Teirusu

I side mounted this set of rovers. This was juuust enough space between my engine pods, I was a little afraid when they came off that they'd damage part of the space craft, but it worked just fine!

The way I see it, you're pretty much -going- to flip and tumble at some point on the Mun or else where, so you might as well design your rover with that in mind, instead of designing against it, or to straight prevent it. Here's my little buggy, its around 2 tons, so not too heavy. This thing is pretty tough and solid and I can basically drive it full speed on the Mun, slowing down only when I need to. It dives into and ramps out of craters with ease, I only have to stop occasionally and fix the tires. I have two of them on the Mun currently and they have both driven well over 100Kms from the landing site. I've had them climb 45 degree slopes and I've occasionally tossed them off the 2Km+ deep canyon cliffs just to see how well they survive the fall/drive down. (F5ing before, of course!) Typically, if they tumble most of the way down, they'll survive mostly intact with only broken tires. (Bob and Bill have been ejected from their seat alot too. xD ) The top, front, and back fenders are key to this. Those plates and I-beams can absorb heavy impacts. I actually just drive these things in Staging mode have have Mechjeb Rover Autopilot set the speed. This allows me to use Staging mode to keep my attitude and orientation proper.

No, you shouldn't need any fuel-lines to make them work. What might have happened, is that you attached the adapter to the tank from the bottom center node, where the center engine goes. These parts won't cross-feed fuel from the bottom nodes, which all the engine nodes are labeled as. But yes, they are a bit finicky to place correctly on the tank since all the nodes are soo close together. The way I found that works fairly well, is to center the camera angle on the bottom lip of the tank, (So you can't see the bottom, barely.) then float the adapter up from the bottom. Sometimes, angling the camera between where the engine nodes are on the part, helps as well. Also, yeah, I usually place the center engine first, then the outside engines. That usually works the best. I never really came up with an official name. Mobius RocketWorks Parts sounds good enough to me, but I'm open to suggestions.

The Better Maneuver Node mod does exactly that, you can reconfigure/remap the actions to adjusting your current node to different keys in a config file. So, you can change them to whatever. Personally, I find myself editing nodes more then I use actiongroups. So, having keys for node editing takes some of the tediousness out of it.

Voneiden, This is very awesome for those of us that don't like using MechJeb, so I thank you for your efforts on this! I have a request! There's a little known Mod I've seen on Reddit that I've been using for some time now call Bettermaneuvernodes. http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1c3cba/plugin_bettermaneuvernodes_v01_control_maneuver/ Being able to change a maneuver node with the numpad is very handy, particularly when trying to adjust/move the node along the orbital path for a rendezvous. It would be awesome if you could combine the features of this mod with yours! Better to have one plugin for node editing then to have a whole mess of them.

New update for the new game update! Here is your requested mount InteNs And here's some 2.5m couplers! For all your giant rocket making needs! The bottom 'quad' coupler as a super-awesome-extra-special-secret.. on the bottom.

Looks neat! Along with what most of the posters mention in the reddit thread, I'd think it would be awesome if you could include ideal phase angles for transfers. Like maybe a second window below the delta-v map that would show Kerbin, and the target planet at the ideal angle for launch.

Updated the upload, added that radial mount from above. Also added more of those mini cluster mounts! 1.2 ADDED: 3-point Mini engine mount ADDED: 2-point Mini engine mount ADDED: Radial rocket engine mount

The engine will either explode and leave bottom intact, or both tanks will explode with it. With the tanks welded together, they are treated as the same part, thus anything that happens, happens to the whole of the part.

But.. but.. but! You're Doctor EGGMAN! Since when have you been worried about nuclear fallout? EVER?! I call imposter! But seriously, your engines look great!

While space planes can have a rather bigger payload fraction then rockets when built right, you'll still looking at around (Or more) 120 tons for the whole thing. That's a massive plane to be building, and balancing, with a rather high part-count. So, those massive SSTOs you see on youtube are really still 'it' as far as stock parts go. If you're looking to try more mods, then the first things I'd recommend are the B9 aero-space parts and the procedural wing plug-in.

And your problem here is that the engines you're using (T30s) have no gimballing control. Gimballing is basically where the engine nozzle can vector thrust in slightly different directions to help control where you're going. This can typically be over-come by using the rocket winglets, but you have none on that ship. Moreover, radially mounted engines/boosters tend to put a tiny amount of spin into your ship too. What you should do is replace the center T30 engine with a T45 engine, then add some winglets to the center tank just in-between the radial separators.

This, this, this. You'll -need- RCS thrusters to maneuver such a larger rocket in space. The small probe cores only give you a tiny bit of roll/yaw/pitch energy, unlike the bigger command pods. SAS I believe only gives you more roll force, but not pitch and yaw force, which are the two that help you point your rocket in a particular direction.

The apparent node size on a part has absolutely no bearing on anything else within the game. It is only a visual indication to give the player a general idea what that part is designed to connect too. Otherwise, it does not effect any of the physics of the game. Any apparent weakness it might appear to have is only because of how light the tank is.. and how heavy of a part you're connecting to it, along with the weight on top of it. In fact, many of the light 2.5m parts tend to have the problem of being weak or getting crushed in-between much heavier fuel tanks. Like the 2.5m rocket probe, Large ASAS, and Large SAS. In my experience, its never a good idea to stick these parts in the middle of your rocket, (Like at the top of your lifter, but just under your payload.) unless you use struts along the sides to strengthen them. Otherwise, they either cause alot of wobble or they get crushed during ascent.

