PolecatEZ

General instructions: * If using mechjeb: 12km start, 70km finish, 0 inclination, 30% turn. * Tap "0" until outer gimbles toggle off as soon as you take off. * EVA the kerbal before launch if you love him. * On custom payloads, strut as evenly across the flat surfaces as possible on the inner core when bolting down your load. Failure to do so will make ker-blooeys. * Most of these will spin in the first stages. This is actually somewhat helpful when dropping stages. * Complaining about part count will get you sent to Airfield Island for "re-education". If you want 300+ tons in one go, be prepared to test your CPU cooling system. It actually is not bad at all with the new patch, though elaborate payloads will tank your framerate. My comp (i7 2.8 w/GTX470) will do the Mammoth VII at 22 fps. * RCS is also a silly thing to have with loads this heavy, pod torque is the way to go. * If you need help strutting up a wonky payload, post the craft file and I'll try to help out. With these compact payloads, random failures have been completely ironed out. * Have fun hauling up your entire space program in one go Downloads: Kerbalife Elephant (252 tons) Kerbalife Mammoth V (255 tons) Kerbalife Mammoth VI (285 tons) Kerbalife Mammoth VII (315 tons)

Click the catalogue link in my signature, I did the "BD-5B Silver Bullet" replica. As a kid I helped my grandpa make the prop version in his garage, but he sold it engineless when we did a test and our 6'6" heights couldn't fit in the thing. He managed to get an RV-8 Extended fully operational and licensed before his heart attack/stroke. The 5J version would be awesome, just not much room in those designs for us tall guys.

I spent more hours than is healthy trying to figure it out, and what I eventually got was that the load needs to be distributed as evenly as possible across the entire lifter, as flat as possible. Easier to do than explain. The main idea is that on each of your "core" boosters in your main stack, you must have struts going in such a way that the weight distribution from the payload spreads over it evenly. Anything uneven will eventually create shearing that will disintigrate fuel tanks randomly (see pic above). The upper limit on a compact load is more like 400-450 tons if you distribute it to six core booster stacks. So far I've gotten to 315 tons distributing it 75%x3 and 25%x3 and will probably hit 400 with a little more tweaking. TWR becomes a major issue the higher you go.

Those aren't Mainsails mostly, just the very center. Skippers for the surrounding 3. Also, strutting them inside the tank together helps, as well as turning off the gimballing on the mainsail. My main problem with these designs is that an upper orange fuel tank will randomly go poof in the middle of the flight regardless of the number of struts bracing it. Very annoying, took 20 launches or so to iron out that problem, and changing the load size by +/- 10 tons can bring the issue back. Theoretically I could push this thing to 275 tons payload, but that fuel tank problem is killing me. Its the exact fuel tank every time, its been plaguing me since 220 tons, and continues to plague me at the 270 or so seen here. *Update* Got the 270 tons into orbit with 30dV to spare. Just took some extra struts to distribute the load to the very outer stages.

I laugh at your puny baby-man rockets. 270 tons into orbit, 100% stock, with 1200dV left to return to Kerbin, or crash it on the Mun if you want. She picks up a bit of a spin, but it actually helps eject the stages, and she's rock solid again by the last 2 stages. Part count starts ~500, but quickly drops to 100 or so by the final stages, this is very manageable in the .20 version era. Mechjeb settings 12km start, 70km end, 0 angle, 30% gradiant. IMPORTANT: Tap Grp 0 to turn off gimbals on outer stages or face the consequences. Also note, the game now insists on putting a kerbal in the ship, just EVA him before launch and all will be fine. She isn't pretty, but like Big-Nosed Sally, this is a working girl and not there for looks. Get'er here. [sTOCK]

My wishlist: - Lighter Landing Gear (little fixed wheels, like tail-draggers use) - Rectangular air intakes like on 80's era fighter jets - Drop tanks of various sizes and types - Giant and mini versions of the nuke and ion engine - Propeller in 2 sizes, airplane prop size and helicopter blade size - Station modules, including hydroponics and science lab types Feature - EVA boosters remain active when on a ladder (so Kerbals can grab small things and move them around in orbit)

How does it play with docking clamps? Any way we could get a 1st-person view of a docking procedure?

It was more a matter of getting the center of thrust to play nice with such a small aircraft. On larger ones with multiple engines, its easy to balance. On smaller craft its a pain to do 1:1 engine/rocket ratios, I finally just bit the bullet and added an "afterburner" to a regular get engine. The result was an SSTO that did nearly everything the bigger boys did, but at a fraction of the size and weight and flight so stable I wanted to cry after so many "difficult" designs. As for fuel tanks my SOP is to refuel as soon as they hit orbit, so that regular fuel tanks are generally a waste of dV and space - for aesthetics though, I will keep them around.

