totm june 2018 Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread

[Redrobin]

I don't think this will end well...

[Redrobin]

What am I doing with my life? Please send help:

It doesn't launch as it is very unbalanced and even if it lifted off, it wouldn't fly as it has fuel flow issues on the boosters where the LVT-30s suck fuel from the 2.5 meter tank and the LVT-45s suck fuel from the 1.25 meter clipped tanks. I think I have gone too far to resolve those issues, so I will leave this as a 1300 part museum piece.

[GusTurbo]

I'm really sad that your Soyuz isn't working out. It really does look great.

Here's an N1-esque lower stage that I've been testing. It only has 24 engines instead of 30, but it has absolutely beastly thrust thanks to the crazy liquid fuel boosters.

Easily puts 100 mT into 100 x 100 km orbit.

Edited April 8, 2014 by GusTurbo

[Majorjim!]

I'm really sad that your Soyuz isn't working out. It really does look great.

Here's an N1-esque lower stage that I've been testing. It only has 22 engines instead of 30, but it has absolutely beastly thrust thanks to the crazy liquid fuel boosters.

http://i.imgur.com/xpxbA8p.png

Easily puts 100 mT into 100 x 100 km orbit.

http://i.imgur.com/D36DVm0.png

WOW that's a monster!

Make it make it make it!

[Rune]

What am I doing with my life? Please send help:

http://i.imgur.com/rxyGx2K.png

It doesn't launch as it is very unbalanced and even if it lifted off, it wouldn't fly as it has fuel flow issues on the boosters where the LVT-30s suck fuel from the 2.5 meter tank and the LVT-45s suck fuel from the 1.25 meter clipped tanks. I think I have gone too far to resolve those issues, so I will leave this as a 1300 part museum piece.

TAC could perhaps take care of the fuel issues, but yeah, 1300 parts is way beyond the edge of playability. A shame, because it looks really good! You should fly it once to get screenies at least.

I think however that lower part counts are much more desirable. IMO, a good looking design with half the part is twice as elegant, and it also makes for a much more enjoyable play with much less waiting because of lag.

Rune. And screw mass! We aren't even sure kerbal kgs and N mean the same thing as ours.

[GusTurbo]

WOW that's a monster!

Make it make it make it!

I'm trying to come up with payloads. A Mun lander would be trivial.

[Darth Lazarus]

I'm trying to come up with payloads. A Mun lander would be trivial.

make a Duna-complex

[GusTurbo]

I need design inspiration. I would kind of like to do some sort of Russian flavored Mars Direct plan.

[Redrobin]

TAC could perhaps take care of the fuel issues, but yeah, 1300 parts is way beyond the edge of playability. A shame, because it looks really good! You should fly it once to get screenies at least.

I think however that lower part counts are much more desirable. IMO, a good looking design with half the part is twice as elegant, and it also makes for a much more enjoyable play with much less waiting because of lag.

Rune. And screw mass! We aren't even sure kerbal kgs and N mean the same thing as ours.

Problem is that it somehow hits the launch clamps even though there is plenty clearance.

[Darth Lazarus]

I need design inspiration. I would kind of like to do some sort of Russian flavored Mars Direct plan.

PPTS-like 3kerbal crewtaxi on top of a oversized LK lander for a Duna mission.

[Redrobin]

Got a new record height before exploding:

Also testing a new LK. This one has a complete leg stage that uses the same engine the entire time. Shouldn't be a problem unless you fall on it:

[Redrobin]

Show off my LK lander. It is clocking in at 150 parts, so it is not really part efficient.

It uses the same engine for descent and ascent.

[Darth Lazarus]

neat little lander ... i coud adapt the landinggear for my LK .. hrm ....

[Technical Ben]

Variable VTOL??? It might be possible.

[Rune]

So. Perhaps you guys remember my Broadsword SSTO Cargo Shuttle. Well, I was never 100% happy about the thrust profile: RAPIERs have nice in-space thrust, but as atmospheric engines they leave much to be desired (either that or they are very OP as rockets, the point is you waste engine mass on useless in-space T/W). So after finishing with that, I started experimenting with turbojet-RAPIER engines and got some interesting results. Mainly, it seems that a 1-1 ratio works well with my usual 2-1 or 4-1 ratio on intakes/airbreathers (my totally personal preference), meaning if it can fly with a payload, it can take it to orbit with just enough thrust.

Then ARM came along, and among the quintillion things that got into my to-do list, one jumped at me: that "hollow" 2.5m-3.75m structural adapter is so full of possibilities, you have to explore them. So a short of Broadsword 2.0 is in the making, only it carries triple the payload (a full big red) with twice the engines, has higher T/W, better looks, and flies a bit better if that was even possible. And I'm on the preliminary round of testing, I haven't even taken her to orbit yet. But I'm pretty sure I have a winning design here, without mentioning the new cool-looking hybrid powerplant I developed for it (notice the exhaust):

In other news, my latest launchers are really sexy IMO, if not very efficient. Should I release a bunch of them? Take a look and tell me (I'm especially proud of the second, I mean the SRB+Drop tank combo to fit the height is nice, but a 2.5 stage design with solids making the first 1.5 stages... Kod bless tweakables!):

this one launches 20mT (Duh!) and I'm thinking of using it for a space station pack, but 20mT station modules are not as easy as it sounds... because 20mT is too much for most cases.

This launches a very cool 3.75mT orbiter+lander probe combo, with 5km/s on the orbiter and the ability to drop the lander anywhere but Tylo, so good for >90% of the system science.

