Tw1

I though about that. I'd only add enough thrust to reach the orbit I want, but it just wouldn't be the same, you know? Unless I managed to make the unique part cannon shaped, and use appropriate amounts of fuel... Though the first thing I'll probably do in 0.20 is build put three mainsails really close together, with a seat in the middle, so I can control it using him. I tried something like this earlier, just getting him stuck between the engines. But he just disappeared. There was no report of his death. He may have gone flying out of render distance before I could switch control to him. They disappear when they do that.

You're back! How did I miss this! Good to hear from you. *Takes Mun Prograde City's plans of down from the dusty shelf* It looks like it was close to completion before, it will be great. I'm quite happy to have to go to the base to launch the ship. That way, I will be visiting the base, the and guys who are actually doing the construction work. If I remember correctly, you were making it so you'd have to have kerbals there if you wanted to put them in the ship? This design looks like could be a very useful variant: Will you share it when the mod is ready?

It does that to a person...

Maybe... I avoided using them at first, as these where prototypes to work up to a bigger cannon, which would be at an angle, and permanently set up 2.5km away from KSC. As it would need to be moved with hyperedit, and past experiments showed that the launch clamps don't like to be moved, so I was avoiding them.

The place you have put those images does not seem to be publicly visible.

Makes me think of pulse detonation engines... I prefer nuclear thermal. It reminds me of a story that claims an American manhole cover was the first man made object in space. It was supposedly put over a shaft in which a nuclear weapon was being tested/exploded, and inadvertently achieved Earth escape velocity. Dr Karl (a well known Australian science communicator) talked about it as part of a show he did.

I've seen people use a mainsail to return Kerbals home from the Mun. (Hope he packs a parachute next time.) I want to put something like that on my Minmus base eventually. It'd be the greatest skydive in (my) Kerbal history. Two whole days of free fall.

Yep, ragdolling is the term. I don't like it much myself, it's very inconvenient when waking a long a truss and then accidentally go to close the end of a strut connector, and.... "Fredming Kerman, now is not the time to do your ballerina impression! We have a job to do." Mostly, this can be avoided but better craft design. Though it would be nice to have better ways to stick on when walking. The best pose they do is near the top of the bounce. The frown turns to a big grin "I'm still alive :D", then they enjoy the rest if the ride, raising their hands up high, clipping them through the helmet. May add a pic later. Edit: Here it is I suspect the only way to build the canon I originally envisioned is by modding, but I do have one more idea which I may try if I get time this afternoon. I doubt I'll get near orbital spead, but I'd like to know what happens.

Something I've been wondering, (but didn'tget round to making a thread) is if there are legal issues around adding mods to the actual game. Things like C7 aerospace, and KSPX are fine, as squad hired the makers as part of their team. But sub-assembly loader and KAS are could be put straight in with just a little polishing. But the mods are the intellectual property of the moders. Might there be some issue that could prevent the game developers being able to integrate such things into the game? After asking the moder's permission first.

It was awesome fun. It's literally 3:16 in the morning here. I'm disappointed it didn't work out, it would've been a nice symmetry to launch with the canon, rendezvous with the jet pack, and then come down again using the jet pack and EVA parachutes. Oh well. Perhaps I'll try SRBs with seats when they come out. Seats will be much lighter than command pods. Hey, what about putting that SRB on the mainsail cannon.... No brain! Stop having ideas! I need sleep. ZZZzzzz....

I found it by chance too! It was much bigger than expected.

The cannon didn't quite work out. It was fun though. What's left of the last one is wobbling around next to the launch pad.

Well done! You're a real Kerbalnought now! (That's so much neater than the thing that first got me to the Mun.)

