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

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

3 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

 

 
Guess

Merrimac?  One of those civil war iron-clads.

[pTrevTrevs]

17 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Merrimac?  One of those civil war iron-clads.

*clears throat*

Well... Yes and no. People often call it the CSS Merrimack, but that isn't exactly correct. The ship was named Merrimack before it was captured by Confederate forces at the Norfolk Naval Yard. The Confederate Navy converted it into an ironclad and rechristened it CSS Virginia. Some people may not care about technicalities such as this, but I do. The American Civil War is one of my favorite time periods in US history, and I can't stand it when I see people accidentally state an erroneous fact.

If the Virginia (I will be calling it by its real name) turns out well, and if I can remain committed and not lose focus on this, I plan to try and build the USS Monitor as well. That turret bearing is going to be hard though...

[selfish_meme]

This is what 28 Junos and 12 Aerospikes looks like, interestingly the Juno's alone are not adequate to lift it

 

[Columbia]

12 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

*clears throat*

Well... Yes and no. People often call it the CSS Merrimack, but that isn't exactly correct. The ship was named Merrimack before it was captured by Confederate forces at the Norfolk Naval Yard. The Confederate Navy converted it into an ironclad and rechristened it CSS Virginia. Some people may not care about technicalities such as this, but I do. The American Civil War is one of my favorite time periods in US history, and I can't stand it when I see people accidentally state an erroneous fact.

If the Virginia (I will be calling it by its real name) turns out well, and if I can remain committed and not lose focus on this, I plan to try and build the USS Monitor as well. That turret bearing is going to be hard though...

But in all honesty though, Merrimack is still a defined name. Well.. at least it's original was.

For example: The Messerschmitt 109 is officially designated as Bf (Bayerische Flugzeugwerke) 109, but many others refer to it as Messerschmitt Me 109. Both are correct, because the 109 was designed at a time when Messerschmitt was Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. It is not wrong to call it Me 109, but it isn't the official designation either -- People get what you mean either way. I believe it's the same with the Merrimack/Virginia.

I know nothing about Civil War ships, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe it's incorrect to call it the CSS Merrimack. 

 

 

[adsii1970]

20 minutes ago, Columbia said:

I know nothing about Civil War ships, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe it's incorrect to call it the CSS Merrimack. 

 

 

As a professional historian (and one that dabbles in U.S. Naval History), the correct name is C.S.S. Virginia if you are referring to the vessel after its capture by the Confederacy. The name, Merrimack, is the United States name of the ship, as named by Congress of the United States. Since the United States never recognized the independence of the Confederacy, in official U.S.N. records, the ship remained listed as the U.S.S. Merimack, much the way that the U.S.N. still lists the U.S.S. Pueblo, a ship that has been captured and remains in the custody of the North Koreans since the 1960s, in spite of the North Korean attempts at changing its name. In fact, until the efforts to criminalize the actions of the Confederacy began in the mid 1960s, it was referred to in American history books, beginning in  1876, as being the "C.S.S. Virginia, originally the U.S.S. Merrimack captured by Confederate forces."  It was sloppy academics that has altered this and many other facts of the Civil War to fit a more "what they did was illegal" interpretation of what actually happened.

Once the ship was captured by Confederate forces, the Confederate Congress rechristened it the C.S.S. Virginia, but again... When one says "C.S.S. Merrimack", it's mixing titles; it would be like calling the Titanic a H.M.S. rather than a R.M.S.  The very prefix, C.S.S. is an identifyer that it is a warship of the Confederacy. It would be historically proper and right to call her the C.S.S. Virginia or the captured U.S.S. Merrimack... just do not combine the titles...

And for giggles and grins, the most lethal naval vessel of the entire Civil War in sheer numbers of vessels sunk or captured was the C.S.S. Alabama... Her contracted construction by Great Britain almost led to war between the United States and Great Britain in the immediate years after the war.

Edited December 15, 2015 by adsii1970

[pTrevTrevs]

31 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

As a professional historian (and one that dabbles in U.S. Naval History), the correct name is C.S.S. Virginia if you are referring to the vessel after its capture by the Confederacy. The name, Merrimack, is the United States name of the ship, as named by Congress of the United States. Since the United States never recognized the independence of the Confederacy, in official U.S.N. records, the ship remained listed as the U.S.S. Merimack, much the way that the U.S.N. still lists the U.S.S. Pueblo, a ship that has been captured and remains in the custody of the North Koreans since the 1960s, in spite of the North Korean attempts at changing its name. In fact, until the efforts to criminalize the actions of the Confederacy began in the mid 1960s, it was referred to in American history books, beginning in  1876, as being the "C.S.S. Virginia, originally the U.S.S. Merrimack captured by Confederate forces."  It was sloppy academics that has altered this and many other facts of the Civil War to fit a more "what they did was illegal" interpretation of what actually happened.

