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

[Redrobin]

Update on my Apollo:

[GusTurbo]

Wow! That is looking great.

Here's an update of my Micro Apollo with complete fairings. 465 parts.

Edited February 24, 2014 by GusTurbo

[Woopert]

Wow! That is looking great.

Here's an update of my Micro Apollo with complete fairings. 465 parts.

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

Wow! That looks awesome! Can't wait to try the finished product.

[Redrobin]

Nice, right now, mine is upwards of 800.

[Rune]

Hum. You guys went ahead and made me do this. This is a short o revision on Phoebus. I'm hating the S-II right now, I have to find how to make it taller with same weight and fuel, but the rest, I think, looks much better the before... and it's still under 250 parts. Hullage engines and everything included, but I need to work on the lander because right now it ain't stock. And I also want to do a proper interstage to bring it up another notch on the accuracy.

Rune. Who needs S6 service compartments when you have stock decouplers that weight four times as much.

[Cranium]

Working on a little project for a possible challenge I will post in the forums. See if you can guess what it is:

[jBeta]

Working on a little project for a possible challenge I will post in the forums. See if you can guess what it is:

Is that for hauling vehicles? Looks interesting!

[Redrobin]

Put a fairing between S-I ans S-II and, with plenty of struts, got it to finally not wobble on the pad

[Rune]

Put a fairing between S-I ans S-II and, with plenty of struts, got it to finally not wobble on the pad

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

Seriously, Mainsails are too big for Apollo replicas. And things work great if you sleep on them and go in with a plan:

Rune. It's clocking at 300 parts exactly pending all-up testing, but kerbal engineer says it should work, if it doesn't blow up.

[Cranium]

It's clocking at 300 parts exactly

Stop with your incessant part limit nonsense! THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE!

It's KERBAL SCIENCE!

[Redrobin]

Comparison of Saturn V and N1

My Saturn V is taller, while the base of the N1 is wider, as they were in real life.

[maccollo]

Been messing with this for far to long now. It's my RSS mars super direct launcher. I call it super direct because it's only one launch. The Mars part includes heatshields, kethane and life support stuff, but the launcher is all stock because I wanted to see how far I could push it before I switched to full realism.

[Majorjim!]

Seriously, Mainsails are too big for Apollo replicas. And things work great if you sleep on them and go in with a plan:

Rune. It's clocking at 300 parts exactly pending all-up testing, but kerbal engineer says it should work, if it doesn't blow up.

Your saying the mainsail is too big for the rocket Redrobin posted a picture of? If anything, they too small to me.

MJ

Edited February 25, 2014 by Majorjim

[Rune]

Stop with your incessant part limit nonsense! THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE!

It's KERBAL SCIENCE!

But who will come to the potato computers' rescue? It's me the hero they look for!

Your saying the mainsail is too big for the rocket Redrobin posted a picture of? If anything, they too small to me.

MJ

I meant as in thrust. To get the Saturn's ponderous liftoff at T/W~1.1, and have the fuel budget to get to Munar transfer a stack, I find myself needing much smaller rockets (mass-wise) than everybody else seems to be using. With tweakables, of course, you can get the bigger nozzle and even some ballast, but... just how much ballast do you guys use on your designs? I mean, the S-II in that picture I posted is perhaps 30% full, and the 1.25m tanks on the S-I are empty too. Just visuals, and to short of simulate H2's low density. And still I have too much delta-v on the S-IVb by about 200m/s, and I think I don't need it to circularize if I pull off a good gravity turn (call that margins). Full three-kerbal capsule, and the lander has two stages, ALSEP, mini rover, and two individual lander cabins, so I didn't skimp on payload, I even used two decouplers as structural members for the service module, to make it look way bigger than it is, and those suckers are 0.4mT each.

Of course, it was also an introductory joke to show off my own thing

Rune. But yeah, that Apollo is anything but mini.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Rune

[Majorjim!]

But who will come to the potato computers' rescue? It's me the hero they look for!

I meant as in thrust. To get the Saturn's ponderous liftoff at T/W~1.1, and have the fuel budget to get to Munar transfer a stack, I find myself needing much smaller rockets (mass-wise) than everybody else seems to be using. With tweakables, of course, you can get the bigger nozzle and even some ballast, but... just how much ballast do you guys use on your designs? I mean, the S-II in that picture I posted is perhaps 30% full, and the 1.25m tanks on the S-I are empty too. Just visuals, and to short of simulate H2's low density. And still I have too much delta-v on the S-IVb by about 200m/s, and I think I don't need it to circularize if I pull off a good gravity turn (call that margins). Full three-kerbal capsule, and the lander has two stages, ALSEP, mini rover, and two individual lander cabins, so I didn't skimp on payload, I even used two decouplers as structural members for the service module, to make it look way bigger than it is, and those suckers are 0.4mT each.

Of course, it was also an introductory joke to show off my own thing

Rune. But yeah, that Apollo is anything but mini.

People use large apollo craft as small ones look less realistic.

Can we see some more pic of your one?

MJ

[Redrobin]

I call it a mini Apollo because it is only a 1 man CSM and LM

[Rune]

People use large apollo craft as small ones look less realistic.

Can we see some more pic of your one?

