Post some of your huge rockets for distant missions

[Goldham]

Where is Whackjob on this thread?

[SRV Ron]

Not huge, but easily made it to distant missions;

Around Moho, but could easily do a Eeloo Mission.

A large rocket from Nova Punch parts, early design;

Around Eeloo;

Another Nova Punch design that easily hits Kerbal system escape or can drop a probe into Kerbal. Very difficult to brace to keep it from wobbling apart.

[magnemoe]

My grand tour ship, 665 ton to everywhere.

During burn for Eve.

Kerbal in ship can land on any body in the solar system except Jool.

For Jool I have:

http://imgur.com/a/dahmU#0

[Vanamonde]

A lander, station core, 2 satellites, and 2 rovers arriving at Eeloo.

Assembled in orbit from 8 launches.

[spikeyhat09]

It's funny because Whackjob wins and he hasn't even posted yet

[allmhuran]

It's unlikely whackjob has anything larger than Moar Boosters' "Apollo Creed". I believe that's the biggest thing I've seen on the launchpad (that actually launches without debug menu or mod parts that don't compare at all with stock), and I've seen some pretty big things (yes, I know, that's what she said...)

What do your fuel and oxidizer figures look like on the pad MB?

Edited October 9, 2013 by allmhuran

[csanders]

I need to start putting more lights on my rockets.

That thing is beautiful.

[Moar Boosters]

Just shy of a quarter million fuel units. At 3430t it weighs more than the real Saturn V.

The staging is only setup properly for the first 5 stages. Once it reaches Tylo the lander detaches with docking ports which messes up the delta-v stats in mechjeb. It has a 6k dv lander on top of it, and a 2k dv return module which isn't show in the mechjeb stats.

[allmhuran]

Oh ok... in terms of overall mass my 20-jumbo launcher is actually heavier on the pad - which I guess makes sense given the payload (429440 oxidizer looking at my video, can't see the fuel because it gets cropped changing to 16:9 but it's all set ratios of course). But it absolutely does not *look* anywhere near as big.

[allmhuran]

By the way, you said you have multiple thrust plates in there, for each pancake. Assuming the decoupler is in the middle, did you use docking ports to create additional attachments between the outer columns and the plates, or just struts? I've been thinking docking ports might be better specifically because they have a little bit of flex.

In the launch video for my mega payload you can see that the rocket gets stretched pretty violently as each onion skin is dropped, and I think if regular struts were used this would simply break it, but by using docking ports at the top it allows it a little bit of flex which absorbs the strain.

[Moar Boosters]

double post.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Moar Boosters

[Moar Boosters]

I use decouplers.

The top plate is pretty self explanatory, the 1 beneath the smaller fuel tanks. There's just 1 decoupler in the middle there, with the 8 stacks hanging down on the plate.

There isn't a plate between the next stage (just below the top winglets).

The bottom thrust plate is beneath a decoupler in the middle, then the thrust plate extends out to the 16 outer tanks, using 1.5 I-beams. The engines on the lowest gray stage have decouplers on the bottom, but they're not directly connected to the thrust plate beneath. The long girders extend past, and then the inner ring of orange tanks sandwiches them in place without the need for a connection. It can be a bit fiddly connecting them, as the beam sort of clips between the decoupler and engine, but it doesn't require you to use the cheat menu, just a bit of wiggling until they turn green.

Probably better if I just post a picture.

[allmhuran]

he engines on the lowest gray stage have decouplers on the bottom, but they're not directly connected to the thrust plate beneath

Ahh, that's an interesting way to solve the tree problem... just don't have a connection! Did you try with struts up from the top face of the plate to the grey tanks or engines above, and find that a decoupler actually provided better stability/integrity, or did you just go with an unattached decoupler that simply gets pushed due to its geometric proximity to the plate from the get go?

[pauldbk99]

Oh man I feel so small compared to you guys

[astropapi1]

Apart from my Apollo replica, this is the biggest rocket in my list:

It was supposed to be the launcher for the return craft of my Constellation/Duna Direct hybrid mission. The mission never became a reality, sadly. I feel like I'm becoming my own version of the US Congress. I always design stuff, get hyped, and then never actually fly the missions. That's probably why my only on-going flight in my 0.23.5 save is a small station in LKO.

[SuperWeegee4000]

I use decouplers.

The top plate is pretty self explanatory, the 1 beneath the smaller fuel tanks. There's just 1 decoupler in the middle there, with the 8 stacks hanging down on the plate.

There isn't a plate between the next stage (just below the top winglets).

The bottom thrust plate is beneath a decoupler in the middle, then the thrust plate extends out to the 16 outer tanks, using 1.5 I-beams. The engines on the lowest gray stage have decouplers on the bottom, but they're not directly connected to the thrust plate beneath. The long girders extend past, and then the inner ring of orange tanks sandwiches them in place without the need for a connection. It can be a bit fiddly connecting them, as the beam sort of clips between the decoupler and engine, but it doesn't require you to use the cheat menu, just a bit of wiggling until they turn green.

