Raptor9

I like how you used the ram-air intake for the rear cargo ramp.

I've actually been working on that this past weekend, in conjunction with some Mun surface base modules. I've had the LV-3B around for as long as the LV-3A, just never had a purpose behind it until I started tackling surface modules. The main thing that's been holding it up is my real life job; and trying to be sure I'm satisfied with the method of placing the surface modules after landing them using the LV-3B. A ramp isn't really an option in this case like the LV-3C had for it's rover. If you go to this youtube video from 6:25-7:55, I've designed (and still designing/refining) my Mun DRA 2.0 (as seen above) around that sort of thing. The LV-3A is more akin to the later Altair impressions with the exposed fuel cells, but the overall architecture remains the same. Also, I'm updating my Thunder and Titan launch systems to something slightly more refined, to include ICPS (Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage) and Exploration Upper Stage equivalents, along with a Mun DRA 3.0, which will be expanded on later. Some examples for comparison. Below: Orion MPCV, Altair LSAM, and Earth Departure Stage (my in game analogues: EV-2C 'Runabout', LV-3A 'Bullfrog', and Titan 2M heavy upper stage)

Love the cockpit struts, looks like a roll cage for those less-than-optimal VTOL landings

I've uploaded the T-4 'Skyhawk' Kerbalnaut trainer aircraft. Only differences between the X-4 and the T-4 is the addition of an avionics nose cone to allow non-pilot Kerbals to fly it and a centerline drop tank for longer duration flights. It's a fun little aircraft to fly, very stable. You will have to try hard to get into uncontrolled flight with this one. Also useful for science surveys around Kerbin. I also tweaked the X-4 and updated it for slightly better performance.

[REMOVED]

I think the tagging system would be an efficient way. It's a system already in place, and it requires only a few moments to implement into a thread, and thus should be encouraged like you said. I've already taken the first step and added several more tags to my own thread: "kerbalx" (for links to downloadable craft), "stock", and "practical". I was going to add one more, "downloads", but apparently three tags is the limit you can assign to a thread. That seems a bit stingy, but it may keep the thread titles cleaner.

Quick notification for anybody that uses, or is interested in the EV-3 'Clipper' or EV-4 'Longship' MEV designs: I updated almost all of the craft files today. Main thing that was adjusted was the RCS systems. The individual EV-3/EV-4 modules that are launched for orbital assembly were imbalanced, so the RCS limiters were adjusted to ensure much more predictable rendezvous and docking maneuvering. In some cases like the EV-4 Crew Modules, RCS thrusters were added. A few bugged strut placements were also corrected; and each of the EV-4 Crew Modules' probe cores were correctly aligned so they weren't 90 degrees off in the roll axis (don't know how that was left uncorrected for so long ). Updated craft files today: EV-3 'Clipper' EV-3 NTR Type A-Thunder 4B-3 EV-3 NTR Type B-Thunder 4B-3 EV-4 'Longship' Block 1 EV-4 'Longship' Block 2 EV-4 'Longship' Block 3 EV-4 'Longship' Block 4 EV-4 NTR Assy Mk1-Titan 4C EV-4 NTR Assy Mk2-Titan 4C EV-4 NTR Assy Mk3-Titan 4C EV-4 Crew Module Mk1-Titan 4C EV-4 Crew Module Mk2-Titan 4C EV-4 Crew Module Mk3-Titan 4C EV-4 Crew Module Mk4-Titan 4C EV-4 'Saddle' Truss Assy-Titan 4C

I don't have much experience with this mod, but I have read the limitations on the first page. I was trying to weld together a flight deck using wing panels as you can see below. I used a Modular Girder Segment in the SPH as my root part, and then built from there using mirror symmetry. After welding what you see below into a single part, I built a three-hulled underside using Mk3 fuselage tanks and then moved the entire assembly from the runway to the ocean with hyperedit. When it was placed into the water, the flight deck went spinning off at high speed, and the hull pieces just broke apart and floated as a debris field. Sitting on the runway, it's fine. When I move it over to the grass with hyperedit, it seems fine, but any uneven terrain with one side touching down first, however gently, and the welded flight deck goes flying off. I have no clue on what else I should be providing for bug isolation and/or reporting. Maybe this is just anther limitation. Anybody have any thoughts?

@Tweeker The real shuttle's SRB's, along with gimbaling, also had a propellant burn-through that would gradually ease off on the thrust as the solid fuel was expended. By the time the SRB's were about to be jettisoned, they were producing significantly less thrust than at liftoff (Read somewhere it was something like a 30% reduction a minute after liftoff. I may be mis-remembering though). The shuttle system is obviously a really complicated engineering challenge, ha ha

Ha ha, @inigma. Brilliant! You didn't even stay airborne for 59 seconds like the Wright Bros did though.

