Megastructure ALPHA-II

[Mikki]

Megastructure Alpha-II

 

"We must now use all our available options to make a difference.

The prodigy of interstellar travel in our near future demands us to put all effort into it.

We have no choice but to leave the known paths we have been used to."

- Bob Kerman

(KSP2 early Access 0.1.4.1)

 

My Scientist decided recently to go full ballistic with the Space Program,  and a group of rather stealthy acting engineers are vigorously  working on a new approach to space exploration. This is my personal blog on a long term early access gameplay, where nothing is unthinkable. My Kerbals don`t care about bugs, wobble, bananas and the such. My Kerbals are utterly determined to use all the means they have to go big- really big.

The first and most important goal of this company is to establish a vast structure in low Kerbin orbit which serves as a fuel depot and a reliable assembly site for further near space exploration. It is crucial to have a variety of access points on a single location, and to ensure the survival of all our Kerbonauts who have encountered the kraken or other technical issues  on their journeys. And we are also tired of all the unconcious staff due to head concussions because they refuse to fasten their belts during maneuvers, this must end, now.

 

Okay, enough the introduction. I launched the biggest and heaviest object in all my KSP2 experience, it weighs close to 9`500 tons at launch and consists mostly of all the largest and heaviest parts available for now. The final payload, a orbital fuelstation weighs 1`500 tons and goes up fully fueled, yes. Unbreakable joints is off, there are lots of struts and a small wood made of launchclamps on the pad runway. TWR is around 1.3, some large reactionwheels keep it straight during launch, no RCS thrusters have been attached to this craft. The CoM is exactly along the core truss, a big cone on top is the only remedy against huge drag forces. I launched it from the first runway far away from the Space Center, for obvious reasons.

Thirteen  thirty Clydesdale solid boosters were necessary to provide the needed punch. Eight of the largest methalox rocketmotors make the first core stage, the acceleration is ridiculously slow. Short after launch the gravity turn is initiated, using fine controls to avoid sudden rapid unplanned disassembly... The craft has nearly 400 parts at launch and it still runs smooth on my system, no crashing anymore.

The Clydesdales solved a major workload on this launch, the remaining center cores had very little performance further up in the atmosphere, but it will be enough by the end, alltough very tight on fuel while reaching orbit. The fuelstation "Alpha-1" is top/ bottom asymmetric, port/ starboard is the same construction, except the antenna which is slightly left to the truss. Ascend went quite calm, the SAS followed on her own the prograde path of a quite nice gravityturn all the way to circular orbit, still with fine controls activated. Very little "wobble" observed.

This was the first and successfull test to launch a superheavy payload to low orbit. All my groundstaff went crazy as the PE marker surpassed 70`000 meters. By the way, the point of control on this craft is a very large drone core in the middle of the core truss, it is also the root part of this vessel...

This structure will be the assembly location for my next explorations. I hope this will survive the coming updates and hotfixes... The docking ports in all sizes will be needed to attach new features like radiators and laboratories for science, and likely more habitat space for all the stranded Kerbonauts out there. Please don`t ask me about the sideways mounted methalox tanks... 

I hope you enjoy this blog about my mad Kerbals, i for one am having great fun to make this happen. 

I hope i can extend this structure until my PC melts away...

Edited November 17, 2023 by Mikki
Typos:) and stuff, spelling sorry, title

[Periple]

Impressive! If the game can handle a 400 part vessel already it bodes well for the future!

[Alpha_star]

That's sure a huge boy! I can feel that you have put a lot of effort into making and flying this. However, I do have two questions to ask.

1. What's your framerate during launch and assembly?

2. What are the radial spherical monopropellent tanks for your interstellar mission? To keep the craft stable perhaps?

[Heretic391]

Awesome build!

[Mikki]

3 hours ago, Alpha_star said:

That's sure a huge boy! I can feel that you have put a lot of effort into making and flying this. However, I do have two questions to ask.

1. What's your framerate during launch and assembly?

2. What are the radial spherical monopropellent tanks for your interstellar mission? To keep the craft stable perhaps?

I checked it for you... framerate at launch was awful... take a look:

Spoiler

VAB was not that bad...

Launch was really painfull...

After leaving some boosters into freedom frames went up but slowly...

It is a refueling station, so there is also monoprop around to save on future launch vehicle weight... I also use to make monoprop only landers for small moons, this saves on complexity.

[Mikki]

Today i launched a classic Space Shuttle with a small station tug to Alpha-1...

I could not resist and paint the tank orange... like an orange.

Docking was a painfull chore, but after some twitching around it snapped flawless...

