I am full of grief and coffee

[Whackjob]

I can't believe this thread is still alive.

Not so much still alive, but dead and dreaming. You know they got awesome coffee in R'lyeh? Only downside is the atmosphere. Bad neighbors.

Family Feud time. The question is, "Name four things Whackjob took to Duna."

Edited July 22, 2013 by Aphox
Merged multiposts

[Kimberly]

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,

If you start the strut on your launch vehicle, and then attach it to your payload, it won't leave a mark on the payload--it may do so upon initial decoupling, but after a reload all the strut marks will be gone.

[Aphox]

Holy crud what is going on in here?

Whackjob, can I ask you to please stick to one post and use imgur albums or something? Posting 4-8 times in a row is really unnecessary.

[Whackjob]

Looking into Imgur now.

#EDIT: Test run!

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Edited July 22, 2013 by Whackjob

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. Duna Landings are intresting to say the least. My firs t one was with a probe. Which upon landing fell over and started to brake dance. Intentional in my case. Was trying to get it to be on its landing gears so I can extend the comms. Sadly it then once on its feet decided to have a sled race down hill. Which allowed me to see it do some nice jumps before reaching speeds where friction killed it.

[Spatzimaus]

Duna landings are easy if you use a small lander; the atmosphere's thin, but it's still enough to do the majority of your braking. My first Duna landing didn't even use parachutes; looking back, I'm just amazed it worked given how inexperienced I was. (I actually landed on Duna before Mun or Minmus.) It's strange; when I returned to Duna much later, using a considerably larger lander with parachutes, I had far more problems landing. The problem was that Duna's atmosphere was too thin for the parachutes to completely cancel out the incoming velocity, so since I'd tried to use aerobraking to save fuel... well, it meant that I'd reach ground level with a huge sideways velocity remaining. But coming straight down, without aerobraking, caused so much strain on the parachutes that they'd rip off half the time. (That design didn't have drogues, though, so it's possible that a better design could work just fine.) I've been trying to design a rocket plane design for Duna, as a winged descent is far easier.

[Whackjob]

Project Arkingthaad Revived

(a little motivation)

Pulling a most-of-a-nighter tonight. It's my day off work tomorrow, so it begins now. Back when I had nought but the demo, I would build large and silly things under the name of Arkingthaad. Well, it's time to recycle the name. Tonight I begin the hardest thing I've ever built.

The Arkingthaad machine will consist of ten modules that would be lifted into orbit and assembled. It is a colony ship. There will be one lander / Duna habitation core. It will also serve to haul some rovers. There will be four crew modules that hilariously serve the purpose of manning the Arkingthaad and functioning as the landing gear for the lander. I can't wait to show you that one. There will also be four get-off-duna bugout modules. These will be bolted onto the lander and function as the actual living space via hitchhiker cans while on Duna. And finally, there will be the transplanetary drive. This will function primarily to get the lander to Duna, as well as serve as the return subsystem that the bugout modules will dock to for a ride back to Kerbin.

I'm excited. This will be a fun, crazy build. I suspect my first few attempts will be failures. I fully expect dawn to be long gone here even before breaking Kerbin orbit.

I can't wait.

[GDJ]

Launched a lander to add 2 more crew to my little Mun habitat

Flew my Kerbal Arrow KF-701 jetplane around.

Started another aircraft, but landing is difficult as it has a stall speed of around 100 m/sec.

[Whackjob]

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The Arkingthaad lander module is in orbit. Now the assembly can begin. The crew module / landing gear component is already designed. I'll add four of those, then start puzzling over the bugout modules.

#EDIT: You'll notice I decided to use the lander's engines to position it in orbit. No worries. As I add the crew modules, I'll siphon off the extra gas to top off the tanks. No sweat.

[Pigbear]

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The Arkingthaad lander module is in orbit. Now the assembly can begin. The crew module / landing gear component is already designed. I'll add four of those, then start puzzling over the bugout modules.

#EDIT: You'll notice I decided to use the lander's engines to position it in orbit. No worries. As I add the crew modules, I'll siphon off the extra gas to top off the tanks. No sweat.

My god, That looks awesome.

[Whackjob]

My god, That looks awesome.

