KAS inspired counter weight ship idea? Anyone??

[Jesusthebird]

Im not sure if this belongs in general discussion or not. But considering the idea...may be a good challenge.

 

Ive been pondering the last few days how to make docking a bit easier for myself personally. Ive seen a few videos on how to do the hohmann manuver. Im new to ksp and even tho i havnt actually successfully docked to anything yet. Still practicing. But then i had an idea. What if i dont have to get that close...what if it can get close to me?? So..i sat there in build mode for a few hours and came up with a rough design. Please bear with me as i forgot to save a screenshot.

 

Top to bottom design

Main fuel and nerv engine in X4 radial format around another fuel canister. 

KAS wench(not the disk shaped one)

Wench connecter port(reversed)

Command pod

Disk battery

Xeon gas tank

Xeon gas engine.

Decoupler

Very large lq/ox tank

Engine to match

Radial decoupled tank/engine combo

-End-

 

 

Staging happening in reverse order of course except that i would shut off the xeon gas engine during orbit stage. As i dont need it for obtaining a stable orbit. Once im in a stable orbit i can decouple the large engines and test..lol

 

I made the oops of putting my solar panels in the way of the thrust outputs of my nervs...lol ill remember that. Anyways..i had plenty of power to test. The goal was to extend the wench. Lowering the command pod away from the nerv engines. Then preform a manuver!! 

 

So i bet youre thinking...this didnt end well. And you are so right. I did successfully lower my command pod. However my root part(camera focus it seems) was the center fuel storage. So even tho i can command of the pod...i couldnt really see what i was doing and it didnt seem to react to rcs commands. Another oops. So, on to the manuver..since i couldnt control the pod like i was controlling the top...i got my engines into positions and hit the gas. I was thinking id be thrown off course a bit..but the engines would eventually pull the pod along a more and more linear path...nope...i started to pinwheel!! Poor Bob..im sure he must have used 1000 puke bags. Rest his soul..the ship ended up crashing a lil while later once my orbit velocity was compromised by me trying to mess around some more(i was wondering it i could somehow rclick the wench swinging around....if i release the clamp if i would just barrel out into space or not..i couldnt click it...after 45 min i gave up lol

 

I hope yall enjoyed my lil story i wanted to share. And hope to see if anyone else has made such a contraption. Does it work?? I will continue to try and improve my design..but im afraid that game mechanics makes this impossible to actually be functional. Thoughts anyone?

***** I know i could just retract the pod. Then do the manuver..but hey..im doing this for science!! Not ksp science...real science lol

 

 

 

[Snark]

This is more of a discussion of "what I did" than a challenge, so moving it to Mission Reports.

If you're interested in posting a challenge, please see this:

...lays out the ground rules, and also should give you a better idea of the kind of thing that the challenges forum is for.