I am full of grief and coffee

[Sapphire]

This thread is really cool. I wish that I had the guts and imagination to build those crazy contraptions.

Out of curiosity, the way you type is familiar... might be a coincidence. Does the name "Snipers Paradox" or "Ambrosius" mean anything to you?

[Whackjob]

This thread is really cool. I wish that I had the guts and imagination to build those crazy contraptions.

Out of curiosity, the way you type is familiar... might be a coincidence. Does the name "Snipers Paradox" or "Ambrosius" mean anything to you?

Thank you! Building crazy isn't hard. Just give reason, sense, and Newton's grave the electronic equivalent of the finger. Go nuts. Jebediah won't judge you.

Oh, and no. "Whackjob" has been my "gamer tag" since... well, a decade, anyway. Before that it was "Crazy Pilot Earl" and that was just because of Tribes. Hence my youtube username.

Escape from rollover, launch, throw confetti. Because confetti.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Vostok]

Some of my dodgier ideas:

This was for the challenge that involved a rocket pointing down on launch:

And this was just SRB mania!

[Sapphire]

Thank you! Building crazy isn't hard. Just give reason, sense, and Newton's grave the electronic equivalent of the finger. Go nuts. Jebediah won't judge you.

Oh, and no. "Whackjob" has been my "gamer tag" since... well, a decade, anyway. Before that it was "Crazy Pilot Earl" and that was just because of Tribes. Hence my youtube username.

Thank you! Building crazy isn't hard. Just give reason, sense, and Newton's grave the electronic equivalent of the finger. Go nuts. Jebediah won't judge you.

Newton's grave the electronic equivalent of the finger.

*lightbulb*

[Whackjob]

You're well on your way.

The MKRV Mk2 is about ready for a test run... another video shortly.

Apologies again for my old man cackling.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[IllicitMedic]

Apologies again for my old man cackling.

LOL these rovers are just insane lol...in a good way...

[AmpsterMan]

There was an old challenge before the great forum derp that involved building mobile launch platforms. This would have been great to submit for the challenge.

edit: keep making these vids and I might just have to subscribe

[Whackjob]

Another video incoming. The Munar rovers are nice and all, but what good are they if they never actually get to the Mun? It's gotta be practical!

I've spent about an hour, working on a way to dual-mount one-man recovery rovers on the side of a Munar lander stage. Getting them on there was dead simple... even if I had to rebuild the rovers from scratch on the outside. The problem is getting them down without pieces flying off. I may have just solved that.

Well... not a 100% unqualified success, but I'll take it.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Giggleplex777]

Nice, I see you got it to work!

Edited July 18, 2013 by Giggleplex777

[Whackjob]

Better yet, I currently have the dual rover return thing on its way to the Mun. I have three kerbals "stranded" there... Jebediah, Bob, and Bill. Bob and Bill are going home. Jeb... he doesn't seem to care much either way. But he'll be coming back in a later trip.

Booyah! Now to drive over to Munar Base Alpha, pick up Bill, and see if I can get him home.

And of course, I'm recording a video, I get the lander up to 26m/s, I get to the landing area, pick up Bill, fly him home, start the aerobraking, and my fraps decides now's a good time to crash out. Sigh.

But long story short, the system works. Getting the landers off is still something of an annoyance, as with the lower gravity, they tend to turtle over. But that's an easy fix. The lander legs tend to pop the rover up into the air, and it's a simple matter to rotate so I land on my wheels. The actual prop-to-launch position works well, and there's fuel aplenty to get home. It's almost perfect.

Bloody wonderful. That crash out corrupted my save. All the work I had is GONE. Ah well. All this means to me is temporary inconvenience and different goals.

So... I think I'll build a combo lander. Three Kerbal ship, four recovery rovers bolted to the outside, and this time I'm gonna pay Minimus a visit for the first time.

:>

One engineering problem settled: Recovery rover separation without damage.

