Ohm Machre

xD This thread just loooves to de-topic itself, huh? Heh, but that's because the original poster seems to be a fun person to me.

>Y Taskmanager.EXE has encountered an error. "Illegal operations; string breaking." Shut down Taskmanager.EXE? ( Y / N )

Woah, woah, WOAH!! Slow down, there! XD I'm not trying to make you feel bad in the very least bit, understand this now. I believe there is a far, far better way to write this, however. For one, as my first sentence claims, it moves WAAAY too quickly. It starts with a year. That's good. Good to set a stable point... "Jebdiahs, the first kerbal on the muns son was the commander." Commander? Son? Who, what? This sentence just kind of bleeds into the next. For one, it's hard to tell a subject. Is the subject the commander, the commander's son, or the Mun? Next couple of sentences are a touch messy, but passable. Then it just goes. One sentence leads to the next, which is a few minutes, then the next which presumably is many HOURS away from the last. There's really also no descriptors. Beyond that of the commander. Nothing happens during launch? During the ascension? During orbital maneuvers? There has to be a clear point of something or another happening. Otherwise, the whole thing falls flat, truthfully. For instance....... "Mission Control, this is the Command Tower, we are preparing the rocket for launch, stand by." The radio buzzes off. Bill the Second and Bob the Second sat in their chairs, a little apprehensive. Bill and Bob were named after their fathers, who also were Kerbonauts in the famed Kerbal Space Program. "I hope we don't crash again," Bob said, a hint of fear in his voice. "Well, they did put him into the commander's chair. Again," replied Bill. "Pipe it you two, I'm feeling rather... sane today," chimed in the Kerbal sitting below their seats. Wearing a special pin on his shirt, inside the suit, Jebediah the Second sat at the controls, apprehensive about their newest mission. To him, it seemed like every mission they were ever on ended in explosions or crashes; in reality, it was usually his fault. Oversteering, overthrottling, or just plain being a little loopy - whatever the reason, it was just his way of doing things. Unfortunately, this also ended up costing the KSP lots and lots of Krebits. So, in today's mission - a simple interstellar burn from Kerbin to Duna, inside the Armes - they added a little "assistance" to avoid any disasters. "Mission Control, this is the Tower. Prepare for lift-off in... "10... 9... 8... 7..." A high-pitched whine filled the cockpit of the Armes. "6... 5... 4... "3 - igniting rockets." The systems within the cockpit went ablaze, indicating all systems nominal and clear. "2... 1... LIFTOFF." With a shudder, the Armes's solid rocket boosters ignited; the throttle underneath Jebediah II's hand pitched straight out, and the shuttle lifted, the docking clamps on either side of the core of the external booster tank detaching. As the Kerbals inside the Control Tower watched on, the Armes lifted beautifully and cleanly through the atmosphere, clearing 10,000 meters easily before the SRBs detached from the main core. Four external rockets also ignited as part of the staging process, and the shuttle began to shoot up, faster and faster and faster still. A technician watching the readings proclaimed, "We've cleared 20,000 meters." "Better than last time," remarked the head of the Control Tower. "55 kilometers!" exclaimed Bill II. "We're finally going to make it!" As the shuttle passed 85,000 meters, the external fuel tank finally burned out, the external booster tanks having detached and plummeted to Kerbin a couple of minutes ago. With a *shh-ponk!* the tank detached from the Armes shuttle. The technician said, "We have separation of the booster core. Apoapsis at 200,000 meters" The head nodded his head, and picked up his radio. With a click, he said, "Mission Control, this is the Control Tower. All systems nominal. Begin orbital burn 35 seconds before apo." "Roger that," replied a slightly grumpy, but secretly excited Jeb II, miffed that he'd been replaced this time by an autopilot system. The radio clicked off. At the height of the orbiting path, the main rockets on the rear of the shuttle roared to life, a fiery inferno of heat, noise, and destructive beauty. As the seconds passed, the fuel burned lower and lower in the tanks. Just one minute after igniting, the rockets shut off; the cockpit filled with silence. Bob II picked up a tape recorder, clicked it on, and spoke: "This is Bill II of the Kerbal Space Shuttle Armes. As of May 3rd, 1234, at 7:25 A.M., we have entered a stable orbit of 200 kilometers by 201 kilometers around the planet Kerbin." The Control Tower was filled with excitement as, over their intercoms, and the speakers throughout the Tower, filled with the voice of the young Kerbonaut inside their shuttle. "We will begin our transfer burn within 20 minutes, when our window of transfer opens. Our destination, the planet Duna." "What now?" inquired the ecstatic Bob to his childhood friend and fellow Kerbonaut Bill. Jeb replied, "What now? More like, what next. "What next is, we begin colonization of the stars themselves, my friends!" Bill happily replied, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Jeb!" ....wow. That was more fun than I thought it would be. XD That's what I get from ADD, though, a lot of fun time. Again, I'm really not trying to rain down on you, Music. I'm trying to help out! And, with a little more time put into it, and a little patience, you can write wonderfully! Your premise was great - as I showed by being able to, rather easily, expand upon it. Hey! If you ever need to show me something that you wanna post, PM me. Maybe I can help you write.... I don't want to say "BETTER", because that implies that you need to get better. xP Maybe I can help you write a little more fluently, or however you wanna say it. Again, excellent premise. That's the joy of writing, though. A good premise can become a great little tale, or even a novel if you write long and hard enough, haha! ;D Cheers, and have a good day! - Machre

