Challenged! The Arkingthaad Nadir.

[problemecium]

Okay I take it back. 16777216 Megaparsecs.

[Whackjob]

I wonder what a movie about Whackjob would be like.

It'd certainly be easy enough finding a body double. Just find some bearded weirdo in some tin shack up in Appalachia who is feverishly writing a manifesto.

[Pecan]

Oh dear, I just thought that Whackjob might be our Howard Hughes - brilliant vehicles, massively over-engineered Spruce Goose, tin shack (give or take a few billion $).

Then again I'd fly Whack's TKS (Trans Kerbol Spaceways ~TWA) whenever it offers a regular service :-)

[Whackjob]

Finally got around to going back to the uncorrupted version and redoing all my work. Shown here is the last bit of strutting. Going now to launch. With luck, it'll hold, and I can see how far I get at fuel-out.

[Whackjob]

Sigh.

Yet again after a few launches, the game crashes.

Yet again the last number of saves I did of the vessel have corrupted. Large selections are now unstrutted and unselectable.

Hours of work.

I'm giving up this project. I can build it, I can fly it, I just can't keep it. Apparently.

[Deadpangod3]

I don't know how it would be done, but I'm sure his ultimate goal is to deorbit the Mun.

**** the mun, he'll deorbit the solar system!!!

[Captain Sierra]

Sigh.

Yet again after a few launches, the game crashes.

Yet again the last number of saves I did of the vessel have corrupted. Large selections are now unstrutted and unselectable.

Hours of work.

I'm giving up this project. I can build it, I can fly it, I just can't keep it. Apparently.

And there was a great disturbance in the spacecraft exchange, as if thousands of KSPers cried out in sadness and became silent.

< plays taps >

Whackjob, we salute you for your valiance in effort.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Captain Sierra

[Michaelo90]

I'm planning a similar, very tall 7-tower rocket, but i will use girders for most of the length. And when it's in orbit each tower will detach from the main one and dock to the end of it to make the longest rocket ever If it works...

[Whackjob]

The odd thing, though, is that while it's absolutely the tallest rocket I've ever flown, it isn't the largest. It's only 3,000 parts. I've had larger part counts that didn't corrupt in this fashion.

I wonder if there's a limit in the parts tree? Like there can only be so many child parts in one line? Or perhaps it's an issue of vertical size that's causing the crash and corruption?

Should I keep it one VAB high, and simply build out?

[Captain Sierra]

The odd thing, though, is that while it's absolutely the tallest rocket I've ever flown, it isn't the largest. It's only 3,000 parts. I've had larger part counts that didn't corrupt in this fashion.

I wonder if there's a limit in the parts tree? Like there can only be so many child parts in one line? Or perhaps it's an issue of vertical size that's causing the crash and corruption?

Should I keep it one VAB high, and simply build out?

Biggest I've ever gone was the top of the old VAB with a Saturn V replica (too big mind you). The framerate was actually decent. Personally, I'd like to see what a whackjob multi-part base looks like, but this comes down to doing what you want to.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Captain Sierra

[The Destroyer]

I've been doing RSS recently, and I made a rocket for landing a small probe on the Mun... figure you would enjoy a picture on the launchpad. It's a mere 100 parts, but don't let that fool you... 200 meters high, 15 meters wide.

It failed. The first issue is it would bang around in the clamps. The second, it spins at 100 RPM before booster sep, and when it does, it kills the main stage. Then, the second-to-final stage decoupler refused to decouple. No, it was NOT upsidedown.

Edited February 15, 2014 by The Destroyer

[Moar Boosters]

The odd thing, though, is that while it's absolutely the tallest rocket I've ever flown, it isn't the largest. It's only 3,000 parts. I've had larger part counts that didn't corrupt in this fashion.

I wonder if there's a limit in the parts tree? Like there can only be so many child parts in one line? Or perhaps it's an issue of vertical size that's causing the crash and corruption?

Should I keep it one VAB high, and simply build out?

I don't think VAB height is anything to do with it. All of my giant apollo rockets are around the height of the VAB and I've encountered this bug quite a few times. I think I even asked you about it before you'd seen it yourself.

I'm sure it's just the VAB because I've seen plenty of videos of people docking parts together in orbit to make huge spacestations without problems.

My suspicion is that it's caused by the fact the game saves every time you make a change to the ship...... to allow the "undo change" shortcut key to work. When we build mega-ships the craft files get really long, and I don't think the auto-save thingy can't keep up. I think it's the reason there's a slight hang when you make big changes, eg.... adding 8 big boosters at the same time, and sometimes it overloads and screws up the file.

