What's the Largest Rocket you've ever built? Interplanetary and Launchers Mostly

[LostElement]

For some reason It won't let me post pics, but the largest one I've built was about 3000 tons. As far as interplanetary goes, 100 tons. Post a pic!

[Thorbane]

This exercise in excessive design.

About 8400 tons at launch with 19 of the biggest Novapunch engines. There's the equivalent of 95 Mainsails on the thing. Payload to orbit ~1000 tons

[LostElement]

Craft file please...

[Thorbane]

The Novapunch update broke it. It now invariably flies apart upon craft load due to the new engines clipping into eachother. I haven't gotten around to rebuilding it.

[Giggleplex777]

I don't have a picture of my largest, but here's a big one (for me):

145 parts, 110 tons to orbit.

[KAO]

sadly, I don't usually go for big designs. This went to Duna

has 6 Zenit strap-on boosters, and 3.75 meter main tanks. Don't remember the weight but I know it's the biggest I've built

[DisarmingBaton5]

I dread the moment Whackjob finds this thread...

[Sylon00]

sadly, I don't usually go for big designs. This went to Duna

has 6 Zenit strap-on boosters, and 3.75 meter main tanks. Don't remember the weight but I know it's the biggest I've built

That is one beautiful build.

[Whackjob]

I dread the moment Whackjob finds this thread...

Lurch told me you rang.

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A nice selection of some of my works.

#EDIT: Also, come on! That thread title is about as Whackjob-bait as it gets.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Whackjob

[nerdboy64]

Largest thing I've ever build was probably he launcher for a battleship I designed for the Spiritwolf vs. Hanland ship submission thread. It was basically a flat row of big orange tanks, each with a mainsail at the end and a fuel line to the next row in. Lagged the hell out of my computer but it did its job. The ship itself, unfortunately, ran out of fuel while orbiting Jool on a ridiculous inclination and was abandoned when I updated to 0.21.

Second place in mass and first place in height was the launcher I built for an Apollo-style mission. I wanted to preserve historical accuracy, so I used neither asparagus staging nor radial attachment for the launcher. This caused it to be very long, thin, and prone to spontaneous explosions.

[Hannu]

This is my 2868 t and little more than 1200 part Tylo freight launcher. All engines, fuel tanks and structural parts are stock.

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I wonder what computer can handle Whackjob's magnificent constructions.

[mellojoe]

During one of my test launches to go to Jool, I had a huge rocket going. 9 stacks of double orange tanks for botom stage, 6 orange tanks for middle stage, and then 12 SRBs around the base. But I never ended up using it and don't have any images that I can find of it.

My heavy lifter now is simply a 6-mainsail asparagus stage with 12 SRBs. Then attach payload.

[lajoswinkler]

OP never specified that the rocket has to actually fly.

[BigDog]

An entire space station.

A pusher tug, I have a puller that might come in larger but I don't think I have pics of it.

Gravity is off so I could get this pic on the pad. Stuff like this either has to launch IMMEDIATELY when the physics kicks in or gravity has to be hacked to prevent the sudden application of Kerbin's rotational force from ripping them apart.

The payload is the tug that is at the bottom, docked here with a failed (The Kraken ripped a stack off in translation) Eve lander.

This is the tallest, it is as high as the VAB would let me stack parts. It has to launch with gravity hacked since it has a less than 1 TWR. It also bucks severely. This bucking seems to start at 4 orange tanks high. It is manageable at that height, much higher though and forget it.

I have built an over 3500 part monster, but KSP died when I hit stage. Since then it has been bugged in the VAB.

[JMap1]

Whackjob, you are an inspiration for us all! Tonight, I build the fuel module for my space station. Things should get 'splody!

[Whackjob]

Bah! Giant vehicles don't count as a launch victory if you turn off the bloody gravity!

Here's another of mine. Someone once said that you couldn't build a very tall rocket, because it became unstable and impossible to launch.

If someone with better eyes than mine can count those orange tanks and give me a number, I'd appreciate it. I never knew how tall that thing was. I couldn't see all of it at once in the VAB for obvious reasons.

#EDIT: Shot on the pad so you can use the watertower to reference height.

