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[WIP] Mass Driver

skykooler

By skykooler
in KSP1 Mod Development

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Pyromaniacal

Pyromaniacal

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You know, after playing around with it for a bit, I can't really see the use in one of these. I mean, sure, it's a blast to put something into ridiculous suborbital trajectories, but I have to burn retrograde to put any vehicle I... "Drive" into a useable orbit. Sometimes, no matter how nice the approach, the craft veers off to the south and never goes above 46km altitude. That's not counting the absolutely insane loss of attitude control that takes a minute and a half to salvage without using time-warp. Sure, it's gorgeous to look at, was well modeled, and it was a nice shoutout to Ace Combat, but it's impractical, and frankly, the New Lunar Republic Space Program doesn't have a place for it.

I don't mean to sound like a bastard, sorry... It really is very pretty...

;.;

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skykooler

skykooler

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You know, after playing around with it for a bit, I can't really see the use in one of these. I mean, sure, it's a blast to put something into ridiculous suborbital trajectories, but I have to burn retrograde to put any vehicle I... "Drive" into a useable orbit. Sometimes, no matter how nice the approach, the craft veers off to the south and never goes above 46km altitude. That's not counting the absolutely insane loss of attitude control that takes a minute and a half to salvage without using time-warp. Sure, it's gorgeous to look at, was well modeled, and it was a nice shoutout to Ace Combat, but it's impractical, and frankly, the New Lunar Republic Space Program doesn't have a place for it.

I don't mean to sound like a bastard, sorry... It really is very pretty...

;.;

Well, it's better for things like RemoteTech satellites, or sending up fuel tanks, than actual mission rockets. I don't use it that much myself, but since KerbTown is here I figured I should make it.

Also, I'm currently working on making it click-to-launch instead of just proximity based; this should allow me to include the "launch from here" feature.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Gaius

Gaius

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There's definitely something funky about the orbits it puts you in. I don't mean their eccentric nature, I mean that an eastward facing launch is somehow putting me into a polar (sub)orbit... the eccentricity I understand, but how is it getting this incredible inclination from an equatorial eastward launch?

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  • 1 month later...
Texfire

Texfire

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Very cool. I thought that a space gun running up K2, launching over KSP would be workable with an equitorial orbit, high exit altitude and eastward trajectory. But I have no modding experience, so it was idle wishing until now. Well done. :)

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skykooler

skykooler

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I just realized how much I need this. Are you still working on the click-to-launch feature?

(Yes, I know I'm a bit late to the party)

Yes, I am. Also, an animation where it actually accelerates down the tube rather than just teleporting. I'm right now trying to fix some issues that I think are caused by Krakensbane, I need to figure out better how that works.

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Railgunner2160

Railgunner2160

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The Idea behind using mass drivers is to limit the amount of fuel actually needed onboard your spacecraft. So I would think that the mass driver, once the new version is complete would give you enough speed to make it into a decent orbit, right now the mass driver is a little crazy at times, I remember people posting pics of flinging rovers out to the mun's orbit.......

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Savage117

Savage117

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This is an awesome concept and im glad someone is using it in KSP. I thought you may have gotten your inspiration from this device http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarTram a real life version. I didn't know they featured the concept anywhere other than sci-fi books. I once read a sci-fi book where this concept was how they commercialized spaceflight, the launcher actually reached all the way around the Earths equator in order to use the Earths rotation as a speed boost and kind of fling the space craft into space.

Keep up the good work, awesome mod idea, I hope you are able to get it to work the way you want and have it be a little more balanced with the game. Unless you don't care about balance, it's your mod, shoot for the stars. :D

IMO it should have some sort of disadvantage, otherwise there would be no point in using anything else. In real life the disadvantage is the cost of building it, the quality of materials needed, the ruggedness of the spacecraft being launched due to the g-forces involved, and the cost of powering it, oh, and maintenance would be a bitch. Maybe make it only fire-able once per day, or week, its basically recharging and resetting during these times, or make the weight limit kinda small, like 10 tonnes or so max. Just a couple thoughts to keep in mind.

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  • 3 weeks later...
skykooler

skykooler

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Since this works I'm curious, does it work with deadly reentry? Or does the heat and G forces cause the craft to blow up on launch?

I have not used Deadly Reentry. But g-forces always peak over 10g during launch, so I doubt it would work without also having FAR and putting things in fairings.

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AtilaElari

AtilaElari

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It's pretty much impossible to use with Deadly Reentry. The craft reaches superheating speed in an instant and fries immediately.

Hm, that gives me an idea - to make Mass Driver launch stuff in some kind of a shell that would reduce aerodynamic drag and heating and wuold self-destruct at the edge of an atmosphere.

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Redjoker

Redjoker

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It's pretty much impossible to use with Deadly Reentry. The craft reaches superheating speed in an instant and fries immediately.

Hm, that gives me an idea - to make Mass Driver launch stuff in some kind of a shell that would reduce aerodynamic drag and heating and wuold self-destruct at the edge of an atmosphere.

You could try modifying some fairing to have heat shielding

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  • 2 weeks later...
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