200 kerbal-tons to LKO: worth it?

[BrightBritches]

I've been on a bit of a launcher craze the past couple days, starting with making a kerbalized Falcon Heavy rocket. Now I'm developing a 200 kerbal-ton launcher and want to know if its worth it and if others would be interested in it!

[astropapi1]

What the hell are you going to launch?!

[Naf5000]

Do you mean it can lift 200 tons or it weighs 200 tons? I'd be interested in seeing one that can lift 200 tons. I can already make one that weighs 200 tons.

[Halsfury]

He's referring to the amount of debris to orbit, specifically he wants to orbit 200 tons of debris in one go.

Good luck, With a craft like that you can go anywhere, that is, if it survives the ascent.

200 tons to orbit is a good way to make sure that you never lack Dv that's for sure, Your payload could be a Tylo base with 16 kerbs easily

[astroadrian99]

That will be awsome if it could launch 200 tons I have seen one round the forums that can 400 tons of payload however it has over 1000 part and my KSP crashes. So I will like to see this unless you go over 600 parts (Maximum my Ksp can take without doing 1 frame every 2 seconds, looking like a slideshow)

[SDIR]

My max so far is 70 tons to LKO, and that is still not large enough sometimes. I'd be interested in seeing this new lifter.

[BrightBritches]

Do you mean it can lift 200 tons or it weighs 200 tons?

Lift 200 tons

[BrightBritches]

What the hell are you going to launch?!

Hopes, dreams, screaming kerbals, as long as its under 200 tons!

[BrightBritches]

So I will like to see this unless you go over 600 parts (Maximum my Ksp can take without doing 1 frame every 2 seconds, looking like a slideshow)

Right now it's at around 250 parts I believe, but it needs MOAR STRUTS! so it'll probably end up around 350ish

[Naf5000]

Lift 200 tons

Right, I want to see this. I can get around fifty into orbit without much effort using a non-asparagus lifter, and probably twenty more with an asparagus lifter, but I doubt I could pull off 200 tons.

[Kerbol Prime]

Another launcher won't hurt, especially one with fewer parts. Currently I can lite 100 tons or so, but many times I need more struts and the result is this...

[Shuttle]

My 230-ton launcher is 290 parts, 250 ton - 330 parts, 315 ton - ~400 parts. No asparagus staging on all of them However, I didn't test those rocket with low fps.

[mpink]

LoL sounds like a fun challenge.

Id love to see what some of you have come up with.

Iv been throwing a J64 directly into minimus orbit for a few days using this system.

A few little tweaks and it can just about do the 200T lift for 475 parts.

The orbit i reached in my test was 87K-275K.

The launch checklist is a bit sketchy.

Do not exceed 2G while the mainsails are still attached (can happen around the 15K-30K height)

Launch at 2/3 throttle and instantly increase to 100%.

Position camera and right click an orange fuel tank.

Start a right roll and maintain until safely in orbit.

When the j64 runs out of fuel hit X and use custom 1. Now throttle up until about 1.5-2G.

When the j32 above the mainsail runs out of fuel hit X and 2. then power up to 1.5G (were hoping for 260 M/s at 15K).

When we hit 15K we go to max throttle or 2G.

Use the stage button to eject the mainsails when they run out and then you can safely use 100% throttle.

Check the map view and when you get an AP of 90K hit x (try to line yourself up for the orbit burn before throttling back).

just before you reach the AP set 100% throttle again.

When the last j32 is empty hit x and 3 (if you dont have a good spin you should skip this stage as it can cause a lot of problems).

Watch and laugh as 200T of fuel floats around kerbal with no docking port attached to it

The Craft [sTOCK]

Its a bit hard to find an angle that makes a good photo so you will just have to take it for a fly if you want to know what it looks like.

[BrightBritches]

My 230-ton launcher is 290 parts, 250 ton - 330 parts, 315 ton - ~400 parts.

If those are all stock i'm truly amazed at how few parts you used!

