaceplane that could land horizontally, but was built to take off vertically, and was equipped with a system to stand itself nose-up for launching?

I haven't been here lately, mostly because I'm normally using Near Future Propulsion and any SSTOs I make would be gatecrashers at most. Still, I think this one deserves being posted at least as a gatecrasher, because even though it cannot SSTO on stock engines alone (it would have qualified otherwise, if only for the SSTO bit), it does manage the capture of a difficultly angled A-class asteroid, while being rather compact. If you want to play around with it, here's the craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4152380/AsterBuster%20Fairdyne.craft Mods you will need: Near Future Propulsion (engines and electrics), Procedural Fairings (little nosecones on the boosters). Mods you will want: Mk2 Cockpit Internal View Special takeoff procedure: Enable SAS, step on the brakes, make sure throttle is zero. Stage. Right-click VASIMR thruster, set variable thrust to maximum. Press 0 to deactivate all electric engines. Release brake, throttle up and take off. SSTO Instructions: Very much a temperamental craft, SAS tends to fail in keeping attitude. Get to 15k as fast as possible, then go level. Target flight parameters before air-breathing cutoff - 24km altitude, 1100m/s velocity, attitude 45 degrees. Push apoapsis to around 90km, and cut engines. Switch off RAPIERs, activate the PITs and the VASIMR, then coast. Once above 45k altitude, go full throttle along prograde, unfold solar array, roll to face it towards the sun. Use capacitor banks to keep the batteries from emptying. When capacitors are exhausted, turn off PITs and burn all the way to apoapsis on the VASIMR. Keep prograde. At apoapsis, reactivate RAPIERs to burn off any remaining oxidizer, then deactivate them again. If everything went right, the VASIMR working at half power from the solar panel's output should be enough to finish the circularization maneuver. Action groups: 1: Toggle air intakes 2: Toggle RAPIER engines 3: Toggle PIT boosters 4: Toggle VASIMR thruster 5: Fold/Unfold solar array 6: Discharge capacitor group 1 7: Discharge capacitor group 2 8: Discharge capacitor group 3 9: Start/Stop recharge of non-full capacitors 0: Deactivate all electric engines (edit: changed to imgur album embed. Thanks, noname117!)

The problem with designs like this is that the gimbal on the engines will work against the RCS and reaction wheels, because engines don't correct their behavior according to where they are versus the center of mass. In that situation, SAS will try to steer in one direction, and get an opposite result. If the engine gimbals are locked, and RCS and reaction wheels are present, then SAS will behave as normal.

I simply stick the KER build helper on in the VAB and take it off before saving and launch... I guess I'm one of those people who likes to fly by feel instead of numbers.

I conducted a little A-class asteroid capture mission using a VASIMR-powered SSTO spaceplane.

I made a Near Future-powered asteroid catcher SSTO spaceplane. It ain't no armageddon preventer, and it hasn't really been tested yet, but its VASIMR thruster and argon supply should allow it to intercept and capture class A and B asteroids for scientific purposes. (hm, does anybody know what happened to spoiler tags on this forum?) (edit: ah, it appears they need a text assigned. Strange setup, but oh well.)

Way easier than expected for me. The new rocket parts make lifting an intercept vehicle out of the atmosphere a breeze. Even if I weren't using the small VASIMR from Near Future Propulsion as my transfer engine, the catch-up-and attach maneuver, even though it required split-hour timing on the orbit (did a bi-elliptic transfer with orbit reversal at high apoapsis to align course... asteroid's time to flyby periapsis - 11 days; my time to high apoapsis - 5 and a half days), took barely any effort at all, and even after pushing the asteroid into a stable orbit around Kerbin, my craft returned with way more than half its fuel (Argon) tanks full. If I did it stock, I would have been cutting it far closer, but the maneuvers themselves were trivial, especially with how much lift capacity you get out of very simple rockets. It would probably be very different in career, with research and costs factored in, but the principle of the thing was not very difficult at all.

