panzer1b

I achieve accuracy with my own weapons by using a few methods. For unguided crap its almost always a very good knowledge of my warship weapon hardpoints and then compensating for their offset from the cockpit. Most ships that use my SRM-6 cannon have that as a centralized weapon that is directly infront of the cockpit, then it just becomes a matter of aiming at the exact center of your screen (not that hard as i used to no-scope alot with sniper rifles when i was a kid) and in the case of decentralized launch hardpoints compensating with a minor tap with w, s, a or d depending on where the launcher is located (i never place a launcher that has both x+y offset from the cockpit im using to aim the ship from as its hard to compensate for 2 directions at once). As for guided stuff, there are many methods, the main one being raw practice (on average i test fire at least 10 times PER ITERATION when im developing a vessel, and most of my really good ones i iterate at least 20 times on (and that doesnt count my final testing which can be up to 100 shots from various weapons). The second one is mainly keeping the reaction wheel amount proportional to the missile's mass to avoid that jitter bug when you use aim at target com autopilot mode. The easiest way to hit something with a guided weapon is to maneuver into a desired angle, lock camera to behind the missile and then lock it onto the target's com, and burn to target making minor corrections to keep the target dead center. Its also easiest for me to use the naviball initially (until within 1km) to try and set the trajectory as close to the target, then i hit F2 to kill the hud and do minor corrections by tapping w, s, a, or d if i notice and drift from center (disabling the hud makes it so much easier to target stuff btw as no ammoying and stupid text all over the ship and i can also aim at something other then center of mass if i want to). The advantage of my weapons style is that i can actually get precision hits using missiles that say have no gimbal at all and only use the probe's reaction wheels (its enough for minor corrections and a last second side burn if needed). Ofc the downside of this is that if you mess up the trajectory too badly (or the enemy has very good TRW and is actively trying to dodge you will have a very hard time and are likely to miss. For real time MP ive always used high reaction wheel missiles and no autopilot mode as its easier to track fast movers, but against the mainstream ships on here my weapons are fine as is since nukes (even if you spam em) dont give you enough TWR to actively dodge my weapons (that and there is no real time MP yet). If you dont want to read the wall of text just try to keep the number of reaction wheels down so that you can use the "aim at target" autopilot mode without jitter, and try to keep the yellow circle atop the purple circle (you can actually hit stuff that way quite easily although i prefer to use manual view from behind the missile by killing hud). Also, consider building with a cockpit that lets you look directly forward somewhere on the ship so you can use unguided weapons without autoaim feature (lets you target specific components even on a spinning vessel with practice). Also, im almost done developing the 2nd generation AKS class-III corvette... Bloody hard to kill the thing with both ibeam weapons and various general purpose torps (ofc 10t+ weapons still destroy the thing outright), and the best part is that while it tends to get split in half a little more often then id like it to, both halves usually retain control, mobility, and weapons. You just turn one warship into 2 smaller ones. That and the new claw layout (it sucks having to abandon a very iconic layout that every AKS warship before had, but combat comes before looks) makes it easy to reattach the 2 parts if you dont want to have multiple vessels after taking a nasty hit. Now all i need to do is decentralize the RCS system so that each portion retains RCS capability after being shot apart and ill have the ultimate warship! Yeah it still sucks in firepower and armor compared to teh best, but its like 1/3 the part count of the competition... And the final version (with additional side-skirts for minor improvement to protection and well most of all looks): Couldnt get the RCS the way i wanted to (armor broke?!?), but the ship is in a state im quite happy with. Few more tests and ill upload this thing...

Well just made a new ship which is far fromn perfect but better then the older 1st gen... The SK-CRV-IIIg2 is basically 100% combat vessel, with a bit of a new look (even AKS warships have to eventually change...). That and the best part about it is that in the very likely event of core failure what is left can usually do something (the ship is made of 3 segments each of which has its own propulsion, droid brain, and weapons. Yeah, armor is moot these days (impossible to defend against ibeams without exceeding 500 part hull, impossible to defend against phasing torps while exceeding 500 parts ), but at least we can make ships that have enough redundancy to be virtually unkillable even if the entire ship is split apart...

So hows everyone doing? Now that im back from vaca i can actually build stuff, or well continue with my unreachable goal of making something nearly invincible (minus excessively powerful weapons) while keeping the hull under 150 parts, and having at least 10t of weapons, 3000 dV, and be under 60t (and with good TWR). At least it seems that the new 1.2 update being worked on has optimizing, finally the bloody devs realized that adding tons of flashy parts is meaningless when the game cant even load 4000 of them at once without lagging... Also im quite close to finishing my minmus base, its already 10000 parts sofar (at most 2000 loaded in one area...)

