ScriptKitt3h

Yeah, it seems to be a minor bug with the embedded albums. It's not too bad, though.

Yes, Mechjeb is counted as a mod; HatBat will likely put MJ on a ship he wants it to be on anyways, so it's not really necessary to have mounted on submitted craft.

Shame. At least you weren't getting losses due to hell krakens, like I do every time I land on Duna now.

I need to take proper stock of my NX-line of ships I've been churning out sometime in an album like that; it's a nice organizational tool it seems.

Jeez, that's some serious patience. Best of luck with the landing, as it sounds like a true one-way trip for the colony ship's modules.

Huh. Maybe I just haven't landed on it recently enough to know how 1.0.4 aerocapture and landing goes. :/ Guess I'll have to break out that old aerospike VTOL I know I've got somewhere...

0_0. What is that? A space-elevator-toting shuttle?

Looks like an effective setup; landing colony stuff on Duna involves a LOT of patience, quicksaves (less if you find a nice, somewhat level landing site), and parachutes. However, propulsive landing is always a good call for getting payload to the surface.

0_0. Welp, time to dig out the 'ol missile development save....

The NX-2 Odin battlecruiser clocks in at a whopping 825 parts (counting loaded ammo and drydocking clamps) and has a mass of 183 mT with a full fuel/ammo load. Part of that stems from the quad LV-Ns in the back and the 12 ASM 1.25 meter guided missiles it carries in its launch tubes. EDIT: Made a heavier-duty drone fighter, dubbed the NX-00 Banshee for now, after taking a detailed look at Spartwo's SIC ships, especially some of the smaller, faster ones. (The Slen is meant to be countered by this.) Ya'll can say what you will, but i-beams are still pretty effective fighter armament despite their age as a stock KSP missile.

Sure thing. I'd likely bring in some of my more direct-combat type warships like the NX-1 or NX-3, along with the NX-8. (The NX-2 Odin is a bit of a super-heavily-armed, super-laggy missile taxi TBH) EDIT: If you want, I can try and help you upgrade the Dragon Lore design a bit, since I'm always willing to accept a good challenge.

4x external small munition mounts (equipped with i-beams in the pic, could be swapped to any small-diameter missile or KKV); 2x internalized, side-facing 1.25 meter guided ASM launch tubes (using tire-tipped ASMs in the pic). Plus, add in external mounts/docking ports and the chaff probes, and this ship is ready for modern KSP combat.

I've been playing KSP a bit more often as of late, and this ship is one of my more... interesting, to say the least, crafts I've been tinkering with as of late. It's a militarized ship, yes, but I kept looking at some old Homeworld concept art and wanting to make a ship reminiscent of the Vagyr ones from HW2.

NX-8 WRAITH New from the Mechani Union.; a ship that doesn't need to be a space-rambo to be intimidating.

Ohhh, I listened alright... I took an NX-4 Valkyrie singleship out for an attack run on your Vesta-class, coming in from retrograde of the ship. The weapons loadout was 2 HVAP (higher-velocity) i-beams, and two normal i-beams. The first 2 shots were individual HVAPs, and they blew out several fuel tanks immediately and set the ship oscillating wildly. (Not many pics as this was a high-relative-velocity attack run.) The NX-4 then flew past the stricken vessel, spun around, and fired its twin standard i-beams in a single volley, destroying the ship's hull and stripping off the engines and weapons. I don't like making these types of comments, but you may want to start reworking your basic internal structure and hull design, as the Vesta-class got effectively totaled by what is in essence a heavy fighter. A good starting point for reworking your stuff would be to DL the ships that you can find from other builders and try learning from their designs. A good example would be this older design I've had lying around on my Dropbox, the good 'ol SX-13 Frigate. (The pic is of the "S" cut-down variant that had less external reactive armor plating and such.) Link to the SX-13: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1qj0fpprklpfcz/MU%20SX-13.craft?dl=0

Looks neat! I like the way you simplified the aft end to make things a bit more efficient. However, why'd you pick the 3.5 meter engine? Wouldn't it have very low isp?

Internal holds for fighters serve two purposes to me: 1- To protect crewed fighters from harm. 2- To fit within the desired aesthetic of the ship. If the ship can look good using drones and/or no internal holds and still be functional, it can be somewhat more part-efficient to make carriers with externally docked fighters. (It depends on what fighters you plan to use, however.)

