Concours 9000 Spacebike and 'trailer'

[Colonel_Panic]

Inspired by another poster here who made a little RCS runabout bike. I decided I wanted something a little more robust while keeping it simple. This little ion-powered ship is 'fast' and has a long enough range to round-trip duna solo. Includes a little space shack to house your kerbal when he's not out riding around, and to allow him to dock and refuel. I'm calling it the Concours 9000 after the Concours 14, which many people have referred to as "a very comfortable cruise missile."

When you're riding you can't be glum for long.

NOTE:

The RCS tank is clipped into the rear xenon tank. To refuel, click the lower rear corner just above the clamp-o-tron jr port to select the xenon tank, or anywhere else on it to select the RCS. The forward tank is easy, just click anywhere on it not covered by other equipment.

Energy is limited by the small panels. For best results keep your panels pointed to the normal and anti-normal by keeping the 'wings' on the navball flat across the horizon (assuming an equatorial orbit)

Action Groups:

3 - toggles solar panels and deploys antennas on first use.

http://herpnderp.info/KSP/Spacebike-S.craft

MechJeb pictured above but not included. .craft is 100% stock.

Edited June 6, 2013 by Colonel_Panic

[Cupcake...]

I wish my motorbike could do that...

Cupcake...

[maverick260]

That is awesome! Nice addition to my Space Station.

[Commander Truman]

How do you download it?

[Colonel_Panic]

How do you download it?

right-click the .craft link and 'save as'. Put it in your SPH folder (not VAB).

[rexrex600]

Looks awesome! Will download ASAP!

[DisarmingBaton5]

That looks fun.

[ScottyDoesKnow]

This thing is fantastic! Now I'm going to nitpick here, but only because I love this thing and want to perfect it if possible.

1. While docking, my chase cam seemed a little off. I don't have much experience docking, is it possible to rotate the chase cam or is the seat a little bit off?

2. After I docked the bike to my space station, left the kerbal on it and then reloaded, my space station exploded. I managed to reload and time warp quickly which kept the space station alive but sent the kerbal stretch armstrong-ing into space. Was this a random occurrence or should I not leave anyone in the seat while docked?

3. You mentioned to keep the panels open for power, but I noticed there's a generator under the front. Was it an oversight that this was left in? The RCS doesn't seem quite balanced, is it because of the generator? It's also understandable if the RCS is unbalanced just due to space constraints on the bike.

4. Here it is docked to a non-exploded space station!

[Colonel_Panic]

This thing is fantastic! Now I'm going to nitpick here, but only because I love this thing and want to perfect it if possible.

1. While docking, my chase cam seemed a little off. I don't have much experience docking, is it possible to rotate the chase cam or is the seat a little bit off?

2. After I docked the bike to my space station, left the kerbal on it and then reloaded, my space station exploded. I managed to reload and time warp quickly which kept the space station alive but sent the kerbal stretch armstrong-ing into space. Was this a random occurrence or should I not leave anyone in the seat while docked?

3. You mentioned to keep the panels open for power, but I noticed there's a generator under the front. Was it an oversight that this was left in? The RCS doesn't seem quite balanced, is it because of the generator? It's also understandable if the RCS is unbalanced just due to space constraints on the bike.

4. Here it is docked to a non-exploded space station!

The seat is fine. Your kerbal is glitched and leaning to the side in the seat. I'm not sure why that happens but I've seen it happen too, and on other ships than just the spacebike. reloading or exiting and re-entering the seat seems to fix it.

Make sure your station isn't clipping near the docking port, and that you have sufficient clearance that your generator isn't touching it while docked. I haven't had issues with spontaneous explosions unless the generator hit something.

And yes the generator is supposed to be there, otherwise you have no power and may lose control of the ship if it passes to the dark side of a planet while burning. The RCS is balanced just about perfectly in the VAB but because of the size of the ship and the fuel tanks not being at dead center, the balance will go off a bit when fuel level is low or depleted. Use precision controls while docking and you shouldn't have any issue.

[ScottyDoesKnow]

Thanks for the quick responses. Good to hear about the seat, that's one of those little things that would really bother me. There should be lots of clearance as you can see in the screenshot, hopefully it was just a fluke with the explosion.

And ya, I double checked the balance and it looks fine in the VAB. My tanks were pretty much full but it's probably just because I'm not very good at docking.

Anyways, thanks again and great job on the bike!

[lolisdit]

looks awesome

but does it have RCS that will make docking less hard

[Colonel_Panic]

Thanks for the quick responses. Good to hear about the seat, that's one of those little things that would really bother me. There should be lots of clearance as you can see in the screenshot, hopefully it was just a fluke with the explosion.

And ya, I double checked the balance and it looks fine in the VAB. My tanks were pretty much full but it's probably just because I'm not very good at docking.

Anyways, thanks again and great job on the bike!

Yeah be careful what you dock it with, the generator -is- very close to the docking port, so it might not be outside of possibility for it to strike the corner of a beam if you put it on at an angle. I ended up having to abandon my early dock designs because of it, so my new dock has the ports right at the very edge of a beam, and I dock facing the edge so the generator has lots of room. That said in my experience when the generator does hit something, it's usually the spacebike that explodes, not the station... might need to check that you didn't have clipping enabled when you assembled the station dock.

[ScottyDoesKnow]

I've heard something about disabling clipping before, but didn't see anything in the keybindings. At this point everything I've built has been without changing any options. Am I doing it wrong?

[Colonel_Panic]

I've heard something about disabling clipping before, but didn't see anything in the keybindings. At this point everything I've built has been without changing any options. Am I doing it wrong?

No, you should be good. Clipping is disabled by default.

[Commander Zoom]

"Say... that's a nice bike." - the T1000

Downloaded, will take it for a spin later.

[JadedStoner]

...which many people have referred to as "a very comfortable cruise missile."

Hey man, this is one fun little bike! I tried taking it to the Mun first... not enough TWR to keep hold it vertical, so I tossed it up into LKO. The power drains after a minute or so, so I tossed on a a bunch of RTGs and pulled out one of the Xenon tanks to give it a little less mass.

Jeb is now ready...

All in all, tons of fun, even after serious solar panel to panel collision...

JS

[Colonel_Panic]

lol, alwys retract your solar panels before docking.

PS, those generators probably weigh more than the fuel you pulled off. Ion engines don't have the TWR to make landings on anything except maybe gilly. You might be able to RCS land on minmus though.

[JadedStoner]

lol, alwys retract your solar panels before docking.

I was trying to do some close a fly-by, perhaps a little too close...

JS

[Odo]

This is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen in KSP. Since I dislike using other peoples craft files ima try to make my own version of this for my space station :3 Might post pics.

[Mr Shifty]

Just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed flying this little baby around. Thought I'd share a few pics of docking and flying around my space station.

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[Tankbuster32]

you don't mind if I steal this idea? (BTW I'll mention you so it's not really stealing but anyway)

[Colonel_Panic]

Just wanted to say I thoroughly enjoyed flying this little baby around. Thought I'd share a few pics of docking and flying around my space station.

Nice. (:

you don't mind if I steal this idea? (BTW I'll mention you so it's not really stealing but anyway)

Not at all!