Do you even Standardize?

[samstarman5]

I love standardizing and I really hope career mode somehow factors in sub assemblies so using the same craft reduces costs.

If I understand you right, you mean when money comes into play, that pre-assembled sub-assemblies carry a nice little discount? It is a nice thought, but as John Hurt from Contact said, why build just one when you can build two for twice the price?

I do find myself sticking to certain general design similarities, something I am trying of late to break away from. But it isn't easy in career mode when even in the mid-tiers you still got limitations. I still wonder why the smallest girder piece is so far up the tree? Grrrrr.

[Jouni]

I spend a lot of time building standard lifters for different payload sizes, but I never use most of them for actual missions. I don't build space stations and modular ships anymore, so I don't need medium lifters that much. Most of my launches are either crew shuttles or utility vehicles (10-15 tonnes), interplanetary ships or fuel tankers (around 100 tonnes), or huge payloads with custom-built lifters.

[bsalis]

I use the regular docking port as standard, so everything can connect to each other.

For Spaceplanes, I use a (shielded) docking port as the nose of the craft as standard. This also sets the surface fuel tanker docking port standard height as the length of the landing gear.

As much as possible, I put a docking port on the top and bottom of craft, with engines attached radially in x2 or x4 symmetry. This way they can be chained together with engines offset to not thrust into tanks/engines below them.

Edited June 12, 2014 by bsalis

[Skorpychan]

http://imgur.com/gallery/uc1J8

Yes, yes I do standardize. Standard lifter, standard everything. It lets me get on with the flying, and not spend weeks redesigning things.

[Creature]

I use standardized lifters, usually for 5, 20, 40-50 and 100 tonnes. I don't standardize my spaceplanes but for some reason they always end up looking almost identical

[Daishi]

Oh god. Yes. Guilty. :|

The Kitfox was the light "crew rated" lifter, which was engineered with high late-stage TWR for speedy rendezvous missions. Had 25 and 50 ton lifters too, though they were more prone to explode on ascent and used for unmanned stuff. I've since rebranded to avoid bad PR

I used to spend hours perfecting designs like that, until KSP fixed all the joint and node wobble and made my engineering\part clipping work redundant. Gave up playing to work on mods instead - though i'll come back to revise my lifters eventually when budgets and such are implemented properly.

[Tery215]

Oh ya -

This one time I put the same size docking ports on TWO spacecraft!

So standard.

[Cirocco]

I don't really standardise, but I do very much put limitations on my craft. Mostly these include aesthetics (still has to look like someone with half a functioning brain would consider boarding), number of kerbals (why let Jeb have all the fun?), semi-realism (no Jeb we are NOT riding a rocket into orbit in an external command seat!) and assuming worst case.

Those limitations very often differ from craft to craft though so no, I wouldn't say I'm addicted to standardisation, but I am very much into setting personal limitations which is sorta related.

[legodragonxp]

My standardizing is nothing severe.

Action Groups:

1 - You're high enough, deploy it (solar panels, antenna, fairings, etc)

2 - You're high enough, turn it off (jets, air intakes, short range antenna, etc)

3- random

4 - random

5 - Science group #1 - One complete science set fired off at once (pod, goo, temp, gravioli, etc)

6 - Science group #2 - Same as above for ships equipped with two sets (I do this on flyby missions, one for low orbit, one for high)

7 - Random dancing

8 - Lunch, not launch!

9 - Random

0 - for the stupid thing you wanted to try in some odd build but had no place else to put it

For ships I use a fairly standard design, often build around the one-man lander can due to ease of construction. I have a roughly Soyuz type craft i use for most of my missions, especially now that I use TAC life support all the time.

[TheSaint]

I tend to standardize as much as I can. I know it's just me (at least at this point) but I like to think that economy of scale makes things cheaper. Hopefully that idea will make its way into the contracts/budgeting pieces when they show up.

[luizopiloto]

I have a design standard, to make modules compatible with each other. so if I build a new ship, I open a control module already done and attach the needed subassemblies... sometimes needs minnor changes to increase/reduce fuel capacity, or reduce unneded weight... even the action groups are standard. planes have a standard, rockets, rovers... so the binds will be always the same depending of the ship class...

[MR4Y]

Not seen if this has been posted before.

Standardize can go take a nice walk at the park.

Do you even lift?

[Rickenbacker]

I standardize my main launch vehicles, usually i have one heavy and one light one saved, and build whatever payload I need on top of it. This of course results in massively wasteful launches, leaving half a tank of useless fuel in orbit, if I'm launching something tiny, but it saves time.

