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

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Progress is coming along alright on my Su-57-ish large scale fighter (come to think of it Su-57 probably doesn't count as a fighter, but it's a convenient euphemism so I don't really care).

I'm not completely sold on the nose section, but I'm not sure what else to do there so far now I'm just leaving it. 

Overall the main problem I'm experiencing is the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing, as this type of design is honestly pretty foreign to me. Each individual section takes a lot of trial and error to get looking right, and occasionally I have to rip everything out and start from scratch, massively slowing down progress.

The craft is already coming on 300 parts, which is a somewhat concerning considering that the particularly part-heavy components have yet to be added.

[Chel]

58 minutes ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

The craft is already coming on 300 parts, which is a somewhat concerning considering that the particularly part-heavy components have yet to be added.

What is your computers frame rate? Or should I not want to know the answer...

[Munbro Kerman]

Ending yet another long absence from posting with updates on my 1:1 F-16, which was posted a little over a year ago if I remember correctly. And after seeing many aircraft builders change from using the solar panel cockpit to a more part-efficient style and sculpting more accurate noses of aircraft with landing gear, I decided to "convert" over and start with the perfect craft to practice; the F-16. 

There are a few spots that need to be cleaned up (specifically the air intake) and hopefully I will be able to post more updates in the future on this craft and a few other projects that I've been working on and off during my absence. (Work has been real busy the past few months, I've had to work a couple 50-hour weeks within the last month, but hopefully things will start settling down.)

[Servo]

3 hours ago, Munbro Kerman said:

Ending yet another long absence from posting with updates on my 1:1 F-16, which was posted a little over a year ago if I remember correctly. And after seeing many aircraft builders change from using the solar panel cockpit to a more part-efficient style and sculpting more accurate noses of aircraft with landing gear, I decided to "convert" over and start with the perfect craft to practice; the F-16. 

There are a few spots that need to be cleaned up (specifically the air intake) and hopefully I will be able to post more updates in the future on this craft and a few other projects that I've been working on and off during my absence. (Work has been real busy the past few months, I've had to work a couple 50-hour weeks within the last month, but hopefully things will start settling down.)

Looking great! Seems like you're right back in the swing of things.

Speaking of all of those things, I'm revamping my T-38. I wasn't quite happy with it, so I spent some time fixing a lot of my gripes with it. The tailplanes are now a better shape, the dorsal razorback isn't curved as much, the cockpit is flatter, the engine housing has the proper arch, and there are slats now. More testing is needed to see if it's escaped its nasty habit of getting into near-unrecoverable flat spins or not. Even if it isn't, It's a good thing the engines are literally made of spin recovery chutes.

All that, in addition to a bunch of smoothing edits, especially to the underside. 

Here's the old version for comparison, inspecting my other project as of late. The addition of 600 units of movable ore ballast helped the Shuttle immensely. This gives the Orbiter the ability to shift its CoM significantly, moving between a highly stable reentry position and a pitch-happy landing position so that it can finally pitch up and land safely*

 

*this has yet to be confirmed from orbit reentry tests, only drop tests

[Thingymajigy]

[qzgy]

9 hours ago, Thingymajigy said:

-snip-

Thats looking very sleek. What are the flight characteristics like?

[KestrelAerospace]

So, stock jumbo-sized aircraft in KSP can be a tricky thing to get right, but I'm (nearly) completely satisfied with both the flight handling and part count (about 150) of this one: 

My only gripe now is that I can't find a way to create nice-looking, sleek doors on either side that actually allow Kerbals to enter and exit, as the fairings appear to 'nullify' the ability of hatches to open and close, even if their colliders are outside of the fairing. Any suggestions from you clever folks out there? 

[klond]

On 11/1/2018 at 11:38 PM, Servo said:

 Look at this beaut!  Amelia Kerman must be around here somewhere..

[SkunkTwerks]

Deep within the Great Nebula, the protectors of the Gardens of Kadesh are stirring... Those who have played the original Homeworld game might remember these ships well.

Here's the cutscene (spoiler alert for those who haven't played the game):

Spoiler

 

 

And here's the Twerkshop version so far:

I'm on a pure stock replica roll again, and progress on the Kadeshi fleet is underway. 

