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The KSP Valdez - Probably the largest useful tanker - 1500 tons to orbit

Burninate

By Burninate
in KSP1 The Spacecraft Exchange

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Burninate

Burninate

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This is the pinnacle of too many weeks of wasted productivity.

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The equivalent of 36 orange tanks to orbit without much hassle, up to ~40 with an optimal trajectory and switching to nuclear engines towards the end.

8 2.5m monoprop tanks and sufficient thrusters to dock.

Double-ended Quad Sr docking interface allows for extraordinarily strong, radially stable docking.

4 atomic engines for orbital changes, 4 LV-909's for reverse thrust without turning around during docking.

Optional (staged) separation of 16x Mainsails once near orbit, and 16x LVT30's (manually undocked) once satisfied that orbit is no longer thrust-limited.

1406 tons and 485 parts after excess engines have been shed (~120T), 9433 tons and 2089 parts in the hangar. On my PC, with physics delta set to minimum, orbit takes about 40 minutes. It took me dozens of designs to get something this part-efficient: bundling an asparagus together reliably is a nontrivial task, this does it on 8-10 struts per stack (stacks 2.5 orange tanks tall).

Overheating-protected with the power of Octagonal Struts

Fully asparagussed down to the last 3 orange tanks.

Requires some care during gravity turn to be directionally stable before staging.

Plenty of RTGs, batteries, and loads of inline reaction wheels for efficient, fast electric turning.

Space for 4 kerbals in a bin somewhere onboard. I can't actually find them, but I can ping their cockpit cameras.

I've built larger tankers than this (2100T maximum I believe), but not ones that have been as versatile for playing the game, or as manageable in terms of final part count per unit of fuel.

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The number of stages periodically broke both MechJeb's dV calculaions and the game's fuel gauges.

I went with 3 side by side 4-symmetry branches, for a total of 12 identical structures.

The internal rocket motors have plumes that are not long enough to hurt the other endcap, and positioned so that they go right in between the XL trusses that hold the branches in place.

The quad Senior docking endcap has guaranteed spacing due to how the quad adapters work, consider this post my first public release of that technique.

Not insured in case of unexpected reentry or sudden appearance of moon when it should have been minding its own business.

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That is insane. I thought my attempt was big! I've stopped at 400 parts, and only have 2000dv so far. :(

What is the partcount on that thing?

1406 tons and 485 parts after excess engines have been shed (~120T), 9433 tons and 2089 parts in the hangar.

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.Craft will be coming at some point soon, but I really need to test the most difficult part of this - the docking - to see how it holds up.

A few extra touches to reinforce the endcaps have brought the part count up by about 50 parts.

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