Once the ship was captured by Confederate forces, the Confederate Congress rechristened it the C.S.S. Virginia, but again... When one says "C.S.S. Merrimack", it's mixing titles; it would be like calling the Titanic a H.M.S. rather than a R.M.S.  The very prefix, C.S.S. is an identifyer that it is a warship of the Confederacy. It would be historically proper and right to call her the C.S.S. Virginia or the captured U.S.S. Merrimack... just do not combine the titles...

And for giggles and grins, the most lethal naval vessel of the entire Civil War in sheer numbers of vessels sunk or captured was the C.S.S. Alabama... Her contracted construction by Great Britain almost led to war between the United States and Great Britain in the immediate years after the war.

Yeah, what he said. Enough about the name though, I don't want to derail this thread.

I will have to make my replica a little different. Virginia's rounded ends are very difficult to do, and they also had some guns facing forward and aft, which I won't add because it will be too hard. I think I can make it so Kerbals can walk around the gun deck and possibly even climb into the pilothouse.

I expect USS Monitor to be easier to do, it has a boxier hull, less guns, and none of those dammed rounded edges like Virginia has. The biggest problem will be getting the turret to rotate, I've never tried building a bearing before.

[Majorjim!]

2 hours ago, selfish_meme said:

This is what 28 Junos and 12 Aerospikes looks like, interestingly the Juno's alone are not adequate to lift it

 

Junos only lift around 1.5t each. They are suuuuper weak.

[adsii1970]

6 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

I expect USS Monitor to be easier to do, it has a boxier hull, less guns, and none of those dammed rounded edges like Virginia has. The biggest problem will be getting the turret to rotate, I've never tried building a bearing before.

Would the use of Infernal Robotics be considered taboo in your experiment?

[pTrevTrevs]

18 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Would the use of Infernal Robotics be considered taboo in your experiment?

I usually try to make all of my craft stock unless the situation dictates otherwise. I've seen many people make working turrets for tanks, so I know it's possible. I would like to avoid IR if I can help it.

[selfish_meme]

4 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

I usually try to make all of my craft stock unless the situation dictates otherwise. I've seen many people make working turrets for tanks, so I know it's possible. I would like to avoid IR if I can help it.

I can lend you a prerelease of my tank turret bearing in a box if you want.

[PointySideUp]

I made a small mining/exploration lander that seats 2.  It consists of right at 100 parts, so it could probably use a bit of paring down.  It has enough RTGs to mine and convert through the night and plenty of DV after getting back into Minmus orbit after refueling with a full load of ore.  Still tweaking, but it handles pretty good as is.

The Ore Mite

 

Edited December 17, 2015 by PointySideUp
Pic edit

[selfish_meme]

Found this in my folder from 1.04 testing, played with it a bit, cannot get it to take off without crashing, but if you edit it into the air it flies nicely, single Juno suits the performance and is a lot easier to hide.

It was originally pTrevTrevs Fokker D 1, he apparently didn't use the no offset mod so I removed a ton of cubic struts and redid the struts, changed a few things here and there. And made it not take off despite having a good CoM and CoL, it just stalls nose high as soon as the wheels leave the ground. Hmmm I just realised I din't check the pilot orientation.

Edited December 17, 2015 by selfish_meme

[FlipNascar]

So thanks to some wonderfully helpful input from @Jakalth I got the blades spinning beautifully in snyc... Of course, first blood in the water and it just sits there....

 

I will beat this.... soon™

[selfish_meme]

8 hours ago, FlipNascar said:

So thanks to some wonderfully helpful input from @Jakalth I got the blades spinning beautifully in snyc... Of course, first blood in the water and it just sits there....

 

I will beat this.... soon™

Thats very nice, you might find for propulsion purposes the water behaves more like air. You will probably need bigger blades.

[pTrevTrevs]

9 hours ago, FlipNascar said:

So thanks to some wonderfully helpful input from @Jakalth I got the blades spinning beautifully in snyc... Of course, first blood in the water and it just sits there....

 

I will beat this.... soon™

So... Paddle steamers are a thing now? Time to build myself an 1800s era Mississippi steamboat!