The main issue with reusable boosters is that in KSP fuel is extremely expensive compared to engines. In reality raw fuel is a mere fraction of the cost, and unless we are talking about SRBs (most of which are specifically designed to be cheap and disposable), engines in general are the majority of the cost of a rocket (or at least considerably higher then any other part of the rocket). This was the whole idea behind the space shuttle, which while way less fuel efficient then a conventional rocket, was able to recover the entire engine array as well as the electronics and control systems (+ the actual structure). It was found to work because needing extra fuel for ascent was not much compared to the ability to recover the shuttle. Now in KSP the best thing ive found is SSTOs that are designed like aircraft. In reality this doesnt work since we do not yet have a engine with high enough ISP to pull off the circularization burn, but in KSP a properly built MK3 fuselage craft can send as much as 3 orange tanks (the most ive ever managed) into orbit without that much fuel useage, and unlike a rocket, deorbit and land more or less exactly where you need it to (its possible with rocket but very hard to land perfectly on KSC). That said, i never bothered with SSTO rockets (aside from trying out the concept to see if it could be done like space-X did with landing on a barge) because they require alot of engineering, and the launch is somewhat time consuming and difficult. Not saying that isnt part of the fun of KSP, but myself im far more interested in actually doing something in orbit or on somne other planet, and i view rockets as a means to an end, essentially no point especially since i play sandbox. Its quite an accomplishment to land a SSTO rocket on a boat (or any other relatively small target like the helipad), but aside from that it makes neither monetary sense in KSP and it requires alot more time commitment in both rocket design and the entire launch sequence. As for asparagus, it works but the new aero drag doesnt make it as attractive as it used to be, and the only time i use it myself is when im trying to launch something excessively heavy and dont feel like actually spending the time to engineer a proper launch stage. Most of my launchers are 2 stage with 3 engines, 2 boosters and 1 central engine, since they loift the majority of payloads i need and are very quick to make not to mention super stable.

1st of all i have my own way to play KSP, just because someone (you are by no means the first to say something of this sort) disagrees doesnt mean im going to change what i enjoy in KSP, nor how i play it... 2nd of all, the reason i need nukes to obtain 2000dV is because almost all my combat ships have at best 1/2 total mass being fuel, many of them as low as 1/4 fuel (structural panels/girders/ibeams, and ofc a handful of 4-5t missiles are pretty heavy when you add it all up...). I have made plenty of LFO only vessels, some of which had in excess of 6000dV, but most used staging and were extremely heavy (and had very little payload fractions, which doesnt work if you need armor). Yes other engines work, but why should 2/3 or even more of my ships be fuel when i strap 2-3 nukes on and can achieve the exact same thing with a fraction of the fuel/mass.

No such thing as best engine, but there are 2 that i personally use 24/7. Almost all my ships are launched upon those super massive quads because i cant really be bothered to actually engineer a proper lifter despite the fact that i can have a lighter and cheaper solution using other engines. Its just that i never cared about lifters in the game, and i view them as nothing more then a means to an end, so yeah, ill use the simplest lowest part count solution around, and those 3.5m engines are really the best thing around for that purpose. Also, nukes have no alternatives right now, so if you are actually planning anything interplanetary without staging and dont want to carry 2/3 of your ship as fuel, you kindof have to use nukes to get anywhere. 800 ISP is so high compared to the 300-350 of LFO engines that you just cannot really use LFO engines for interplanetary travel or even moving around alot in general. Basically if you want over 2000 dV on a ship, and you are above 10t, and below 300t, a nuke or cluster of nukes will give you workable TWR with the absolute maximum range possible for your ship's mass ratio. While id love something that was perhaps a stepping stone between nuke and LFO, or even more sized of nukes (so i can have a 5t ship powered by a mini-nuke or so), for now we are pretty much stuck with 1 and only 1 general purpose interplanetary engine. Virtually all of my capital ships, supply vessels, and anything that isnt excessively lightweight (or isnt an interdictor and thus needs excessive TWR) uses them, heck, even some heavy fighters use them coupled with the rapier to achieve 7000dV after reaching orbit. Aside from that i pretty much use engines when they seem appropriate, aerospikes for high TWR or for atmospheric operations such as on Eve, 48-7s for small vessels, light missiles, ect, radial engines when i need more thrust but dont have anywhere to place a normal model, SRBs as weapons (sepatrons or RT-5/10) or to launch very lightweight probes(the largest SRB), jets engines for laythe or kerbin, ect. Id say that in the current game there are no useless engines, and while there a few i use very rarely, ive launched at least a few craft that take advantage of every engine in the game.

