Raptor9

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Does anyone have a link or anything that shows how to do things in this WYSIWYG editor? If it exists, that should be a sticky somewhere for a while. It took me forever and a day to see the "Insert other media" button for inserting images, but I still can't figure out how to embed a youtube video. Another issue I can't resolve is why some spoiler tags or images end up in different widths. Yeah, it's OCD, but I'm trying to repair and clean up my showcase thread.

LOL, that is exactly what it is based on.

The main consideration is that with three engines, they can all run at a lower throttle setting to achieve similar cruise speeds, but on the other hand, three engines does add extra weight like you said, the additional drag from the intake, and another engine drawing fuel. Having said that, all my performance stats are just a snapshot. The endurance times and distances are more of a "by my calculations, this should be able to achieve at least this amount" statement. To really get a good evaluation, you would have to find out the airspeed where the thrust-to-drag ratio is the greatest, and then find out which altitude that works best based on atmospheric density and power reduction. Generally I limit my endurance tests to between 4000-5000 meters altitude, and experiment with the throttle in the 60-80% range to find a good tradeoff between speed and fuel burn; just as a way of having some constant conditions to compare and contrast similar designs. Another control I use is max speed ASL (at sea level). Many of the jets can obviously go much faster at higher altitudes, but then the limiting factor is thermo-heating. Anyway, sorry about the geek-digression, just remember to take the performance stats on these aircraft with a grain of salt. There are just too many different conditions and configurations to test and record to get a comprehensive evaluation of a craft's atmospheric performance. Absolutely, just haven't gotten around to them yet. I'm fairly meticulous (or just OCD) about my designs, so it takes time to update all my stuff with new parts. The X-5 (F-15 analogue) for example has been around for quite a while, but I completely rebuilt it last week from the ground up because I wasn't satisfied with the stability during high-altitude maneuvers. That VTOL of your's is pretty tight. One similarity is that helicopters take more power to hover (due to a certain aerodynamic effect I will not digress about); so in essence, the thrust reduction of your engines while stationary is kind of an analogue to a helicopter's hovering limitations. But yeah, I plan to revisit my XV-series in the near future as well. EDIT: That's genius to use the small fixed nosewheels for under the skids, why didn't I think of that? Come to think of it, I could use the entire small gear lineup to give my XV-A an AH-64 style layout...darn it, I'm gonna have to play with my XV-series stuff today now...

First off katateochi, love your site. I posted my first craft file on there almost two months ago, and at the time of this post it is now supporting 56 of my craft from my showcase thread. Really thankful for the work you put into the site. I do have a question however (for anyone that knows really). I would like to clean up my pages a little by changing some of the links to embedded hyperlinks. I tried applying the same tags as on the forums, but when I click on the hyperlink I get the KerbalX "This is not the page you are looking for" error page. I've perused the most recent pages in here but didn't see anyone ask this. Is there another hyperlink tag method I need to use? Thanks.

The latest in large-scale personnel transport...and my first designs utilizing the J-90 'Goliath' turbofan. Available for download on the OP. Happy transporting.

[quote name='Majorjim']Dude, I have made a small folding rover using stock parts. I will post it soon.[/QUOTE] Or just kick it out the side of the lander and have Bill catch it so it doesn't tip over. :D That was my technique for kicking my rover out of my Mun lander. The one thing that makes rover wheels challenging still is the fact that in the SPH/VAB the suspension isn't fully-extended since physics aren't applied. A rover may fit inside a fairing in the SPH/VAB, but when you expose it to physics, the wheel suspension extends and can clip through the fairing walls, making jettison...problematic.

Very cool! SpaceX has some potential future competition for reusability. I like how the rocket slammed on the brakes right before impact. :cool:

Apparently I must spread some rep around before giving it to Rune again. That rocket on the OP, very cool. Reminds me of the McDonnell Douglas DC-X "Delta Clipper". I'm gonna have to figure out how to make my own simple vertical SSTO rocket now. Sheesh...another item on my KSP To-Do list. Thanks. :wink:

Aaaannnddd....another one finished flight testing in the new update.

For those that have seen episodes from Season 1 or 2 of MARVEL's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you might recognize some of the influence of this design.

Here's some samples of the stuff I've been doing since I last updated this thread. Now that I'm back to this thread, craft files are now posted on the first page after I design and test prototypes.

