[0.21] Hooligan Labs - Airship, Submarines and More

[Mekan1k]

What about the smaller versions of the "mega"? I used to build MASSIVE launchers with those as High-altitude launch platforms?

The standard and octo? What happened to them?

[KGas- Inc]

Anyone else having trouble with the Squid stuff in .20. The Spaceport file doesn't appear to be updated. Am I wrong?

[Mihara]

What about the smaller versions of the "mega"? I used to build MASSIVE launchers with those as High-altitude launch platforms?

The standard and octo? What happened to them?

Still broken.

Mind you, Cirrus beats them hands down in the lifting department, so just take a structural platform, put four of them on the corners, and you get the same effect but prettier.

[F1refly]

So here is my Kerbin Explorer, has a Push engine and two electric engines. Works really well, a bit slow but that's fine

It was originally just a prototype but it worked so well so yeah. The plan was to land it on top of a mountain and watch the balloons slowly take off from the Space Center but that didn't work too well

[FluxCap]

I could use some help... I am in the midst of making a youtube episode to compare the efficiency of delivering cargo to a 100km orbit to dock with a station between rockets, spaceplanes, and airships. I have the rockets and spaceplanes covered, but for some reason I am having issues with making a good craft myself it seems... Hoping perhaps someone has one to share that works with .20+.

[Hooligan Labs]

Release 2.0.2: Digging through my OLD stuff I got the .dae files I needed to restore the original rigid envelopes! Tested in 0.20.2. Colors are still wrong but the .png textures otherwise work fine.

Note that I have made all airships equal in drag. This vastly improves the performance of the rigid envelopes. This is unrealistic, but in a discussion that was probably lost in the forum blackout of 2013 we decided that KSP just doesn't do drag right yet.

I could use some help... I am in the midst of making a youtube episode to compare the efficiency of delivering cargo to a 100km orbit to dock with a station between rockets, spaceplanes, and airships. I have the rockets and spaceplanes covered, but for some reason I am having issues with making a good craft myself it seems... Hoping perhaps someone has one to share that works with .20+.

What are you looking to do, get an airship to orbit with cargo? Note that each envelope will likely have different performance. Want to share what your craft looks like?

[RoboRay]

With 0.20 I decided to start new. I also decided to redesign my 2 main airships from the ground up around the Cirrus (I don't have pics of my old airships...gonna do much better this time about documenting my builds and missions)

Ran into a bit of a problem......

This is a fast 'proof of concept' kinda build that was gonna eventualy become the new DLA Goliath, my duna flagship...

upon launch I see that ive created possible the most costly runway examination tool...

playing with the pitch and altitude controls didn't do any good....kinda just made the ship wiggle on the ground

Both my old flagships had Ray envelopes on the sides, but they did also have some on top...

Is mounting the Cirrus like this gonna be impossible, or am I just overlooking something?

I finally had time to briefly play with the Cirrus.

Wow, balancing the craft in the SPH/VAB is critical when using two like that. The buoyancy trim is too coarse to help. I'm definitely going to look into setting up some ballast tanks to pump fuel or something between for trim.

[Mekan1k]

Hooligan Labs, I have a request- Could you make small versions of the expanding envelopes for probes, at the 1/2 meter level? I want to send air-boarn probes to duna and some other places, and small probes would be ideal for this.

[BlazingAngel665]

Hooligan Labs, I have a request- Could you make small versions of the expanding envelopes for probes, at the 1/2 meter level? I want to send air-boarn probes to duna and some other places, and small probes would be ideal for this.

If you actually want to carry any mass on Duna I recommend you stick with the 1m variant Duna has an almost nonexistent atmosphere.

[Hooligan Labs]

If you actually want to carry any mass on Duna I recommend you stick with the 1m variant Duna has an almost nonexistent atmosphere.

Well said. On the front page chart you can see that the basic Una only can lift 0.5 tons on Duna. If I were to scale down the envelope to have 1/2 the width, overall it would have 1/8th the volume (and lifting force).

[Hooligan Labs]

I finally got a chance to go back and read some of the old forum posts!

