the new cargo bays are too small...

[Red Iron Crown]

The bays are pretty tight. Easy enough to build 0.625m craft or basic 1.25m payloads to fit. Once you want to make something more capable, it gets much more challenging to fit inside the bay. It's a design constraint that makes for some interesting problem solving.

That said, I'm sure more bays and fairings are coming to stock eventually.

[SelectHalfling0]

I can put my typical laythe/duna/eve/small moon probe into the large cargo bay. You just have to design appropriately.

[lajoswinkler]

This is an useless complaint. If you want more space, use Procedural Fairings. This is a spaceplane cargo bay for small satellites. It is fine.

[cantab]

The bays are pretty tight. Easy enough to build 0.625m craft or basic 1.25m payloads to fit. Once you want to make something more capable, it gets much more challenging to fit inside the bay. It's a design constraint that makes for some interesting problem solving.

Indeed. I'm minded to build rockets with the SP+ parts purely for the challenge of fitting things in the bays. There are some very nice designs here, including what I think is the key "trick" of putting your radial bits around a .625 m part.

For similar reasons, when I get NEAR/FAR I plan on finding some nice fixed fairings rather than procedural. I've seen very elegant slim designs from other people for fairings like that too.

[Jodo42]

the new parts are meant to be used in spaceplanes, spaceplanes by their nature have very limited space and lifting capacity.

Yeah, if you're planning to use spaceplanes you're going to need to get used to designing your payloads so they fit inside. Anything super bulky is going to need a standard rocket.

Wow. Complain, complain, complain. You wanted cargo bays. SQUAD gave cargo bays. Now you're complaining because they don't fit your stuff? SQUAD's doing all they can, man...

Stop complaining, atleast you guys got them.

well the real spaceplanes are not going to carry a lot either. so it's probably do make sense after all...

Download B-9, it has some serious one, with engines and stuff to fit.

At this sizes you start to run into real world cargo plane bays sizes. Very bulky stuff still has to be launched by rockets.

This is an useless complaint. If you want more space, use Procedural Fairings. This is a spaceplane cargo bay for small satellites. It is fine.

I'd like to point you all to MrOverfloater, a KSP Youtuber who essentially disproves your points. Spaceplanes are not by definition "small". There are small spaceplanes, and there are large ones. Any argument about "realism" is somewhat mute, considering there's not a single spaceplane in real life that operates the way we make ours in KSP. If you are to argue his designs are exploitative, I would reply that that's not your judgement to make. Squad has implemented features that allow for his designs to work. It takes advantage of what is currently a rather key component of the aerodynamics model.

What's with all the hostility? Some of you have been very constructive to the OP, showing him some examples of how to use the currently rather limited cargo bays. Some of you have simply rejected his idea without any comment on its legitimacy.

Yes, the OP could have worded his topic better. Yes, Squad has put a ton of work into KSP. They continue to work incredibly hard on it, and they listen to what we have to say. Simply saying "Squad is perfect" is not an adequate reply to this topic. "Stop complaining" is not either. Larger cargo bays could do nothing but expand our capabilities. While I suspect that Squad will eventually add larger bays, they have been known to half-implement features in their quest for "scope completion". We shouldn't meet hostility with hostility; this forum is known for its friendliness. Just because the OP wasn't very polite doesn't mean you should throw his idea away like trash without any real comment or suggestions on his dilemma. Respect breeds respect.

Really, he isn't being that disrespectful at all.

In reply to the OP, it's only been a few days since cargo bays were added. Give them some time; I'm sure they will eventually add more, larger ones. In the mean time, people in this thread have given you some excellent examples on how to get the most out of what we already have. Those 48-7s engines are very efficient, especially for the relatively small stuff you can fit in stock cargo bays at the moment.

As for the attachment problem you're having, try disabling surface attachment before you place any parts. I think you have to hold alt with the part you're trying to add selected; someone should confirm/deny that.

[Random Tank]

The Mk3 spaceplane parts are going to have cargo bays, and these bays are going to be able to hold 2.5m parts, he confirmed it on Friday's (or Saturday's, depending) Squadcast. Whether they are going to be in 0.26 is not confirmed, but they'd like to get them in

[Overfloater]

What are ya'll talking about, "too small" x-b

Everything works good as usual for me... ]

[MaverickSawyer]

The new cargo bays aren't too small: You're just thinking too big when designing a payload!

