Better Stock Crafts

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

Hello all! A while ago I was browsing this thread and realized how many of the stock crafts simply don't seem good. While some are extremely useful and serve as good first steps to making workable designs, many are hard to use or simply don't fit with the structure of the game. So I decided, following the brilliant idea formulated by patrickcanttype, to make a community challenge that would update or replace stock crafts to make them better examples of efficient construction techniques.

How will this work?

Quite simply: Each week or so I will open a submission for a certain type of 'stock' craft and provide an existing official stock craft to replace. At the end of submissions, the forum community will vote on the best craft. Once the winner has been selected, they will receive bragging rights /a special thank-you/ anything else I can come up with.

Important: I am changing the rules. Once we have accumulated at least eight craft we will open voting. This is to prevent voters from being hung up on the number of potential choices.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

1. Make it SIMPLE, SAFE (relatively), and EASY to use. In most cases the stock crafts are used by newbies attempting to learn the controls better, so ease of use is a major factor.

2. Make it a good example to emulate. Use sensible design techniques and make it strong and reliable!

3a. Crafts must be compatible with current version of KSP.

3b. Crafts may not contain mods. This is a stock challenge, after all!

4. (IMPORTANT) Submit the right type of craft for the right week. Don't show us a spaceplane when we are looking for a lander! If you do, your submission will not be considered!

5. Follow all of the SPECIFIC submission guidelines for the type of craft that is eligible this week!

6. Put some pictures or a video to show or describe your craft.

VOTING GUIDELINES:

1. Vote for the craft you feel best fits the guidelines. Vote for the safest, most practical crafts!

2. Don't vote for your own craft.

With that in mind:

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY:

Long-Distance Probe! Make an interplanetary probe that is small and efficient. Should have high Delta-V!

Replaces: Ion-Powered Space Probe

SUBMISSIONS:

SkyRender's "Deep Space Probe"

stupid_chris's "Ion Probe Replacement"

Giggleplex777's "Ion Propelled Probe"

ZingidyZongXXX's "Space Probe A"

ThePsuedoMonkey's "HybrIon Probe"

Grim187's Ion Probe series

Spartwo's "Interstellar Probe Mk3"

Flixxbeatz' "Ion Maiden"

maro's "maro-technoir DSM"

Francesco's "IonCross DSP"

Captain Sierra's (untitled)

Leaderboards:

____________________

Long-Distance Probe:

1.

2.

3.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Bob's Guardian Angel

[Whackjob]

Why should the probe have high delta V? You don't need that if you have time. And given the jouney probes oft have to make, time is the one thing you have most of.

So I'd say efficience is more important than delta-v.

[SkyRender]

Here's my entry.

It's fairly lightweight (gets 4374 dV according to a quick check with Kerbal Engineer Redux), and features enough solar panels to run at full throttle in direct sunlight uninterrupted. Action groups: 1 deploys the scientific instrumentation and antenna, 2 deploys the solar panels.

Comes with a full-size launch stage with an excess of 4200 dV at sea level (enough to get into orbit with fuel to spare if done perfectly, and certainly enough for a less-than-perfect launch to still reach stable orbit). Staging is kept simple so the player won't get caught off-guard: the engine fires first (meaning if they forgot to throttle up they won't smash into the launchpad), then the clamps, and the decoupler and ion engine are on separate stages too to prevent accidental unwanted thrusting.

EDIT: Here's the .craft file.

Edited July 14, 2013 by SkyRender

[stupid_chris]

Alright, I gave it a shot too:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Reliable, simple, efficient, maneuverable, packs a big bunch of delta V, simple to use, and very forgiving to errors. Sounds like what a stock craft should be like to me.

It's also good looking (well at least to me), I guess that's important too.

Download

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

Thank you sirs! These look good and I will test if they are easy to use. Voting will begin Friday.

[Giggleplex777]

Over-engineering to the max.

Testing it with hack gravity.

The probe has about 4300m/s of delta-v and features a solar panel array that, as long as the truss (where the panels are connected) is within about 40 degrees of being parallel of the sun, can power the ion engine at full throttle. As long as it is within that range, the space probe can rotate to any angle along the axis that is perpendicular to the truss. It is very easy to get to orbit and has lots of Sepratrons to ensure that the jettisoned parts fly far away from the spacecraft.

