michaelhester07

2 day hiatus from the forums and we're back! My space program didn't sleep however. Here's the scoop on it! Work at the Alpha Minmus Shipyard continues as we prep the Orion 3 for its journey to Jool. The new O3 is my first space built cruiser. While she was under construction the Orion 2 arrived in orbit of Duna to carry out some Gravity work. This is in preparation to build the Utopia Planitia ship yard in orbit of Ike. That will mark the first step in Duna's colonization. The Andromeda class cruiser was built and then quickly de-commissioned when a quantum singularity found one of her nuclear reactors was discovered to distort time around her and make everything slow down. (lol part count was too high) Back home the construction of the first Enterprise class carrier (I named her Discovery) is completed at the Kerbin Spacedock. Crew and passengers are transferred over to her and to the Orion 3. Discovery will go to Eve first and then to Moho. She just awaits a shipment of rocket parts to build any necessary probe or lander on site with.

I'm loving this mod so far. I built a shipyard over Minmus and found that 400 tons of ore goes a REALLY LONG way.

Looks like your Voyager 1 is on its way! Time to build a new probe. Or you can wait a few hundred years and get it back.

If you make sure to "control from here" with your docking port all your controls will be based on that docking port. This makes rotating your ship to match the angle you want easier. IRL: They take their time to line up the ports just perfectly. KSP: You can take your time too. If you need to you can add a part to help you guide your angle with. Eyeballing it works fine usually.

I would suggest a better strut technique. I picked this up in another thread here: Engineers love triangles. Strut to make triangles: Boosters to the main body: 3 struts in zig-zag down each side of the booster Main body to playload: 8 struts (4x placement) to make zigzag pattern between decoupler and payload. To reduce on-orbit part count make sure you strut from the launch system to the payload. The struts will unload when your launch system is out of range and you'll have fewer parts total in the end.

Getting into the extraplanetary launchpads: Alpha Minmus Shipyard goes online

Currently there isn't much of an advantage to that. If there was an experiment that you could run over time that had to be outside of Kerbin's soi then there would be an advantage. You're better off putting it in orbit of a planet whose gravity will help decelerate ships heading to it. If you're into mods then the Kethane pack makes a planetary station advantageous as you can refuel and head to a new planetary system.

I want a bigger VAB before we get bigger parts. My ships are already taking up the whole VAB.

I built the Orion 2 and visited Spacedock with it before headin to Duna.

I don't remember if this has any mods in it but I'll share it anyway. You can use my Ultima 7 lift motor. It's mostly stock but might have some parts from Near Future Tech structural. Ultima 7 UHL Lift motor I regularly lift 500 ton spacestations with these. Copy the craft file into your save's subassemblies folder.

The kerbals on the spacedock probably are having one gigantic Starcraft lan-party. The construction is mostly automated. It just takes someone to look at the monitor to make sure the probes haven't gained sentience.

I built the third version of my spacedock, now with actual orbital construction capability:

for space tugs to move heavy machinery (like nuke rocket pods) yes. For permanently attached parts? no.

Efficiency of engines from best to worst (imo) Ion thrusters Nuke rockets (NERVA) Liquid Fuel Booster Kerbodyne single bell (KR-2L) -Best capital cruiser engine IMO //below this point your mileage may vary and you may think one engine is better than another and thats OK Rocomax small single thruster (forgot the designation but it's the one that weighs .1 tons) -Best engine for small non-planetary landers Rocomax Poodle -third best lander engine... for when your lander is huge Rocomax Skipper Lv 909 -second best lander engine behind the rocomax above Lv T30 Lv T45 Kerbodyne 4-bell Rocomax Mainsail Wonder why you see those Thrust to Weight ratios in Kerbal Engineer for other planets/moons? That's because you need to beat that TWR to get off that planet/moon. In space there is no TWR but having a high TMR (which is roughly equivalent to what you see on kerbin) means you can stack more fuel to use it up and result in higher deltaV than before. While you could get 8k delta V from a stack of NERVAS you could get 12k from a stack of KR2Ls and enough gas in front of them. Here are some of my high deltaV motor designs KR-2L and that huge kerbodyne tank: 5k dV for a modest payload and a decent TWR. You could potentially see 8k with 2 of the huge tanks if you don't care how fast you get to where you're going. This design can single move up to a class C asteroid with 800 deltaV attached. LV909 and FL800: comes in at around 4k deltaV and stacks easily under the tri-stack adapter. You can go to Duna, land on Ike, and get back with these as a transfer stage. FL200 + Rocomax single small thruster: coming in at 3.5k for a modest probe with small experiments on it + 1 materials experiment. This is best used for a science scout probe to be carried on a mothership. FL100 + RSST: For a one way lander on any non atmospheric body. tri stack FL800 + nervas: one of the better transfer stage designs. Don't expect it to burn fast though. The way it works out is that your engine's mass works against it's thrust to reduce the effective thrust it can put out. This is why you see the LV909 having the same ISP as the LV T45 but about 3x more delta V when you mount it.

