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

[Thor Wotansen]

Many moons ago, long before the Making History expansion I built a refueling SSTO on request from another forum user, and it was glorious and huge.

Then Making History came out, and I went off to play other games, and time passed.  But now I have returned and discovered that my previously huge SSTO is no longer so impressive, so I have set out to build a replacement that is bigger and impressiver than ever before, even though impressiver isn't a word.

That's right, 5m tanks baby!  512t of payload and more engines than a Russian rocket designers wet dream.  I just have to figure out how to get it to orbit without the wings overheating.  The radiators don't seem to be doing the trick.

[prgmTrouble]

2 hours ago, Thor Wotansen said:

I just have to figure out how to get it to orbit without the wings overheating.  The radiators don't seem to be doing the trick.

Add moar boosters. Duh.

If that don't work (I cannot fathom why it wouldn't), I think that you should increase the AOA so you Ascend Out of Atmosphere. At this point, your plane is basically a rocket at high speeds, so fly it like a rocket and your problems should disappear.

[Triop]

[Mignear]

Working on something that uses airbrakes to hide the engines. Pretty nice view with them deployed.

Problem is that the wings will flex though. Gonna find a way to stop that somehow. Never had this issue in my previous designs.

[qzgy]

7 hours ago, Mignear said:

Problem is that the wings will flex though. Gonna find a way to stop that somehow. Never had this issue in my previous designs.

Autostrut perhaps? Or just even normal struts? 

[Thor Wotansen]

Make sure you only autostrut the tips, unless you want your wings falling off randomly.

[Mignear]

1 hour ago, qzgy said:

Autostrut perhaps? Or just even normal struts? 

 

1 hour ago, Thor Wotansen said:

Make sure you only autostrut the tips, unless you want your wings falling off randomly.

Looks like I missed out that autostrut has been a thing. Just turned it on and it fixed the issue. Thanks guys.
Cuts down on part count as well, which is great. It was hitting 100 parts with struts and still had that issue to a lesser degree, now its completely solved.

[prgmTrouble]

2 hours ago, qzgy said:

Autostrut perhaps? Or just even normal struts? 

 

1 hour ago, Thor Wotansen said:

Make sure you only autostrut the tips, unless you want your wings falling off randomly.

I will always use grandparent autostruts for all wing parts. This way, it is a bit more flexible in high-g maneuvers but not too flexible. I also use normal struts if the wing is multiple parts long at the base so that I can have one part as the root for the whole wing (makes moving it around easier) but still have all the base wing surfaces firmly attached to the fuselage. This strategy has yet to fail me.

[Thor Wotansen]

I've become distracted from my 5m double fuselage fuel tanker SSTO by the thought that I might make it into a cargo SSTO as well.  Sadly Squad has not yet seen fit to give us a 5m cargo bay, so I set about making one with fairings, but there's a hitch; when I undock the pieces of SSTO to pull the cargo rack out of the fairing, the pieces act like they're one craft, even though they're not.  I have yet to play around with decouplers or stack seperators, but so far the system has required staging the fairing, which defeats the purpose.  Any tips or advise with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

[Castille7]

"LIGHTHOUSE POINT"
Update: 08.10.2018

I may have to re-think the shingles, the part count is putting a hurting on my graphics card. These are the small fuel cells.

Spoiler

 

[qzgy]

2 hours ago, Thor Wotansen said:

I've become distracted from my 5m double fuselage fuel tanker SSTO by the thought that I might make it into a cargo SSTO as well.  Sadly Squad has not yet seen fit to give us a 5m cargo bay, so I set about making one with fairings, but there's a hitch; when I undock the pieces of SSTO to pull the cargo rack out of the fairing, the pieces act like they're one craft, even though they're not.  I have yet to play around with decouplers or stack seperators, but so far the system has required staging the fairing, which defeats the purpose.  Any tips or advise with this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thats a really neat/funky design. I like it. To your problem though, have you checked that the fairing isn't clipping into the actual sliders/rails? Perhaps moving the rails inwards a bit would help.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

3 hours ago, Castille7 said:

"LIGHTHOUSE POINT"
Update: 08.10.2018

I may have to re-think the shingles, the part count is putting a hurting on my graphics card. These are the small fuel cells.