MJ

Sure! I'll post it complete with craft file once I have actually flown it, but right now I'm in the middle of doing another challenge... Anyhow, for now, how about a pic of the lander? It's from the pad tests, and the sucker is close to 90 parts in itself. Very light, though:

You can just about make out the decouplers and wheels behind the panels where the rover and ALSEP instruments are hidden. I'm, considering running the mission on batteries like the real thing, but the RTG on the ALSEP would still provide electricity until the separation at Mun, and the rover's range would be atrocious, so some solar panel inaccuracy can be expected. The CM is fairly simple, basically all you can see is the capsule and the two decouplers that make up the service module with the fuel, engines, and the rest of stuff. Perhaps solar panels on the sides, same deal.

I call it a mini Apollo because it is only a 1 man CSM and LM

That's why I said mainsail looked too big! What do you use for ballast?

Rune. Kerbal provided for scale, and to prove that the two cabins work fine clipped like that.

[GusTurbo]

But who will come to the potato computers' rescue? It's me the hero they look for!

I meant as in thrust. To get the Saturn's ponderous liftoff at T/W~1.1, and have the fuel budget to get to Munar transfer a stack, I find myself needing much smaller rockets (mass-wise) than everybody else seems to be using. With tweakables, of course, you can get the bigger nozzle and even some ballast, but... just how much ballast do you guys use on your designs? I mean, the S-II in that picture I posted is perhaps 30% full, and the 1.25m tanks on the S-I are empty too. Just visuals, and to short of simulate H2's low density. And still I have too much delta-v on the S-IVb by about 200m/s, and I think I don't need it to circularize if I pull off a good gravity turn (call that margins). Full three-kerbal capsule, and the lander has two stages, ALSEP, mini rover, and two individual lander cabins, so I didn't skimp on payload, I even used two decouplers as structural members for the service module, to make it look way bigger than it is, and those suckers are 0.4mT each.

Of course, it was also an introductory joke to show off my own thing

Rune. But yeah, that Apollo is anything but mini.

I didn't realize the Saturn V TWR was that low. It makes me feel better about my Micro, which seems awfully low at ~1.3.

[sgt_flyer]

I didn't realize the Saturn V TWR was that low. It makes me feel better about my Micro, which seems awfully low at ~1.3.

well, the main problem with real rocket engines, is that their thrust varies with atmospheric pressure

Saturn V F-1 engines have 1000kN more thrust in vacuum compared to sea level thrust (6.7MN at sea level) - per engine ! imagine a KSP mainsail lacking 220 kN of thrust at sea level

Edited February 26, 2014 by sgt_flyer

[Redrobin]

Well Rune, your LM certainly looks better than mine, and actually works for two kerbals.

[Rune]

Well Rune, your LM certainly looks better than mine, and actually works for two kerbals.

http://i.imgur.com/wOc9eu7.png

Well, there's a trick for that. I might post it on the aesthetics thread, the "Mini-LEM upper stage", and you will be able to take mine apart in a few days yourself, but here is the main point. See, those cabins aren't actually the root part of the ship. In the middle there, there is a column of oscar tanks that make the fuel of the upper stage. Now with editor tools and surface attachment activated, you can then stick the cabins to that (individually/SPH symmetry to get the ladders facing the same side) and fiddling around with that you can make look just like in mine. The bonus part is you just stick four RCS blocks and a docking port, and that is a perfectly functional upper stage with all the systems you need (reaction wheels, RCS, enough battery for the ascent and the rendezvous) and a good half a km per second for the ascent, which you can complete on RCS. And making a descent stage for that is dirt simple, you need very little fuel on it, and that's where the part mayhem starts. I just stuck to generally light parts, and tried a bunch of different things, I think that part could be done better.

Rune. The old KISS principle.

[Redrobin]

Do you happen to have a link to these fabled editor tools as I haven't been able to find them.

[astropapi1]

Do you happen to have a link to these fabled editor tools as I haven't been able to find them.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/38768-0-23-Editor-Extensions-v0-6-5-Aug-(EdTools-Editor-Tools-replacement)

Can't play without it!

[vidboi]

Well, there's a trick for that. I might post it on the aesthetics thread, the "Mini-LEM upper stage", and you will be able to take mine apart in a few days yourself, but here is the main point. See, those cabins aren't actually the root part of the ship. In the middle there, there is a column of oscar tanks that make the fuel of the upper stage. Now with editor tools and surface attachment activated, you can then stick the cabins to that (individually/SPH symmetry to get the ladders facing the same side) and fiddling around with that you can make look just like in mine. The bonus part is you just stick four RCS blocks and a docking port, and that is a perfectly functional upper stage with all the systems you need (reaction wheels, RCS, enough battery for the ascent and the rendezvous) and a good half a km per second for the ascent, which you can complete on RCS. And making a descent stage for that is dirt simple, you need very little fuel on it, and that's where the part mayhem starts. I just stuck to generally light parts, and tried a bunch of different things, I think that part could be done better.

Rune. The old KISS principle.

Certainly makes for good looking and effective landers, I think I've been developing one along the same lines since v0.21/0.20? It's definitely more fun than just using the lander can!

All this minimalist/efficiency talk is starting to get me down though, what we need here is some serious lifting power!

A Nova C8 style rocket that I've finally managed to make stable. It's being designed for an Apollo style Mun mission in Alternis-Kerbol - with the addition of a long term hab vehicle for the crew for the way to and from the Mun.

Edited February 27, 2014 by vidboi

[Redrobin]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/38768-0-23-Editor-Extensions-v0-6-5-Aug-(EdTools-Editor-Tools-replacement)

Can't play without it!

Yay, now I can satisfy my OCD in the editors, thanks.