Harnessing the Kraken: Eeloo in 11 hours!

[Xyrus]

For some unknown reason, most kraken drives only work after you get the craft speed above 800m/s, does it work for you then?

From the CONFIDENTIAL files in the hidden KSP administration building:

The Kraken Drive, a.k.a K-Drive, was first discovered by accident by a Dr. Kemmet Brown in the Kerbal year of 1955. After falling off a prototype rocket and hitting his head on a toilet, he had a vision of the Fluks Kapacitor, a device that could apparently harness the Kraken's mysterious energy. It took him 30 years and, coincidentally, Jeb's teen-aged father Marty Jebediah McKerbal to realize his vision. Quite by accident, Marty was driving a little to fast on the freeway with the prototype K-Drive in the back on his way to drop it of at the Doc's workshop. Once he hit 88 mph, Marty suddenly found himself warping uncontrollably through the space-time continuum.

After a three-part adventure, Marty finally made it back to his time without screwing up the universe too badly. And even though the original prototype K-Drive was destroyed in the process, Doc Brown built another one. After further experimentation yielded more craters and creepies (Bob Kerman apparently got a hold of a K-Drive, and let's just say his family tree forms a loop now) than operational craft, official use of the K-Drive was banned. However, some "shady" parts manufacturing companies, in the interest of making a better name for themselves, occasionally sneak a K-Drive into their products for surreptitious testing. The occasional dinosaur fossil with a space-suited Kerbal inside it's stomach and Neadrakerbal cave drawings that say "HELP! SEND SNACKS AND ROCKET PARTS!" are more than enough evidence to indicate that not all rocket disasters are from <s>leaky</s> fuel lines and <s>cut rate</s> parts.

No one is quite sure what will set off a K-Drive. It can be a hapless teenager going 88 mph in a car or a spacecraft zooming along at 800 m/s. The only thing known for sure is that, if the K-Drive doesn't instantly vaporize you to atoms then you're going to be in for one wild ride.

[mythic_fci]

Amazing! Now we need to get back on this... Time to design more kraken drives!

Also, throw all the old rules out the window. We need some new post 0.23.5 design methods.

EDIT: Test 1 of a 1m kraken drive reveals a LOT of phantom forces, but it's mainly lateral, not uni-directional.

Edited September 6, 2014 by FCISuperGuy

[goduranus]

Try it with more symmetry, sometimes forces from opposite sides will cancel out.

[mythic_fci]

Test 2 of the 1m kraken drive has removed ALL forces, not just lateral. Redesign in progress.

[sgt_flyer]

i managed to get a small krakendrive effect from landing gears (less than 0.5g of acceleration in orbit) (can't hover on kerbin, but provide a small acceleration in orbit) - (though the whole thing needs much refinement - and maybe using claws to reattach the core units to the craft before timewarping - else they will drift out of their bearings.) - still a bit unstable though so beware, but can be toggled on and off, and there's no fear to see the landing gears breaking.

born from my research to find alternatives to torque based engines for prop planes

when i tried to put the engine i built on a prop plane, here's what happened :

- so i went on and investigated these forces - as it seemeds of kraken origins

i also tested different configurations of the core (with two times more structural panels, but these are veeery unstable (harmonic resonance) (hence why the prototype only use 8 structural panels clear of everything instead of 16)

(the thing starts to spin on it's own like a madman as soon as you decouple it - with very dangerous effects)

how it seems to work :

basically, once the 'core' unit is decoupled from the craft, when you deploy the landing gears which come in contact with the core's structural panels, they start pushing against one blade, the next one come intersecting the landing gear, so it comes 'up' to push against this second blade (and so on) - while 'pushing' against the core, it generates a bit of thrust. (and we can use multiple units at the same time)

Landing Gear Kraken Drive : http://www./view/4h95a05cmcae67l/test_LGKD.craft

decouple the core units once in orbit, before deploying the drive's landing gears with action group 1.

(you might need to use infinite fuel to get the thing into orbit)

the drive can jam, but usually, you just need to retract the drive's landing gears, reorient your craft, and redeploy the gears to fix it. (the few low duration tests i made, pushed my orbit from a 100kmx100km to a 260kmx100km orbit - so i guess it qualifies )

Unstable core unit : http://www./view/b46cc5fbk3w8em0/test_unstable_core.craft

once you decouple it, it will become wild after only a few seconds - maybe some people can harness this effect (though i think it's too destructive - i tested those unstable core units on the drive above, and they destroyed everything each time)

Edited September 7, 2014 by sgt_flyer

[vsully]

Epic failure. I got up to speed then deployed the KrakenDrive. I went EVA with Fromal Kerman to repair legs. I started the drive, broke legs, then on the second try, the Kraken drive threw Fromal about 300m from his ship. On the third try, apparently the ship was traveling below 800m/s, for the ship blew in half.