The Kadeshi ships all have a very cool rounded aesthetic, which has been somewhat of a challenge to imitate in KSP. I've given up on making the ships to scale in comparison with one another, but I'm optimistic that all of them can be built to a reasonably high degree of visual and physical accuracy without mods.

Swarmer (pictured): Nearly complete! Final polishing stage. Fully equipped with docking port, balanced RCS, and reserve ion drive. 

Mothership (pictured): Fully functional, but in need of detailing. Trying to decide whether I like the HW1 or HW:Remastered version better.

Fuel pod: Taking shape.

Multi-beam frigate: Very early concept phase.

Advanced Swarmer: Haven't even started!

Edited November 7, 2018 by SkunkTwerks

[Thingymajigy]

On 11/6/2018 at 12:08 PM, qzgy said:

Thats looking very sleek. What are the flight characteristics like?

not too bad since the front wings are occluded by the cargo ramp.

here's an upscaled one

a few more tanks and it should be able to get back to kerbin

[qzgy]

1 hour ago, Thingymajigy said:

not too bad since the front wings are occluded by the cargo ramp.

here's an upscaled one

Good to know.

Upscale one also looks very good.

[kapteenipirk]

Just to show you that i haven't forgotten about it yet,

here's the first catapult plane, ready and tested...tough not with a catapult yet.

 

 

Based on the catapult version of the Japanise A6M Zero/zeke, this plane will act as the fleets catapult fighter, while the scout plane for the fleet will most likely be based on the American Kingfisher.

The plane is quite simple to reduce weight and part-count.

It's a little tricky to control, and taking off from water requires a lot of precision, but that's to be expected as these types of sea-planes are really...REALLY hard to get right.

 

Here's some more picks of the test flight.

Spoiler

 

It's really easy to flip yourself upside-down with this thing.

 

You have to push the nose down just enough that the tail lifts up from the water, and that the plane doesn't ride on it's belly. Keeping that right balance is quite tricky.

 

But, when you do find the right balance, and get up to speed, the plane keeps itself level quite well.

And when the speed is about 40 m/s, just pull up and your on your way.

Now the big question is this, will it ever work as a catapult plane.

I have done it before, Buuuut...

Where talking about a plane that was a lot smaller. and back then i taught that was pretty-much the limit of what can be done.

 

While im working on that, i went trough some of my old screenshots, and decided it was time to take some of the designs from the original KNS post, and redo them better than ever before.

Spoiler

 

The one ship that definitely deserves a redo, is the one that started it all, the K.S.S Krucible.

Im think im gonna do a more serious redo on this one, as im planning on turning it from a frigate in to a more heavily armed cruiser.

So, double the main battery guns, double the funnels, and add more size and detail. Yes, this one will be a special detailed up ship.

 

One that i have been meaning to redo for a long time, is the old hovercraft.

It was really fun to use and quite functional as-well.

 

And one that i think would make for a really fun redo, is the old "Forion", the fleets big bad anti-ship aircraft that at the time, used quite a few more interesting and different construction techniques. I basically wanted to create a an aircraft that used no MK-3 parts.

I still really like the look of it.

Should be fun and should also be pretty interesting.

[Mignear]

 

[HB Stratos]

Finaly finished my third YouTube video.

Speedbuilds + craft files soon on Kerbalx

[SkunkTwerks]

Pure stock Homeworld replica progress continues in the Great Nebula, where the Kadeshi fleet is coming right along.

Multi-beam frigate (pictured above, left): Built up from nearly nothing, now nearly complete. Probably won't bother making an RCS system for this one. Had a lot of fun trouble getting the turrets to look right, but I'm calling them close enough. Oblong hexagonal domes (for the ion beam turrets) are really hard to replicate on a small scale in KSP, and I refuse to use TweakScale. Pure stock all the way! If anyone has bright ideas for making those turrets (shielded docking ports on RoveMates) look more accurate, I'm all ears. Better turret reference screenshot here.

Mothership (pictured above, center): Nearly complete! Added a bunch of detailing. Still trying to decide what to put in the big dome. Does anyone do anything with replica crafts other than fly them around for a few minutes? Is it worth adding a fully functional science/data collection suite just for funsies, or should I focus on keeping the part count to a socially acceptable minimum?

