shepard1701

How do you mean? I'm using this to line up my burn to Jool, and my target is Vall, which eliminates the prospect of a Laythe Aerobrake... I suppose I could brake around Jool instead, but that's... tricky... I imagine.

I'm about to prepare my departure for Jool... Does anyone have any recomendations for how I should go about doing my Burn?

Y'see... that's why I'm going to stake out Vall... Tiny bit of Delta V to get to Laythe from there, and largely unclaimed... Also... docking is tedium when you only have 10fps

EDIT: Would anyone happen to be willing to help me out a bit? I have 2 out of 3 cruisers ready to depart, but the third is pushing my computer down to a soul crushing 6 fps, and I'm REALLY tired of slow docking procedures... would anyone with a more powerful machine be willing to refuel them for me if I send the persistance file your way?

Those look amazing. Especially the first one. Absolutely love them. Also, putting up my Errant Venture O/SB APT. Action Groups are... 4: Toggle Gimbal on outer booster thrusters. 5: Toggle Shield on forward center docking port. 6: Toggle Shield on forward side docking ports. 7: Toggle ladders. 8: Toggle solar pannels. 9: Toggle booster micro-engines. 10: undock bottom docking port. As I said, should be able to do most civilian jobs in orbit and around small bodies. Be sure to mention me when/if you use it.

Despite numerous tests and designs, it would seem that sending a Shuttle variant of the Errant Venture just isn't happening...

Probably work on Vall, though...

Hmmm... part of me thinks that that 'Io' fighter is suspiciously similar to the Syfer. Like... 'let's dumb this down even further' similar... I will note, that other than shots and delta-v, it looks like it's probably inferior in every way, but that's not a problem with it, per say. More like a 'feature'. Simple, cheap, expendable... EDIT: I say because the Syfer is actually really well designed for pilot safety, surprisingly. In four, possibly five directions, the fighter has something of the ship in the way of a shot. I've had moments when another syfer blows off it's wings and nose, and the damn thing STILL was able to fly.

No. Stock Star Furby is less capable than my Syfer.

Honestly. I don't think your space train would have much of an easier time surviving. Any proper missile or torpedo would probably blast yours right apart, and if your crews think that they can survive it, then they might not surrender. Compare, however, to the Sodor class space train system. These are civilian ships, flat out. If anything with an armament says 'Stop right there or we shoot'. They stop. They ditch their stuff. If the enemy focuses on that stuff, they bolt (with their capital ship level engine power). Firing on something like a space train, or a fueling station, IMO, is shooting yourself in the foot to get the roach sitting on it. It might seem like a good idea at the time, but all it means is that those people won't be sending another one any time soon. They won't be refueling it any time soon, and more importantly, you won't be getting that fuel any time soon. Additionally, from what I've seen, most of you guys' ships operate using the 1-meter docking ports. Nothing on my space train, except the Heavy Freight Car, uses 1 meter docking ports. So unless Hanland throws out a specialized docking ship, they just aren't going to be able to even ACCESS the fuel if they do manage to steal it. It pretty much has to get to Kerbylon first for them to easily access it. And again, I'm hoping to have Kerbylon painted as initially neutral territory. I doubt that will remain, but I trust Macey to keep everything cool and dramatic for us.

The full part count for the train as it stands now is 90. The engine has VERY few parts Less than 50, easily. I should easily be able to put another onto any of my trains with a minimal of pushing the part count up very much at all. And you'll notice that that Engine is fully capable of pushing as well. So yup... for especially large trains, they'll be driving with two engines. Hell, for the largest, I could just put engines on more and more... EDIT: Oh. And each car loads itself, eliminating the need for dedicated tugs on the Space Train scale. The only reason I need tugs now is to move ammo around.