- - - Updated - - -

Al-right, the Far Star Class is OBSOLETE. Attempt No.2: The ship blew into pieces, knocked Fromal out and deployed pieces of Kraken Drive over a 2 km radius. Whoops. The Far Star Class ship burnt up in the atmosphere but Fromal somehow survived the reentry and survived the crash into the Grasslands. (The Grasslands are made out of bouncy rubber too?!?)

Edited January 19, 2015 by vsully

[Frozen_Heart]

Epic failure. I got up to speed then deployed the KrakenDrive. I went EVA with Fromal Kerman to repair legs. I started the drive, broke legs, then on the second try, the Kraken drive threw Fromal about 300m from his ship. On the third try, apparently the ship was traveling below 800m/s, for the ship blew in half.

- - - Updated - - -

Al-right, the Far Star Class is OBSOLETE. Attempt No.2: The ship blew into pieces, knocked Fromal out and deployed pieces of Kraken Drive over a 2 km radius. Whoops. The Far Star Class ship burnt up in the atmosphere but Fromal somehow survived the reentry and survived the crash into the Grasslands. (The Grasslands are made out of bouncy rubber too?!?)

K-drive are much harder to build post 0.23. Still possible but most old designs no longer work. A few people have got them working but they break very easily and produce a fraction of the power they once did.

[Rune]

Epic failure. I got up to speed then deployed the KrakenDrive. I went EVA with Fromal Kerman to repair legs. I started the drive, broke legs, then on the second try, the Kraken drive threw Fromal about 300m from his ship. On the third try, apparently the ship was traveling below 800m/s, for the ship blew in half.

- - - Updated - - -

Al-right, the Far Star Class is OBSOLETE. Attempt No.2: The ship blew into pieces, knocked Fromal out and deployed pieces of Kraken Drive over a 2 km radius. Whoops. The Far Star Class ship burnt up in the atmosphere but Fromal somehow survived the reentry and survived the crash into the Grasslands. (The Grasslands are made out of bouncy rubber too?!?)

Well, it's a year and several versions old, and everything including joints is done differently now. In fact, most K-drives from that age broke a long time ago, and I don't even know if there are any working ones for 0.90.

Rune. Now you have a quest. Go forth and redevelop the technology!

[Frozen_Heart]

I don't even know if there are any working ones for 0.90

I've seen a couple actually. There is still hope for them yet!

Someone did manage to connect the 750m/s cut-off point with the speed that Krakensbane activates.

[Windspren]

We're working on it, link in sig

[Rath]

I have had a radial parachute fglung out of the solar system going so fast that the speed numbers are off the screen. this happened with a horribele newb plane that I once built.

[322997am]

I had a kerbal on eva fall from my plane to the ground and it broke the ui and obliterated all of my parked cars or ships in the whole kerbol system and sent jeb at lightspeed so fast I could not see the kerbol system in the map

[Windspren]

If anyone's interested, there's a research program on Krakens and their effect on Jeb's craziness (so far, they seem to increase it).

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115253-The-Kraken-Program-%28How-to-train-your-Kraken%29?p=1830128#post1830128

- - - Updated - - -

[Interplanetary Engineer]

Woo! got it to work on first try! ~0.6g only (in space), but no legs broke!

After multiple launches and many tests, no single leg broke! This incredible reliability comes with some buffs:

-as mentioned, acc is 0.7g at most

-it thrusts in a very irrational direction; you have to face anti-normal(wich reduces acceleration to 0.3 at most) to get prograde thrust

-when "locked to gravity", it can't even lift it's own weight in gravity hack

I mght add the craft file when I improved that a little bit.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Interplanetary Engineer

[Whirligig Girl]

KrakenDrive works in 1.1.0.1174

 

 

here it is punching the admin building.

[Frozen_Heart]

Really good to hear they're working again after so long. Hopefully the devs don't 'fix' this feature after the pre release. Will start playing with them again myself to see what I can come up with.

Might make a new OP as I can no longer edit this one. :/

 

[bestPlayer_xu]

got kerbin escape in 11:19 minutes :))