Swarmer (pictured above, right): Nearly complete! No new edits to report.

 

Fuel pod (pictured below): Coming along, still experimenting with a lot of things, and trying hard to get the shapes right.

 

Advanced Swarmer: Still haven't even started, but it's largely based around the Swarmer chassis, so the build should go pretty quickly.

The hardest part? Finding good reference photos of multiple angles of some of these ships. I would love to fight my way through the first 9 missions of the Homeworld campaign again just to take reference screenshots of my own... but that's a wormhole of space & time that I just don't dare to jump into right now.

-SkunkTwerks

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by SkunkTwerks

[sturmhauke]

Dude, those are rad. Homeworld was my favorite game for a while.

[Mignear]

Got the looks down, now to make it fly without it doing vertical flips when I pull on the stick.

Thought it might have something to do with the weight on the wings, and took the 2 outer engines out. It flew fine

Probably not enough wing parts contributing lift for its weight?

[Shadow dream]

From the looks of it the craft looks a bit tail heavy. You should check CoM and CoL, if you haven't yet.

Lift can be compensated with speed, which should not be the issue here.

Also you could try and tweak the fuel flow / empty the rear tanks in order to help push the weight towards the nose.

[HB Stratos]

4 hours ago, Shadow dream said:

Also you could try and tweak the fuel flow / empty the rear tanks in order to help push the weight towards the nose.

I wouldn´t do that since it will fly fine with full tanks, but the CoM will shift back so it won´t work fine when empty

[MaianTrey]

On 11/1/2018 at 11:38 PM, Servo said:

Spoiler

 

And naturally, since the release of the MS-10 video, I've been wanting to try and make a proper Korolev cross myself - and that means proper. No sepatrons or ejection force for me. Still in construction, but I'm pretty sure the theory behind it is sound. 

What's required to make this work:

Step 1: Lock prograde hold on the booster, shortly before booster cutoff. There are probe cores in each of the boosters to enable the rest of this, angled outward (away from true vertical). 

Step 2: Fire AG 1 shortly after booster burnout / as it is about to burnout. This enables crossfeed to give the booster engines a half-second more thrust. This also decouples the boosters and enables the "oxygen dump valve" (Puff) engine, but doesn't activate it. The boosters will begin to hinge upwards on the joints.

Step 3: As the boosters rotate upward, use AG 2 to decouple to hinges from the core stage itself. The SAS/RCS on the boosters should kick in to cancel the rotation, and form the Korolev Cross for realsies.

 

Forseeable issues: I may have to resort to simply activating the Oxygen dump valve with AG 1 after all, as the prograde hold/ RCS activation likely won't hold across staging.

Quick note about the LOX dump - I use the LV-1R "Spider" Liquid Fuel Engine to mimic the vented oxygen, because of the white plume. The Puffs I believe have a yellow plume. I put 3 Spiders in a fanned-out array on a cubic strut, which is on a small gray tank, that is separated from the rest of the booster with a decoupler to cut crossfeed, allowing that small tank to serve only the Spider engines.

Edited November 11, 2018 by MaianTrey

[Thor Wotansen]

I have finally completed the development of my Borr² refueling SSTO, the continuation of the original Borr spaceplane, but now making use of the 5m tanks in the Making History expansion.  With two of the longest 5m tanks as payload tanks, it has a maximum payload mass of 512t and a takeoff weight of 1269.14t.  Since the runway is a little short, the Borr² comes with two supplementary vectors for slightly less sketchyness off the end of the runway.  It is entirely possible to take off without them, but the landing gear tend to get a workout that way.  I managed to make orbit on the first successful flight with 0m/s ▲V and an altitude variation of 700m.

[EvenFlow]

Making a little cold-war-gone-hot themed cinematic I started a long time ago. Hopefully I will finish it this time around.

Edited November 12, 2018 by EvenFlow

[Castille7]

Here's a picture from our up coming K&S Project

 

[Mignear]

Shifting the CoM forward helped.

[EvenFlow]

Conn, sonar. Contact, bearing 100, identified as - submarine.

 

Almost finished making a full scale stock parts (had to use buoyancy mods though) replica of the Delta-III SSBN.

She's painted with Textures Unlimited Recolour Depot and is about 100m longer than an A380.

Big girl.