#EDIT: Note how these recovery rovers cause a few explosions and scatter debris when they launch. Very Kerbal. :>

Seriously bummed I didn't record the landing on this one... clutch landing indeed. Landed on a slope with a topheavy rocket, almost out of fuel... When I set down, I immediately started to tip over. I was just quick enough to go into docking mode, set it to rotate mode, enabled RCS, and kept it on its legs. Dumb luck.

The rover deployment worked as well on the Mun as it did on the launchpad. Though I did lose one solar panel when rolling a rover over.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Spyritdragon]

Whackjob: Sr. Spacecraft engineer, 416 posts in about a single month's time. Hat's off mate :-)

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. Remember to add parachutes to all parts where Kerbals will live. Even on space stations that will never de-orbit. =^.^=

[catmando]

perhaps its time for some DECAF?

[Whackjob]

Decaf? Perish the thought. Decaf isn't something you willingly drink. It's something you slip elderly people because there isn't enough of the real stuff to go around. Granny isn't going to know, and she doesn't want to be up until 5 a.m. anyway. I mean, face it. Last time she had coffee before trying to go to bed, you got a call from the constable the next morning before you left for work because she broke into the local mall and trashed the piercing pagoda. And then when you help her out by paying the bail, she skips out on the hearing to go to a county townhouse meeting to angrily demand a government holiday named after Matlock.

No need for any of that noise. Give grannie the sanka, and everybody wins.

[zxczxczbfg]

Yeah. Remember to add parachutes to all parts where Kerbals will live. Even on space stations that will never de-orbit. =^.^=

I do that for most of my capsules, but especially the first ones in a given save. I generally take it upon myself to keep Jeb and the Orange Suits alive, even if that means stationing them on an out-of-the-way refueling post that I never dock with anyhow.

[Aragosnat]

I do that for most of my capsules, but especially the first ones in a given save. I generally take it upon myself to keep Jeb and the Orange Suits alive, even if that means stationing them on an out-of-the-way refueling post that I never dock with anyhow.

Jeb, Bill and Bob are the orange suited Kerbals.

[Whackjob]

Ugh. My head is killing me today.

I've made up my mind. I'm going to try an interplanetary mission, my first. Now that I'm actually considering it, I suddenly see all the work that must necessarily go into such a thing. I don't want to drop the Kerbals on another world and forget about them. Well, I'm looking to build a colony, but I want to be able to return and replace the Kerbals as needs be. I'm sure they get homesick, too.

Immediately this tells me that apart from the lander, I need a way of getting back into orbit. Simple, I've done this with the Mun. But it's more complicated than that. I can't use little peashooter engines to get off Duna. So I have the choice of either landing a giant lander, which I'd have no qualms with, or coming up with something more reusable and elegant. And complicated.

I'm considering a reuseable lander/skycrane system. This beast of a machine will come in, physically drop the habitation module at a very low altitude, then boost back up into orbit without landing itself. When it's time to go home, this system will also do the pickup. This also means I will absolutely need a way to refuel it. I can build a fuel depot around Duna, no sweat. But then I'll need a system that'll shuttle fuel tanks over to Duna and dock them. I could make them one-shot systems, but... I don't know. Seems lazy to me. I find myself more and more moving away from things I just junk into the atmosphere / regolith.

So a skycrane shuttle, fuel depot, fuel / module shuttle.... My mind is awhirl with configuration after configuration after configuration. I could combine the skycrane shuttle and the fuel/module shuttle, but I don't think I will. Interplanetary travel has differing requirements than almost landing on a planet.

Again, my head hurts. But, I'll start the build, and share pictures to document my successes and hilarious failures. Given this is my first go at this task, I don't doubt plenty of the latter.

I think I will try a "dry" run for the Mun. Build a skycrane, drop a module on the Mun, get back to orbit, refuel, pick it up, and reattain orbit. Should be a good practical exercise.

Am I nuts, or am I looking at this logically?

#EDIT: Picture of the fuel depot cross spar module, which will launch with the added bonus of the module tug.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Whackjob

[Tw1]

Sounds logical to me.

Though the alternate type of logic is to send a tiny probe there first, practice landing at take of and what not, but I didn't do that either.

