Exo's Rubberband and Duct Tape Emporium. SSTOS, Weird Space Ships, and more!

[KissSh0t]

After looking over your internal layout with the frame Exo... and after testing my design all yesterday afternoon... I've decided to start from scratch xD

When my craft got up to speed it just started pulling up by itself no matter how hard you tried to pull down... I'm thinking maybe it was because I had intakes in the nose part... Something about drag and center of lift is my guess :/

This is the front bit.. Decided to put the probe core inside the body and batteries ON the probe core this time.. for some reason the last build was losing electrical power even though the battery was the big one and not drained at all.... but the battery itself was not connected to the probe core... so... I don't know maybe this will work better...

*update*

I can't figure out how to do the Push up legs.. If I was to do them properly It would probably have to be a direct copy of what you have done and I don't want to do that... I think I will go for a drop type deployment with parachute then I can land the craft near the buggy...

Tried making a buggy with 6 wheels like yours though, I've only made a buggy once and it kinda sucked... Haven't been able to test the buggy yet because I haven't been able to get it out from under the craft yet lol/////

Edited September 8, 2013 by KissSh0t
Different Picture.

[PlasmaticInc]

Infinite fuel is a cheat, it removes the challenge of designing an SSTO or any rocket for that matter, which is having enough fuel. Part clipping is far more of a realistic "cheat". Parts in real life can be welded together, or placed inside of each other. As long as you don't part clip like 70 Mainsails onto a 2.5 meter space or something similar, part clipping helps improve form. All physics is still applied. And as Exo said, this game isn't realistic. Realism is boring, being a little fantastic is not cheating, it's creativity. Why should you care? If part clipping is not your thing, then don't download the craft. It's a SINGLE PLAYER game, chill out.

[pa1983]

Who are you referring to? People need to learn to quote if there not talking about the post above them.

[Exothermos]

AAR Time!

My test mission to Duna in the big Un-named SSTO ended up it spectacular failure. But It was very informative. I'm glad I didn't put any kerbals aboard!

This is the design of the tug. I attached this thinking that it was way more fuel than I needed for the mission.

It would have been more than I needed if I didn't have an absolutely horrendous time with Ike. On previous missions to Duna I tended to get encounters that result in very high inclination orbits. I tried to rectify this on this mission by getting an encounter that was closer to the ecliptic, but Ike had other plans. I encountered it a total of 4 times trying to get to an aerobraking orbit. This wasted over a third of the fuel correcting the hideous changes in course that resulted. Now I know. v0v

Ditching the now empty tug, I went ahead with the landing.

uh... this landing site is less than optimum. That's not what it looked like from orbit. Defiitely not in the pipe, five by five. The good news is the paragliding was working well at this point.

but not at this point.

...oh god.

So scrub one SSTO lifter. It looks like my CoM has migrated farther back in my latest itteration, some how. Oh well, I have lots more work with the landing profile I believe.

The good news is that my more conventional Manned Duna mission is a success!

Too bad they don't have a big rover to play with now.

More testing on the horizon! This really makes me respect your achievements pa1983, and I bet your SSTO will be ready before mine, KissSh0t!

Edited September 9, 2013 by Exothermos

[KissSh0t]

Landing SSTO on Duna is hard hehehehe... WELCOME TO MY WORLD... MWHAHAHAA~ I've done that crash twice now lol..

Your rocket lander is cool : >

I find if you get an encouter, burn for it.. then once you are half way, do a correction burn to make yourself come in exactly where you want.. You save a lot more fuel this way... At least to the best of my knowledge... I am not the best at the whole getting to other planets part.

Still redesigning my SSTO based on yours.. it's had a big change so far.. will post some screenshots up when I get to do some more testing.

[pa1983]

You want to land here.

Was the old dry lake that was almost flat. Its hilly now but thats where I land in all my videos be it 0.21 or older.

Still relatively flat compared to most places and its about 600m altitude so a lot denser air making lower speeds possible. You do not want to land HIGH up with a spaceplane on Duna. Decent rate and speed will kill you if you try that.

And yes making corrective burns on the way to Duna or any other planet saves fuel from what I can see. I dont go for a perfect burn and I can later often correct using RCS only if you do it at the optimal point.