I think it happens with different part counts because not all parts are equal. A basic part like a girder doesn't do much, so doesn't take up many lines in the craft file. A more complex part like an engine or fuel tank has multiple function states, multiple tweakables, so takes up much more room in the craft file. Many of your biggest craft use lots of basic parts, which would explain why you've handled such high part counts in the past. I've had this bug appear before 2000 parts before, but my crafts tend to use a lot less structural parts and are mostly made of boosters, so it's possible using those parts is what causes it.

I've seen another bug with the autosave. Sometimes if you use it to revert a change on a very large ship, it'll go and revert like 5 changes. This seems like proof that the autosave thing isn't funtioning properly, so I suspect it's malfunctioning in other ways as well.

I think I might try some tests to see if I can reproduce the bug under controlled conditions. I doubt it's high priority for the devs to go looking for bugs that only happen to giant spaceships, but if we could figure out a way of easily reproducing it they might be able to do something about it.

[problemecium]

I learned recently that docked ships don't get saved as a single ship, but as a conglomeration of "docked ships" which are very similar to normal ships except that they're... uh, docked. It's a little weird. Long story short, I think that's why giant stations work better than giant ships, because not everything is parented to something all the way up to a single base part.

And on that topic, I wonder if a patch can be made to apply this property to ships from the editors...

[astropapi1]

Hey Whackjob. Have you considered using StretchyTanks? I know you don't like using mods, but it could really cut down on part count, which would allow you to make even bigger rockets!

[Whackjob]

I may have called quits on this one too soon. I think I've thought of a way of defeating a couple of issues I'd been having. Will give it a go again tonight. Will just have to build from scratch again.

Hey Whackjob. Have you considered using StretchyTanks? I know you don't like using mods, but it could really cut down on part count, which would allow you to make even bigger rockets!

I don't mind using mods. I just don't grab ones that tend to make my job simpler or easier. The difficulty of it all is what draws me to it. Only exception there being, of course, the Kethane mod. But I see the extra weight in equipment being an acceptable tradeoff.

[Whackjob]

Fresh from the failure of this build, I decided to do something useful for once. Working on a "pocket edition" of the Arkingthaad lander tower series. Something small, with a tiny part count, that pretty much anyone can run, provided of course they have the kethane mod.

Think I should go smaller with this?

[Captain Sierra]

Average person's kethane lander:

Whackjob's 'small' kethane lander:

That answer your question Whack?

Edited February 16, 2014 by Captain Sierra

[Whackjob]

Hrm. Yeah. I suppose I better get all the way to lilliputian levels.

[panzerknoef]

Since you are giving up on this (at least that's how I got it) I think it's time gor the community to give you a new challenge!

[Whackjob]

I may have just stumbled on my own, actually.

SSTO rover lander kethane miner and refiner, anyone? She'll need a name I think. Arkingthaad don't fit.

#EDIT: Testing it out now. I don't know if it qualifies for SSTO status yet.

#EDIT2: Suddenly I'm reminded I don't know how to SSTO. Falling short. I'd hate to have to cheat with a booster. Not sure what to do here. Out of my element.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Whackjob

[vitekc45c]

try adding toroidal tank on each sas unit, or replace the jet engine with K-drive

[Captain Sierra]

Oh that's right, the Whack has never built a simple SSTO spaceplane! Well, I'll warn you now, when you first get one that works, that thrill of success and the urge to do it again will make you unable to put them down.

[panzerknoef]

Seems like I have something in common with the mighty whackjob after all! The inability to build SSTO spaceplanes

[Whackjob]

So if I go with this SSTO project during my "weekend" that starts tonight, I got a question or two.

When SSTOing, when you reach you top operating ceiling, I know you accelerate as hard as you can and then pull up before engaging the rockets. I can make this about 25,000 meters. But how much do you pull up? To 45 degrees? Keep it horizontal, but boost really hard? Vertical and correct later? What's the optimal final climb?

[Fendleton]

Generally I engage the rockets before the pull-up, to get as much speed as possible out of my jet engines (or the jet mode on my rapiers if I'm using them), then pull up to between 40 and 60 degrees, using an action group to shut down my intakes all at once when I think my first flameout is about to happen. You want to get up primarily during the first part of the boost phase, as burning horizontally will be inefficient (because of drag once you shut down your engines) until you're up past 35-40km. Then once you're starting to speed up a lot, start burning horizontally again to get back the horizontal speed lost during the pull-up.

That said, the optimum climb profile is likely to vary from design to design, so I'd suggest just launching over and over again and seeing what gets you closest to reaching orbit.