Well the ones i managed to download are nice, but when will we get some of the newer models? At least the NX-1 (my fav of the entire lineup appearance wise) is epic looking. Sadly the same cannot be said about its armor which is a little lousy for the sheer part count that went into the thing... Even a modified version which removes all non-essential parts like chaff probes, rcs, ect is still over 3 of my SK-CRV-IIIg1s in part count (and is just as likely to die to a SRM-6M from my own experience especially if i focus fire the rear (even if its doesnt go poof the engines will die). And i cant explian why but the helios is probably the toughest ship you ever released from my experience. Not that it should be so powerful (its a bloody girder with fuel tanks attached to it directly), but for whatever reason it refuses to die reliably to anything i throw at it besides OP crap like Tripedo-S/H or even the Tripedo-H (although the H is neither part count nor mass efficient and at ~8t you cant call it a general purpose missile). That said, my newest ships should be more then a match for your fleet. If i wasnt going on vacation to somewhere with garbage internet (assuming there even is internet there) id so battle your new fleet with my new fleet... SK-CRV-IIIg1: My most efficient warship produced to this date. While its armor is meh compared to the class-IV, it has enough to tank some hits from torpedoes and ibeam weapons (survives a full SRM-6M more often then not), and while its heavier/shorter range then the class-I, its more practical then it because it has considerably better protection.131 part hull with 112 after removal of the side skirts and cosmetics, not a class-I but way better then the class-IV which not only has higher raw part count but its mass goes up by 10t while carrying less fuel tanks, obviously irrelevant on very low gravity planets but range makes a major deal on some planets. Sk-CRV-IIg1: A sort of redesign from ground up for the rather old wedge styled class-II, this one is basically a class-III hull with a redesigned front/rear (the weapons placement is identical between the 2). The one in the picture is the command version which guts the entire front out and replaces it with a dedicated command and observation deck with a slit running along the entire sides/front and one up top to give alliance commanders a decent view without sacrificing protection as the previously popular large open windows would. The combat version is ~10t lighter then a class-III and has identical offensive capabilities, slightly worse protection (in practice they are more or less identical), and less range (because it removes 4 fuel tanks). Id generally never bring one into battle since the class-III is hands down better, but if im 10t over i can always swap a class-III for a class-II and just make sure it moves early because it may not have a second chance on high gravity worlds. SK-CRV-Ig5: A classic warship, the 5th generation basically redesigns the command bridge and fixes the previous model's extremely likely poof on cockpit detach (it as clipped very badly and almost always was detached while clipped into fuel which exploded the entire rear). That said, it is not designed for direct combat since it uses a XL girder core making it go poof to almost anything semi powerful including the very popular ibeam based weapons that every bloody warship in my universe carries in some quantities. It has the lowest part count of any warship to date at 108 part hull (85 part hull without side skirts and cosmetics), so what it lacks in armor it makes up for in low part count and long range. Also it can carry 30t of ordinance with 2000dV (normally it carries ~10t so it gets ~2800). SK-CRV-IVg4: The most powerful ship i have in both offensive (triple SRM-6M will eat an entire fleet alive) and defensive (not even zeke's 10.5t super torpedo can kill it reliably) capabilities, but at the cost of part count and lousy range. Its 181 parts without the optional ion drive addon which increases that by ~30 parts, then ofc the weapons ontop of that and you can see why its not all that practical even if its protection rivals the better 800+ part warships. Yeah its better then what most people on here use (protection to part count ratio), but its not quite as practical as the cheaper, simpler, and just move viable class-III which also has some solid operating range and doesnt really need to rely on droptanks or supply ships for interplanetary voyages. Finally have some ships that really fit my original ideas for AKS, flattened hexagonal hull cross section, turret mounted weaponry, simple and clean exterior with plenty of angles to give it a mechanical look, triple engine powerplant, and a rather well rounded combat capability with none of the three points (offensive, defensive, range/agility) being weak, but also not necessarily standing out in any of the categories either. The class-II especially since i originally envisioned tapered down front/rear, but the reason most ships are just flat sides is because in practice wedge hulls offer less volume for their weight, and their armor protection is virtually identical for the same design style. Well i think i have a fleet in happy with now... All of these are uploaded to my craft repository so if anyone is interested give them a shot (im not one to keep secrets, if im happy with a ship ill release it so people can have fun with it/blow it up/learn from it.

Defenetely possible considering ive sent a SSTO to laythe, bop, and pol (landing too) and returned to kerbin with 0 refueling using some god awful monstrosity that was 40t pushed by a single rapier+nuke combo (1.0.5 game back when). it had near 7000dV and considering i barely used any grav assists and those that i did use were only at jool, so yeah, possible byfar to get a nuke into LKO (rapier is efficient, turboramjet is quite doable but forget 7000dV after attaining a 100km circular orbit!). Really teh trick with the new aero is to cut down on drag and manage heat effectively. that means that nothing but absolutely essential things (wheels, wings, engines, fuselage) should be exposed to the air, all else should be inside a mk2 bomb bay or those tiny mk1 fuselage things that ive yet to manage to fit a weapon of any sorts into... If you can do that and make the craft capable of ~1500m/s before switching to nuke from whatever jets you choose, you can and will get very high dV in LKO...

While i dont design SSTOs as much as i used to, in the current game there are pretty much three engines that make any sense to have on a SSTO (in terms of raw efficiency). Rapier: Self-explanatory, it has both jet and rocket in one, so you can potentially get a rather efficient design as its lighter then a jet+rocket combo such as aerospike+turboramjet. That said, it comes with 2 major downsides. It has lousy rocket ISP, a big problem if you want the SSTO to go past LKO, for mun/minmus id rather have a lv-909 or something which has better ISP even if it means heavier total engine mass. Also, it requires very tricky thermal design to keep the nose/wings from melting on ascent. Since the rapier flies very very fast in the dangerous area between 20-40km, you will fry if you are not careful. Personally ive found a higher ejection angle solves this with most craft (trade altitude for speed, less fuel efficient, but there is only so fast you can go before your craft vaporizes itself with heating at 100%). Finally, it is fairly bad for landing and takeoff (especially if you are trying to fly 50t on a single rapier), given its anemic TWR when flying very slowly. Turboramjet: Its better then the rapier if you want to spend alot of time in atmo because it uses less fuel and is way better at low altitudes/low speeds. The downside to it is that it is less efficient hands down compared to the rapier for pure ascent (even if you never use the rapier's rocket mode). I have personally used them both for fun and with nukes (both use LF only), so they are solid choices (especially if you play career and dont have rapier yet), but generally speaking rapiers are just easier to work with and give you better performance. Nuke: If you want to go anywhere past minmus with your SSTO (discounting ISRU) you NEED to have one or more nukes on your craft. Personally my best nuke/rapier combo (in 1.0.5) managed to get over 7000 dV in LKO and i managed to go to laythe, pol, and bop (including landing on all of these) and then returning to kerbin without any form of refueling. While it doesnt really make alot of sense to make SSTAs (single stage to anywhere) given that its more viable to have a separate interplanetary ring or whatnot where a shorter range SSTO docks to, knock yourself out, afterall, ive spent alot of time in KSP making these things! Now there are always other engine options depending on situation (for example a Eve SSTO will need to use aerospikes/new shuttle engine/ks25x4), but in general these 3 will do you well with most builds. Also, worth noting is that the jumo jet engine coupled with a 48-7s will make a very good micro-SSTO, although i do not build things that small and thus dont really have experience with those engines. If you want stuff thats below 5t, then those 2 engines work well (you can also use a lv-909 instead of the 48-7s but it depends on how much thrust you need).