I can understand the reasoning behind making tank butts procedural or toggleable or what have you. If an engine's performance is ideal for certain conditions or roles (ie: first stage lifter, upper atmosphere sustainer, vacuum-only thruster, etc) than depending on what kind of craft you're making you'll want to choose the right one for the job, and how many of those you will need. So if you need three Skippers clustered together for an upper stage instead of one, or if you need several Terriers under your small lander, the current system may interfere with that building technique.

Sure, if you have any suggestions or observations, send them my way via PM if you like. The main issue was none of the jet engines fitting inside the Mk2 cargo bay's when mounted vertically. The length of even the J-33 is so long now that the upper end protrudes out the top. I tried covering it up with either auxiliary intakes or additional fuel sponsons, but I could never get a design alternative I was satisfied with. I'll take another crack at it this afternoon now that you've challenged me. Regarding the horizontal TWR, since this craft actually started out as a VTOL, it needed those four RAPIERs to haul the three VTOL engine assemblies with it, which really weighed it down. Thanks

The Rhino in its current form has been the backbone of my SLS-inspired, heavy-lifting Titan rocket family. I'm honestly perfectly satisfied with it.

The last SM-series subassembly is now uploaded to KerbalX, the SM-MSAT (Main Solar Array T-assemblies), which extends the Gigantor XL solar arrays on the SM-TP2, P3, S2 & S3 pieces to ISS-scale Solar Array Wings. These subassemblies were designed to be placed by the EMU (Extravehicular Maneuvering Unit), which is available as a standalone subassembly as well and also comes included as a pair with the SM-N3(EMU) station module. A single EMU attaches to the T-portion of the MSAT, and simply flies the structure as any other ship since there is a monoprop tank and RCS thrusters integrated into the base of the T for RCS control balance. As mentioned above, this is the only SM module not able to fit into the CRG-100 Mk3 cargo bay. On to a more exciting note (exciting for me, because I'm a dork and I love this design), the SR-21A 'Phoenix' is now finished and uploaded to KerbalX. Early iterations of this craft in v0.90 were actually VTOL capable, as seen in some legacy screenshots below. Detail-oriented viewers of my Raptor Aerospace video on the first page would also notice some embedded shots of this aircraft doing it's thing (the only non-1.0.5 craft in the video because I miss it so much). The legacy design was capable of lifting off vertically with a full load of fuel, making a circular 100x100km orbit to deliver 8 Kerbal passengers, and then returning to the KSC and landing vertically at the front of the spaceplane hanger. It was the perfect crew shuttle between Laythe orbit and the surface - which has no runways obviously. I'm hoping in the future Squad will be willing to add airbreathing VTOL-type engines, it's a niche piece for Kerbin and Laythe craft IMHO. (As I say this I'm mentally willing @Porkjet to call an emergency teleconference with Squad about including something like this in stock KSP ) Anyway, back to the present 'Phoenix', it's obviously another SR-71 Blackbird-inspired airframe (SR in my KSP naming convention is Spaceplane Reusable, not Strategic Reconnaissance in the case of the real-life SR-71). It has O-10 'Puff' monoprop thrusters for orbital adjustments and maneuvering, which allows it to conserve more LF+O. Let me know what you guys think; this was, and still is my crown jewel of my spaceplane fleet (despite no VTOL capability )

Oke doke. Yeah, I just want to play nice is all.

Actually, when I was designing the truss, one of the attempts was using the small rectangular wing suface parts like in your truss photo. The reason I elected to use the 1x1 structural panels was because (as I chuckle to myself) to me the structural panels looked more sturdy and "heavy-duty" construction design, and the wing panels looked too..."clean"? Regarding part count, when fully-assembled my ISS-alike station is over 600 parts, so I don't think a double-digit part count comparison really holds much significance. (Come on, KSP 1.1, I need you) I end up doing the same thing, having a series of personal "projects" I work on in parallel. Whenever something gets frustrating, like my XV-series VTOLs and that darned intake bug, I can reorient on another project. I've been bouncing back and forth between my station modules and my X-21 Project 'Phoenix' all weekend.

@katateochi Is there a way to have your craft not appear on the home page after you finish the upload? I've been uploading a series of space station module subassemblies, and apparently the mass uploading irritated someone enough for him/her to send me a negative comment about upload spamming. The comment doesn't bother me, but if one person actually posted a comment, others were probably annoyed as well, and I'd rather try to be more "courteous". I looked around in my user settings for an option to not display the craft on upload, but just wanted to check with you to make sure I didn't miss it, if there is such an option at all.

That camo paintjob...(drool) And those engine nacelles and exhaust. Awesome!