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

There are the usual uses for the cargobays, then there's those of us who like to experiment a little and ending up with things like this:

That's 4 large and 4 small cargobays arranged around a large and a small central structural girder, with the Kerbodyne adapter top and bottom to take the Docking Port Snr.'s, for use in interplanetary ships. Default cargo is 4 Mun landers, but can be swapped out in LKO for whatever is needed...

[Alshain]

How does that design work? I don't see any LFO engines ...

Looks like there might be an inline aerospike below and between the turbojets.

Correct, inline aerospike and 2x 24-77's for rotation correction which are under the turbojets in that shot. Sometime this weekend I plan on starting a catalog thread in the exchange to share my crafts if you want a copy. Just putting some polish on them. I was hoping firespitter would get updated soon so I could get the modded craft done too.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Alshain

[sdj64]

I'd like to point you all to MrOverfloater, a KSP Youtuber who essentially disproves your points. Spaceplanes are not by definition "small". There are small spaceplanes, and there are large ones. Any argument about "realism" is somewhat mute, considering there's not a single spaceplane in real life that operates the way we make ours in KSP. If you are to argue his designs are exploitative, I would reply that that's not your judgement to make. Squad has implemented features that allow for his designs to work. It takes advantage of what is currently a rather key component of the aerodynamics model.

What's with all the hostility? Some of you have been very constructive to the OP, showing him some examples of how to use the currently rather limited cargo bays. Some of you have simply rejected his idea without any comment on its legitimacy.

Yes, the OP could have worded his topic better. Yes, Squad has put a ton of work into KSP. They continue to work incredibly hard on it, and they listen to what we have to say. Simply saying "Squad is perfect" is not an adequate reply to this topic. "Stop complaining" is not either. Larger cargo bays could do nothing but expand our capabilities. While I suspect that Squad will eventually add larger bays, they have been known to half-implement features in their quest for "scope completion". We shouldn't meet hostility with hostility; this forum is known for its friendliness. Just because the OP wasn't very polite doesn't mean you should throw his idea away like trash without any real comment or suggestions on his dilemma. Respect breeds respect.

Really, he isn't being that disrespectful at all.

In reply to the OP, it's only been a few days since cargo bays were added. Give them some time; I'm sure they will eventually add more, larger ones. In the mean time, people in this thread have given you some excellent examples on how to get the most out of what we already have. Those 48-7s engines are very efficient, especially for the relatively small stuff you can fit in stock cargo bays at the moment.

As for the attachment problem you're having, try disabling surface attachment before you place any parts. I think you have to hold alt with the part you're trying to add selected; someone should confirm/deny that.

Yes, holding down Alt disables surface attachment and allows you to put parts on the nodes in the cargo bays.

As was said by many, the Mk2 spaceplane parts are for small and medium spaceplanes, those that don't have large payloads. However, I do think they should have made them able to fit a lander can and landing legs that don't have to be clipped into the 1.25m fuel tank in the lander, since many people will be probably be using them for landers.

Overfloater is a great inspiration with large spaceplanes, but his cargo bays wouldn't work with FAR, since they don't shield parts inside. (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't used FAR too extensively). But FAR folks could just download B9 until the new Mk3 parts are released.

Cmdr. Arn1e, that's a cool design. I thought about something like that for a Jool-5 ship I'm working on but there's no way I'll fit a Tylo lander in a Mk2 cargo bay without using seats. I did use that shape with the new crew cabins in my ship, though.

[freqout]

So, this little probe launches from a mk2 cargo bay and is good for just shy of 11k m/s worth of delta-v. You need to build smaller. Those bays are much too constrained to build based on the basic 1.25m cylinder with things sticking off radially - it just won't fit. So the lander here has the smallest sized RCS tanks hanging in pairs off a narrow structural bit. With them are a pair of monopropellant motors on the 2 free sides. The transit stage is a cluster of 3 ion engines at the end of a short stack of xenon gas tanks, again, with additional tanks hanging off the sides. This little guy's first run took it to Pol with something like half its fuel left after landing. The second one I sent landed first on Ike and then on Gilly and still had some juice left. Not bad for a probe made from all stock parts and weighing in at just under 4 tons, fully loaded.

