Sarfoggy Larpinz: an idiotically large ship I made (stock).

[Don_Klats]

It\'s not the fastest, it doesn\'t fly the furthest, it\'s not efficient and I\'ve tried adding more to it and it just breaks on me. Anyone that can get a small fuel tank on there so the RCS jets works is awesome in my book.

Bonus points if you modify this beast and make it better. I tried making something even bigger, but it turns out that was a mistake.

I\'m not sure why I named it what a named it...blame sleep deprivation related to playing this game.

It\'s stable and will get you...somewhere, but again, there is no way to use the RCS jets and so it probably has no hope of a mun landing and back.

[Kosmo-not]

You can still land on the Mun if you don\'t have RCS. I do it all the time.

[Nooblet68]

You only need 1 ASAS...

[Don_Klats]

'You only need 1 ASAS...'

But then it wouldn\'t look like a giant flying castle. Fix it if you want and repost it

[Don_Klats]

'You can still land on the Mun if you don\'t have RCS. I do it all the time.'

If you can do it with this beast, I would love to know.

[James Sterrett]

Cool!

[Don_Klats]

Alright, I made a better one, this time without so many advanced SAS modules...thanks for the tip!

I call it the Sarfoggy Tingestya. I\'m not going to say that it\'s horribly more efficient than the last one, but it can maneuver a bit better. I\'m still not great at controlling these things, though, so I can\'t get it anywhere close to the Mun.

[Extraneous]

Good work! I got into an orbit near the moon with this one, although I am scared to try and land it - it may explode. It would be better suited to trying to ram the Mun, I think.

[Don_Klats]

Good work! I got into an orbit near the moon with this one, although I am scared to try and land it - it may explode. It would be better suited to trying to ram the Mun, I think.

Ahahaha, yes. I think you\'re probably right. Well, if there is ever a need to kick the Mun back into its orbit, I think I\'ve already made the answer. May future generations benefit from this knowledge.

[mincespy]

I challenge somebody to land this thing WHOLE on the Mun. Not just the top stage, the WHOLE THING.

[cteam]

is that just a tad over the top??

[Don_Klats]

I challenge somebody to land this thing WHOLE on the Mun. Not just the top stage, the WHOLE THING.

Yes. This is definitely a challenge for a pro pilot.

is that just a tad over the top??

The ship or the challenge? The ship--sure, that\'s the point. The challenge? No. It is a challenge for the ultimate of bad-asses. If you have to ask, you\'re not up for it. 8)

[slowBurn]

Challenge accepted.

[DrLucky]

So long as you don\'t expect to have as many attached LFEs after the landing, I\'m game. Those things are brittle, brittle, brittle.

[DrLucky]

So I did a Mun return using a modified Sarfoggy. I tried to keep in the spirit of it, but make it more effective.

I removed all the SAS units; they\'re not needed.

I added another RCS fuel tank to the top stage, because RCS is fun.

I added 2 LFTs and a winglet to the sides of the second-last stage, to act as lander legs. In retrospect, these needed struts (see pictures).

I swapped the three centre engines for the vectored versions to give a little control at low speeds.

I added a chute.

It looked like this launching...

..and like this landing on the Mun. You can clearly see the added tanks & fins in this shot.

Not a 10.0, to be sure, but I stuck the landing:

Gunning the RCS and some fast throttle action got me away:

One of my aerobraking passes:

From rocket to unlimited-class motorboat:

Next up: trying to put the entire original on the Mun.

[Don_Klats]

So I did a Mun return using a modified Sarfoggy. I tried to keep in the spirit of it, but make it more effective.

I removed all the SAS units; they\'re not needed.

I added another RCS fuel tank to the top stage, because RCS is fun.

I added 2 LFTs and a winglet to the sides of the second-last stage, to act as lander legs. In retrospect, these needed struts (see pictures).

I swapped the three centre engines for the vectored versions to give a little control at low speeds.

I added a chute.

It looked like this launching...

..and like this landing on the Mun. You can clearly see the added tanks & fins in this shot.

Not a 10.0, to be sure, but I stuck the landing:

Gunning the RCS and some fast throttle action got me away:

One of my aerobraking passes:

From rocket to unlimited-class motorboat:

Next up: trying to put the entire original on the Mun.

YES! Is there any way I can get the .craft file from you for this? What will you call the ship? I think it\'s definitely a Sarfoggy-class vessel. Might I suggest 'Sarfoggy Modifilias' or 'Sarfoggy Lucksteya'?

I\'ve decided arbitrarily that a 'Sarfoggy-class vessel' is a vessel which has any or all of the following qualities: ridiculous, fun, impractical, aesthetically pleasing, aesthetically terrifying and also bears the prefix 'Sarfoggy'. I could imagine the Kerbals thinking something up of this nature...no?

I love that you managed to put the spirit of one of these idiotic things on the Mun. You are definitely a badass among badasses, and I look forward to seeing if you can get either the Tingestya or the Larpinz on the Mun. I tried for a good hour with the Larpinz and there is just no way, I think. I am not the best pilot, though. I think it might be possible with the Tingestya.

I would also love to see a Larpinz without all of the SAS/advanced SAS modules and all liquid instead of solid boosters. It\'s too bad it\'s not easier to modify crafts, every time I pull one of these things apart, all of my struts go cattywompus and the order of things gets pretty screwed up. Some kind of feature perhaps where you can Find & Replace or just delete a section of craft and have the rest automatically snap together would be nice. anyway, enough tangents and again, excellent job!

