The Claw as docking bay clamps?!

[KerikBalm]

Those engines I listed are the main engines. The boosters equal 288,000 thrust.

They lose thrust in higher atmospheric pressue. You stated 272,000 kN booster thrust. 288,000 kN doesn't change much

They'll only give you about 75% of that thrust on Eve. Your "1.17 TWR" becomes 0.8775 TWR... it will sit on the ground and burn fuel until its light enough... then it will ever so slowly lift off, and you'll have massive... utterly massive losses to gravity drag.

Keeping in mind that its just on the limits of possible, a design suffering massive gravity losses, and taking dead weight in the form of empty fuel tanks because it had to burn fuel to get over a 1:1 TWR... your design doesn't stand a chance... and thats not even a SSTO design.

The aerodynamics on it again kill the design.

Don't attempt this... it will just waste time and frustrate you. Particularly snce you insist on using part counts in the thousands.

Could you get enough landing gear to bounce any ammount in eves atmosphere and help get off the planet. Call it the Landing ship with 1,000 legs! (Like the greek myth of the 1,000 armed monsters.)

No. The maximum impact tolerance is 12 m/s... which assuming perfectly elastic collisions, wouldn't even get you off of gilly.

And the struts have such a long suspension, that there is almost no rebound, they just compress, and then gravty prevents them from rebounding much, the ship may lift slightly as the strut force equalizes with gravity (after its no longer fighting gravity+ decelerating the vessel).

Plus... theycan also break from too much force, they add drag, and most importantly... mass. You want to minimize the landing gear, not maximize it.

So far no SSTO from the surface of Eve that has enough landing gear to allow it to safely set down on eve... let alone bounce.

hell could you make something so bouncy you could bounce from the moon to minmus or vice versa!?

No... that implies you want to be able to impact Mun at ~760 m/s and survive... that's approximately the velocity of a rifle bullet leaving the muzze of a gun.

Or eve. Maybe a bouncing return vehicle would be possible... or help reduce Delta V a little more.

*sigh* you really have no idea what sort of challenge you are up against...

Go check out how fast your ship falls in the atmosphere on Eve... see what its terminal velocity is through that soup... see how much even makes it down without burning up while entering.

Even assuming you had perfectly elastic collisions, and landing struts that could survive a landing at terminal velocity... which will probably be around 250 m/s.... that would save you 15 seconds of gravity drag... but the most efficient ascent is done at terminal velocity, and that would save you 7.5 seconds of that ascent...

But again... those two assumptions are impossible in stock.

So far I have a rudimentary lander I will test on eve later that has 5 twin boar engines and 8 Orange tanks with around 100t empty weight. I'm sure it's not enough but it's my testing bed to start making one. Have yet to take it to Eve.

That won't even come close to SSTOing from Eve.

I really want you to start testing... you've had people tell you its hard, but you don't seem to realize it.

You think you can just take a vehicle designed to look cool, like something from a fictional-science game (I dra a distinction between Sci-Fi, and Fi-Sci... ie hard and soft sci-fi as others might call them), and have it work or be close to working for an Eve ascent vehicle?

That you can quickly throw together an Eve ascent vehicle... that by the way will contain mining equipment and be a SSTO?

And you haven't even been to Eve yet?

You are in for a big surprise....

[The_Rocketeer]

Oh wow. This is still going?

Please please please please please make a youtube video of your initial testing. Ideally with voice recording or even better video recording of your reactions. I want to feel how crestfallen you are when you try this, I want to share your heartbreak.

You are the maddest of rocket scientists and I salute you.

[Arugela]

I have no idea why some of you think there would be any emotional reaction if it doesn't work. I think I'm the only one here without that problem in regards to this game and thread...

But on another note. My secondary use for this type of ship and it's cargo bay space would be asteroid retriever.. Anyone know what it takes to get the biggest asteroids back to a ship. And how much ore they can have in them. I don't think I found this info anywhere up to this point. I'm assuming it's not worth it from an ingame standpoint. But my ship is a replica so It was designed for this purpose and it would be a cool thing to make. Plus I want to fill as much of the 600ton cargo capacity as possible...

