Open Source Construction Techniques for Craft Aesthetics

[GusTurbo]

Hi all,

I don't think I have seen anyone post this before so I may be the first.

I really love discovering new tricks in KSP and get a warm fuzzy feeling when people use them! I hope this

can help a few builders as well.

Right, so we all know the stock fairings are horrid to work with. It can be a real pain to end them where you want. I discovered that you can actually close the fairing onto an unattached part!

Make sure the part is very close to inline with the fairing or it wont work. Here is a pic for reference:

http://i61.tinypic.com/2nlbo5h.jpg

I'm certain new and advanced builders will find this useful.

Cheers!!

MJ

That is so cool! How'd you figure that out?

[Majorjim!]

That is so cool! How'd you figure that out?

I discovered it totally by accident! I had the unattached pod as a guide to line up the fairing and low and behold the close fairing icon came up!

I hope it helps someone make something awesome!

[HafCoJoe]

Hi all,

I don't think I have seen anyone post this before so I may be the first.

I really love discovering new tricks in KSP and get a warm fuzzy feeling when people use them! I hope this

can help a few builders as well.

Right, so we all know the stock fairings are horrid to work with. It can be a real pain to end them where you want. I discovered that you can actually close the fairing onto an unattached part!

Make sure the part is very close to inline with the fairing or it wont work. Here is a pic for reference:

http://i61.tinypic.com/2nlbo5h.jpg

I'm certain new and advanced builders will find this useful.

Cheers!!

MJ

O-O That is so awesome you have no idea. Well actually you do but... Omg!

[_jack]

A couple of days ago I created these stock propeller engines.

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Using air intakes and a small rocket fuel tank I was able to make the body of the engine. The propeller itself is made of a Communotron, solar panels, and cubic struts. You could switch out the basic jet engine for the turbo for more power, but the after burner effects on the turbo make it look funny in my opinion.

Download as a subassembly:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8shxw6kd01gotls/AAAz4kPu4IWfxVB5JjTSv9-Ca?dl=0

[YargJay9991]

A couple of days ago I created these stock propeller engines.

http://imgur.com/a/rmKgZ

Using air intakes and a small rocket fuel tank I was able to make the body of the engine. The propeller itself is made of a Communotron, solar panels, and cubic struts. You could switch out the basic jet engine for the turbo for more power, but the after burner effects on the turbo make it look funny in my opinion.

Download as a subassembly:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8shxw6kd01gotls/AAAz4kPu4IWfxVB5JjTSv9-Ca?dl=0

YES!!

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!

This is exactly what I have been looking for.

Old timey bomber replicas here I come!

YargJay9991

[Captain Sierra]

We all like the visuals of the KW fairing bases, but the stock fairings just don't do that. Here's to making them look a bit cooler.

Using a size down of decoupler and two sets of struts (I used 6x for the 2.5-1.25m conversion) with some offsetting, you can create this.

Hope to see some people making slightly less awful stock fairings with this.

[Sampa]

U know what, i still need to learn how to use the stock fairings.

[Yukon0009]

A couple of days ago I created these stock propeller engines.

http://imgur.com/a/rmKgZ

Using air intakes and a small rocket fuel tank I was able to make the body of the engine. The propeller itself is made of a Communotron, solar panels, and cubic struts. You could switch out the basic jet engine for the turbo for more power, but the after burner effects on the turbo make it look funny in my opinion.

Download as a subassembly:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8shxw6kd01gotls/AAAz4kPu4IWfxVB5JjTSv9-Ca?dl=0

So it doesn't spin? Looks cool btw.

[Goddess Bhavani]

U know what, i still need to learn how to use the stock fairings.

Undersized stock fairings can be used as procedural nosecones for payloads one size up. For instance here is a 1.25m fairing in its new employment as a 2.5m procedural nosecone. The space within encloses a docking tower for a space station and some antennae. Below the nosecone is a cupola module required for a contract. The space between nosecone/fairing is filled with a ring of small radiator panels connected to 3 horizontally-positioned radial decouplers that shatter the assembly just like the stock fairings when staged.