[Oggula]

My fuel station is about 360T when it reaches LKO (from memory). That's the remnants of a launcher with fuel in it though, not a specific payload. Trouble is, the big orange tanks can only hold ~200T on top before they spontaneously explode, so for long range missions I use the same launcher to place 200T in a Kerbin escape Trajectory.

[ecat]

You may like this one, first true test flight today.

SSTO I guess, all stock parts apart from MechJeb control and should be good for 200t payload in fact I'm hoping for 300t. There is space enough for 6 more engines and possibly 12 more on top of that which would bring the total to 108 ! Oh my. And keep the acceleration around the magic 40m/s2.

Here's the video of that first test with a 4 jumbo payload. Will it make orbit, in which case I'm getting good at these, or will it crash and burn? Is there even enough fuel? And will Loly, the best test pilot in the game survive?

Some close ups:

The down side, the down 2 sides in fact.

At 1789 parts the game is reduced to 1/10th normal speed so 40 minutes for a 4 minute test flight.

You only get one test flight per payload as the save file corrupts http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/35685-1700-part-Ship-File-Corrupted-by-Save

The up sides.

It is very easy to manage the jet fuel and change out payloads... at least it would be if the save file worked!

Sure was fun making it.

I did have a 30MN thrust design, I think it was a little unstable so I may have deleted it. I do have a much lower part count and much lighter jet SSTO design that's good for 4 jumbos if you're interested?

Edited June 14, 2013 by ecat
Embedding the video

[Levelord]

What is this I don't even.....

[John FX]

Just. Wow.

[TMS]

lol... wow.

[Kerbol Prime]

Oh my...how.what. I don't understand. It looks amazing.

[ecat]

<chuckle> Glad you like

That's my '8 Down Gothic' class, here's a pic from above, quite a long way above. Notice the essential aerodynamic nose cone ...

... you may like her little sister too. Top down shot of the '7 Up Constellation' class

... Why constellation? lol.

But.

Anyway.

Here is a flight of the much more game friendly (700 parts ish so game runs at a healthy 1/2 speed) SSTO '7 Up Nimble'. 290t all in so the launcher is only about 130t. All stock parts and Loly does an excellent job once again

I need to rebuild this one from scratch, it kept exploding (imploding? Definitely some sort of 'ploding) at 5.6km and things got messy. Four jumbos is about its limit but if I ever do get around to rebuilding it I'll post the craft file.

After building all of these and more, what did I learn?

The most efficient launch vehicle is one built specially for the job.

The first 30 tonnes are the hardest. The first 60 tonnes are the hardest too, as are the first 120. After that things start to get tricky.

Jets make a great noise.

Flying for 40 minutes at 1/10th speed would be impossible without MechJeb.

40 minute launches are much more life friendly if you video them

[SOJUZ151]

my 280 tons rocket http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/32110-super-heavy-refule-ship-280-tons-to-orbit with <300 parts

[Oggula]

I really hope they do nerf ram intakes and asparagus, it makes the game too easy. IMO one should be forced to make better use of docking, as it is you can do the grand tour with about 3 ships

[astroadrian99]

Right now it's at around 250 parts I believe, but it needs MOAR STRUTS! so it'll probably end up around 350ish

Ok tht will be the best

[technicalfool]

"I really hope they do nerf ram intakes and asparagus"

At the moment it takes over 2300 tons to get 370 tons into orbit. I'd love to dock a mega-station together in orbit out of smaller launchers, but unfortunately my mere quad-core machine squeals and complains if I get more than a few station parts within 2.5km of each other. Not sure if that's because of the parts count or because of it being multiple command pods, but in any case, the 350-370 ton Jool Rover escape/cruise stage runs at least acceptably well for me on this machine. I don't want to have to buy a whole new computer just to dock the same weight of stuff together out of multiple parts.

Anyway, asparagus staging is more efficient than serial staging. Reducing engine power would just make asparagus staging more attractive. That or make struts weak to the point of pointlessness, in which case people will just add MOAR STRUTS anyway. That and the amount of intakes to jets needed to get anything like a spaceplane is already a bit ridiculous. I don't think they need nerfing at all.