Project BABYLON

[Munstation]

So this'll be starting first of May, I should be there for this.

[Climberfx]

I have a sort of things on dropbox, too. old and new rockets, RSS, Space Shuttle Fusion...

Feel free to download and try anyone. Directly and for inspiration too. (If any, lol)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yfqxh4b94czu2hl/DILqDQpHTJ

[Tada]

What is currently a priority and I feel there is a gap - building and launching capital ships.

Theres "Damkina" class mothership, which needs to be powerful enough to fly to Laythe with crew and cargo (I kinda like radial attachment points like on Temstars Olympus OPD II which are working - with minor tweaks, I´ve put docking ports so they can "pull" cargo as a trailer for some ships). I personaly have no experience of building such large vessel, but it is ascent stage which bothers me most.

And of course "Marduk" the light cruiser, which would even more complicated. I´ve been trying out Macey Dean´s "Dreadnought" class with some succes. Main problem is, that it cannot reach Laythe, not even on a good day, other problem is, that when you expend your ammunition it is useles and you may as well deorbit the whole thing. I think, that "Marduk" should be armed with at least 2-4 missiles made of SRBs facing forward. To make them reloadable missiles will be equiped with docking ports on both ends, so they can be docked by light service craft on to the hard points of the ship. What I find very good is the "Smart Missile System" very light - RCS tank, flat probe body, linear RCS port and docking port and yet it can devastate smaller craft - ideal for defense of a space station or capital ship. As far as armor goes - it is almost useles, because it can be destroyed by simple missile made of nosecone and sepratrons. Armor realy protects only againts smaller projectiles, so "Marduk" class light cruiser should have armor only on vital areas to keep parts and weight down.

[Climberfx]

Weapons, i'm out! Good luck!

[Krizzen]

Wow, this is really cool. I could *totally* see something like this further down the development pipeline as an alternative "Epic" career mode where you build ships to meet the requirements, and then use them in practice to achieve an ultimate goal. The whole idea would be to do exactly like Project BABYLON: Give players a general direction with some nice stepping stones along the way to achieve some "simple", difficult goals! Really awesome!

[The Error]

I'm in, on the other hand. I've made anti-fighter and anti-ship probe-base missiles, fown by the dozen up to orbit. Shouldn't be too difficult to design a working cruiser.

[dennislinux]

So, i am recruited, or not? i am expert at building colony pieces.

[Tada]

Welcome aboard.

I will try to work out some preliminary launch schedule and distrubute jobs for first phase of project execution.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

ROFLCopter64bit: Very nice, simple and practical. Just one thing missing - small docking ports - fighters I tend to use are both using small docking ports. Is there anywhere a probe body on the station? On Saphire it would be a must for situations when station will have to be abandoned.

I can add a 1.25-0.5m adapter with 5 ports. One of those 6 sided multiple connector thingos. But with Jr. docking ports.

[Tada]

Ok, tommorow I´ll post crew list and task distribution, today I´m bit all over my head

I´ll share savefile which will include ships which I would like to use for project for crew to get familiar with these.

[KD3]

Sounds good

[Octobomb]

I have designed a Calf class tanker, capable of holding twice the required and with loadsa Dv. I also designed an ammo transition system for torps, with decoupler cannons you need two ships right next to each other to fix the parent/child relationship problems KSP has - this makes for 2 docks instead of 1 to reload - is this alright? EDIT2:

This is my cannon system. It works like so: It begins attached to the fueselage like so. It is transfered from the 'carrier' (what it is attached to) to the 'loader' via the docking port on the front. It will now be the right way around. The 'carrier' detaches and moves away, and the 'loader' transfers it to the cruiser. The cruiser fires the docking port 'cap' off, and it is ready. When the clip is spent, the docking port is jettisoned and reloads can proceed again.

My calf tanker

Edited May 1, 2013 by Octobomb

[Ringer]

Is it okay if I use MechJeb (only informationally, to determine phase angle)? I can even jettison the related part once I get to Jool, and delete the debris, if you want. I wouldn't use it for auto-pilot though: what challenge would that be!

[Tada]

So here we go

Crew of Project BABYLON:

Munstation - pilot/small to medium ship builder

benjiful9000 - pilot/capital ship builder

hollie.socks - pilot in training/videomaker

Octobomb - pilot/logistic ship builder

ROFLCopter64bit - pilot/space station builder

AustralianFries - pilot/videomaker

dennislinux - colonyship builder

People I will contact soon:

The Error - armed ships

Ringer

I will upload the savefile in few hours. You all get familiar with the ships contained.

First mission is going to be flown by me - Laythe orbiting satelite.

Second mission will be ROFLCopter64bit building the space station "Horizon"

Ringer - well, you may create a copy of savefile and use Mechjeb for your testing there But main savefile is no mods ...

[way2smrt]

For a moment I thougth someone was going to build a Babylon 5 station from the tv show. Oh well, someday someday...

[Octobomb]

Shall I import my 'Calf' to the save? Also: Missions within Kerbin's SOI are easy for me, but docking and interplanetary are too much for me atm, so some help would be nice.

Thanks, Octobomb

[Tada]

Well, for you training purposes you may, but as official circulation of missions will go to "official" save-file it will get as soon as you will get your turn with mission - already send you a PM

Save circulation will work like that - I will send official save to a member of crew, which will fly a appointed misson, saving it and he will send the save file back to me and I´ll realase it for others do download or maybe we will come up with something more efficient than that

[Tada]

And we´re off!

I´ve made the maiden flight with Laythe Recon probe.

Project BABYLON save file is HERE

So I propose, all members of crew get familiar with crafts included.

Next turn is on ROFLcopter to build up the space station "Horizon"

Edited May 1, 2013 by Tada

[the brain in a box]

Awesome ship you have made, and by that I speak to everybody. I'm sorry I couldn't reply till after this started, I was having account trouble, but I wanted to show you this.

I call it the Nexus, and I got it into orbit in one piece.

tell me if you want to use it (I know it is late).

Edited May 1, 2013 by the brain in a box

[the brain in a box]

Anything I can do?

[Tada]

Well, you can get the save file, take a look on the ships there, try em out, get some experience and maybe you´ll see where you can fit into the project

As Laythe colony so complex as I suggested this project is mostly for experienced pilots/builders, but as it will take some time for sure, you´ll be able to get experience and then join the crew...!

[ROFLCopter64bit]

The space station is going under structual testing, as I plan to use the same design for the Laythe space station.

I can also do interplanetary ships as well. Delta-V of over 6000 is what I can do.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Horizon has been sucessfuly been merged into the official save. Uploading right now, will post link soon.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Done.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tybnhdzmp2pife8/Project%20BABYLON.zip

[Tada]

Thanks to ROFLCopter64bit we have working "Horizon" space station in 115km orbit above Kerbin.

Today I´ve took mission to equip station with some essential ships.

Light interceptor on it´s way to station

Heavy fighter during docking

Station with 3 crafts docked

So we´re pretty much set for all Kerbin SOI operations. I´ll maybe launch some other ships later today and relase save-file later.

For those wondering if they can join the crew or for crewmembers looking for a job - check out the ship list on the first page. Ships, that are up and running are marked blue, those did awaiting to be build are still black and you can take a look at these.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Tada