[selfish_meme]

5 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

So... Paddle steamers are a thing now? Time to build myself an 1800s era Mississippi steamboat!

Bubbadevlins antennae engine might be better for a paddle steamer

[FlipNascar]

6 hours ago, selfish_meme said:

Thats very nice, you might find for propulsion purposes the water behaves more like air. You will probably need bigger blades.

I've also found that it does weird things to bearings... And it needs way more power. Still, it's ever so slightly more efficient than the driveshaft I am tinkering with. I think you're right, bigger blades. I may just switch to a single shaft with huge blades. But I think I need to get more efficiency out of the setup before putting it back in the water.

6 hours ago, pTrevTrevs said:

So... Paddle steamers are a thing now? Time to build myself an 1800s era Mississippi steamboat!

Bubbadvelin built exactly that - a few pages back maybe? Pretty neat. But yeah, might be a good candidate for the antennae drive!

[mrmcp1]

Here is my X-20 Dyna- Soar inspired spaceplane with a mini cargo bay

There is enough room in the bay for a small 0.625m probe

[sgt_flyer]

A new work in progress for my Soyuz (took me some time to fine tune this damn thing and even then, the grid fins deployement is still twitchy ^^ - but still, it's as close both in form and function to the real thing that i could manage :p)

Here's the link to my previous post, if you want to see what the soyuz spacecraft looks like
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/60345-work-in-progress-wip-design-thread/&do=findComment&comment=2305142

so here's an album of on pad tests of the abort system / fairing ejection

 

 

Edited December 18, 2015 by sgt_flyer

[Majorjim!]

Just now, sgt_flyer said:

A new work in progress for my Soyuz (took me some time to fine tune this damn thing and even then, the grid fins deployement is still twitchy ^^ - but still, it's as close both in form and function to the real thing that i could manage :p)

Here's the link to my previous post, if you want to see what the soyuz spacecraft looks like
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/60345-work-in-progress-wip-design-thread/&do=findComment&comment=2305142

so here's an album of on pad tests of the abort system / fairing ejection

 

 

Looking great so far dude! And nice to see a custom faring again. I have missed building them! What part are you using for the fins hinge?

[sgt_flyer]

4 minutes ago, Majorjim said:

Looking great so far dude! And nice to see a custom faring again. I have missed building them! What part are you using for the fins hinge?

I used LV-1Rs for the hinge  (both the fixed and the moving parts) - there's 2x2 LV1Rs in a 90° V shape fixed on the fairing for each grid fin. Onto each grid fin, i have 1 LV1R on each end of the grid with their nozzle going between the fixed LV1Rs

[Majorjim!]

Just now, sgt_flyer said:

I used LV-1Rs for the hinge  (both the fixed and the moving parts) - there's 2x2 LV1Rs in a 90° V shape fixed on the fairing for each grid fin. Onto each grid fin, i have 1 LV1R on each end of the grid with their nozzle going between the fixed LV1Rs

Hmm, interesting. I noticed you said it was sticking from time to time. I have had very good results using the thermometer parts as the cage. With care they can be made to work every time. It's a few more parts but very reliable.

[sgt_flyer]

I don't have a stickyness problem  it's just that sometimes, the drag of the grid fin vs the acceleration of the escape tower is enough to overcome the elasticity of the parts (thermometers included - and they're even more susceptible under this kind of stress) and rip the grid fin off the hinge (which immediately makes the thing veer towards the side where there's grid fins left) (besides, it's already part count heavy enough ^^)

Edited December 18, 2015 by sgt_flyer

[Majorjim!]

Just now, sgt_flyer said:

I don't have a stickyness problem  it's just that sometimes, the drag of the grid fin vs the acceleration of the escape tower is enough to overcome the elasticity of the parts (thermometers included - and they're even more susceptible under this kind of stress) and rip the grid fin off the hinge (which immediately makes the thing veer towards the side where there's grid fins left) (besides, it's already part count heavy enough ^^)

Fair enough, I may have a sneaky go when you release it.

 Do they hang free after being detached?

Edited December 18, 2015 by Majorjim

[sgt_flyer]

yup - though as it's only used in aborts, it's not really a problem  the initial 'kick' is given by the partially clipped cubic strut at the top of the fin (clipped within it's decoupler) then drag force the fins to fully deploy. i've added an ox-stat solar panel near the hinge on the fins  - when the fin deploys, the solar panel come to press onto the fairing, keeping the fins level.

Edited December 18, 2015 by sgt_flyer