U.S.S EXCELSIOR - Near Replica starship from Star Trek

[whoshotdk]

My third Star Trek build (this is becoming a habit); this is the U.S.S Excelsior, captained by the one and only Hikaru Sulu (George Takei). Much sleeker than the Enterprise and faster too; though this one has only Aerospike ‘Impulse’ engines - the Transwarp drive “won’t be installed until Tuesdayâ€Â

I’ve had to make a few design concessions so consider this a ‘Kerbalised’ version of the ship.

Her not-so-spacious docking bay contains a small science shuttlecraft (requires a single Kerbal to pilot it).

DOWNLOAD

You might need to right-click that link and use 'Save As' or similar.

IMPORTANT STUFF

She won’t hold together within an atmosphere so getting into orbit will require a tool such as HyperEdit. The ship will likely explode under her own weight the first time you launch, so using the F12 debug menu, switch on ‘Hack Gravity’ then re-launch. Once you’ve gotten into orbit you can then ‘Unhack Gravity’.

The game will probably have the saucer mounted Cupola set as the default control point. To get correct navball alignment, you’ll want to ‘Control from here’ on the RC-001S command module which does double duty as the deflector dish located underneath the saucer on the secondary hull.

The ship has a little wobble. I’m sure more struts would help but I like a low part count!

SPECIFICATIONS

U.S.S Excelsior

Delta-V: 4,791m/s

Mass: 125t (including Shuttle)

Dry Mass: 29t (including Shuttle)

Part count: 111

Part count (including Shuttle): 158

Science Shuttle

Delta-V: 2,080m/s

RCS Delta-V: 313m/s

CONTROLS

[4] Toggle antenna

[8] Toggle primary docking port (at rear)

[9] Toggle docking bay doors

[0] Undock/decouple docking bay port

Please enjoy the ship and leave me some love (rep) if you like it!

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[Yellowburn10]

Wow, that's pretty awesome! You used a fairing to make that disk?

[gmiddlemass]

Wow! Great job...

I tried making one of these when v1.0 came out but couldn't get it balanced enough to fly, how did you launch it?

Edit: Just re-read and saw that you used Hyperedit to launch. Well done anyway though, great ship. I especially like the little science craft.

Edited May 7, 2015 by gmiddlemass

[whoshotdk]

Thanks for the comments!

Yellowburn10, the saucer is indeed a fairing, 3.75m size. I'm not the first to use a fairing for a saucer, Zucal did it first (I think) here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119208-Star-Trek-Enterprise

gmiddlemass, I didn't even attempt to get the COM/COT balanced on this; the TWR is fairly low so a few reaction wheels clipped inside the secondary hull are enough to keep it straight and true

[panzer1b]

Aside from being WAY too small, nice job, this thing looks good, isnt absurdly high part count, and is pretty fun. Ofc it got obliterated by a AKSTechnologies frigate, so you need to add a shield generator to it for full realism.

Also, you know the fairings can get much bigger? Ive actually made a 60m radium UFO with them (even managed to get it so that kerbals can hang out internally and move around in a 100% custom IVA).

[whoshotdk]

I did not know that panzer! Hence the small size How do you get bigger fairings?! The size you see here is what the SPH seemed to cap me at.

[DMSP]

Nice ship!

I'll try it out.

[zekes]

That's stock? Woah, take my rep.

[Azimech]

Thanks for the comments!

Yellowburn10, the saucer is indeed a fairing, 3.75m size. I'm not the first to use a fairing for a saucer, Zucal did it first (I think) here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119208-Star-Trek-Enterprise

He's almost the first to use a fairing as saucer. This is mine, fairings for saucer section and secondary hull, procedural parts for hull plating, procedural parts for nacelles and a lot of other parts. Length: 305 meters like the original.

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And your Excelsior is beautiful!

Edited May 8, 2015 by Azimech

[gmiddlemass]

I did not know that panzer! Hence the small size How do you get bigger fairings?! The size you see here is what the SPH seemed to cap me at.

I'd be interested in knowing how you got the bigger fairings too please...

[whoshotdk]

I just looked in the 'fairingSize3.cfg' file in GameData/Squad/Parts/Aero/fairings/ directory.

It contains a line 'maxRadius = 6'. I changed that figure to 16 and was able to get a huge radius in-game. Furthermore, after saving the craft and then resetting that value to 6, the fairing remained at the huge size (until edited) - so it looks like its possible to share your craft with huge fairings with others who do not the 'maxRadius' modification!

Thanks for all the kind comments!

[8bitgammers]

This STOCK....

WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Commander Jebidiah]

Too bad my school censor Imgur, so I'll see this when I get home.

[skepticon]

great ship, this is one of the best looking Star Wars replicas I've seen

[whoshotdk]

Thanks for all the kind comments folks!

Skepticon, special thanks to you - though I was aiming for a Star Trek replica

[Kagame]

*looks around*

Wow, nobody's done this yet?

Sorry about the glowing eyes, it's actually the only gif on the Internet of Stan Lee saying "excelsior", at least according to Google Images. Funny, because that's how he used to end every single letters page, and he still uses it in some of his cameos...

Anyways, that is... that's just.... gah.... gah.... o_o I'm at a loss for words to describe how cool this is. Aside from the comically out-of-scale space station cupola, nothing tips you off to the fact it's KSP. Well. Stinking. Done. *tips hat*