Search for megaship engineers.

[ArmchairPhysicist]

As the title says, this post is to collect information about the player base's various megaships. This is because after installing KSP I.E. I've become fascinated by the idea of interplanetary starships, and my current goal is to build a ship capable of taking kerbals to any planet they desire to visit, carry out any science or exploration needed, and bring them back home to refuel and resupply to do it all over again.

I'm loosely defining what a megaship is to allow for some variety.

Some fictional examples of megaships

The discovery from 2001 space odyssey.

The endurance from interstellar.

The USS Cygnus from Black Hole.

Theoretical examples.

The Daedalus starship.

Project Orion nuclear pulse ship.

 

My recipe for megaships is as such.

Crew cabin with enough seating to carry 6-10 kerbals to allow for crew and contract passengers.

Docking abilities to allow for refueling.

Modular attachment of fragile/disposable parts to allow for replacement or upgrading. 

Fission/fusion power with back up solar emergency power.

Fully kitted out science wing with mobile lab. 

Long range communications with the possibility of secondary relay probes to release along the way.

Very large fuel reserves for its engine array.

Does anyone else build ships like this?Does anyone currently have such a ship in their fleet?

 

An idea I've had for my next ship is a lander that can land on a moon and mine for ore to refuel the ship mid mission. 

[ShadowZone]

Well, I have built a few larger vessels in the past.

Case study 1: The Ozymandias
Capable of visiting all Outer Planets from the Outer Planets Mod, get science from there and head back home safely.

 

Case study 2: Gargantua
This is just pure insanity. Thousands of tons and parts and dV.

 

Case study 3: Naginata
This was designed to perform a Jool-5 mission. The science vessel is an SSTO capable of landing on and getting back up from Laythe as well as Tylo and all other moons of Jool.

 

I am currently working on something similar to the Ozymandias but with the entire solar system in mind not just a few planets.

In general I like to design my this in such a way that they have delta v in abundance and can refuel if necessary. Since they mostly exceed the capability to land on certain bodies I include smaller landers.
Crew accomodation and communication is a must as well. But I usually ditch the science lab since I rarely use it anyway.

 

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Wow, and I thought my vista rockets were big

Were  those made in career or sandbox 

Edited July 5, 2017 by ArmchairPhysicist

[ShadowZone]

I prefer to build in sandbox and run missions in science mode. Less of a hassle

[Ultimate Steve]

It's not exactly "huge" by some people's standards, but I made the ITV-020 "Philosopher of Time," AKA the "Flying Skyscraper."

In theory, it is capable of taking 916 Kerbals to any planet or moon with gravity less than the Mun. This capability has yet to be proven, however, as I have only taken it to Minmus (I really should work on that mission report some more).

It can refuel itself, and has IIRC 6km/s of Delta-V fully fueled, so it can operate indefinitely.

EDIT: It is not modular, but it does have a few docking ports. There is no science section, but I think one can be added without too much hassle.

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by Ultimate Steve

[JadeOfMaar]

40 minutes ago, ArmchairPhysicist said:

Wow, and I thought my vista rockets were big

Were  those made in career or sandbox 

@ShadowZone has deployed his megaships in all game modes. Ozymandias and the OPM conquest was a science run. And I think Jeb lost his keys in career mode.

I have built a few megaships before but so far only one has been completed and allowed to have a real launch. This is my GPGT Station, a grand tour vessel. Its part count is a little over 300 and its total crew capacity is 60+. Maybe 90+ including the freezers.

Most of its body is OPT Spaceplane Parts and it contains Near Future solar panels and reactors for reliable power supply far beyond the likes of Eeloo, USI life support, DeepFreeze, Karbonite so it can refuel without landing, and Karborundum so that the minor spaceplane and rover both have amazing dV and TWR, and which presents a giant ore drill with which the station can refuel when it does land somewhere.

 

These three vehicles together: its crew can plant flags literally anywhere and return to tell the tale.

Edited July 5, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[John FX]

Do a forum search for @Whackjob and see some of their craft. If you do not see a design you are wanting you will most definitely see some good construction techniques for extremely large craft.

[JoeNapalm]

 

I'm not sure my Nomad-class vessels count, as they've never made out beyond LKO, but they're intended to eventually be a fully capable Grand Tour colony vessel (much in the way that I "intend" to run a sub-six minute mile, again, someday):

Quote

 

 

-Jn-

Edited July 5, 2017 by JoeNapalm

[something]

So far I came up with two interplanetary transfer vehicles, as I tend to call them.

