Bishop149

The way I have always done it is: - Design sinking craft with x anchors attached, usually via the RTG hardpoints or that tiny physics neutral girder that can be radially attached and has a hardpoint on either end. - Attach sinking craft to floating platform via a single winch. Secure the sinking bit to the floating bit with struts that can be blown off with a decoupler before deployment, if you don't to this it will wobble itself to bits. - Drop in sea at <10m/s, whole craft should float with not too much below the waterline. - Blow the securing struts and lower away with the winch, sinking bit will then either: a) Drop into the water to max winch depth (50m) in which case it will probably sink ok when you uncouple it from the winch. Float, and winch will keep spooling out but to no effect and nothing will sink. . . in which case try again and increase x. I did once get a bit bored of the whole floating winch platform thing and tried just dropping the sinking bit with only a detachable parachute section above it, didn't work . . . the problem here I think was that if too much of the craft submerges upon impact with the water the craft just breaks apart. A little cheaty for me that one. . . . I might do it, but will be as a last resort! I find it more fun to find ways round the games limitations. . .

My project of the last week or two to successfully mine underwater Kethane deposits came to fruition Full reports here

Ok so numerous larger prototypes were tried and the following was learned: - This is an obvious (and large) weight difference between a full kethane tank and an empty one. . . logically this would affect the buoyancy and indeed it does, some designs that ascended fine during empty testing after losing some anchors did not ascend at all once the tank was full. - The drill / recharge cycle was ok with a tiny quickly filled tank, but with big ones was a WAY too slow, I need the drills running constantly. I initially tried just giving it a HUGE amount of electric charge but batteries are quite buoyant and even with a quite a few huge ones I was still gonna run out of charge before the tank was full. So recharge > drain it then. I didn't try solar panels . . . I mean I'd imagine the game might allow them to work underwater but this is colossally unrealistic and panels are also quite buoyant. RTG's it was. . . . to run each small drill 10.6 of them will be required, I ended up using 22 for 2 drills. Fortunately RTG's both aren't especially buoyant and come with two attachment points for additional anchors to be attached to. - I found that these decouplers are ideal both for ejecting stablising struts post landing and for ditching anchors. They aren't very buoyant which means that the sink well and don't bounce annoyingly on the surface when the stablising struts are ditched whilst the rig is floating, additionally I could fit up to 6 anchors on each one. - Both time warp and loading quick saves are inadvisable for a ship sitting in the seabed . . . both tend to cause the ship to spontaneously explode! I recently have gathered the feeling that this might be ameliorated by the tank sitting on landing legs rather than directly on the bottom. - The current design is not reusable as it explosively ditches bits of its self to ascend. I tried using the KAS part can both ditch anchors and that Kerbs can attach and fresh anchors to as a means of reversibly ditching weight for ascent. This did not work, the part can only hold one anchor and its own buoyancy is not countered by the anchor it carries. Non-starter! So after about 5 or 6 prototypes I came up with a design based around an 8000 unit Kethane Tank, here it is on decent: It came down at night and I used my standard Kethane miner illumination! Rate of decent was perfectly acceptable at ~5 m/s and touch down at ~930 m down on the sea bed Drilling began took quite a long time, tank was filled at 2.5 units / second which translates as almost an hour to fill an 8000 unit tank. No bloody time warp so I went and watched a TV show and left it too it! Increasing the drill speed isn't really practical, I already need 22 RTGs to run only 2 drills, more / bigger drills will require an absolute LOAD of RTG's . . . most of which will need more anchors to weigh them down. So, ascent! Empty and sinking the diver weighed 71,330 kg Once full the diver weighed 87,330 kg which worked out correctly at 2kg / unit kethane, a 16,000 kg increase The weight ditched for ascent was 50,260 kg and it only JUST ascended, rate began at 1.1m/s and finished at ~0.85m/s on the surface. So it seems perhaps that ditching 3.2x the weight gained in kethane may be a minimum for ascent. During ascent something glitched out and the surface rig some how ended up on the bottom, switching to it just made it explode. . . so I recovered it. After surfacing Jeb arrives in a hydrofoil kethane tanker to drain the kethane and ship it back to KSP's stores! So successfully recovered 8000 units of submarine Kethane, as seen in the comparison image below: Future plans for this thread: - I need to see if the landing leg impression is correct, both warp and quicksaving would be nice to have back! - I might as well try it with the largest Kethane tank; 16,000 units might make the whole thing worth it! - I have an idea how I might be able to make my original drilling rig idea actually work. . . . needs testing!! - I'm gonna try underwater bases / submarines!