Thank you! ^^

I've got one crew module attached. Three to go. Jebediah, Bill, and Bob are already "aboard" the Arkingthaad. They will be joined shortly by about nine more Kerbals. Then I have to design, build, test, and dock four bugout modules. Then I have to attach those. Did you notice the rover in the upper right of the last picture? Hehe. There's four two-seater rovers bolted on.

What you see there is the skeleton. That's just the framework plus rovers.

#EDIT: Needs three more crew/gear modules, four bugout modules, one intraplanetary engine module, and a partridge in an iron tree.

#EDIT2: Crew module two in. Crew of the Arkingthaad is now up to 6. Halfway there.

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Edited July 24, 2013 by Whackjob
Adding photos of second docking

[DaniAngione]

Heh, this topic is amazing. Thank you, OP, you've made me crawl out from my Moho hole into the burning shafts of light from Kerbol and embrace my inner madness in a more collective way now.

Alas I must go for the day because it's 5 a.m. here (again. My life might be on warp and I fear that coming out of it might unleash the Kraken's wrath.) and I'm out of coffee because I probably use it as liquid fuel. Anyway, my hands are full enough of kerbal blood for the day but I promise that I will return. (My Duna lander crew promised the same. Hah! That was a joke, haha, fat chance)

Anyway this game is great, and I'm not sure what I'm talking about and... oh well, good night.

[Whackjob]

Heh, this topic is amazing. Thank you, OP, you've made me crawl out from my Moho hole into the burning shafts of light from Kerbol and embrace my inner madness in a more collective way now.

Hehe. You are most welcome.

Alas I must go for the day because it's 5 a.m. here (again. My life might be on warp and I fear that coming out of it might unleash the Kraken's wrath.) and I'm out of coffee because I probably use it as liquid fuel. Anyway, my hands are full enough of kerbal blood for the day but I promise that I will return. (My Duna lander crew promised the same. Hah! That was a joke, haha, fat chance)

Anyway this game is great, and I'm not sure what I'm talking about and... oh well, good night.

You appear to be suffering from the condition known as not-enough-coffee. Horrifying symptoms. I hear coffee can ease them. But make sure you consult first with your family barista.

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Final round of pictures tonight. I must crash out. So sleepy, not even coffee can save me. I'll put the fourth crew module on tomorrow.

Got the fourth crew module added on. Looks much the same as the previous pictures, so I'll spare you another photographic barrage.

Now the hard part. I have to design and build a bugout module that can get my Kerbals off Duna and into orbit, minimum. Hopefully enough to rendezvous with the transplanetary stage I plan on leaving in orbit there as a station. They will have to be large width because they will be capped by hitchhiker cans. But I cannot make them too over the top, simply because they have to be held onto the lander with a mere single senior docking port. If they're too long, they'll wiggle and rip off when I go in for a landing.

My head hurts.

Here's the bugout module I came up with, along with its orbital insertion system and docking tug on top. The actual module is the wee bit in the middle. Before adding on the rest, I tested it on Kerbin. Wanted to get a good idea as to whether or not I could get it into orbit off Duna. Well, I probably could have put it into orbit around Kerbin! A pleasant surprise. And the best part is it isn't that large. It should do.

Should. Hence the chutes in case orbit fails and I need to send rovers across the world to do a pickup. There's no realistic way to test this other than to actually try to lift them off Duna. But, I'll have four bugout modules that can carry 16 Kerbals. As you note from the above, the Arkingthaad actually only carries 12. That means I have a spare I can do a flight test with when I get there.

When I get there...

... aaaand, the new patch is out. LOL.

What does this mean to the Arkingthaad project? Well, the station in orbit is gone. The actual files for the individual components are still there, but there's about six hours of docking work that just went poof.

And yet? I can't really be mad about it. Moreover, I don't particularly feel the need to copy those files over. The Arkingthaad project will continue. But I will use what I leaned getting it halfway done and apply that to the Mk2. Besides, I hear there's new parts.

The Arkingthaad is coming along nicely with the new patch. I've decided to build the whole thing together and launch it that way. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. Should be fun to see, regardless. The lander module itself is done. I posted a video of it in the "what's the first thing you did with the new patch" thread.