I highly doubt it since i never released any ship but AKS faction (and the number of warships ive created numbers near 100 only counting unique designs), and all AKS warships are flattened hexagons (up/down are flat), or some variation of a flattened hexagon cross section (ive also made a few wedge style designs, but even those were basically flat hexagon cross section but the front/rear tapered down to a diamond). Also, these images look old, as in before 1.1 (where the damage model seems to have changed enough that many things that worked nolonger do and vice versa). Ill have to try my own mass driver cannons again to see how they hold up, but i havent really had great experiences with them in the past (biggest issue is the complexity of the bloody engine system and since i like compact vessels, it limits me to using stacks of smaller engines which are rather part count intensive). Not an official rule but at least personally i refuse to fight with or against it (just like i refuse to deal with XL-3 wheels as they are OP). I dont enjoy fights that either force me to abuse some weapon in order to be competitive (especially when its a broken mechanic like indestructible component), or make ships that require extremely overpowered ordinance to kill them at all (thsi is what fairings do, they basically make quantity of small weapons worthless. Anyways, legal or not officially, im not going anywhere near fairings in any battle! In other news, just finished 2 replica warships (or well heavily inspired, perhaps not exact replicas as i had to keep part count and size managable). Anyone know what these things are supposed to be (yeah i know the proportions on the larger one are terrible as its way too wide for the length, couldnt do it any other way, that and its not really supposed to store weapons but fighters in that rear hangar, at least smaller one is fairly spot, boy is it annoying to make organic looking anything in KSP with the lack of curved surfaces and no procedural wings). These thins are probably going to end up used in my comic, perhaps in the massive alliance vs pirate battle that i need to redo as it was done in 1.1 beta and there were quite a few breaking bugs (like lack of ability to target anything forcing me to aim 100% manually without even an interior IVA view for those pirate fighters). Now who to give them to? Either AKS alliance or pirates, obviously not an AKS warship (nothing AKS is organic looking), but alliance does use bought ships so perhaps there as they look a tad too good for pirate construction.

After careful consideration i have decided to never even try loading that in my game Good, while they were never that useful (compared to standard ibeam spam), at least it opens up some options and brings variety to the combat scene... Ohh, and fairings should be banned from combat. They arent invincible but they can basically render a ship immune to anything but extremely powerful ordinance if done correctly...

I dont even want to know the part count on that thing... Anyways, as for ships, im taking a break from armor development for a while and making some purely for fun junk (as it can get a tad annoying after a few weeks of non stop armor testing and design that is when im even playing videogames in the 1st place)... Latest one is this, anyone know what its modeled after?

I pulled it off of the "squid class destroyer" made by zekes. I use it for testing because up to this point i have not found a more powerful 1.25m weapon, and well if i can make a ship immune to it (well nothing is 100% immune yet) then i can rest assured most smaller weapons wont be able to kill it without sustained fire. Its somewhere on zeke's craft repository, so search there, but if you cannot find it ill just upload the missile itself for you if necessary...

Im going to say is that i have tried that myself (the first thing that came into my mind after witnesing the weapon (if it doesnt explode when used to impale people, why would it explode when impaled?). Ive developed 2 ships that use (or should i say abuse) fairings, and they are very tough but can be neutralized if you target the joint areas. That said, i dont personally like fairings as they look ugly (the second we get hexagonal shaped ones (or even a bloody square cross section) im all for it, but until then fairings dont look pretty, and while i am by no means entirely driven by appearance, i refuse to pilot anything that doesnt at least look cool to some extent. Ohh and as for copyrights, i do not honor any sort of "copyrights" when it comes to concepts or ideas. That means it goes both ways, you are free to use any of my ideas, and im free to use anyone else's ideas in my ships. As for actual ships, thats another story, i dont like to copy other people's work since id rather make my own ship, and actually learn something in the process even if that ship may feature many elements of other people's ships in its design. Finally, im gonna do a bit more testing and ill make a decision as to how powerful the fairing armor really is. The few tests ive done before were more or less 50/50, sometimes the round didnt do squat, sometimes a massive chunk blew off and all engines were destroyed.. My preliminary testing suggests its effective but not OP, but i havent tried many varietaions of that hull style, so i may very well be wrong and there may be a method to make a near invincible ship with them (anything that has sections that cant be destroyed like cargo bays is inevitable going to be abused, but at least in the case of cargo bays the effect seems negligible. Edit: Ive done some extensive testing and ill say that the "fairing armor" is honestly 50-50, although it does a great job at augmenting existing armor schemes. Ive found that it makes it harder to destroy something inside a fairing, but comes at the cost of basically guaranteed dead ship in the event that one of the fairing bases are separated from the ship and arent destroyed in the process. If any of the fairings separate they essentially clip into your ship and vaporize it. All in all, great for smaller vessels, but you should not rely on them to save larger ships as they can potentially create weakspots that might end up vaporizing the entire vessel. Im still working on developing the concept (as it is a hell of alot better then conventional armor in its current form), but it only kills off low velocity ammo (hence why its OP on fighters and similar vessels), hypervelocity phasing crap will still destroy your vessel at least some of the time!