[DrLucky]

Here\'s the beast. Enjoy.

By \'put it on the Mun\' you mean have an intact capsule there as a result of a successful launch? Or do you mean 'Put the whole thing there'? Because my poor sad computer gets about 2 frames a minute when I put 48 more rockets under the Tingestya.

Anyway, I\'ll give it a shot. I think the Ting can do it.

[DrLucky]

Ok, the Tingestya can definitely do it; it\'s got some shortcomings, but it can do it (Return, even)

I did a touch-and-go on the Mun, but that was expected; engines make terrible lander legs and always seem to snap off. I left again before I could fall over, though if I\'d wanted to stay I could have used the smaller piece and RCS to lay it down.

Kerbin reentry was uneventful, right up until I noticed the lack of a chute. Then it got exciting. I bobbled the final because I got distracted, but you can see from my final state that there\'s oodles of fuel.

I have to say, though, that I had the distinct feeling that I was smuggling SAS units to the Mun. There\'s to rational reason to have them there; it\'s like if South African Airlines started flying international routes with lion-pelt covered planes: you might suspect ulterior motives.

Oh, also, I did the sloppiest TLI burn I\'ve done in months. Still got there, but the MET is very high, you\'ll note. Not the fault of the Sarfoggy at all, just me.

Pics follow:

Ascent:

Big messy stage separation:

Munward ho:

Coming in for a landing. Lots of fuel. LOTS of SAS.

Getting awkward. Time to go.

Go past the second star to the right and straight on \'til morning.

There\'s NO CHUTE?! JJEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBB......<transmission ends>

[DrLucky]

Nope, can\'t land the Larpinz capsule intact on the Mun. I\'m about 400 m/s short in the delta-v budget, and that\'s not an amount I can find by flying better.

The main culprit is the lander itself: It has a chute, stack separator, ASAS, SAS and eight RCS thrusters, all of which serve no purpose; that\'s 3.1t of the fully loaded 8t or so of the lander. Lose the dead weight right at the top, and/or add an RCS fuel tank, and it can happen. But as-is, nope.

I\'m leaving aside the whole 'Upper Stages Are SRBs' thing, since I assume that\'s sort of the point of the exercise.

But there\'s a whole new set of Sarfoggy craters on the nearside of the Mun, all of them created by Larpinz landers hitting between 350 and 450 m/s.

[Don_Klats]

Hahahaha, your last two posts actually made me laugh out loud. I\'m really not surprised the Larpinz can\'t land on the Mun. Again, you are welcome to take off any or all SAS modules, I love that you 'feel like I am smuggling SAS unites to the Mun', definitely a win for the impractical. You are welcome to remove them, I suspect a lot of problems the Larpinz has could be resolved by adding a small fuel tank for the RCS jets and getting rid of all of the excess junk on it. I have a pretty powerful graphics card, which is why I suspect I can get more than four fps on these fatties. Also I run it windowed and I think that helps. If you manage to remove any junk from one of these and it works for you, I\'d love for you to upload it... I\'ve tried a few times and everything just gets messed up beyond recognition, somehow. Sometimes stuff just blows up for no apparent reason... have you noticed that sometimes when you detach fuel tanks and hit the gas that the whole thing just explodes? I am not sure why empty tanks would explode so violently, but maybe there is something I\'m missing here.

I\'m confused as to why it doesn\'t have a chute, either. I swear I added one... I must just not have saved it. Whatever though, you totally did it. I wish I had something to give you, I\'m really impressed. I hope to see more Sarfoggy-class vessels in the future. I\'ll try to tune some of these up and see if I can\'t give you something better, but unless I can get past the problems I\'m having with the creation interface, this may just not happen.

[DrLucky]

Okay, I modded Sarfoggy Larpinz for the goal of Munar interment:

Removed all but 3 ASAS (yeah, only need one but I was having trouble finding a good spot to mount just one.

Remove all but 3 SAS.

Both of these units are on a mid-stage that gets dropped before orbit.

Removed the stack decoupler under the capsule - landing on Kerbin would be thrust-assisted parachute with lander.

Cut RCS back to 4 units and added RCS tank

Removed the stack of 3 central SRB/LFE stages and replaced with a set of 3 4-LFT 1-Vectored LFE that burn for most of the orbit to provide steering once the fins fall off.

That\'s most of it.

Results? You judge:

..2..1..Liftoff! Of the mighty Sarfoggy Lipinz II, on a journey of exploration and likely lithobraking to the Mun!

Here you can see the LF core stack peeking out amidst the SRB glare:

A couple of stages later, nearing orbit:

Somewhere around here I think I lit an SRB before staging the LFT stack. There was a bit of a boom. Be nice to use that wasted deltaV; have to fix it.

Fast forward to the Mun. Coming in for landing on the engine; trying not to break it off.

Flawless victory:

Now use the RCS to pop the nose up and take off again...

At this point I\'m down to vapours in the RCS and main LFT. We\'re not leaving Mun orbit again. Can you hear me Major Jeb?

So, moral of the story is that if I fix the deltaV I suspect I\'m wasting by exploding the LFTs and not getting most of the burn from 3 SRBs, it might be Munar return.

Anyway, craft file attached!