Cupcake's Dropship Dealership...

[Cupcake...]

CRAFT FILES:

https://goo.gl/Mtvg0g

CONTROLS:

1 - Toggle Main Engines

3 - Toggle Search Lights

5 - Undock Front/Back/Top Ports

7 - Deploy Drill/Begin Harvesting

8 - Retract Drill/Cease Harvesting

9 - Toggle Ladder

0 - Reduce Reaction Wheel Torque (For Navball Drift)

ABORT - Undock Bottom/Side Ports

NOTES:

When mining activate fuel cell, harvester and ISRU together. Use timewarp until all tanks are full then deactivate the same components.

Running the engines and ISRU at the same time is not recommended as the reaction wheel will loose power and the engines can become overloaded.

Ideally Ore should be processed during interplanetary flight.

Usually when we think of mining rigs what comes to mind are huge behemoths which take the gods very own firecrackers to get into orbit! Fortunately with the Pickaxe all this gear has been squeezed into an extremely compact exoskelliton chasis that is simply a joy to fly.

The craft also works seamlessly with the new Scythe lander allowing you to keep the tanks topped up while you explore the surface.

The rig is powered by an on board fuel cell & RTG which can operate regardless of light levels.

The craft has been tested on Duna, Ike, The Mun, Minmus, Moho and Val. In short it'll work just about anywhere.

The vessel comes with it's own LV that'll get the Pickaxe to low Kerbin orbit with a belly full of Ore that'll add 1500m/s of DV to the base 1800m/s. The grand total is a respectable 3.3k that'll be plenty for a Duna mission. Destinations further afield can be reached by taking advantage of the rich bounty of asteroids, moons and planets that make up the Kerbal system.

Enjoy!

Cupcake...

Edited October 3, 2015 by Cupcake...

[linuxgurugamer]

Downloaded and will be playing with it.

Just a couple of comments:

1. It is a very advanced ship, and isn't really useful in Career mode. The RTG alone requires that you have almost the entire tech tree unlocked.

2. No offense, the Pickaxe is lovely, but god, what an ugly lifter :-)

3. I'd like to give you a challenge, if you are interested. Essentially, make one (or more) of your dropships launchable in parts, to be assembled in orbit

Would you be interested in an alternate LV for it? I assume that it would have to be stock only. Right now, I'm trying to launch the LV which came with it, and am having a great deal of difficulty getting to low orbit. I'm using Mechjeb to control the ship. I have both FAR and DRE installed. So far, I haven't been able to get it above about 30 km or so

CRAFT FILES:

https://goo.gl/Mtvg0g

CONTROLS:

1 - Toggle Main Engines

3 - Toggle Search Lights

5 - Undock Front/Back/Top Ports

7 - Deploy Drill/Begin Harvesting

8 - Retract Drill/Cease Harvesting

9 - Toggle Ladder

0 - Reduce Reaction Wheel Torque (For Navball Drift)

ABORT - Undock Bottom/Side Ports

NOTES:

When mining activate fuel cell, harvester and ISRU together. Use timewarp until all tanks are full then deactivate the same components.

Running the engines and ISRU at the same time is not recommended as the reaction wheel will loose power and the engines can become overloaded.

Ideally Ore should be processed during interplanetary flight.

Usually when we think of mining rigs what comes to mind are huge behemoths which take the gods very own firecrackers to get into orbit! Fortunately with the Pickaxe all this gear has been squeezed into an extremely compact exoskelliton chasis that is simply a joy to fly.

http://i.imgur.com/CpMLYUR.jpg

The craft also works seamlessly with the new Scythe lander allowing you to keep the tanks topped up while you explore the surface.

http://i.imgur.com/pYJuetb.jpg

The rig is powered by an on board fuel cell & RTG which can operate regardless of light levels.

http://i.imgur.com/RMJppNW.jpg

The craft has been tested on Duna, Ike, The Mun, Minmus, Moho and Val. In short it'll work just about anywhere.

http://i.imgur.com/kpi3uYS.jpg

The vessel comes with it's own LV that'll get the Pickaxe to low Kerbin orbit with a belly full of Ore that'll add 1500m/s of DV to the base 1800m/s. The grand total is a respectable 3.3k that'll be plenty for a Duna mission. Destinations further afield can be reached by taking advantage of the rich bounty of asteroids, moons and planets that make up the Kerbal system.

http://i.imgur.com/txtxDEy.jpg

Enjoy!

Cupcake...

[Cupcake...]

Downloaded and will be playing with it.

Just a couple of comments:

1. It is a very advanced ship, and isn't really useful in Career mode. The RTG alone requires that you have almost the entire tech tree unlocked.