Relevent Mods to this this thread: KAS Kethane All other parts = stock. So I discovered quite by accident upon playing around with boats that I could make things sink in a controlled manner, mostly by attaching KAS's anchors to things, which got me thinking. . . there's A LOT of inaccessible Kethane on Kerbin. I mean look at it all! Time to start attempts to exploit this resource! Basic design principles: - Anchors make things sink - Most parts are pretty damn buoyant, the more you have the more of anchors will be required to make it sink, very large multipart divers might be impractically heavy! - Relatively non buoyant parts seemed to be the various very small girder parts, building solely out of these however is difficult. . . they have a tendency to become very wobbly and fly apart. - Anchors can been quite picky about clipping . . . trying to cram too many in a small space will result in explosive disassembly! - The diving bit will be very small and very heavy, as a result it is very prone to wobble and will massively destabilize any craft when moving at any kind of speed. It will thus require securing to the deployment craft with multiple struts, which will have to sheered with decouplers before diving. All my testing was done just offshore of KSP. . . once I had something that looked like it might work I strapped it on a rocket and shot it off to an actual Kethane field. My first attempts were kinda "traditional" drilling rigs, surface based floating platform and a VERY long line going down to a small drilling platform on the sea bed. . . or at least that was the idea. This didn't work. The core of the drill head was basically one of these, with 2 drill heads attached and about 8-10 anchors crammed in in such a way so as it didn't explode! Each KAS winch has a max extended length of 50 meters, most of Kerbin's underwater Kethane is in at least 800m depth. . . some of it is up to 1200m. So this would need 16-24 fully extended winches to reach. I gave it a go but couldn't get more than the first 3 winches fully extended before it wouldn't sink any more: I could improve this a little by adding 2 additional anchors to every other winch segment. . . this got me to 5-6 full extended winches. This clearly isn't gonna work to get the required ~20 would seemingly need an insane amount of anchors / weight. . . I also had my doubts as to the stability of a 1 km long craft. As part of this testing in frustration I unplugged the drill head . . . to the the drill head drift calmly to the bottom. Which gave me an idea, I don't really have to stay connected to the surface at all. . . . I mean it would be lovely to pump it all up but it doesn't appear practical, a diving and resurfacing extractor might be best! So I started designing a small prototype, the diving bit is basically a modified version of the drill head of my rig, with one drill, one small kethane manifold and a lot more anchors. half the anchors are detachable with a small decoupler for shedding weight for ascent of the sea bed. Oh and a battery and a few RTG's for power + smallest probe core and some lights for aesthetic value! I learned the following; - As soon as you start separating small girder parts with lots of anchor parts attached with decouplers they become SUPER unstable, too many struts to try and secure them and they don't separate properly. It was a nightmare building a stable diver this small. - Any kind of fuel tank (including kethane Storage tanks) are really very buoyant . . the number of anchors is now around 16-20 to get it to sink. So here we see a the final prototype (very) small scale submarine extractor on decent from orbit to a kethane field: in the second images you can see several small decouples that have been fired. . these had the securing struts attached to them . . now the decent is slow and straight wobble isn't a problem. So, lets deploy! Once winch was fully extended the diver was freed to fall Here we are approaching the sea floor, final decent rate of 9.7 m/s is a little alarming! But it touched down safely on the sea bed just over a km down and it was time to drill baby, drill! As the drill used up power far faster than the 2 RTG's could provide it, drilling was therefore separated into drill, recharge, drill, recharge etc Kethane Tank full it was time to ditch about half the anchors and see if it would float up . . . Success! ascent rate of about 3-4 m/s How much weight to ditch is a tricky one. . . as I found during testing ditch too much and you shoot up like a rocket either colliding with the surface rig and exploding or shooting clear of the water before falling back down and exploding! Once the diver had surfaced Billy-Bobby Kerman went for a swim to reattach the winch cable before returning to the rig. And there we are, 150 units of submarine kethane extracted to the surface! But lets face it. . . 150 units isn't worth anyone's time and effort. . . can this be improved? Tune in next post!

