ScriptKitt3h

Here's a couple recent builds of mine...

Small SSTO

Fairly heavy as of now, hovering a bit over 200 tons with nuclear engines, since the LFO options I tried weren't leaving me enough internal fuel storage to really take it anywhere beyond whatever local SOI it started out in. Seems you might have, though admittedly they do look nice and provide some minor protection from debris and small projectiles depending on a ship's design.

What's this? Oh dear... Still unfinished, and I'll likely tweak it a bit to optimize part count.

Yup, no problem! I was glad to see your tutorial series after HatBat linked me to it earlier, great stuff- I always like the idea of making it easier for players to get started with making ships, and that should come in handy for those who are coming to submit off of HatBat's channel and not the forums. She's a beaut, @zekes. Can definitely see the design influence from IW.

Oh wow, I've missed quite a bit haven't I... For those wondering where I've been (especially in regards to the series and so on), college was eating up much of my free time as of late (and admittedly I'd managed to burn myself out on KSP in a similar timeframe), so I had to take a step back from the game as a whole during the past couple of months. However, with me being more-or-less freed up for 2-ish months before Fall semester starts, I'm much more able to get back into the swing of things in KSP and with the series- expect me to be trawling through the submissions thread today or tomorrow to catch up on what I've missed craft-wise.

For one, you don't need quite so much wing spam- offsetting the fuselage parts somewhat more might help, as well as careful usage of medium/small radial-attach radiators to smooth out the curves of the fuselage's exterior. Tweakscale's not allowed for submissions I'm afraid, but it wouldn't really do too much either. Sadly, sometimes you just have to accept and work around the limitations of the stock game's aero to get what you're after- and that's OK, since you'll likely have learned a lot about streamlining your craft by the time you're done. (A big tip when it comes to this- keep the aerodynamic forces overlay up when testing- look at your lifting surfaces' behavior and your sources of drag and tweak accordingly; sometimes something you thought was occluded or lifting one way isn't.) Additionally, it looks like you've put a lot of elevons, flaps, and intakes on your planes- keep them to a functional minimum if possible, as intakes are much stronger than before in terms of air provided and drag generated, and putting excess lifting surfaces will slow you down tremendously and make your craft more unstable. I'll take a look at it myself when/if I have time to; shouldn't be too hard, just gotta get a decent launcher and either a fairing shell or very careful flight plan.

That's a ship hovering between/around 150-200 parts, yeah? It's not too uncommon for larger warships built in stock (especially carriers/battle-cruisers) to have high part counts sometimes- I mean, look at some of my older ships, ranging anywhere from 200-something parts to well over 1k (though admittedly those are designs I made for the Naval Battle Club thread originally). So far, so good from my POV.

Yeah, I've learned from both using the 'glass cannon' tactic in battles and being on the receiving end of such tactics that it's not a bad idea at all and can be effective when done well. Also, @MiffedStarfish, you've got some great-looking ships so far, keep it up!

There is more to come, so definitely stay tuned. Additionally, some of these recent submissions are quite impressive- glad to see some new builders come and submit their craft!

Precisely, especially when someone like myself who builds warships pretty much every other month or so (varyingly) ranges from a few hundred per hull to well over 1k parts with weapons loaded. Case in point, my newest design so far: clocks in at around 900 parts (give or take, don't remember the exact number currently). It's really a matter of the ship's size, purpose (long-range missile frigate, up-close fast attack vessel, etc.) and your PC's performance limitations when running KSP that limit your capabilities when building. (Also, on that note- I don't necessarily have a powerful rig by many people's standards- older AMD CPU with a GTX750 and 8GB RAM, not much by today's ever-inflating standards for gaming performance.)

ANX-02 Ronin's pretty much done, just needs some more entries in the ANX-line of warships alongside it and the -01 and it'll be ready for release. Went with a mix of weapon types on it purposefully to widen the range of threats it can successfully engage and destroy (SRB cannon in the bow, 3 frontal ARMS launchers [duplex], and a trio of ASM EVO v2 1.25m VLS cells). The effectiveness of this mix of munitions was proven in the battlecruiser's final weapons test in HKO, where my abandoned Infinity-class warship I use for target practice was split violently into several large chunks after getting walloped by a 1-2 punch of the SRB cannon's kinetic energy penetrator tip and all 6 of the ARMS missile fired in one salvo for maximum damage potential. And when I say violently split, I really mean shattered. The derelict warship's core (root) girder piece was annihilated (alongside the internal probe core offset inside it), and the ship's lower hull was in shambles, along with its shattered superstructure- only after timewarping for a better view of the damage did the now-separated chunks of ex-vessel drift enough to show the true extent of the damage.