[KissSh0t]

Still trying to build this aircraft... All I can say is wow this is hard.. This is the 4th iteration now.. Mk4 has not got off the ground yet, but Mk3 has.. Mk3 suffered from lack of lift in the front of the craft, so Mk4 is a try at fixing that problem + lots of changes.

I've made the fuel tanks like they are a part of the engine with the air intakes all nicely tucked inside.. Each Air Intake is separately selectable... THIS IS NOT INTAKE SPAM...

Intake Spam is where you place intakes in the exact same spot using no clip... I've seen this done by a few of the KSP YouTubers and it is quite frankly cheating.

I would like to make very clear that I have not used "No Clip" to achieve building the engine of this craft.

The two vertical tail planes on the naked version is just so I can test it going down the runway.. I've been having troubles with the craft veering off sideways lol... So I had to strip it again to make sure the frame is sturdy.

[alen74]

That's always a good idea. The main thing when making a shuttle is to crash repeatedly to figure out what is needed. In my case, everything happened be balanced for the shuttle to work.

[pa1983]

Well I guess Im cheating then

I use no-clip, not always but during some parts of the build. I started using it after the first Falcon X Jumbo so its not like I need it. But I realized that I knew almost every trick to "clip" with out the no-clip option. Most users have parts clipping even if they dont know it and even if they hate clipping. Squad made clipping harder in 0.19 or something, dont remember the version but before that it was super easy clipping any way.

Most tricks still works with some tweaks but why fiddle with that when you cn use no-clip and save 4 hours of frustration? I only have rules that part should have there own space like engines or intakes etc. Very little overlap allowed. But every one has there own rules.

KissSh0t, have you tried 4 jet engines as I suggested? I think you could get airborne with as little as 4, 6 at the most. There is a fine balance between adding more fuel and more engines.

But if you can climb at 45 degrees from the runway at 50m/s or more you should have enough jets. Make sure you have enough lift to. Remember jets pick up power higher up and also if you cant run them at full trust where they are needed, at 32km altitude the less efficient they are since there trust to wight ratio is poorer compared to fewer once working at max trust. You want to be able to run all of them at full power at 32-33km no throttling down until you get to your target speed and start climbing.

Im pretty sure 4-6 engines can get that bird to 2000m/s.

One turbojet can hull 16-17 tons from the runway and hit 2000m/s at 33km altitude so thats a good estimate on max take off wight. Every tone less then that will give a huge performance boost but that boost is not needed if you cant do anything with it.

Remember if your going to other planets, jets are dead wight so less is more as they say.

But there is a point where two few jets will burn more fuel in tonnage then adding two more jets instead or more fuel. But you will easily notice this. You want to climb at 100m/s max and no lower then 20m/s the first 32km. After that when going for space vertical speed is good.

Other then that your craft looks good and promising. More lift that previously and thats good.

Less engines might seem harder to fly with but its more controllable and in the long run the only way to make the craft efficient enough and one have to get use to horizontal ascent profiles. Right mix of engines is crucial and often overlooked.

Edited September 12, 2013 by pa1983

[KissSh0t]

pa1983 is a naughty cheater.. hohoho~

I didn't really learn about NoClip until after learning how to do things.. so now I'm like.. mmmmm.. I can do that without no clip xD

I haven't really gotten to the flight testing stage yet.. but I was thinking of testing it with 4 jet and 4 aerospikes.. Haven't really decided on the configuration yet.

The drop / parachute deployment works like a charm though... I tested that on the Mk3.

Still testing.. Still building~

I want to see what Exo is doing xD

Edited September 12, 2013 by KissSh0t

[Rune]

kisshot, that is quite... I don't know what adjective to put here without sounding rude . I mean, I use clipping. A lot. In fact, I turn it on as soon as I open KSP to start building. But what you say about "finding ways to do it without clipping" is not really so. You are just taking adantages of bugs in the building UI to clip parts without activating the "cheat" to do so. Same difference. I know, because I used to use the same tricks: taking care with the order in which you add parts, putting them somewhere else and then moving them... The whole list of tricks is quite extensive, but in the end is just a very complicated way of achieving the same thing. Oh, and most KSP players I know consider intake spam using a lot of intakes for a single engine, doesn't matter where or how they are placed, so a 6-1 intake/jet ratio is always going to be intake spam for purists.