I am now figuring out what do do next, maybe i start to assemble a reusable nuclear tug to visit mun and minmus with a lander on it... and i need some emergency escape pods, who knows...

I moved the tug to the station. It will be handy to move stuff around which has no means of propulsion like tanks and such...

Crazy thing, my Kerbals keep walking around the station with their magboots, it`s all the rage now 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Mikki
typo

[Mikki]

One week after the launch of "Alpha-1" the story gets rolling... My Kerbals welded together a nuclear transfer vessel with a monoprop lander for Mun and Minmus. And they launched it fully fueled... because they can...

And it did not "wobble" at all... TWR 1.18 at launch, gently maneuvering over towards the horizon...

...and we docked to "Alpha-1" quite easy, everything is working nicely...

The transfer vessel looks tiny aside "Alpha-1"...omg...

[Ryaja]

On 10/14/2023 at 12:27 PM, Mikki said:

Megastructure Alpha-1

 

"We must now use all our available options to make a difference.

The prodigy of interstellar travel in our near future demands us to put all effort into it.

We have no choice but to leave the known paths we have been used to."

- Bob Kerman

(KSP2 early Access 0.1.4.1)

 

My Scientist decided recently to go full ballistic with the Space Program,  and a group of rather stealthy acting engineers are vigorously  working on a new approach to space exploration. This is my personal blog on a long term early access gameplay, where nothing is unthinkable. My Kerbals don`t care about bugs, wobble, bananas and the such. My Kerbals are utterly determined to use all the means they have to go big- really big.

The first and most important goal of this company is to establish a vast structure in low Kerbin orbit which serves as a fuel depot and a reliable assembly site for further near space exploration. It is crucial to have a variety of access points on a single location, and to ensure the survival of all our Kerbonauts who have encountered the kraken or other technical issues  on their journeys. And we are also tired of all the unconcious staff due to head concussions because they refuse to fasten their belts during maneuvers, this must end, now.

 

Okay, enough the introduction. I launched the biggest and heaviest object in all my KSP2 experience, it weighs close to 9`500 tons at launch and consists mostly of all the largest and heaviest parts available for now. The final payload, a orbital fuelstation weighs 1`500 tons and goes up fully fueled, yes. Unbreakable joints is off, there are lots of struts and a small wood made of launchclamps on the pad runway. TWR is around 1.3, some large reactionwheels keep it straight during launch, no RCS thrusters have been attached to this craft. The CoM is exactly along the core truss, a big cone on top is the only remedy against huge drag forces. I launched it from the first runway far away from the Space Center, for obvious reasons.

Thirteen  thirty Clydesdale solid boosters were necessary to provide the needed punch. Eight of the largest methalox rocketmotors make the first core stage, the acceleration is ridiculously slow. Short after launch the gravity turn is initiated, using fine controls to avoid sudden rapid unplanned disassembly... The craft has nearly 400 parts at launch and it still runs smooth on my system, no crashing anymore.

The Clydesdales solved a major workload on this launch, the remaining center cores had very little performance further up in the atmosphere, but it will be enough by the end, alltough very tight on fuel while reaching orbit. The fuelstation "Alpha-1" is top/ bottom asymmetric, port/ starboard is the same construction, except the antenna which is slightly left to the truss. Ascend went quite calm, the SAS followed on her own the prograde path of a quite nice gravityturn all the way to circular orbit, still with fine controls activated. Very little "wobble" observed.

This was the first and successfull test to launch a superheavy payload to low orbit. All my groundstaff went crazy as the PE marker surpassed 70`000 meters. By the way, the point of control on this craft is a very large drone core in the middle of the core truss, it is also the root part of this vessel...

This structure will be the assembly location for my next explorations. I hope this will survive the coming updates and hotfixes... The docking ports in all sizes will be needed to attach new features like radiators and laboratories for science, and likely more habitat space for all the stranded Kerbonauts out there. Please don`t ask me about the sideways mounted methalox tanks... 

I hope you enjoy this blog about my mad Kerbals, i for one am having great fun to make this happen. 

I hope i can extend this structure until my PC melts away...

I can feel my frame rate dropping.

[fishyfungus]

that looks so cool

[Mikki]

My chief engineer has dropped following statement:

"Due to a minor issue with loose struts and the fact that someone forgot to install proper WiFi on "Alpha-1" we decided to relaunch the station, with an eye on a less strut dependant construction. We also enlarged the fuel capacity by about 30%, which means our launchvehicle will become a bit bigger then the former one. While reconstruction of the first runway is still in progress, it will be launched from runway two. May Kod help us all. The launchweight will exceed everything before. I have sent my family to a remote island holiday resort in case this thing comes back down prematurly."