The first one was designed to go to Duna and/or Eve, so solar panels were sufficient to operate long term missions. The aft section comes with 4 docking ports in order to transport rovers and base parts to wherever you need them. The docked ISRU unit allows to refill the vessel in orbit from a moon or whatever. The vessel successfully went to Duna and back to Kerbin. Since then it has received some upgrades (a usable antenna dish on the front section) and some additional docking ports at the orange fuel tanks. The cargo bay allows to carry some satellites with the vessel, which might come quite handy now that antennae and the Com Network have been implemented into the game.

 

And this one is the "nuclear wessel" with a couple of dozen RTGs in the links. The vessel will act as a carrier and in addition - thanks to some aerospike engines on the ventral side - it is able to VTOL on low gravity moons. Probably going to add 4 more aerospikes so it will be able to VTOL on Vall.

 

[Vanamonde]

This exchange of spacecraft has been moved to the Spacecraft Exchange. 

[sdj64]

I've made way too many attempts at a stock self-refueling SSTO megaship, basically since stock ISRU was introduced.  The ultimate goal is similar to yours - to be able to land on any planet or moon except Eve, and use the onboard vehicles to travel to all of its biomes and collect all of the science.  My most modern ones carry a plane, a rover, a lander, and a scanning and relay satellite.

My first three.  Chronologically from right to left -

Titan, became way too big and high part count to run.  Could technically make it to Minmus to refuel, and had a very high payload capacity and also capable of starting from a horizontal Kerbin takeoff.

Ravine, an attempt to make the design more compact and avoid nukes for simplicity.  Became too long as it needed more and more fuel, and had poor aerodynamics.

Athena, trying to make a smaller design, but ended up with about zero payload capacity and had to vertical take off from Kerbin.

 

Hydra, a vertical-landing design.  Like Ravine it uses only chemical engines, but not enough fuel to make it to Minmus.

 

Rising Sun, now we're getting close!  Made it to Minmus, refueled, and went on to Laythe.  Sadly, aerodynamic issues caused it to lose control on high speed reentry, and led to the loss of all 24 Kerbals on board.

 

Aegis, my newest design.  Doing more extensive aerodynamic tests at Kerbin to make sure it can reenter and land well.  Compared to Rising Sun, it is lighter, has better nuclear TWR, and more delta-V.  Also can horizontal take off from Kerbin and make it to Minmus.

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Sadly I don't have pictures of the Vista 1, and the Oblivion was a failure. 

Vista 1 had the goal of being a universal interplanetary ship, it was built and launched fully built in career. Not sure of the obscenity rules on the forum, but just in case, this thing was a b***h to launch. I quite dislike orbital construction in this game do to the lack or rigidity of the docking ports, so I launched it using a tweakscaled  mammoth stage that was iirc 10m wide. 

The Vista's maiden voyage took it to Duna  where it deployed a few probes, did some orbiting and returned to kerbin. It worked well enough, but it didn't produce enough power. 

My next career game, hopefully with "biomes visible" being the only cheat, will center on putting the Vista 2 in orbit. 

Vista 2 (name not final) will be geared to multi planets tours. 

TBH, I wasn't entirely impressed with the concept of having a rocket engine as the main propulsion method of my mega ship, the prospect of running out of fuel is scary on those decades long missions. I'll begin work on a ship that is electric only. EM drives to the rescue. If only I knew how to collect lh2 from moons, then the vista program would be more viable. 

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Quick question, how do you include photos or steam screenshots in a forum post? I just finished my nuclear pulse megaship and would love to share it.

[selfish_meme]

Get an imgur account, upload the photos to it, individually or as an album, post the links to the picture or album in your post it will automatically populate the post

[AstroE]

I have built a fully functional cargo vtol ssto. It weighs 558 tons and is capable of getting into stable LKO.

I decided to name is, The Pytheas Class Frigate. Or just The Pytheas

Since i dont know how to embed an imgur album, here's a link: Imgur Album

 

Edited July 7, 2017 by AstroE

[Mephisto81]

So, first post in this forum. Greetings to you!

The idea of long range craft with refueling capabilities is very intruiging to me, especially after watching the "Ozymandias" series from Shadowzone.

One thing bothered me a little bit in his highly functional and aesthetic craft: The launcher. Sooo big.

