MK3 HypeShuttle needs one more thing!

[MKI]

Simply put the news that the new MK3 parts are going to get a buff in size. (I assume large enough to carry large diameter parts ) Or as Maxmaps put it, "Going up a tier should feel like a sufficiently large upgrade, and as such it should have more options open up for you.".

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/312-The-Grand-0-26-Plan

Yes indeed! Going up a size means MK3 ships can carry things such as Science Labs, Hithikers and large diameter Station parts into orbit, as the SP+ parts can carry smaller parts and probes into orbit effeciently.

Now I have always been an advacator of asymmetrical shuttle Designs. These always needed a few things to work in stock KSP without massive sidesteping. (making a cargo bay out of 100 parts)

1. Cargo Bays- Besides carrying Kerbals, Shuttles gotta carry something.(Something significant!)

2. Reusability- otherwise whats the point besides being cool?

3. High Gimbal Main Engines- Expensive, late game engines (SLS level of effeciency)

So far with the news of larger MK3 parts, the assumption they will come with some sort of cargobay that leaves really ONE aspect left to get truly purposful stock KSP shuttles, and those are the key engines. The most important aspect of the engines are its gimbal. As without it a player must partake in a lengthy trial and error approach to balance out an asymmetric design, which I feel is as iconic to spaceflight as any stack rocket.

Right now the highest gimbal goes to the RAPIER which is basically a jet engine hybrid that lacks the thrust to compete with a traditional rocket engine. So there isn't an engine that fills the niche of high gimbal high thrust in the smaller size ranges.

So to get crazier designs, or more importantly ICONIC SPACE FLIGHT designs into space we need one more engine thats only job is to get less straight foward designs into space.

Just one more step and we can finally say KSP can recreate grand-daddy Orbiter and go to space not on a stack rocket, or an inline SSTO or hell even a flat asparagus monster, but a beutiful Semi-Reusable Asymmetricalcal Shuttle with a cargobay.

[Murph]

The 0.25 SP+ mark 2 cargo bay isn't really big enough for general 1.25m stuff, as there's no space for small radial attached things on the payload (more than 2x symmetry). Current mark 3 is about right for 1.25m+legs size stuff. For 2.5m payloads, we need a lot more than just larger cargo space; namely bigger wings, gear, etc. The current wings may be modular, but that is not sufficient for larger spaceplanes, as the part count ends up getting obnoxious once you factor in all the struts required to give the wings reasonable structural integrity.

Mark 3 should be left for 1.25+legs size, and a new larger size created for 2.5m stuff, complete with larger wings and gear to support it properly. I think that 2.5m payload should be left to mods for now, unless it's going to be done fully and properly in stock â€â€.another half-assed solution (like mark 3 has been so far) would be a mistake. I hope that 0.26 brings in the various parts needed to make mark 3 useful at roughly its current size, for 1.25m stuff, then a future mark 4 is added later (with large wings and gear) for 2.5m payloads.

[Andrew Hansen]

@Murph, I disagree with you. Having two different spaceplane part sizes for carrying 1.25m payloads makes no sense. Everyone would just use Mk3 sizes and never use Mk2 if that were the case. Mk3 should be for 2.5m payloads, since Mk2 already works quite well for 1.25m payloads. Yes, you can't radially attach a lot of things to payloads in the current Mk2 cargo bays, but creating a whole new category of larger parts just to fix that problem is insane. The real solution would be to simply make Mk2 cargo bays a little bit larger.

In case you didn't know, other mods that have had 1.25m payloads in Mk2 parts have acted the same way as Spaceplane+, without having much room for radially attachable parts.

[prophet_01]

I thought the same when i read that dev post but I am not sure if it was meant that way. Anyway I do hope that we get 2.5 m cargo bays. And btw I don't need place for attachements as my landers usually use the 909 mounted to a 2.5 m base. There is plenty of room for landing gears next to the engine and it wont stick out there

Edited October 15, 2014 by prophet_01

[Murph]

@Andrew, I see your thinking there, but strongly disagree with it. Mark 2 provides a good cargo bay for 0.625m payloads and simple 1.25m payloads. Mark 3 is perfect to cope with general 1.25m payloads. A new mark 4 is where a 2.5m+legs size cargo bay should go. It doesn't matter if there's 2 choices which can be used for 1.25m, choice is a good thing, just as the cargo haulers of the world use a variety of different aircraft in similar roles. I'd buy into mark 3 getting a very slight size increase, to make it the same extremely tight fit around 2.5m that mark 2 is around 1.25m, but that still leaves a need for a bay which supports 2.5+legs.

@prophet, when I say "+legs", that's just an illustrative example that most people will understand. Good for you hiding the legs under the 2.5m body, but many prefer them to be mounted on the side of the main body, giving greater stability than having them pushed in towards the centre.

