The evolution of my spacecraft ^__^ (good read)

[iwhipple]

Hello All!

I\'m Isaac, and Kerbal space program has been my favorite game for the last few days.

I toyed around in the demo for several hours, creating literally 15 different variants of what I called the 'TR' series, standing for 'Test Rocket' so it went TR-1, TR-2 and so on.

After TR 15 (and discovering symmetry XD) I put together everything I knew into 'New Rocket' NR 1, which I managed to sling around the moon and land back safe.

Then I bought the game.

The first Rocket I built was the Triple 1, which is essentially a copy of the NR-1

(called triple 1 cause of its Burj Khalifa shape with three 'petals')

It was pretty good, It could get about 5500 m/s away from the earth going straight up after spending its fuel, but It definitely couldn\'t land anywhere.

SO! I decided to make a variant with a lander, I called it 'Mun 1'

It failed horribly. It didn\'t have nearly enough precision to land on anything, although it did retain the Triple-1\'s power I could keep making moonshots. While I contemplated what to do, I practiced getting into circular Orbits... (cause why not ) and eventually turned to this very spacecraft excange.

I saw one that caught my eye in particular.

(this one is NOT mine, nor do I remember whos it is. I couldn\'t find the topic in my history.)

This one used RCS ONLY for the lander, which was revolutionary to me. I flew what essentially amounted to a copy and I managed to land, but I found this rocket didn\'t quite have the legs to allow for any margin of error. I landed on Mun, but with only 1/3 of an RCS tank left, I couldn\'t quite get into Mun Orbit, and my entire crew died on the Munar surface....

For my brothas

So, I designed the rocket I am most proud of in this world, and the one I have come to you to share.

After a long time of experimenting with radial decouplers and fuel lines... I made this. The Mun 2

The clever thing about this rocket, I feel, is its radial staging.

All seven stage 1 engines burn the fuel from 2 of the engines, so they run out of fuel quickly and are discarded, leaving five fully fueled engines, then three.

Stage 1

Stage 2 (I slowed the rocket down in these pics to show the stages falling away really nicely in the pic.)

((also I didn\'t trust myself to be able to time pressing prnt scrn right XD))

Stage 3

Stage 4

Closeup of stage 5

You can lower the landing gear while the fifth stage is still firing. it works fine. you can lower your landing gear by right clicking on it, and pressing the green rectangle next to \'Lower\'

I stole the lander wholesale from my inspiration up there (thank you very much <3) and it works amazingly. just make sure your RCS thrusters are on (press R to toggle) and then press H to thrust forward with them! It\'s just that easy! ^__^

After you\'ve landed, just deploy your next stage and take off with just the command module and your one RCS tank (plus thrusters) it actually is enough to get you home from Mun or minmus, provided the last RCS tank is full (that\'s why I have three on this rocket )

This is a picture of my latest mission! which was aiming for the sun, but ended up on minmus. (weird) So I decided to take a pit stop.

Thanks for reading all of this crap! Hope this helps you with your own rocketry quests!

if someone wants it, I could try and figure out how to upload my rocket\'s file.

And don\'t get discouraged if you can\'t make it at first, afterall, I\'m pretty sure Dr. Werner von Braun said...

'I aim for the stars, but sometimes i hit London'

or maybe that was some history-savvy comedian. I don\'t know.

[iwhipple]

also, I forgot to say, but please share any KSP stories you have! I\'d really love to hear them! ^__^

(and so would others, I\'m sure)

[popeter123]

try using mechjeb it is the boss!

[Cthulufaic]

Awesome pics! There is an ingame screenshot function though, just hit the F1 key, or if you have a Fn key, hold that down and hit F1.

Also, then Mun 2, it\'s staging is actually a variant of the Asparagus Stalk Booster system that increases efficiency and Delta-V.

I\'m surprised you figured it out so quickly! I never found out on my own, I saw it on the forums a while back and have been using it ever since.

Good Job!

[Vanamonde]

favorite game for the last few days

Your Mun rocket is better than mine, even though you\'ve only been playing for a few days? I\'d be mad at you, if your post wasn\'t so amusing. That is a nifty little bare-bone lander, whoever came up with it.

If you\'re relying on RCS for propulsion, though, you might want to replace some of those cluster thrusters with the linear kind. They only shoot in one direction, but are stronger. It can be tricky to attach them pointing in any direction other than straight out from the surface of the ship, though. The screenshot is my first Minmus lander (which I realize now was bigger than it needed to be, but oh well), in which I attached linear RCS thrusters (yellow arrow) to aim down as a landing motor. The weird thing is, I\'ve never been able to attach them like this again. They just refuse to stick. So the only way I can use this arrangement on another design is to start with this ship, remove everything else and build a new ship under it, and then save it under a different name. ???

As for your rocket Mun I, what was the trouble with it? The number and kinds of parts you put into it look fine, but the longer a ship is, the more it flexes along its length. Is that the trouble you were having? Struts between the stages help, but it would be much more effective to take the parts you have and rearrange them so the ship is wider rather than taller.

I can\'t believe how much fun this game is.

[iwhipple]

As for your rocket Mun I, what was the trouble with it? The number and kinds of parts you put into it look fine, but the longer a ship is, the more it flexes along its length. Is that the trouble you were having? Struts between the stages help, but it would be much more effective to take the parts you have and rearrange them so the ship is wider rather than taller.

naaah, that wasn\'t the problem. The reinforced structure it inherited from the triple 1 made it so it could go anywhere! but.... it just couldn\'t land. at least for me personally? I just don\'t think that even the smallest liquid fuel engine is quite precise enough to make touchdown on those really breakable landing legs, hence why using RCS only on the final approach to the surface was such a breakthrough!

(also, the fact I had no RCS thrusters at all on the Mun 1 could have had something to do with it...)

the linear thruster seems interesting... I\'ll definitely give it a go!

Awesome pics! There is an ingame screenshot function though, just hit the F1 key, or if you have a Fn key, hold that down and hit F1.

Also, then Mun 2, it\'s staging is actually a variant of the Asparagus Stalk Booster system that increases efficiency and Delta-V.

I\'m surprised you figured it out so quickly! I never found out on my own, I saw it on the forums a while back and have been using it ever since.

Good Job!

Oh you, I\'m blushing! hahaha. I can\'t get the F-1 thing to work though oh well. editing in paint allows me to add botched pop song parody lyrics, so it\'s worth it.

Asparagus stalk huh? I thought it was more like string cheese... you know.... with the peeling...