Just added the transplanetary drive. After this, all I must add is whatever madness is required to get it into orbit. If it's even possible.

Turns out, it isn't possible. It's just too heavy and too complex. I've got so many struts bracing everything that my part count is well past the point where a comma is involved, but I cannot get it into orbit. The problem I'm having is that after I drop the first two stages of the lifter platform, some kind of stress resonance kicks in and one or two of the transplanetary drive clusters spontaneously shears off. No matter what I do this happens. So, I guess we're back to the build-it-in-orbit premise.

Giving the new central lander module an engine shakedown. It's got to have a lot of capacity and power. It has to land with a lot of weight docked to it. Look at the speed indicator carefully. Them engine clusters are the devil.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Aphox

[Aragosnat]

Have you thought about using the new quad or try parts for lifting? As you could always use dacking ports attached to thrusters.

[Whackjob]

Actually, I just zapped my save file. I'm going to try a new approach to everything. Build some infrastructure before taking on any grand projects.

Putting together a 300km orbit fuel depot.

Construction coming along very nicely.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Aphox

[Aragosnat]

Looking good. =^.^=

[Scotius]

Ahh! It's so bright my eyes steam Seriously, this station should be visible from the surface. What powers it?

[SuperWeegee4000]

I like this thread. I don't really know what it is anymore, but I like it.

[Whackjob]

Ahh! It's so bright my eyes steam Seriously, this station should be visible from the surface. What powers it?

I got a few of those nuclear rods in there. They're just there to power the lights and the ASAS modules. If I screw up a docking, it doesn't spin. That sucker is anchored. It might drift away slightly, but I don't have to worry about the docking ports rolling out of view. And when I'm on approach, I don't have to squint and make a good guess as to where the docking points are. I can see them waaaay off.

I like this thread. I don't really know what it is anymore, but I like it.

Hrm. I think of it as sort of a quarantine. Here I can safely dispose of the various ruminations I've got going without infecting other threads.

[Aragosnat]

So true. And SuperWeegee4000: It is called don't ask. Dont tell. As you Don't want to know.

Ok. The Whack is finally considering modding up. I'm thinking... kethane.

Installation, simple enough... now to build a giant mobile roving mining and refining facility that can self-orbit from the Mun.

Ok, hate to bump my own thread, but the Whack's got a problem.

I've got Kethane installed. I've got a probe going around and scanning the Mun even now. But... the map isn't showing. If I zoom out, it briefly appears, then it shrinks away and it's gone. Now, I'm sure I'm not the first to have this issue, but either there isn't a lot said on the 'net, or my google-fu master would be ashamed of me.

Suggestions?

Edited August 9, 2013 by Aphox

[GhostFlight]

I remember I saw some footage on ign and had to try it out. As soon as I spent ten minutes I threw my money at them. A game based on my understanding of rockets, gravity, failing more times then I can remember and those few sweet triumphs. I knew I was in it for the long haul.

[Whackjob]

Kethane fixed, let's have some fun with it.

[Ifandbut]

Kethane fixed, let's have some fun with it.

"And flop it"....Kaboom!

Your Kethene rover is alot more compact then my first attempt. Maybe I was just using too big of a tank as the base.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594758419889183122/142AB849C99C690802059DCF30F096F24E961A0F/1024x640.resizedimage

[Whackjob]

Heh. I seriously underestimated how high I was at that point. That's what I get for trying to be a showoff. But, there is hilarity and amusement in failure also.

#EDIT: Know what your rovers remind me of? Those sailback dinosaurs! Whatever they're called.

[aftershockzap]

I downloaded kethane for the first time after the 21.1 patch to try it out. (Finally hit a part-lag limitation on a station I was building and decided I was ready to try mods now that I know the computer/game/physicsx limitation)

I literally spent my morning before college building my first kethane rover, attempting to do a very complex top-docking fuel transfer from a rover (miner) and a lander (to take kethane to a station for refining). Let me tell you, after hours of alignment frustration, your design is fantastic, simple, and solves the mobility issue I had with using a lander as a miner. I am inspired sir!

I can't build rovers very well but every time I see one of your crazy rovers, I see myself trying anyway haha