Why 3? To prevent occlusion of the cupola's airlock door and access panels painted on the modules' texture.

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The rocket went into space with a 34 ton payload, a self-deploying monolithic space station lab module, with no issues at all.

The lone deployable radiator panel was neatly tucked under the radiator ring that doubled as the fairing extension.

[Zucal]

Make portholes like so.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Zucal

[evader]

I have tried making a ramp for my Frog jump ship version B using airbrakes but the pistons got in the way so only Kerbals could pass through. For version C, I abandoned the ramp for a bunch of retractable ladders where the craft would have to kneel to load & unload. That resulted in a look of an unpressurized cargo bay with the rear cargo doors being invisible to anything that passes through. Finally, in version D, I went for a combination of retractable door & ramp using the DTS-M1 transmitters bound to an action group. Unlike the ladders, the antennas block stuff trying to pass through it until opened. The door is considered stowed so the MK3 cargo bay must be opened to use it. The ramp can be used at any time. This method allows stowed rovers to exit. Entering requires the craft to kneel though.

The down side is that the antenna housings stick out and look ugly. Below is the craft kneeling but the rover drone flipped after entering (what appears to be the left antenna casing is really the rover's shattered 2x3 solar panel).

Aerial para drop of rover (only without the parachute):

Edited August 13, 2015 by evader
bad BB code

[fenya]

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[Majorjim!]

http://imgur.com/a/sbta3

Yup, I've been doing this for an age. I'm happy that it was still working with the Stock fairings. I have spoken to people on here about this tequnique before but i have never seen anyone post it, I'm sure this will help someone, thanks man.

[problemecium]

^ I discovered a caveat to this a while back:

When a strut "forms" after you place the second end point, it will check for the first thing it hits at that exact moment. The result is that if the fairing is "exploded" due to the cursor being near it, the strut will stick to wherever the fairing piece appears (ending up sticking out form the fairing after it closes back up) or missing it entirely and going nowhere or sticking to the scaffolding.

Thus it's best to make sure that the scaffolding extends far enough away from the fairing that the mouse cursor is far enough to not "explode" it when placing the second end point.

[HafCoJoe]

TIL... The fairing techniques you all are posting have been/will come in handy for me.

[Majorjim!]

^ I discovered a caveat to this a while back:

When a strut "forms" after you place the second end point, it will check for the first thing it hits at that exact moment. The result is that if the fairing is "exploded" due to the cursor being near it, the strut will stick to wherever the fairing piece appears (ending up sticking out form the fairing after it closes back up) or missing it entirely and going nowhere or sticking to the scaffolding.

Thus it's best to make sure that the scaffolding extends far enough away from the fairing that the mouse cursor is far enough to not "explode" it when placing the second end point.

There is a bug with this.. Sometimes the sruts will not disengage when the fairing does.. It's odd and could possibly be fixed by reload/exiting but you should'nt have to do this. A better method, if possible would be to strut from the payload to the base.

Can someone confirm this 'bug'?

[sal_vager]

We all know we can secure our cargo by putting a strut from the end of our payload to the bay wall, usually one single strut is enough and as it's in the bay it isn't adding to drag.

That's only good for taking cargo up though, as you can't place struts in space (unless you mod).

So when we have an object we want to recover from orbit we're faced with a problem, we can't fit a strut and the docking clamp is not strong enough, so the payload sags and sticks out the bottom of our cargo bay.

This doesn't look very nice.

But, wheels are separate parts, so a small wheel in the floor of the bay will act as a stop, preventing the payload from moving through it.

This works best with the LV05 and LV-01, for best results the wheels should be placed on another part, such as an I-beam which is attached to whatever you have capping your cargobay, or just offset inwards from that other part, this trick doesn't work if the wheels are attached to the bay itself.

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Yep that's a full orange tank on a dinky docking port, it's still supported even if the bay is closed and reopened, if the wheel was attached to the cargobay it'd lose it's ability to support the Jumbo-64 when the cargobay was closed.

