Holy flying fish! It's Guppies! Guppy series orbiters from [SSI]

[Captain Sierra]

Introducing . . .

Guppies!

What’s a Guppy?

A guppy is a small type of orbiter marketed by SSI designed for new and old players alike. They offer varying roles and degrees of difficulty. From landers to tugs to interplanetary explorers to crew transfer vehicles. The Guppy pack has something for everyone.

Meet the Guppies.

Guppy Mk 1

So that’s a Guppy. The Guppy Mk 1 has a single LV-909 engine boasting about 1900 dV, making Mun flybys a fun and easy trip, especially since all Guppies make orbit with the upper stage center stack at least half full.

All Guppies share the same solar arrays and a Z-4k battery to ensure that even on long Munar nights, power is still there.

Guppy Mk 2

This Guppy has landing legs! It also relies on a single LV-909 which gives it enough thrust to land on any non-atmospheric body other than Tylo. It even has enough dV to land on, and then make orbit at Duna! That delta V is just short of 1850

Note: All guppies with landing legs are currently buggy. These are not available for download at this time. They will be released soon after the current flaws are worked out.

Guppy Mk 3

This Guppy only has a measly 350 dV but it makes up for that with 750 units of RCS monopropellant, a docking port, and lights to illuminate the target port. This Guppy is meant to be a tug. With plenty of fuel, it can move even the biggest payloads if they are properly RCS thruster balanced.

Guppy Mk 4

The Mk 4 is a crew carrier. With just under 600 dV, it’s no Mun-and-back supply ship but it is a great vessel for crew rotation and transfer between space stations. Currently, it can hold 7 herbals but can only safely de-orbit 3. This will be modified in the future to allow a full 7 kerbal de-orbit. Below you can clearly see the opening docking port and lights. It carries 600 units of monopropellant to make docking a piece of cake for anybody!

Guppy Mk 5

It’s time to go interplanetary! The Mk 5 Guppy has the largest fuel capacity, the most dV, and is the heaviest of all the Guppies, weighing in at 22.2 tons. It’s dV is 2m/s shy of 2700 and it has 600 units of monopropellant for even the most inefficient dockers.

Guppy Mk 6

The Mk 6 is a dockable lander for taking with you when you need to go far away. It has 1770m/s of dV, 600 units of monopropellant, and enough thrust to take off even from Duna, Moho, Eeloo, and Vall.

Like the Mk 2, this one is not quite ready for release. I am still having difficulties with the legs.

Guppy Mk 7

The Mk 7 Guppy has the highest part count at a whopping 39 parts!

With ~640 dV and 750 units of monopropellant, it’s another tug, but with a difference. It has a higher TWR because it uses 4 Rockomax 48-7S engines mounted radially. It has a docking port both front and rear to give it more versatility and capacity. When you need a station workhorse, grab the Mk 7.

Orbiting a Guppy.

All Guppy orbiters can make orbit using our patented Guppypunch launch vehicle seen below as a perfect subassembly.

The Guppypunch can put even the Mk 5 in a 100km orbit with enough fuel to de-orbit itself. The center upper core has reaction wheels, a battery, some RTGs, and a probe core to allow de-orbiting. Below, the Mk 5 can be seen in orbit with a good portion of the Guppypunch in a low kerbin orbit.

This Guppypunch has been tested under the most rigorous launch we can throw at it: MechJeb. MechJeb is much more agressive than players or the new SAS so it served as the toughness test. The Guppypunch has enough fuel to make it to LKO with a sizable margin, allowing for less than optimal ascents.

Below are the craft files:

Guppy Mk 1

Guppy Mk 2 (NOT READY)

Guppy Mk 3

Guppy Mk 4

Guppy Mk 5

Guppy Mk 6 (NOT READY)

Guppy Mk 7 (Partially ready)

Guppypunch Launch Vehicle (subassembly*)

Guppy Mk 5 on GuppypunchM Launch Vehicle

Please remember, this pack is a beta. It will have bugs. I would greatly appreciate if you would give detailed bug reports and suggestions for future variants as this is a work-in-progress release.

