The not-so-awesome spacecraft

[InterCity]

Hey, fellow rocketeers.

Recently i came up with a new eve base-to-space-and-maybe-further space shuttle:

At first everything seemed legit, if not good. The craft looked just good, had enough lift to actually leave the runway and it behaved quite reasonably during a powered flight. But then... The engine burned out.

Turned out that despite my expectations the craft has so ridiculous amounts of spare lift that it could fly at roughly 40 m/s (damn part clipping). Thus the only way to land it was a (mostly) controlled stall. So i stalled it... and somehow managed to land without killing Jeb.

The next version of this is going to use some front canards for sure.

Anyway, do you have any spacecraft that seemed awesome in the beginning, and turned out to be a piece of useless scrap or a pilot's nightmare?

[Cirocco]

My first real attempt at a spaceplane. I don't have any pictures of it because it was in a previous save which no longer exists, but that thing went through a loooooot of iterations before it was worthy of the name "spaceplane".

Aaah, Orbiter Heavy, I'll never forget you. Try as I might.

[Franklin]

The difference between a failure flight and a successful flight is just getting off that sticky, effing runway. I've made a number of planes that are fine in the air but can't get off the ground.

Launching vertically is far, far easier I've found. To the point where I only launch planes vertically now off a TT18. Just need to spool up the engines for 15 seconds before decoupling.

edit: Oh and enough reaction wheels will overpower any measly center of mass vs. center of lift lopsidedness. Like 4+ will keep you steady.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Franklin

[SofusRud]

wait, you wanna go to space from Eve?! With that? You are either gonna need to strap a lot of boosters to it or you are going to have to reevaluate your design. Gravity on Eve high and the atmo is thick. Personally, my way of checking if a craft is capable of getting off Eve is that it has to make orbit around kerbin at half throttle, with an immidiate gravity turn, and still have a boatload of delta-v once i get it into orbit.

[Jas1126]

I strongly suggest to anyone interested that they learn how to build VTOL's. I have never bothered with a runway based plane because they're not reliable in taking off and/or landing on an atmospheric planet (in my experience). Terrain tends to be unforgiving and unpredictable.

[SofusRud]

I strongly suggest to anyone interested that they learn how to build VTOL's. I have never bothered with a runway based plane because they're not reliable in taking off and/or landing on an atmospheric planet (in my experience). Terrain tends to be unforgiving and unpredictable.

That depends on how you design them. Its a matter of designing them for the challenge. Here is an example:

This is my surface-to-orbit Laythe shuttle. It has very good glide characteristics, allowing it to land very slowly, and also requires a very short takeoff. Of course it helps to place your landing spot someplace reasonably level, but having done multiple trips to the surface of Laythe and back, I would say that it is totally possible to do reliably. Of course, good design can only compensate so much for bad piloting

Here it is on Laythe (to the left)

and in orbit around Laythe

Edited April 23, 2014 by SofusRud

[federicoaa]

Anyway, do you have any spacecraft that seemed awesome in the beginning, and turned out to be a piece of useless scrap or a pilot's nightmare?

Mostly all my planes XD.

I only got to build one successful spaceplane and was by copying Scot Manley tutorial.

[Jas1126]

SofusRud, you're presenting quite a few significant variables. As opposed to a simple VTOL which only requires balance and timing.

[cantab]

My Nobel 1, probably. From the massive part count lagging the game like heck, to having to ditch part of it because I didn't have enough fuel, to making a dog's breakfast of the asteroid rendezvous, it's been a pain. I'm flying it right now and soon will be the moment of truth as to whether it even works.

[InterCity]

wait, you wanna go to space from Eve?! With that? You are either gonna need to strap a lot of boosters to it or you are going to have to reevaluate your design. Gravity on Eve high and the atmo is thick. Personally, my way of checking if a craft is capable of getting off Eve is that it has to make orbit around kerbin at half throttle, with an immidiate gravity turn, and still have a boatload of delta-v once i get it into orbit.

