Millennium Falcon V.2

[Hahb]

Work in progress. !500 parts. 920 Tons at launch. A real lag monster. The major problem right now is trying to get all the fuel to balance as it's being burned. You can see I used fuel tanks leading to the cockpit. On the other side I have smaller tanks all linked together.

[blurrr 2]

Dis is pretty sweet yo. You could of course hide all the fuel tanks in the middle, and have some other piece (besides the command pod) be the root part.

[Hahb]

I originally wanted to try it that way but I couldn't find anything appropriately sized to run to the cockpit. Maybe I'll look in to some mods and try a 3rd one

[Exothermos]

I think most people have tried building the Millenium Falcon at one point, but few get as far as you have. That is a real achievement.

The falcon has both radial symmetry (best for the VAB) and Bilateral symmetry (left/right mirror, best for the SPH), and to top it off, has an extremely asymmetrical element hanging off one side, which makes ballancing everything pretty much impossible without adding a ton of dead weight as counter ballance on one side. So basically it is a PITA.

This Skeleton is as far as I got on mine before trowing in the towel:

I wanted it to be able to hover off the ground translate into forward motion and then airhog into orbit like a space plane. It sorta hovers (terrifyingly), translates (terrifyingly), and when I skin it in placeholder wings and bodypanels will even almost fly. sorta. It is unbelievably hard keeping the center of mass stable in all three axes to achieve that. Oh well. Someone with more patience will always come along to do it. Hint.

[way2smrt]

How did you get that into orbit? That's must have been near impossible!

[Hahb]

How did you get that into orbit? That's must have been near impossible!

I'm still trying to make orbit. I can get to 90,000M before fuel balance becomes an issue.

I don't think the fuel lines work logically. The x-200-16's and x-200-8's fall together. After that balance is off when fuel is burning from the 32's and 16's that run straight out the sides and thrust puts it in to a spin.

[Zanis]

That looks amazing! Hope you are able to make an orbit with it!

Good Luck!

[Hahb]

That looks amazing! Hope you are able to make an orbit with it!

Good Luck!

I made it \0/. Two jumbo tanks with 1/5 to transfer over then dump. Then I'll send a couple ships up to top her off.

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http://www./?iie7ngc65gsr7ed

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Millennium Falcon: Hey physics, how's it going.

Physics: Go home Millennium Falcon....You're drunk.

Edited June 25, 2013 by Hahb
added download link

[GusTurbo]

This is amazing. Truly amazing.

[128MB]

MOAR! i also tried a go on the falcon but gave up after 3 days XD

[Stone Blue]

If you''ve done your best with tank and fuel line placements, and still have CoG issues, what about trying TAC Fuel Balancer...??....You can set all tanks to balance evenly as you burn....Or you can set tanks to ONLY transfer in or out, or lock them completely until you're ready to use them....

[GusTurbo]

This might be more doable with the new reaction wheels.

[iDan122]

That is really cool and a great job, btw 500 parts isn't a lag monster, not talking about 2000 parts....

[TimeOlord]

Waahhhhhh! This is the most greatest thing in the history of fan builds!

[RSwordsman]

WUTTTT! That Falcon looks legit! I honestly never thought I'd see the day that such a nice-looking Star Wars ship would make orbit in KSP. Congrats!

[ihtoit]

I solved the fuel balance issue without resorting to the autobalancer. Simply put, a small tank with fuel crossfeed hoses connected to and from every other tank. I'd post a video of my SSTO "Poseidon" megalifter which has this system, but I'm currently engaged in another project that's sucking system resources to the point where even my browser barely wants to work.

[Guest]

I am gonna take a stab at the Falcon as well.

[Jivaii]

TAC Fuel Balancer for the CoG on take off, can set all tanks to remain balanced, you can also use EditorTools for the building process, it'll let you swap between SPH/VAB building methods.

Neither one adds parts, so it would still be a stock craft.