Since it sounds like there's some sort of event that's going to happen at Minmus (a world that would likely require space combat to capture), the MU's got this in the works: The NX-6 Sentinel Drone Carrier with up to 4 NX-5 Proxy light Drone fighters. (Pic shows two drones docked on the rear-most adapters.) I'll PM you the details and links, HatBat.

Got my drone carrier for those Proxies done... Now to give it a full load and test the range on it.

In the spirit of advanced (perhaps even MP-ready) KSP tactics, I decided to make the NX-5 be a small, ultra-light, and expendable swarm drone, capable of being used en masse to overwhelm and kamikaze-attack larger targets (in the case of NBC battles, just swarming and shooting, not ramming). I call it the Proxy. I hope to make the NX-6 a more unique, efficient form of carrier, a ship meant purely to carry, launch, control, and re-fuel/arm expendable combat drones that can be used in swarms to devastating effect. The NX-5 is ion-powered, and has full RCS and a single internal weapon mount for simple ease-of-use and aiming.

Aww yeah, that was a great mini-episode! I'm very interested to see how the rest of the battle for Kerbin will play out. BTW, HatBat, I'll be shooting you a PM regarding the stuff we were talking about earlier. Also, RIP HKA Aegis; it's up to the Albion and Helios now to hold the line in space.

Tire-tip torps aren't necessary to really be effective, but they are fairly strong. I only use them on my new ships to cut down on part count. You just need a high-impact warhead, a compact, controllable fuselage (LFO works better than SRBs), and one or more engines that is efficient and decently strong in terms of TWR. For smaller rounds, i-beams still work fine, but I'd advise to use very few and to make the ones you use have plenty of thrust on each i-beam, since their strength is phasing/piercing. I'd also recommend putting RCS on your guided missiles. It is a life-saver for aiming and lining up shots at weird angles.

I think that once MP becomes a thing in stock in the near future (which, let's face it, is a pretty good assumption as of now), players will begin to specialize their ship-building AND piloting skills. For example, some players might be content to churn out warships and/or work behind the scenes in logistics, managing ammo, ISRU stations/craft, and fuel tankers. Others might go the route of singleship (I say singleship since not all small, one-person warships are strictly fighters) pilot, or drone operator on a multi-player-controlled carrier. Others still might go become captains, weapons officers, and such. Overall, I think turn-based stuff will survive in some form, at least to make tactics function in MP. However, fights will likely be a bit more intense, with more unpredictability and combined arms type combat. - - - Updated - - - It's fairly well-armored, in that simpler rounds and fighter munitions should get bounced most of the time. To be quite honest, it's nigh-impossible to make a truly "near-invulnerable" KSP warship. The arms-tech of the times prohibits it. However, it's still useful to have armor for dealing with lighter vessels and weapons, as they still will be bounced by most armor. Plus, it just looks darn cool. As for tips, I'd say to cut down slightly on your overall munition load, and try and add redundant fuel reserves, plenty of internal bulkheads (to block rounds that have gotten in from totally gutting your hull), and try using side-or-top-launched weapons, as they are harder to shoot out in one hit, and make it easier to armor the bow of the ship.

I tried my hand at shooting down the Dragon Lore... It's a tough ship, mainly due to the immense lag from the over 700 parts in the frame and weapons. However, a well-placed 1.25m round will blow off chunks of the hull and internals. The ship in the background that I used to take my shot is an NX-1 Excalibur missile cruiser. Damage report: -Loss of 2/4 engines (top and left side) -Loss of some miscellaneous internals -Potential disruption of ammo reserves -Large chunk of hull plate blown off the top of the ship's aft section. -Main bridge on top destroyed - - - Updated - - - Your frigate is next on my hit-list. I suspect it will take a 1.25 meter munition to OHK, but we'll see.

Testing of the newly dug-out Ranger goes well, with a re-entry test going flawlessly. The movie-accurate lifting-plank shape really does aid in smooth re-entry at a decent clip. I also am working on a SR-72/NASP-style SSTO/hypersonic aircraft, currently with no name. The twin RAPIERs are fed from a underbelly ramscoop-styled intake, and it easily reaches LKO. Returning is another matter, due to my poor SSTO piloting skills.