Battlecruiser on station... Another ship done, another entry to my upcoming (WIP) new stock fleet. This one's quite tough too, taking multiple hits from my current lineup of stock ship-to-ship missile designs like a champ, with only external (aesthetic) damage being dealt. Wing parts over steel plate- once again demonstrating that sacrificial layers of armor still function even in KSP.

Wow, that is by far the best mothership/sci-fi style colony ship I've seen in a long time on here. Excellent shaping!

I've been working on something I've personally been attempting to do for a while now- a decent sub-1.25m guided missile that has moderate armor penetration capability. Thanks to the current state of the radial RCS engines, I now have a working initial design, which I'm calling ARMS Mk1 (Advanced RCS Missile System, Mark 1). As shown in the test above (target vessel was an abandoned warship of mine left in orbit- the Infinity-Class warship, in many ways a heavy destroyer due to its size, hull, and firepower), an ARMS missile fired from a Mk1-2 pod situated roughly 150m below the target was fired 'dumb' (since line of sight shooting was easy in this case), utilizing the onboard probe and RCS to simply maintain its heading. Upon impact, it violently pierced the hull, taking out several chunks of armor plate in the immediate area of impact and destabilizing the plating around it (wobbling/warping, etc.). The plan is to use these ARMS Mk1s as a short-range, larger-volume-of-fire alternative to traditional 1.25m guided Anti-Ship missiles, as the latter are generally higher in part count per shot and have more mass per shot compared to other alternatives (something that lends them their effectiveness as ranged ship-killers). So far the ANX-01 Nagata - Class assault frigate (the ship I teased earlier) and any other forthcoming new vessels from me (such as the ANX-02 Ronin - Class battlecruiser shown below in an unfinished state during a test in LKO) under the ANX lineup are the only ships to mount this- though I may release the design as a subassembly .craft file if further testing proves its effectiveness on a wider range of common (armored) hull designs. EDIT: Additionally, an interesting tidbit regarding armor penetration in stock KSP- a single, centered high-impact penetrator part (like an i-beam, for example) often pierces armor better than a larger, arrowhead-shaped penetrator or 'clump' of penetrators like many existing complex missile designs utilize. I suspect that's due to how the former behaves similarly to an IRL APFSDS (Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot) projectile fired from a tank cannon or other heavy artillery piece (minus the finned projectile, as there's no atmosphere in space for projectile stabilization that way).

Thanks, the armor's alright for what it is- while I have no doubt with enough of the right type of munition in the right spot will cause some good damage to it, it's not paper-thin either, so that works in my book (and TBH, invulnerable ships aren't that fun to use).

not really- part clipping can help make some quite beautiful and highly functional craft- look at @Cupcake...'s wonderful aerospacecraft and dropships, for example.

To quote from the submissions thread rules: - You must add information about your space agency so HatBat can mention it in the show if he uses one of your craft. This could be a simple bio or an entire history. If you don't add information then your ships will be credited to HKA or GMI directly. However, don't pump any company lore full of crap like 'Oldest company on Kerbin' 'We have our own warp drives' 'We entirely colonised another planet'. It will be ignored. Along the same lines, please do not assert actions of HKA and/or GMI outside of the show's plot. Just don't go overboard with your agency's backstory and things will be fine- but don't let yourself slip in full-on faction RP territory. Otherwise things like fairly O.K. in terms of your submission- I can't speak for @HatBat, but AFAIK crossovers with other fan works are not in the cards. Additionally, good ship designs. I like the idea with the planetary defense guns as well.

Made a small ion fighter today to test how much burn time you can pack into a small ion craft without opening the solar arrays (but while preserving a usable TWR): Even pulled off an attack run on one of my warships I'd left floating above Kerbin.

Fleet preparing for launch.

The return has begun.

Pretty much nailed it. Less mods = less lag, and in general better performance overall with lower crash/bug risk.

Yeah agreed. @SuperHappySquid's got a nice hull shape there.

Hmm... funny you should mention that... "Voodoo One, Viper's on station." Just gotta finish the flight systems and get them fully operational now... EDIT: and yes, it DOES fit a kerbal pilot.

Thanks, was going for something that fit with the inspiration's artstyle and still felt nice and airworthy.