Orion aka "Ol' Boom-boom"

[magnemoe]

Yes, the performance is insane. Its also insane in the game, I managed to get 1200 ton of rocket parts to Minmus, could have taken it to Moho if I wanted but I probably needed a bit more bombs.

And I agree about an way to refill bombs either as an resource if that is hard as an function who moves them from one ship to another. This ship is perfect for doing real heavy hauling.

More fun I almost managed to land the 1500 ton ship to Minmus. Did not manage to kill all horizontal speed and get the ship upright but crew survived and most of the cargo came through.

So yes, more oversize RCS had been an idea, its not like having 20 ton monoprop hurts the performance.

[nyrath]

And I agree about an way to refill bombs either as an resource if that is hard as an function who moves them from one ship to another. This ship is perfect for doing real heavy hauling. .

Yes, it is on my priority list. That would dramatically open up the Kerbal solar system for industrialization.

And maybe in the future somebody else could make a "blutonium" mod much like the "kethane" mod, to manufacture orion "fuel" bombs.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

@magnemoe Regarding RCS, rather than taking loads of monoprop and plastering the ship with thrusters, I've found a nice trick is to mount small engines on the sides of the vessel pointing at 90 degrees to the direction of travel, then to tie them to various action groups for some very Kerbalesque steering.

[mushroomman]

Yes, it is on my priority list. That would dramatically open up the Kerbal solar system for industrialization.

And maybe in the future somebody else could make a "blutonium" mod much like the "kethane" mod, to manufacture orion "fuel" bombs.

The newest version of Kethane has support for multiple resources I think. You could probably use it.

[skykooler]

The newest version of Kethane has support for multiple resources I think. You could probably use it.

Indeed. It also allows you to set parameters by-planet, so for example Eve could have a lot of blutonium compared to other planets.

[nyrath]

The newest version of Kethane has support for multiple resources I think. You could probably use it.

Indeed. It also allows you to set parameters by-planet, so for example Eve could have a lot of blutonium compared to other planets.

Very interesting! IIRC the latest scientific thinking is that elements like uranium and thorium will be mostly found in our solar system from the Asteroid belt inward to Mercury, but not in the outer solar system.

The only fly in the ointment is that I have so many "fuels", each bomb type has a different mass and thrust. I'd have to make some kind of factory to convert blutonium into magazines.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

@nyrath Congrats on making it onto KSP Weekly, and thanks for the mention on your site

[Canopus]

..and thanks for the mention on your site

yes thank you very much for that

[mushroomman]

A little off topic, but speaking of your site, I tried to buy Thrust Vector Tactical but they've stopped making it.

[nyrath]

@nyrath Congrats on making it onto KSP Weekly, and thanks for the mention on your site

yes thank you very much for that

Wow! I made it to the weekly. Thanks for the congrats, but you all deserve mention on my site. I could not have done all this without your help.

A little off topic, but speaking of your site, I tried to buy Thrust Vector Tactical but they've stopped making it.

Rats! Nobody tells me anything. I did not know it was out of print. Sorry about that.

[Canopus]

Rats! Nobody tells me anything. I did not know it was out of print. Sorry about that.

The development of Torchships stopped too. very sad

[Sufficient Anonymity]

I believe someone (Nutt007?) wanted to see a battleship variant; I had the evening free so I've put a passible militarised version together. It's only very loosely modelled on the sketches I've seen knocking about, but I wanted to include the key features, so she's got missile bays with doors that open, some point defense guns and the potential to carry reentry vehicles (which I could dock, but the part count would start to get prohibitive). The profile is a bit off, what with the prongs at the front, but I thought it looked neat, and if you squint a bit (okay, a LOT), it looks about right. Anyway, Miranda:

Oh, also, proof that I'm getting better at handling these things - using standard liquid rockets I can get her to do a 180 degree spin in not much more than 30 seconds, which makes for some fairly reasonable orbits even if just using the 20MN charges

...and I should point out, MechJeb was just used for the infowindows in this case as trying to use the autopilots or smart ASS with 700 tonne ships which happily pull 10G or more when thrusting leads to all sorts of insanity.

Edited June 18, 2013 by SufficientAnonymity

[nyrath]

Oh, my, that does look deadly SufficientAnonymity. And the Orion drive ensures that there is no place in the Kerbal system where it can't reach you.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

...no place in the Kerbal system where it can't reach you.

And several times over, at that.

[The Destroyer]

I didn't know these are supposed to be SSTOS... I got 25 km/s already.

Also, I broke the game. WOOHOO

I was re-entring,

And then I ejected a kerbal, which immediatley died, *DUH*. Then I went to map view to switch back, but I got this (and the same in non-map)

[doggie015]

-snip-

That's a surprisingly common problem... Danny2462 quite frequently does the same

[The Destroyer]

Yup, but it was my first breaking.

Speaking of breaking... getting out of kerbol SOI in 1 day?

Edited June 19, 2013 by The Destroyer

[nyrath]

The Destroyer, yikes! In only one day?

I see a couple of trends here. One is mounting wings on an Orion. The other is maxing out the magazine load, then putting a brick on the accelerator pedal. I've seen two examples on the forum, and one here:

The story of Orion test #666

[Canopus]

My second attempt at the Roche challenge now with the Orion. This thing weighs 8000 tons.

[nyrath]

My second attempt at the Roche challenge now with the Orion. This thing weighs 8000 tons.

HOLY HOHMANN TRANSFER!

Look at the size of that monster!

[Canopus]

ITS HERE!

He finally made it

Edited June 19, 2013 by Canopus

[Atheu]

I didn't know these are supposed to be SSTOS... I got 25 km/s already.

Also, I broke the game. WOOHOO

I was re-entring,

And then I ejected a kerbal, which immediatley died, *DUH*. Then I went to map view to switch back, but I got this (and the same in non-map)

you didn't break the game, you just nuked kerbin to bits

[nyrath]

ITS HERE!

He finally made it

FanTASTIC!! Excellent job!

And of course he noticed all the little questionable bits that I hoped nobody would notice. Yes, the plate movement should be sinusoidal.

For the record, the bomb megaNewton ratings are per bomb, not per second. As explained in the readme file, when the throttle is at 10% to 30% the detonations are at 1.5 second intervals, 30% to 60% are at 1 second intervals, and 60% to 100% are at 0.8 second intervals. So at 60% a 3.5 megaNewton bomb will provide 3.5 / 0.8 = 4.3 megaNewtons.

[princess venus]

Cant download it from the link can you put it on spaceport?

[magnemoe]

FanTASTIC!! Excellent job!

And of course he noticed all the little questionable bits that I hoped nobody would notice. Yes, the plate movement should be sinusoidal.

For the record, the bomb megaNewton ratings are per bomb, not per second. As explained in the readme file, when the throttle is at 10% to 30% the detonations are at 1.5 second intervals, 30% to 60% are at 1 second intervals, and 60% to 100% are at 0.8 second intervals. So at 60% a 3.5 megaNewton bomb will provide 3.5 / 0.8 = 4.3 megaNewtons.

I was surprised how well this played with mechjeb. Only real issue is the lack of accuracy, having an binding key for shutting down the orion entirely would help as you could shift to chemicals then you was at end of burn.

I almost managed to land at Minmus with an 1200 ton payload on my first try

Edited June 19, 2013 by magnemoe