[HeadHunter67]

Those are nifty little rovers, and the craft is ingenious! Would you be willing to share the files for those of us without your engineering brilliance?

[Whackjob]

Those are nifty little rovers, and the craft is ingenious! Would you be willing to share the files for those of us without your engineering brilliance?

I'm no genius, man. I just look at things from a weird angle. Which one specifically did you want?

#EDIT: Headed to work. It'll have to wait until tonight. Get a shopping list together.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Whackjob

[HeadHunter67]

I'm mostly interested in the craft file for the rover, but the delivery vehicle is of interest, too. Seeing how others put things together is helping me to understand how to innovate in my own designs.

[Whackjob]

Ok. When I get home tonight, i'll send ya the quad rover lifter thing.

I'm mostly interested in the craft file for the rover, but the delivery vehicle is of interest, too. Seeing how others put things together is helping me to understand how to innovate in my own designs.

Here is the craft file for the imaginatively named "Combo lander".

http://www.filedropper.com/combolander

Remember to check the action grouping. If memory serves (often doesn't, so check!), 1 is for landing gear, and 2 separates the rovers from the lander chassis.

"That the first tank? Nice, nice... you did bring snacks, right?"

"Next time bring the GOOD snacks."

"Make sure you park it where you took it from."

"Ok, shut it down, top off the tug. Tell them to send up the second bottle."

If nothing else, my docking chops are getting more robust.

Well, time to scrap this system. The tug is taking too much fuel and RCS to go and fetch the tanks. That second tank I put in? After topping off the first fuel tank I put in that I used to refuel the tug, I end up with a second empty tank. That I'd have to burn more fuel to deorbit. It's like two steps forward and two steps back.

I have to modify this system.

Taking a break and working on a prototype Duna lander. You can see the four two-seater rovers bolted to the top. Unlike my munar ones, these don't launch. I doubt they'd get off Duna if they did. Instead, the lander itself is designed to both land and take off. As you can see from the "boosters" on the side, the lander itself is part vegetable. Haven't added chutes yet, and debating whether or not to. Though I suppose a few couldn't hurt. Even if just for orientation control on the way down.

... yeah, might as well add a few.

Room for 32 Kerbals. A good station.

40 if you count the eight one-man rovers slung underneath.

I am planning on putting this on another world. It is nowhere near done, of course, but right now I'm doing preliminary testing as far as rigidity, attitude control, and rover deployment goes.

This game is beautiful sometimes. My inner mad scientist's inner child celebrates.

Time to call it a night. Tomorrow, before work, I'm going to try to land this on the Mun. But... not like this. Had a minor structural failure, disrupted the balance, so I decided to shed the rovers for dramatic effect.

Failed to achieve orbit, much less get to the Mun or Duna. For a shakedown run, though, it was pretty darned good.

But totally a slideshow takeoff.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
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[Aragosnat]

Yer designs are getting smaller and more compact for sure.

[aftershockzap]

Out of necessity, more than anything else.

Got the lander into orbit, escaped Kerbin, burning for Duna! Pictures at some point.

#EDIT: ACK late for work. Will have to complete landing tonight.

"Yo, Dawg! I heard you like girders and struts. I put girders and struts in your girders and struts so now you can strut while you girder and girder while you strut."

Whenever I am designing my launchers to deliver payloads As a personal principle (not saying anything against your designs!) I try my hardest to ensure that not one strut nor part that will leave behind a piece is left on my payload. This gives me a wide variety of design challenges that are even more frustrating not to solve because at the end of the day you could ALWAYS break that "no struts to payload" rule, but cannot actually bring yourself to do so. (I like re-usable ships so loads of unique payloads for 1 time launches like cargo transports and re-fuelers which can be quiet a challenge etc) and whenever I am having a hard time getting something into space, I look at this picture and say,

Its possible.

I'm going to get more coffee as I attempt to balance a com that is really REALLY off due to my payload.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Aphox

[DaRocketCat]

I can't believe this thread is still alive.