So if I and the rest of us are cheating, then I am afraid you are doing so too. Doesn't matter if you put the intakes so each is selectable (which I do mostly out of convienience in setting action groups), or if you put them all in the same attachment point. You don't save weight, you don't save drag, you get the same gameplay as if every one of them was in its own individual strut. Hardly what I consider cheating. And you still have working air intakes submerged in rocket fuel without taking any volume, BTW. Just in case you feel proud or something.

Just a final note. Being able to clip parts is all about more options. It is risky, and inexperienced KSP player will encounter a lot of problems until they learn what works and what doesn't (have you found out what happens when you clip a shielded docking port on a strut and try docking? ). So it only makes sense the programmers try to make a building UI that doesn't let you break the game (as much as they can, of course). But once you know the rules, all it really does is expand the options you have when putting parts together. And for me, more option is always good, it enriches my gaming experience, and you are always free to not use them.

Rune. Cheating is kind of a stupid concept in a single player game anyway.

Edited September 12, 2013 by Rune

[KissSh0t]

One could argue that placing control surfaces inside an aircraft's body is "cheating" how are those control surfaces touching air if they are inside the body of an aircraft?..... I know pa1983 does this, I don't call him a cheater for doing so, it is what he does to get the control for his aircraft that he wants.

I am not saying using no-clip is cheating, it is a means of doing some stuff that otherwise is a bit tricky to do by default. I was stating "intake spam is when you turn on no-clip then place 50 intakes in the exact same spot"...exact same spot... they are not separately selectable like this. This is Intake Spam.

I don't consider building an intake array as intake spam, it is essentially just building a large intake.. Look at the SR-71.. it did not have a tiny little intake and tiny little engine to fly at the high speed and high altitude that it was capable of flying at.. it had a huge air intake and a huge engine..

Do we have Huge Air Intakes and Huge Jet Engines to use in the game without resorting to using mods?

Real aircraft carry fuel in the wings, KSP wings do not, Real Fuel tanks can be shaped how you want inside and outside of an aircraft, KSP fuel tanks cannot... One can argue I am "Cheating" if they wish, my aim is simply to build something "Stock" without "Cheating"... as I said I do not consider using multiple intakes "Cheating" it is simply using parts in the game. It's like trying to say someone is cheating because they are using ten fuel tanks and not one.

Air intakes have a function, We are simply using stock parts in a video game. If you can do it stock, it's just making things in the game using parts in the game.. and that is what I am doing.

[pa1983]

Are the airospikes for landing or getting in to orbit? Two NV-1 should get it to orbit just fine or just add a third one in the rear. I would go for 4 jets and 2 NV-1 and maybe two 909 engines for STOL assisted landing. I land with two arospikes with my 200+ ton spaceplane on Duna (zsure its less when landing there but you know) so two should be more then enough for yours. Dont need 1:1 ratio just enough to lower the decent rate and also remember that you will be lighter and Duna has less gravity so it wont take much to get 1:1 lift to wight ratio. Remember your still using the wings even at lower then normal stall speeds.

[KissSh0t]

Are the airospikes for landing or getting in to orbit? Two NV-1 should get it to orbit just fine or just add a third one in the rear. I would go for 4 jets and 2 NV-1 and maybe two 909 engines for STOL assisted landing. I land with two arospikes with my 200+ ton spaceplane on Duna (zsure its less when landing there but you know) so two should be more then enough for yours. Dont need 1:1 ratio just enough to lower the decent rate and also remember that you will be lighter and Duna has less gravity so it wont take much to get 1:1 lift to wight ratio. Remember your still using the wings even at lower then normal stall speeds.

Was thinking of using the airospikes when up to speed and at altitude to get that little bit of a punch out of atmosphere.. I still can't do what you did with the nuclear engines.... that is so hard to do *__*

[pa1983]

One could argue that placing control surfaces inside an aircraft's body is "cheating" how are those control surfaces touching air if they are inside the body of an aircraft?..... I know pa1983 does this, I don't call him a cheater for doing so, it is what he does to get the control for his aircraft that he wants.