KSP EA 0.1.5

Four not closer named Kerbals manned the cockpit. One "Clydesdale" solidbooster decided to go AWOL while launch, and my Kerbals had to manually countersteer the missing thrust. 54 boosters minus 1 don`t make much difference though... With good TWR and heavy struted we made our way to orbit...

Spoiler

notice the missing booster at the highlighted second stage methalox core...

Spoiler

Decoupling was peacefull, the tension on the struts not so much.... There was some wobble and oscillation in the structure, my Kerbals decreased the gimbal authority on all rocketmotors significantly to avoid loss of control...

Spoiler

We overshot targetorbit of 125km x 125km, but at least we could lower it again with the remaining fuel... 

WiFi is now working, and my Kerbals look happy now. Next task is to attach a auxiliary thruster to lower the orbit. And then we are going to assemble the first true in orbit constructed interplanetary researchvessel.

"Alpha-II" is up and running. What a madness...

Edited October 30, 2023 by Mikki
pics, comment

[Jackofthenight15]

Damn man this is crazy keep up the good work and I'm excited to see the finished product.

[Mikki]

20 hours ago, Jackofthenight15 said:

Damn man this is crazy keep up the good work and I'm excited to see the finished product.

Thank you, the finished product is most likely a melted 17 CPU...  No seriously, i am trying to somehow benchmark KSP2 during development, and i try to workaround the known bugs and get the most out of it for my personal fun of it.

There are lots of small issues but i know some tricks to get my stuff going.

I was really stunned how a nearly 600 part craft got off the pad so effortlessly like "Alpha-II", KSP2 seems to achieve true progress in performance.

I`ll keep this missionreport as long as possible, so people can laugh about my crazy space program.

There will be utter madness around the corner.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Mikki
typos sorry

[Periple]

Holy wow, what kind of framerates were you getting with that monstrosity, @Mikki? 

[gluckez]

16 hours ago, Mikki said:

I`ll keep this missionreport as long as possible, so people can laugh about my crazy space program.

I'm not laughing, I'm amazed  If you got that thing into space, just imagine what you could do after the next update, with less wobblyness and improved performance

[Mikki]

11 hours ago, Periple said:

Holy wow, what kind of framerates were you getting with that monstrosity, @Mikki? 

I have no time to reenact but i guess it was about the same or even better than "Alpha-1", my motherboard and the RTX  3060 literally crackled while hitting the launchbutton. I have watercooling and a 850 watts PSU... maybe i try later again with framerate on screen ... 

7 hours ago, gluckez said:

I'm not laughing, I'm amazed  If you got that thing into space, just imagine what you could do after the next update, with less wobblyness and improved performance

I am a big fan of KSP and have seen a lot of really crazy things in this forum... I can see where the devs are trying to go and i am willing to sacr send my Kerbals to wherever the journey ends... 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Mikki

[hiradjj]

Wow, this is absolutely incredible! I must commend you on your outstanding work. I am eagerly looking forward to witnessing the final product.

[Mikki]

...Some really weird Kerbal scientist and engineers drew with chalksticks a giant auxiliary nuclear tug to the wall of the VAB and after some nights the mechanics screwed it to the top of a rather bulky launchvehicle. While the only paint left was yellow, it was sprayed yellow all around. It also sports some impressive Vernor RCS gear, so that it can be moved around in space with ease...

Spoiler

Launch was a piece of cake, and the tug made its way to "Alpha-II", sure the most overpowered tug in the history of my space program...

Docking was perfect, now that we have learned to use the new UI properly, closing in and adjusting orientation looks easy as rocket science. Camera focus and panning are still clumsy and need review though. Powerfull RCS helped alot, all in all the fastest docking ever performed by a robotic pilot.

"Alpha-II" is now significantly longer than before, good thing the COM shifted a bit towards the inhabited section and the dockingports along the main truss. but it still doens`t fit the screen nicely... Our main task is to lower the orbit from 160km x 130km to a nice circular 100km path around Kerbin. Rotating the station takes literally ages, turning around 180 degrees takes about five minutes despite four large reactionwheels at the center of the structure. I had to disable various small reaction wheels on the crewpods due to slight oscillations during rotation, but all is well now... Note that all the tanks are full, it is like a giant spacewhale to steer...

Spoiler

After swinging the station around to the maneuver marker my Kerbals fired up the "Swerve" engine, with enabled RCS the station was stable enough to hold direction, but just barely. I suspect a slight displacement of the COM, or the outriggers cause additional inertia to the main truss, who knows?