Posting a comment because a) I didn't before, I would like to track it, and c) because this is beautiful and awesome.

Heh. I use the docking and rendezvous autopilots all the time when I'm not focused. Although the way it does the insertion orbit is slightly strange - setting a really high apo and peri, instead of a slightly higher or lower one - it's a great assistance.

See? There ya go, then, haha! ;D Things have worked out.... in one way.

I could be totally wrong, but I think MechJeb 2.0 can support more than one craft in the physics frame. I haven't tried this AT ALL. The most that I have is being able to watch a docking craft on its autopilot from the mother craft. That's it. But..... it could... potentially work?

VERY nice! It has a very simplistic look to it, which makes it all the more beautiful.

Well, I tried.... and my computer nearly DIED. xD Go ahead and try...

Hey Assault. I'm taking a look at the Longbow as we speak, see if I can't improve the stability. Start of editing. First thing I notice is, as it is right now, the CoM is ever so slightly ahead of the center of the whole craft. This will cause the craft to tip. Removing the middle portion did center the CoM properly on your orange tanks. Wow, this thing is heeeavy at 165.42 tons, according to MechJeb. I see no possible ways to remove the weight, however... This is how I'm setting up the booster system the best way I can think of at this point. Those two radial decoupler trusses are for the next thing in the pictures..... ...which is this. Hopefully this keeps the booster stages from oscillating into one another. ;D Time to launch. Forgot to show my engine layout. Four Rockomax Mainsails on three X-32s, and a core of three X-32, one X-8, and four T-45s. Well, that is, until it spontaneously exploded. Literally. It loaded, then the top obliterated itself in a fantastic cascade... all thew while, running at 3 FPS. XP Unfortunately, there's so many parts it's lagging my computer like mad right now. HoY, by all means, give it a go. This was my only solution..... and I failed. T~T

Sweet. Should be a very fun challenge.

....I love this thread. <3

Don't give up, Assault! It's taken me MANY MANY MONTHS to get even one craft into a stable orbit. Persevere! As for the launcher, the bottom weight is not really evenly distributed. It seems to just stack. Try building a core rocket with three or four Rockomax X-32 tanks, then add three or four more of those same length ones. Also! It's generally better to use the radial truss that's further separated from the body, because during staging, your spent stages will have a GREAT tendency to collide with your active stage, thus ruining an excellent trip. I have KSPX, so I tend to use two or three Rockomax X-48 tanks for my booster stage. But it's important to NOT hang all of your weight on a single tank as you have here. The two SRB boosters you have are also in a greatly inopportune place. They're trying to lift ALL that weight from the top instead of what they're really kinda designed to do, which is to support from the bottom. The boosters ALSO add weight to your upper stage, making it harder for your bottom booster stage to fly. Generally, you want to keep your weight all below your separating ring, as it both stabilizes the ship and keeps it pointed upwards. I've no time tonight to take a look and picturatize it and show you. But! I can look at it first thing in the morn! - Machre

I'll try it later today, Assault. But something keeps bugging me on your interplanetary warp ring. xD The NERVAs aren't even! And I'm thinking that that rotational torque might end up killing your craft due to the uneven thrust between sides. I know what you might be thinking. "How?". But think about it: on the left side, one engine is on top of the triad, and on the right, two are on top. One of my launcher designs inevitably did the same due to symmetry being a weirdo. And it twisted like heck. ( It had no struts. xP )

@Rune: I love the loving heck out of that mod. Saves SO much frustration at times, and on top of that, letting me choose the Launch Pad or Runway without moving .craft files between fodlers is a godsend. The symmetry's not bad, either. ;P @Assault Bunny: Haha, I try to help in ways I know how. If you still want or need, you can send me a .craft, and I'll try to help fix it. Or, on previous crafts you posted, I'll download those from Mediafire and take a quick look at them. I'm no expert at this game, but hopefully I can puzzle it out, haha.