#EDIT2: Just noticed the on-the-pad picture is an older one... you can see I wasn't yet done with the external truss shell.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Whackjob

[Spatzimaus]

My largest, by far, is the Bucket:

A 4000-ton SSTO booster, carrying a 450-ton payload. It can place that payload smoothly into a circular low Kerbin orbit and still have enough fuel to de-orbit itself, OR it can get the payload almost entirely out of Kerbin's SOI, detach, then crash back down. Either way, no debris.

[Whackjob]

SSTOs. That's something I've really yet to touch on. Is there any way of making a practical SSTO without reverting to the use of jet engines? Without air hogging like some sort of Kerbal Kirby?

[Randox]

SSTOs. That's something I've really yet to touch on. Is there any way of making a practical SSTO without reverting to the use of jet engines? Without air hogging like some sort of Kerbal Kirby?

My current main cargo lifter (payload of perhaps 18 tonnes or a bit more on 5 mainsails) could do it. Assuming you goal is to deliver something under maybe 10-15 tonnes to a 100km orbit, it would be perfectly serviceable as an SSTO (with a TWR of perhaps 5 or 6 once the tanks are pretty much empty). By definition though, if you are using rocket engines, you can always do it better by shedding parts you don't need anymore, so it will never be the most practical solution. Same thing with the space planes though.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Randox

[Whackjob]

Sure, but when has anything I've ever done had anything to do with being practical? Hehe.

[-Velocity-]

This is my 1500 ton + interplanetary carrier-tanker. The point of it is to carry landers to various distant planetary locations and also bring along enough spare fuel to supply extended and repeated landing and exploration operations. Basically, it becomes a big orbiting fuel depot (it carries the fuel of like 38 Jumbo-64 tanks).

This version currently is assembled out of separately launched stern and bow sections. I'm using a heavy lift design that weighs around 3000 tons (sans payload) and can put over 500 tons into LKO (so, to get get an 800 ton segment into orbit on a heavy lift rocket only capable of 500 tons, obviously, the segments must donate some of their initial fuel to the fourth stage. I just top the ship off after it is assembled.)

(If you're wondering what the sideways-facing engines are for near the top- how else do you think I keep this bastard under control and pointed in the right direction?! Those engines are on action groups, I toggle them off and on to steer the rocket.)

Anyway, I'm going to try going bigger, much bigger, just to see if it can be done.

Also, you folks who build giant stuff out of stock parts... I'm impressed!!! That takes some real skills Mods that add huge tanks make things SO much easier (and managable on the CPU)... I just wish the Novapunch 5 meter tanks wouldn't be so buggy for me.

Edited September 6, 2013 by |Velocity|

[ForumHelper]

About 170 tons is my record for an interplanetary vessel, done in 0.16 version(yes, without docking). It could land on water and then get into orbit again, that's why it looks so weird. And it could swim around as well! Here's the link to my really old post about it: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/19911-Post-mission-report-interplanetary-travel-to-Kerbin-2

Edited September 6, 2013 by ForumHelper

[Jestem]

I once made something over a thousand tons, just to put a 2 ton payload into orbit. Thankfully I got better since then.

[Moar Boosters]

SSTOs. That's something I've really yet to touch on. Is there any way of making a practical SSTO without reverting to the use of jet engines? Without air hogging like some sort of Kerbal Kirby?

You don't have to use jets, they don't even need to be planes. A rockomax 200 x16 fuel tank with a probe core and an lvt-30 is technically an SSTO. Strap about 1000 of them together and you'll have a whackjob SSTO.

TBH i don't think that's your main challange. The difficulty with a giant SSTO would be getting it back down in one piece, as no matter how impractical you like things, it kinda needs to be reusable to count as an SSTO. Otherwise it's just an ICBM

[-Velocity-]

This exercise in excessive design.

About 8400 tons at launch with 19 of the biggest Novapunch engines. There's the equivalent of 95 Mainsails on the thing. Payload to orbit ~1000 tons

How did you get things to stick to the Novapunch fuel tanks? Everything I put on them has a tendency to detach for no valid reason, and also, they appear to be indestructible, which REALLY puts a damper on the fun of launch failures. (In fact, every Novapunch part appears to be indestructable ) We might not want to admit it, but the spectacular failures are half the fun of testing new rocket designs

Have these issues been fixed, or was it something peculiar to my install of the mod? I've been stuck with the 3.75 meter KW rocketry tanks, but at least the Novapunch engines are usable to me.

Edited September 6, 2013 by |Velocity|