Typically, as long as the mass of the extra hardware and engines is not a significant percentage of your payload mass, (Which it usually isn't if your making a 2.5m rocket) then you do gain a bit more Delta-V by clustering the smaller, higher ISP engines instead of using the Mainsail. The trick is, however, being able to cluster enough motors to equal, or better, the power of the Mainsail on the bottom of a 2.5m tank. If you're wanting to stay stock many people use the tiny cubic-struts on the bottom of the tank, or the BZ-52 Radial Attachment point, and then there's the bi/tri-couplers as well. If you're willing to try out mods, then there's my cluster mount parts. Link my in signature.

I could see making more plates of different sizes. (And including more stack nodes on them, since if you created the same thing with the single plate, it would have those nodes) However, those quarterpipes sound excessively huge for any kind of normal rocket/plane building. Moreover, they'd be fairly difficult to get right. I'd also like to keep the part clutter to a minimal in the menus and not add anything that would be more of one-shot use. All these parts do is take existing models within the game and stick them together. There are no separate models that are loaded, thus no editing.

...You mean something like this? You mean like KW and Nova stuff? Well, for the moment, I'm trying to stick to stock sizes while trying to keep the parts.. fairly balanced against what's already in the game. Nor do I make any rockets of the 3.75 or 5m sizes myself, so I'm not quite sure how I'd 'clusterize' them. I'd also figure if your going 3.75 or 5m, you're doing so, partially, to avoid a high part count in the first place. Still, it isn't out of the question, but not in the near future. Hi, welcome to the forums InteNs! But, uhh, whatever you tried to post did not go through. ^^; This would require modelling work that I currently don't really know how to do. I had originally created them for the added spacing between 2.5m tanks. (And also something that actually -looked- like it could radially mount such a big tank!) I didn't think that they would be stronger then the TT-70, but after testing them, they do appear to be.

Hmmmm! Seems like I need to go through the same learning curve at some point so I can add a fairing to my mini adapter, and I should also make a 3 cluster version of it as well.

One trick I've learned to help prevent a rover from flipping over so easily? Not sure if its been mentioned in the thread.. Disable steering in the rear wheels. This -particularly- helps with small rovers because they have such a tight turning radius, and very little mass. Thus, when you try to turn, your CoM is too light to prevent the flip-over. By disabling steering in the rear wheels, it makes the turning radius much bigger.

Well, if you are looking into trying modded parts. You could try my cluster mounts http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/39049-Mobius-RocketWorks-Engine-Mounts-and-Parts Unfortunately, they do not have fairings as I'm not sure how to add those to these parts. However, many of them are functional for upper stages. In most of the mounts I included two floating nodes under them that you can use to attach the lower stage, then use struts to properly connect them together. This usually ends up making a stronger connection, in anycase, engine fairings tend to cause wobbliness at times.

Really this question comes down to A) The payload tonnage for the mission and How high a part-count can your computer handle. But either method is quite logical depending on what your aiming for your mission. If all your doing is a small 1-man landing on Duna and return, you can easily build a single rocket for that. But, if your planning on bringing a heavy lander, perhaps a rover, and maybe even visiting/landing on Ike as well, then the construction method is probably better. As for parachutes, a good rule of thumb for Duna is to have 50% more parachutes then what you'd need to land safely on Kerbin, however I'd say the hybrid method is the best (safest) idea. Duna's atmosphere is soo thin that even at moderate altitudes above its 'sea level' its entirely possible that parachutes won't have enough time to slow you down before hitting the ground. This is why the skycrane method is typically employed here. Just like with Mars, the atmosphere is thick enough that a parachute or two is typically enough to kill a large amount of your horizontal velocity.. but too thin to safely land even if you tripled (or more) the number of chutes.

New version up! Check out the first page.  Version History  1.1 ADDED: 4-point Mini engine mount ADDED: Up-scaled Rockomax Hub ADDED: Up-scaled Radial Decoupler CHANGED: Snugged in the upper plate of the engine adapters so they fit more seamlessly against the bottom of 2.5m tanks. CHANGED: Added floating nodes to the bottom of many of the adapters so you can more easily use them in upper stages of a rocket.

There's a problem with this idea. People's creations for planes tend to be highly unique, thus it would be almost impossible to have combinations of welded wings and fuselages that would make everyone happy. More-over, welded wings themselves might incur their own share of problems. Take for example, a long wing make with the Wing Connector part. You have lots of joints within that wing which allows it to bend and flex depending on the G-load. (Remember, the wing is carrying the whole weight of the aircraft.) While this tends to make the plane fly pretty weird usually, this spreads the stresses evenly along the wing's joints. If you were to make 2x or 3x Wing Connector parts and made a wing out of them, you'd be reducing the number of joints in the wing, thus the stresses get concentrated into those fewer joints. The wings will still bend, perhaps not at much, but may be more prone to just snapping off. I think the Procedural Wing plugin would be better for this kind of thing.

Hmm.. being the CEO of an emerging rocket company tends to mean you have little time on your hands for kids. But, let me check with my head engineer! *Minutes later* ..Okay, he said he's.. umm, too young to be taking care of kids. I'm not sure if he was kidding or not, but I certainly appreciate the gesture in anycase! On another note, he gave me a screen-shot of something else he's been working and wanted an opinion on it!

You mean something kinda like this? Still fits on a 2.5m tank, but uses nose-cones instead of tail-fins? If not, an example would help.