stupid_chris

This rocket has pretty much the same frame as yours, excepted I have double tanks and the Griffon 2m engine in the middle. And this can push 70t in orbit easily. So with yours, if done correctly, you could push a good 40-45t in orbit. Or get really far if you do it right. Which means, a lot of potential.

Well first off, are you turning off the gimbal on the outer engines before launching? This might be what causes it to be so wobbly and stuff. Then, if that was the case, there's really no reason to use the heavy KW Rocketry struts, normal ones will do just fine. Also, the wing parts you added don'T have any control surface. Your best bet for large rockets are the R8 winglets (I think its their name). And for how far you could go, depends on your payload really. I have a lifter similar to this one, I'll go take screens and I'll be back with that in a few minutes.

On the outer mainsails, no need. However on the middle one, if you want to keep using it in outer space, I recommend indeed that you would switch to an engine cluster. If you turn part clipping on and add the tail wing parts to the side of your tank, you could cluster up to 17 engines easily on your middle stage. So if you use 5 LV-45s for control and the rest are LV-30s, you can get up to 3580kN on the core stage for the same ISP as the LV-30/45s have. Of course, you don't need to cluster so much of them, but if you cluster enough of them you will get pretty much the same TWR as with a mainsail but a much better Delta V due to a way higher ISP. Of course it's more parts and more weight but it can be worth it. Personnally, for heavy lifting I use a design similar to this. I stick with mainsails for up to three pairs of double orange tanks in asparagus until it's not enough to get me in orbit. Then, I start to scratch off more delta V by making engine clusters. Or, if my TWR is too low, I switch to more powerful clusters. Mainsails aren't evil, but stacking mainsail over mainsail is far from being the best thing.

This sounds like too much development time for a purely aesthetic thing in this game. I think they can leave that aside for now and work on more important things. See here

I answered you, they just didn't bother to change it. Since it doesn't affect the gameplay in anyway, they probably just don't want to put the development time on this yet. That's all.

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Fall Out Boy and Pierce The Veil while playing ^^

It has always been like this, and since shrouds are not a physical form and have no collision mesh, they probably never took the time to change it. It doesn't change anything to the game, your rocket won't be less structurally stable because your shroud isn't sized to your engine.

KSP is a 32bit game, so it can only use 4Gb of ram, no matter how much you have, and I think it will have other limitations on your CPU. So no matter how powerful your computer is, it will be limited to the 32bit specs. Even if you are running on a 64bit PC. I guess someday they will release a 64bit version of the game, but it probably will take a while. And yes, KSP tests your computer's cooling system and with each update they try to work under the hood to optimize the performances, but it's very limited right now. So we can just wait I guess. Also, this should be in the development thread.

I also took the time to revisit your other rover. I made a rather simple launcher for it, and lighter lander/skycrane for it, while trying to keep your first design. I also added a transfer stage. Simpler designs are more often the most effective ones. This can get the transfer stage and the rover into orbit without touching their fuel, and still have plenty to deorbit. Because no one likes floating debris I'll give you a download link so you can look at my design and take it apart. That's how I learned, by looking at other people's designs and by taking them down piece by piece to see how they work. It's much more educative than instructions in my opinion. If you ever need help with anything, send me a message or anything and I'll be glad to help! You can also just drop a request on the Stupid Industries thread here and I'll do my best to help you! Download link Good luck! ^^

Alright, I have something for you. I made you an example heavy lifter for your second rover ^^ Really it's usually that simple. This can get you into orbit, then the core stage has a probe core, meaning you can deorbit it. There'S a tug with enough Delta V to set you on a circular orbit around the moon and still have plenty to deorbit too, because it has too a probe core. And the landing stage can set you down nice and soft, using mostly the fuel in the rover, because why not. Sorry it was long, I had to go out and stuff. Now for the launcher, I already set the action group 0 to cut off the gimbal on the outer engines, don't forget to do that before launching. Also, right before launch, right click the top dockinport and do control from here, else the controls will be inverted and everything goes wrong. It has 270 parts, but you should be good once you drop the two first stage of asparagus boosters. I tested it, everything works, and for your rover, it's a tad bit easy to tip over. So be very very careful on the Mun. I recommand disabling the motor and the steering on the rear wheels, else every time you try to accelerate you're gonna tip on your back. And be careful while turning too, I got it to tip over and never found a way to put it back up. And Don't use the break button, you're gonna tip on your nose. The best way to break is to reactivate the rear motors but deactivate the front ones and go backwards. Action groups would be useful. Anyway, you can either take this or take it as an example and build it yourself! Anyway have fun! Download link PS: It's the "II" version because the first one I did was too powerful

This... Weird? Did you try turning the gimbal off on as many engines as you could? This might be the issue on the wild spinning, cause I just really don't see what else could go wrong .-.

