Hodo

My Mun kethane mining base in my sandbox. SVO-9 I have more, but not anything I haven't already posted. And I haven't made anything Kethane related lately.

Glad I could be of help, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. This project of mine I still have to fix a few things, but I am wondering how far I can go with it.

Look ma no wings!

My newest test craft... it has no wings, and yet it flies in FAR. Just goes to show lifting bodies do work if they go fast enough.

Honestly the hardest part is the shakedown run. Oh and don't worry I am not trying to get my SVO-21 to be scored. I was just seeing if I could build a SSTO that could do everything or at least most of the things on the mission list. I had one that could have done them all, but it was lost in the .21 to .22 upgrade.

My latest... The SVO-21. Mission pictures from the The-Versatility-Marathon-Challenge http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58216-The-Versatility-Marathon-Challenge

I imagine it will still be scored.

And now for my fun, non scoring attempt. (And to show I am a far better SSTO builder than a rocket builder) Left one debris out there a decoupler.

Not really a challenge, more of a ship request. I may have to suggest you check out this post or some of Cruzans work.

Probes are great for several reasons. 1- they weigh less than a manned pod. 2- they are expendable 3- they can look cool 4- If you use RemoteTech2, you need them. 5- Kethane you need them 6- ISA Mapping you need them.

I am happy with that. Not bad for a experimental Ion powered craft.

Another suggestion is you could do like I have. I have one long range dish on each of my communications satellites that orbit Kerbin. It is inactive most of the time, but when I launch a long range mission that requires constant communications, I turn them on and lock them to that target. So no matter where it is, one of those 6 satellites will pick up its signal and be able to relay commands to it. The other option is to place a station in a VERY high Kerbin orbit with 6 Kerbalnaughts on it. When I say high, I mean between the Mun and Minimus. That way you have a mission control that has near constant communications with anything anywhere.

Not going to redo the mission, I am fine with it being finalized. This is a good shakedown test for future work on the XI line of Ion powered craft. I am learning a lot about this ship and how to improve on the design.

I build my craft for use in FAR and DRE so they handle pretty close to what you expect out of a real aircraft. I found when doing a little research both here on these forums and around the web that the attitude of "MOAR INTAKES" is completely backwards when trying to fast. Intakes = Drag = Slower craft. So I came up with this which is the fastest aircraft that is built in FAR in the Maching Bird Challenge. As you can see it has 2 ram intakes. And it topped out at 2175m/s at a low altitude of 24.9km. I can break that if I used B9 parts and easily gone 2200+m/s at 29-34km. But I was using stock parts, which quite frankly are inadequate. Then I had this... for the Airline challenge. Again not a lot of intakes on that thing, yet it cruised at 1700m/s around the world. Then there is my Emergency Crew recovery vehicle, the SP-103 Jackal 5 intakes, 4 jet engine 1 rocket. Top speed in atmosphere 2290m/s.

Headed to the Mun, for stage one of the mission. Orbital insertion burn.... and still burning.... and burning.... and burning.. First satellite deployed. Its not big, but its more than 1.25 tons, its 1.5 tons. Sending research back to KSC. Approaching Minimus for stage two of the mission. Finally back home. And mission mostly complete. I am not even worried about my score, its not great, but I am just happy I completed most of the tasks, except the landing on the Mun and Minimus. I lost my lander with that glitch and was already IN route when it happened. So not thrilled. On a side note, I plan on doing this challenge with one of my SSTOs unscored, just to see if it can complete the tasks. I think my SVO line might be able to pull this off, if not I know my SP line can.

XI-2 Ion powered deep space exploration vessel. It's not fast but it gets there. And my SVO line. And the SVO-18 which still has some work to do but hey it can leave Kerbin, fly to the Mun, and come back... as long as you don't try and land like I did. I used WAY to much fuel on landing.

All I did was lose the lander that had docked to the rear of the cargo module. The main craft had not changed at all.

Woot! Fixed it.... If you want to disqualify me I can understand, but I managed to save the career mode, and the save file, but I had to delete a section of the ship... So I am going to do the mission sans lander. This does not make me happy... but eh.. its an Ion powered ship.

I have the craft files, but I will have to spend the next day rebuilding my communications network so I can have control over any probes or non-manned craft. I am still working on trying to get the current save to work... I admit now I am messing with the persistant save file. I am deleting parts off of the craft to reduce the part count to see if that was it. If I can't get it to work tonight, I am going to start the career mode over, and spend the next day launching communications satellites, which is never fun.

Looks like I am rebuilding the career mode.

I will give that a try. Welp tried that, tried a quick roll back on the system. Nothing. This is not something I ever look forward to. I think it might be the number of parts, its 189 parts currently with the two probes for the mission attached in the docking bay and the lander attached.

Nope, just spinning circle of death. I have tried several things, I may have lost the whole persistent file... which is mildly annoying. But easy enough to fix. Unfortunately I may have to rebuild the vessel. I can save the craft file and relaunch it, once I either reinstall the game, or restart the game mode. Sucks because I had JUST completed my communications network around Kerbin and the Mun. Now I have to RE-do that whole thing, which took 2 or 3 hours worth of designing and launching. And if you play with RemoteTech, you HAVE to have a communications network for anything not manned to work.

Hopefully I can figure out what the issue is in my game.. it keeps hanging when I switch to my vessel.

Or you could just download the FAR mod and use that and stop pretending..lol.

My latest little design. SVO-18, it can go to the Mun and back without refueling. Granted you shouldn't try and land like I did, that is something I am still working on.