I tried literally sketching it, but I suddenly epic fail at perspective. Here's a quick model mockup:Extended Halfway Collapsed

Eve's thicker atmosphere will be a benefit to the ionocraft, but for the most part I'm thinking of lift capacity of around ten kilograms (100N) per kilowatt, meaning that the 1.25 ton 250kW reactor would, with enough EHD (electrohydrodynamic) thruster cells, be capable of lifting another 1.25 tons along with it, at normal atmospheric pressure and 1 earth gravity. This would decrease sharply as air density decreases, so for any given design there would always be a maximum altitude where it can still maintain lift. Additionally, ionocraft are terribly fragile - they cannot endure high speeds, which is compounded by their somewhat low power density, as each cell puts out only a small amount of thrust. The net result is that an ionocraft is a great engine for probes, but not so much for lifting things out of atmosphere. That's not to say you couldn't do it - you could still probably use an ionocraft lifter to get an Eve ascent stage to a pretty decent altitude, if not great speed. So... I guess we should give it a try and see?

Can I try a hand at the design? The problem with ionocraft is that while the technology itself is feasible, it hasn't seen any development outside of enthusiast circles. Some designs claim as much as six grams of thrust per watt right now - rivaling that of electric-powered propellers. So any design will have to be primarily theoretical anyway. I was thinking of a folding honeycomb with 7 cells (one center, six around), mounted on a lightweight carbon-composite frame.

Here's my thoughts: NTRs: There are quite enough NTR designs out there already, I think. Unless you count a fusion torch as an NTR, I think these would be low priority for NFP. Structural Trusses: More trusses is good, but ultimately they don't do much, and there's a limit to how many you can do. Not the most interesting prospect. Deep Space Ship Parts: This is neat, and could possibly be quite interesting, but I think that for Near Future Propulsion, what we already have in regards to Deep Space functioning is quite enough. As a separate project, with perhaps some new science options thrown in, this would be nice. Station Parts: This links with the next option, and I think that it'll make a good replacement for the Deep Space parts for NFP proper. Being able to make large stations both in orbit and on the ground will expand the mod's functionality even further. I suggest adding KAS integration to this, because it's one of the best things for any base-side operations. ORS Integration: ORS is what powers Kethane, so of course it'd be a great addition. Many of my designs' worth was measured by how large of a mining rig they could fly, and where they could land it. It's a must for any station parts packs as well. Tech Tree: As much as I like playing Career, I think it's still too early to start working on this. Things will change, there will be economics and missions, and balancing will have to be changed as well. It's just too early to put work into, especially with such high-tech gear as NFP introduces - finding a proper balance against lower-end parts will be hard. Compatibility Integration: Boring option indeed. Keep Making SEP/NEP Parts: There are barely any more things I would like to see here, but one. I'd still like to see your take on advanced Ionocraft, for atmospheric probes and other such things. I think it's the only really original electric engine you have left to add here.

Are there other games where the only other resource you can give your scientists is time, and you are free to accelerate time? In X-COM, you pay your scientists wages, and you make money by fighting aliens. In 4X games, you spend money to build and upkeep laboratories or outright devote funds to research, and you acquire funds by, among other things, defeating enemies, because if you don't you won't be able to expand your economy. See, the only alternative in KSP is having an economy. As a space program, the only way you will make money is by performing successful flights - essentially, the same goal-oriented gameplay. You will need to conform to government requests in order to secure and increase your funding, for instance, so that you can devote that money to your scientists, among other things. Science points skip money entirely in favor of the goals themselves providing science return. Instead of Successful flight->Money->Research, it becomes Successful flight->Research, without anything inbetween. Before we get funding as an intermediary, this is the best we can have.

Science is grindy. Science is very, very grindy. While IRL spaceflight development is rather divorced from spaceflight itself, the acquisition of scientific knowledge is grindy as heck - meaning, a lot of it is doing essentially the same thing, over and over, until something new is discovered, and the rest of it is finding new ways to grind. In KSP, since it's a game about the rather more fun aspect of a space program - i.e. the flying in space thing - merging the two to be directly related is an acceptable convention. The player is already expected to be doing lots of flying in space - so making flying in more and different kinds of space be a replacement for the daily horrors of the spaceflight engineers tasked with creating a new engine, is a sensible choice. It can be seen as an inversion of indication of progress - instead of scientists creating new engines and systems in the background while the space program putters along and expands, you have the act of the space program boldly going where it hasn't gone before, expressed in accumulated research points, serving as the indication of the scientists' progress on the new engines and systems. Larger and more remote missions take more time, and bring back more points - indicating more progress. Really, if you actually think about it, it makes perfect sense.