I also try to put all my solar panels on action group 1, unless there are very few.

[JordanL]

I standardize my docking ports. Everything that is not a single-mission probe has at least one Sr. Docking Port with at least 2.5m of clearance, and four symmetric parts around the port to allow for Quantum Strut connections (standardized at 45 degree angles from the "front"). I do this so that:

- All ships that need to refuel can refuel at my enormous orbital refueling stations.

- It becomes easy to assemble modular ships in orbit.

- Any two crafts that dock will be rigid enough to fly while docked.

As a corollary, nothing except command module terminations or engine terminations end in any size EXCEPT 2.5m. The body can go up to a larger size, but the ends will be 2.5m. All ends have a docking port UNLESS they have a command module or engine there. And all engine sections are detatchable and reatatchable.

Then I have some "standard" lifter vehicles I created.

[karolus10]

I'm not very sure what OP exactly mean by standardizing, but for more advanced missions and payloads I was designing and testing launch vehicle components using mass simulator (Dummy payload made from tanks so you can control it's mass easily by adding more tanks or changing load of propellant) so You can design and save rocket stages as sub-assemblies and then use them to assemble launch vehicle for your payload.

This approach remove some complexity from design process as you can design and test every component separately and then put all parts together as well as make your designs reusable for next projects.

[Killerdude8]

I try to Standardize Stations and Landed Bases, Simply for Organizational reasons, Otherwise? Everything gets custom built from scratch for the Purpose.

[rennsport27]

I am getting to the point where more and more of my parts/missions are modular and standardized. I used to build whole rockets by scratch, but now I have an increasingly large range of lifter stages for putting payloads into LKO, and then having the payload craft do its stuff from there. It allows me to save time designing craft, since I only have to design the outer-space bit. I also really enjoy building general use craft, which I try to make as easy to use and practical as possible. Anymore, I spend as much time building new and better utility parts for theoretical missions than I do running actual missions. It's making me feel OCD, but it also means I haven't a launch failure in a while, even with awkward payloads.

[cpast]

In my old career save, I had a few tested, rated lifting subassemblies, with descriptions saying the highest weight and altitude I'd used them with (including one that was rated for X tons to Munar orbit).

In my newer save, I've been doing a lot more space stations. Those tend to get more one-off assemblies, with the exception of smaller pieces (Station Science experiments, for example), which I had just saved one of, and then made new ones with different experiments by loading the saved craft and swapping out the experiment module.

Also, now that I've started to use the KSO in LKO, standardization is much easier - I load my custom KSO craft, and just swap out payload.

[Red Iron Crown]

I have a group of well-tested, standardized lifters saved as subassemblies for when I quickly want to throw something into LKO, but I don't use them as much as I thought I would. Building is a big part of the fun for me, so I tend to build a new lifter for every payload.

Prior to 0.23.5, I included a 1.25m docking port on every ship to facilitate rescue/refueling activities, even if they weren't part of the planned mission. Now I leave them off smaller things that are more mass sensitive and use the claw for rescue if necessary.

[Kobymaru]

I kinda feel the need to standardize too.

I have my fleet of carrier rockets, which can lift anything in a range of 10t-110t.

For interplanetary transfers, I have my "Interplanetary ferry" ships with 4 LV-N's, one large docking port on the front, one normal on the back and two small ones at the sides. The advantage is that they are reusable as well!

Here's why I like to do that:

- As my missions progress, they get more and more complicated. I'd rather spend my time on designing a nice lander or a nice station than building a lifter for the hundredth time.

- Developing and testing rockets is fun, but making the same "stupid" mistakes like forgetting struts, incrorectly progammed staging , .. over and over gets a little tedious. Since I'm not a fan of duplicate efforts, I like to test my lifters thoroughly with a large fuel payload and then saving them and have something reliable for future endevours.

- I like numbers. I like expressing the capabilities of my gear numerically. For example, I know that my medium rocket can lift up to 40t to LKO and my large one 110t. I know that my ferry can get about 300t of payload to Eve and will have enough fuel to get back.

I think standardization makes the game mor fun, even if that sounds counter-intuitive, because once you master the early stages of space flight, you can build on that knowledge and technology and focus on more "ambitious" things.

