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NuclearWarfare

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Lots of pictures, beware :P

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I felt like developing a shuttle. So I did. The MSI Polaris:

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6 Kerbals to LKO for crew rotations, and in style too. (This first image of the shuttle plus the last image of the shuttle and the station show the latest iteration of the vehicle. The differences are minor between the two versions shown, but they're there).

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No messy SRB's on this launcher system, just one big-a$$ external booster that feeds the shuttle engines and some verniers at the top to keep it more stable.

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Sleek and safe. The shuttle glides really well in the lower few kilometres of atmosphere, and there have been no crash landings whatsoever. An abort was called on a test flight after a fuel line error lead to the shuttle engines running dry, and it managed to swing back round to the runway just 2 minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff.

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The booster separation is quite a sight, actually. Very smooth, very effective. That booster will go on to be recovered.

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Also, I put up a new station. Lengas Orbital is a mid-size torus with a 96 Kerbal capacity (not that I'll ever need to have that many in anything) plus a smaller module at the back with a lab and solar panels. The torus is designed to be used with ships too, hence the red and green navigation lights (though for a rotating station, it's quite useful to have such markers, anyway).

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Crew delivery :D

Docking that shuttle was... interesting. I did set the station spinning, and the RCS on the shuttle isn't quite right for the docking port. Nevertheless, I got it docked in the end. I think this station may just be serviced by Cygnus' and Rangers in the future...

Meanwhile, on Minmus...

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Willo Kerman taking a stroll at Trident Point Research.

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Also, I put up a new station. Lengas Orbital is a mid-size torus with a 96 Kerbal capacity (not that I'll ever need to have that many in anything) plus a smaller module at the back with a lab and solar panels. The torus is designed to be used with ships too, hence the red and green navigation lights (though for a rotating station, it's quite useful to have such markers, anyway).

Ya' know, there actually *IS* a use for having that many Kerbals in orbit. Have you ever heard of Extraplanetary Launchpads? If you filled that station with Kerbals, it would actually have quite an impressive construction capability (in EPL, rockets take TIME and PARTS to manufacture off-world: and the more Kerbals you have at the spacedock/launchpad, the faster it build things). It wouldn't be too late to retrofit that station with a spacedock part via the docking port, so that you could use your existing station for orbital construction...

Normally I consider EPL a little cheaty, as it doesn't seem realistic for a tiny 3-man station to build a giant rocket in orbit, even if it takes them 5 years. But if you went through all the effort of building a 96-man Stanford Torus (that's what that type of station-design is actually called), you should go right ahead- you deserve to be able to build rockets in orbit (our of parts hauled from the ground), and it wouldn't be unrealistic!

One of the *MAJOR* advantages of building things in orbit is that you can build spacecraft that are so fragile/large they could NEVER survive the g's and aerodynamic forces of a launch from the KSC... Like, a long stack of Mass Drivers (see my signature for a working Mass Driver mod I maintain), or an even larger Stanford Torus! :)

Regards,

Northstar

- - - Updated - - -

Pointy rockets, amidoinitrite?

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That's pretty cool :cool:

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Also, here are some pictures from development of a line of HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL Ares-style (SRB first-stage, heavy HydroLox upper-stage) launch vehicles I was developing in RealSolarSystem 64K... (a 6.4x scale-up of Kerbin and the Kerbol system) There were nonetheless a few reverts, as I like to tweak my Launch Vehicles until they have PRECISELY enough fuel and performance to meet the mission objectives, no more, no less, at the minimal possible Funds cost... (money rules the universe!)

Oh, and, I got a launcher this heavy off the level-2 pad by a clever workaround for SQUAD's 140-ton mass limit (which, for SILLY REASONS they hardcoded, so we're not allowed to mod or change it)- I have RealFuels installed, and the LaunchClamps are set to fill the tanks with fuel *AFTER* the rocket is already on the pad (kind of like real life, actually- we don't roll giant rockets out to the pad on a crawler while full of highly-explosive rocket fuel!)

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The night-launch was of a stock Mobile Research Lab and a Mk1-2 cockpit (which detached and returned to Kerbin) for a Station contract and some experience getting into orbit for my Kerbals (this was EARLY in a new 0.90 Career game, after a previously save-breaking bug from accidentally deleting ModuleManager when trying to update it... I started with a LOT of starting Science and Funds as a result, as I didn't want to have to repeat the whole early-game grind for too long...)

The day-launch was of an orbital fuel depot. I am using RealFuels, so the things on the outside are radiators to help keep the fuel (Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen) nice and cool... There are solar panels as well, but during launch they're shielded inside the Procedural Fairings interstage-fairing...

Regards,

Northstar

Edited by Northstar1989
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- BIG SNIP-

Do you know how long I had to hold down the delete button on my tablet just so I could say "-snip-"? :P

Anyway, I have seen EPL but I've never been particularly interested in it. I just wanted to make a torus station (and yes, I knew it was a Stanford Torus, if only a little on the small side for such a construct) that looked halfway decent.

Oh, and thanks for the rep; you nudged me into the light green bars :D

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The start of a new space station. It will become the main fuel depot and LKO craft hub for future colonization of the solar system!:cool:

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This plane is also the start of a new era in my space program, why? Because the fuel for this entire mission costed 6,000 funds....

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It's with much disappointment that I post these pictures. IEV Stargazer has, in its second iteration, proven to be unusable. With two of my Rangers docked, the part count slowed the frame rate down to nigh unbearable lows, and with the relatively low-thrust engines I had in place, it suddenly became a non-feasible vehicle for the purposes I had intended it for.

So, instead of wasting the effort and the beauty of the ship, I went for a photoshoot :P

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Obviously based on Endurance (much like the first iteration of this vehicle...), Stargazer was to fly to Duna in style. In combination with two Rangers (2 crew each) and a lander (Aries class, 3 crew), the ship could have taken 25 crew, though I'd not have had that many aboard for any reason other than attempting to build a really big base somewhere.

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However, it seems that building cool big ships in KSP means using up a lot of parts, and with the current CPU usage, it's just not nice to have to put up with the frame drop.

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Fortunately for me, the pictures are very pretty.

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Those engines produced 30kN each (~65kN now that I buffed 'em up). 360kN total apparently wasn't good enough for the mass of this ship. Oh well.

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Alas, I'm now going to have to go back and come up with another option. I do have another cruiser design ready to go, so I may use that.

I also have the problem of getting that damned ring back down in one piece so I can recover the funds...

Edited by RogueMason
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It's a spaceplne

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Don't have the pics of it in orbit, but it was there.

The first time I was landing it I screwed up the flaps settings and crashed. After that I tested it with the same fuel level, but without flaps and it worked perfectly (the last picture).

Planning on sending two of those to explore Laythe's north pole. Still trying to figure out how to pump fuel between them:

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Edited by Veeltch
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Camler Kerman does an EVA to repair the Iguanodon's single engine (which suffered a coolant leak during liftoff). Meanwhile, the engineers back at KSC debate whether building a one-engine Orbiter was really such a good idea in the first place.

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