I am full of grief and coffee

[Whackjob]

Ok. Here's the newly revamped Mk3.

Showing off the new engine cluster. 21 motors in there. There are 8 such clusters.

As shown here, on the pad.

Looks darned pretty going up, but a complete slideshow.

Here's where the engine-only-no-droptank test got me. I could probably have made orbit, if I could control the orientation of it. This morning I added tons of vaned wings and those quad thrusters. Still wasn't enough.

I think I'm just going to shelve the really big constructions for now. They're fun, but completely unproductive. Tonight I'll make more reasonable things I can do actual stuff with.

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. For large things one would need a lot on the ends and certainly don't epect it to turn on a dime.

Edit: Ends I mean the outer edges farthest from the center of the universe. Errr. I mean tank.

[Whackjob]

Oh god. I'm the worst kind of idiot. I just realized how I can fix the orientation problem out of hand, easily and moderately simply.

Eight more engines. Mounted on the top of each upper girder on the outer edge of the carousel. Pointing up. Disabled from the start manually as a necessity, but indepentantly enabled as necessary. That ought to tilt that wheel quicker! I can still rely on the winged vanes and RCS thrusters for fine tuning.

#EDIT: A better form of control comes to me. I know there's "action groups" or something you cna put together in the VAB. Could I use that to toggle on engines easier? Can someone explain that system to me?

[Bunsen]

#EDIT: A better form of control comes to me. I know there's "action groups" or something you cna put together in the VAB. Could I use that to toggle on engines easier? Can someone explain that system to me?

That's exactly what you want to use. Open the Action Groups menu, click on one of the groups (you probably want to use the numbers for custom actions). Click on a part (alt-click to select more parts at the same time). The part shows up in a list, and you can now select actions for that part that comprise the action group. "Toggle engine" is one of the options for engines, naturally. I don't remember if it lets you independently select members of a symmetry group, though, so you might have to place those vernier engines individually.

So if you select the rightmost engine on your rocket and bind its "toggle engine" action to group Custom01, you can turn it on and off as quickly as you like by hitting the "1" key. There's no need to point engines up, either -- you can just turn certain engines off momentarily.

[Whackjob]

That's my thinking. If I temporarily disable one of the eight clusters, the whole carousel will tilt in that direction. Reverse that for a moment and the tilting stops.

And you answered another question I had: How do use those groups, once made? I guess they just all bind to 1 through 0.

Ok! Quick question. I'm playing with action groups now to solve my AIEA orientation issue. Now, is there any way to remove the added thrusters (using that to practice) from the staging system? I want to turn them on and off and not by staging. That, and I want them at a different throttle. Any way of doing this?

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
Merged multiposts

[CCKinnison]

I've played with this idea, although not on the scale you work on. You CAN'T give them a different throttle. ...there might be a mod for it. I don't think you can remove them from staging entirely, but you could create a new, upper stage, move them there, and never "fire" it via staging.

[Whackjob]

Hrm. Ok. Annoying but not insurmountable.

I've built a "practice" AEIA model with the new control systems. I've remapped my numpad keys to fire the action groups. 1 through 9 sans 5 are for the attitude controls, with 5 turning all off. I need to ursurp two more controls, I think I'll abduct the "landing gear" and "lights" functions. These I will use for rotation control. That's the idea, anyway. I don't have the rotation fixes in, but during my last test run with this practice model, I managed to have that thing doing doughnuts through the sky. It's amazing! It's just the solution I needed.

Oh, and I found the part count for both the Mk2 and the Mk3. The Mk2 has 3000 parts and the Mk3 has 3900. Crazy!

Ok. Here's where I'm at. The trainer model I'm flossin' and flyin' like an ace, now. I'm still trying to get the extra two controls mapped to where they don't interfere with anything. That, and I'm really tempted to video record my trainer work.

Is there a good video capture software suite that doesn't cost and eat up memory? Asking a lot, I know.

Final report, then I stop spamming my own thread and call it a night.

The new attitude adjustment scheme is an impressive success. I couldn't have asked it to go better. Those giant wheel things I've been making? I can control them now, and I don't need twelve thousand RCS thrusters or winged vanes. Tomorrow, I revamp the Mk3 and put that thing in orbit, and claim the title of "largest SSTO ever put in space."

Tomorrow is gonna be an awesome day.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[CCKinnison]

Looking forward to the report. Truth is, I thought you were DOING THIS already on the Mk 2, or I'd have brought it up a while ago... It was the only way I could think of to steer it at all.

[Spatzimaus]

I don't think you can remove them from staging entirely, but you could create a new, upper stage, move them there, and never "fire" it via staging.

Correct. This is actually how I manage nearly all of my SSTO ships, especially spaceplanes; the first set to fire (i.e., the turbojets) are in the lowest stage, and all other engines are placed in the top stage and are turned on and off through action groups. This makes it much, much easier to mix and match engine types for things like Grand Tour vessels, too.

Tomorrow, I revamp the Mk3 and put that thing in orbit, and claim the title of "largest SSTO ever put in space."

Yeah, you've got a long way to go before getting that title. My own largest SSTO runs about 4500 tons, but it's nothing compared to some of the designs others have made. Granted, really huge SSTOs are much easier with mods that adds 3.75m or larger parts, such as KW Rocketry; these don't make the designs any more capable of reaching orbit, they just keep your frame rate from being too horrendous.

