Open Source Construction Techniques for Craft Aesthetics

[Servo]

I just want to contribute a new technique that I'm exploring. In the interest of keeping craft color palates constant, consider two main "part-sets" for keeping stuff monochromatic, plus some accent colors:

Light: White fairings, radiators (static)

Standard: Jet fuel tanks/Structural fuselages, wings, airbrakes, landing gear, ladders, solar panels (stowable), Inline Clamp-o-trons, air intakes, backs of radial air intakes. RCS balls. The rectangular prism probe core.

Blue: Solar panels, gravioli detectors - warning: they are not the same color blue

Dark Grey/Back: Backs of small fuel cells, backs of deployable communatrons, ore tanks

Medium Grey: Large Fuel Cell backs, solar panel backs, I-beams, atmospheric spectro-variometer backs, structural panels. Small LFO tanks. Thermometer backs.

A lot of what I've been exploring recently is the uses of the last couple items in each list. They really allow you to get creative and attempt to eke out that last bit of detail in a craft.

 

That seems pretty obvious, but I want to narrow in on on item - landing gear. 

Here, a trio of extra-large landing gear form the bulge of the lift fan on a F-35. This may seem a really niche role, but look around and I gurantee you'll find places for these extremely usefully shaped parts. Another interesting aspect is on display here - the grey tips. Look how it blends into the cockpit area.

Here, the tips form the nose of the F/A-18, allowing me to sculpt the Hornet's uniquely shaped nose. Another fun trick - lay radial inline scoops side-by-side and flip them around to make a small but long part with a standard color. For use where elevons will look bad and wings won't fit. 

Now you might chalk this trick up as a different way to make noses and bizarre bulges, but that's overlooking the fact that the larger gear are flat on top. That allows for creating some very interesting geometry - for example: the intake duct on the Dassault Rafale, captured with two radial air intakes, an extra-large gear, and then three large gear.

 

Another useful note - landing gear don't have any noticeable lift, so you can angle them in ways that you really couldn't with wings and have good aerodynamic performance. Here, I combine two large and an extra large intake to form the cockpit bulge on a F-22 Raptor. Also, take a look at the nose - it's crafted with two medium gear and three radial intakes.

One final trick and a half: Capping ends and embracing highlights. I was trying to finish this shape here on the F-22 again, using radial air intakes to sandwich wing panels and create smooth body panels, but I couldn't figure out how to cleanly transition to the end, when I tried adding the small landing gear you see here. The gear were too small to cover the black intake ending (medium gear were too large), so rather than abandon the idea, I tried to incorporate the chevrons into the design by lining up the ends of the intakes as best I could.

 

I hope this inspires a couple of you to look at some of your parts differently!

[Triop]

[Triop]

[Triop]

[vitekc45c]

Fairings can be used as structural girders:

Place fairing base, reduce all fairing paramaters to minimum, disable staging and enable interstage nodes and struts.

Copy the fairing base and set the copy aside, disable interstage nodes, attach the fairing copy using its interstage nodes to the first fairing base (dont forget to rotate it by 90°).

Disable interstage nodes of the second fairing and enable them on the first one, now attach part of your choosing to the interstage node and offset it away from the base of the second fairing (you can now disable interstage nodes on first fairing too).

[Aeroboi]

Increase front section heat resistance.

I have been working on a efficient Eve ascent vehicle and I was trying to find a way to achieve a specific end goal and through enough testing I succeeded.

I tried to find any way if I could make the front sections of my vessel more heat resistant so I could allow myself a sharper and faster gravity turn to minimize the Delta-V requirement for a Eve ascent.

It turns out if I attach a normal heatshield (0.625m is all that is required) and then move it outside of the fairing I can drastically increase heat resistance. Of course this turns out to create a lot of drag, however, if you rotate the heatshield vertically it still works and you have none of the drag penalty.
In my testing I tried to accelerate a 2.5m stack vessel with a 2.5m fairing on top with 2 vertically rotated heatshields sticking outside the top. I did a speedrun at 500 ASL and without the heatshield trick the fairing and the rest of the vessel would explode just under 1800m/s.