[quote name='ModZero']VTOL's don't have stock VTOL engines, and the turbines stick out. That might be more technically accurate, but until we get things like Harrier-style thrust vectoring this kinda kills VTOLs, at least visually.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of VTOL parts (liftfan and/or gimbals) or dedicated VTOL engines were under Squad's consideration for future plans. This is just pure speculation and conjecture on my part, but these reasons are why I'm making this assumption: [B]1)[/B] Squad obviously left the code in the game for the turbine assemblies (hence, this mod exists), yet it was mentioned several times they held off on implementing it due to the limits it puts on VTOL craft creation. I don't remember where I read/heard it, but I thought it was said by one of the devs they wanted to bring them back for the 1.1 update after reviewing how to handle them or implement them or something like that. This indicates to me that Squad believes having this visual representation of the engines is a good idea, yet they also value the passion people have for aircraft creativity (like VTOL's for instance). [B]2)[/B] Porkjet has been contracted yet again to provide a series of plane-related parts for 1.0.5, a handful of which "have no use for spaceflight" (as some forum users have put it), outside of jet-powered spaceplanes, operations in atmo of Laythe, etc. Contracts exist (and have existed for quite some time) to conduct aerial surveys around Kerbin. This tells me that Squad also recognizes some people want to do more Kerbin-oriented "science" that involves aerospace tech without necessarily sticking with rocket-building. There are no other runways on Kerbin besides the KSC, and a lot of the survey locations aren't very forgiving to landing an aircraft conventionally. A logical next step would be developing components to expand field research planetside. They just opened up the doors to amphibious aircraft, who says they won't do the same with vertical powered flight. [B]3)[/B] Porkjet seems to have a knack for recognizing missing niche areas in aircraft parts, and seems to keep cranking stuff out. The Spaceplane Plus parts-mod-turned-stock, bigger landing gear and wings to handle the Mk3 level parts instead of puzzle-piecing together a C-5 Galaxy, afterburning turbofans to fill the gap between the Wheesley and the Whiplash, a tail ramp for cargo aircraft/spaceplanes to unload all that cargo they carried without dropping out of inverted cargo bays. It seems logical that Squad and Porkjet still have their ear to the ground on where they could expand this area of the game. Anyway, my four dollars and 2 cents are complete. :wink:

LMAO! Well played...

I'm still waiting on getting a "satellite maintenance" contract so I can send either my shuttle or one of my SSTO spaceplanes up to rendezvous. Sounds cool.

Godspeed Maxmaps. Sad to see you go.

I dont understand how someone is ok with the complexities of designing a simulated rocket using real-world physics and aerospace design principles...yet ask them to select a crew prior to launch, and they throw up their hands in frustration and give up. This isn't a joke, it's a legimate puzzlement on my part at threads such as this. Are these "issues" really such a big deal??

Redo all my SPH aircraft/spaceplane designs, update my shuttle to take advantage of the new "Vector" engine, explore some of the other parts and tweaks. And take a look at seaplanes

meh, Squad is a marketing company afterall...doesn't surprise me they try to use the hype train periodically

^^^ Yep, backing that one up too. Squad and their contractors worked hard to get this out to use along with the long list of bugfixes...I'm more than happy to oblige them.

Don't take my EVA navball away before I even have it! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS?! Seriously though, why make rovers harder? It's not like you have a massive incentive to use them. Seen one bit of Duna, seen them all. A lot of players said the same thing about heat effects when that was in the works: "Why make reentries harder?". That is why I said make it toggleable, like every other feature that adds depth but more difficulty to the game. Some players want more, some less.

One incentive for doing a magnetic field survey of a celestial body could be the inability to use a navball without a command pod or probe core. For example, during the Apollo moon landings, they couldn't have a terrestrial compass on the rover because it wouldn't work, so an inertial computer calculated the direction back to the landing site. In KSP, you could limit an Inertial Nav Unit (INU)-guided navball to command pods/probes (not including EAS-1 external command seat of course), so when someone EVA's or drives a (podless/probeless) rover around, they don't have that navball to assist. However, if you have performed a magnetic field survey, you could assume the Kerbal aerospace engineers at the KSC were able to whip up a calibrated compass for that planetary body for the Kerbals to use. I see this as similar to the incentive of performing an orbital Ore survey to give a player better situational awareness of the local Ore densities and abundance before they choose a location for a mining site. On another hand, like with so many other features, maybe make this a toggleable limitation in the debug menu for those that wouldn't want that limitation. *NOTE: For those that haven't been following the next update, EVA Navball is a new feature showcased in 1.0.5, not available in 1.0.4.

The innovative use of parts is impressive, never seen anything on this level.

This has been happening on one of my designs too. I have Gigantor XL solar panels surface-attached to the longest I-beams (M-beam 200 I-beam) stacked in a series. Without SAS or anything turned on, the I-beams will start to build up a rotational wobble, like they're twisting back and forth like a washing machine. This causes the solar panels to wobble on them, and as the shimmy builds it will eventually cause the solar panels to break off violently. I have the solar panel arms mounted with OKTO probe cores and RCS thrusters on the small docking ports so I can undock and reposition the solar arrays directly into the sun. When I undock the solar "arms", the shimmy will go away if I momentarily tap time warp. As soon as I reattach, the shimmy will begin to build eventually.

Those are awesome! I really like the Osiris and Stingray