Ion drive Crusiers

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

I thought to make a challenge where you have to make a Ion drive cruiser. I was thinking of a Capsule at the front. and have xenon tanks horizontal x5 and then have three ion engines at the back. And just have rtgs. Allowing to go anywhere. Please post your builds down below!

The best ion drive cruiser

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[Ryu Gemini]

Made one. Went with the artistic approach more then the practical one though. Complete with "turrets" and "main cannons." Jeb, the current pilot, asks that you not let any enemies know I am using quotes. He also asks that you not let HIM know. He likes aiming at things.

It does have some decent gear on it though. I had planned to just cheat it into space, but then I got caught up in playing around with launchers and eventually managed to build my biggest thing yet (and something somehow capable of getting it up there legit to boot).

Oh, as for the main ship itself (i.e. the thing I built for this topic in the first place), it has 8 ion engines and a lot of solar panels. One of the "turrets" has a shielded docking clamp in its construction, along with two nuke power cores, but its on the underside and I seemingly missed it in my screenshots. Technically there are tiny docking clamps on the "cannons" too. The thing also has a second seat available in case you have some lost kerbal someplace it can go (if that kerbal doesn't mind waiting a LONG time).

I should probably name it the Lag-o-tron Lifter. Seriously, it gives me an even lower frame-rate then that Ultimate Refueler design I found on the forums a couple days ago. Damn stable though, considering what its lifting. You almost don't need to turn on the SAS. That may be due to having like a 100 strut connectors keeping it together. And about twice as much duct tape.

Its really just as well that I put a launcher on. That final stage actually adds a little more versatility to that ship while it still has fuel. And technically, you can fire the ion engines without damaging whats behind them, due to their low thrust, so you could just fly it to a fuel station and refuel both types of fuel when you need in that configuration. Now if only I knew how to intercept something else's orbit... I should probably look at some tutorials or something on that. Or download Mechjeb. Or just launch a few hundred of them at random until one manages to get close.

Ion engines are rather power-hungry. Especially if you have 8 of them. And don't worry Jeb, they aren't ACTUALLY powered by witchcraft. Ion engines are actually powered by the souls of kerbals whose rockets exploded on the pad.

...I was kidding, Jeb. Relax.

The rear after detaching the last rocket stage, and only on ion power now. Think I should tell Jeb that I built that ship on an indian burial ground?

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[Dyson FEAR]

I've made a number of ion cruisers, using what I will admit is a slightly cheat-y ion drive mod, but the powerful engines are extremely power hungry and usually require balka solar wings.

I figured if I was using such a mod, I would have to take it as far as I could so I made a probe-cruiser to map and land on every moon of Jool. All were successful but for Tylo as I massively underestimated its gravity well, and Bop as I forgot to give the lander engines. Behold Kassini 2: Lots of mass, lots of Delta V, lots of TWR.

The Artemis class light cruiser, with long range, a crew capacity of 7 kerbals, and a Sunbeam laser. Here it is recapturing its lander in its cargo bay. The process is about as easy as you might think.

And finally, the massive Titan 2. Weigher of 150 tons, haver of two lander/fighters in its two cargo bays. Carries a crew of 6 and 18 passengers. Still ironing the bugs out. I had to recover the crew and resources from Minmal orbit when upon deceleration it would do what can only be described as a booty clap with its two Mk4 cargo bays flapping around unsecured to each other.