This actually took two attempts. On the first one, 50km from the finish line, my aircraft freaked out when I took off the SAS to do the descent into the airport. It flipped nose up, and went to 25,025m before I got it back under control. Argh. One quick re-design: Here's a screenie from the first attempt...Seedorf isn't so jaded yet. I chose to go west instead of east. To be honest, I didn't feel a real difference. What was different is using 4x compression after building a more solid craft. And a successful finish. Missed the runway by about 1km or so because I was way too light to land, the plane could probably glide the globe if given enough time.

Everyone has their own limit, mine is 4:1 before it feels like cheating. More than this and the craft start to look aweful and fly to space without rockets, less than that and it makes it so you spend 20 knuckle-biting minutes of your life in the 20-25km range on every launch. You can always just rip off the intakes. They aren't clipped, just stacked and will pull out easily. If you're a real man, just rip out the intakes entirely and fly it up on rockets. Good luck!

When I first got the nuke to play nice with the jet engine, I just spent nearly a week obsessively putting it up into orbit and flying it around. The A version is a stripped version of ~32 parts or so, the D ("Deluxe") version has all the bells and whistles and is carrier ready at around 50 parts. Being able to ascend at 4x timewarp is awesome, and its un-killable in the air - I haven't been able to put it out of control for more than a fraction of a second. I tried a few other neat tricks with it, like this: Its neat, but doubling them up ultimately doesn't gain you much except a second seat and allowing you to get a two-fer on maneuvering. The 6-craft Carrier will be posted later, it was a lag fest before at ~500 parts when fully loaded so I've been using the 2-craft version below. The last image was an extremely stripped version I did for one of the challenges - part count ~25 or so, 7 tons soaking wet, flies like a dream. You can do the same by just plucking parts off the A version above or get the craft here.

General Instructions - Most files are standardized. Group 1 - Jet engines Group 2 - Rocket Engines or 2nd Set of Jet Engines Group 3 - Rocket Engines (if applicable) Group 4 - Landing Struts (if applicable) Group 5 - Kill engines (if applicable, useful for docking on carriers) Group 6 - Empty Group 7 - Empty Group 8 - Solar Panels Group 9 - Comms and Antennas Group 0 - Empty SSTO's general instructions - Level out at 24-26000m, build up to about 1400-1500 m/s velocity. When you need to throttle to 2/3's, activate rockets. When you need to throttle to 1/3, deactivate the jet engines and throttle back up. Some aircraft take as few as 4 minutes to make orbit, some take as much as 15-20 minutes. All have been tested thorooughly, most tolerate 4x time compression very well. Generally no more than 3 intakes are stacked per opening for comparatively little air-hogging. Likewise, clipping was kept to a minimum and used only when aesthetically pleasing or the model would otherwise be impossible (single rocket and single jet engine, for example).

To keep from creating new threads every time, and to keep this simple, this main thread will be updated with each new item. New or updated craft will be updated appropriately. General instructions (work with about 90% of Kerbalife products) can be found in the the next post, as can instructions on how you can submit your designs as a Kerbalife Independant Designer. Without further ado, our catalogue: Last update - 05/23/2013 - Everything is STOCK. Some mods may be pictured but are not included. Click the pic to download. SSTOs Conventional Aircraft

Because for some of us, our stuff never shows up.

I think you can edit the savegame file for this, but its the only way I know.

223 tons + no jets (20%) + de-orbit (20%) = 312 points Parts count is ~500, so I think that's a break even. I'll clean up this version and add it to the company catalogue. I had a lot of dV leftover, theoretically it could be good for up to 250 or so payload - the circ turn and burn is the big issue. Even with 4 stacked RCS on each end and 8 total command pods for torque, it barely made it in time for 80x80.

Generally its not the direct pressure, but the shear (sliding of parts creating uneven pressure). Directly strapping things via struts keeps the sliding down, as does turning off the gimbaling on most engines. You can see in my example above how each tank is strapped together with 2 vertical struts, which keeps it from sliding. Also, external engine gimbals are turned off. I did another trick where the central pressure from the main payload is distributed outward to the 4 main booster assemblies. Finally, try to not use anything other than SAS and fuel tanks in your stack, RCS tanks really like to explode under pressure.