2. No offense, the Pickaxe is lovely, but god, what an ugly lifter :-)

3. I'd like to give you a challenge, if you are interested. Essentially, make one (or more) of your dropships launchable in parts, to be assembled in orbit

Would you be interested in an alternate LV for it? I assume that it would have to be stock only. Right now, I'm trying to launch the LV which came with it, and am having a great deal of difficulty getting to low orbit. I'm using Mechjeb to control the ship. I have both FAR and DRE installed. So far, I haven't been able to get it above about 30 km or so

Thanks for the feedback, in answer to your observations:

1 - I'm a Sandbox player at heart, in fact I've never played career mode.

2 - Totaly agree with you there, if you want to make a better design (must be stock) please be my guest! The LV was tuned for a stock enviroment hence why you're probably having trouble with FAR.

3 - It could be a fun challenge, what sort of size are we talking here?

Cupcake...

Edited October 4, 2015 by Cupcake...

[linuxgurugamer]

Thanks for the feedback, in answer to your observations:

1 - I'm a Sandbox player at heart, in fact I've never played career mode.

2 - Totaly agree with you there, if you want to make a better design (must be stock) please be my guest! The LV was tuned for a stock enviroment hence why you're probably having trouble with FAR.

3 - It could be a fun challenge, what sort of size are we talking here?

Cupcake...

Ok. Except for various editor mods I'm using, this is a totally stock LV. I use Mechjeb to get repeatable launches, but no non-stock parts are used. I would have preferred to use the KJR, since I didn't, I had to add a few extra struts.

This LV uses 4 Rockomax Orange tanks withMainsail engines, and gets the Pickaxe into a 100 km orbit, with about 360m/s of leftover Dv

Available here

Here are the MechJeb settings:

Orbit Altitude 100km

Prevent overheats

Limit to terminal velocity

Limit accel to 35 m/sec

Force Roll climb to 0 degrees

Limit AoA to 4

Autostage

Delays: pre: 0s post: 0.25s

Stop at stage #: 3

Edit ascent path:

Turn start altitude: 3.5km

Turn start velocity: 250 m/sec

and here is an album showing a successful flight:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited October 4, 2015 by linuxgurugamer

[linuxgurugamer]

Thanks for the feedback, in answer to your observations:

3 - It could be a fun challenge, what sort of size are we talking here?

Cupcake...

How about this:

1. Fairings are allowed

2. The ship must not be more than app. 1.5 wider than the main lifter stage

3. Final assembly must be in orbit.

I would allow for existing space tugs to be able to move it around, but for a bigger challenge, it could be entirely self-contained. This would imply the need for RCS thrusters and fuel.

You could send up an additional module or two to do the assembly.

I'm not too good at making challenges. The way I play, is that the ships must look reasonable. I do play with FAR and DRE, so streamlining is important to me. That being said, I'm not asking you to use FAR or DRE, just trying to give you an idea as to what I look for in ships.

While the LV I just posted works, it has a rather wide fairing and I'm not too happy with that.

LGG

[Cupcake...]

How about this:

1. Fairings are allowed

2. The ship must not be more than app. 1.5 wider than the main lifter stage

3. Final assembly must be in orbit.

I would allow for existing space tugs to be able to move it around, but for a bigger challenge, it could be entirely self-contained. This would imply the need for RCS thrusters and fuel.

You could send up an additional module or two to do the assembly.

I'm not too good at making challenges. The way I play, is that the ships must look reasonable. I do play with FAR and DRE, so streamlining is important to me. That being said, I'm not asking you to use FAR or DRE, just trying to give you an idea as to what I look for in ships.

While the LV I just posted works, it has a rather wide fairing and I'm not too happy with that.

LGG

Thanks for the LV, I'll give it a go later, although I should have mentioned it has to be easy to pilot so the non mechjebbed among us can still get it to orbit! Did you have any tips for a manual ascent? The challenge sounds fun but a lot of work/ time. I've still gotta make a video for the Scythe/Pickaxe so I don't think I'll be able to do it at the moment. Sorry.

Cupcake...

Edited October 4, 2015 by Cupcake...

[linuxgurugamer]

Thanks for the LV, I'll give it a go later, although I should have mentioned it has to be easy to pilot so the non mechjebbed among us can still get it to orbit! Did you have any tips for a manual ascent? The challenge sounds fun but a lot of work/ time. I've still gotta make a video for the Scythe/Pickaxe so I don't think I'll be able to do it at the moment. Sorry.

Cupcake...

It shouldn't be any harder than yours.

I haven't done it manually, but essentially, I think the following would work:

1. Take off at full power.

2. Got vertical for at least 1km. Won't take long.

3. Watch your speed, don't overspeed, especially in the atmo. When you start seeing heating, reduce the throttle a bit.

4. after 1 km, start your tilt to the east. Don't tilt over more than 4-5 degrees.

5. Be sure to stage as soon as each set is empty, you don't want to be hauling unnecessary weight

The only thing really different is the more powerful engines, and the asparagus staging.

