Harnessing the Kraken: Eeloo in 11 hours!

[ZeroTheAstronaut]

Gentlemen, what the average speed of your krakendrives off the launch pad?

Mine is about 2m\s to 6m\s on launch. I've yet to do a successful orbital test an am wondering if initial launch tests are any reflection of orbital speed.

Takeoff speed is atrocious. But, as detailed in the thread, the Drive has two distinct modes:

In atmosphere

Outside of atmosphere. On Kerbin, it's around 75ish KM. Outside of the atmosphere, you can get several Gees acceleration from the drive. For the single-piston drive linked earlier, I got 8G on testflight one, and oscillation around 5G for test number 2.

I personally have not tested outside of Kerbin, and Jool's reference frames. (Alternis kerbol) I have heard, however, that the single piston drive has issues with the Mun.

[zekes]

Can someone explain how this glitch works?

[TimMartland]

Maybe you could combine a Kraken drive with an Intakeology skimmer to create the ultimate, glitch-powered boat!

[Rune]

Can someone explain how this glitch works?

I've done it a bunch of times! If I don't have an explanation on this very same thread, try either Tyrene technology solutions, on the rocket builders thread, or pretty much any other thread about the Kraken Drive, or K-Drive. We get asked that a lot! (and it's a lengthy response). The really short version is, a landing leg glitched through other parts does wonderful things when you tinker with it. Lots of different models flying around the forum, some more successful than others. I actually have the first K-Drive powered ship posted on Tyrene technologies, with link to an explained post... it's... (searches) ... here.

Gentlemen, what the average speed of your krakendrives off the launch pad?

Mine is about 2m\s to 6m\s on launch. I've yet to do a successful orbital test an am wondering if initial launch tests are any reflection of orbital speed.

Yeah, no real bearing on orbital characteristics. Not even on reliability! The only way you can get to know how it will perform on orbit is to take it there and try it out. for example, the other day I wasted two hours of my life building a ship around an engine that had upwards of 80% reliability on the ground, only to find I got less than 5% on orbit. You could say it gets frustrating, so perhaps you want to use one of the ones here that actually work. I hear great things about the JD-D on orbital setting... mine don't go over 40% yet.

BTW, the orbital setting is a function of speed, in that frame of reference (or in other words, orbital velocity on that SOI), not of altitude or anything like it. Over 700m/s, and the drive will give out a fixed set of G's. Under 700m/s, and the drive will instantly decelerate (or accelerate) to around 5m/s. You can imagine suddenly trying to decelerate to 5m/s when you are going 696m/s usually ends in explosions. (That's the issue on Munar orbit, BTW, you usually get there going slow).

Rune. Now once you get them going, they will generally keep on going, so F9'ing a lot works pretty good.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Rune

[mythic_fci]

Hey, I have an idea!

What if we call all Kraken Drive producers to send out their subassemblies with specifications, and the one that is deemed best gets to be the next K Drive prototype?

[Nemrav]

though i haven't worked much with the kraken, I did make this, albeit using the unbreakable joints cheat

much more effiecient than anybody elses I think....

[SuperBigD60]

I mean, that may be the Kraken's retaliation for our blasphemy?

[Needles_10]

I don't know who remembers what I did, but my first proper thread here was of my rendition of the Deep Space Kraken. Still compatible with 0.23, the Kraken immediately takes control of the Kraken(-ship). Yeah.

[daemonCaptrix]

DCSV Abyss (SNX48)

daeCorp's first K-Drive powered war ship.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Comrade Jenkens]

Nemrav: That has the potential power of the theoretical warp drive I'm talking about!

May need to work on the precision controls aspect a bit though.

[mythic_fci]

I'm not focusing on extreme power; I'm looking at small kraken drives that are very reliable.

Here's my Mk. IV Prototype:

The Archer Class Mk. IV is a TOP SECRET prototype kraken drive system based on Levelord's designs. So far, not counting pilot ignorance of the 700m/s rule, the drive and all related vehicles have a reliability rate of 95%.

The Hermes Light K-Drive Test Platform is shown here.

The trajectory 30 seconds after activation at suborbital height.

It appears to have acceleration in the 4-6G range. It was actually much easier to build this small version than the 2m ones...

I am retrofitting all existing spacecraft to use this system. It will replace my Falcon 2 SSTO in orbital service, and my Zeus class interplanetary transport.

Will put a subassembly dl link if required.

Edited February 28, 2014 by FCISuperGuy

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Can I have the download link?