I lost my spacedock and orion cruiser to a rip in the space time continuum (caused by re-installing kerbal engineer after finding it doesn't work with the Near Future tech mod). I had to launch a new spacedock. Thankfully my engineers researched the new structural components. Here's Spacedock 2 in flight.

What i've been doing recently is to lower my orbit when near the target to "fairly low" (as low as it gets before I start crashing into mountains) and aim it so I pass over the intended target. Then when the target is almost directly below me I hit the de-orbit burn and line up the retrograde marker to the target. That technique you described works well assuming you're directly over your target. It doesn't work if you're angled off because the planet/moon's gravity will pull you down. You'll fall short then. The target retrograde marker wants to drift away from your retrograde marker so if you put your marker on the opposite side of zenith and keep it there till the target retro is on the zenith then you can land within 100 meters of your target. I have yet to prefect an atmospheric targeted landing like that though.

This design system is one I came up with to efficiently launch ridiculously heavy payloads into LKO. Ridiculous on the order of 800 tons or more... with a smooth flight. Thumb through the album to see how to do it. The reason it works is this: Every part you use with the exception of stack separators, struts, and radial couplers (radials need some testing but I'm pretty sure they dont) can transfer fuel through it to an engine. I used this fact to expand engines out from a center tank to increase the amount of available thrust under a particular tank. By increasing that thrust I can build upward instead of outward. The multiplied thrust means more TWR to get a payload to orbit with. To make custom radial engines you need the following parts: 1. Structural fuselage 2. Small and large girders for larger engine diameters 3. Engines to mount. 4. Some struts for stability Attach the girder to the center tank. Attach the fuselage to the end of the girder. With angle snap on you can center it. Attach the engine to the bottom of the fuselage (or the top if Jeb's been drinking). Then add a few struts for stability. With a tool that can show your thrust to weight ratio you can then load up on extra fuel or payload to drop the TWR down to around 2. Why didn't I use a fuel tank for a radial attachment? First, it cuts into the TWR (yes I just said we could load up on extra gas..), and second, it will allow a clean shutdown of all engines when the center tank drains. This makes custom radial engine designs compatible with onion and asparagus staging without early CECOs (which will eat into your total thrust output). Well I hope to see you all putting heavy payloads into orbit (or making a payload go REALLY FAST). Edit: I confirmed that the radial decouplers do infact transfer fuel. I'll have to do a tutorial on custom radial couplers then. My current heavy lifter uses stack separators turned sideways to get around this transfer problem.

When you wish your dayjob was Aerospace Engineering instead of software development.

If you're talkin about mine it's the magic of custom radial engines. I'll do a small tutorial on it when I get home before I get rolling on the orbital construction.

I tested the Antares Colossus, Constructed the Orion cruiser and launched the SpaceDock into orbit today. My research center is getting some new projects too (in the form of the Near Future tech and KSP interstellar mods). I may finally rescue Jeb's corpse from his current escape trajectory out of the solar system.

No picture here but a tip If your ship is stable enough you can do a physics warp [alt] + [.] to "speed up" the burn. Try to avoid course corrections during the phys warp with that ship. that quad hub is the most unstable point on your ship and could snap at 4x.

Thanks! I plan to make Orion 2 bigger and cooler looking. Mostly to stress how strong my Ultima UHL is.

I voted for interstellar meeting humans. But... there is another story: The birth of the space program's budget: Asteroid redirect to save all of Kerbal kind! Take the plot of Deep Impact and Kerbalize it.

Since I started posting here I've launched much bigger rockets. My current record is below The Spacedock (above) is easily 800 tons on orbit. It was SSTO launch too as there was no room for boosters.

LKO has been busy tonight with Spacedock and Orion going up. Antares gets a test on the Mun. Here's the details: Antares Colossus successfully lands on the mun and drains an entire kethane field in a single landing. She now carries 144 tons of Keth back to orbit to be turned into few. The TAC balancer lets her move new fuel from the conversion tank over to the engines. Prepping for Jool the Orion Cruiser is constructed in LKO. The center core runs on the Ultima Ultra heavy lift system. The design puts 500 tons or more of payload into orbit with a TWR of 4 off the launchpad and a low atmosphere profile. The cruiser required a side trip to Minmus to pick up science for Nuke rockets. The nuke drivers were built in the VAB and flown up to the Orion to dock on 4 plyons. For future builds the Spacedock was launched into orbit. This 800 ton behemoth will carry extra fuel, kerbals, and rations with new greenhouses to make it a self sustaining station.