Don't worry about the challenge, if you can do it, great, otherwise what you do is well worth it.

Now that I was able to make a decent lifter for this one, it should be easy to do the same thing for others.

LGG

[Dafni]

How to activate the fuel cells on the Pickaxe? And sorry if I am missing something obvious.

[Cupcake...]

How to activate the fuel cells on the Pickaxe? And sorry if I am missing something obvious.

It's all good. You'll find the fuel cell just above the bottom docking port. It isn't matched to an action group yet so you'll need to right click on it.

Cupcake...

[Arcas]

Cupcake man, any chance of the pickaxe for ver 1.0.2? your ships are cool man, but I cant use your newest. - or do you know if you can convert the craft files to 1.0.2?

Thanks for all your work!

[Thunderous Echo]

http://i.imgur.com/kpi3uYS.jpg

Woah! That's some image editing! What did you do?

[Cupcake...]

Cupcake man, any chance of the pickaxe for ver 1.0.2? your ships are cool man, but I cant use your newest. - or do you know if you can convert the craft files to 1.0.2?

Thanks for all your work!

If you use a txt editor to open the craft file you should be able to knock the version number back to 1.02. Let me know if you have trouble.

Woah! That's some image editing! What did you do?

I used photoshop just to give the colours/blacks a bit of a lift. The shot itself was done using camera tools using a very long zoom setting!

Cupcake...

[Arcas]

If you use a txt editor to open the craft file you should be able to knock the version number back to 1.02. Let me know if you have trouble.

I used photoshop just to give the colours/blacks a bit of a lift. The shot itself was done using camera tools using a very long zoom setting!

Cupcake...

Thanks Alot CC! works a treat!

[Cupcake...]

Thanks Alot CC! works a treat!

No worries, hope you enjoy the new line up.

Cupcake...

[Kagame]

I'm working on a long-lifter for your Pickaxe with FAR that should give it a bit of an extra boost when going out-system. Also, I may fork it into a "career mode" version with a solar panel array or some other way of generating enough electricity to keep it running until you get places with minable fuel. I spend about 50% of my time in career, so stuff like that is rather important to me. Love the design, though-this is easily the best-looking miner I've ever seen.

UPDATE: Got it to Minmus, only for the right-side engine to suddenly stop receiving any fuel. Granted, my FAR install is full of Kraken, but still, that's really odd. Flight profile is normal. Link

Edited October 8, 2015 by Kagame
Update!

[linuxgurugamer]

I'm working on a long-lifter for your Pickaxe with FAR that should give it a bit of an extra boost when going out-system. Also, I may fork it into a "career mode" version with a solar panel array or some other way of generating enough electricity to keep it running until you get places with minable fuel. I spend about 50% of my time in career, so stuff like that is rather important to me. Love the design, though-this is easily the best-looking miner I've ever seen.

UPDATE: Got it to Minmus, only for the right-side engine to suddenly stop receiving any fuel. Granted, my FAR install is full of Kraken, but still, that's really odd. Flight profile is normal. Link

Take a look at the lifter I made for it: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/27424-Cupcake-s-Dropship-Dealership?p=2227888&viewfull=1#post2227888

This was stock, but it works well with FAR. I can send you the craft file if you like.

FYI, your link goes to google drive and requires permission

[linuxgurugamer]

I'm working on a long-lifter for your Pickaxe with FAR that should give it a bit of an extra boost when going out-system. Also, I may fork it into a "career mode" version with a solar panel array or some other way of generating enough electricity to keep it running until you get places with minable fuel. I spend about 50% of my time in career, so stuff like that is rather important to me. Love the design, though-this is easily the best-looking miner I've ever seen.

UPDATE: Got it to Minmus, only for the right-side engine to suddenly stop receiving any fuel. Granted, my FAR install is full of Kraken, but still, that's really odd. Flight profile is normal. Link

Thanks for sending me the file via Dropbox.

I've done a little testing with Mechjeb. Looks interesting, but isn't a lot of extra Dv beyond Minmus (so far).

I think you may want to add another Twin-boar booster at launch. Also, think about setting up some asparagus staging

[Cupcake...]

I'm working on a long-lifter for your Pickaxe with FAR that should give it a bit of an extra boost when going out-system. Also, I may fork it into a "career mode" version with a solar panel array or some other way of generating enough electricity to keep it running until you get places with minable fuel. I spend about 50% of my time in career, so stuff like that is rather important to me. Love the design, though-this is easily the best-looking miner I've ever seen.

UPDATE: Got it to Minmus, only for the right-side engine to suddenly stop receiving any fuel. Granted, my FAR install is full of Kraken, but still, that's really odd. Flight profile is normal. Link

I'm not sure why or how but somehow the fuel system on the Pickaxe has got corrupted on your LV, my guess is a fuel line went funny somewhere. You can try downloading the craft file again and seeing if that helps. I'd also recommend not saving the Pickaxe as a subaseembly as this can also lead to fuel flow issues.