SB Consortium News Network During the launch of the new Space Train's fuel car into orbit, an unnerving event took place as the unnmaned spacecraft attempted a rendezvous with the Train which will carry it to Jool in several month's time. As it reached an apioapsis of 200km, the vessel approached the Kerbylon 1 space station within 1.5 kilometers. Needless to say, this was unnerving for the crew aboard, who were virtually helpless to stop the automated craft from smashing into the station, should it collide. It seems that with 3 Cruisers, 2 space stations, and 2 Train engines in the SBCs designated orbits, space has become just a little too crowded for the safe keeping of these constructions. As a result, an immediate plan was put in place to acquire new orbits from the Kerbin Assembly, and an orbit at 500km was picked out for Kerbylon 1. Barrod Kerbin, acting commander of Kerbylon 1, had this to say. "The SBC has been putting a lot of focus in it's civilian efforts, trying to make sure that when the Jool window opens up, it's ready to send out an armada of logistics and infrastructure to further our colonization of that system. To do that, though, we've had to cut a few corners. K-1 just isn't safe in it's current position. But we're going to fix that now. K-1 will set course for it's new orbit and perform it's burn. This will serve as a good test flight, too. Let us know that this station is indeed worthy for the trip to Jool." After equalizing it's fuel tonnage across it's fuel-pods, even transferring fuel from the Errant Venture, K-1 began preparations for it's test burn. The entire crew section was placed under complete and total lockdown. All bulkheads were closed and the Errant Venture undocked, turning and moving away from the station under RCS to a safe distance. Once Errant Venture was away, the real tests began. RCS thrusters were switched on, and the main solar arrays were retracted. A manuever node was plotted. The titanic station, for the first time in over a month. Began to move. Once aligned along it's maneuver node. Kerbylon 1 performed a test burn to get a proper indication of it's thrust capabilities. Individually, the engine modules had been tested before. But once docked to the entire station, and at half fuel, they had never been tested. This would be the first attempt. Bartlay Kerman, operating helmsman, activated the thrust. An incredible success. The station held under the thrust of it's engines as they powered up, Radioactive Kerbanium rods pressing together in the nerva engines, producing tremendous heat, which then ignited and excited the fuel that would be burned out the back of the engine bells. The total sensation was unlike anything the Kerbals within had felt before. Over four hundred tons of fuel and metal accelerating. The results were promising. Their first burn shouldn't take more than 2 minutes. They waited for the node. Despite the trepidations any of the Kerbals felt, an overwhelming sense of excitement filled the station. Errant Venture stood by less than 10 kilometers off to rescue the crew should anything go wrong. "T-Minus 10 seconds to burn." Barrod Kerman said across the station's habitat section. His voice echoing in the sealed modules. "5. 4. 3. 2. Begin Burn." Suddenly. Kerbylon 1. One of the largest structures placed in Kerbin Orbit... was no longer a space station. The tremendous superstructure of the space station. Space SHIP, groaned under the less than 1 g stresses of it's acceleration. The struts and box-frames making up the stations skeleton began to flex under the weight of it's components. For 2 minutes, the entire crew of the station held their breath. 2 minutes later, they were on a perfect trajectory. In half an hour, they would arrive at their target orbit, and perform their second burn. That night, The Space Center's telescopes were turned up to the night sky, as a new star twinkled in the night for two minutes. A short time later, Kerbylon 1 began to re-orient and extend it's panels, doing so just in time for a striking and new Orbital Sunrise from it's new orbit at 500km. No longer was Kerbylon 1 a 'Station'. It was now a fully fledged spaceship. Information from these three burns will no doubt be invaluable in it's future burn to Jool. SB Consortium engineers will be pouring their hearts and souls into analyzing all the tiny bits of data gathered during these four minutes, carefully examining just what the station will be able to take in terms of acceleration and flexing. Additionally, this information will undoubtedly be employed in the designing of the next major space stations in the Kerbylon project. Hope you all enjoyed that. I sure as hell did. This thing is a BEAST. She wobbles a little bit. Worringly so, actually. I think that next time she flies, it'll be without gimbals on. Anyway, next I'm going to try perfecting the Errant Venture's shuttle variant, which will be used to shuttle crew up into space. If anyone would like to offer help, I'd sure appreciate it.

Take it you like the design? I'm currently struggling with the Kerbin shuttle variant, and am unable to test the Laythe SSTO variant. I could make all three available. "Commercially Available" if you will. After all, they're a super versatile kind of craft. My space train below could easily handle refueling and rearming. As for rescuing survivors. For fast, immediate priority work, the Errant Venture should have the capacity to take in most crews, with 8 open seats. Allow me to introduce the ShepYards 'Sodor' class Space Train. The Engine: Passenger Car Fuel Car Mono-Propellant Car Light Freight Car (Variant exists for heavy freight, which uses two medium docking ports.) Lander Car Antenna Car And some pictures of the beginning of my fuel train. As you can see, much like with the Errant Venture class, the name of the game for these is 'Versatility'. Already there is a car for virtually every purpose that this ship could face. Thomas there is less than 100 parts. EDIT: Of course, it goes without saying. Each and every one of these cars is fully compatible with the Errand Venture, which can serve as a 'light engine' if necessary.