*Subassembly launcher requires Subassembly loader, Subassembly Manager, SelectRoot, or you to wait for .22 to use properly.

The subassembly file was created with SelectRoot and the technique first discovered by Temstar, who is awesome for it.

Edited September 24, 2013 by Captain Sierra
Messed up pics

[zekes]

very awesome! a ship for every need!

[iDan122]

Forgot the bracket in the thread name. Anyway cool.

[Captain Sierra]

Forgot the bracket in the thread name. Anyway cool.

No, ran out of space. Forum would not put it even though it let me type it.

[SofusRud]

I suggest you replace your medium landing legs with the big ones as the medium ones are very buggy and unreliable at the moment

[Captain Sierra]

Tried that. They were less glitchy but they were overkill. I think the problem is how they are mounted. Either way, I am looking into fixing it. one of the other major points of concern was the narrow footprint it currently has.

[bobodamonkey]

*writes "ran out of space" on a space simulator forum*

[SofusRud]

if none of the stock landing legs work well for you then you still have the option of building custom landing legs from structural parts. I would think that 4 short I-beams might do the trick, but you can see if find something that works for you. Give it a go.

[Captain Sierra]

*writes "ran out of space" on a space simulator forum*

I know,

I can try that leg technique but in my opinion, it isn't very visually pleasing and that is something that I really like about the Guppies. They all have this sort of smooth tapered design that is nice to look at. Doing that would lessen that a good bit IMHO.

[TimMartland]

I built something like this once, but it had 6780dv and 75 parts and needed KSPX and mechjeb to work. These guppy CSMs seem really useful and look nice to, so good job.

[SeventhArchitect]

Dude, you came up with a good idea, I was mind blown, but this may very well be yet another sad post, because you don't know how to properly put a shuttle into orbit.

I once built a satellite that had 20 parts, each regular sized (none small), and put it into orbit using a 23 part asparagus staged rocket. Do you know how many tries it took to make THAT one rocket, whcih I NEVER tested before, fly, and put that sat into orbit? None. There was no trying, it successfully got it into orbit, and could EASILY do the same for this guppy.

[viperwolf]

its a guppy not a shuttle lol im only joking. He could easily asparagus stage the lifter and there is no telling how far it would go. Its very multi functional. Its just his design. ive built rockets that had so many parts and stages it was very very complicated. and then i could build a rocket to reach the same distance with alot less parts. saying he does not know how to reach orbit is not correct. That rocket will reach anywhere. and it can be used to launch different types of payloads, not just the guppy

EDIT i wanted to make a note, i see your challenge of efficiency and that is always a challenge when building rockets. SO respect for that.

Edited September 10, 2013 by viperwolf

[CaptainGiblets]

These are cute little ships,and seem very helpful.Keep up the good work!

[Captain Sierra]

Dude, you came up with a good idea, I was mind blown, but this may very well be yet another sad post, because you don't know how to properly put a shuttle into orbit.

I once built a satellite that had 20 parts, each regular sized (none small), and put it into orbit using a 23 part asparagus staged rocket. Do you know how many tries it took to make THAT one rocket, whcih I NEVER tested before, fly, and put that sat into orbit? None. There was no trying, it successfully got it into orbit, and could EASILY do the same for this guppy.

I believe this comment deserves a very thorough response. This rocket does not use asparagus. That was on purpose and I made that clear in the OP. The rocket uses onion and pancake staging to be friendly and easily troubleshootable by new players. Experienced players can take the Mk 5 to Duna and back and probably still have the dV to go to Minmus and back. These are simple, elegant craft built to be noob friendly as well as useful in the hands of a pro. Lots of people can do what you did. Look at my ribbons. I can do some pretty impressive stuff. I am familiar with, do use, and can orbit 120+ tons with asparagus but asparagus staging is complicated to understand just by looking at the staging and is often difficult for newer players to use. Also, I consider it a challenge to make a highly effective rocket without using asparagus. It is a fun and refreshing exercise. I am building a station on my livestream in a million mile high orbit without using asparagus. It is very nice to know that you can do good things with minimalistic asparagus designs. What can you do without asparagus? I can build a station. What can a new player do with asparagus? A lot, including crash and burn many times as well as excellent feats like yours. THe idea was to make it simple to noobs. Most people here apreciate the efforts others go through to make stuff simpler for newer players. I'm sure you can understand that.