Well!! I haven't been doing my "job"! Happy birthday!! May you have many happy moments on this day, and best of wishes from some random guy on the forum! XD - Machre

( I'm sorry if I'm just sounding like the derpingest guy here, haha. ) Are you holding SHIFT as you press WASDQE to rotate your parts? They'll rotate a part by about 5°.

That's an immediate fix, and very simple I believe: The first thing I can suggest is: did you rotate the entire body underneath the probe in order to fit it on that point of the Rockomax Hub? The second thing, if that's not the case, is that you can remove the two trusses holding your engines, and rotate the Hub with Q and E until the probe fits on your desired point.

Esc esc esc esc esc esc

I changed the screenshot key to F9, and so far it has not reverted back to F8. Try that! ;D

@devogen You always give me reasons to continuously check this thread. <3 @Logan.Darkligher Holy crap. Awesome, awesome, and AWESOME work with the Eagle. Think you could attempt to land a Pegasus on-deck?! ;D

Oh, how I KNOW just how difficult it is to get a proper SSTO design working. One design I was working on, no matter how much I changed it or what engines I ultimately used, could not break atmo. It was as evenly balanced as freaking possible. Eventually, after three design revisions, I scrapped the SSTO name, and built a good booster for it. Works wonderfully as a spaceplane. xP As far as the Dragunov Mk 3.2 ( as I'm calling it ) is concerned: Just how many ASAS modules do you have? I, personally, do NOT like ASAS. At maximum, I use SAS modules, and if need be an avionics cone. The ASAS wobbles too much for my liking... You also need a LOT MORE RCS FUEL. It's crucial for attitude adjustment. A really good place to put two or three tanks are right before those reversed tail-cones. ;D On the subject of part-clipping, have you tried putting multiple pairs of wings within one another? A good majority of designs I used to see often involved wings that were almost indiscriminately separated, or not at all. Double-, triple-, even quintuple-stacked wing designs. What I saee in your current Dragunov Mk 3 is a distinct lack of lift vector, enough so that the weight of the NERVAs, fuel, and other engines isn't dragging it down faster than the jets can push it up. You may ALSO want to think about replacing that front wing section with another delta. Looks weird, I understand, but they are designed for lift after all. ;P And speaking of deltas, try putting four of them together for a larger wing. Two of them can face as they do, and you can place the third along the edge of the first and flip it, extending that portion for the fourth wing. It's also a commonly-used design, but hey - it works. In most cases. xP Also, those multiple control surfaces on the main wingfs could potentially be replaced by the longer one. Better for lifting. The CoM most definitely moves backwards. Where you have your fuel line to your turbojets makes it so that the fuel has to empty out of the forward tank, THEN the backwards one. A good way to counteract that is to simply move the fuel line. Make it so that the fuel pulls FORWARD first. It might also be of benefit to you to have both the turbos and the miniature rockets share a giant fuel source, I.E. place two opposite fuel lines between tanks. This allows either engine to use BOTH tanks, and in fact, is what I did with many of my designs for my "SSTO". And finally, try replacing your small solar panels with ones which extend outwards. They generate a LOT more power in the long run, AND can swivel to face the sun - a must-have for the Mün. I really, REALLY like this design a lot. All of what I said was based on observations only; I have not tried any of what I said within KSP YET. I may get to it tonight if I don't crash. xP I agree with posts above. The triple-turbo system is a very good indicator of flame-out. Since I use MechJeb to limit acceleration at times, I normally have no need to worry about flame-outs, since 2.0.7 can reduce throttle to prevent a flame-out. Handy in some situations, but probably not SSTO work. And, while I can't see myself needing to use that large strut for your landing legs - I think the smaller ones would work as well, especially in conjunction with the Mk 2 legs you have there - I can understand the need for it structurally. Strut those struts up, however!! If you land on those legs, your craft may decide to do a crab-walk and blow itself up. That's all I got, Assault! I hope this helps you in some way! I just might have to try hybrid-rover designs myself now! Who knows - might be worth it for Kethane! ;D Cheers, and good luck! - Machre

Very nice, Vires! It was a touch hard to hear your voice, but I could still follow, and understand the art of balancing VTOLs. :3 Elevator? SPAEC ELEEVATER! x3 Just kidding, haha... I like those docking strut mods. For a while I used Quantum Strut, but forgot to update it, so I'll be interested in this one, as well.

That's pretty excellent, Devo. Makes me wish I had $120 to buy a copy off ya. xP

Haha, yep. It's unofficial now. Devo is definitely the King of Monster Island. Also, my knowledge is very limited on that, but what's the picture of?