Raptor9

The 'Thunder 4' rockets aren't very different than they're previous versions. With the exception of the 'Thunder 4 Heavy', they're virtually the same as the 'Thunder 3's but with a different upper stage for more precise payload delivery. If you look at VAB>Rocket Market section on the OP, you can see two of them.

This is strictly my personal opinion and interpretation on things, but I think a lot of people have taken the 1.0 launch trailer a bit too literally. When Warner Bros portrayed The Coyote and Road Runner in the Looney Tunes decades ago, it was meant as a humorous chase and chased dynamic for the purpose of comedy. Was WB actually advocating that it was in good taste for animals to continuously be hurt by dynamite and long falls into a ravine? I seriously doubt so. We create satiric cartoons because generally it's seen as poor taste to display to kids scenes of death and physical harm of human beings. KSP has been marketed as a game for all ages. I'm sure that constantly seeing humans die in explosions and horrible craft-disintegrating impacts wouldn't allow for an "E" ESRB rating. Regardless of the rating, I'm also sure a lot of parents wouldn't allow their younger children to play such a game if it featured humans dying and not fictional creatures. Did Squad mean to advocate that it is a laughable matter when human beings die in the name of exploration and scientific advancement? I sincerely doubt it. What I do believe (yes, just a belief because I'm not a member of Squad myself, but I give people the benefit of the doubt) is that Squad meant to bring a lighter, slapstick tone to Kerbal Space Program so that younger audiences weren't necessarily traumatized or horrified by inevitable failure when they were trying to design and test their rockets. I believe the intent was to stimulate the imagination and encourage interest in physics and science, not to be callous in the face of legitimate human tragedy. Children will learn about the realities of the real world soon enough, long before they get a job working on real rockets with real people on them. But for now, I think a little humor with small, green, cartoon-ish looking Kerbals in fake scenarios of peril is just fine.

@Crobal, bonjour, and welcome to the forums. I'm glad you enjoy and learn from the craft. Here's a couple of preview images from craft waiting for the final 1.3.1 release. The first is mostly stuff people have seen, the various configurations of the HLV-5 'Porpoise' landers. But you'll notice that there will be a fourth variant, the HLV-5D. Simply a HLV-5B that carries a monopropellant hopper on the front instead of Liquid Fuel + Oxidizer. But they can be easily swapped out on the surface if need be, or one brought up to orbit while the other is getting filled at an ISRU site. The second image is the new LV-4A. Again, it won't have the rover or the materials bay like the current one, but it will be only 70 parts, instead of 240. Much more manageable and easier to use. The third image is the new EV-5 'Drifter' Block 2 for going to Eve. More ion engines, more delta-V, more cool. (I think so at least ).

@rtdu24 that is really cool.

Yet another update on M3V (becoming a weekly thing almost ) I've started to create some graphics for some of the craft files that I'm confident won't change. Like the 'Titan 4N', if these craft are ready and aren't likely to change somehow as the project progresses, it's my intention to push them out the door on KerbalX so they can be used. If anyone hasn't guessed already, M3V will follow a depot-based architecture. As such, it will utilize LF+O engines in lieu of Liquid Fuel-only LV-N 'Nerv' engines like on the EV-3 and EV-4. Nor will there be any xenon-fueled 'Dawn' engines in the case of the EV-5. The reasons for this are as follows: 1) LV-N engines have a much higher mass penalty to make them less justifiable with smaller spacecraft, despite the higher Isp. Since M3V is depot-based, large ships like the EV-3 or EV-4 are unnecessary, cumbersome, and costly. Smaller ships, working in expedition groups, with higher thrust-to-weight ratios can be better utilized for the same missions. Therefore, high-efficiency RE-L10 'Poodle' engines are the primary propulsion selection. The LV-909 'Terrier', KR-2L+ 'Rhino', and T-1 'Dart' are also engines of similar efficiency, but as of right now, haven't been utilized yet. 2) IX-6315 ion engines (and their xenon fuel) are extremely expensive, and can only be fueled using xenon launched from the surface of Kerbin. Plus, the largest xenon container currently available is the PB-X750, of which the EV-5 Block 1 has 18, and the EV-5 Block 2 has 24. This makes refueling operations fairly tedious. Further, any spacecraft of reasonable size is going to require many 'Dawn' engines (for any semblance of TWR), and the only way to power that many engines without incurring a huge mass penalty is solar panels; which makes the use of such engines impractical the further out beyond Duna you go. The intent behind M3V is to be able to utilize as much of the architecture as possible in all parts of the Kerbol system; and half of the celestial bodies we can travel to are significantly farther out than Duna. _____________________________ Regarding some craft specifics, in the process of designing a new lander for Ike, I inadvertently improved on the design of the LV-2D 'Cricket'. The LV-2E, while intended for Ike, can be utilized on the Mun as well, although with less dV reserves for inclination changes or low-altitude maneuvering around the landing site. It's much easier to refuel, and requires a pilot since it lacks the autonomous control capability of the D-model. In a direct comparison, the LV-2E carries less total fuel and ~200m/s less dV than the LV-2D, but carries an additional Kerbal, has a higher TWR, has less parts, is 5 tons lighter fully-fueled, and is 2/3 the price.