Maybee im different, but my standards of armor are ALOT higher then most people on here... Basically all my ships use the following requirements: *At least 2000 dV on primary engines (discounting RCS or emergency engine units if present). As for why 2000, its the bare minimum to get to Jool from high kerbin (or mun/minmus) orbit. *At most 80t for a frontline capital ship (although most tend to be below 70t), 60t for support, 50t for sub capitals (such as flakboats and the like, stuff thats similar in size to bombers or heavy fighters but actually carry decent armor). *Max hull part count of 200. I shoot for around 150 though since lower is better (and you cant really make armor below that reliably, though one of my really old warships did have a 120 part hull and not the worst protection either). Also, with weapons loaded, no more then 300 parts if its going to be used in a fleet scale battle, no more then 400 for 1 vs 1. *Capable of surviving at least 6 direct hits from ibeam style weapons like the SRM-6M most of the time. *Capable of surviving 4 RT-5 torps (just a RT-5 with a structural impactor, nothing fancy) most of the time. *Capable of surviving 1 competitive torpedo (~10t mass), or 2 semi competitive torpedoes (~6t mass) most of the time. Yes i know that last requirement is utterly insane (no vessel ive ever come across actually fits under my requirements except my latest SK-CRV-IVg4) but these are my standards. Ohh and im now attempting the impossible, creating a flakboat that has the armor of a capital ship, weights around 50t, and still carries decent firepower (dual SRM-6M with drones against starfighters). I dont knwo why, but i just cannot have a ship anymore without a SRM-6M on it, its my single best weapon since basically no ships utilizing past era hull design and below 800 parts can actually survive it, very good luck aside. Also, whack-a-kerbal is a very bad way to test armor... Not saying you shouldnt use it, but actual weapons usually feature shrapnel (as in break apart to maximize component damage once inside), are usually shaped very differently from whack-a-kerbal ammo (most decent ones are very longto maximize odds of colliding at phasing velocity), and whack-a-kerbal is indestructible non-persist debris essentially, cannot really be compared to a real weapon. Ohh and in other news, i made a joke weapon that actually is extremely lethal! Basically abuses the fact that fairings are indestructible anywhere but the base. Make a super long lance style thing and impale ships with it . Best part is that it almost always get imbedded inside the target after the hit and takes no damage (reuseable weapon much), not to mention looks hilarious. That said, due to how OP this thing is, fairings are going into my personal list of banned weapons (along with the XL-3 wheel and the Tripedo-S/H which was based upon it). Also, while i didnt make any screenies of it, the largest fairing size (when its the size of a ship) will instantly vaporize the target when its going fast enough every time...