That is something I will be probably testing when I get past the CTD of my booster stage for the main ship.. Or I decide to give up and use fuel cheat to get into orbit for a bit.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Arugela

[KerikBalm]

E class asteroids have masses on the order or 1,000 - 2,000 tons if I remember correctly.

They can have ore fractions that are at 90% by mass (maybe even higher, I'm not sure)...

So... 1,800 tons of ore... maybe more, is possible.

[Sanic]

You mock me, but I bet one day someone will make it!! 8d Where are the NASA guys in the forums. Lets see what one of them has to say!

This is Eve, you know this?

You know the gravity is stronger, reducing your TWR?

You realize the atmosphere is substantially thicker, creating more drag?

Gilly is a much better idea. A feasible idea.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Sanic

[moogoob]

Your dreams are interesting, bold and ambitious, but for now just talk. If you can pull off what you say, I'm sure I speak for others that we'd LOVE to see even just a series of screenshots if not a video of your attempts. Prove the nay-sayers wrong!

[ForScience6686]

I think what The_Rocketeer may have been eluding to is that Eve is the hardest planet in the game to ascend from. It's considered a sort of "final boss of Kerbal Space Program" due to it's sheer difficulty. It is not impossible, however. Hauling ore or fuel would just be that much harder. Eve has a high gravity coupled with a very dense atmosphere, not unlike Venus. You are better off swinging on over to Gilly and do your mining there.

As far as exploring Eve, 7 small probes with your standard science gear are your better choice for each biome. It isn't that hard to land.

I second the probe idea. That is what I am doing, I have a ship on the way to eve with 9 probes that will be dropped into each biome. Much easier to plan for, my only issue is the high part count as the probes are not of the simplest design. I'm excited to put it to work, but I'm sure proper deployment will take many F9's.

[Sharpy]

Let me add one thing. I'm not sure it was addressed in this thread already.

You dock the craft with the claw to the other craft. The craft with the claw must be the one controlled at the moment of docking.

If you dock a craft to a claw, e.g. the mothership has a claw in its landing bay and you pilot your lander into it, you will inevitably crash the game. It's a long-standing bug.

[Sanic]

BTW claws don't have resource transfer.

[Arugela]

I was going to dock and then use the clamp to hold the other end of the ship. I have a base ship but I have to do more stuff with it. It can land easily.. 8) Haven't tested flight yet. I messed something up and have to tranfsfer some crew between one version to another first. I'm stuck with parachutes out.

On a new note. I have a rover!! It can do only one thing! BREAKDANCE!!!! Any idea how to make it stop breakdancing.

http://www./download/32ykem62z3f1szk/The_Orion_Rover.craft

It still needs RCS to get off the ground on lighter planets on top of the other problem. And maybe some science or other things. The problem is I need the RCS wheels to get it upright if it tips upside down. Unfortunately it can't drive straight. It is very good at break-dancing though. And it looks good for the part! >< Anyone run into this problem and know how to make it drive straight again? I've moved the RCS wheels around in different positions and moved them up and down. But It doesn't change anything but the electric drain from it's relation to the COM.

NVM, I hotkeyed the torque and turned it off as default. But, if you want a breakdancing rover, just hit 1 and have at it!

Here is the newer maxed science one:

http://www./download/s2h900s958gc2he/The_Orion_Rover%282%29.craft

I still have a problem with it randomly flipping up in the air and breaking wheels. Especially now that it is heavier. Not sure if it's a glitch on the surface or something like loose parts wobbling or something else.

Does anyone know how to fix the problem with the rover seemingly hitting a bump at high speed and flying into the air and breaking wheels?

Edited October 21, 2015 by Arugela

[KerikBalm]

BTW claws don't have resource transfer.

Ummm yea they do... or rather, when you've clawed something, you can manually move fuel in and out... they don't have the crossfeed/disable crossfeed option of docking ports though

[Sanic]

Oh...

Guess I've run out of things to say that won't violate the rule then.

Thanks, that could actually be useful.