How about collapsible rover wheels? Structural command seats (i.e. 0.625m inline stack with windshield)? Deployable floats ("landing legs" for water)? Maybe landing legs with integrated ladders? Maybe (finally) heavy-duty landing gear? Curved girders/trusses for station rings?

The pod looks neat, and aerodynamic landing leg pods are long overdue. The fuel tank seems rather boring, as you said, but letting it carry monopropellant is a good idea. Also, I believe it'd be prudent to add KAS integration from the get-go - i.e. let the service module be a container of decent size.

Heh. Fun little thing. Needs some kind of way to land. neat pictures. that wasn't so hard, was it?

Quite clear, however if you do not care to have even the least amount of common courtesy to post a picture of whatever infernal slapdash thing you've designed, to allow people to evaluate at least visually whether they should even bother with it, then I certainly shall not care one bit for any design innovations you may or may not have implemented in its construction.Whatever your reasons for your so-called decision are, we can't see them any better than we can see a picture of the craft next to the download link. You ask to respect it, and yet do not respect those that you address in return. I see no reason to download this craft, or to recommend anyone else to download it. Am I making myself clear?

Right now the devs want you to have access to the save data structure in case the alpha game breaks something and it'll need restoring, repairing, or analysis. So I say, enjoy it while it lasts.

Correction. Not "your own" singleplayer game. This here is Squad's singleplayer game. You want to cheat? You can use mods to do so. Hyperedit is quite a useful tool, in many respects. But Squad make this game, and their vision of career mode likely doesn't include someone's ability to just give himself all the science points with via Notepad. Besides, if all you want is to do whatever you want, what in the seventeen million thermonuclear blazes of the Milky Way compels you to play Career mode? I.e. the one that's being talked about here, with the science points? Edit: also, before I forget: That's NVidia, not EA. "The Way It's Meant to Be Played".EA's is "Challenge Everything".

So many posts, gotta quote them all... ...nah. Basically, my opinion is that to play a game, you have to play it within the game. By the same logic that the phrase "who would you cheat in a sandbox game" carries, then there is no point not to cheat in anything. Screw the rules, I do what I want to do, etc, etc. Why make a career mode at all then? Obviously there is no point in having restrictions and a defined progression of events in a game at all, because nobody in their right mind will ever want to take pride in having achieved something within the game, by the game's rules, knowing that that was the way the game was meant to be played, and any possible shortcuts that could have been taken lie only within the game itself. It'd probably also be prudent to implement a save editor as a basic feature of the game, in order to maximize the enjoyment of- *PFFFgrblblblblleeee...* Sorry, my sarcasm generator broke. KSP may not be a competitive multiplayer game, but that's no reason to encourage, or even condone, cheating. The moment text-editable saves become useless as a debugging tool, they should be encrypted. The same goes for the debug console. Cheating has its uses - for fun, if nothing else. But in a game where achieving something involves, and results in, more than just getting a fancy Steam badge, it should at the very least be frowned upon.

There are mods, and there are mods. Verily nothing is stopping you from modding in an engine that doesn't consume fuel, and an antenna that transmits thousands of science points from literally anywhere.There is, however, a reason why the Debug menu is hidden behind a key-combination - and even that, I suspect, will not last beyond beta stage of the game. Cheating at the game is not an intended way to play it. So while the developers can't stop people from cheating by the way of mods, they can - and should, in my opinion - try to prevent people from cheating in other ways. Editing save files is one of those ways.

There's "play a game as you want it", and there's "play a game as it was intended by the developers". Once KSP properly gains a career mode, the only ones standing to lose something from encrypted saves would be the people who'd want to cut corners in advancing through it.