Well after a while of on and off armor development i think im on to something... My latest ship is the first ship ive EVER seen that can tank fire from zeke's 10.5t super torpedo: It is still prone to the occasional luckshot that vaporizes the core, but the frequency of this is so low that for all intents and purposes you cannot kill my new ship with anything reliably (gutting the internals is another matter though ). Against anything smaller it basically just doesnt care unless its prolonged bombardment (multiple shots will eventually reduce it to a wreck and you cant really defend against this while sticking to 180 part hull). The SK-CRV-IVg4 uses a newly developed armor system, which actually does not follow my old (and apparently flawed) rule of never clip anything unless absolutely necessary. For starters i used layered interlocked armor, which basically stops anything but excessively heavy and or powerful ordinance in its tracks. The idea is to place 2x2 structural panels so that there is overlap near critical sections. Because it is not part count or mass efficient, i limited the technique to only be near critical spots. The core itself used interlocking armor that comes off of both the front and rear interior armor plating which will either disintegrate or failing that slow enemy weapons to the point they are virtually unable to do any more damage. For anyone here who wants to make better armor, use interlocking 2x2 plates near anything you want to protect relatively well. It is best to have each plate attached to the core with different parts, just make sure to interlock them so that they overlap around 50% (you can do more or less depending on how much protection you need and how much you are willing to put into mass/part count). The other technique involves clipping nukes in fuel tanks. Now i dont know why, but the combination of a fuel tank with a nuke inside it (or well partially inside it) seems to resist engine knock outs more, and doesnt really destroy the hull or anything else when it does go out with a bang (well its not really any more dangerous to having a fully exposed nuke inside the hull). Saves space too, since i can have a fuel tank essentially integrated with the nuke. Also, the ship does clip SOME fuel, which up to this point ive also considered a death sentence to armor, but if you do the clipping in such a way that the likely event of the whole stack exploding doesnt actually do further damage to the vessel, it is more beneficial then harmful. If you want to clip fuel tanks at all i suggest making a stack of 2-3 and then placing the nuke at the end. there should be nothing intersecting this stacked and clipped fuel/engine tube, and with my own ship i manage to do this by having what are essentially 3 separate compartments that are fully empty and go from the middle to the entire rear of teh ship. The sides house 1 nuke and 2-3 fuel tanks each (depending on configuration), while the middle houses a cockpit with FLT-400 and aerospike for emergency thrust. Not very useful until realtime MP but i try to actually make my ships capable of being used in MP in the likely event it is released in teh future (or someone makes a DMP clone that isnt crap). While im talking about engines and clipping, there are 4 ions and the corresponding drive system clipped into the core which both acts as ablative armor which seems to cut down probability of being 1 shotted to the root part, and act as backup emergency engines if you happen to have both your nukes and aerospike shot apart. It is a VERY good idea to have a very weak ion drive as an emergency backup because from experience it is near impossible to actually destroy such a system entirely, even if your batteries are lousy/non existent you will always have some thrust leftover and the efficiency means that even a couple of small ion tanks will be enough to make a final desperate move late game (after your enemy thinks the ship is dead in the water). Ofc this depends on battle environment, if its kerbin or some high dV place id never even bring them as loss of main engines makes you useless since small amounts of emergency dV are pointless, but somewhere like the mun or even duna as little as 500dV is still enough to move and attack at least once. Sadly its a bit of a part count comittment, but personally ill give up a few parts tht could have gone elsewhere to have a emergency backup thruster and ~500 or so dV of fuel for it. Finally, I used short ibeams as the entire skeleton (including teh root part). The reason is that they combine reasonable mass with a very small hitbox. The stubby girder i used to use in older ships like the 3rd gen class-IV is both lighter and has a larger hitbox then a ibeam, and thus tends to be easier to destroy. Girders still make great armor and can be used for the core, but it seems that a ibeam is a hair less likely to be vaporized and anything that phases has near impossible odds when it comes to hitting it at high speeds. That said, large girders make exceptional armor, but should not be used for essential core sections.

Theres actually a very long story behind why i use that hull shape, and while it may be used by a few others, i will say that the first ships i ever made did use a squashed hexagon but had a step up where the rear of teh hull was wider then the front (rear housed engines/fuel, front weapons). The squashed hexagon was actually inspired by this:and well combined that with my preference of 3/6 way symmetry and i made myself a ship. The reason it was flattened though is because rounded just didnt seem right as the majority of capital ships in movies/games arent perfectly symmetric and i just chose flat over tall and thin and pretty much stuck to that basic style. Now as for my modern ships, the main reason they retain the flat hexagon is because it is the highest part count efficiency i can get while retaining a respectable internal volume and giving me a total mass of approx 60t which is the weight ive settled into as most practical (too much more and you are high part count and less efficient, much lower and you make too much sacrifice with either armor, movement, or firepower). Ive tried many designs but the hexagonal style is the best cross section (its a minimum of 8 functional parts per external armor vs 10-12 for a 8 sided hull which doesnt give better protection (and i dont need the extra interior offered by 8 sides in a 60t ship). Now the rather unique front/rear i created with the 4th gen model, and its stayed that way in the class-I, and was altered to be rear only with the class-IV which now needs the entire front exposed because it used 3 hardpoints, all of which are designed to fire frontwards and use unguided weaponry since there is no reason (until live MP) to use anything but part and mass efficient unguided weaponry. Im actually experimenting with different variations like bringing back my very very old wedge designs that was the class-II (kindof like a cross between a NX-1 and my hexagon hulls, rear is similar to my ship, front tapers down to a single opening just large enough to fit a RT-5 or SRM-6). Its the part count that was the major hindrance to my engineering, but now im actually starting to deviate more from that original design. That also has quite a history... Originally the 2nd era AKS warships were armed with 6 ibeam weapons on the front (short at the time intended exclusively for point defense against fighters or similar unarmored crap). The original SK-CRV-Ig1 (back then it was actually called a class-III corvette but i redid the naming convention so it became a class-I afterwards) had 2 triple ibeam mounts per side. That later evolved into centralized 6 shot launcher (which was upgunned to use long ibeams sometime along the road), still intended for last resort defense, but much more useful as a weapon. Now back in 0.25 (or whatever the game version was back then, before we even had mk2 cargo bays), long ibeams were honestly mediocre at best, and the most you could expect to do vs a decently made ship was take out critical components, hence the centralized mount, and the cockpit with IVA targeting i developed around that time (i know im not the first to come up with that but i did actually invent that idea before i became seriously active on forums at all). As for the modern SRM-6M, that came from the fact that the recent game updates (especially 1.1) seemed to have turned what was a defensive weapon into something that was one of the most mass efficient weapons in the entire game (not so much part count but a SRM-6M weighs ~3.5t and has the ability to take down many ships completely without even going through all of its ammo (and 3.5t is less then most high end torpedoes (and it isnt exactly that much higher on part count either). As for the super compact package, i wanted something that was easy to reload (not useful on here as much since we generally dont allow support ships, but offline i will not just delete a used ship but use KIS to repair it and bring up supplies of fuel/ammo from a transport). As for the name, its based on the "short range missile" from mechwarrior, and the reason i went with a SRM-6 over a SRM-8 (which does work btw) is both as a homage to teh old times where all AKS ships had 6 ibeams on the front, and because well 6 is a multiple of 3 so it fits with AKS and the 3/6 way symmetry thing (same reason ships have 3 engines instead of 2 or 4). As for why they are square exterior i tried making SRM-3Ms with a triangular exterior, but they didnt look as clean and pretty, and they werent space effective not to mention annoying to reload when clearance was minimal, so i went with square sides. Actually the original SRM-8 developed for a CTI warship (company selling its ships to B-Corp) which used that exact exterior, and using the same for AKS ships adds some dark aspect to AKS when it comes to business relations (and AKS ignoring copyright since they basically ripped off a weapon from someone else).