Features:

• SRB first stage - loud and fun
  
• RCS for eaiser control
  
• Lots of Sepratrons
  
• Cool-looking solar arrays
  
• Lots of delta-v
  
• A RTG in case you get to deploy the panels and for night time
  
• Includes all four scientific instruments
  
• Easy to fly and forgiving

Action groups:

1: Toggle Panels

2: Open communotron

Download: http://www./download/gs6jut0ibni6nxs/Ion_Propelled_Probe.craft

Edited July 15, 2013 by Giggleplex777

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

Added all submissions to the OP.

Great work already!

[SRV Ron]

Here's my entry.

EDIT: Here's the .craft file.

Made two changes to your design;

1. Replaced the LV-30 main engine with an LV-45. Reason, much too difficult to control the gravity turn. The LV-45 behaved under ASAS and stayed right on the 90^ course.

2. Split the fuel tank assembly at the T-400 tank and added a LV-909 and decoupler. Reason, to ditch the extra dead weight for fuel savings. Higher delta V to escape velocity.

Results, saved enough fuel upon launch to place into Mun encounter. First stage got me to near apogee at an ideal gravity turn, second stage placed me into a 100k circular orbit with 48 units of fuel to spare for the Mun insertion.

BTY, the ion engine on your super light probe is very responsive to tweaking paths at very low thrust settings. Good basic design. Nice and simple for deep space exploration. Now, to test how long the ion fuel last for deep space exploration.

Edited July 14, 2013 by SRV Ron

[ZingidyZongxxx]

My entry:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

It isn't very pretty, but it's easy to use and has a ton of DV. Hope you liked it!

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

Pretty is not necessary. Small and easy to use is GOOD!

[Spartwo]

It is doing a sundive burn at the moment with 5500m/s of d/v

they both have rtgs,2 has asas,1 was an adapion of stock which can run full throttle out to eeloo

#1http://www./download/4koem5i4re5tab9/Ion-Powered_Space_Probe_mk2.craft

Edited July 20, 2013 by Spartwo

[Giggleplex777]

I think a good thing to account for while building these is the TWR of the ion stage. New players probably don't have the patience to sit there for half an hour to complete a burn. Adding more fuel and as a result delta-v is not as good you think it is. More solar panels and RTGs will have drawbacks too.

Edited July 15, 2013 by Giggleplex777

[SkyRender]

I think a good thing to account for while building these is the TWR of the ion stage. New players probably don't have the patience to sit there for half an hour to complete a burn. Adding more fuel and as a result delta-v is not as good you think it is.

That was part of my reasoning in designing my own entry. It has a single xenon tank and is ultralight, meaning it gets pretty much the highest practical speed you can get (especially since its solar array is big enough to let it fire full-throttle the entire time).

[Grim187]

Hybrid Interplanetary Communications and Sensing Ion Probe

MicroIonProbe (MiIP)

Download: Mark I, w/Delivery - Mark III, w/Delivery - Mark VI, w/Delivery

Info:

(delivery) watch the orange tank, when it depletes activate the next stage to drop it, I used asparagus staging and if you are efficient enough you can make it to duna intercept before using ion.

Action Groups;

Lights: Toggle Solar Panels.

Gears: Toggle Communications.

1 - All Ion Engines Active.

2 - Half Ion Engines Active.

3 - Nuclear Engine and All Ion Engines Active.

4 - Nuclear Engine and Half Ion Engines Active.

5 - Nuclear Engine Only.

.

.

8 - Toggle 4th Stage Gimble *

9 - Toggle 3rd Stage Gimble *

0 - Decouple Nuclear Stage.

(* = w/Delivery only)

---

HICaSIP Mini

Download;

Mark II, w/Delivery

Info:

(delivery) on the 3rd stage i added a probe so you can do a retro burn and bring it back, it has limited electricity so do this right after separation.

Action Groups;

Lights: Toggle Solar Panels.

Gears: Toggle Communications.

1 - All Ion Engines Active.

2 - Half +1 Ion Engines Active.

3 - 1 Ion Engine Active

4 - Nuclear Engine and All -1 Ion Engines Active.