With the fairings though I could hit just about 2000m/s before exploding.

This is how it should look like.

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by Aeroboi

[Aeroboi]

And another one

Let's suppose you want the same fairing shape on all your vessels. You cannot save fairing shapes as subassembly now can you? Maybe not how you'd expect but in fact you CAN!

Although it does require you to rebuild the fairing each time.

Then reattach the fairing base to any node you want it then build the fairing towards the segment markers (rcs ports) then remove the rcs ports afterwards. I copied several fairings and each of them looked identical and had the same dimensions in the engineers report.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Aeroboi

[Foxster]

You can do some lightweight stuff with fairings so that heatshields work but have zero drag by having a fairing pass up through them...

Not forgetting to set ablator to zero. 

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by Foxster

[Lapis]

It's kind of obvious but you can use vectors to build asymmetrical rockets(with only one srb) to make a rocket like this :

 

It feels nice and new. and if you angle the booster right it won't effect steering

 

Edited December 20, 2018 by lapis

[Servo]

I've been building a B-2, and needed a good way to make a simple bomb bay with a flat bottom. Of note, @HB Stratos used a variant of this technique on his TSR-2, but I didn't realize it at the time I built this craft.

The trick is remarkably simple, and relies on clipping two cargo bays into each other, and combining the two flat sections on the Mk2 body. A cross section is below

[SecondChance]

This is super basic and may have already come up but, I thought I'd share, The RA-2 relay can be clipped nicely into a lv-N! 

[Castille7]

Today, after years of being on the Forum, is my first post on this Thread. I see new ideas popping up on the Craft being shared and often wonder where these ideas are coming from. I would think many come from sharing ideas here so I will be following this Thread starting today. Edit: (Went back one page and saw 2017, I guess it's a little quite on here )

Here is an idea for what I think is a first of it's kind for a Stock Landing Gear with a new look.

GIF: https://i.imgur.com/VL7OMBk.mp4

Edited May 13, 2019 by Castille7

[Castille7]

This one isn't running as smooth as I would like, but it is working. I am in the process of smoothing the function. I am calling these long Tubes I made that act like rails Slide Tubes. Don't know if there would even be a proper name for it? They are also acting as a Slide Rail for the Door.

This is for a Garage Door that I am working on.

[klond]

On 5/18/2019 at 2:45 PM, Castille7 said:

This is for a Garage Door that I am working on.

 Lookin good my friend.

 

 'Been working on a robotics car but I don't just wanna slap a motor on each wheel, I need something more, so I'm fiddling with driveshafts and 4wd and crap.  I got to this point and figured someone, somewhere will want speed and power at a right angle in a small package without craft separation.

 There's 5 sets of u-joints at 18degrees for 90degrees total.  4 and 3 sets are possible for lower parts count, but janky-ness increases.  2 sets at 45degrees doesn't work well.  A 6th set changes the total angle from 18 to 15 and that didn't seem worth it, so here we are at 5.

Edited June 17, 2019 by klond

[Triop]

On 6/17/2019 at 2:37 AM, klond said:

so I'm fiddling with driveshafts and 4wd and crap.

Fantastic, will you also work on a steering system ?

[Triop]

HOW TO SET UP DOOR HINGES:

Edited November 14, 2019 by Triop

[Vagrant203]

All of the links in the original thread that I checked gave me a "does not exist" message.

[Castille7]

5 hours ago, Vagrant203 said:

All of the links in the original thread that I checked gave me a "does not exist" message.

This may have been caused when the Forum was upgraded

[Mephisto81]

Regarding rotors, service bays and drag
 

Rotor inside service bay, service bay CLOSED: rotor is shielded from drag. Rotor cannot produce any thrust.

