Leviathan Capital Ship

[Ben 9072]

Hey everyone,

I'm pretty new here, but I've been playing KSP for a while now, so I figured in the spirit of Macey Dean (who is absolutely awesome, if you haven't seen him yet), I'd build my own capital ship.

It ended up being a lot larger than I wanted, mainly because the wing parts I used to make the hangar added a ton of drag in the atmosphere, requiring I keep adding more and more fuel.

Anyway, it has an internal hangar capable of holding one mid-sized ship and up to four smaller ships, plus 6 droids, as well as two large external docking ports. It has a capacity of up to 22 kerbals, not including any that may be in the ships docking inside it. The ship itself has a part count of 771, making it INCREDIBLY laggy/hard to get into orbit. I did get it into orbit - just barely - legitimately, but it lagged to the point that one second in the game lasted about 5 seconds in the real world, making launch attempts very tedious.

I originally named it the Trinity Capital Ship, simply because the entire ship is made out of triangles (three sides) to form a large concave dodecahedron, but I didn't think it fit, so after much consideration, I christened this monster the Leviathan.

Most of the ship is stock parts, though I did use the B9 aerospace for the cockpit and engines, plus KW rocketry for the fuel, plus the Kerbal Attachment System for future ease of refueling, and quantum struts for more stable connections. I believe the batteries also came from the advanced ion engines pack by MMI.

The craft file can be found here: https://www.box.com/s/4yxme8eqhchuaiy09vec

The ship in the SPH (it launches vertically)

Side view

Looking down the hangar entrance

Unsuccessful, yet cool looking orbit attempt

Finally in orbit!

Panels deployed

Whack-a-kerbal

Edited June 29, 2013 by Ben 9072

[Mekan1k]

This gets to orbit????

Wow. Craft Please.

[Ben 9072]

Just barely, but yes, it does. You can't manipulate it much in the atmosphere, so you need to turn on ASAS, fly straight up with jets (you may want to start with rockets to get the boost) until about 20000, switch to rockets, keep flying straight up until you get to about 30,000m, then start your gravity turn. Also, don't exceed 100 m/s below 5000m, 200 m/s below 10000m, and 300m/s below 20000m or it will usually start to tumble (presumably becuase of all the wing parts and is irrecoverable.

I added the .craft file in the original post.

[Mekan1k]

Hold on- this is an SSTO?

Wow.

[entaran]

Hate to say it mate but this isn't [stock], it's [ModCraft]. That's a B9 command pod.

[Nachtwind]

"Most of the ship is stock parts, though I did use the B9 aerospace for the cockpit and engines, plus KW rocketry for the fuel, plus the Kerbal Attachment System for future ease of refueling, and quantum struts for more stable connections."

...so.. would you mind renaming the thread to ModCraft please? Stock is only stock if stockparts are used and ONLY stockparts..

[Ben 9072]

Sorry, I thought I had selected that... XD And yes, it's definitely the largest SSTO I've ever built.

[Lazurkri]

Wow, this is insane.... and you avoided the "Lets put the bridge on the Prow of the ship!" syndrome too. Bridge is still a little exposed, but otherwise its awesome. Certainly beats any of my attempts! good job!

[Ben 9072]

Thanks! I modeled it loosely off of the star destroyers from Star Wars. XD

[MrTaxman]

Thanks! I modeled it loosely off of the star destroyers from Star Wars. XD

I posted something to this effect in your Kertech thread. I'm glad it isn't just me!