Kerbalife Organic Designs - Master Catalogue

[PolecatEZ]

To keep from creating new threads every time, and to keep this simple, this main thread will be updated with each new item. New or updated craft will be updated appropriately. General instructions (work with about 90% of Kerbalife products) can be found in the the next post, as can instructions on how you can submit your designs as a Kerbalife Independant Designer. Without further ado, our catalogue:

Last update - 05/23/2013 - Everything is STOCK. Some mods may be pictured but are not included.

Click the pic to download.

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SSTOs

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Conventional Aircraft

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Edited May 23, 2013 by PolecatEZ

[PolecatEZ]

General Instructions -

Most files are standardized.

Group 1 - Jet engines

Group 2 - Rocket Engines or 2nd Set of Jet Engines

Group 3 - Rocket Engines (if applicable)

Group 4 - Landing Struts (if applicable)

Group 5 - Kill engines (if applicable, useful for docking on carriers)

Group 6 - Empty

Group 7 - Empty

Group 8 - Solar Panels

Group 9 - Comms and Antennas

Group 0 - Empty

SSTO's general instructions - Level out at 24-26000m, build up to about 1400-1500 m/s velocity. When you need to throttle to 2/3's, activate rockets. When you need to throttle to 1/3, deactivate the jet engines and throttle back up. Some aircraft take as few as 4 minutes to make orbit, some take as much as 15-20 minutes. All have been tested thorooughly, most tolerate 4x time compression very well.

Generally no more than 3 intakes are stacked per opening for comparatively little air-hogging. Likewise, clipping was kept to a minimum and used only when aesthetically pleasing or the model would otherwise be impossible (single rocket and single jet engine, for example).

[Rune]

The Starling looks gorgeously cute. What (and where) is the rocket powerplant? Any clipped aviation fuel tanks, or you just vent some oxidizer?

[PolecatEZ]

The Starling looks gorgeously cute. What (and where) is the rocket powerplant? Any clipped aviation fuel tanks, or you just vent some oxidizer?

When I first got the nuke to play nice with the jet engine, I just spent nearly a week obsessively putting it up into orbit and flying it around. The A version is a stripped version of ~32 parts or so, the D ("Deluxe") version has all the bells and whistles and is carrier ready at around 50 parts. Being able to ascend at 4x timewarp is awesome, and its un-killable in the air - I haven't been able to put it out of control for more than a fraction of a second.

I tried a few other neat tricks with it, like this:

Its neat, but doubling them up ultimately doesn't gain you much except a second seat and allowing you to get a two-fer on maneuvering. The 6-craft Carrier will be posted later, it was a lag fest before at ~500 parts when fully loaded so I've been using the 2-craft version below.

The last image was an extremely stripped version I did for one of the challenges - part count ~25 or so, 7 tons soaking wet, flies like a dream. You can do the same by just plucking parts off the A version above or get the craft here.

[TheWanderer]

some nice looking ideas there, just too much intake spam for me though

[PolecatEZ]

some nice looking ideas there, just too much intake spam for me though

Everyone has their own limit, mine is 4:1 before it feels like cheating. More than this and the craft start to look aweful and fly to space without rockets, less than that and it makes it so you spend 20 knuckle-biting minutes of your life in the 20-25km range on every launch.

You can always just rip off the intakes. They aren't clipped, just stacked and will pull out easily. If you're a real man, just rip out the intakes entirely and fly it up on rockets. Good luck!

Edited May 23, 2013 by PolecatEZ

[Rune]

Forget the intake clipping, there is a nuclear engine somewhere in there. But I will always forgive activating part clipping if it is a matter of aesthetics.

[PolecatEZ]

Forget the intake clipping, there is a nuclear engine somewhere in there. But I will always forgive activating part clipping if it is a matter of aesthetics.

It was more a matter of getting the center of thrust to play nice with such a small aircraft. On larger ones with multiple engines, its easy to balance. On smaller craft its a pain to do 1:1 engine/rocket ratios, I finally just bit the bullet and added an "afterburner" to a regular get engine. The result was an SSTO that did nearly everything the bigger boys did, but at a fraction of the size and weight and flight so stable I wanted to cry after so many "difficult" designs.

As for fuel tanks my SOP is to refuel as soon as they hit orbit, so that regular fuel tanks are generally a waste of dV and space - for aesthetics though, I will keep them around.

[Rune]

No critique here, as I told you I rather like the minimalistic approach. And, you know, the C3 is starting to look like my Crys (which, incidentally, I built before I learned how to properly clip things). I'm thinking about giving it yet another redesign, so who knows, we might end up flying the same ships.

Rune. Now you just have to experiment with adding payloads, and you will independently re-create another chibi-techture.

[Switchblade88]

Oh. My. Gosh.

I nearly cried, that Starling flew so well!

I vainly attempted building my own SSTO for ages. The KR-X Sparrow from Zombiephylax seemed to be my best hope, but I could never reach orbit with enough fuel to 120km for timewarping... I nearly gave up completely. Until Now!

Kicking the NERVAs in at 2/3rds throttle does the trick - right through the 'danger zone' above 25,000km. I could probably milk the jet to get me to 30,000kms but that's really jumpy on the throttle, and then I would end up losing altitude before gaining enough speed (that was always my problem in the Sparrow).

Good sir, I salute thee!

[Naten]

Great job, this is also the way I love doing SSTO's

Except they usually end up being more long than Skylon, and they're as thin as a twig.

[Sirine]

Downloaded your Phoenix, C3 and Vampire Bat for reference purposes. Thanks for sharing.