Alright, I'll take a look. Also, you could edit your quicksave file to remove the fuel if you want to. Or even modify the cfg file of the tanks to create empty tanks to stick on your rover. But you can keep it like this, it's doable ^^ Edit: Don't worry, I can take any mod you can throw at me, I have all the biggest mods on my KSP! However, the earlier link still doesnt work :l

It sounds like a gimbal inverting problem... but I don't see where it comes from. Can you provide the craft file?

Indeed, massive rocket, but I think I get why you have trouble getting into orbit! Your TWR is very low, you loose a lot of delta V fighting gravity. And indeed, the link isn't working. Can you give me a download link for your rover in the SPH? I would like to try something

Does MechJeb flip it off or are you launching it manually?

Well first off, here you are carrying rocket fuel tanks to power your jets, which is highly inefficient as the oxidizer just stands there as a dead weight. And for the spinning out, it is probably due to overgimballing engines. Did you turn off the gimbal on the jet engines?

"Lol what an idiot, you translated this." You win this time.

SRBs would be a dead weight on such a heavy vehicule, 12 of them would barely give up 100m/s, not worth the part count here. And yes, I know that engine clusters are more efficient, I use them pretty often. But here he has already more than enough parts, so we don't want to crash his computer, and mainsails will do the job if staged correctly. And for the rendering, that's exactly the point. Having a ship so long the game can't render it all at once because it's more than 2.5km away is known to cause game crashes and major bugs. So yeah, I do not recommend.

Haha it's okay, I've just been sticking with this handle forever. But no problem, always glad to help!

That I do not know though. The torque given by the command modules .cfg files aren't in any unit of sort. However, I guess you could see it that if your mass/torque ratio is .15, you would have the same angular speed (theoretically, although I highly doubt it and it would require experimentation) as the cupola module alone floating in space. I suspect wobble would slow you down a bit (or a lot), but you could base off your calculations from this base value.

Alright, we'll take this point by point. Landing on the Mun from low orbit is about 1000m/s, so if you don't plan taking off again, 1100m/s is more than enough. So you can easily half your fuel here. Then, having a very high TWR isn't always good with skycrane as it makes the throttle very sensitive. He has emotions and he doesn't want you to mess with it. So when you just want it to hover lightly, it might just go "What?? You want to go back in orbit? WHAT ABOUT I SET US BACK ON AN IMPACT TRAJECTORY WITH KERBIN?" So yeah, a TWR of 3 Sounds good. Which also means, if you're gonna cut down the fuel by two, you're gonna up your TWR by two. So you might also want to cut your engines by two. This means, your design but with only one pair of engines here should be sufficient. For the lifter now, 24 tons is a really low payload. If you have trouble sending this into orbit, I can recommend watching some tutorials on asparagus staging and how to make heavy lifters. If you make a transfer stage for this, you should have to send about 40 tons in orbit or so, and this can be done quite well with stock parts. And for your next truck, if you design you launcher and transfer stage correctly, there is no need of a refueling station. Observations I made: One tank of RCS should be plenty for a trip to the moon, especially if you have no docking to do. Also, an ASAS module on a rover isn't always healthy. I recommand putting the ASAS on the lander stage, and instead adding a normal SAS module to your rover, this will help it stay on its wheels a lot more. Lastly, I hope you're sure of what you're doing by dropping your rover like this! Lastly, I offer my services to make your launcher. I could have it done in an hour if you send me the craft file. Just proposing though, I understand that you would like to design it yourself, but I'm good at heavy launchers and I like to help out. Anyway, good luck! ^^

Actually, all the command pods/probe cores have a very similar mass/torque value, going between 0.15 and 0.20, which means they will pretty much all get the same angular spin. That being said, the cupola module does have the highest, but really not by much. Plus it's the heaviest command module (I think), which will affect your TWR considerably. If you really want to up your torque, you're much better off with s lightweight thing that will give you pretty much the same up in torque. And the new stackable probe cores have the advantages of both being very lightweight and demanding (not much) electrical power, just like real torque wheels do. And they are a lot easier to add to a ship than the small probe cores. So they won't modify your TWR by much and give you pretty much the same amount of torque than the cupola module. Although I get your idea of wanting more torque, I made the suggestion to add actual torque wheels in the development thread. Anywa^y, have fun, and I hope I helped! ^^

Hummm, the best thing you could do is try adding a few layers or asparagus staged double orange tanks on the outside. Your ship is huge, and to send this you must be ready to test your computer's CPU speed. You're gonna need a hell of a lot of parts. SRBs burn too slowly for the amount of thrust they give and will probably be more of a weight on this. As for the tail idea, it breaks a bit the fun and the point of launching this and you will have part generation problems. I don't recommend. I see you already have outer boosters. I say try making two complete loops around your destroyer. I know skipper engines are more efficient but here you need a good TWR, so go with the mainsails. And for the in space control... You can try adding more RCS thrusters, it's really all you can do. Can you post a pick of the destroyer only in the VAB with the CoT and CoM showing? It might be a part of the problem depending on their position.

The one on the spaceport is broken for .20 and will likely break your save file! However, someone made a patch for .20, I use it eavery day, it works great! Link Have fun! ^^