Cupcake...

Edited October 9, 2015 by Cupcake...

[Dafni]

Discovered my first KSP easteregg by farting around the Mun in a Scythe

The amazing agility of the Scythe made it a piece of cake to land on the arc

[Cupcake...]

Discovered my first KSP easteregg by farting around the Mun in a Scythe

http://i.imgur.com/KdU4BWF.jpg

The amazing agility of the Scythe made it a piece of cake to land on the arc

Well done, that's some nice flying there!

Cupcake...

[Cupcake...]

In other news work continues on the Pickaxe and Scythe both of which have had a few little tweaks and fixes.

The main change has been a gear adjustment on the Pickaxe which now allows it to refuel one Matador and two Scythes at the same time. Not too shabby. Video production is also underway so expect a full release real soon.

Cupcake...

Edited October 10, 2015 by Cupcake...

[Dafni]

Well done, that's some nice flying there!

Cupcake...

Thank you, sir.

Looking forward to the finalized Pickaxe and Scythe, I have to say the pre-release versions gave me lots and lots of joy. It's a nice combo.

[CommanderSonic]

Dear Cupcake, thank you for the excellent Drop ships and landers, the crew of my program is always welcome to test your designs. Also, on another note, thanks for bringing back the Scythe, this craft has been a staple in my life and I nearly downloaded an older model, until you updated her to the world of 1.0.4.

Commander Sonic, CEO and President of Commander Sonic Space planes and Battleships Co.

[Cupcake...]

CRAFT FILES:

https://goo.gl/uEd64A

CONTROLS:

1 - Toggle Engine

5 - Undock/De-Couple Top Port

7 - Cut Chute (A Model Only)

0 - Open Doors (Dropship & LV)

ABORT - Undock/De-Couple Cargo Port

NOTES:

When using the LV, board your kerbal, press 0 to close the doors, set control to docking port at the top of the rocket, then liftoff.

Landing with the doors open is possible but not recommended!

Doors can be opened by a Kerbal standing outside if need-be.

The Puff Puff has an extremely high T/W ratio, the thrust limiter should be used in low gravity environments.

Despite being based around a cargo bay which has traditionally been kraken bait the new Puff Puff is pretty stable. The only major issue to watch with is the cargo port at the bottom of the craft has a habit of cooking if physics warp is used (on rails time warp is fine), oh and Mechjeb DV readouts are kaput when using a Kerbal as a pilot. Sorry.

Both versions use two main outrigger tanks complemented by a pair of reserve tanks mounted fore and aft of the cockpit. These can be selected by opening the doors and moving the cursor to the side of the Mk2 Light or behind the seat.

LV INSTRUCTIONS:

Set control to the docking port at the top of the rocket, activate SAS, set full throttle and hit the stage button.

Eject the SRBs and LV drop tanks as soon they become empty.

Once the needle reaches the end of the light blue strip start pitching over on a 90* heading.

By the time the needle gets to the dark blue section you want to be at a 45* angle.

Hold this heading till your apoapsis reaches 40k then gently pitch over and hold course about 5* above the horizon.

Once you apoapsis reaches 80k cut the engines and coast out of the atmosphere.

Circularize then press 0 to open the cargo bay doors.

Undock your Puff Puff, and use the RCS thrusters to move it into position onto the docking port at the top of the LV.

Adjust the staging and then separate the kicker stage.

The LV has a probe core and can be de-orbited if and when you choose.

Hello all, it's my great pleasure to present the all new Mk2 version of the Puff Puff, your go to choice for base building/light tug work and scouting.

The use of a small cargo bay to house the Kerbal has resulted in a substantial weight saving over the original version, which translates to more DV with a higher T/W ratio, perfect for base building.

The standard model comes with its own fuel dump setup to be compatible with the Pickaxe mining dropship. The fuel dump will keep the Puff Puff going for a long time between refills.

After receiving some feedback from the test team I've decided to fork the craft into two versions. First off is the standard model; a bare bones, no thrills dropship built specially as a base builder, recovery vessel and light tug. It puts out about 2k of Delta V with an extremely high T/W ratio and tips the scales around 3t when fully fueled. In addition there's the model A (pictured below), which is setup to act as light lander. It carries a lot more fuel then the base version and puts out around 3k of Delta V. It aslo comes with a chute allowing for safe touchdowns back on Kerbin. Both models come with the proven LV design used for the Moth Mk2.

Look Gullwing doors! Sorry, I'm way too overexcited about them.

Enjoy!

Cupcake...

Edited October 17, 2015 by Cupcake...

[Dafni]

The test team approves!