[mythic_fci]

Can I have the download link?

Which one, the Hermes space tester with launcher or the drive subassembly?

EDIT: There is now a Hermes Mk. II (same k-drive, though). It has docking capability, improved parachute and redesigned launcher. If you're asking for the Hermes you're getting the Mk II.

EDIT 2: There's now a forum thread for the Hermes and the drive.

Link:http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/71215-The-Hermes-Kraken-Drive-Light-Spacecraft

Edited March 1, 2014 by FCISuperGuy

[Nemrav]

okay, my drive works based off the instability of the sepatrons...

currently im working on finding what causes the instability...

as of now, it appears to not be clipping at all, so much as it is a whole bunch of little thin parts bunched into a tiny space, the physics freaks out and makes them wobbly in addition to forces them away..

the result is that my current experiments are more like time bombs, ticking away until physics loads.....

my only problem is that the data im collecting now is in a copy of ksp that uses deadly reentry and FAR, far shouldnt matter, if not improve the results, but re-entry makes things explode of too high g-forces

[astropapi1]

I tried designing one, but...

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

That should be easily fixed, just add more parts Beneath the battery.

[zarakon]

I keep seeing references to a "JD-D" drive in this thread and others, but no actual links or anything. What is it, and where can I see it?

[_Aramchek_]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80346/JD-D.craft

And the updated, better version.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80346/JKD_A_GV4.2C.craft

[zarakon]

Thanks

7890

[KvickFlygarn87]

Well, every scientist working on this in real life just got pwnt.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

DCSV Abyss (SNX48)

daeCorp's first K-Drive powered war ship.

http://imgur.com/a/sbL5n

All hail the Homeworld Troop Ship!

[KissSh0t]

What is the best Kraken Drive design?

I've been testing my own designs and I am just curious what the best design is so far.

I made a very small Kraken Drive and got to Eve using it.

What is the fastest speed achieved by Kraken Drive?

What is the highest G-Force a Kraken Drive has achieved?

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

What is the best Kraken Drive design?

I've been testing my own designs and I am just curious what the best design is so far.

I made a very small Kraken Drive and got to Eve using it.

What is the fastest speed achieved by Kraken Drive?

What is the highest G-Force a Kraken Drive has achieved?

IMO the JD Gv2 drive.

The fastest speed (according to the thread title) is 127Gm/11h, or about 1Gm/h or 277,777m/s (if my calculations are correct [people may have been faster, this is just the fastest I could find])

The highest G-force IIRC was about 20g.

Now I wait for someone to come along and correct me.

[War Eagle 1]

I have been testing the Hermes K-drive by FCISuperGuy in an attempt to make a fighter. Here are some problems I run into

1. its just flops (meaning it just won't work) I turn it on and the ship is like "what am I suppose to do now?"

2. Spin cycle. Sometime it will accelerate, but deciders to act like a gyro ball. Even his ship does this. I turn it on and I watch as it spins upward and to the left

3. One time success. There are times when I can get it to work (rarely) and after I do, I turn it off to see if it will still work. 95% of the time it doesn't. If it does work again it fails the 3rd test 100% of the time.

4. failure after missiles launch. When I first downloaded it, it work much better, but after I would shoot a missile, it always would fail

5. Acting like there is drag. Also when I first starting using it, it would act like it was in atmosphere (I think it is suppose to do that but not 100% sure). So to fix this I added struts, once the struts were added, everything started going down hill.

It started off ok and ever sense it has been going down hill. IDK what is causing my success rate to drop like a rock.

Also I play on a Mac so IDK weather its because of differences in game tips that is causing this or what. If any one on a mac is having major success with any K-drive, please let me know

[_Aramchek_]

I posted a craft file to my drive earlier on in the thread, a page or two back I think.

Not to brag...ok just a little..mine just works..the problem with randomness a lot of the drives have is that you REALLY need to have all the forces being as symmetrical as you can, and I engineered and lucked my way into balancing it almost perfectly.

Less legs are "more" too, when you have multiple legs you don't get more force out of it, AND the multiple legs will cause your pusher plate to rotate slightly, which is very very bad for reliability.

You can fix some of that with struts...BUT..since you're breaking the game physics a bit anyway, you can't solve the problem entirely with struts. so even with struts, multiple legs usually just gives too much rotational stress.

The simplest design to achieve any goal is often the best too, just less stuff to go wrong.

Oh and while you can get two drives to work together, usually it never works much better, if at all, than a single drive.

Edited March 22, 2014 by _Aramchek_