Well, I was trying to find out where the bug is occurring, since my testbed (which worked fine) literally was a cockpit, 1.25m LF tank, tailcone, two short I-beams holding a pair of J-33 engines with circular intakes. When I built a new craft using (what I thought) was the same order of part placement in the engine nacelles, it flipped over again. I know if I place a bunch of intakes on the craft it will work, but it's the asymmetric intake bug I'm trying to pin down. That does look more accurate to the ISS truss, however I'm not trying to make it look 100% like the actual ISS, just a reasonable KSP analogue. I'm not a big fan of accurate replicas. Here comes the "personal opinion" soapbox part: When someone covers an aircraft with panels and wing surfaces patched/clipped together to emulate the lines of an F-22 for example, or clips a series of Mk1 In-line cockpits to make an elongated canopy for a two-person cockpit like an F-14, that in my opinion is a waste of part count, and the patched wing shape looks terrible to me. Another example is clipping a bunch of fuel tanks in to each other to make a Saturn V replica. In my KSP play-style, I don't care for that at all. I admittedly do my own fair share of part clipping and offsetting, but it's generally to streamline or achieve a minimum amount of aesthetics, not to replicate a specific aircraft or spacecraft. IMHO, replicas are cool for screenshots, but not for performance and gameplay optimized craft. Obviously, most of my craft designs have a real-life craft that heavily influences the design (which are listed below each brochure print), but they all have a slew of inaccuracies when compared to their real-life counterpart. I prefer to imitate function of design, not appearance of design. But of course, this is just my own preference. I'm not knocking anybody that does build replicas, or clips fuel tanks into each other, etc. If that's what keeps them playing KSP, more power to them. I hope this didn't offend anybody, that's just how I manage my build and play style is all. But yes, Rune's truss is more accurate to the ISS. Just toss a bunch of them into a fairing on top of a rocket. You should be able to put four of them, side-by-side, into a fairing before it starts getting too oversized. In this example, just two of these rocket launches would outfit an entire ISS-style station. It's not exactly pretty, but there really was no other way to pull off the extra-large Main Solar Arrays without separating these T-assemblies in pieces, making them even more wobbly when assembled. The rocket in the picture was my heavy-lifting 'Titan 4C', way too powerful for this payload, I just grabbed it as an example. EDIT: Second & Third Photos. That's one way to recover a Kerbal that wasn't paying attention to his/her EVA fuel gauge...the E.M.U. to the rescue. Have the stranded Kerbal grab onto the bottom hand holds, and hold on. Isn't this the scene from Gravity?

Thanks, but I only accept Chips Ahoy So far, I've only uploaded the first ten SM-series station subassemblies. KerbalX users can only upload 10 craft/subassemblies in a 24-hr period to prevent the entire first page from being blanketed with one user's stuff. I'll have to resume uploading tomorrow afternoon, and finish the last three Monday. To be clear, these are just subassemblies; there are no actual space stations uploaded (yet). As the fine print at the bottom states, all of these subassemblies (except for the SM-Main Solar Array T-assemblies; SM-MSAT) fit in the CRG-100 Mk3 cargo bay, which is the longest one in the parts list and also the same size cargo bay as my SVR-16 'Ranger'.

Just because Mechjeb is a computer, doesn't necessarily mean it can perform tasks better than a human. Computers are only as good as the people that program them. I'm not saying anything bad about the author/programmer of the Mechjeb mod, I'm just pointing out that Mechjeb is not the "expert" pilot that some claim it to be. I used to use Mechjeb (pre 0.21), but I found after practicing the maneuvers myself, I could do them quicker and with less fuel. Even reentering the atmosphere and landing at the KSC with an unpowered spaceplane like a Shuttle can be done without Mechjeb or the Atmo-Trajectories mod with a little practice. Having said all that, I think getting into a Mechjeb vs Non-Mechjeb debate is about as ridiculous as the FAR vs Stock aerodynamics debates. Bottom line: Do whatever keeps KSP fun for you.

Lol, no worries.

That allows you to edit everything but the number of rows and columns, ha ha. I was hoping somebody knew a keyboard hotkey or shortcut or something.

Sure, I was going to release it as an "Example Station" along with a couple others. It's just going to take more time to get everything organized since there's over twenty modules to publish. Yeah I thought so as well, but apparently not. The craft that I rebuilt are completely from scratch in 1.0.5, no files or saves were imported, so that wasn't the cause. I'm planning to stay on top of it, maybe find the root cause through another series of experiments. But for now, I'm going to focus on pushing those subassemblies and a new spaceplane out the door. -----Update----- Here we have a pair of rovers published as subassemblies. The first one is the same rover that can be found pre-loaded into the descent stage of the LV-1B 'Frog'. The ER-1 'Rat' is a no-frills barebones rover for basic science readings away from Munar landing sites. The second rover is the ER-2 'Ferret'. It has more sensors, power reserves/generation, and an integrated probe core for remote control. It comes pre-loaded into the LV-3C 'Bullfrog' research lander.

In other news, I've posted an SPH and VAB directory in their respective sections on the first page. This should hopefully help players decide what craft file download best suits their needs, instead of opening and closing each spoiler tag one at a time. Also, I plan on releasing more subassemblies, the bulk of which (initially) will be individual station modules. Players can plug-and-play with these to construct whatever station they need (or contracts require); and as subassemblies they'll be more readily available to place them in/on their own launch vehicles. I'm still trying to figure out how best to organize and present them as a whole, and make sure their root attachment node is appropriate so players aren't trying to flip them around when pulling from the subassembly list.