I was too. My favorite part was kicking the science containers out the back without even stopping. Just like my local FedEx man. Sure you are. You're someone that took time out of your day to praise the work of somebody else. How often do you only have conversations with someone because they want to criticize, critique or correct something you've done, whether it was justified or not. In my job, if nobody is talking to me, I know everything is fine. But regarding @Cupcake...'s vid, really entertaining. I said out loud "no way" when he went through the tracking dish mount.

@AeroGav ninja-ed me while I was typing this, ha ha. Players need to be careful when comparing KSP parts to their real-life counterparts. The most often cited example is the fact that the Shuttle SRB's (in real-life) provided way more thrust then the Shuttle main engines, whereas the KSP versions it's just the opposite. When you're comparing how the real-life Shuttle re-entered the atmosphere versus how any given shuttle design in KSP enters, keep in mind a few things. First and foremost, the stock KSP atmospherics and aerodynamics models aren't completely accurate. Second, to maintain aerodynamic stability when entering at extremely high angles-of-attack (ie above stall AoA), the center-of-mass and center-of-drag need to be fairly close to each other. What does this mean exactly? When an airfoil stalls, it's producing more drag than lift. When airflow encounters a lifting surface at extreme AoA, like 90 degrees, the lifting surface is acting as an airbrake. If you have a shuttle that has delta wings mounted on the back half of the fuselage, but the center-of-mass is in the middle of the fuselage length, the drag on the back half of the fuselage will cause the shuttle to "weathervane" into the direction of the oncoming airflow. So you may want to make the tail heavier or move the wings forward. However, this risks moving the center-of-lift forward as well, which risks making the shuttle unstable in forward flight or result in a tendency for the tail to "fall forward" during the reentry deceleration to make it unrecoverable. Just with the ascent sequence, optimizing your shuttle's total airfoil solution is a balancing act between optimum glide performance and reentry stability & attitude control. I prioritized glide performance first. I try to keep a high AoA as long as possible during the reentry phase to create as much drag as possible (assisted with high-mounted airbrakes), but once the RCS and aero surfaces can't hold it, I stop fighting it and try to perform a series of gentle supersonic S-turns to bleed off more speed. A lot of times the S-turns are unnecessary since I've already decelerated below 1400m/s by the time I hit the lower atmosphere and the heat becomes manageable anyway. With my SSTO spaceplanes, which are large lifting bodies themselves in SR-71 style, I enter at 90 deg AoA at a much steeper reentry trajectory to use the entire underside as an airbrake. By the time the air is thick enough that it snaps the nose back down in the weathervane effect, I'm already going slow enough not to overheat.

Hmm...I did not know that. Yeah, I discovered this last night. The asteroid and surface harvesting modules are definitely not the same. I just tried activating the large drills while landed on the Kerbin surface via the action group "Toggle Asteroid Harvester", and it had no effect.

Ah, gotcha. I'm uploading directly to the site. I've just been doing updates to existing craft. The last new craft I uploaded was on July 29, I'm sorry I don't recall if I had any issues then.