Well i just made a new starfighter! Its actually got solid TWR for a ion based ship with its 9 Ion-W engines pushing 12t, (9 without the SRM-6M). Very pleasant to fly, has RCS for docking (and a claw on the arsee), and well it has the same primary weapon all my capitals carry (1 SRM-6M) giving it enough firepower to obliterate almost every capital ship, and failing that at the minimum neuter its engines/weapons. Sadly part count is not a strong point at 108 parts in standard configuration, but given its raw firepower and utterly insane armor protection, i cannot actually complain. 2 of these can single handedly wipe out an entire B-Corp carrier along with its complement of fighters (most B-Corp carriers have 8 micro-C or equivalent which get 1 shotted by the FK-103's secondary weapons). Once these things start flying around in my comic im working on lets just say B-Corp is as good as dead. Ill probably balance them by saying they are super hard to manufacture or something and thus very rarely encountered... Btw, armor is so tough i cannot kill it with anything but excessively heavy ordinance! That and even if it is split apart at least 1 segment retains both propulsion and its secondary weapon loadout allowing some nasty comebacks. Not that the armor is that OP per say, but its the fact that it is so freaking small which makes it impossible to reliably do anything againt. SRM-6M is useless vs these (most you will do is blow off the cockpit or its main weapon), and high end capital ship torps is like a 10% chance of even interacting with it (and then like 50% chance of serious, not fatal damage) because of phasing and how it doesnt like extremely tiny things.

I think you should be able to do some damage servo with those secondary weapons of yours... This is what a SINGLE shot from a SRM-6M does 90% of the time to Alphasus's newest ship, instant kill if you hit the center of the ship with a projectile from the top/bottom (the thin sides). Try to aim for impact velocity of 200, much higher and you will probably pass through doing no damage (it seems that impact velocties abobe 300m/s are actually detrimental against anything that isnt excessively thick hull, for super thin hulls go for 150-200 max). Your anti-fighter weapons should have similar punch to the SRM-6M's rounds, just make sure you are perfectly lined up and attack from above/below, perhaps one will split the target apart instantly. Keep fighting, best victories come out of what appears to be hopeless!

Well, i think i may have just created the ultimate ship hull if you take into account its part count of ONLY 179 (+3 optional cosmetics). Im not claiming its invincible, as it very much is NOT, but when it comes to being split apart this thing beats anything ive ever seen be it my own or anyone else's design. Right now its major weakness is internals being killable, although im working on a ion model which should cut down on that problem extensively since i can redundify the life out of the propulsion systems, and possibly look into doing the same with weapons which arent excessively suceptible but do still get shot apart often enough. When it comes to hull integrity, this was a shot from Zeke's 10T super torpedo which until this ship i considered IMPOSSIBLE to defend against... Really its major flaw, the internals being guttable shows here because the entire internal equipment was obliterated with Zeke's superweapon, while the hull remained relatively intact. Standard weaponry doesnt do anywhere near this sort of damage though, and the only way to really kill this thing with conventional weapons is either incredible luckshot to the core (which is so heavily reinforced it is like a 10% chance AT BEST if you actually happen to be shooting from a vulnurable angle), or simply emptying enough rounds into the ship one after the other so that you neuter its movement or weaponry (loosing engines is the #1 issue right now, sadly impossible to solve with stock KSP. If i go LFO engines (which are way more survivable), the dV goes below 1K, and if i go ions (discounting my "Ionized Witchcraft" edition ion drives which i cant call legit because i edited them to have internal fuel and battery capacity) i run into part count issues (i could always make it with a 300-400 part count limitation, but that is WAY too much for something i envision as more of a escort or support vessel not intended to lead assaults). Given i think ive found the trick to solid armor protection, im gonna try to make a starfighter utilizing the same principles and see if i can make a superfighter that has armor similar to a warship, but in the profile (and weight) of a regular carrier based starfighter...

