The K.S.S Trident

[OUScooby]

My original idea for this ship was to make something that could fly to Jool visit multiple moons and drop off lander or rovers or satellites and be able to fly back to Kerbin. I don't think it has the dV for multiple stops, but I'm hoping it can make a trip to one Jool's moons and back. The design is also multipurpose it could also be used for transporting many pieces of a Munar base to the Mun in one trip. It's reusable just refuel after each trip, and modular, sections can be added or removed depending on the mission, how much fuel you need, how many docking ports, etc...

Here's some numbers:

546 parts

455.23 tons

29520 (liters? kg?) of fuel (36080 of oxidizer)

2250 of Monopropellant

5555 Electric charge

Crew capacity of 18 (one Mk1-2, 3 Cupolas, & 3 PPD-10 Hitchhikers)

12 docking ports for small craft (and a 13th at the nose for refueling)

and powered by 15 LV-N Atomic Rocket Engines

Thus far this is the largest ship I've built, and the first one I've put together in orbit. This is actually my fourth attempt at this ship, in the first design I accidentally had some docking port on upside down, then after correcting that I discovered you can only dock together by a single docking port, I was trying to dock together at three ports along the radial tanks and didn't discover this until I got the last section with the engines on and found they weren't getting fuel. The next design was the same as this but was just too wobbly so, in the final design you see here I added strut guns and quantum struts. She's I finally together and I just got here fueled up. All I need now it attach some landers and head out to the stars. The first mission will be to rescue a stranded Kerbanuat I've got stuck on Laythe, the refuel and attempt another rescue mission to Eeloo.

What do you think? Comments? Criticism? Suggestions? How far do you guys think she can get? And get back from?

The Files:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zug6sjujk6ghpc/K_S_S_%20Trident%20Command_Living.craft

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mwi55t4hq0uf4ae/K_S_S_%20Trident%20Mid-Ship.craft

https://www.dropbox.com/s/utyfcn43i7v2s27/K_S_S_%20Trident%20Propulsion.craft

The heavy lifter I used to launch the parts is a little unreliable, it would fail on me many times before I got a successful launch. As for the engine section I foud the best way to get it up was to fire strait up and not do a gravity turn until a vary high altitude, then complete your orbit one you get to space.

If you like use your own heavy lifter to get it up, and feel free to make any changes you like to the ship, but please share what you do by posting it here. Enjoy.

Oh, and it uses quantum struts and Mechjeb so you'll need those mods installed.

Edited June 18, 2013 by OUScooby
added craft files

[astroadrian99]

Does it use mods and can you post the craft file of the ships you used to launch the pieces.

[NoMrBond]

You should be able to dock multiple ports at once, I remember one of the first tutorials I watched was using 4x Clamp-o-tron's on top of a Rockomax Brand Adapter 02 as their standard heavy docking connector (maybe StompThompson?)

Still at work for 2 more hours, but I'll have to check this now when I get home

[OUScooby]

Does it use mods and can you post the craft file of the ships you used to launch the pieces.

Where do I find my craft files?

You should be able to dock multiple ports at once, I remember one of the first tutorials I watched was using 4x Clamp-o-tron's on top of a Rockomax Brand Adapter 02 as their standard heavy docking connector (maybe StompThompson?)

Still at work for 2 more hours, but I'll have to check this now when I get home

I had thought that was possible too, but with my first design which had docking ports on all three outside fuel tanks, when I put it together in orbit, it seemed like it was connected in three places. It seemed pretty sturdy too, I even had to select undock on all three docking ports to separate it. Put when I got my last section up with the engines (the engine section was completely empty of fuel when it got to orbit) and docked it to the rest of the ship, I only had fuel for on set of engines, the other two were still empty. The one set of engine that did get fuel was on the side where the docking port was actually connected, and it only got fuel from the section immediately above it because that section was docked with only one docking port on the other side of the ship. I think what was happening was that one docking port was connecting and cross feeding fuel, but the other two which seemed like they were docked were only held together by the magnetic force of the docking ports and weren't actually connected and therefore couldn't cross feed. I hope I'm explaining all that in a way that makes sense.