I am not saying using no-clip is cheating, it is a means of doing some stuff that otherwise is a bit tricky to do by default. I was stating "intake spam is when you turn on no-clip then place 50 intakes in the exact same spot"...exact same spot... they are not separately selectable like this. This is Intake Spam.

I don't consider building an intake array as intake spam, it is essentially just building a large intake.. Look at the SR-71.. it did not have a tiny little intake and tiny little engine to fly at the high speed and high altitude that it was capable of flying at.. it had a huge air intake and a huge engine..

Do we have Huge Air Intakes and Huge Jet Engines to use in the game without resorting to using mods?

Real aircraft carry fuel in the wings, KSP wings do not, Real Fuel tanks can be shaped how you want inside and outside of an aircraft, KSP fuel tanks cannot... One can argue I am "Cheating" if they wish, my aim is simply to build something "Stock" without "Cheating"... as I said I do not consider using multiple intakes "Cheating" it is simply using parts in the game. It's like trying to say someone is cheating because they are using ten fuel tanks and not one.

Air intakes have a function, We are simply using stock parts in a video game. If you can do it stock, it's just making things in the game using parts in the game.. and that is what I am doing.

I dont think any one is saying your cheating. You your self where talking about "not" cheating. That statement assumes you think there is a way of cheating.

I personally would say infinite fuel is cheating but only for a challenge just like breaking any other ruel in a challenge is cheating. I use it to test my crafts on the runway. I can try an emergency landing just after take off at maximum tonnage to see how the craft takes that by not consuming any fuel. That way I can take my time and not worry about going to low on the wight to be sure it can take it. That would also help if I refueled before landing some where also. Different reasons to use the developers tools menu.

But in the end its simple. If the game allows it with out hacking the game (changing the code) its not cheating. You cant cheat in a game since the rules are sett by the code and the code was written by the programmer. If the game dose something the devs didn't intend its up to them to fix it, after all it was most likely there fault, not intentionally but what ever they tried to make it probably worked but also did something else. If intake spaming was not intended well having etch intake add to the total was a pretty dumb idea. Even I could figure that out asap and altitude limit or a combination of number of intakes and altitude. Once you have enough intakes more would not mater. Code for that would not be very hard to write.

But if you as a player change the game code then your cheating by definition compared to others. But if that matters is another matter. Multi-player games yes that would be cheating. Single player, well not so much because how cares?

In the end people saying "your cheating" by doing this or that are just dumb. If you cant understand that the game allows for more then two intakes per engine or that landing gears has no mass etc then thats just there "idea" of whats correct and not that they are trying to force up on other's. An Idea is not right nor wrong, even right or wrong is an idea made by humans so in the end its irrelevant. The game dont care, the game runs a defined set of mathematical and logical rules and thats all it cares about not any once personal preference. Most people whining about what is cheating and not seems to have some idea that the computer is bound to reality. But no anything goose in the virtual world and its up to the devs to define the rules with proper coding.

People playing KSP in general have a big problem distinguishing between there personal preferences off what to do and not to do and what the game actually allows one to do.

I have my personal preferences like every part should have its own physical space as close to a 100% as possible with some minor exceptions. But thats my personal preference.

If you cant realize that your personal preferences might not be the same as others then its you how has the problem calling people cheats not the one being called a cheater.

Calling some one a cheater would only be right if they are breaking the rules of a challenge.

Edited September 12, 2013 by pa1983

[pa1983]

Was thinking of using the airospikes when up to speed and at altitude to get that little bit of a punch out of atmosphere.. I still can't do what you did with the nuclear engines.... that is so hard to do *__*

Just get up to 2000m/s at 32-34km and then increase vertical climb to 100m/s or more if possible and throttle down the jets as needed. Takes practice sure. Give it a day.

Having fewer jets usually makes it easier to. Less temperamental on the throttle. Also shutting jets down if possible helps.