The 2.5 and 3.75m fairings owe a lot to the 3.75m one from sgt_flyer's Arianne V replica, BTW, so thanks for that.

Rune. Nighttime shot because this is a sneak-peek... right? ^^'

Edited April 10, 2014 by Rune

[GusTurbo]

That SSTO looks amazing, and those lifters are incredibly elegant. I expect nothing less from you Rune. I need to borrow that 3.75m fairing.

[sgt_flyer]

hehe no problems with me on those fairings rune ^^ i made them to be used (although i generally prefer to use cubic struts 0.625m decouplers for ease of 'opening' the fairings when working on it, and stay sure i'll replace them at the good place afterwards )

i had enough attachment bugs when adding parts to 'enclosed' nodes to prefer dismounting those fairings before operating

i'm currently working on my upgraded Ariane V (and it seems i'm upgrading it like they did on the real one ^^ i ended up upgrading the SRB's (gone from 6 to 7 SRB's ^^) better nosecone and better separatrons (i can eject the SRB's still burning without risks to the rocket - that makes a nice V shape ^^), 'Cryo' upper stage, etc although i think i'll make it pass for a Vinci powered cryo upper stage, as the liquid engines are restartable in stock KSP currently, the upper stage can send roughly 20+ tons to GTO and still deorbit itself afterwards plus those damn cryo arms for the launch tower (they required a lot of tweaks before working approximately correctly )

Edited April 10, 2014 by sgt_flyer

[Ravenchant]

Still working on that lifter family, and redoing the 20-ton one to be less boring. It started out as a Proton lookalike, but it's too pudgy and needs 15 engines on the first stage instead of 6.

(Also, those fairings are placeholders. It's still missing a third stage)

Edited April 10, 2014 by Ravenchant

[Technical Ben]

Another WIP craft. A small ion glider with rover this time. I doubt it would have the lift for duna though. Might be a good idea for Eve. So will send it there.

[Majorjim!]

That SSTO looks amazing, and those lifters are incredibly elegant. I expect nothing less from you Rune. I need to borrow that 3.75m fairing.

Redacted

MJ

Edited April 11, 2014 by Majorjim

[Majorjim!]

SUPER SNIP

How do your fairings release Rune?

MJ

[GusTurbo]

Borrow?

If you have to make a 3.75m fairing just place panels around it as he has done.

How do your fairings release Rune?

MJ

There really is an art to making fairings, especially ones that split in two. I am sadly not very skilled in that art.

[Redrobin]

There really is an art to making fairings, especially ones that split in two. I am sadly not very skilled in that art.

Me neither... mine come into 8 or more pieces

[Rune]

Borrow?

If you have to make a 3.75m fairing just place panels around it as he has done.

How do your fairings release Rune?

MJ

Well, I used to go with the "let symmetry take care of things" approach and ended up with lots of independent columns of structural panels. But on these last builds I learned, that's quite crappy. The trick is to make one half, and think a bit about numbers beforehand. Let me explain that a bit more:

First, I build a column of panels, placed horizontally on somewhere where I have good visibility (because with editor tools and "vertical snap" I get them perfectly aligned). Then I add laterally to each one of those (again, horizontally so vertical snap aligns things to perfection), with an angle that depends on the number of sides: eight works out to 45º each (9 times shift+WASD), and so on (360/number of sides). Go for stuff divisible by 5, of course. Then when you have one half done, you can either copy it, place with symmetry, or save as subassembly, and then you put the endpoint and start fudging around with the separatrons (point them away form the rocket, preferably onto the other fairing and inside). It takes a while but is pretty error-resistant and sturdy.

Oh, and I have the structural cone placed over a decoupler, so on faring separation I get three pieces flying away (and a lot of "structural panel damaged" messages I can ignore).

The result is much sturdier, easy to strut, and as long as the initial column of plates stays put, the rest will follow (at most you have two connections to it, so little flex). A shame we don't have 2x1 or 3x1 stuff on stock, it would really cut on parts. Fairings come out at about 50-100 parts when you add everything up, or more if you really go big (the one on the 20mT launcher is over 100 easily, about 80 parts in structural panels only).

hehe no problems with me on those fairings rune ^^ i made them to be used (although i generally prefer to use cubic struts 0.625m decouplers for ease of 'opening' the fairings when working on it, and stay sure i'll replace them at the good place afterwards )

i had enough attachment bugs when adding parts to 'enclosed' nodes to prefer dismounting those fairings before operating

i'm currently working on my upgraded Ariane V (and it seems i'm upgrading it like they did on the real one ^^ i ended up upgrading the SRB's (gone from 6 to 7 SRB's ^^) better nosecone and better separatrons (i can eject the SRB's still burning without risks to the rocket - that makes a nice V shape ^^), 'Cryo' upper stage, etc although i think i'll make it pass for a Vinci powered cryo upper stage, as the liquid engines are restartable in stock KSP currently, the upper stage can send roughly 20+ tons to GTO and still deorbit itself afterwards plus those damn cryo arms for the launch tower (they required a lot of tweaks before working approximately correctly )

That Arianne is awesome! The launch arms are truly something, I can imagine the balance took a lot to get right. Kudos!

Rune. You can't never quite leave a good design alone, can you?

Edited April 10, 2014 by Rune

[Redrobin]

Launch towers/arms/clamps is attracted me to spaceflight. I think they are way cool and try to make custom launch clamps for all my rockets.