[Guest]

This is very cool, nice work! I predict a couple of very long burns in your future, though.

[NoMrBond]

I remember I had to short range shot-put some space-station sections at each other to get all three clamps/seniors to dock, get it lined up and moving slowly into dock, and as soon as the sections started to mag-grapple I would jettison/decouple it from the orbital tug and it would snap-on by itself while I watched on from the tug

But, if I guided it in all the way to docking while the truss/section was still attached to the delivery tug, I would frequently get problems with only getting 2, or even 1, out of the 3 clamps mating.

[astroadrian99]

Where do I find my craft files?

You can find it in the the KSP Directory, where it says saves and then click on the save file you saved the craft in. To post it you you have to upload to a site like Dropbox or mediafire.

[OUScooby]

I remember I had to short range shot-put some space-station sections at each other to get all three clamps/seniors to dock, get it lined up and moving slowly into dock, and as soon as the sections started to mag-grapple I would jettison/decouple it from the orbital tug and it would snap-on by itself while I watched on from the tug

But, if I guided it in all the way to docking while the truss/section was still attached to the delivery tug, I would frequently get problems with only getting 2, or even 1, out of the 3 clamps mating.

Once you're docked is three a way to confirm you are completely docked at all three docking ports and not just one?

[NoMrBond]

I would switch over to the other craft (using [ or ]) after I'd seen the section snap on, then click the three clamps in the new linkage and make sure each one had the 'Undock' option (meaning it was properly docked).

[OUScooby]

I would switch over to the other craft (using [ or ]) after I'd seen the section snap on, then click the three clamps in the new linkage and make sure each one had the 'Undock' option (meaning it was properly docked).

When I thought I had all three of them docked, I could still right click on them and get the undock option, infact the sections would seperate until I undocked all three, but still I only got fuel feeding through one.

[NoMrBond]

Assembled a testbed about as close as possible, except with only one intra-section

Test burn worked as described, one stack pulled from the top tank under the cupola, and the other two pulled only from their directly attached tanks. Is this an existing game engine limitation?

You can manually shunt fuel around, but that seems annoying (can't even action-group the transfers), not sure if balancing fuel lines might work as a kludge, annoying if it needs those extra parts. Will test again tomorrow.

[ImpulseSpaceCenter]

You can manually shunt fuel around, but that seems annoying (can't even action-group the transfers), not sure if balancing fuel lines might work as a kludge, annoying if it needs those extra parts. Will test again tomorrow.

I would says that this is due to the fact that the game engine only allow one parent to an item.

so the fuel only flow from one docking port, and the other docking ports are used as struts.

may be you could try to play with fuel line to get all the fuel diverted to the center, and the engine to use fuel from the center, so hopefully it would work better.

[7499275]

Holy mother of engine clusters! Amazing looking craft you have there my friend, how far can she go on a full load of fuel?

[3_bit]

Whoah..... That is too big for me. I could probably tow my space station and entire fleet to Jool with that thing.

[OUScooby]

Assembled a testbed about as close as possible, except with only one intra-section

Test burn worked as described, one stack pulled from the top tank under the cupola, and the other two pulled only from their directly attached tanks. Is this an existing game engine limitation?

You can manually shunt fuel around, but that seems annoying (can't even action-group the transfers), not sure if balancing fuel lines might work as a kludge, annoying if it needs those extra parts. Will test again tomorrow.

How was the stability? Were the non fuel feeding dockings as stable as the fully connected one? I guess you could get around the fuel flow issue by connecting fuelines in both direction between every tank, then all engines would pull from all tanks.

[NoMrBond]

How was the stability? Were the non fuel feeding dockings as stable as the fully connected one? I guess you could get around the fuel flow issue by connecting fuelines in both direction between every tank, then all engines would pull from all tanks.