In my continued attempts at saving on part count, AKS has invented ion thrusters powered by ionizing witchcraft! Not needing a power supply or dedicated fuel tanks is really neat! The engine produces enough electricity to run itself and has integrated fuel storage! Well ive been working on improving the SK-CRV-IV after our last battle, and ive gotten it to the point where you have roughly a 6% chance of 1 shotting it (and that only occurs from a very specific angle). Out of 30 shots (using your weapon from your ship), twice did the ship die, and of those shots all of them were from a very specific angle (which i an now working on rectifying for the 3rd gen model). Hull part count is now at 182, although this may go up a bit with the production model of the 3rd gen. WHile this is by no means the only weapon ill be facing, considering that part count actually went down with the new model by ~40 parts, and survivability of the engines skyrocketed (not a single time that the ship wasnt completely destroyed was it rendered immobile by a single shot). That and not once was it actually disarmed either (discouting the 1 shot kills where its irrelevant). New armor layout is working so bloody well! Once our ships are fully upgraded we should have another match (this time ull go 1st so that you have the advantage). I will prove once and for all how superior AKS armor is! Also, your ship makes truly glorious debri clouds after its shot apart... I think ill start arming my warships with triple SRM-6Ms given how a lethal a single bloody launcher is, not to mention that those things act as very good armor too since any hit to the weapon will destroy pretty much whatever projectile is shot at it (although teh weapon usually dies too). Im so bringing a starfighter with dual SRM-6Ms too...

Well sofar i havent managed to create a single ship in 1.1 that doesnt explode once it reaches orbit... Its impossible to survive a barrage of 20 or so ibeam missiles aimed right at your face in the new update

While i never spent alot of time in career, ill say that the ONLY thing even worth recovering are SSTOs (or multistage aircraft). The reason is that they use very efficient engines (most well built SSTOs dont exactly require tons of fuel as majority of the hard work is done on jets alone), and generally speaking can be landed right on the KSC runway for a 100% recovery. With a RTLS style booster there are 2 things going against you. One, is that in order to recover it effectively you need to use a near vertical ascent profile, which is so inefficient it isnt even worth bothering with. Second, unless you are using some obscenely expensive parts to make said booster, the cost saved because of fuel isnt really worth it when you could have created a lighter disposable rocket (and for a 2.5m payload is prolly use alot of SRBs to save even more money). All in all, it just isnt worth the time to engineer reusable boosters (unless you actually enjoy the challenge of engineering such a booster in of itself). While im not one to tell anyone what to spend their time on, i enjoy actually doing stuff once in orbit, and for me the whole lifter is essentially done as fast as possible just to get what i want in LKO in LKO, and i dont really bother engineering launch stages unless its something very hard to get into orbit like a wing covered space carrier that needs to have a top mounted engine booster or other crazy design. All in all, if you actually enjoy recovering stages and designing them, then by all means, done well they will save some money. Otherwise, the amount of time spent on it is better spent actually doing what you enjoy (provided you arent the type that actually wants to spend time on booster design and recovery). If you actually want to make solid money though, you need a winged SSTO because its the only method which actually gets you considerable savings (and if you are truly insane just set a few IRSUs near the runway and you have 0 launch costs minus payload itself.

I always thought the french still use these things AND NEVER MADE MODERN TANKS FT-17 is the best french tank ever made!

I cant say for certain how good the new engine layout is until i give the new ship a thorough test (ive already extracted its craft file from the persist), but it looks much better. Especially like the angled plate which makes shots from dead astern (unless it managed to go between the plates, might make a shot trap...) rather useless (at least it should keep me from 1 shotting ur engines with a SRM-6M. As for missile tips, i cant give you anything for 0.6m shipkillers as i dont have any decent ones myself (my best one is the newest Tribeam missile, but its like ~20 parts and quite heavy at ~2t, so the opposite of efficient). As for generic weapons tips, i would cut down on RCS. It takes some practice (and a particular skillset that isnt learned overnight) but if you can learn how to use guided weapons without RCS it will do you a massive favor part count wise. RCS is great to have if you are using purely RCS powered weapons (like my 1st generation drones), but these are pretty much exclusively anti-fighter as they will never go very fast (unless its vernor pushing a ibeam or so). That said, for the meantime, use a single RCS block that is placed in teh center (and provides you thrust so you can push the missile sideways). Its weak and wont let you compenasate for a botched trajectory, but it does make aiming easier. If you want a good secondary/backup/anti-fighter weapon try the following: 1 probe core (any type with built in reaction wheel), battery or RTG, engine (48-7s or O-10), fuel tank (RCS or LFO depending on engine choice), and a ibeam on the front. This is my most basic light weapon, its effective and not difficult to hit a target with, and it can do some nasty damage if you hit a weakspot... As for larger stuff, RT-5s with a AP tip (structural parts, ibeams, tires, landing gear, pick your preference here) work well, and are relatively low on parts. You can always add a probe core like with your ASMs if you want to be able to aim it after deploying, but this isnt necessary if you are good at aiming the ship itself (most of the time you park the ship near the target anyway so you dont need guidance built in). Ohh and if you have issues moving ammo from ship to ship just bring along a small service droid thingy that has 4 RCS thrusters on it to help move ammo around, extra points if it has a klaw so it can pick up ammo that had its attach points shot out. I also think i just found the ONE major flaw with every single AKS warship ive made to this day... I always had a habit of clipping a RTG with a probe core into the core (usually the root girder). I removed that and i CANNOT kill my SK-CRV-IV with anything sofar. Im not saying this is some super change, but it seems that my ships gain massive protection...