Rotor inside service bay, service bay OPEN: rotor is exposed to aerodynamic forces. Rotor can produce thrust.

 

It is possible to shield from drag, even when some small parts of the rotor are outside the closed fairing. Offsetting the blades is not needed. You can check this with aerodynamic forces displayed in action menues.

It is best to the "Display aerodynamic forces in action menues" or something similar in ALT+F12 --> Physics to check, whether or not a part is exposed to aerodynmaic forces.

If it is exposed, the numbers will change constantly. Even if the craft is standing still on the runway.

Same goes for hiding other parts in fairings: you can check whether or not an engine or tank is shielded from aerodynamic forces with this. For many engines, you can find a sweet spot, where the part is shielded from drag, but can produce normal thrust without heating the fairing up.

 

Here is a picture of a rotor assembly with open service bays. (Small motor, R25 Rotors, 1,25m service bays.) It can produce thrust with open service bay. When we transition to rocket flight, we power down the motors, lock it up and close the service bays to reduce drag. You can also see some fuel tanks sticking slightly out of the fairings. They are shielded form drag as well.

Picture from this craft:
https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-01-APEX-Mk-VI-Eve-SSTO

Edited May 5, 2020 by Mephisto81

[OnlyLightMatters]

On 8/6/2016 at 10:07 PM, Sharpy said:

Sooo... you were saying that landing legs are broken, right?

That's clever!

[OnlyLightMatters]

Speaking of techniques, i've shared some of them in a serie of videos:

• Introduction of how to build flying saucers in KSP https://youtu.be/D7U37snk1Yk
• Building with structural adapters https://youtu.be/b3Uc50FwFP0
• Building with heatshields https://youtu.be/sE_17WN3gpY
• Building with conical fuel tanks https://youtu.be/ZV3Hjs_ukZQ

 

 

 

[HafCoJoe]

1 hour ago, OnlyLightMatters said:

Speaking of techniques, i've shared some of them in a serie of videos:

• Introduction of how to build flying saucers in KSP https://youtu.be/D7U37snk1Yk
• Building with structural adapters https://youtu.be/b3Uc50FwFP0
• Building with heatshields https://youtu.be/sE_17WN3gpY
• Building with conical fuel tanks https://youtu.be/ZV3Hjs_ukZQ

 

 

 

Awesome videos!

[tehmattguy]

As requested by @pTrevTrevs, here's a tutorial on making stock fold-out solar panels! Specifically, this is just my own process for making a fairly compact folding mechanism while maintaining clean surface aesthetic. 

I should also preface this by saying that this does require using the Breaking Ground DLC.

First, a small point on solar panels. Before building your mechanism I suggest pre-constructing your individual solar panel segments. 

For each individual panel I like to use a single small root part such as a cubic octagonal strut or a grip pad. Doing this makes it easier to move and manipulate your panels while building or tweaking your mechanism. 

Also, a tip for blending solar panels together: You can hide the borders between panels by rotating and offsetting each panel inwards slightly toward the center.

Now for the mechanism itself. Here I'll be constructing a simple accordion-style folding mechanism with four identical segments.

For these I like to use the G-00 Hinge since it's small, light, and allows 180° rotation which is just enough for this type of fold.

To start off I have the four hinges attached end to end. 

Next we'll set each hinge's target angle to its fully-deployed position. For an accordion fold I set each hinge to 90° or -90° in an alternating pattern. 

Then we offset each hinge so that they are level and equidistant to each other. Having your hinges on the same plane ensures a more compact fold. 

Now we attach the solar panels to each hinge. For the most compact fold, make sure that your hinges are centered directly under the spaces between the panels. 

And finally we test the mechanism using the KAL-1000 Controller. This is just to let us view and tweak the folding sequence from the editor.

Note that for the first segment we only need 90° of rotation, so it has been limited accordingly. The other three hinges are set to rotate the full 180°.