<snip>

  Reveal hidden contents

 

3227 parts... GOOD KRAKEN!  My head hurts just thinking about the lag that must cause... good luck with that lol!  

[Thor Wotansen]

7 hours ago, qzgy said:

Thats a really neat/funky design. I like it. To your problem though, have you checked that the fairing isn't clipping into the actual sliders/rails? Perhaps moving the rails inwards a bit would help.

Yes I have, that's the first thing I checked actually. Nothing is clipping except whatever happens at the end where the fairing snaps to close on the 5m-3.75m adapter.  I intend to try a decoupler there and make the cargo bay a one time open and close deal.

[KerbolExplorer]

I present the Pika infinity X

NO its not the yellow thing its the White thing in the back.

Right now it can only fly on kerbin.But soon it will be flaying all over space.

The design is inspiredA.K.A:Tottaly riped off.the starting craft of No mans sky.

[Triop]

I flew under the bridge... *kuch

[Mignear]

Not really satisfied with the shape of the wing, gotta have to play with the wing parts and see what angles I can get.

[Servo]

I flew back to school yesterday in a CRJ-200, and this is how I kept myself busy during the trip. Handles like a cow in the air, so some work is required.

It takes off real easy, though - rotation speed is 0 m/s!

[HB Stratos]

remaking my X-29
(protoype in the pictures)

[Mignear]

The shape of the wing still doesn't look right to me.

[sturmhauke]

On 8/11/2018 at 4:54 AM, Thor Wotansen said:

Nothing is clipping except whatever happens at the end where the fairing snaps to close on the 5m-3.75m adapter.  I intend to try a decoupler there and make the cargo bay a one time open and close deal.

I'm not sure, but I think what's happening is that the fairing edge acts sort of like a "seal" or strut, attaching to the part at the end. A decoupler will probably help, but you'll have to experiment. I tried an Apollo-style Mun lander once, and had some problems getting everything to behave as expected.

BTW stealing your rails, those are awesome.

[prgmTrouble]

19 hours ago, Mignear said:

The shape of the wing still doesn't look right to me.

Try using a structural wing type A, then a connector type C, and a small delta flipped 180° over the horizontal axis. I sometimes use that if I'm bored of a flat back end of the wing.

 

[qzgy]

21 hours ago, Mignear said:

The shape of the wing still doesn't look right to me.

Perhaps you might want to use the rotation tools? You dont have to be limited to the angles of the standard wing parts then.

Sometimes what I like to do is build 2 strips of wing connectors E or D and rotate those into the desired wing shape outline, then fill in the smaller gaps. The end has to be cleaned up afterwards, but its a start at least.

[Mignear]

21 hours ago, qzgy said:

Perhaps you might want to use the rotation tools? You dont have to be limited to the angles of the standard wing parts then.

Sometimes what I like to do is build 2 strips of wing connectors E or D and rotate those into the desired wing shape outline, then fill in the smaller gaps. The end has to be cleaned up afterwards, but its a start at least.

I do use them, just that on this particular plane I wanted wings of a certain size and rotating them too much throws off the angles I want. 

[Triop]

Working on a custom cockpit.

I think I'll make a car out of it.

 

Edited August 25, 2018 by Triop

[EvenFlow]

 

With Ace Combat 7 release date being announced and my Tomcat reaching 300 downloads I've decided to make two special variants of the Cat.

The first one, pictured here is the Osean Air Defense Force livery.

The second one, which is currently also almost done will be the Schnee squadron livery of the Belkan Air Force from ACZ.

They will come with full custom decal packs and detailed exteriors along with some weapon systems.

The special liveries will be avalible for a limited time since they are not stock.

EDIT: Here's the WIP Schnee Tomcat ready to shoot down some mercenary dogs.

Edited August 25, 2018 by EvenFlow