180 tons +20% for ~400 parts, +20% for no jets, and +20% for decoupled stages de-orbiting. = 288 points If I can bump it up to 205 tons I may be able to win this one. I'll keep trying. Enjoy. Mammoth SHLV

I've noticed that effect, but any more I just turn it off on the station entirely after the initial +TGT. The problem is that it keeps trying to point your target ship at you with every wiggle you make while docking, creating a lot of needless extra work when trying to dock. My method is generally: 1) Get within 100m and zero out relative velocity with REV- 2) Switch to target vessel, "control from here" on your selected port, target original vessel (docking port not necessary) and Target+ it. Let it rotate toward your vessel. 3) TURN OFF EVERYTHIN - SAS and Mechjeb. Fast-forward a click to freeze. 4) Switch back to your original vessel, select your port to control from here, select the target vessel's port, Target+, boost yourself to .5 m/s, and then turn off everything. 5) Adjust with RCS if necessary, but usually it isn't 6) Watch the magic happen. With Mechjeb and SAS turned off, even near misses will become hits when the magnetism isn't fighting against your auto-pilot devices. I only do trickier stuff than this if I really need a perfect alignment for a station assembly or aircraft carrier landing.

Not many bells and whistles here, just pure liftiness. The Kerbalife Mammoth SHLV will put 180 tons into LKO easily and is rock-solid to boot. Part count clocks in ~400 or so, but most of that is redundant struts and my laptop handles it just fine on launch tests. Basic instructions - - Group 0 (zero) toggles the gimbles on the outer stages. Tap twice after launch for a smoother ride. - Start your gravity turn after the second stage. - RCS is there to help you make your circ burn on time. 180 tons is a lot to turn on just cockpit gyros. You can also use it a bit if you see you're having any trouble with your gravity turn, though I didn't see it did much there. Plenty of mono fuel for both. You have about 400 dV worth of wiggle room for manual launches. I've tested with 180 tons at both 75km and 100km, and 190 tons at 80km. Complies with the Clean Space Act regulations, you should have another 400 dV left for a de-orbit burn after dropping your load, just get it done before the batteries run out. Enjoy. Mammoth SHLV Subassembly and Payloader ready. Mechjeb launch stats - set max altitude at 75 to 100 km, start gravity turn at 12, end at 69, 40 percent curve. You can tweak to taste, but don't set the turn to start before 9000, as the second stage needs to come off before that.

I did that and managed to put it on the arch on the moon. The key is to individually (1 by 1) place the landing legs so you can turn them on or off to conform to wherever you land.

Those big scoops do nothing but create a lot of strange drag starting at about 12000m and capping out at 26000m or so. Those forward mono fuel tanks could also be the culprit, but unlikely - you could plant them further back just in case. For my money though, I'll bet that it is a spike flameout due to the scoops. Set the mechjeb 2 tolerance to 20% to prevent flameout and you'll see your air runs out around 20,000 or so with that setup.

I'd love to see a complete re-make of Dr. Strangelove done with just Kerbals.

Because rocket engines on SSTOs are for wussies, real men can make orbit without them. Actually, there's a whole nuke shoved in there in such a way that it plays nice with the jet engine AND doesn't obliterate the craft when you stage up (bonus!). On vacation now, but I'll do a full post on these in the appropriate section when I get back. Comes with a carrier, command version, and ground support vehicles as well. 33 parts when stripped to the bone, 50 or so when fully decked out.

My space station monstrosity, 24 assembled pieces in 14 launches. Shown here with the KSS Albatross docking to it on the internal arm. I decommissioned it shortly after this, as the lag was incredible. That single docking took several hours of nerve-wracking slowness. After gassing up, the KSS Albatross takes a shakedown run around Eve just for kicks. Shakedowns were ultimately a failure due to changing mission requirements, but the ship itself was a success and may still see life as something else besides a carrier. Tashi Station, assembled in 5 parts, was slightly less of a lag fest. Somehow, and I checked the files thoroughly, one of the marinas was off-center canted about 5-10 degrees. Ultimately she was decommissioned after a long life. Her power converters will be missed. One of my most fun, and picturesque, ships was the Phoenix Hawk Land-Air-RoVer-Aircraft (LARVA). She had a long-life as the workhorse for Kerbalife Security for almost every role, but ultimately was retired due to sheer size and operating cost. The Starling Program did the job cheaper and easier, even though aesthetics suffered a bit. The Starling Program is still under testing, and when released will be probably the most trialed series ever produced before sales. Here, however, are some initial shots of the Starling in action. Note that after the initial landing, Sidson botched the takeoff and the pair took a tumble off the monument. Bill was still able to catch a ride to orbit with the remaining good ship from the pair. Inspired, I thought "why not?" and put a base on the arch! The kraken got it when I tried to land some Starling's next to it. I put an even bigger on the arch, with individually adjustable legs and a very sizeable landing pad, but the kraken was still very hungry and ate it before I thought to take a screenshot - very nerve-wracking landings both times, mechjeb is only useful to get it in the area. I may try it again in the next version, exact coordinates necessary are one of Kerbalife's bigger secrets.