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What's your building style?


MedwedianPresident

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- Anything goes, if it fits the launchpad, launch it. Pyramid? Launch it. Borg Cube? Launch it. Weird looking wobbly thingy? Launch it.

- Put all that in orbit and try to transfer to another planet. Land it if you can. If you can´t try again.

- It worked? put wheels on it and try to drive it.

- Asparagus staging FTW.

- No mods, no cheats, no hyperedit. HARDCORE damn it! You have a 45 minutes burn? Be a man, MechJeb is for sissies. :D

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I go through phases, some days I like super realistic, others will be iva only then another day I will play around with the real solar system mod. Last night I felt like just playing around with satellites and pretending they only had impact sensors so I had to crash them into the surface to grant myself science.

Let your mind wonder. Tonight I feel like using infinite fuel and strapping 50 mainsails together

All my different mood swings and procedural fairings is the one mod that stays installed permanently.

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For KESA, anything that is not asparagus and

a) is HUGE

B) contains 6 or more boosters

c) has at least 9000 delta-v

d) is cool

e) explodes upon liftoff

f) is meant to reach LKO, but actually goes to Jool

g) Combo of any above

This got me to forget the troubles of my work today, and made me laugh. Thank you JebKerboom.
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i go compact, convenient, and efficient, nothing is larger or more powerful than it has to be, this has it's drawbacks though, misjudgement has led to many failed missions and many brave kerbals left in between planets with no fuel to get home. but my computer starts to lag after 175 parts so i do what i can

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My style shifts to the mission at hand, but builds on past successful missions. I tend to slightly over engineer each stage or subassembly and payload (at least in terms of dV). Together, they give me some flexibility for errors or changes to the mission. I use no mods except for Kerbal Engineer, Protractor and my own fueled adapters (the latter in Sandbox). I plan on using additional mod parts once I've finished Career mode (yes, I haven't completed it yet; taking my time). I also will configure my own mod parts to allow them to be used in Career mode.

I like single launch missions and since I shy away from docking, my final vehicle is usually a combined lander/ return vehicle. lately its also a rover. :) I do use several techniques, including asparagus staging and sometimes jet boosters. Lately I've not needed to use SRBs. So most of my craft are big at launch. My latest payload is over 200 parts/ 45 tons and the entire craft can exceed 800 tons. I'm sure that they are not the most efficient designs, but they do the job.

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"If it looks useful, slap it on the ship!"

That, and reliability.

I try to maximize travelled worlds over limited playing time, so fewer launches and fewer burns are better. No mods except Alarm Clock (yet).

My go-everywhere ship (I only use one type for everything) has a rover, all the science stuff, a Kerbin-return capable lander, a manoevring orbital refuelling station also carrying four Kerbin-return capable "escape pods", and extra docking ports just in case.

If something goes wrong, as it always does, this ship is the perfect self-rescueing princess.

(Unless it happens planetside - maybe I should add a second lander... You can never overengineer enough! ;-)

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Hello everyone,

Sometime around version 0.20 I developed an unhealthy obsession with big, reusable interplanetary transports. These are massive ships with enough delta-v to go pretty much anywhere and back. Once in space they can never return to the surface but rather ferry packages from Kerbin to wherever and back. I've named all of them after the Clipper ships that used to sail the tea routes in the 1800s.

Here's an example, currently I have the Clipper Houqua II speeding on it's way toward Jool. Leaving Kerbal it had a mass over 450 tons and carried seven separate mission payloads on her seven docking ports:

1) A (24 ton) habitat and extra fuel module with the Tsartier Space telescope attached. This module can also serve as a lifeboat... This is currently in that position to balance the Vall Lander on Station 7. It will return on the center position.

2) Clamp-o Jr port with a remotely flown glider packed with instrumentation. (1.8 ton) This will be used for atmospheric flights in Jool's atmosphere.

3) This is the nose of the ship, it has an (8 ton) orbital telescope which will be dropped along he way to Jool and establish a permanent orbit between Jool and Duna.

4 and 5) Identical landers for Bop and Pol (19 tons each).

6) a remote pod which will descend by parachute into Jool full of instrumentation. (1.3 ton, this counterbalances the glider with some adjustments to the crew module)

7) the (26 ton) Vall lander.

Obviously this didn't all go up at once. The Clipper was launched (let's not count how many times) and used most of it's fuel getting up there. All the packages were launched and docked, these doubled as refueling and crew transfer missions.

This package is speeding along with two others, disposable Laythe and Tylo Landers. All landers will land, take all science data possible and have enough delta-v to rendezvous with Houqua II in a parking orbit around Jool. The Clipper has an on-board lab for processing data. Each lander also has a detachable Materials Bay with Goo that will dock back to Houqua and can be returned to Kerbin via parachute. The remains of all the landers will be deorbited into Jool and all Kerbals returned home on the Clipper. I'll let you know if any of it works...

I have pulled off a similar (but much smaller) mission to Duna with these Clippers. If anyone wants I can post a pic, I've actually been meaning to start an entire thread to see if anyone else is building similar ships. I still need a post or two before I'm allowed to post pics or my ribbons.

My build style:

1. Very few mods, Engineer, Mech Jeb, the occasional telescope or science gear but stock engines, stock fuel and I have to get it up there the hard way.

2. I go for as much realism as possible and this means lots of nose cones getting jettisoned before circularizing. On the pad its got to be aerodynamic, once in orbit, form entirely follows function.

3. No intentional one way missions.

4. No Kerbal left behind (although I must admit, we didn't find much of Bill. We did put a flag on the spot on Ike where his extreme eva ended... abruptly).

5. No zombie kerbals. When I upgraded to v.23 I had to kill Bill. Sorry buddy.

6. Reverting to launch or VAB is fair in my book prior to launch but after I hit the spacebar, whatever happens counts. Most of my designs have fairly elaborate Abort sequences. If I'm not 100% confident it gets a remote launch with a Kerbal to follow in a transfer vehicle.

7. No space junk. I like my solar system tidy so everything that goes up must come down. Somewhere. Apart from permanent stations and telescopes.

8. There is no such thing as too much RCS fuel.

9. There is no such thing as too many batteries.

10. On anything remote, add at least 3 of the fixed solar panels for luck. It's a real bummer to get a probe all the way to Eeloo just to watch it sail by because Jeb forgot to extend the panels.

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I've made a couple really nice and somewhat efficient ships in the past, but after a several month (and several version) hiatus, I'm back to my old habit of half-assing a design that might work for what I want to do, then throwing parts at it until it works. It's an inefficient and ugly strategy, but it is entertaining, which I'm fairly certain is the point of the game.

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