Spaceshuttle like craft not working

[Umlüx]

I tried to build something like the Space Shuttle and this is my latest version (which i still cant get to run properly)..

Spaceplane with one 800 tank and aerospike

The big orange tank with the skipper engine, it would be too heavy without. one fuelline to the plane.

And 2x two 800 tanks with LV-T45 engines as boosters.

Its launching perfect and ascending beautiful. but as soon as i start the gravity turn and decouple the LV-T45 side boosters everything goes wrong. The plane is starting to spin backwards (or upwards from pilots view).

I think its the change of the COM without the sideboosters and used fuel from the orange tank.

Has somebody tried something like this with more success than me? Sure, i could just attach the two boosters on the side of the plane, but that would be too easy

Edited June 11, 2013 by Umlüx

[stupid_chris]

Space shuttles are actually hard with this game. It's even surprising that you got up a while before it happened. Go in the VAB and look at the CoM versus the CoT with and without your boosters, you should see what goes wrong.

Also, the aerospike engine can't gimbal, making it a LOT harder to keep it together hear.

The shuttle is a miracle of engineering, but a nightmare in KSC. Mainly because engines can not gimbal apart. The shuttle'S engines could gimbal over 10 degrees, and the platform on which they were fixed to the shuttle was also angulated.

The biggest problem here is that the trust of your skipper is way too unbalanced regarding the aerospike. Removing the skipper completely might be a better solution. And thus, to keep going up, you will need more engines on the shuttle. Normally a tricoupler with three LV-T45 does the job. But then the other side is unbalanced, so you might want to change the liquid boosters to SRBs, that offer a way better TWR.

Whatever you do, you have to be ready to accept that your space shuttle isn't going to look like it's real world equivalent. Usually the further it looks from that the better it works

Some people use radial engines at key places to make it work properly. Search the forums a bit you should find pictures of what I mean ^^

[kahlzun]

I believe the active word here is 'gimbal'.

The engines with the largest gimbal range (Mark 55's and the Poodle) might be helpful.

Also note that the actual space shuttle didn't have an engine at the bottom of the giant tank, it was just the shuttle and the SRB's...

Try replacing the aerospike with a T45, and adding some Mk55 engines to the jumbo tank, especially the side opposite the shuttle (so it's more balanced).

Another trick is that you can clip a T800 fuel tank into the inside of the jumbo tank, and if you put it on the side away from the jet, it might balance out..

[Umlüx]

Thanks, i'll give it a try and gimbal the hell outta this thing. It doesnt sound very fuel efficient, but looks never are?

Shame, the small and elegant aerospike has no gimbal. But everything needs its downsides it seems. maybe i can clip a LV-T45 someway into the tank.

[Umlüx]

made it work!

with an T45 clipped in the plane and four MK55 on the orange tank. but it was quite a hassle..

ascend until 10km, switch off two MK55, make the gravity turn, drop the two boosters, switch the two MK55 back on, as soon as the orange tank empties switch them back off.. orbit!

it looks cool but its not quite worth the effort. only a little off timing is enough to send you spinning..

thanks, but case closed

[kahlzun]

Other possibility is to copy the aerospike folder, give it a new name, and add, like, 10 degrees of gimbal to it.

I wouldn't recommend changing the way stock parts work themselves, that way lies madness.

[MDBenson]

In 0.20.x you don't have to copy the whole folder, that wastes game memory by duplicating the model an d textures, just open the stock part folder for the part you want to alter and copy the part.cfg to a new .cfg file called megagimbal.cfg or something similar and relevant. Edit THAT file, not the part.cfg. As long as you don't change anything in the part.cfg the stock part will remain and you will also have a modified duplicate part corresponding to your other .cfg file. Similarly, you can delete the new .cfg file and leave the original part.cfg behind and you will be left with the untouched stock part.