In case anyone here missed it, Reddit saw a new kraken technology over the weekend...

[dnbattley]

The excitement started here: 

Spoiler

 

Quickly, a few people began to work on this and develop a number of craft of varying complexity:

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/iau7fq/made_it_to_the_mün_with_the_zompi_kdrive_no_need/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/iadpb9/restarting_the_zompi_kraken_drive_and_stacking/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/iau7fq/made_it_to_the_mün_with_the_zompi_kdrive_no_need/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/iahs5s/1050_docking_ports_gracefully_lifting_the_largest/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/iatnbr/taking_uzompigespons_invention_to_its_logical/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/iadpop/expanded_on_uzompigespons_kraken_drive_to_great/

My own additions to the pile-on were two fold, an initial test craft:

https://kerbalx.com/dnbattley/zK-Drive-2

Followed then a more developed vehicle:

Spoiler

 

Which is now slightly further refined (though not yet released) as a fully functional VTOL:

 

[BigFatStupidHead]

That's the cleanest Kraken drive yet. And it has precise control, too!

[dnbattley]

26 minutes ago, BigFatStupidHead said:

That's the cleanest Kraken drive yet. And it has precise control, too!

It does, but it's not without some issues. Ideally, the docking force would be modified by being bound to an action group, but that isn't possible, and varying the force by moving on a piston is both non-linear, so far as I can tell, and surprisingly difficult to "turn off" hence my preference to use the inflatable dock. It's also a good force for small vessels, is ok for medium-sized planes, but it doesn't scale particularly well, especially if you factor in the control mechanisms. That said, it's a great addition to the portfolio

[Servo]

I spent a bit of time experimenting with these recently, quite fun. This was my first shot at making them throttleable (unsuccessful, it's binary). Though, thinking more, I bet if you varied the angle of the docking ports rather than their distance you can vary thrust.

With this testbed, I was able to determine the thrust of each setup. 

With four of the engines going, it can push this craft to an equivalent speed of a panther putting out 30kN thrust. That gives a total thrust of 7.5kN per docking port pair

[swjr-swis]

In case anyone on Reddit missed it... six weeks before said thread on Reddit:

https://kerbalx.com/Fishanator/Propellant-is-for-ameratures

 

[dnbattley]

20 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

In case anyone on Reddit missed it... six weeks before said thread on Reddit:

https://kerbalx.com/Fishanator/Propellant-is-for-ameratures

 

Good spot. And this was even earlier https://kerbalx.com/Fishanator/Test-Phantom-Drive.

I suppose it goes to show that PR really does count for something...

2 hours ago, Servo said:

I spent a bit of time experimenting with these recently, quite fun. This was my first shot at making them throttleable (unsuccessful, it's binary). Though, thinking more, I bet if you varied the angle of the docking ports rather than their distance you can vary thrust.

With this testbed, I was able to determine the thrust of each setup. 

With four of the engines going, it can push this craft to an equivalent speed of a panther putting out 30kN thrust. That gives a total thrust of 7.5kN per docking port pair

Nice! It certainly does make for very satisfying aircraft for flying. I probably had the most fun flying my Enterprise craft (https://kerbalx.com/dnbattley/USS-Enterprise-NCC-1701-A) as I have had flying anything in KSP ever...

[dnbattley]

The topic of zompi- (it's perhaps a shame they couldn't have been "fish"-) drives is going more mainstream, with SWDennis' recent video on the topic.

 

I should probably also highlight my own YT efforts to explain the drives, from a few weeks back: 

 

[Tyr Anasazi]

If anyone is having trouble with drag, try putting the k-drive into a fairing. My test craft accelerates like mad

 

[Lewie]

Hey guys, what's the est way to make the new k-drive ultra-fast? I used two jr. docking ports, and it worked very well, but it was verrryyy slow. Does anyone have anytips?

[Souptime]

do it the kerbal way, moar ports! 

[swjr-swis]

It's really hard to take that part of the Internet serious when they keep insisting on attributing this 'invention' to the wrong person.

[dnbattley]

9 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

It's really hard to take that part of the Internet serious when they keep insisting on attributing this 'invention' to the wrong person.

It has, of course, never happened before * cough Edison * but it now is what it is, and fighting against the "zompi" nomenclature is unlikely to provide any satisfaction...

2 hours ago, Lewie said:

Hey guys, what's the est way to make the new k-drive ultra-fast? I used two jr. docking ports, and it worked very well, but it was verrryyy slow. Does anyone have anytips?

Each drive can provide up to 9kN, which is like a spark on 50% thrust. Also the amount of thrust does depend on the distance apart, so optimise that, and build accordingly.

Also, add a k-drive (landing leg powered) to add raw power. My video above does have an explanation of that...

Edited September 4, 2020 by dnbattley

[Tyr Anasazi]

8 hours ago, Lewie said:

Hey guys, what's the est way to make the new k-drive ultra-fast? I used two jr. docking ports, and it worked very well, but it was verrryyy slow. Does anyone have anytips?

