Baldr Mk1 Railgun Frigate by Mythology Industries! (IMAGE HEAVY)

[chunkblaster]

Ahoy there fellow KSP peoples! It's been a while since I've managed to get a finished enough project worth posting, but I've finally got something up in orbit worth sharing. I give you, the Balder Mk1 Frigate!

The hull itself is mediocre at best, an OK amount of fuel, not the best visuals from the frontal bridge, forgot to add RCS, the escape pods have a hard time leaving the ship and can't re-enter atmosphere, but- oh, why yes, that's a Railgun at the front of the ship!

Meet the Mjolnir Mk1 Railgun. It's a 4 shot weapon with a Muzzle Velocity of ~150m/s. Not super amazing, but I didn't want to go overkill on my first operational version of it.

I also designed it so it can be reloaded in space (always a win)

I have tested it against other craft, and it's great fun to blow stuff up with it. The railgun is very reliable and the rounds are sufficient to destroy at least part of another ship, sending the debris flying in all directions.

Its not a railgun in the truest sense of a magnetic accelerated weapon (Stock KSP doesn't support that as of yet) but it works off of the same principles. The idea of the thing came from the old mass relays or "kerbal cannons" people used to build. I simply said "hey, if 1 booster makes the object fly away at this speed, what happens when it's accelerated by multiple boosters?" the concept definitely works when Applied correctly.

I'm also working on a new lifter for craft like this, based off the one I designed for the Baldr:

This one is pretty rough and inefficient for what I usually can do, but I rushed it together at 2 in the morning last night. It is however very reliable and capable of the task (you will have to use the Baldr's own engines to finalize your orbit though)

now, how to operate the railgun:

1) press 2 to turn off main engines.

2) put throttle to max

3) decouple the first round from the rest of the stack, and wait for it to drift to the center of the barrel

4) press 1 to fire the railgun. Remember to quickly press 1 again to toggle off the railgun.

5) press 2 again to activate your engines when your ready to move again

oh, and 3 toggles solar panels

Here's the Download:

http://www.4shared.com/file/7R1rTbrL/Baldr_Mk1.html

And with the Lifter:

http://www.4shared.com/file/OUKIJn1I/Baldr_Mk1_W_Lifter.html

Edited May 21, 2013 by chunkblaster

[Rune]

That is awesome. Can we get a closeup of the reloading mechanism? I may have to start looking into this...

Rune. My post-exams period is starting to look busy

[chunkblaster]

I havn't got the reloading mechanism fully working yet, but I imagine it haveing a small drone that will attach to the I Beam that caps off the rounds on the end (it can separate thanks to docking ports), undock from the ship and pull it away a bit, then another drone brings in and docks the rounds, undocks, and then the magazine is slid back into place and docked back up. Then your ready to fire again!

EDIT: it may be even more effective to just redesign the receiver a bit, and ship up whole magazines and dock them up that way, skipping a step. I will explore this in the Mk2 version.

Edited May 21, 2013 by chunkblaster

[sgt_flyer]

if you decide to go with a more powerful railgun, i hope you will have enough thrust on your engines to counteract the recoil created by your firing mecanism - else, oops deorbited while firing my railgun

[chunkblaster]

I know, thats a problem I suffer from now XD but i have enough to keep me from completely deorbiting as long as I dont leave the gun running on accident lol

[feriofukada]

Currently restudying your design, chunkblaster, because I'm really really hooked with your Mjolnir Mk1. I did some live fire exercises with your design and a replica I made, and I've noticed that both the original and the replica has a dangerous chance of hang fire or misfire when it's throttled up to 100%.

[Nephf]

Wow! looks good!

[Comrade Jenkens]

Nice job! My railgun ship ended up shooting itself Though the few successful shots had velocities of ~1500m/s!!

[chunkblaster]

Nice job! My railgun ship ended up shooting itself Though the few successful shots had velocities of ~1500m/s!!

I've had issues with shooting projectiles at extreme speeds, especially if they are rather small. They seam to simply pass through the target most of the time. Have you had any success at such speeds?

Currently restudying your design, chunkblaster, because I'm really really hooked with your Mjolnir Mk1. I did some live fire exercises with your design and a replica I made, and I've noticed that both the original and the replica has a dangerous chance of hang fire or misfire when it's throttled up to 100%.

I've noticed the same thing, and this very issue has completely halted my development on the Baldr Mk2. When I first put this thing into space in 0.19 (I think?) It was very accurate and very reliable. But in more recent versions of kerbal, the gun's reliability and accuracy has dropped off dramatically. Until I can design a better choke and feed system, the Majolnir unfortunately isn't a practical weapon

Edited October 17, 2013 by chunkblaster

[xtremespino]

This is a awesome concept, I can just image somebody building some giant beast in orbit, firing orange fuel tanks at 1000 m/s. These rail guns are going to be the future of KSP warfare. Maybe you should add some engines at the back so the ship doesn't get knocked back for the launcher engines.

[KissSh0t]

I wonder what is the fastest an object can be shot in KSP...

: T