jordanjay29

All your images are dead links. Here's my first interplanetary ship, the IPV-001 Enterprise (I'm a Trekkie, so sue me!). It was a one-stage, one-shot ship to Eve. I'm surprised I even got it up in one piece, but after a quick refuel at Minmus, it performed beautifully. The only thing I didn't think about was getting back... Enter IPV-003 (unnamed for now). Oh, and don't ask about IPV-002, you don't want to know. So IPV-003 is a tad more ambitious, and much bigger. The core ship is fairly similar, some different solar panels, but the same basic idea. The big difference is the docking ports all over the place, which let me build the ship how it needs to be for a mission. The addition of the large fuel tank allows me to use smaller engines around the core, drawing from the larger tank, and prevent wobble from the unstrutted engines. The ship isn't fully assembled yet, but this gives you an idea of what it will look like. Imagine the 3 other secondary engines (which burn liquid fuel for in-orbit manuevers) and the large rocket on the end (everything after the strip of blue solar panels, basically anything that's pure white) gone to reveal the large, ion engine (courtesy of Deep Space Mod). I'll probably add a probe or two on the ends, and hopefully some landers. Most of the parts are from Deep Space Mod, AIES, Spherical Fuel Tanks or KW Rocketry. Maybe a tad of Kosmos thrown in for good measure (certainly nothing essential, though).

EDIT: Sorry, posted in your thread instead of the one I wanted.

Well, guess it's time to update. Might as well pull the plug on these deposits while this version is shiny and new.

What a damn shame, too, as it seems wonderfully efficient.

Good thing we can rename ships in KSP.

After a few smaller test craft, I built my first, real (not just accidental by accelerating too fast past the Mun) interplanetary ship.

I have a station at Minmus, but that's where the hub of my Kethane mining operations are. It's pretty easy to get to in just about any orbit-able ship, the hardest part is the Hoffman transfer to Minmus which can be a long burn (1-2 minutes seems to be the average, depending on my engines). After that, the course corrections, orbit and rendezvous in Minmus orbit are simple burns. Edit: I forgot to add, my Minmus refueling station is at 105km around Minmus. Seems to be a decent orbit for rendezvous.

Do you plan to use any standard docking ports, or is this only for big ships?

How did you make that heat shield? That's beyond awesome!

I just used dropships for my operations, as I couldn't get a wheeled vehicle to land or drive properly on Minmus. I suppose I could have surveyed the Mun, but I thought Minmus was more fun. In retrospect, though, I've made my station's kethane tank too small, my newest dropship can hold twice as much as the station itself, making it somewhat redundant. The my newest dropship. Those are using the 2.5m parts. This is my refueling station: That's basically it for me, I didn't get quite as fancy with trucks, rovers or tugs. I haven't used Kethane in any engines yet, perhaps I'll fix some to an interplanetary craft once I get accustomed to travel outside of Kerbin SOI.

A skycrane doesn't have to be as fancy as Curiosity's (if you are familiar with the newest Mars rover's landing mechanism), it's just basically a wraparound rocket to land the base evenly and then detach and take off back into orbit (or sent on a crash trajectory). Here's one that I made for a rover, to give you a clue.

The one problem with the big legs, though, is that it's made for the 2.5m radius, rather than the 1.25m radius. This can make the parts float (at least as of .20, I haven't tried in .20.1). If that makes a difference for you, you should take heed.

My seventh (like Babylon 5, the first six were all failures) attempt at a Kethane refueling station finally proved useful. It's in a standard equatorial orbit around Minmus where my main kethane mining operations are. This second one is more accurate of the final vision, with a large (2.5m) docking port on the kethane end (with all the solar panels) and a four-way standard docking node on the truss end (sorry it got cut off). The ship approaching is my more recent, more efficient version of a mining dropship, which can hold 32k (tons?) of kethane gas.

Spaceport seems to give some mod authors trouble. If it works for you, wonderful, but you might consider an alternative download in the meantime to get more feedback. Mediafire seems to be fairly popular.

Just pics, or is there a download? Also, it's "discardable" not "discartable."

I had the same problem when I first started using them. Try staging the fairing shells first, and then the base. That will pop off the cone+walls first, and then in a separate stage separate fairing and rocket. Actually put the fairing shells in a different stage before the fairing base, that's the only way it'll work. Otherwise both pop off at the same time, and you get that weird animation.

What would make it so?

You're a savior! Now if NovaPunch had a .20 release, I'd be in heaven.

Excellent, I've wanted an in-line battery for my 3m rockets. My current space station looks ugly as hell with lots of batteries ringing the surface, this should do the trick.

I just found your topic and I was completely entranced as I read. What an excellent adventure, and superb storytelling. I have yet to venture beyond Kerbin orbit, but this makes me both excited and terrified to do so. I'm not sure I'm ambitious enough to try to land on all four moons.

Forgive a newbie, but is there a guide or anything to get started?

Could be a kid, could be a teenager, could be a young adult. You can't make that assumption merely based on the fact that he reference his father and a friend's house. I've played video games at a friend's house as an adult, and parents lending an adult child money is certainly not unheard of. Regarding the OP, think about this. If you're here talking about not wanting to pirate this game, then you clearly consider it a bad idea. Please don't get the impression that you can take this community hostage by the threat of pirating the game, as many here can see through that ploy. Instead, why not save up the money as best you can? If you can raise the amount necessary to buy the game, then it might be easier to find someone to purchase it for you and send them the money through paypal or something secure. You can't have something for nothing. Certainly, if this game means enough to you, you'll get it somehow. Put it on a birthday/holiday wish list, maybe a nice family member will buy it for you (your father, perhaps?). Or you'll find the money. Enjoy the demo version for now.

If gimbaling is the problem, then why not disable engine gimbal and use control surfaces/winglets to make course corrections while in atmosphere? At least until the last outer stage is dropped and there's less risk of the rocket falling apart.

Okay, fair enough. My biggest problem is number 2, that the game doesn't seem to display the panels as extended when they are upon load.

Hey folks, I love the solar panels in this pack (a testament to this, I spent 20 launches just to get a space station core with the Balka solar wings up into orbit). I've just got two problems with the animations on the Balka Solar Wings block (I've only tried the double, so I don't know if this persists on the single version, too): 1. The animations have to be triggered one at a time, if I make an action group to 'Toggle Arrays' for all three (left, right and rotation), the arrays rotate, the axises spin but the wings never open or expand. I have to toggle them one by one, and wait for the animation to finish, to get them to open. Kind of tedious, but I honestly don't mind, as the animations are beautiful. It'd just be nice to see it all happen at once. 2. Every time I reload my station in orbit, the solar wings appear to have reverted to their retracted state, but the right-click menu indicates that they're expanded. Seems like the state isn't sticking somehow between sessions. Otherwise, love these panels. I'm playing with the Salyut panels right now for another station module, and I love the look and the animations. They look so much better than the stock panels for space station modules or large spacecraft.