5 - Nuclear Engine and Half -1 Ion Engines Active.

6 - Nuclear Engine Only.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Grim187

[ZingidyZongxxx]

I think a good thing to account for while building these is the TWR of the ion stage. New players probably don't have the patience to sit there for half an hour to complete a burn. Adding more fuel and as a result delta-v is not as good you think it is.

Xenon tanks actually don't make a huge difference. The main thing that causes acceleration to be low is solar panels. I think the main trick in getting an ion powered probe to have reasonable acceleration would be finding a perfect combination of solar panels so that you could run the probe at full power without adding much mass.

[SRV Ron]

Xenon tanks actually don't make a huge difference. The main thing that causes acceleration to be low is solar panels. I think the main trick in getting an ion powered probe to have reasonable acceleration would be finding a perfect combination of solar panels so that you could run the probe at full power without adding much mass.

Ran into that problem with the submitted probe I tested. While I got escape velocity by modifying the launch rocket to two stage with no additional fuel, additional ion fuel is needed such as three tanks for long range. Still got escape velocity even with the added ion fuel on board. Anyhow, the problem encountered was not the 25 minute burn needed for an Eve encounter, it was the fact that there were not enough solar cells for extended full power burn. batteries were drained after 3 minutes of full power burn for Eve.

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

Meet the

HybrIon Probe

Since my reasoning is to give ideas to new players on building craft without just handing out a perfect one, this little guy demonstrates clipping two big batteries inside a few octagonal struts (so that they do not obstruct solar panels) as well as the benefit of combining different engines. The sepratrons reduce the tedium of ion engines by giving an 175m/s boost to speed when it is most needed (they add ~70m/s to total dV if fired at the start, but actually reduce total dV by 750 if fired after all Xenon is used up), which eliminates one or two periapsis kicks. The gear action group toggles solar panels, the Ion, and the instruments, while the brakes group activates the antennae. The batteries give at least 51.8s of full ion burn when in Kerbin shadow at 100km, and 88.9s in Kerbin sunlight.

It has room for improvement, but has a nice balance to it: there are intentionally neither RTGs (a trio of Ox-Stats prevents dying from lack of electricity) nor a launch vehicle. It sports a conservative number of solar panels, which allows for a maximum of 5.1km/s of dV while keeping the mass under 3/4T (for an acceleration of 0.67m/s²), the part count at 25, and a respectable 1/3 cruising throttle. Cheers!

Edited July 15, 2013 by ThePsuedoMonkey

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

Thanks everyone for submitting designs. Also, Grim, which of those designs were you planning to submit?

[Spartwo]

what of my submission?

[Giggleplex777]

What do you mean by "safe"?

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

what of my submission?

I added it. Sorry, can only check back once in a while!

[Bob's Guardian Angel]

What do you mean by "safe"?

General commonsense items like parachutes, etc. It is a little open to interpretation but generally it means any way to decrease the chances of perishing in a fireball.

[Giggleplex777]

I think there should be a new type of craft every two days or so, or maybe multiple types of crafts a week. At the current rate we wouldn't be able to get through 15 crafts until October 28!

General commonsense items like parachutes' date=' etc. It is a little open to interpretation but generally it means any way to decrease the chances of perishing in a fireball.

[/quote']

I think that should only apply to manned crafts.

For unmanned crafts I think it should be the chance of collision between parts during stage separation (promoting the use of Sepratrons).

Edited July 15, 2013 by Giggleplex777

[Flixxbeatz]

Behold, the

[maro]

Hello

My entry for the „Long Distance Probe“ named "maro-technoir DSM" (Deep Space Micro)

probe has

• 567kg
  
• 5.429m/s Delta-V
  

• all four Sensors
  
• four fixed and four expanding solar panels
  
• one 88-88-type and two 16-type communotrons
  
• two battery packs
  
• xenon tank
  
• ion engine
  

Main failsafe feature are the fixed solar arrays angled in a way to ensure power by sunlight from any direction – even one forgets to drive out the expanding panels initially the probe will keep working as long as in sunlite or when it comes back into it.

Depending on sun direction one can run 40-50% sustained power.

Edited July 15, 2013 by maro