Rock solid with all three senior clamps docked even with all 15 NV's burning, I think if i'd burned for longer the imbalance in the weight distribution might have done bad things with shifting the center-of-mass. I could spin and torque the ship as hard as possible with RCS and/or the Cupola's+CM and didn't manage to break anything off but the actual KSS Trident is bigger than my testing mockup. I'll make tonights one full size with two intra-stage sections + play around with the fuel lines, swap the tails for fuel lines etc so it's closer to the given layout.

The ASAS torque fight between the cupola's and the command module was actually the worst thing, it made the whole ship jiggle if I left the ASAS on (those cupola's can wag the whole dog). I might pull the crew out of those into one of the central HHC's so they stop working/fighting. I guess the other option could be to swap the cupola's for something else with windows but no applicable torque? But that probably would mean a mod though, not sure on the stance with those since this seemed like a stock effort.

[OUScooby]

The ASAS torque fight between the cupola's and the command module was actually the worst thing, it made the whole ship jiggle if I left the ASAS on (those cupola's can wag the whole dog). I might pull the crew out of those into one of the central HHC's so they stop working/fighting. I guess the other option could be to swap the cupola's for something else with windows but no applicable torque? But that probably would mean a mod though, not sure on the stance with those since this seemed like a stock effort.

I found that was the case too when I had it docked together along the center section, the strut guns seems to have fixed that. I added the three extra command modules to give the ship more torque to be able to maneuver it, and went with the Cupolas for those three extra command pods just for style and nice views when in IVA.

[OUScooby]

I added links to the craft files to my original post, for those who want to download them.

I've got here all docked up with landers and ready to fly to Laythe. I've got one light lander using Aerospikes, one more traditional lander using LV-T45s and one Rescue lander with a Hitchhiker pod, just in case anything goes wrong with the first two landers.

One down side I realized to the design is, I'm not sure if you can take just two docked craft, it may be you need to add a third to balance out the weight. If you're flying with just one, you can just dock it at the nose and it should be fine, although I didn't put quantum struts at the nose docking port (the other docking ports are all surrounded by 4 quantum struts).

Anyway I don't feel like starting the mission tonight, so the maiden flight will take place tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it goes.

[OUScooby]

Well I couldn't wait until tomorrow, so I gave it a shot for Jool tonight. The first attempt I set a maneuver node that plotted me on a course to Jool, a 25min burn. I set MechJeb to execute the maneuver and walked away. I cam back a fw min later to find my ship heading strait towards the surface of Kerbin. Good thing I quicksaved. I reloaded and this time set the Smart A.S.S. to prograde and put the engines at full throttle. 7 minutes later and I was still in Kerbin's SOI, and only about a quarter of the way to were the Mun orbits. At this point I was getting too far away from my burn point so I shut off the engines and I'm going to wait for it to loop around it's orbit again and do another burn. This is going to be a ship that takes some patience to fly. Still after 7 min of full throttle burning, my fuel gauge has hardly moved. I'm packing it in for tonight, gunna pick this up where I left off tomorrow.

Edited June 18, 2013 by OUScooby

[OUScooby]

Back at it this morning. It only took a few min to complete the burn out of Kerbin SOI. Now I've set a Hohmann transfer to Jool, a 22min burn, yikes! Good thing I've got MechJeb installed, this would be tedious constantly making sure its still pointed at the maneuver target for 20+ min.

[OUScooby]

Disaster! I've lost two of my engines. Not sure how it happened, it think the craft started spinning when it was done with its burn and the SAS wasn't turned on then the engines got flung off. Things weren't looking so good for the mission anyway, after completing the burn to Jool, I was left with only about 1/3 of my fuel. Probably enough to get into a Jool orbit and then transfer to Laythe, but I very much doubt there would be enough to fly home after that. Good thing there is quick save, or 12 souls would be left floating out in deep space.

Not sure how effective this craft is going to be for long distance journey's. I think it could probably get to Duna and back, maybe Dres, but for now I'm thinking of replacing the nuclear engines with 3 Mainsails and using the ship as a large Munar cargo transporter.