[Whackjob]

Hehe. Not sure how it rates on tonnage, but the latest Mk3 variant has 3,600 parts. Just before work I did manage to achieve orbit. Not a pretty, circular one, but one that kept well clear of the atmosphere. I did not leave it up there. I sent it into the atmosphere and abandoned the mission. All that work... and nothing. It isn't functional. I was kind of disappointed. Felt left down, even, even as I achieved a hard fought objective.

So! Tonight, I flag the railman and switch tracks. I will instead embrace functional minimalism. I will build the smallest things I can and still have them serve their purpose. I forsee tiny rovers, landers, and depots.

Should be funner.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Whackjob

[Spatzimaus]

Hehe. Not sure how it rates on tonnage, but the latest Mk3 variant has 3,600 parts.

You should download the Flight Engineer mod; it gives you that mass info, plus TWRs for each stage, without affecting your actual gameplay in any way. Frankly, it's just a matter of time before that becomes a standard VAB feature anyway, like a lot of the other quality-of-life improvements modders have made over the last few months.

Alternately, go by fuel count. About eighty-five percent of your ship's weight (sans payload) will be fuel of some type, so it's a pretty good indicator of total size; unless you're using ion engines or turbojets, the ratio of liquid fuel to all other fuel types will be the usual 9:11, so it makes an easy point of comparison between designs. My 4000-ton SSTO carries 302,000 liquid fuel and 369k oxidizer (which together mass almost exactly 3400 tons, with their dry tanks adding another ~400); its usual payload is a 450-ton fuel depot carrying another ~35k liquid fuel, but I don't count that since I don't want to be spending that fuel during launch. (The booster's part count is only 524 parts, thanks to the KW Rocketry mod's larger parts., so the frame rate isn't bad.)

[arq]

You should download the Flight Engineer mod; it gives you that mass info, plus TWRs for each stage, without affecting your actual gameplay in any way. Frankly, it's just a matter of time before that becomes a standard VAB feature anyway, like a lot of the other quality-of-life improvements modders have made over the last few months.

I highly recommend this mod too. I never build something without it any more. I like that it is *just* info (not quite ready to give the game up to autopilots quite yet).

[Whackjob]

Trying to put together a parts list of the Mk3.

(144) Rockomax X200-8 Fuel Tanks @ 4.5t full = 648t

(16) Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank @ 18t full = 288t

(1) Rockomax Jumbo-64 Fuel Tank @ 36t full

(368) Modular Girder Segment XL @ 0.6t = 220t

(72) Modular Girder Segment @ 0.175t = 12.6t

(168) Toroidal Aerospike Rocket @ 1.5t = 252t

So discarding small extras, total weight is about 1,456t. So you're right, that's less than yours.

29,400 thrust / (1456*9.8) = 2.06 TWR for Kerbal. Hrm. Lower than I'd thought.

[AlexanderB]

Struts don't have weight?

[AustralianFries]

Dang... This thread is still going?

[Whackjob]

Dang... This thread is still going?

Reduce

Re-use

Recycle

Reignite

#EDIT: Rather than spam the boards with any of my random mental musings via a new original post each, I'll just dump all said musings into this one. Safer for all that way.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Whackjob

[tntristan12]

...O.o....

[Whackjob]

Struts don't have weight?

My understanding is that they do not currently. Given I have about 2,500 struts, that could be a significant amount of weight if they did.

I wonder how hard it would be to make a rover consisting of one wheel. Unicycle. The hard part would be gyroscopically stabalizing it.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Sir Nahme]

It has been done heh I remember seeing some in on an older page in the picture megathread iirc

[Whackjob]

Time to show off my first creation in my new minimalist line. It's small, it's compact, it rolls like an SUV at a high speed tight turn, it's functional, and it has a tiny part count.

KerbalKart. Gonna get this up to the Mun and try it out.

It has a solar panel, a lamp, a control core for autonomous mode, a xenon tank and ion thruster, a battery, and even a Jr docking port in back to make hauling it easy.

[Sir Nahme]

you may want to strut the chair to the panel, they tend to be a tad flimsy

[Whackjob]

Hrm. Advice taken. Thanks for the heads up.

Short report: Built something to haul the cart to the Mun. Crashed into the Mun. My trajectory was dangerous nonsense. I suppose that's what I get for building big and not practicing navigation.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
Merged multiposts

[Bunsen]

Time to show off my first creation in my new minimalist line. It's small, it's compact, it rolls like an SUV at a high speed tight turn, it's functional, and it has a tiny part count.

Fair warning: that gets worse on pretty much every other planet or moon you'll want to drive the thing on. The lower the gravity, the slower you have to go to avoid doing a tumbleweed impression. (The reason for that is a standard Physics 101 homework problem, but it's actually instructive to think about so I won't give it away.) You want a wide wheelbase and low center of mass to go anywhere. That's perfectly achievable with low mass and part count, but compactness tends to go to hell.

The alternate approach, of course, is to put lander legs on the top so it can right itself after you've tumbled and slid to the bottom of the huge hill that it inevitably happens near the top of.

[Torham234]

Time to show off my first creation in my new minimalist line. It's small, it's compact, it rolls like an SUV at a high speed tight turn, it's functional, and it has a tiny part count.

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I always try to follow this motto when making my designs.

[Whackjob]

Points all taken. Will redo everything. Honestly, I might just dump my save to clear things up and start anew. Probably with an orbital fuel depot. I've been putting that off. Gotta learn docking sometime!