Finally managed it. Eve SSTO accomplished after numerous trials and errors:

I think this new balloon is a winner.

Ah ha! Has the impossible been done!?

The version of the party starter on Kerbal SpacePort isn't working properly...

Anyone else having trouble with the Squid stuff in .20. The Spaceport file doesn't appear to be updated. Am I wrong?

I will update both soon. Note the comments.

[Mekan1k]

True... I was actually thinking of a laythe mission, but an eve one.... Would be rather interesting...

[KhaosCorp]

Im actually very excited about eve now! Before I honestly only saw Eve as purple brakes to get to gilly without needing an extra 6k m/s Dv....but now.....

Now im gona use cirrus envelope to rob Eve of all its kethane......take that ya big silly purple SOB! HA!

[Hooligan Labs]

Got the video up in time for Friday! Check it!

[Richy teh space man]

I'll put my Eve SSTO up for anyone to have a play with:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eyljgh6x9zis9mr/Eve%20SSTO%20%235c.craft

To land it enter the atmosphere of Eve fully fuelled, in a retrograde direction. Let the aero braking kill off speed, inflate balloon to about 1% when your speed gets low enough, then just increase it slightly as you get lower to the ground. Lower the landing struts when your low enough, then just gently place it down with fine altitude adjustment.

To take off, I'd recommend letting mechjeb 2 set the launch profile. Turn start 45 km, final turn 85 km , orbit altitude 110km, turn shape 36.6% works. Inflate the balloon steadily, don't let buoyancy exceed 20 000, I'd suggest lower until your out of the thickest atmosphere. Once there, punch buoyancy to max and let the inertia carry you to over 30 km up. Then, start your engines and wait until your over 42 km up, then set buoyancy to 0. Use manual control to help mechjeb 2 follow the nav beacons, as it may stray slightly. You may have to fine tune getting the perfect orbit at the end a little, but there should be enough fumes to circularize though.

Edit: There's also a docking part on the underside of it, for pushing it around, towing, etc.. which you will need for refuelling and putting it into Eve's atmosphere, engines disabled with 0 key.

Slide show of it in action: http://s448.photobucket.com/user/Richy_yvl/slideshow/Eve%20SSTO

Didn't have time to make the tugboats/refuel missions, but you get the idea..

Uses the following mods:

This mod

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/30472-KSPX-Kerbal-Stock-Part-eXpansion-mod-reposted

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/12384-PART-0-20-Anatid-Robotics-MuMech-MechJeb-Autopilot-v2-0-8

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/9396-0-20-ISA-MapSat-4-0-Dev-Build

Edited May 31, 2013 by Richy teh space man
Added more info

[Hooligan Labs]

I'll put my Eve SSTO up for anyone to have a play with:

Front page'd. Good job!

RoboRay, I would front page your Cirrus blimp but you already have the Laythe rover up there. It should just generally be know that you are the maker of many cool things.

[RoboRay]

RoboRay, I would front page your Cirrus blimp but you already have the Laythe rover up there. It should just generally be know that you are the maker of many cool things.

No, no! That's just a proof-of-concept demonstrator. I have not yet begun to get cool with the Cirrus.

Edited May 31, 2013 by RoboRay

[dimovski]

Just saw this...I think this needs 2 things 2 be perfect:

a)modularity, for example, a rigid "nose" and then some "body sections", this would make it xyz times easier to lift a specific load to a specific height...(ah whom am I kidding, I want to make a 20km long airship which is going to bring my rocket launchers to stratosphere so they can lift even MOAR... )

b)an action group to move bouyancy to 0...something like "Vent Kelium", this would make such airship assisted launches make even more pretty, because you would fire the engines,decouple, and start your gravity turn but the airship wouldnt "jump" up like crazy, it would rather slowly come down...

[KhaosCorp]

Wow, balancing the craft in the SPH/VAB is critical when using two like that. The buoyancy trim is too coarse to help. I'm definitely going to look into setting up some ballast tanks to pump fuel or something between for trim.

Had an idea for how to add ballast..