EDIT:

And yes having control surfaces on the inside would not work IRL. I could most of the time put them on the outside. One reason I have control surfaces on the inside is because there protected and well looks like crap on the outside. I would not realy have much need of them IF and I say IF KSP's control surfaces where able to be assigned to specific functions. But they are not. Putting control surfaces in the center of an axis is the only way to limit control and well ASAS is crap at being smart so while you might be able to have good pitch control manually asas will oscillate and use all your control surfaces as ailerons or as pitch at once, what ever makes the most sense to it. Problem is that one often losses pitch control or get excessive roll movements. So thats in the end why I have control surfaces inside the craft in the center of the nose and tail. To control pitch and Yaw separately and give them just the right amount of authority to get good response but no oscillation from ASAS.

If you could assign etch control surface a specific function, yaw,roll or pitch it would not be needed realy. Also bigger control surfaces would help big crafts a lot so we dont need so many small. But more esthetically problem and a part count problem.

And some times I put wings inside the fuselage to balance the craft out a bit. Some might think its "wrong" but then any Wing or Fuselage with more then one side facing the same direction, basically any fuselage made of wings or any wing having more then a single layer would be cheating by the same definition. After all the game trys to "imitate" reality, it is "NOT" reality just an illusion of it.

But yes try to put some rudders in the CENTER line of the pod like I did or some Elivators in the center line and you will see that you cant use them for anything else then ruder or pitch manually and ASAS cant either. That way you can give the craft the right authority on etch axis, either its pitch, yaw or roll. Its important for a good craft and you will see as you develop your craft how important for stability it is.

Edited September 12, 2013 by pa1983

[KissSh0t]

I dont think any one is saying your cheating. You your self where talking about "not" cheating. That statement assumes you think there is a way of cheating.

I personally would say infinite fuel is cheating but only for a challenge just like breaking any other ruel in a challenge is cheating. I use it to test my crafts on the runway. I can try an emergency landing just after take off at maximum tonnage to see how the craft takes that by not consuming any fuel. That way I can take my time and not worry about going to low on the wight to be sure it can take it. That would also help if I refueled before landing some where also. Different reasons to use the developers tools menu.

But in the end its simple. If the game allows it with out hacking the game (changing the code) its not cheating. You cant cheat in a game since the rules are sett by the code and the code was written by the programmer. If the game dose something the devs didn't intend its up to them to fix it, after all it was most likely there fault, not intentionally but what ever they tried to make it probably worked but also did something else. If intake spaming was not intended well having etch intake add to the total was a pretty dumb idea. Even I could figure that out asap and altitude limit or a combination of number of intakes and altitude. Once you have enough intakes more would not mater. Code for that would not be very hard to write.

But if you as a player change the game code then your cheating by definition compared to others. But if that matters is another matter. Multi-player games yes that would be cheating. Single player, well not so much because how cares?

In the end people saying "your cheating" by doing this or that are just dumb. If you cant understand that the game allows for more then two intakes per engine or that landing gears has no mass etc then thats just there "idea" of whats correct and not that they are trying to force up on other's. An Idea is not right nor wrong, even right or wrong is an idea made by humans so in the end its irrelevant. The game dont care, the game runs a defined set of mathematical and logical rules and thats all it cares about not any once personal preference. Most people whining about what is cheating and not seems to have some idea that the computer is bound to reality. But no anything goose in the virtual world and its up to the devs to define the rules with proper coding.

People playing KSP in general have a big problem distinguishing between there personal preferences off what to do and not to do and what the game actually allows one to do.

I have my personal preferences like every part should have its own physical space as close to a 100% as possible with some minor exceptions. But thats my personal preference.

If you cant realize that your personal preferences might not be the same as others then its you how has the problem calling people cheats not the one being called a cheater.

Calling some one a cheater would only be right if they are breaking the rules of a challenge.

xD

Edited September 12, 2013 by KissSh0t

[KissSh0t]

Just get up to 2000m/s at 32-34km and then increase vertical climb to 100m/s or more if possible and throttle down the jets as needed. Takes practice sure. Give it a day.

Having fewer jets usually makes it easier to. Less temperamental on the throttle. Also shutting jets down if possible helps.