So yeah, it is tight but you can make it work if you get a bit more creative with the design and leave the 1.25m core design behind.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Cmdr. Arn1e, that's a cool design. I thought about something like that for a Jool-5 ship I'm working on but there's no way I'll fit a Tylo lander in a Mk2 cargo bay without using seats. I did use that shape with the new crew cabins in my ship, though.

Cheers, and that's what I have in mind for it... I'm thinking the Tylo and Laythe Landers will have to go externally on the back end of the ship, but they will be good for Vall, Bop and Pol landers, and maybe an emergency rescue vehicle or something if I manage to stuff up any landings... most likely on Vall, as I think I have my Tylo lander down pat now

More on-topic, I'm sure I'll come up with more designs... the current one would be perfect for lifting a small space station into orbit, then transferred to any SOI of choice The Mobile Processing Lab would have to go as a seperate part, but then that wouldn't fit in anything smaller than a Kerbodyne sized cargobay anyway hehe

[LethalDose]

I could barely understand the OP, but I think I got the gist: the same whining about why there isn't bigger everything in stock.

I'm willing to say that I'm just happy we have cargo bays in stock, and IMO they're plenty large since they can lift 1.25 m parts with radial gear.

Seriously, what else would you expect the Mk2 bays to do!?

[Zylark]

Think of the limited space available in the cargo bay as a challenge. Design small efficient landers if you absolutely must launch a lander via a Spaceplane or SSTO. Those cargo bays are more suitable for resupplies and probes, but landers are entirely possible with a bit of effort and mods...

Was a tight fit, but got it up by Spaceplane and down by SSTO using the cramped cargo bay that is now stock in 0.25. Don't think I could made a lander fit without using the Near Future pack of mods or have it do any useful science without the Universal Storage mod however.

Being powered by Argon-Electrical engines, thrust wasn't all that great, so only used it on Minmus. Worked perfectly in that low gravity.

[Mesons]

To your latter point, if you're having difficulty attaching things to the nodes within the cargo bays, hold down the your modifier key until you attach the part where you want. That allows attachment only at nodes and you won't have your payload trying to surface-attach to everything.

There really needs to be a tutorial in-game to go over all these little "Oh, you didn't know about that?" tricks in the VAB. I've been playing pretty heavy for over a year and didn't know that one.

[lordlundar]

The 2-ton probe in question, deployed:

http://i.imgur.com/LFlkHR2.png

ScanSat sensors (SAR and high-res), Kethane scanner, thermometer, atmosphere probe, plenty of power, and enough xenon to give it 18000m/s of delta-V (enough to go anywhere in the system). The reason it has so many solar panels is that the ScanSat sensors are energy hogs; the ion drive uses very little power by comparison.

Actually I'm wondering why you deployed it in an equatorial orbit. You're never going to get a full scan without a polar one.

There really needs to be a tutorial in-game to go over all these little "Oh, you didn't know about that?" tricks in the VAB. I've been playing pretty heavy for over a year and didn't know that one.

This was implemented in .25, it wasn't available before then. That's why you never knew about it.

[Alshain]

Actually I'm wondering why you deployed it in an equatorial orbit. You're never going to get a full scan without a polar one.

Did you fail to notice the big white ice cap? It obviously is polar.

[LethalDose]

There really needs to be a tutorial in-game to go over all these little "Oh, you didn't know about that?" tricks in the VAB. I've been playing pretty heavy for over a year and didn't know that one.

No one knew that one before last week because "[Mod key] to turn off surface attachments" was added in 0.25.

[Red Iron Crown]

Did you fail to notice the big white ice cap? It obviously is polar.

Worse, Engineer shows the inclination of 78 degrees right in the pic.

[Mitchz95]

Could we use larger cargo bays? Probably. But we can make do for now. I'm just glad we got them at all.

[Alshain]

I would be surprised if the all new Mk3 series didn't have bigger cargo bays. They developed the code to handle the (so called) aerodynamics of cargo bays, I'd be shocked to learn all that was for just these two. This is just the first step.

[boomerdog2000]

The cargo bay is also quite a good fit for the experiment modules from the Station Science mod.

[Ketsa]

I think they should have added a cargo bay for rockets too.

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

I think they should have added a cargo bay for rockets too.

I guess you missed my post earlier in the thread...

EDIT: I do look forward to bigger cargo bays in future though, and maybe fairings or rocket bays too...

Edited October 11, 2014 by Cmdr. Arn1e