You can also control your hinges directly by binding "Set Maximum Angle" or "Set Minimum Angle" to an action group. When doing this remember to set your hinge's traverse speed to be proportional to its rotation range.   

Now for something slightly more complex: The folding mechanism for a Soyuz solar array. This mechanism is unique in that segments 1 and 4 fold inwards while segments 2 and 3 fold outwards to conform to the body of the spacecraft. 

This leads to a slightly different hinge setup.

Here I have some hinges rotated slightly to get the rotation axis closer to the surface. This generally leads to a cleaner unfolding sequence. 

Solar panels attached. Again, ensure that the hinges are centered directly under the spaces between panel segments. 

For more complex folds like these it helps to first manipulate each hinge individually to fold up the mechanism. Doing this lets you find and set angle limits for each individual hinge. 

I hope that covered everything. If you have any questions let me know!

[HafCoJoe]

14 hours ago, tehmattguy said:

As requested by @pTrevTrevs, here's a tutorial on making stock fold-out solar panels! Specifically, this is just my own process for making a fairly compact folding mechanism while maintaining clean surface aesthetic. 

I should also preface this by saying that this does require using the Breaking Ground DLC.

First, a small point on solar panels. Before building your mechanism I suggest pre-constructing your individual solar panel segments. 

For each individual panel I like to use a single small root part such as a cubic octagonal strut or a grip pad. Doing this makes it easier to move and manipulate your panels while building or tweaking your mechanism. 

Also, a tip for blending solar panels together: You can hide the borders between panels by rotating and offsetting each panel inwards slightly toward the center.

Now for the mechanism itself. Here I'll be constructing a simple accordion-style folding mechanism with four identical segments.

For these I like to use the G-00 Hinge since it's small, light, and allows 180° rotation which is just enough for this type of fold.

To start off I have the four hinges attached end to end. 

Next we'll set each hinge's target angle to its fully-deployed position. For an accordion fold I set each hinge to 90° or -90° in an alternating pattern. 

Then we offset each hinge so that they are level and equidistant to each other. Having your hinges on the same plane ensures a more compact fold. 

Now we attach the solar panels to each hinge. For the most compact fold, make sure that your hinges are centered directly under the spaces between the panels. 

And finally we test the mechanism using the KAL-1000 Controller. This is just to let us view and tweak the folding sequence from the editor.

Note that for the first segment we only need 90° of rotation, so it has been limited accordingly. The other three hinges are set to rotate the full 180°.

You can also control your hinges directly by binding "Set Maximum Angle" or "Set Minimum Angle" to an action group. When doing this remember to set your hinge's traverse speed to be proportional to its rotation range.   

Now for something slightly more complex: The folding mechanism for a Soyuz solar array. This mechanism is unique in that segments 1 and 4 fold inwards while segments 2 and 3 fold outwards to conform to the body of the spacecraft. 

This leads to a slightly different hinge setup.

Here I have some hinges rotated slightly to get the rotation axis closer to the surface. This generally leads to a cleaner unfolding sequence. 

Solar panels attached. Again, ensure that the hinges are centered directly under the spaces between panel segments. 

For more complex folds like these it helps to first manipulate each hinge individually to fold up the mechanism. Doing this lets you find and set angle limits for each individual hinge. 

I hope that covered everything. If you have any questions let me know!

Magnificent... the only thing I wish you could do with servos is make them track a specific body  it would be really nice if you could make custom sun-tracking solar panels.

[Mephisto81]

Nothing new for sure, but sometimes useful:
Airbrakes instead of landing legs.


Airbrakes are installed "inverted", as the hinge is at the back. The frontal part has to be below the center of mass to be able to lift. The upper airbrakes prevent the craft from toppling over.
They weight only 50 kg each, as much as the LT-1 landing struts and half as much as the bigger LT-2 landing struts.
Remove the lower airbrakes from the action group "braking", otherwise it lifts the craft up.

Craft file:
https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XS-11-Ifrit