I do want stock to get good 2.5m bays, just think that there's an important role for mark 3 to play for 1.25m+legs. I also want stock to get the other components necessary to do heavy 2.5m payloads properly (big wings and gear, mounts for quad engines, etc).

[prophet_01]

@murph I agree with you but I played a lot with cargo bays from mods and 2.5m+ bays are going to be rly rly big. We would most likely need many wing parts and sizes, even the current ones aren't rly large enough for big sstos build with the parts available. Oh and do you mean we.need a whole mk4 line? Wouldn't be widened bays with adapters for mk3 and maybe 2 bigger engine mounts enough? Yep refering to b9's system

[Murph]

@murph I agree with you but I played a lot with cargo bays from mods and 2.5m+ bays are going to be rly rly big. We would most likely need many wing parts and sizes, even the current ones aren't rly large enough for big sstos build with the parts available. Oh and do you mean we.need a whole mk4 line? Wouldn't be widened bays with adapters for mk3 and maybe 2 bigger engine mounts enough? Yep refering to b9's system

Yeah, that would be a reasonable alternative, something like S2 and S2W from B9, but done with mark 3. I was suggesting a whole new mark 4 set, but a wide-body mark 3 with adapters in addition to narrow-body is fine, as long as there's both wide and narrow fuel tanks, engine adapters, etc, as well as cargo bays.

You are correct about the size of a 2.5+legs bay. That's part of why I want mark 3 to just be good for 1.25+legs, so that we don't have to fly something HUGE for it, but have good options for all cases.

[MKI]

Simply put the current cargo bays are ment for probes and simple small sized 1.25 sized cargo. Really anything this big can be put in orbit by a reusable rocket. Landing legs or not. So regardless of wanting landing legs or not, you can send such stuff up into space ontop of an SRB and save just as much cash for almost no work with basically no upfront investment.

The Devs already said the size of the MK3 isn't large enough. So they are pretty much the same size as the current mk3 parts(no reason for them to be smaller than the legacy parts) which already could carry 1.25 meter parts EASILY, but couldn't hold 2.5 meter parts what so ever.

So its almost a guarentee the new MK3 parts WILL be large enough to hold 2.5 meter parts, there are few reasons to not have them be able to hold such.

I feel the Devs will just upscale all the MK3 parts to become near SLS size level(YES that big!). There are decent amounts of wing parts with SP+ integration so IDK about needing B9 level wing parts. The whole purpose i see for this is to bring two major building styles in the game for the "end game" Simply put the SLS currently blows all the competition out of the water by being powerful, effecient, and simple. Except its expensive, comes the end of the Tech tree and is generally expendable.

The new MK3 parts should fill the niche of being Large enough to carry 2.5 meter parts to get all the major parts into space, and come back. Lacking the SLS thrust but keeping the functionality that currently just doesn't exist in the current game. Instead of currently relying on a bunch of cheap medium sized rockets to get a basic science lab into orbit, you can use the MK3 parts to make a shuttle to take these parts to orbit and fly back. Saving cash for other end game stuff.

SSTO MK3 ships will then need to be considered, as having such large payloads will make a few new problems. But I feel this is something that might not need to exist in the stock game. SSTO ships fall off in usefulness once you start getting really large. There are plenty of good Rocket options to get MK3 size parts into space, where as there just would need to be a huge, super powerful, super effecient, jet engines and with them a large and effencient air intake. This definantly would take out the niche functionality of making an SSTO and rather make it just go big or go home. Yes you can still just spam Jet engines/Rapiers to get larger SSTO ships off the ground but doing such is extremely expensive in terms of part count and funds.

Now i for one don't like the idea of making SSTOS as viable as other build types, so I'm against large size jet engines and larger air intakes. As of right now SSTOS with SP+ can easily be built to do 90% of things rocket launches can do outside of drag large parts to orbit. That sort of stuff should be left to rockets. Which is where a MK3 semi-reusable Shuttle would come into play, it can balance the size/strength of a rocket build, with the reusability of an SSTO. But losing out to both in terms of effeciency (SSTO's save more money) or payload size (Rockets/SLS)

Adding Stronger jets would make all lower end SSTO's childs play, throw on a super jet engine and a super air intake and get basically anything small sized into orbit and back for free, as its mainly off the Jet! So adding such things to the game would pretty much break the system. The rapier should be as far as we go in terms of SSTO oriented perpulsion, anything to strong could break the game.

Yes im totally bias for the MK3 parts becoming primarily shuttle parts. But it is one of the things this game really is missing. I didn't even know what an SSTO is until i played this game, but anyone who knows anything about recent space flight knows what a Space Shuttle is.

Edited October 16, 2014 by MKI

[Frozen_Heart]

I have to agree on the shuttle parts being upsized to just under 50% of the real thing like the SLS parts. High gimbal engines are also really needed!

[colmo]

dtobi advertised for a new mod maintainer for Shuttle Engines when he quit modding for KSP...just saying....

Edited October 16, 2014 by colmo

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'd like bigger Mk 3!