I hate to pile on...but for the past several weeks, each time I try to update a craft on the site, it goes to a blank screen with an "application error" message. I refresh and sometimes I can get back to the site in a minute or two and try the update upload again. It's been happening this way consistently throughout August. I hope I'm not crashing the site.

Yes and yes. (Provided it all works out in the end)

YEEESSSS!!!! Thank you @SQUAD! In other words: "Toggleable All-Wheel Drive"

A screenshot from some surface concept testing with gravity "hacked" to match Duna surface gravity for the tests themselves. In the image I was testing out the feasibility and part count impacts of making a surface outpost solar farm. Each row of solar panels is composed of four modules, each placed using the new logistics rover in the image. Also messing around with other small devices like a comms tower (also capable of being repositioned using the same rover), as well as some miscellaneous "implements" like the shovel on the front of the rover. Some practical uses of such a device would be to more easily nudge small modules into position without actually attaching to them, or moving debris from a crashed lander out of the way. You could also say it's for "scooping dirt or regolith around a mining site". Just a small sample of surface elements I'm testing out for various destinations.

I purposely added a bit more ablator to these heat shields just in case someone decided to fling those craft into the atmosphere a little faster than what I planned for. That and I prefer a little more margin of safety than riding along a limit. Besides, reducing the ablator from 60 to 20 on the 1.25m heatshield is a difference in mass of 0.04 tons (and 20), which is an extremely little difference in the total mass of the craft (wet or dry). What difficulty are you having with flying these rockets configurations? These rockets are actually quite stable (CoM closer to the front of the rocket is better for stability anyways). If you're having trouble keeping the nose up, you might be starting your gravity turn too early and/or pitching over to aggressively.

I love that mod. The IVA's are gorgeous and the base functionality and modularity possibilities are awesome. But I resigned myself to ensure I can accomplish a task using only stock parts before I resort to mods. Kind of a challenge for myself while also providing craft files for players uninterested or incapable of using mods. I pretty much fly it like a helicopter (although a VTOL would probably be a better analogy). Dip the nose down to gain the desired horizontal velocity and then keep the flight ball waterline on the horizon in level flight while controlling altitude with the throttle. Since the vector of control is coincident with your direction of travel, it's a lot easier to maintain visibility of your flight path marker as well as fine tuning it's direction by banking left or right. Turning at speed is a bit of a bear and eats up a lot of fuel; I normally make sure I get the target location off the nose before I gain too much speed. Same thing when I'm maneuvering my HLV-5 'Porpoise' landers around the landing sites, just fly it like a VTOL. Oh yeah, I've seen it, it partially influenced my original BM-series Mun surface modules. Although each of those modules had self-driving capability. My current method, while still differing from the one you utilize, is still based on the concept of using a rover to move one module at a time. The difference being mine is more akin to this image: I agree, it does add a lot of possibilities and depth to surface ops; beyond running a few experiments, grabbing a fistful of dirt and planting a flag. Not to mention, it would make utilizing vertically-built landers to haul cargo more practical like in your screenshots and this version of the proposed Altair.

Heh heh, I guess what I meant to say was: My rovers are only rovers, and my surface base modules are only surface base modules. As opposed to a large lander that is also a mini-base, like my LV-1C or LV-2C, or a wheeled rover that has some rocket engines on it so it can also be a lander. To be honest, I never thought about doing it the way you describe. I'm doing it the inverse way at the moment; using rovers to attach to and drag the larger surface base modules behind it like a trailer. I think the main obstacles to doing it like you say (without a longer engineering "thought ponderance") is that I always try to make my IVA's make sense. The mobile lab piece needs to stand up, since that's the orientation of the inside compartments. I like the look of the IVA's, and it would drive me nuts to have the IVA's laying on there side. I really wish there was a second set of Hitchhiker and lab modules that had sideways IVA's to make surface bases more like real-life concepts. The other personal obstacle is I hate long drives. Not only for the boredom piece, but also because I'll inevitably get impatient, speed up, and wreck. I know, F5 helps, but what can I say. Which is why I design "flyers". I have a prototype Duna flyer that looks like the Rutan Voyager, but it's still a long way from working the way I want. I'm still a relative newbie when it comes to Duna surface ops. But thanks for that idea, I might be able to incorporate some of that into my rover family.