You ever seen a Slide Hammer? Its a body working/sheet metal working tool...was thinkin of something like that to adjust airship trim.

the part would be a long rod connected to the ship on each end, a weight would slide along the bar, so you could position it anywhere along the bar...it could come in a few sizes, for both bar length and weight.

Of course im not a modder in any regards, so if anyone wants to make this feel free, and this seems more feesable to me than shifting fuel around

here is slide hammer: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200334163_200334163

[Mihara]

Had an idea for how to add ballast..

You ever seen a Slide Hammer? Its a body working/sheet metal working tool...was thinkin of something like that to adjust airship trim.

the part would be a long rod connected to the ship on each end, a weight would slide along the bar, so you could position it anywhere along the bar...it could come in a few sizes, for both bar length and weight.

That could be done with Damned Robotics easily.

Yet another important plugin still not updated, unfortunately.

[KhaosCorp]

Seems like it could be done outside DR...not sure though. I use a lot of mods...and all the animations and functional parts I have that don't use Damned robotics....its got to be possible

[RoboRay]

Had an idea for how to add ballast..

You ever seen a Slide Hammer? Its a body working/sheet metal working tool...was thinkin of something like that to adjust airship trim.

the part would be a long rod connected to the ship on each end, a weight would slide along the bar, so you could position it anywhere along the bar...it could come in a few sizes, for both bar length and weight.

Of course im not a modder in any regards, so if anyone wants to make this feel free, and this seems more feesable to me than shifting fuel around

Yes, that would be a good solution. Maybe Damned Robotics will get sorted out soon... it's got some hydraulic pistons that would work for shifting a weight back and forth.

Anyway, I was thinking of fuel because I intend to be producing fuel... in flight!

I tried to build an airship around the Bobcat HOME air-mining parts before, which is a huge chemical processing facility to extract and refine propellent from the atmosphere, and failed miserably. With the massive lifting capacity of the Cirrus, that is now a possibility!

(More pictures)

The prototype Akua airship, above, uses a single jet engine and even at full throttle can't keep up with what the air-miner can produce. Dealing with the oxidizer can be a problem, though. Using rockets instead of jets or props would solve that, but would also consume dramatically more fuel. I don't want to modify the air-miner itself to produce only fuel, because I may use it to refuel spacecraft on other worlds. So, I'll probably make an "oxidizer dump" part to simply purge the unwanted dead-weight of the oxidizer when I'm just flying around.

Of course, considering the lifting capacity of the Cirrus, I may not even need to bother with a dumping capability. I'm filling the tanks now to find out. The next development version of the craft may feature more fuel tanks, depending on how it goes. The goal is to have a Duna-capable airship, which means I need to be neutrally buoyant at 15km or so on Kerbin.

Edited May 31, 2013 by RoboRay

[Hooligan Labs]

Anyway, I was thinking of fuel because I intend to be producing fuel... in flight!

This is something that I've heard people talking about on the forums forever, but it's finally in flight!

Two things about ballast... First, the idea of controlling buoyancy using compressors (or volume in this case) removes the need for ballast, freeing up a lot of weight and allowing better control. That is how many modern balloons work, such as the Goodyear blimp. http://www.goodyearblimp.com/cfmx/web/blimp/basics/anatomy.cfm

Also, why isn't Damned Robotics being updated?

[Pigbear]

I love these mods! keep up the good work!

[KhaosCorp]

This is something that I've heard people talking about on the forums forever, but it's finally in flight!

Two things about ballast... First, the idea of controlling buoyancy using compressors (or volume in this case) removes the need for ballast, freeing up a lot of weight and allowing better control. That is how many modern balloons work, such as the Goodyear blimp. http://www.goodyearblimp.com/cfmx/web/blimp/basics/anatomy.cfm

Also, why isn't Damned Robotics being updated?

i think DR is being worked on, but 0.20 really dropkicked mumech in the throat as far as DR goes, has to have its own plugin now im thinkin.

as far as ballast goes. i had the idea because im having issues with the envelopes built in trim functions. I think the problem is the cirrus is so beast, 1% in the pitch control is usualy to much/little. So i was thinkin something to augment the pitch controls (not to replace them)