[Ravenchant]

I use a couple of proven lifter subassemblies for getting stuff into space, and try to reuse as many design elements as possible. Not for being too lazy to build them, but it helps with "roleplaying" a semi-realistic game. Adapting an older, reliable design to do something new is after all a staple of most real space programs

[Frank_G]

I do, but mostley when there is a specific task, like building a space station or launch a series of satellites, where every component is roughly around the same weight and size. On the other hand i like to build stuff in KSP... f.e. i construct a new lander for every mission, because it is most fun to see your own creations advance from launch to launch.

[lajoswinkler]

For the most part, no. I use Procedural Parts, so my rockets get all custom made, streamlined and efficient. I like it that way.

[rdfox]

When I'm collecting Science, I tend to create a standardized design for my unmanned probes and for my manned landers, and use that over and over to collect points with minimal effort. (This is also quite realistic, at least in the earlier phases of the space program--note the use of nine Rangers to three designs, seven Surveyors of a single design, five Lunar Orbiters of a single design, 11 Pioneers of about five designs, two identical Voyagers, two identical Mariners, and, of course, on the manned side, six Mercuries of essentially one design (only the hatch, a separate piece, changed, to incorporate a proper window), ten Geminis of two designs, eleven Apollo CSMs of two designs, and nine Apollo LMs of four designs flown, not counting unmanned test flights of the manned spacecraft. Also note that on the manned side, the design variants basically were relatively minor internal changes; only the Rangers and Pioneers saw spacecraft of vastly different configurations fly in the same program...)

Also, when using FASA, I tend to standardize on real-world boosters as much as possible, and simple extrapolations from them when I need something else. (For example, I've been launching Gemini spacecraft to land on Kerbin's moons using a Saturn IB with SRBs, since I need about 1km/s more delta-V than the standard IB has to offer. Given that NASA seriously considered the use of strap-on SRBs on evolved Saturn V boosters, I consider this a plausible line of development, particularly as an interim booster until the S-V is ready.)

[Doc]

I standardize. Alot, at least with lifters. My main sandbox game uses the following family:

Sagittarius I is the most basic payload rocket used by the KSA. Simplicity itself, it consists of a single, powerful engine cluster capable of pushing 7 tons to a 100km perigee. The payload must have sufficient thrust to circularize at that altitude.

The Sagittarius II is built around the short Sagittarius I, and is amplified by a triplet of hybrid boosters specially developed for the Sagittarius II project. The hybrid boosters, supplied by kerbodyne, consist of a long-burning, high thrust, SRB, as well as liquid fuel bunkerage sufficient to supply the main Sagittarius I engine for ~20 seconds of maximum thrust burn. This allows the Sagittarius II to place nearly 2x the payload in orbit as the Sagittarius I, for a minimum in extra complexity. The Sagittarius II can bring a 14 ton payload to a 100km perigee.

Sagittarius III upgrades the main engine cluster and adds a powerful perigee kick interstage to the Sagittarius I lifting system, giving this lift body the ability to bring 15 tons to a 100km LKO.

The Sagittarius IV is a stretched and enhanced version of the Sagittarius I, with a super-heavy new 3.75m engine from Kerbodyne. Flight profile, and overall efficiency is even better than the Sagittarius III lifter. The perigee kick motor has been upgraded to a full-fledged 2nd stage, bringing payload capabilities to 28 tons.

The Sagittarius V is built around a modified Sagittarius IV core stage, with a booster triplet providing extra thrust at lift-off. The Sagittarius V(a) variant uses 3x heavy SRB clusters, while the Sagittarius V( uses strapped on Sagittarius I main stages, delivering fuel to the main booster via 9 heavy gauge transfer lines. The Sagittarius V( has a more efficient boost profile, however is significantly more expensive, nearly 2.5x the cost of an all-up Sagittarius IV. The Sagittarius V( is capable of lofting a 70ton payload to a 100km LKO, while the Sagittarius V(a) can place up to 55 tons in the same orbit.

The Sagittarius VI is also built on the Sagittarius IV core stage, but is redesigned as a 3-stage rocket, boasting an all-new super-heavy main stage and engine. This new stage gives very similar performance to the Sagittarius V( but in more streamlined and cost effective package. The Sagittarius VI will lift 80 tons to 100km LKO.

The Sagittarius VII is the all-up super heavy lift variant of the Sagittarius family. Built around the already massive Sagittarius VI core stage and using three modified Sagittarius IV main stages as boosters. The 2nd stage of the Sagittarius VI is significantly underpowered, even though it fits the most powerful 2nd stage engine available. The 3rd stage has been upscaled as well bringing the maximum payload to LKO to 140 tons.

Edited June 14, 2014 by Doc
added a photo