An update on my M3V project. The testing grounds aren't just the Mun and Minmus, but the Duna and Eve SOI regions as well, since it gives a wide range of environments to operate in. I'm trying to get as much "multipurpose" uses out of each craft as possible. The reason the multipurpose aspect is becoming a significant advantage in M3V designs is when operating outside the Kerbin SOI. If you need something, you gotta wait for a long time for that hardware to be sent from Kerbin (even if you didn't have to wait for a transfer window). Obviously, using craft for something that it wasn't intended for isn't new in KSP. Heck, the Apollo 13 crew used their lunar lander as a lifeboat and course correction engine. But "M3V-rated" craft will be rolled out with multipurpose capabilities already in mind. This isn't just a logistical advantage, it's an economical one as well. Adding some more hardware to a craft may increase it's initial purchase costs slightly, but it's offset by the fact that you only need to purchase a single multipurpose craft, instead of multiple single-purpose craft. There are a few craft in this series that will admittedly be single-purpose designs, like rovers or surface base modules among others. Speaking of surface activities, my M3V designs have moved to "Stage 3" according to my own design notes. Stages 1 was simply establishing the concept and requirements of M3V itself. Stage 2 was the interplanetary/orbital design phases (how to get to where we're going, and how we're going to operate in-SOI when we arrive). Stage 3 is the surface component. Getting cargo and modules to the surface, and operating the equipment on the surface. (This excludes Eve's surface...that's a whole other beast ) My most recent fun this afternoon was designing a new "moon flyer". Built as a logistics rover for higher gravity planets like Kerbin or Duna, I removed the wheels, added micro-landing struts and thrusters, and it can now cruise a long way across Ike. The M3V craft/subassembly file roster is already over a dozen, with more planned. To reiterate, when the 1.3.1 update is released my priorities will shift to updating any pre-1.3 craft already on KerbalX, or any craft ready for publishing per my "Short-term plans" on the OP.

Security breach!

IIRC it was to put it in a better orientation to return to the launch site in the case of an abort glide back. But I could be wrong.

This is all true. I like to think of shuttle designs as a backwards planning method: 1) Design an orbiter and adjust aerodynamics so it can maintain stability during reentry and glide properly with empty or partially-empty tanks. 2) Balance OMS and RCS layout/orientation for orbital operations with and without a payload. Re-verify step number 1. 3) Design and balance external fuel tank and orbiter main engines for upper ascent to orbit phase with heavy and light payload. Re-verify previous steps if mass is added/removed/shifted on orbiter. 4) Design and balance side boosters with orbiter/tank assemblies for launch to upper ascent phase with heavy and light payload. Again, re-verify previous steps if mass is added/removed/shifted on orbiter and/or external tank. 5) Incorporate whatever Sepratron/decoupler set ups as needed to ensure a smooth booster/external tank separation during ascent. 6) Practice the ascent profile until it's repeatable, and then find out how much of a payload you can haul up without losing control.

Anytime you're making an asymmetrical shuttle layout, (like the American STS), the Center-of-Mass will shift significantly during ascent as you burn fuel out of the external fuel tank. Compare the "wet" CoM (full fuel tank) with the "dry" CoM (empty fuel tank) in relation to where the Center-of-Thrust is. I'm assuming that the CoM and CoT is lined up at launch, but as the fuel tank is emptied, the CoM shifts more "up" toward the orbiter since that's where the majority of the dry mass is. As the CoM shifts up, or dorsal, the CoT will be "lower" or ventral than the CoM, causing the shuttle to nose up. Further complicating this balancing act is the addition of side boosters that not only affect the total CoM before and after jettison but the CoT as well. Even the total payload mass and where the payload is mounted in the shuttle bay can affect the balance throughout the various phases of ascent. Yeah, shuttles are definitely hard.

...he's still at it.

Coincidentally, I'm eating Dunkin Donuts for breakfast while examining your render. Those structural arms look sweet.

I get that, I was sort of jabbing Nertea in the ribs.

Curious....for the errant Laythe dust devil?