Try putting the k-drive into a fairing as per my screenshots above

[dnbattley]

56 minutes ago, Tyr Anasazi said:

Try putting the k-drive into a fairing as per my screenshots above

Is there a landing leg drive in there, or only docking port drives? Personally I differentiate between the former as a "k-" and the latter a "z-" drive, but accept that nomenclature in this area is not without controversy...

[Hotel26]

I gave all this a try and have called the result, Dirac:
 

 

You can see the k-drive mounted on the cupola.  There is a horizontal one mounted on the forward side of the aft Mk2 cabin.  And the central column (pictured above) has the z-drive for hover control.  About 60% thrust will achieve hover on the Mun.

I also made a component, Dirac Drive.  (I used two structural tubes but it can, no doubt, be abbreviated to 16x2 docks on a single structural tube.)

 

[I'm just a packager but this was very fun.  Thanks to all for the ideas!]

 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Hotel26

[A Fistful Of Double Downs]

I've found that service bays are the way to go if you want a modular system that's easy to plug into pretty much anything. It lets you cram a bunch of pairs of docking ports into a single 1.25m or 2.5m part that can be copies and plugged into standard ship designs without much fuss, and you'll only have to use the Move tool to finetune the distance between pairs and you don't have to dick around clipping parts through other parts or any such nonsense (and the 1.25 metre bay turns out to be pretty much exactly the right height for port placement already). You just slap it together in a few seconds and badabing badaboom, you've got a little under 50kN of thrust in a 2.5m bay with 8 pairs of junior ports. 

 

[Bej Kerman]

Sometimes something explodes in the community like docking port Kdrives, and I'm like, why didn't we think of this before? This would have made many of my reactionless vehicles so much simpler, and this drive also seems to work in the atmosphere, something which I never got to work!

[Tyr Anasazi]

 

So after a lot of messing around I finally have a compact,  throttled Z-drive which makes at least 400KN 560kN. To get that thrust it uses 144 128 docking ports. If you want it you can get it packaged in my heavy lifter "Orange tank to anywhere" spaceplane:

https://kerbalx.com/Tyr_Anasazi/Z-kraken-shuttle



 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Tyr Anasazi

[dnbattley]

2 hours ago, Tyr Anasazi said:

which makes at least 400KN

This is fantastic work, and a great addition. However, at about a quarter of the per port power of a single pair, it's fascinating to see how much power is "lost" as a result of multiplication. We definitely need to investigate this further.

[Tyr Anasazi]

18 hours ago, dnbattley said:

This is fantastic work, and a great addition. However, at about a quarter of the per port power of a single pair, it's fascinating to see how much power is "lost" as a result of multiplication. We definitely need to investigate this further.

So I did some further testing and it lifts 56 tons, so it's actually closer to at least 560 kN. I also mistakenly said it has 144 ports when actually it is 128 (64x2). So at 9kN per pair the maximum power would be around 576 kN which appears about right.

 

 

[dnbattley]

3 minutes ago, Tyr Anasazi said:

So I did some further testing and it lifts 56 tons, so it's actually closer to at least 560 kN. I also mistakenly said it has 144 ports when actually it is 128 (64x2). So at 9kN per pair the maximum power would be around 576 kN which appears about right

Fantastic! And 9kN is the rounded value, so this is about as good as you can get.

Indeed, on that topic I saw a comment on SWDennis' recent video by someone called "Just Thomas" who had done some even more precise work (by editing craft file values) in order to determine that:

Quote

The exact distance between the 2 nodes is 0.505m for the small docking port & 0.785 for the normal one though you can't get the distance from the "ticks" as this is based off of the center of the docking port node so I recommend using craft file editing it's easy to get it exact. And in this case it produces ~8877 newtons per dockingport pair.

 

[Avery616]

Welp after reading these posts and seeing how controlled this kraken is, it looks like i can hold off on the kerbal sacrafice  non-optional life force donations.  

[RoninFrog]

I noticed an ancient thread waaay back from 2015 which appears to be making use of docking port power.  There is a pickup truck powered by various things, and one of them is a "Warp Drive" made of 3 docking ports.

 

[dnbattley]

5 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

I noticed an ancient thread waaay back from 2015 which appears to be making use of docking port power.

OP hasn't swung by these forums in a while, it seems, in order to get confirmation, but judging by their other KerbalX craft, I would tend to think that it is just a coincidence and that they did not create a working version of the drive... But it would interesting to know!

[Hotel26]

So for my second (and probably last) foray into "Kraken technology", I built a 3-bay submersible hoping to apply vertical thrust for buoyancy control.  Did not succeed in that (too weak), but did produce a nice 1-bay result.

  

Nemo cruises at 200+ m/s in the air, 39 on the surface and 10 underwater.  It's a hydrofoil in order to enable lift-off...

Edited September 16, 2020 by Hotel26