BagelRabbit

I don't plan to cut the rope. Rather, the rope will be very long (30 feet), which will mean that if the rocket is fired at a slight angle from vertical (less than ten degrees), it will miss the balloon entirely. Trigonometry for the win! (Oh, and this longer rope will also dampen any back-and-forth movement caused by wind, which is nice if you need the rocket to be pointed upwards when launching. ) As for igniting the engine, the biggest issue is not the extreme cold, but rather the lack of pressure: even with their small amount of oxidizer, conventional igniters simply won't work at very low pressures. The current fix I have for this involves sealing the motor so that it is airtight with hot glue (which will melt almost instantly after ignition), and using a special e-match igniter augmented with plenty of pyrogen. It will be very worrisome putting a dab of hot glue in the nozzle of a live motor, but I'm chalking this up to 'a risk that I've gotta take, and one that isn't too bad as long as I don't do anything stupid.'

At the risk of sounding like a nut-job, I'm working on a project like this right now in my (very limited) spare time. My first prototype is already being assembled in my basement. It's a pretty standard minimum-diameter rocket, a descendant of the one that I used to get over a mile high on a commercially-available H motor. Here's the original craft, called the HyPr. (The reason for the big cone on the back was to properly accommodate the motor, by the way; I'm not going to need as similar cone for this project though, nor will I need the stand-off for that little launch lug tube you can see at the top.) I should mention that this rocket, and the rocket I'm currently building, are both 29mm in diameter: only a bit more than an inch. Even though the HyPr was lost because of a lack of a transmitter, I'm pretty sure that this guy broke the mile mark because it did not shred on the way up. (Top speed came out to something like Mach 1.3.) It wouldn't be too difficult to carry a rocket like this up on a weather balloon: the parts so far weigh a little more than a pound and a half, and the final rocket will be below two pounds. So, I'm planning another rocket of the same diameter, meant for travelling up to 95,000 feet on a balloon before being launched. According to my good-quality rocket simulation program (it's called Rocksim, maybe you've heard of it), the rocket I'm building would reach 31,400 feet above the balloon at its apogee, taking it up into the lower stratopause. The rocket would go from near-zero to Mach 1 in less than a second. Hooray for an almost complete lack of drag! I've got most of the equipment needed, though I'm still lacking a really small tracker that can get a range of maybe 30 miles... maybe someone here can help I'm planning to do a test in about three months, in which I take the rocket up to about 10,000 feet AGL with balloon before firing it to about 18,000 feet AGL. It will be nice to see if everything works. After that, I'll probably go for 130k feet if there's no serious problems with the first flight. I've given this a fair deal of thought, and I know what I'm doing. Please don't look at me that way. At any rate, I'll have to overcome a heck of a load of obstacles to get this to work, but it's worth a try. -Upsilon [EDIT: Holy necro, Batman! Although I suppose this topic is still relevant, so there's no real reason to shut it down.]

I will find a way to cheat the new aero system, just you wait. ...but in the meantime, I want to enjoy making unrealistic craft for as long as possible. After all, they're really fun and everyone seems to love them.

I don't know about having a submarine expansion pack (this is, after all, Kerbal Space Program), but I agree with a lot of the statements that have been made here. I would love to have a gameplay element that if a reusable rocket lacks buoyancy, it could sink and become un-recoverable. You could still EVA the Kerbal and get him out safely, but the remainder of the ship (and all of the Science and funds that went into it) would sink to the bottom of the ocean and become a ghostly wreck, a la Gus Grissom and the Liberty Bell 7. I would also love to have a single 'airbag' part that provides strong positive buoyancy when inflated, thus allowing dense rocket bits to still float, if you wanted them to. This could allow for "submarine-like" undersea rovers that could be recovered by inflating the airbags; perhaps these craft could even lift sunken spacecraft back to the surface, if they had an Advanced Grabbing unit on there. Oh, and I added to the OP that rocket and jet engines shouldn't work underwater. I hadn't added that yet, and it's pretty obvious that they shouldn't.

I would drop the impact tolerance to 5 m/s or so, drop the maximum temperature to a mere 1,000 degrees K, and decrease the weight to 0.4 tons on the Small Lander-Can. In short, this would allow people to fly Kerbals to airless worlds really easily, but they would need to transfer the Kerbals back to the regular command pod for any hope of surviving atmospheric re-entry. It would add a little more complexity to the game, and it would provide an intermediary step between regular cockpits and the external command seats (which, IMHO, need to be nerfed as well.)