EDIT:

And yes having control surfaces on the inside would not work IRL. I could most of the time put them on the outside. One reason I have control surfaces on the inside is because there protected and well looks like crap on the outside. I would not realy have much need of them IF and I say IF KSP's control surfaces where able to be assigned to specific functions. But they are not. Putting control surfaces in the center of an axis is the only way to limit control and well ASAS is crap at being smart so while you might be able to have good pitch control manually asas will oscillate and use all your control surfaces as ailerons or as pitch at once, what ever makes the most sense to it. Problem is that one often losses pitch control or get excessive roll movements. So thats in the end why I have control surfaces inside the craft in the center of the nose and tail. To control pitch and Yaw separately and give them just the right amount of authority to get good response but no oscillation from ASAS.

If you could assign etch control surface a specific function, yaw,roll or pitch it would not be needed realy. Also bigger control surfaces would help big crafts a lot so we dont need so many small. But more esthetically problem and a part count problem.

And some times I put wings inside the fuselage to balance the craft out a bit. Some might think its "wrong" but then any Wing or Fuselage with more then one side facing the same direction, basically any fuselage made of wings or any wing having more then a single layer would be cheating by the same definition. After all the game trys to "imitate" reality, it is "NOT" reality just an illusion of it.

But yes try to put some rudders in the CENTER line of the pod like I did or some Elivators in the center line and you will see that you cant use them for anything else then ruder or pitch manually and ASAS cant either. That way you can give the craft the right authority on etch axis, either its pitch, yaw or roll. Its important for a good craft and you will see as you develop your craft how important for stability it is.

Something I would love is more stock wing shapes, more stock flaps.. and More Stock Jet Engines "Different Sizes" and more Intake Types. Black Intakes Why? intakes that match the rest of the craft..

: I

Also.. after burners for Jet Engines.. that would be so cool..

And!! larger landing wheels for aircraft instead of the same dam one size fits all... NO ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL LOL!!1 needs like a heavy duty landing wheels... and one with longer legs.

*cough*

Sorry my wish list.

[Rune]

Yeah, I didn't really want to get into a fight or something. I just thought that you clipping stuff and saying other forms of clipping are cheating, sounded to me as... ¿bigoted? Is that a word, and does it means what I think it does?

Anyhow, to each his own. I myself rarely say someone is doing something cheaty, if ever. If they like to play that way, great, at most I will encourage them to try my way to see if they like it more.

Rune. Which is mostly: if it looks cool, I don't really care how it was put together.

[KissSh0t]

I'm not sure how we come to talking about what is cheating and what is not xD

I was talking about Intake Spam being the use of no-clip to place something like 50 air intakes in the exact same location... I never actually used the word "Cheat" in that regard.

I did jokingly call pa1983 a "Naughty Cheater" though... hahahaha~ He called himself a cheater xDDDDD I'm just playing...

Anyways.. I want to see more Exo crafts..

*edit*

Ughh... I give up... It's too hard Exo this ship is just not working for me.

Edited September 13, 2013 by KissSh0t

[Exothermos]

My big Duna Lifter SSTO added to the OP!

Here is the removed Aurora Post:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aurora SSTO

For a long time I've been trying to create an SSTO that has some of the design cues from the XB-70 Valkyrie. It is a stupefyingly beautiful design in real life, and is one that I felt would lend it's self well to an SSTO conversion in this game. I've finally managed something I'm happy with. It isn't a nuts and bolts recreation of the Valkyrie in SSTO form, as that would essentially be impossible with stock parts (ooh la la, those curves!), but it is one that I hope maintains the "flavor" of the original.

It's a fully capable SSTO with Docking ability, and has enough guts in the upper atmosphere to make the burn up to orbital apoapsis nice and short. You will have plenty of fuel for maneuvers.

Other than that it is really just a Vanity project as it doesn't exactly do much. Just gets 3 kerbals up to orbit. But, man, it looks good doing it

DOWNLOAD Aurora SSTO

[Rysq]

Wow, simply impressive fleet of SSTO's. I cant beleive these are stock !

I've recently built my first reliable 3 man shuttle SSTO, but clearly I'm still an amateur after seeting these. Cant wait to try them.

[Exothermos]

Cool! Let me know if you have any questions on how to fly them.

[Technical Ben]

(In regards to first post).

I just saw a space ship give birth to a rover... um... I've seen everything now.

[Exothermos]

It's definitely a baby only a mothership could love. Tubby, bug eyed, and six Legged!