All went well as planned, now Kerbin surface passes by so fast it has become an awe to watch... The Chief engineer of the station went out EVA to check all of the structure for soundness and came back singing a silly song about boats and rowing...

Spoiler

Now we have at least some form of propulsion to change our orbit if needed, phew...

Edited November 12, 2023 by Mikki
spell and typos

[TwoCalories]

I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this report.

Also, since Alpha-2 is the new focus of this report now, maybe change the thread's name?

[Mikki]

Kerbal engineer 1: "Why not pretend we have everything in cheque and build a real big orbiter?"

Kerbal engineer 2: "Shuttles are difficult and cumbersome, we don`t have the time and patience to..."

Kerbal mechanic: "Hey guys, me and my workmate had a fun little project during last week and we like to show you this one..."

Kerbal engineer 2: "Oh my Kod..."

Kerbal engineer 1: "Where the ..."

Kerbal mechanic: "We made it afterhours... "

Tim C. Kerman and three other properly named Kerbals manned the all new Big Orbiter Shuttle and headed for "Alpha-II". In the cargohold a monoprop tug to service future assembly tasks, and despite all concerns the craft took off like a charm....

Spoiler

The orbiter works a little bit different than the well-known Mk3 shuttles, it just sports one large lifting rocket motor and two methalox maneuver engines, no monoprop required in this system.  It also carrys two large methalox tanks, one in front and one in the aft of the vessel which give it a huge dV budget to fool around in orbit after insertion.

Behind the front tank is a probecore installed which is angled down a few degrees to match the thrust vector during the ascend, after dropping the external fuel tank the crew switches to control from cockpit and continues to maneuver  with the two small methalox rocket motors attached aside the main engine, but in line with the fuselage...

Orbit insertion is easy and flawless, heading for a rendezvous with "Alpha-II"

The two mechanics mentioned above were truely smart, they slapped a whole bunch of Vernor engines to the craft, this gives the crew a phenomenal agility and speed during approach and docking...

Tim C. Kerman: "This Shuttle is a beast, despite its size it handles so perfect, how come our engineers can`t come up with such a thing themself?"

Kerbal mechanic 1  on radio : "... We might have had a bit too much of Hypergol  from @Kimera Industries vending machine, errr... and Methalox grape, hehe..."

Tim C. Kerman: "...The fact that this craft has been welded together by two drunkards after work makes me very confident to survive reentry and landing... unintelligeble mumbling... kay... more unintelligeble mumbling..."

My Kerbals unloaded and docked the monoprop tug, painted yellow for... reasons...

Spoiler

"La-lalalalalala...laaaa-la-lala-lalalalalalalalaaaaaaaa...Laaaa-lalalalaalala..."

Time to detach and descend back to the KSC,  the Orbiter has still a large amount of fuel in the tanks and therefore quite heavy... but the fuel is very handy to adjust the landing spot... no uncontrolled gliding and guessing like before...

The aerodynamics of this interesting wing shape (cough, x-37, cough... cough)  are  basically perfect, it doesn`t want to flip or spin or wiggle, it just wants to fly straight and gently, crazy thing this product of booze and boredom...

Flying back to the KSC was a walk in the park... still lots of methalox in the tanks... and using it for a powered approach after botching the descend trajectory... 

Tim C. Kerman performed a textbook touchdown on runway 1, the rather large and heavy 5m diameter Orbiter worked perfect...

The mechanics who have built this thing share now a new office together with the title "Nightly Builds Department" at the door, with a vending machine from @Kimera Industries left to it...

 

Spoiler

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Mikki
Typos:) and stuff, spelling sorry

[Kimera Industries]

3 minutes ago, Mikki said:

"... We might have had a bit too much of Hypergol  from @Kimera Industries vending machine, errr... and Methalox grape, hehe..."

Glad to see you like my vending machine! Really cool build and a unique shuttle idea.

[Mikki]

"THE CHUNGUS"

 

"There is a ladder, come with me..."

Early in the morning some Kerbals pulled a rather large plane thing out of a side hangar, turned out it was a huge SSTO. Inside was the core piece of our first interplanetary research vessel, ready to be docked at "ALPHA-II".

- "Oh my Kod this has a lots of thrust; i can`t even stretch my arm to grab my drink from the console... are we fast now?"

- "Yes we are going very fast, i see some glasses shattering over there at the tower... it is also very loud..."

"The Chungus" as it was named soon after takeoff went up to rendezvous with "ALPHA-II"...

Spoiler

The robotic yellow tug pulled out the core piece and switched over to another dockingport...

After that the tug moved the truss to the station, which was awfull because i realised just later that i have deactivated half of the thrusters on the tug, but it played out well anyway... the tug returned then to another parkinglot.