Ok, so craft I'm quite a proud of. . . I have a few: This is the latest, hydrofoil capable of moving 10,000 units of Kethane around at 150m/s + with a range that will get you half way round Kerbin. I think this is my best SSTO to date which I called "Extended Orbital Operations". . . looks pretty, is quite light at 17 ton launch weight and makes orbit with almost 1500 m/s of DeltaV left for mucking about in Kerbin orbit. . . I've also sent 2 to Laythe I like my Ion Roid pusher but this isn't the best picture This one isn't pretty. . . however this SSTO weighs 12.5 tons and can lift 5.5 tons of payload (that contributes nowt to the lifting) to kerbin orbit. Almost 1:1 lift body to payload ratio ain't bad! This is my Single Stage to Laythe: This is just a little plane, its not especially useful but it flies like a dream and looks nice Finally I really like my "rocket-hopping" rover for low Grav bodies:

Inspired by and gaining tips from this thread I had a go at making some hydrofoils last night, with some success. Pics below but first some things I learned: - It is very important that the crafts CoM remain stable as fuel tanks empty, at high speeds even a small shift in inclination due to CoM changes can become catastrophic. To do this, pick a fuel tank as the core, then add additional fuel tanks / engines / cockpits etc in such a way that the CoM does not really move from the position it was in when your craft was the just the core tank alone. Set up your fuel lines so that tanks drain towards the middle with the core tank draining last. Once you have a stable core add length and the hydrofoils 100% symmetrically at either end. - With any lifting surfaces you use make sure they are symmetric but inverted at either end. . . if they all point the same way you'll start generating a decent amount of lift which can mess up stability. Basically you want the have the lift /downforce from wings at either end cancelling each other out - Following the above principle its then not a bad idea to put a few canards at the extremes of either end to help keep the craft stable. . . I dunno if its strictly needed but I disabled the yaw and roll controls for the canards to be safe. . . having them only control pitch. -Large wings with just a couple of radial intakes (like those in designs below) make the best hydrofoils. . . over do the intakes and it might be a bit too buoyant, the craft will bounce around like a mad thing when it hits the water from chutes and at speed might lift up enough that you have things breaking the surface repeatedly and snapping off - If your dropping the craft by parachute (as I was) then the flatter it hits the water the better. - If you're going for speed use turbo jets, if you don't mind sacrificing about 20-50 m/s for a vastly longer range / higher fuel efficiency use standard jet engines. I personally began to favor the latter. Ok some pics of ships that worked (or not), mostly designed to be Kethane tankers for shipping around Laythe. This was about my first attempt, it was small worked very well top speed of about 145 m/s which it could maintain until the tanks ran dry with no dramas. . . . the tanks ran dry pretty quick however. I then tried to make a much larger, longer range craft and this one was a failure, it was over-complicated and as a result unbalanced. . . also had WAY too many intakes on the hydrofoils and was over buoyant. This was a back to basics approach going for pure speed. . . no Kethane transport, just Jeb! Topped out at 167 m/s Following the high speed success of the above, this one is basically a larger version modified for Kethane transport, and despite it's much larger size it actually beat Jeb's speed record pretty quickly getting to 176 m/s . . . decided to cruise at 130 m/s however for safety. The map below shows how far it got after burning 1/3 of its fuel. I'm gonna continue going tonight and see how far it will get. I'm confident it will cross the ummm Kerbindian Ocean to the sub-continent on the other side and maybe get a fair way of the way back to KSP as well. Very successful test all in all!