Nice! Paint is a kids' toy compared to GIMP. It's basically the cheapskate's Photoshop. You can do so much with it... (*has done crazy things with GIMP*)

With the advice of Temstar I set out to build a cannon to return my kerbals to the station, after they all jumped down. If I could use it for multiple launches, it's gotta be more economic than using all those rockets. And G-force Schme-force. This was the concept: But it seems KSP doesn't work that way. The Nine mainsails were set up so they'd toggle on and off with an action group, so the kerbal sitting in the middle could be fired off using full thrust. Unfortunately, the height reached was exactly the same as what using a single mainsail achieves. And the launcher kind of collapsed on the way down. Seems you must be right on top of an engine to get any force. I did another test, to see if I could construct a funnel to concentrate the thrust from several engines. This would only work if I could deflect the thrust using wing pieces. But, nothing happened. No version of this showed any thrust deflection at all. Because Wehrwin's a very cooperative guy, I decided to do a different kind of test: He completely ignored the wing boards above his head, and went soaring straight up, same as usual. Looks like the mainsail fires kerbals at such a speed that the game does not have time to process any collisions. Which gave me an idea... Behold: The TowerCanon! This could end in one of four ways.... Test fire looks good. We are go for launch! Wehrwin Kerman, doing his duty... He's alive! That's always good! But will the multiple mainsails have done any good? Nope. Hit that typical 5.4Km apoapsis. On the way down, we saw the cannon causally tear itself apart. And... BOING! Going up again. I love how they made the launchpad out of bouncy rubber. Or is it just the long grass? Well, that's all there is. Looks like my plans for a 30 mainsail powered canon will be permanently shelved. Considering the larger cannons tended to destroy themselves as soon as I switched to the flying Kerbal, It may be more economic to just use rockets after all.....

I love the way they smile now. I was disappointed when I landed my Munar Load Carrier crane on Minmus, as the wheels lacked adequate grip to use it properly. (This was solved in future versions.) But my little guy was so happy to be on another world, and reminded me what the game is about. It wasn't a waste after all.

Someone's trying to make your program look bad! Quick! You must find the saboteur.

Like theism and atheism, Mechjeb and non-mechjeb will continue to be argued until the end of time. I like having the tools, MJ offeres. But I'd never rely on it totally. It tends to crash my more complex designs...

My style is not quite covered in any of these. I tend to play a few days to a few weeks at a time, making use of all the time I get on a planet between windows, and waiting ages to send something out to Jool, as warping for a whole year would mean missing things. Apart from that, I'm somewhere between the explorer, who wants to find things out, and the builder, who makes lots of crazy things. But they are mostly to add to the evolving story of my space program, like the kerbal cannon I'm hoping to make, which could be an innovative way to return kerbals to the station without a rocket... I suspect this is one of those cases where most people aren't strictly one, but may lean to one or the other.

Aww, nice! *makes short speech about space stuff, and acknowledges the others also advising the recovery effort* Good to see him back on his home planet. When he's recovered, I reckon send him up again. You might be able to construct a frame using the I-beams that extends past the engine, for it to land on. Make sure the any trusses are solidly connected to the fuel tank, not the LV-N. If it managed to get home like that, it should be able to land, if you manage to solve the falling apart problem.

The burn must be prograde, and a little after when your orbit's prograde points you to Kerbin. Good luck! Test with a maneuver node first.

Close enough. You're there, you're alive, what's not to like?

Due to some error, I ended up on a retrograde Kerbol orbit while trying to reach Eve. My probe was partially made up of a module that was intended to carry a future manned mission home. The only way for that probe to succeed was to give up on the idea of the return module, and use it to slow down. It was hybrid ion powered, my computer was crawling, and it took ages. That said, ion powered burns to get to the sun are a pain. I was setting up a counter-Kerbin probe, and didn't realise circularising around the sun wasn't necessary to get to my intended final orbit. That was two long burns I didn't need. Yay for giving the thing an insane amount of Delta V. And for mechjeb, that looks after the long, boring bits while I go have lunch, or sleep.

Possibly. Kerbal metaphysics may work different in different computers universes.

Pretty sure the nuke engine broke of in that pic. Edit: Saw your latest post. Click on a fuel tank, to bring up the little display with its name and what it has inside it. Then hold Alt and click on the other tank, and you should get little buttons that let you move fuel and oxidizer between the tanks.