[Majorjim!]

We all know we can secure our cargo by putting a strut from the end of our payload to the bay wall, usually one single strut is enough and as it's in the bay it isn't adding to drag.

That's only good for taking cargo up though, as you can't place struts in space (unless you mod).

So when we have an object we want to recover from orbit we're faced with a problem, we can't fit a strut and the docking clamp is not strong enough, so the payload sags and sticks out the bottom of our cargo bay.

This doesn't look very nice.

But, wheels are separate parts, so a small wheel in the floor of the bay will act as a stop, preventing the payload from moving through it.

This works best with the LV05 and LV-01, for best results the wheels should be placed on another part, such as an I-beam which is attached to whatever you have capping your cargobay, or just offset inwards from that other part, this trick doesn't work if the wheels are attached to the bay itself.

http://imgur.com/a/g03FS

Yep that's a full orange tank on a dinky docking port, it's still supported even if the bay is closed and reopened, if the wheel was attached to the cargobay it'd lose it's ability to support the Jumbo-64 when the cargobay was closed.

That's a good trick Sal. The problem with that is its only secure on one side so its just sitting on the wheel. It is still free to clip through the cargo bay doors. Unless parts don't clip through the doors. I'm fairly sure it does though.

Also can anyone confirm that the struts sometimes don't detach when the fairing does?

[sal_vager]

It's a proof of concept, you can add more wheels to support the sides if needed, and you can use retracting wheels for the top, though if you are re-entering inverted with a heavy payload you'd plan for this and have your cargo doors open downwards.

Also, this thread is not for discussion of bugs, please stay on topic here and post to the proper forum regarding support issues.

[problemecium]

Sometimes the sruts will not disengage when the fairing does.

Indeed, they do not (ever in my experience). The case seems to be that the struts are connecting to the fairing base plate itself, because apparently while they do have colliders the sides don't count as parts (in which case this is not, in fact, a bug, but rather a simplification in programming). Thus the struts will remain visible and continue to function even if the fairing has been opened, until the payload physically detaches from the fairing base (decouples or undocks). Admittedly this hurts realism a smidgen, but I can't say it isn't convenient.

[WooDzor]

http://imgur.com/a/sbta3

Wow, and there was me building rods inside the fairing to connect my payload to

[Aegeas]

^ I discovered a caveat to this a while back:

When a strut "forms" after you place the second end point, it will check for the first thing it hits at that exact moment. The result is that if the fairing is "exploded" due to the cursor being near it, the strut will stick to wherever the fairing piece appears (ending up sticking out form the fairing after it closes back up) or missing it entirely and going nowhere or sticking to the scaffolding.

Thus it's best to make sure that the scaffolding extends far enough away from the fairing that the mouse cursor is far enough to not "explode" it when placing the second end point.

Just a quick bit to add on strut behavior in the vab/sph, I've noticed that when you undo (ctrl+z) in the vab/sph it recalculates the strut (most of the time), so if you have changed a part and it has broken the struts (eg the no longer have the second node) try deleting any part on your ship then doing an 'undo' and it should redo all your struts.

[Majorjim!]

Just a quick bit to add on strut behavior in the vab/sph, I've noticed that when you undo (ctrl+z) in the vab/sph it recalculates the strut (most of the time), so if you have changed a part and it has broken the struts (eg the no longer have the second node) try deleting any part on your ship then doing an 'undo' and it should redo all your struts.

'should' being the important word there. They very often do not reattach and moreover, using crtl+z can cause bugs in the craft file, use it sparingly.

I find a safer method is to just reattach the by hand.

[Sharkman Briton]

Found this on Reddit, it's awesome.

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[Majorjim!]

Found this on Reddit, it's awesome. http://imgur.com/a/MDSUq

Ha!

I uploaded these pics to steam nearly a year ago! I never did make anything with it. It could be great for something though.

I think I was using editor tools so I just activated surface attach instead of using a cubic strut as Mr Reddit did.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Majorjim