Round-trip ships.

[Yalin Hawk]

I'm waiting to post my design until after it completes its shakedown cruise to duna. Should have more than enough Dv to deliver the test cargo of station, ground base, rovers, and a kethane satellite. Might include a solar plane...hmmm...

[diegzumillo]

This is a great idea! I've been bored with ksp for a while now so basically I'm just waiting for updated versions with something else for me to do. But making a one design for all is a hell of a challenge, it certainly sparkled that excitement feeling I had before.

Your designs are great, by the way. And thanks for the inspiration

[ApocSurvivor713]

Here's my contribution, the Munbus.

This is its first time in use. It's a fully reusable personnel shuttle designed to take crews to and back from large Mun or Minmus bases. A small caveat: at the time of its design, I had no large Mun bases. Certainly no Minmus bases, of any size. So the ship waited, perfectly functional, but with no task at hand. Until now. After hearing that .21 would break saves, I realized I had an unprecedented tast at hand. I had 20 Kerbals scattered around the Kerbin system. 8 on or orbiting the Mun, and 12 in stations orbiting Kerbin. I had put them all there, but now I had to bring them back. What vehicle could I use for this task? I scoured my craft folder, looking for vehicles capable of performing at least some of the required rescues. Then I spotted the Munbus. I created a simple ascent stage and launched it off, after checking to make sure everything was there. Even after loosing one of its six booster columns, it made it to orbit. I set off immediately to rescue the Kerbals in my Munar research station. I had enough fuel to reach Munar orbit, dock with the station, and return to LKO. Heck, I probably could have done it five or six times before running out of fuel. After returning to LKO, I refueled, offloaded the station crew, and set off to test the Munbus's landing capabilities, rescuing the crew of my small temporary Mun base. I was able to rescue the crew and return to LKO, but by this time was running on fumes. I still need to offload the Munbus's crew and rescue the station crew, but now the hard part is done. Here's the an album of the station rescue, and I'll add a link to the Mun base rescue later tonight.

[Oddbin]

That's a nice munbus. How stable is it landing on Mun?

[Lewiskerbington]

Great idea for a thread! All the awesome designs gave me a awesome idea for a round trip duna mission with a lander for both ike and duna. Currently on vacation for another two weeks (going through withdrawl) so I'll post my ship when I get back to playing KSP.

[Yalin Hawk]

Okay so here's my post, the Intrepid, my space agency's first attempt at a truly reusable round trip vessel for exploring the Kerbol system. Her test mission to Duna went relatively well, but exposed some flaws in her design which is leading me to redesigning her engineering spaces. The test payload included 4 Kethane/Ore probes, a station core for deployment over duna, and a permanent Duna base equipped with two small rovers.

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The ship came home with something like 8k delta V left, so I'd say she is more than capable of delivering considerable payload to most locations. The issue I have with the current engine configuration is a wobble that necessitated emergency quantum strutting. The B9 3.75m -> 2.5m adapters aren't the strongest parts ever made, so in the next version there will be struts helping to secure them.

Oh, by the way, the part count wasn't horrible either. Kept it as low as possible and my computer didn't have to slow down at all to run it smoothly. Which is a huge plus with big ships. The key is to use the largest parts you can afford, hence 4x 3.75m tanks instead of 8x 2.5m tanks.

[Vanamonde]

Well, I had a good day. I didn't think my ship could make a Moho roundtrip, but since nothing's going to carry over to 21, I had nothing to lose by trying. So I loaded up my standard test payload of a station, 2 small rovers, and 2 satellites, and set out.

The mid-course plane-change manuever cost about 2/3rds as much delta-V as the transit burn, but I did achieve an intercept.

I deployed the station,

an equatorial and a polar rover,

and two mapping satellites,

but was then unnervingly low on fuel. But I gave it a shot, and what do you know, brought the ship home! But look at that fuel state!

I achieved an eccentric orbit and can reach the ship with refuelling tankers, but couldn't circularize the orbit. But I brought the boys home, and now know that there are no worlds in the game I can not reach with fully re-useable ships.

[Ozzallos]

Best I've done so far. Going to add some fuel to the broadside clamps and tow a lander on the aft clamp. Still needs a bit of refinement, but I' pretty happy with it otherwise. It was a such a struggle to get it into orbit that it actually hasn't left yet

The inlets are for... um, hydrogen Bussard ram scoops for the nuclear drive. Yeah.

I christen thee, the Starlight Breaker

Edited July 12, 2013 by Ozzallos

[Umlüx]

this was my first ship, the bilkis. i visited duna and ike and had one full tank fuel left when i returned home. it consists of 3 modules (5 dockings). engine section with 7 atomic rockets, habitation and command module with 2 probes and a little space tug, and a heavy lander.

and this is my second try, the rhea. bigger, more engines, more probes and a lander with a rover. i am planning on sending it to the jool system.

[apoch1999]

ok guys..i ALWAYS end up shaking my ships apart when i thrust to other planets..even with only nuclear engines..any tips on makeing them more stable or how to fly the big things?

[Vanamonde]

Post some pictures.

[apoch1999]

Post some pictures.

this was my first one...sad sad attempt i know

this was my second..made to be able to dock other stuff to it after it was at destination. flew it like you see it.