[Captain Sierra]

its a guppy not a shuttle lol im only joking. He could easily asparagus stage the lifter and there is no telling how far it would go. Its very multi functional. Its just his design. ive built rockets that had so many parts and stages it was very very complicated. and then i could build a rocket to reach the same distance with alot less parts. saying he does not know how to reach orbit is not correct. That rocket will reach anywhere. and it can be used to launch different types of payloads, not just the guppy

EDIT i wanted to make a note, i see your challenge of efficiency and that is always a challenge when building rockets. SO respect for that.

Thank you. RIght now, it lifts the Guppy Mk 5 at 22.2 tons to LKO with just barely over half the core of the upper stage full. It uses an LV-T45 so that is enough to kick start the transfer burn or even set up a Mun encounter. It could probably orbit 25+ tons, but I was more concerned with orbiting the 22.2 necessary to orbit any of the guppies.

Dev note: Modifications are coming along and I may have a new release by the weekend.

[JiWint]

Awesome thread-making skills ^^ liked the idea of Guppy though

[Captain Sierra]

I'm getting close to Guppies ver. 1.1. Don't worry, these will get a refresh very soon.

[Bunny Commander]

test thest test test

[Captain Sierra]

test thest test test

??????

yes, I have tested them extensively lately and I'll be pushing several new versions through very soon. My progress has been set back by the forum downtime but I'll be able to have stuff up here very soon.

[Jivaii]

I'm gonna be using the Mk 5 design, swap out the habitat for a science module since they have the same dry mass of 2.5. Needed an effective lander, and yours looks alot better then mine. I've also got an idea about the lander legs =)

EDIT: Oops, meant Mk 4 =P

I got the big lander legs to work with a ten degree offset of them leaning towards the middle while up. Gonna be a while before I can see them on one of Jool's moons though.

Edited September 24, 2013 by Jivaii

[Captain Sierra]

Great to hear. Also note, those landing legs have been buggy lately (not just my crafts) so use with discretion. I may switch to the LT-2 landing struts later.

For those wanting science, I will include science variants as soon as .22 comes out. I do plan on supporting experiments. I am also planning to work on a science station kit that will work flawlessly with the Guppies.

[Jivaii]

Great to hear. Also note, those landing legs have been buggy lately (not just my crafts) so use with discretion. I may switch to the LT-2 landing struts later.

For those wanting science, I will include science variants as soon as .22 comes out. I do plan on supporting experiments. I am also planning to work on a science station kit that will work flawlessly with the Guppies.

When I get home from work, I'll link photos. I'm using SQUID modified ones, so that might be helping me out, I'll swap for stock Squad ones when I get you photos. Also, my lab is from the KSP Interstellar mod right now. Dunno how Squad's gonna implement science gathering.

Alright, Jeb didn't read the warning notice about it not being able to de-orbit a full load, so we lost the science module =/ Fortunately we didn't have a loss of life since it was empty.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited September 29, 2013 by Jivaii

[Captain Sierra]

May I insert that album on the main page as advertising? With due credit as necessary of course.

[Jivaii]

Haha, not a problem. I used three mods for that though, Mechjeb, for the stats, Squid lander legs, and KSP Interstellar.

I don't mind testing out some of your ships, as well as come up with interesting ideas. Including a new version of the Guppy that I want to try for the legs again.

Went and figured out how to embed albums, and fixed my earlier post.

Edited September 29, 2013 by Jivaii

[Jivaii]

Made another Guppy inspired vessel. Has working landing legs, meant as a recovery/crew transfer vessel. Completely stock as well (Minus having MechJeb in the command pod)

Craft File

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I removed the MechJeb module from the .craft, let me know if it works properly though.

On my side I've got other mods that make it useless to launch (Remote tech being one of the key mods)

Edited October 5, 2013 by Jivaii
Minor update.