Varyon

Gave up on designing practical, functional spacecraft in favor of stupidly broken aesthetic designs until .21 lands.

Guys, I'd slow down and just submit and discuss craft rather than planning out how two Zokesia associates are going to railroad Macey's series. This is a craft submission thread, and there's no reason to assume any of these ideas will make the final cut. Don't get ahead of yourselves and scare off any more potential submissions with all this talk of Zokesian dominance. So, little old me is supposed to be some kind of competition to the most popular Rocket Builders group in the community? That's... that's more of a compliment than what I can only assume was supposed to be a thinly-veiled threat. Congratulations? Maybe I'll just keep cranking out mediocre aesthetic craft to nip at your heels a bit. Point being, submit spacecraft, and leave the script-writing to Macey please, if that's alright with you.

Yup, I'm done. I'm 0/2 on utility ships and these brilliant mad scientists are making mass drivers and giant battleships like it aint no thang. I'll just sit back and wait for series 2...

New, from the formerly publicly embarrassed Paradigm Industries, our newest foray into spacefaring vehicles: Presenting, the PDM-LMMI-01 "Steward" modular logistical vessel. Mounted on the side sponsons are a pair of ALFRED (Autonomous Logistical, Freight-Transfer, and Repair Extravehicular Drone) units which will work to attach, detach, and otherwise manipulate modular cargo... modules. The first of these modules is undergoing testing, and will be attached to the fore end of the vessel as a set of "puller" engines. The Steward was brought into orbit in true Spiritwolf fashion, using every last drop of fuel contained in its three tanks. In hindsight, Aerospike engines probably weren't the best choice, but they got the job done after a harrowing adventure (and a few filled spacesickness bags). Crew capacity is 11 Kerbals; eight in two Hitchhiker modules on the aft end of the sponsons, two in the primary command module, and one in the underside observation dome. In its currently short operational life, the Steward has acquired the pet name of "Noddy" for the tendency of the command pod to bounce and rotate while under torque. There is a good reason why most sane Kerbals mount some form of torque aligned with the center of mass, but here at Paradigm we really just don't care. Truly. (Note: Redact this statement. -Boss) The Steward should be docking compatible with most orbital fuel depots. Paradigm Industries is not responsible for chips off the old RCS block caused by tight fits during docking procedures. Reproduction schematics will be released upon completion of drive, fuel, and resupply modules.

61 pages of beautiful chaos and destruction. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25376-Showcase-KIDI-Kerbal-Interplanetary-Defence-Initiative

Considering the over-abundance of military craft and our utter ineptitude at designing anything that can withstand more than a stiff solar breeze, Paradigm Industries has shifted its focus to support craft, which will hopefully see little to no projectile bombardment (unlikely). A long-range utility vessel has been commissioned, built to be semi-modular and carry multiple load configurations as well as be able to replace its engines should Hanland stoop so low as to space piracy of unarmed vessels (highly likely). This vessel will be under tension, rather than compression like most vessels, and as such the engine module will be brought into orbit in a separate launch, to prevent wibbly-wobbliness during ascent. In the event that this flimsy steel pole with nukes on the front is shot off by aforementioned space pirates (yarr, you bet your hind end it'll happen, matey), mobility will be restored via a launch from KSC. The vessel is, again, in prototyping and will be undergoing trials within the next few days. Yarr.

I was just messing around with your R-Type not 30 minutes ago and thought it would make a great ground-attack vehicle (if I could fly it worth a darn). Lo and behold, this black shadow deftly floats over KSC leaving chaos and debris in its wake. Beautiful as always.

Project Dominus explodes spectacularly, if I do say so myself. It's not really good for much else, so why not target practice? I'll get a .craft and a persistence up when I can.

From the limited experience I've had with this craft, it flies like a dream. I'd put it through its paces more, but something broke my physics. KSP now gets upset if I look at the sky and use control surfaces at the same time, which is fairly problematic...

Honestly, replicating it from pictures is just a testament to a well-designed craft.

Paradigm Industries would like to request a pair of these units. One to test, the other to... study? And by study, we mean tear apart rivet by rivet to see how it works... Jenzor, what have I told you about professionalism? The proper terminology is "thorough non-reconstructable structural integrity research". Yes, Boss...

Well, I was going to direct you to the missile/torpedo workshop, but that actually has very few effective anti-ship designs. Basically what you need is a long burn time, a strong penetrator, and a very long distance in which to maximize velocity. Part clipping also seems to help, what with the odd physics of objects colliding with objects whilst inside other objects (See the Drill Missile in this thread). Smart Torpedoes with a liquid engine and a probe core are highly effective against unarmored parts, and SRB missiles are pretty much the only thing that will break through plates. There are exceptions, of course. I don't know how it was done because the images are dead, but Giggleplex made some super-high-velocity girder gun that I REALLY want to play with, and that just launched the smallest structural pylon, if I remember correctly. The Drill Missile is, without a doubt, the most terrifying projectile I have ever seen.

Due to the... unorthodox repurposing(?) of Project Dominus (you'll see that later), I've decided to go smaller. My next project will be a refit of the venerable Mosquito with some extra oomph to allow for slightly faster and perhaps longer burns. Red Leader spent waaaaay too long drifting in space. So, the solution is obviously MOAR BOOSTERS!