Spoiler

The crew of "The Chungus" picked up some methane from the station just for safety and decided to leave immediatly, so they don`t miss lunch at the KSC...

 

Spoiler

After a successfull landing the crew disembarked "The Chungus"...

- "Hey who has put this thing together? Why are there small cones attached to the back of this plane? Why are we here in first place?"

- "The guys at the "Nightly Builds Department" have done this last week. They said we must ignore the funny cones on top and just keep full throttle all the way up to orbit, "The Chungus" is just a testarticle and subject to changes..."

 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Mikki
Typos:)

[Heretic391]

12 hours ago, Mikki said:

"THE CHUNGUS"

 

"There is a ladder, come with me..."

Early in the morning some Kerbals pulled a rather large plane thing out of a side hangar, turned out it was a huge SSTO. Inside was the core piece of our first interplanetary research vessel, ready to be docked at "ALPHA-II".

- "Oh my Kod this has a lots of thrust; i can`t even stretch my arm to grab my drink from the console... are we fast now?"

- "Yes we are going very fast, i see some glasses shattering over there at the tower... it is also very loud..."

"The Chungus" as it was named soon after takeoff went up to rendezvous with "ALPHA-II"...

  Reveal hidden contents

The robotic yellow tug pulled out the core piece and switched over to another dockingport...

After that the tug moved the truss to the station, which was awfull because i realised just later that i have deactivated half of the thrusters on the tug, but it played out well anyway... the tug returned then to another parkinglot.

  Reveal hidden contents

The crew of "The Chungus" picked up some methane from the station just for safety and decided to leave immediatly, so they don`t miss lunch at the KSC...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

After a successfull landing the crew disembarked "The Chungus"...

- "Hey who has put this thing together? Why are there small cones attached to the back of this plane? Why are we here in first place?"

- "The guys at the "Nightly Builds Department" have done this last week. They said we must ignore the funny cones on top and just keep full throttle all the way up to orbit, "The Chungus" is just a testarticle and subject to changes..."

Cool SSTO Build   Once we have Colony parts our stations will be glorious! 

[Mikki]

18 hours ago, Heretic391 said:

Cool SSTO Build   Once we have Colony parts our stations will be glorious! 

Thank you ! I had to pull a dirty trick on this plane, and this one gave me headaches. I covered all the empty cargo bay nodes with small cones and shifted them out of the way to the wing surface... And now it has hell-of-a-speed since then, it has very little drag i think and the damn NASA X-37 wing layout is somewhat utterly failsafe, and having the wings on top makes it literally deathproof at descend and landing. I am bit ashamed to exploit the game mechanics in such manner... 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Mikki
typo

[Mikki]

"TO THE MUN! Hey, where are the dots?"

While waiting for the new sience parts i decided to have a small break on KSP2 and let my Kerbals loose to whatever they want.

And this happened when i came back, some eager students from the training center have convinced some workers from the warehouse to hand them out some stuff including three truckloads of wheels, panels and trusses.

They claimed that they have anything under control and are performing a break check on the new Münbase...rover...plattform...thing.

Yeah.

There was nothing much suspicious in the morning, just a common landertest on the runway...

Obviously the students are churning some weird stuff out, the lander touched down on a large empty plattform between the runways, and the pilot jumped out and examined the surface thoroughly with his boots...

Spoiler

Turned out the plattform had wheels and it kept moving along the runway, like a big box gliding on ice... the lander and the pilot still on top of it. Really nifty stuff i must admit.

Suddenly the whole construction came to a hefty stop, and the lander toppled over but remained on the plattform on its side.

What the hell is going on here?

"Okay students, nice job. Now flesh this out and bring it to the Mün!" 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Mikki
spoiler and stuff

[BechMeister]

 

Quote

 

Docking was a painfull chore, but after some twitching around it snapped flawless...

 

That Tug drone looks like it has fuel for ages. - but it also looks like it's going to be a bit cumbersome to move about? 

 

Quote

 

"Alpha-II" is up and running. What a madness...

 

your pc must be a beast! My two small stations makes my framerate tank like hell.. I cant imagine what his crazy monstrosity does x)

Quote

 

 

Man its really aesthetically pleasing

Quote

Really nice usage of the big part as a engine shroud. what a monster xD

Quote

 

 

Holy cow! You're mad! Im impressed that thing can even lift off! WOW

 

Quote

 

"Okay students, nice job. Now flesh this out and bring it to the Mün!" 

 

Love your little platform. I only found your project now. Its funny I feel like we have parallel played a lot of the same Ideas... but the scale of your project is a lot more ambitious and more wild x) 

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by BechMeister