[AmpsterMan]

I've been wanting to do this for some time. I think it is going to be the goal of my next Duna mission. I have a house rule that LV-Ns can't burn up in Kerbin's atmosphere so I have to either

A. Find a way to get to Duna on chemical rockets (which I don't imagine will be too difficult with docking)

B. Build a completely reusable Spaceship (I want to do this one)

I'll post here if I get any where with it.

[Vanamonde]

apoch1999, I suspect that on that first ship, the shaking is due to oscillations of those side-mounted masses, and on the second one, a long ship naturally flexes. Try applying thrust by gradual increments, or re-designing so that the docked sub-ships are aligned parallel to the main fuselage (first ship), or (second ship) move some of the masses to parallel assemblies which can reinforce each other with struts. And although those may be NERVA engines, they don't appear to be stock and may just have too much thrust and gimballing power for large ships of elaborate layout.

[TheAndrewTaco]

apoch1999, I suspect that on that first ship, the shaking is due to oscillations of those side-mounted masses, and on the second one, a long ship naturally flexes. Try applying thrust by gradual increments, or re-designing so that the docked sub-ships are aligned parallel to the main fuselage (first ship), or (second ship) move some of the masses to parallel assemblies which can reinforce each other with struts. And although those may be NERVA engines, they don't appear to be stock and may just have too much thrust and gimballing power for large ships of elaborate layout.

In addition to what Vanamonde says, also try to design your ships with the engines farther forward so that the ship is being pulled rather than pushed. It greatly increases the stability.

[WooDzor]

My Hyena I and II (2 launches combined into 1 interplanetary ship) no dV calculations so I ran out of fuel at Duna :-/

my solution to just fly back the command module on top of the interplanetary stage..quite silly in retrospect..

So there.. my slightly modified Springbok V (just banged on a couple of parachutes) on Duna 8-)

[eran100]

All of this are awsome, but too bad no one gave a craft flie

[Oddbin]

Think of this thread as inspiration to make your own one.

[Spartwo]

It will be stock in .21

[ioftd]

Here's my latest interplanetary ship the KSS Dauntless, I have been trying to refine the tug configuration with engines in the front and this is my most successful (and best looking) attempt so far.

Here's an imgur album with more pictures and description : http://imgur.com/a/EWuoF

edit: Just realized this thread has the [stock] tag and this is definitely not stock, but I'm proud of it so I'll leave it here anyways...

Edited July 19, 2013 by ioftd

[Eternal President of NK]

Tried something just like this recently, was more of a ship and less of a rocket. Was one of my better ideas because it’s a very rewarding project – really pulled me back into this game.

My ship doesn’t have the same range and much less cargo capability as your newest designs (failed to return from Jool without a helping hand from a tanker, my guess is it is comparable to your 4th design) It also needs a mod called TAC fuel in order to function as intended by allowing a passive transfer of fuel through two docking ports (I did want to make a stock ship, when tested on the ground the fuel transferred over fine…) It's also quite small but still able to drop a lander. I also wanted to minimize the number of docks needed prior to a flight.

The ship launches in two parts (the fuel is a separate module) then assembles in orbit. Once it gets back to kerbin the fuel supply can be completely swapped out and the empty tank thrown away. I thought this was a cool idea since tanks of differing sizes could be attached depending on the range of the flight. I am already designing new stations and tankers to support it.

Next I’m thinking of making the ship able to land in low gravity planets, it will either be small enough or explode nicely.

There a couple of pics here: http://i.imgur.com/NHJ8up5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0S8Uenu.png

Edited July 20, 2013 by Aphox
I've taken the liberty of reuploading your shots to a place that doesn't spam our users with porn ads.

[Vanamonde]

While waiting for 21, I gave myself the project of improving the design of my short-range interplanetary ship (the one that can reach Eve, Duna and Dres). The first version was assembled from 11 launches and had a part count of 192:

But the new version

has a part count of only 84, and launches as one piece!

Kerbal science marches on!

[comiquaze]

Vanamonde, I shamelessly copied your design since I couldn't make my giant space tug contraption to work.

However, my part count is a little bit higher than yours and I'm unable to get it into orbit. I end up in space, not in an orbit with no fuel at all.

How do you do it?

[Vanamonde]

comiquaze, the launch vehicle needs Mainsails to get the mass off of the ground, but they aren't very fuel efficient. So after they've lofted the ship to orbital altitude, I use the right-click menu to pump the fuel remaining in the boosters into the ship itself, eject the boosters, then complete orbital insertion on the fuel-efficient LV-Ns of the ship. It does reach orbit with almost no fuel remaining and needing refueling, but I think that's a better choice than trying to make the launch vehicle even larger.

[Immashift]

Man you guys always have such elegant looking ships.

Personally I'm looking for a way to REATTACH a rover to a lander. I'm a heavy mod user and I can do it with Damned Robotics, but it looks ugly most of the time and take too much space.

Wondered if you guys had any cool designs for a rover that can reattach to be taken somewhere else. Putting ports very close height wise works till you have uneven terrain, and squatting the lander by retracting the gear can damage a tiny rover.

I haven't seen any docking ports that can extend manually any decent distance. Perhaps I'm missing a mod or somthing I should be using.

I saw someone here using the KAS to do it, wondering if it actually sticks all the way back into space.