Probably better if I just post a picture.

http://i.imgur.com/Unr1MAb.png

The image is broken.

[panfish5]

My Eeloo return vessel.

Overall the mission wasn't too terribly stressful but I only had a small margin of fuel left by the time returned back to Kerbin. But I was too impatient too make the mission efficient so I wasted alot of fuel .

[Majorjim!]

My Eeloo return vessel.

...

Overall the mission wasn't too terribly stressful but I only had a small margin of fuel left by the time returned back to Kerbin. But I was too impatient too make the mission efficient so I wasted alot of fuel .

If you left the lander behind it would be much more efficient!

Well done on the Eeloo return though.

MJ

[panfish5]

If you left the lander behind it would be much more efficient!

Well done on the Eeloo return though.

MJ

I actually couldnt leave the lander behind because I accidently filled up every seat in the ship so if had left the lander behind it would have stranded the poor kerbal.

Here are some other large interplanetary ships I dug up.

A nice sized Laythe base that is quite reliable in delta-v and even flies!

Duna science ship.

It actually splits apart so that you can retrieve the science data inside and bring it back to kerbin.

And a large laythe plane able too explore quite alot of area before running out of fuel.

[Galane]

Final section of the Duna ship coming in to dock. The T800 tanks and engines on the upper section were never used. They were a leftover from a fuel depot launcher this was based on.

Duna5 by g_alan_e, on Flickr

Same basic design used for a planned Eve mission. Shot taken before docking the second pair of boosters. Mission never flown due to PC being too wimpy. Also obsoleted by .24.x part mass changes making the wee little Gilly lander unbalanced. Would have been a failure anyway due to the large number of trips up and down that small lander would have needed to refuel the transfer ship. The Eve lander and rovers, one for mining Kethane and one for converting it, worked just fine in testing.

screenshot8 by g_alan_e, on Flickr

First of my ships to actually make an un-assisted trip to Eve! Again with the docked in orbit side boosters, this time all four brought up in a single launch on a carrier, docked to the top end then each decoupled and side docked. Deleted the drilling rover by installing two small drills on the converting rover, which got replaced by a less complex and lighter (yet larger than the first version) Gilly lander. All worked well but the Gilly lander was still too small to refuel in a decent amount of time, and the lack of the ability to carry things atop the side boosters caused some other compromises. Save was abandoned without returning to Kerbin because the core+can had already been tested to be able to return.

Eve-test-flight by g_alan_e, on Flickr

Further changes are in-progress. I've redesigned it so the assembled core, side boosters and Eve rover go up in a single launch, along with components to convert two of the side boosters into a Gilly lander able to hold a combined 30400 units of fuel and oxidizer in two large Kerbodyne tanks and one Rockomax X16. I need to install a method of jetissoning or destroying or knocking off the Kerbodyne engines because their mass makes it difficult for Rendezvous Autopilot to steer when full. Since the rover no longer needs to dock, I removed all its RCS thrusters and mono tanks, then installed two of the small, spherical ones so it has a place for mono to go while converting/transferring. I think I'll also do away with the big Kethane tank too for a smaller one for mass and length savings. I've also come up with a way (still unbuilt) to eliminate the need to undock the Eve lander in order to remove Gilly lander parts from the middle of the ship. The mission plan has also been changed to enter Gilly orbit first, assemble the lander and refuel before going to Eve, then stop at Gilly again on the way back. No changes will be made to the manned Eve lander since it works just fine.

None of these would have been possible without Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and Quantum Struts. Now there's Stock Drag Fix that fixes the "feature" where KSP adds the mass of fuel tank contents in its drag calculations. Since how much fuel real rockets have in their tanks has zero effect on aerodynamic drag, SDF removes that from the stock KSP drag model. Note, SDF not for use with FAR, NEAR or any other mod that messes with drag or other aero, except for RSS - but with *only* RSS, not RSS plus any other drag altering mod. The main thing SDF does is get your rockets to orbit using quite a bit less fuel. It will also alter how air/space planes fly so their balance may need changed.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Galane

[Overfloater]

My all-stock-parts Moon lander:

In stock game it can fly from Kerbin to Eeloo and then to Moho :-p

[Whackjob]

I'll just include the most successful Arkingthaad I've ever done. Before the large diameter parts:

[Naten]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ29UJVasPU

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89256-Tiny-Cat-Rocketry-Tiger-2-Rocket-%28more-than-360-tons-to-orbit%29-with-video

360 tons to orbit without asparagus spam. Only outer boosters that feed in like the Falcon 9 Heavy concept.
Once it deposited the 10 orange tank payload in orbit, its final stage had a large amount of fuel remaining.