I was wondering, whether a big launcher could be ommitted if the craft is an SSTO?

The Titan III was the first result I published:

Lander included with around 6.800 m/s dV.
https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/X-48-Titan-III
 

I tried to optimize the Lander as well, by forcing to use the poor Kerbonauts to work with small service bays instead of a regular cockpit. Turned out really efficient.
https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/X-48a-Artemis-Lander

Next one was the same SSTO Concept, but with an Eve Lander. The Hyperion III.

https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/X-51-Hyperion-III---with-Eve-Lander-

Streamlined and with more Oooomph, The Kronos:

https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/X-58-Kronos-Long-Range-Expeditionary-Craft

 

Lastly, I discovered Tweakscale and was playing around with it. Finally, I had some really big 3,5m Liquid Fuel Tanks available. And the part count could be reduced by about 100 parts due to upscaling compared with previous models.
Last published SSTO is the Endymion, with over 8,000 m/s dV long-range interplantary missions.
It was build for the New Horizons Mod, where I wanted tzo pay a visit to the desert planet of Arin with a stop at Laythe beforehand. For this purpose, I needed a craft with rather good atmospheric flight characteristics and the ability to take off in less dense atmosphere of Laythe.
Took me a while to figure that out:

Endymion Mk IV:
- 8000+ m/s dV if filled with Liquid fuel only
- reworked Lander with add-on fuel tanks
- Relay/ Survey Scan Satellite
- slightly over 700t
- good flight characteristics
- Short take off possible with a kick from the two Vectors

 

 

 

[ArmchairPhysicist]

still working on pictures, but today's megaship consists of two Vista rockets as its primary movement thrusters and a nuclear pulse rocket used to atmospheric launche and interplanetary transfer 

[sdj64]

18 hours ago, ArmchairPhysicist said:

Quick question, how do you include photos or steam screenshots in a forum post? I just finished my nuclear pulse megaship and would love to share it.

Steam screenshots you can include directly, in Steam upload your screenshot then open it on your content page, and click "copy link address" then paste it here.  I don't think they show up in the forum post but at least you can click the link to see them. Edit: I am mistaken, they do show up as pictures!  If it is just on your computer you will have to use Imgur, Photobucket, or something like that to host it online, then copy its link to your post here.

Edited July 7, 2017 by sdj64

[JadeOfMaar]

On 7/5/2017 at 4:17 PM, JoeNapalm said:

I'm not sure my Nomad-class vessels count, as they've never made out beyond LKO, but they're intended to eventually be a fully capable Grand Tour colony vessel (much in the way that I "intend" to run a sub-six minute mile, again, someday):

-Jn-

USI contains some mods for far superior engines. Why limit yourself and your awesome MKS ships(s) to only LFO tanks and Mammoth clusters?

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Trying to post some pictures

The launch of Vista Two

 

View from the nose

 

 

Doing some Sweet sweet science around the Mun

Ive found that the Orion launcher is so effective that Chemical launch platforms are pretty much obsolete. Nuclear Proliferation for the win

Theoretically with some attitude control modifications, I could actually land this on moons, planets would be a big no because the big heat shield isn't retractable

[JoeNapalm]

5 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

USI contains some mods for far superior engines. Why limit yourself and your awesome MKS ships(s) to only LFO tanks and Mammoth clusters?

You know...that's a really good question!

 

-Jn-

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Been testing Vista 2 for a few hours, so far she runs nearly perfectly. She completed a few years around the mun doing ambiguous science, performed an orbital rendezvous with an asteroid, and then entered a stable kerbin orbit to prepare for a tanker to top off its fusion reserves and refill its mono prop tanks. Rendezvous with the drone tanker went off perfectly.

Vista 3 will include greatly increased power generation capabilities, greater monoprop stores, and come prepackaged with a mining lander to drop into a moon and collect lots of ore.

I'll get more pictures once it begins its Duna burn.

[AstroE]

Here is my vtol cargo ssto that I have deemed The Pytheas Class Explorer

Here is the forum

[Spartwo]

I gave up after this point. even without breakable runway it krakens apart.

Pretty big.

Fairly large.

Kinda big.

Not that big honestly.

[Spartwo]

 

Oh yea, this probably counts too. I'd probably call over 60m mega so the last 2 images wouldn't count.

...I need to make a sequel, 200m or just 150

Edited July 8, 2017 by Spartwo