K.S.S. Kerbia - Self-Sustained Adventure Ship (Requires Kethane)

[RocketBlam]

This is K.S.S. (Kerbal Space Ship) Kerbia.

In every launch we must plan for three things: Going to another planetary body, landing, and returning safely to Kerbin. This design derives from my desire for a ship which never needs to return home. In one vessel, you can visit most of the system's planets and moons, without coming home.

The design of the ship is based around the Transfer Stage, which also doubles as a Kethane lander. I have landed many Kethane bases in this game, and they tend to be only useful for refueling from the planet the base is on. I just decided to put the Kethane base on the ship itself. This way, you can land on whatever planetary body you are orbiting, fill up with fuel, return to the vessel and be ready to go wherever you want.

With a TWR of .34 on Kerbin, the lander can land and take off from any planetary body in the Kerbol system except Tylo, Eve, Kerbin and Laythe. Technically you can land and take off from Duna, but with a gravity of 0.3 Kerbin G's, it would be a challenge.

Wherever you go, if you are out of fuel, you can merely launch one of the Orbital Probes to find the Kethane, then land the Transfer Stage and refuel. When you're done, the Kethane base goes with you, wherever you go. (Really you only need one Kethane Probe, but I included two, for balance purposes).

When it is finally time to take all that delicious science home, the lander stage has a parachute for the Kerbin landing.

The only mod required is the Kethane Pack.

It takes three launches to assemble Kerbal Space Ship Kerbia - one for the KMMU (Kethane Massive Manufactory Unit, a.k.a. the Transfer Stage), one for the Science/Command Module, and one for the two Kethane Probes. If I could have found a way to attach the Kethane Probes to the ship before launch I would have done it, but due to the way they connect to the ship, I couldn't see a way to do it.

I can post the .craft files if anyone wants them, but I'm waiting until .25, to get the best/latest compatible files.

[Rune]

http://i.imgur.com/kPYKOuB.png

This is K.S.S. (Kerbal Space Ship) Kerbia.

In every launch we must plan for three things: Going to another planetary body, landing, and returning safely to Kerbin. This design derives from my desire for a ship which never needs to return home. In one vessel, you can visit most of the system's planets and moons, without coming home.

The design of the ship is based around the Transfer Stage, which also doubles as a Kethane lander. I have landed many Kethane bases in this game, and they tend to be only useful for refueling from the planet the base is on. I just decided to put the Kethane base on the ship itself. This way, you can land on whatever planetary body you are orbiting, fill up with fuel, return to the vessel and be ready to go wherever you want.

With a TWR of .34 on Kerbin, the lander can land and take off from any planetary body in the Kerbol system except Tylo, Eve, Kerbin and Laythe. Technically you can land and take off from Duna, but with a gravity of 0.3 Kerbin G's, it would be a challenge.

Wherever you go, if you are out of fuel, you can merely launch one of the Orbital Probes to find the Kethane, then land the Transfer Stage and refuel. When you're done, the Kethane base goes with you, wherever you go. (Really you only need one Kethane Probe, but I included two, for balance purposes).

When it is finally time to take all that delicious science home, the lander stage has a parachute for the Kerbin landing.

The only mod required is the Kethane Pack.

http://i.imgur.com/MV0or70.png

It takes three launches to assemble Kerbal Space Ship Kerbia - one for the KMMU (Kethane Massive Manufactory Unit, a.k.a. the Transfer Stage), one for the Science/Command Module, and one for the two Kethane Probes. If I could have found a way to attach the Kethane Probes to the ship before launch I would have done it, but due to the way they connect to the ship, I couldn't see a way to do it.

I can post the .craft files if anyone wants them, but I'm waiting until .25, to get the best/latest compatible files.

Great name! And it is totally doable to put probes the way you want them, you just have to build them completely different . I'd start with the docking port, then put, for example, a small RCS tank on top of that. The main thing is it's got to be a surface-attachable part so it sticks out. Or you could so something more complicated with nodes, or use the RCS tank as spacers, then surface-attach something to that... the possibilities are probably endless to do something similar, but I have some very compact 0.625m kethane probes that work like a charm (I never saw the reason for the big kethane scanners, if you scan way faster the lower your orbit is). If you want to see how I went about that particular problem, check out my kethane architecture section in my skunkworks page (you will see the miner concept is similar).

Rune. As always, link in sig.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Rune

[Lohan2008]

Can you please give me a close up of those probes ??

[RocketBlam]

Sure, be glad to.

From left/top to right/bottom:

Kethane Survey Unit

FL-A10 Adapter (with Clamp-o-Tron Jr's attached)

FL-R10 RCS Fuel Tank (with Thruster blocks attached, x4)

Battery bank

Probodobodyne OKTO (with 1x6 Solar Cells, X8)

Another battery bank

Xenon Container

ION engine.

Edited September 28, 2014 by RocketBlam

[Rune]

Regarding those probes, I took a screenshot finally of my two favorite subassemblies doing their thing while I was playing today:

That's a standard tanker assembly (in my save of course), with two drive pods giving a reasonably low 0.15 T/W, and two Klaw pods being capable of handling the tanks (or anything else) in to a smooth docking with ease if you take your time. Note how the drive pods draw fuel through the jr. docking ports, they would do the same if they were docked by any of the other stadard-sized docking ports, either to the side or axially, a detail of which I am very proud since there are no fuel lines there and I clipped like crazy to get those aesthetics. But that's more of an advanced class that maybe I should leave that for the aesthetics thread. I've been meaning to upload these two there for some time.... Here, closeups and everything:

The main thing to build stuff like that is to start with the docking port, then a cubic probe core to give yourself control and some space (though renaming later is a bother since it ends up inside stuff), then surface-attach stuff to the end of it. I found 1.25m stuff goes perfectly there. You can always use a cubic strut or something else to create a node for non-surface-attachable stuff, but I normally use Editor Tools because it saves that part (the drive pod is something like 11 parts, I defy someone to do better).

Rune. Hope it inspires you!

Edited September 28, 2014 by Rune

[RocketBlam]

That's a great idea, putting a claw on one side and a docking port on the other. I was wondering how to include a claw in my design without unbalancing it. That allows you to convert a regular docking port to a claw, which is useful when you have some fuel left over in your lift stage and want to get it out.

What do you use for electrical though?

Edited September 29, 2014 by RocketBlam

[Rune]

That's a great idea, putting a claw on one side and a docking port on the other. I was wondering how to include a claw in my design without unbalancing it. That allows you to convert a regular docking port to a claw, which is useful when you have some fuel left over in your lift stage and want to get it out.

What do you use for electrical though?

There is a RTG clipped somewhere inside. In the drive pod, actually, it's crucial for the fuel flow (to not interrupt fuel flow, you can't use an attachment node more than once). You could always use a couple panels and a battery, but though massless, that's more parts and you have to worry about shade and such. Also, they are nice things to join potatoroids together (their original design intention)

Rune. Glad you like it!

[dryer_lint]

Kerbia? Referring to Serbia?

< points to name

[RocketBlam]

Actually no. "Columbia" and "Brittania" are examples of a word that ends in "ia", and has the kind of meaning I was looking for. It means, in other words, "Land of the Kerbals".

I do have a friend from Croatia though.

[RocketBlam]

So I decided to see if I could land the KMMU on Duna and refuel, and get back to orbit. It turns out I can, and the engines still perform well even on the surface, with an ISP of about 700.

Detaching for landing.

Landed.

Taking off. TWR: 1.01! It took a while for me to claw my way into the sky. I actually had to burn off some fuel, because with the Kethane tanks filled and full fuel, its TWR is .98.