Part clipping. It looks puny but according to mechjeb, it has over 13200 delta-v. It's not just the one tank you can see feeding it

[SofusRud]

Part clipping. It looks puny but according to mechjeb, it has over 13200 delta-v. It's not just the one tank you can see feeding it

Careful, you might clip it into a singularity

[pauix]

All the Hermes planes I made until the Hermes-VIII (first one to land) were failures. They didn't take off, they stalled while landing, they lost balance after burnnig some fuel or they span out of control while trying to turn. Poor Dildred lost his life twice during the test flights

[phemark]

Part clipping. It looks puny but according to mechjeb, it has over 13200 delta-v. It's not just the one tank you can see feeding it

Isnt it easier to just turn on unlimited fuel?

[Random Tank]

Isnt it easier to just turn on unlimited fuel?

Oh don't start this again.... :/

[r4pt0r]

Part clipping. It looks puny but according to mechjeb, it has over 13200 delta-v. It's not just the one tank you can see feeding it

this is why i dont like clipping. you cant use that and say youve been to eve and back. you have with infinte fuel essentialy. you didnt have to stage fueltanks, strut stuff together at all. you put an immpossible volume of fuel in 1 tank. and while that might not be cheating since its a singleplayer game, dont brag about any acheivements if you use that sort of blatant exploit.

that is of course, if you can get your fuel line situation sorted out and even acheive orbit.

[Jas1126]

this is why i dont like clipping. you cant use that and say youve been to eve and back. you have with infinte fuel essentialy. you didnt have to stage fueltanks, strut stuff together at all. you put an immpossible volume of fuel in 1 tank. and while that might not be cheating since its a singleplayer game, dont brag about any acheivements if you use that sort of blatant exploit.

that is of course, if you can get your fuel line situation sorted out and even acheive orbit.

I hope they don't remove it until they fix the problems with assembly. Countless times I've had to activate it just to do completely logical placements.

[Scarecrow88]

I built this for a bit of von Richtofen Flying Circus tomfoolery. On take off it tracks down the runway beautifully, and lifts off with no user input. It flies quite nicely, with no nasty traits, but landing is a nightmare. Lining up and touching down is straightforward, but as soon as it is back on the ground, it veers all over the place and usually ends up in several pieces. Can't understand why the ground handling characteristics are so different between take off and landing.

[lma0724]

I would like to try this when I actually get to the moon.

[InterCity]

this is why i dont like clipping. you cant use that and say youve been to eve and back. you have with infinte fuel essentialy. you didnt have to stage fueltanks, strut stuff together at all. you put an immpossible volume of fuel in 1 tank. and while that might not be cheating since its a singleplayer game, dont brag about any acheivements if you use that sort of blatant exploit.

that is of course, if you can get your fuel line situation sorted out and even acheive orbit.

I don't think it's cheating, because the weight and structural instability still increases when you are clipping parts together. So you need more power, and more lift. The only thing the part clipping allows is more beautiful design.

By the way, i've never been to eve and back with an SSTO. This is just a shuttle between orbital station M0-NST3R and the EP-1C surface base.

Edited April 24, 2014 by InterCity

[phemark]

I don't think it's cheating, because the weight and structural instability still increases when you are clipping parts together. So you need more power, and more lift. The only thing the part clipping allows is more beautiful design.

By the way, i've never been to eve and back with an SSTO. This is just a shuttle between orbital station M0-NST3R and the EP-1C surface base.

Isn't it easier to design planes, when you dont need to worry about changing CoM (as they are all in one place) and area where to place engines, if clipping them too?

It's a single player game, so you can play however you want, but I just think that enabling unlimited fuel is easier, and you can make as pretty aircrafts as you want then:)

[cantab]

There's a whole thread recently for clipping discussion that's covered all this.

[InterCity]

If i remember correctly, it's supposed to be a showcase of almost-good craft, not a part clipping or OP/not OP, cheating/not cheating discussion.

[Jas1126]

If i remember correctly, it's supposed to be a showcase of almost-good craft, not a part clipping or OP/not OP, cheating/not cheating discussion.

This has been an issue since the internet began. People's egos will not allow them NOT to spew their opinions; even if not asked. Much like this post. And throughout time, people like you fight fruitlessly to put a stop to it. Give it up, my friend. As long as the human ego exists there will always be people willing to spout their opinions about pizza in a thread dealing with Honda's, for instance.

[InterCity]

Yeah. This is why i prefer machines to people

[Hans Dorn]

All my rockets are not-so-awesome, once I put them on Eve.

Eve's a ######.