best way to do interplanetary ships?

[AlamoVampire]

I am having a small issue. I want to send a ship to Jool and perhaps a moon or two while there. I know I need nuclear engines as they are ideal for such a trip. My problem is, well, I cannot figure out how to design one that will not murder my frames per second dead. I tried this:

and while it was a great design, 5 nuclear engines and more fuel than I knew what to do with, once it was completely assembled, it caused soo many issues that the game became unplayable. Btw, this had north of 450 parts... I THINK I can make a ship that can get me there, but, I wont be able to land on any of Jool's Moons w/out losing my cruise stage. I just cannot figure out how to connect a proper cruise stage to a lander stage w/out a high part count. Any help would be and is most welcome.

Edited September 1, 2013 by AlamoVampire

[AlamoVampire]

<pokes his head in the door, hears crickets

[pa1983]

Asparagus staged ship I would go for. Will drop of tanks as it goes. I did that once worked quite well. I need to keep it small and efficient for my spaceplane heavy lifters. It do not dump engines like traditional asparagus just tanks.

You can ignore the fact that I launch my craft from a Spaceplane. Can use a rocket to get it up if you want or build it in space.

But what it dose its that it has a 1m core then 4 stacks of 1m fuel tanks that can be jettison in pairs during a burn with out losing any engines.

I went to Vall with it and back with plenty of fuel to spare in the center fuel tanks so It should go anywhere I would say. It works similar to the appolo missions. Command moduels stay in space. Lander and rover descends to the planet or moon then returns and crew transfers back to command module and burns for home.

[Vanamonde]

Look over the examples in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/37952-Round-trip-ships Mine are in the 100-200 part range, and can make roundtrips to all the worlds in the game.

[AlamoVampire]

Interesting ships Vanamonde. Given me good ideas, looking forward to see what else the community can offer up help wise. thanks to both of you guys who replied thus far

[Scarecrow88]

This was mine. More than enough to get to Jool and back, and no lag due to high part count.

[thereaverofdarkness]

You can greatly save on framerate by lowering your parts count. Things to watch out for are separating your fuel stacks too far using girders, you can actually make a more stable rocket having the whole thing streamlined, though it can be difficult to attach the parts. I'd say it's far easier than the effort of actually flying the ship to Jool, so it seems worthwhile. Also try not to put several small objects on using symmetry, or several little fuel tanks. Make simple stacks with large fuel tanks. Use a single inline RCS tank and a single inline battery. Plan your strut placement carefully so you don't waste struts, but don't be too frugal with them either. Struts process easily and keep your ships rigid which also makes processing easier! If it wobbles, put struts where it is wobbling. And if you want to get really frugal with your part count, you can put on a single set of 3 or 4 RCS-thruster blocks centered around the ship's average center of mass (considering how it will change during flight) instead of a set at each end. This allows you to rotate and translate smoothly with RCS while using fewer thruster blocks.

Don't throw lights all over your ship! It looks great and is oh-so useful for seeing the thing at night, but murders your processing speed. Protip: use one narrow-beam light to shine across the most important part of the ship-I like to shine it on the "top", the side facing south on the launch pad. Or go with no lights at all, since you'll be in sunlight for almost the entire trip.

[Mode7]

Keep in mind that those nukes will burn for a long time with very little fuel. You shouldn't need the massive amount of fuel you are carrying around with you. I usually design one interplanetary stage to use for an entire project. I'll use it as a ferry to move all of my hardware and just refuel around Kerbin. One orange tank and a couple of nukes can get you just about anywhere if you don't have a huge cargo. In my experience large fuel tanks are great because they carry a lot of fuel and only count as one part.

[Wjolcz]

Here. take a look at this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/42098-Modular-Manned-Extraplanetary-Vessels-Mk-II

My laptop isn't designed for gaming of any sort, but it handles building stuff like this pretty well.

[Stochasty]

The framerate problem you are having is because that ship is a vast overkill for just going to Jool. You don't need anywhere near that many parts or that much fuel. Metaphor managed a grand tour using a smaller ship than that.

This is a problem a lot of people have with KSP. If they can't get somewhere, they think it's because they don't have a big enough ship - but the tyranny of the rocket equation means that going bigger helps very, very little. The alternative is to fly smarter. Learn about delta-v budgets, have an estimate of exactly how much fuel you will need, and design your craft with those specifications in mind ahead of time.

[Geschosskopf]

I am having a small issue. I want to send a ship to Jool and perhaps a moon or two while there. I know I need nuclear engines as they are ideal for such a trip. My problem is, well, I cannot figure out how to design one that will not murder my frames per second dead.....

There are 2 basic methods of doing interplanetary expeditions: a single massive ship that carries everything in 1 package (probes, Kerbals, landers, rovers, etc.) or a flotilla of small, specialized ships.

The single massive ship gets lots of style points but obviously will at some point kill you on part count. Trying to minimize part count on an all-in-1 thing usually means having to reduce or eliminate the capabilities of its various components. Plus, it takes forever to do burns with its nuke engines because it's so heavy and they have such low thrust. And finally, you're putting all your eggs in 1 basket so 1 failure can scupper the entire expedition.

With a flotilla, you can optimized each component payload (lander, rover, probe, Kerbal can, etc.) for its job without worrying about its impact on the other components, so usually end up with more capability overall. This is especially true when going to place with 1 or more moons because you can send specialized stuff directly to the target moon instead of having the delta-V for that side trip rolled in with that for every other part of the mission. Then, because you're keeping the components separate most of the time and only bringing a couple together at once for brief periods, you never have a lot of parts in 1 place. The downside is, you usually have to do more launches and dockings to get a flotilla off the ground than with an all-in-1, and of course you have to do multiple transfers, captures, and whatnot, plus probably more dockings at the destination. But OTOH, because none of the ships involved are that big, these maneuvers aren't that big a deal and the more of them you do, the better at them you become.

In my own messing around, I've found that I can build all the capability I want, plus some lagniappe for emergencies, into no more than about 30 tons, usually rather less. So I have a standard non-asparagus ascent stage that will lift 35-40 tons and send almost every component up with that. I've also got a standard transfer tug I launch the same way. This consists of the 3-section fuel tank with a big nuke engine on 1 end and a docking port on the other (I think the tank and engine are KSPX). Even after burning tug fuel to rendezvous and dock with a mission component, I've still got over 4000m/s delta-V for even my heaviest components (and lots more for the lighter ones), which is enough to go pretty much anywhere. If I want to send something home, I either set up a Kethane system or, because I've got several of these tugs in the system, I can pool the remaining fuel into 1 for the trip back if none of them have enough on their own.

[AlamoVampire]

I want to thank you all for the wondrous help! Behold, an 800 day mission to Jool, Val, Tylo and Laythe AND BACK!!

The Jool One entering into the Jool System, with satellites on board for science stuff! 1 for Val, 1 for Tylo, 1 for Laythe and 1 to slam into Jool itself!

The Jool one with Bob, Bill and Jebediah <left to right> on TYLO!

The Jool One on a return trip for home

Whats a better way to end a near 800 day mission than to land not more than 100 meters from the launch pad!!!

[victory143]

Nicely done! I usally end up landing in super awkward places like the moon as I don't leave enough fuel to get home from missions! (although they do make good moon base outposts...)