It's cool... but when I think of flying cars, I think of the ones that I made (SHAMELESS PLUG WARNING!): In other words, you should probably build a car and then attach control surfaces until it flies, not build a plane and then attach rover wheels. But I like the concept here, and I could easily see it working for excursion vehicles on Eve or Laythe. Not bad. -Upsilon

Context: Current Problems with Water: >It's much less forgiving than "real-life" water. In KSP, a hard landing on land results in the destruction of a few parts... On water, however, the entire ship is often lost. Of course, it's exactly the opposite in real life. >Many parts are almost ridiculously buoyant. Have you ever seen an I-beam or a solid metal plate float? Neither have I... except in KSP. The only things that reliably sink are asteroids. On a related note, air intakes are far, far too buoyant. After an airplane crashes, its air intakes are often bouncing for a long, long time. Oh, and if you time-warp up to 4x, you can sometimes get intakes to bounce 800-900m in the air. I would also love a retexture at some point. The water currently isn't that pretty, and it appears to move back and forth linearly, which is a bit disorienting. I don't think that KSP should be considered ready for 1.0 until its water is fixed. These problems are pretty serious, and they need to be addressed before the game is out of beta, in my opinion. I'm very, very happy with the changes that SQUAD is going to make, and I'm very excited for 1.0. I just want to see this issue addressed in the best way possible. Please let me know what you think, and voice your support if you think this needs changing too. Best, Upsilon [EDIT: I forgot to mention that rocket engines shouldn't work underwater, anymore. The rest is still true ]

I'm sorry for not reading the entirety of this thread (or viewing any dev notes), but one of the biggest things I'm wondering about that hasn't been addressed (so far as I can tell) is whether the in-game water will act a bit more like 'real' water, i.e. being a bit more forgiving than land in the event of a hard landing. Anyone heard anything about this?

I like this thing. It's one of the worst offenders for Aero-Model Abuse that I've ever seen. Oh, and before the original Small Control Surfaces were nixed, I could build craft like the following (which, yes, was capable of sustained flight and glided at less than 60 m/s): I think I've abused the stock aero model more than most. My sincere apologies to those who think this is immoral or something.

This is really, really rough. I still need to add tons of things to this drawing, which I'll do over the next several days. Let me re-iterate: NOT The final version yet. That being said, it's coming along nicely. Let me know what you think so far! -Upsilon

Am I the only one who wants this side-mounted, haphazard flight bar for early Career mode? It fits with the "throwing stuff together" mentality very nicely, and it could be upgradable (with upgrades of either Mission Control or the Tracking Center).

Whenever I see a jetpack thread, I feel obligated to post this guy. At any rate, it would be nice to have smaller parts without TweakScale or any other mod. I hope that happens soon...

This is really awesome! I'm sorry for being so nit-picky, but there are a couple of things I would do if I were you... Do you have matte green paint for the head? It looks as if Jeb's glossy, which isn't really a bad thing... but it's just a little something. Also, your model of Jeb doesn't have hair (or at least not the very distinctive widow's peak that Kerbals have). I don't know whether it's because the radiation of space is getting to him, but you might want to go in and paint that too. I think that Jeb's legs would look a lot better with that one pretty thin red stripe that goes around them. I know, I know. I'm being really picky. Other than that, this is a great work of art. I'll give you some +Rep now, and some more +Rep if you make those changes -Upsilon

The last time I used the stock LES towers was in 0.23.5. I made a plane out of them... I've since gotten bored of them, and thus I occasionally make my own. Usually I just fly without a LES.

The poll wasn't asking "Should all announcements be made exclusively on the Forums?" It was asking "Should all announcements be posted on the Forums, in addition to everywhere else?" In other words, not posting updates on the Forums actually is stifling discussion, compared with posting the information everywhere.

A long time ago (namely, July 2013! I didn't even have a screen-recording program.) I made this thing: If I remember correctly, it had four parts (five counting the Kerbal), it had no fuel, it travelled from one end of the runway to the other (at about 5 m/s!) and it was tremendous fun. Because this was done back in 0.20, it might not work anymore... I should probably update this post when I can replicate this in 0.90. Anyway, just a bit of inspiration.

Thanks Majorjim! Coming from you, that means a lot. (Also, I'm working on another really small Shuttle, and will reveal it soon). Not a bad name, though I'm not sure whether I'll use it... I just realized that there's a control surface and a wing clipped into the cockpit. I feel a bit guilty, now. Still, all clipping is purely aesthetic, if that's any comfort. Thanks! I spent a lot of time on this thing's aesthetics, so that it could look clean and attractive. "Meep" indeed. Of course, knowing Beaker, he'd likely end up sitting in a pile of smoking rubble by the end. Can you post a picture of your SSTO here, or maybe PM me or something? I love seeing other peoples' SSTOs, they give me a good deal of inspiration Download isn't out yet. I still want to tweak a few small things before releasing it... but I will release this thing soon. You would have to put a rocket engine on the bottom of the orange tank or risk seriously asymmetric thrust. Not a bad idea, though! After I put out a download link, I'll see if I can get it to work... I might go along these lines and call it either the "Chub" or the "Chubby Goby" or something. Thanks for the compliments and +Rep everyone! I really appreciate it. -Upsilon