I recently made a boat, it does a mighty 25 m/s!! Having had a look here it seems the key is to minimise the amount of stuff in the water, just a few wing parts poking in it seems. I might have another go and see if I can break 50 m/s Sorry for dark image!

Yeah, atmo is thicker meaning chutes work better. The opposite is true on Duna where you'll need A LOT more chutes to slow decent than on Kerbin. . . in fact it's often so many as to be a little oppressive so I tend to use a combo of chutes and powered decent. For Laythe I'm not sure, I get the impression that chutes aren't quite as effective as on Kerbin . . . but theres not so much in it and I find that generally speaking if it will safely land on Kerbin it will be ok on Laythe too.

Today Jeb (Finally!) returned from his trip to Laythe netting 652 Science (not that I need it anymore, Jeb picked up a rock. . . science isn't really his thang)

I don't build very big, I have a quite a few small ships however. . . small is beautiful! This probably take the record, its less that 5 tons and is my very light "Return from Jool" module. . . holds a single Kerb has about 7-8000m/s DeltaV, and since the Ion Drive upgrade doesn't take hours to burn any more and had one less large solar panel. Quite a few off my SSTO's are around the 5-7 ton mark.

I had a very bad day. During a launch one engine randomly decided to fuel flame out despite being directly attached to a fuel tank with a LOADS of fuel in it Fortunately the lifter was a little overpowered so I could afford to shut down an engine on the other side to balance it out. . . but was a hairy moment. My rescue mission to Duna was on its way out of Kerbins SOI when I noticed the Electric charge slowly draining away "Whoops, better stop time warp and deploy the solar panels" thinks I. . . promptly presses the increases time warp button instead of the decrease time waro and watch my remaining charge disappear down the drain in 0.01s. Fortunately Lemgas Kerman was still able to EVA, and using KAS was able to remove of the Duna rover's OX-STAT panels and reattach it to the orbiter's sun facing side . . . generating just a enough of a trickle of charge to get the main panels deployed. It turns out the Eeloo mapping probe I had ready co-orbiting with Kerbin awaiting its node was in some horrific Kerbin SOI grabbing hotspot of an orbit, its been recaptured by Kerbin THREE times now and its cost me about 600 m/s DeltaV to finally be free . . . the loss of dV isn't a huge issue (it has loads) but I have now missed my alignment. . . best I can get now has it arriving in 7 freaking years . . . I will burn to match inclination (goodbye another 1500 m/s!) and see if I can do better. . .

More to do. Remember that resource tree. . . . that would be awesome. I basically want an official, expanded version of the Kethane mod. Gas planet 2 would be nice too!

Well, I made a boat. Pretty nice a stable, mighty top speed of 25m/s from 8 underwater jet engines I estimate its range to be about 44 km. If I decrease the no of engines to 4 the top speed drops to about 19m/s but estimated range increases to 68 km Pretty impractical means of transport really . . . .

@loch.ness Very cool little boat! I have not designed much floating stuff, one failed attempt a a Kethane drilling platform (can't mine aquatic Kethane deposits as it turns out) and that's about it. I have use planes to get around Laythe but it would be nice to have a method slightly less prone to catastrophic landing failures. I am inspired and am totally designing a boat . . . what kind of speed can it safely get up to? Any critical design tips?

I discovered that you can't mine Kethane from water

Mines pretty basic and mostly to avoid ridiculous mistakes I have made ALL too often - Have I remembered to add batteries and solar panels [repeat 5 times whilst smacking self in head] - If aiming for a RDV, make sure target isn't on the other side of Kerbin. - Now when I set up that action group I did set it to a number key and not the "STAGE" button didn't I? . . . Serious whoever made stage the default needs a serious talking to.

