How to place engines without pre-coolers?

[drtricky]

So I'm building a flying battleship. You read that right.

Spoiler

 

I want to give it VTOL capabilities because it's so heavy that it detonates the runway upon spawning, and it's wings are also too wide to clear structures next to the runway. One way I could avoid detonating the runway is to more evenly distribute the pressure through more landing gear, but the amount required would be extremely impractical, as I already have over 20 separate LY-99 pods on it, and it still detonates the runway.

Going back to the VTOL capabilities, the only way I've been able to figure out how to place VTOL engines is to place them on pre-coolers, and tilt them vertically, but that results in it looking like this:

Spoiler

(This ship is not the same as the battleship above)

As you can see, the re-sized coolers are quite high, and restrict the firing arcs of the weapons, in addition to looking terrible.

So my question is, how can I place VTOL engines on my battleship without creating those towering intakes?

Edited April 14, 2017 by drtricky

[bewing]

Air flows throughout the ship. It does not need to be provided to the engines on a one-by-one basis. To mount an engine radially, all you need is any kind of radial adapter -- of which there are many. And then somewhere else on the vessel you need an air intake. The large circular intakes are good for VTOL, because they work well at 0 m/s.

Also, the grass can't explode -- so if you just taxi your way down onto the grass then you can do a takeoff roll.

 

Edited April 14, 2017 by bewing

[drtricky]

4 minutes ago, bewing said:

Also, the grass can't explode -- so if you just taxi your way down onto the grass then you can do a takeoff roll.

It sometimes gets stuck on the debris from the ruined runway as it rolls onto the grass, because as I said, it detonates the runway upon spawning. And even if it doesn't, the bumpy debris shakes the ship around a lot, causing the tip of the wings to touch the ground, and destroying the outer ailerons.

Though I didn't realize radial adapters existed, thanks!

[bewing]

Try the cubic octagonals, or the Radial BZ-52's in the structural components.

Of course, you can also just check off the "indestructable facilities" button when you're launching this thing.

Edited April 14, 2017 by bewing

[Spricigo]

May be util