Hi everyone! I wanted to see whether it would be possible to make a lightweight cargo SSTO using an Mk3 command pod and a small Mk2 cargo bay. After a lot of tinkering, it's done! Presenting... The GUPPY Payload SSTO. Pictures! This SSTO takes off and lands pretty conventionally. It's a good glider: it takes off at less than 100 m/s and can land at only about 50 m/s. Once in the air, two jet engines and three LF+O engines (as shown) deliver the craft into orbit! Because the Delta-V budget on this thing is tight, you may have to tap into RCS fuel to deorbit, but there's plenty of it to work with. You can carry payloads of up to a ton in the craft's cargo bay. Payloads I've flown include small satellites, manned maneuvering units, and even a docking adapter with extra RCS fuel! Additional Features! > Three-Kerbal Capacity! Because the more the merrier. > Relative lack of air-hogging! Only two ram air intakes, along with a number of basic air intakes and two of the really long radial ones. > Reasonably Little Part-Clipping! The worst that I did was clipping wings into wings; there's no clipped fuel in this design. > Low-ish Part Count! I think it's fewer than eighty parts, but I'm not entirely sure. > Fully Reusable! At least, if you add on the optional cargo-bay docking port for refueling after landing. > Good looks! Like a little chubby shuttle, only with jets on the back. How to Fly: Please put a payload in the bay before flight. Otherwise, the Guppy will be unstable. The Guppy lifts off at 90 m/s. After it lifts off, pitch up to 45 degrees, and then eat snacks until it's at 10km. At 10km, lower your pitch angle to between 10 and 15 degrees to build up speed. The Guppy will want to flip downwards, which is easily combatable but nonetheless good to know. Watch your Intake Air, and throttle down if the Guppy begins to pitch to one side or the other. If you have the flight profile right, the Guppy should be travelling at about 1,400 m/s at 25km in altitude before you begin throttling down. At about 30km in altitude, activate the rocket engines, but don't cut the jets yet. Continue to coast upwards at low throttle. When one of the jets flames out, press the '1' action group to cut the jets by closing the intakes. Throttle the rockets up to full and proceed to orbit! Land normally... the Guppy is mostly stable on the way back, but try to avoid pitching up too much. That's pretty much it. .craft file! Here you go. Thanks for stopping by! -Upsilon

I think that this thing is worth a few points of +Rep My personal favorite thing that I've done in stock KSP is creating a fully functional... Claw Game ...complete with lights, labels, eight Kerbals to choose from, and a fair deal of difficulty! Pictures: Here's the Claw Game, ready for action! Doesn't it look cool? The Claw is ready to drop upon the unsuspecting Kerbals below (with the help of 4x Time-Warp.) The Claw has captured a Kerbal! Time to time-warp back to 1x and take Bobger to the Victory Bin on the other side. You're free, Bobger! Now you can be taken home by the lucky winner... I spent too much time making this thing look nice, and work properly. Still, though, it's not that bad of an idea, right? ...and now for a video explaining how the thing works!

I was trying to get a bulky SSTO to work... I initially called it the Brick on account of its very limited wing area. Then I added larger wings and called it the Winged Brick. After I got it to take off, fly around the KSC, and land safely, I called it the Flying Winged Brick. After I got it up to 25km with no problems... the C.F.W.B. (Capable Flying Winged Brick). Then, I finally did an SSTO flight. I named it the C.F.W.B.S. (Capable Flying Winged Brick SSTO). I pronounced C.F.W.B.S. "cough-wubs." It didn't resemble a brick at all in the end...

My personal favorite thing that I've done in stock KSP is creating a fully functional... Claw Game ...complete with lights, labels, eight Kerbals to choose from, and a fair deal of difficulty! Pictures: Here's the Claw Game, ready for action! Doesn't it look cool? The Claw is ready to drop upon the unsuspecting Kerbals below (with the help of 4x Time-Warp.) The Claw has captured a Kerbal! Time to time-warp back to 1x and take Bobger to the Victory Bin on the other side. You're free, Bobger! Now you can be taken home by the lucky winner... I spent too much time making this thing look nice, and work properly. Still, though, it's not that bad of an idea, right? ...and now for a video explaining how the thing works!

You're getting close. I should probably mention for non-model-rocketeers that despite the fact that the CG and CP (Center of Pressure, same as Center of Drag) are aligned, rockets will still be unstable if the CP is in front of the CG (if the fins are in front). According to conventional calculations, this rocket should be unstable. The main drag-producing bit is in the back, but there's still some serious drag in the front (caused by the soccer ball). In addition, the center of gravity is pretty far back, as a result of the motor that I used (solid rocket fuel is heavy). The rocket balances right at the base of the soccer ball, which is very slightly behind the Center of Pressure. And yet, the thing flies relatively stably. So, what's causing the added stability? This is the real question. -Upsilon

But of course! My music is Creative-Commons, meaning that you can do whatever you want with it. Note, however, that the music will likely also be used in another plugin. If you don't mind that, then I'm okay with whatever you do. Best of luck! -Upsilon

Only one question for y'all: It would be much better to use wings made with cardboard "ribbing" with a covering of Scotch tape. (It would really cut down on wing mass while still allowing for some pretty sturdy construction.) If the main fuselage is made of cardboard, would this setup be allowed? I would love to take part in this challenge, by the way. Sounds like a lot of fun. -Upsilon

...I'm sitting there, everything seems all nice and stable, and then BAM! there are bits and pieces flying in all directions, one of my eyebrows is gone, and my houseplants are on fire.