I found my first ever anomaly! Well apart from the island airfield of course. I don't look up where they are and go looking for them and the Kerbin system is a big place to run across one by chance. . . but I now have as part of a Kethane mining flight.

I have only killed one Kerb in my career game and it was inside Kerbins atmo. so I can still use the phrase "Never lost anyone "in space", as NASA do! In true KSP style it was a stupid mistake . . . I had landed an SSTO and was coasting down the runway, SAS was still on when I engaged the brakes. . . which over compensated for the tiny shift in heading the slow down produced, the wing tip hit the floor and BOOM! Whole craft slow explodes piece by piece as it slid at a mighty 8 m/s along the ground.

Odd bug I run across not infrequently: This happens to me sometimes even when I only have one "controllable" part on the ship. Its very weird, usually happens when I just switch to the ship . . . . "control from here" on the part fixes all the markers again but I usually only find out when my orbit start changing in a way it wasn't mean too

Apart from their obvious role in launch systems I use Kerbodyne tanks as the cores of some of my larger craft, but much most frequently as drop tanks. . . I prefer the flatter profile of Kerbodyne rather than having towering unstable things or long sausages. . . my standard fuel pod is now the below (the bit being winched up) The new big part set BADLY needs one of these, the current adapter is fine for some purposes but for most is just WAY too long.

Having just installed Kethane I have been mostly been designing extractors; Made quite a few but I'm most pleased with the one below, flying extractor for picking up Kethane and flying it back to base, for use on Laythe. Made it about half way to Kerbins pole, landed filled up and flew back to KSP. First time I have seriously tried to make a flying tanker, getting it to be aerodynamically stable at two vastly different weights (full and empty) is tricky. . . . its a little nose heavy when flying full at high speeds. Might need an extra canard to be turn off when empty.

I quite often launch to RDV with things without checking where exactly the target is in its orbit . . . . exactly the other side of Kerbin is often the answer. I have sunk more hours into this game than I care to admit . . . and yet I have still not done manned return missions to: - Moho - Eve (haven't even considered that one) - Tylo - Vall - Bop The latter 3 I haven't even sent a single mission too. I spent a long time playing without any knowledge of maneuver nodes, get in what looks like the right place, burn . . . hope for encounter.

Test of new launch system! First stage separation . . . . Oh that's not gone well . . . .

My standard roid tug is about 80 tons, has 4 NV-L's and about 15,000 deltaV in its own right. Oh it also has a bout 6 large SAS modules to help with rotating the damn things. Caught a class D and pushed it into a 200 km orbit quite easily. Not only that but the roid was coming in to orbit the "wrong" way round. . . so had to flip the incoming path too. Didn't have enough DeltaV left to correct the 25 degree inclination however. . . that will require another tug. The key is indeed to use areobraking, pick one that passes pretty close to Kerbin anyway (or impacts!). . . RDV a fair way out and just nudge it a tiny bit. I find 40-45km Pe works well. There is very little chance of accidentally over cooking it an impacting. . . these things are so heavy they only lose about 100 Pe altitude each orbit. Entire capture maneuver for my class D cost less than 100 m/s in DeltaV. Another few hundred, to circularize the orbit. The problem with nudges from far out is that even if you line it up as well as you can you will inevitably have a quite a large inclination in the orbit (unless your lucky enough to have a roid coming in in EXACTLY the same plane Kerbin! I've never see one.) Only attached to a class E once. . . needed about 70 m/s to capture. . . only had 53 left post attachment.

Rockets are no doubt easier, but I do like my ships to be efficient. SSTO's are just vastly superior in this regard, not only can they lift more weight to orbit as a proportion of launch weight , but you also get the whole craft back again rather than ditching most of the mass on the way and cluttering up orbit with debris. As soon as any kind of cost to launch is implemented SSTO's will see a surge in popularity I predict! I tend to use both at the mo. SSTO's for light payloads, Rockets for heavy. Mostly because designing BIG SSTO's is a right pain. . . . there just aren't any stock wings that are big enough and you end up constructing so ugly thing out of LOADS of smaller wing parts.