Mother of Jeb... What has science done?!? I guess those pylons actually have a use, other than being mistaken for small hard points and bugging up my design with their non-selectable-ness... Or that might just be me.

In that post I was referring to the GOU "Full Refund", but that post is pretty much a blanket statement for freakin everything in this thread.

Sweet jeebus I want one. Two. All of them. What's the part count on that beast?

Well, Suestra officially won KSP. All of it. Again.

One Vanguard SRB rocket tore my ship into four pieces. One of my SRBs didn't even make a dent in the Vanguard. Guess there's a reason why the most effective military vessels all look the same, their armor is nigh indestructible. But my ship looks cool, that has to count for something, right?... That utility vehicle is probably orders of magnitude more useful than any military craft. Also, the X-5 is sexy.

Darn it, after all my work and effort, one SRB tears my dreadnought apart. I can't even begin to devise a weapon that will scratch the Vanguard short of a straight-up collision. Back to the drawing board...

I have a new surveillance system I like to call ODAK, or the Orbital Denial Automation Kit. Each hub station serves as a comms relay and carries six ion relay probes to establish a security net over a chosen target body. As well as providing observation, the ODAK hub also serves as a small depot for Dominus-class drop tanks and torpedo racks. In a pinch, the hub can be used as a makeshift torpedo platform, though accuracy will suffer greatly. Images will be posted in a brand new thread (to stop spamming this one) once a relay network is set up around both the Mun and Minimus. Looking at all these other designs, I get the feeling that after all my work mine will be disqualified... The Megadeus alone, without drop tanks, sits at well over 400 parts with no real way to cut down without sacrificing the reactive armor nodes... And that's not even including the launch vehicle. But the M2 is more part-intensive than the Megadeus, and I'm including that one anyway so whatever. Hope Macey appreciates my railroading, and if not he can have two obscenely complicated ships anyway.

Zomigawd that's brilliant. I'd stick Sepratrons on the rover and maybe honk the horn General-Lee-style as the lift vehicle crashes and explodes around it.

I said it was impossible, and by rights it should have been. The launcher I assembled contained more struts than most of my lift vehicles have parts, and even then it managed to tear itself apart before even throttling up to lift off every other attempt. I started counting my attempts after an hour of testing, and I got to 35 launches before I stopped counting so I wouldn't break down and weep from despair. I will only ever do this once. http://imgur.com/a/tRy3h Embedding an album doesn't seem to be working... From start to finish... Just after liftoff, launch vehicle is accelerating about as fast as a snail uphill. The screen is wobbling back and forth because the rocket is doing the same, and all of a sudden my center of mass shifts. One of the &*%%@^^#% fuel tanks has broken loose YET AGAIN. But I'm tired, and frustrated, and this thing is going to space, darn it. In the second album image, you can see the offending tank hanging lazily off to the side while its SRB burns uselessly in the night air. SRBs finish burning, and all are ejected safely... Save for that one. Throttle inches forward to 76%, and Phildon and I press on. I have to manually shut off the opposite engine once the beheaded tank runs out of fuel. Two Mainsails down when we should still have all seven burning. Stack decouples, switching to internal fuel reserve. 8 LV-Ns firing, as well as the Mainsail Emergency Scram Engine. And after a painstakingly long but remarkably stable burn... We reach an ovoid orbit, but a stable one. Not the cleanest launch by far, but it works. Now you have proof that the Paradigm Star Dreadnought: Megadeus can reach LKO, and once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere. Next up is the spacedock system for getting the Megadeus refueled, rearmed, and on its way to a parking orbit around Minimus. Its prototype, the Dominus M2, will be placed into a Munar orbit with a similar support fleet, and we can only hope that Hanland *COUGH* doesn't STEAL IT *COUGH* while we're NOT LOOKING *COUGH*. All future Dominus-class Dreadnoughts will be assembled IN ORBIT, BY HYPEREDIT. Seriously, never again will I launch the M3 from Kerbin. Update 7/29/13: Dominus M2 has been destroyed, Megadeus confirmed stolen by Hanland. They played us from the very start.

See... That was kinda the idea, sort of. Ah to heck with it, MOAR BOOSTERS!!!

I wouldn't just give up if I had any other option. But... If 7 mainsails, 14 orange tanks, and 18 SRBs can't propel Project Dominus into at least a sub-orbital trajectory with an apoapsis above the atmosphere without exploding, what on Kerbin can? I'll just make a Munar orbital fuel facility for Hanland to steal.

Scratch the idea. Project Dominus is impossible for me to launch from Kerbin, especially since all the 200-Tons-To-LKO-HLVs other people use are effectively useless to me because the sub-assembly loader is broken and all the fixes have been nuked. Honestly... its usefulness was dubious at best, seeing as a standard Oscar-B torpedo impacting anywhere but the front bow caused the ship to tear itself apart from the physics. Maybe it's for the best that Spiritwolf not throw away a life in this beautiful deathtrap. To be clear, I am referring to my own project. See the KIDI thread page 42. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25376-Showcase-KIDI-Kerbal-Interplanetary-Defence-Initiative/page42