Okay... This space train launching might be a bit tedious. Even as beautifully nice as it flies. Is it alright if I use a bit of mechjeb just for putting it together? I'll keep it off the vessel itself once everything docks. I'll still fly it to Jool manually. Okay. The Mono-Propellant car goes on like a DREAM. Next is the fuel cars.

A good alternative is to use Macey's standard torpedo design, but set it up in a staging type missile pack like I have. The LV-1R radial engine works nicely for that. Also... I am making the ultimate Space Train system. I suddenly realize that far more than my warships, my best submissions are going to be logistics vessels.

I do have one thing, though... I would really, really, really love it if we could convince Macey to use just one little mod. The Mk-2 Cockpit Internals mod. It doesn't make the game harder. Or easier. It just adds something that should be there in the first place.

After some testing, they do work when the game slows down a bit. So I'm going to halve the number of seperatrons. In an unrelated note, (I swear). I've found a very nice bomber ammo. Also, my fighters are a bit tricky to hit. Or my aim sucks. One of the two.

This would be amazing if it required ammo of some manner.

I hate to double post, but... Can someone help me out? My original missiles are... well... Mind bogglingly fast. Like... If I aim them just right, I could send one to from low kerbin orbit, fast... Unfortunately, this means that they're utterly useless. They pass through most things just about instantly... I'm experimenting with a few other designs. Does anyone have any sudgestions?

I'm hoping that it's too valuable a target to blow up. Helped by it not being immediately armed. My fluff write up will also be trying to paint it as a sort of 'neutral ground'. It will happily sell fuel and take in guests from either side. In the event someone doesn't want to be neutral, I've designed a watchtower to keep an eye on things. While unarmed itself, the Watchtower will have 3 of my Syfer type fighters to hopefully deter any would be aggressors. And they certainly should deter any would be aggressors... they are SCARY ships. A decent missile weapon with two shots, but they key is their incredible speed. Simply put, they're designed for aggressive intercepts, we're talking crazy fast approaches, then flipping in for the attack. The main reason I'm using a different station for it's defenses are that... well... My fighter sits at around a hundred parts. Half of that is taken up by it's weapons payload, about. So if Kerbylon were to store the weapons and fighters both... it'd just be too big. I may need to make my Watchtower a little bigger. OH! Can someone tell me if it's a problem that I have the mk2 cockpit mod in that thing? EDIT: Oh... this might be troublesome. I might have made my missiles too fast.

Say hello to the Errant Venture class O/SB APT (Orbital/Small Body All Purpose Transport) As you can see... it's big. View from the docking control station. It's capable of doing... well... anything. It can tow a train of 2meter cars behind itself, dock with a station, land and takeoff from any small body, carry crew and fuel in useful quantities, and theoretically could even serve as a fighter tender, though it doesn't have logistics support. Currently, there are 2 more variants in production. The first variant is a boosted shuttle for use in Kerbin orbit exclusively. Think of it as the Space-Shuttle, but with more of the parts being made reusable. The second is a possible Laythe SSTO. If that can be made to function, then it would completely change everything about how kerbal-kind views the blue moon. Also. Kerbylon is finished. All engine modules are docked. All it needs now is it's full crew, full fuel, and it'll be ready to go. I'm thinking it'll have a crew of 21. That allows for 3 shifts of 7 active kerbals at a time. 4 docking operators, 1 chef, and 2 security officers. If requested, I can make the Errant Venture and it's variants openly available. I actually would love some help on the Laythe SSTO version.

Can someone please test something for me? Specifically... can they test if this craft can launch, in it's single stage, into Laythe orbit from the surface?

It's a known problem. High relative velocities make the game a little... funny... sometimes.

Speaking of. When swapping out my torpedoes for the Minigun mod, my latest interceptor behaves... pretty much like some variant of viper. I'd show it off, but my videos on Youtube tend to get butchered. Does anyone know how to fix this sort of problem?

That's not as dramatic, though.