Circular/Cylindrical Cargo Bays

[Higgs]

Okay, I would like to have a friendly little discussion about my suggestion: Circular/Cylindrical Cargo bays.

I would LOVE to see something like this is KSP. I was just playing KSP and wanted to use the new cargo bays, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to make such an awkward shaped cargo bay conform to a rocket. It is spectacular for an aircraft, space plane, and probably an SSTO, but for a rocket? They, to me at the very least, come up short in terms of utility and how one can use them in a rocket. I KNOW, there are those of you out there who are FAR better engineers than I am, who most likely have come up with some ingenious ways to do this, but, I just cannot figure out how. I would love to have a 2.5m lets say, cargo bay to stick into a rocket and fling 1.5m payloads out into space.

Am I just crazy wanting something like this, or do you guys think perhaps squad has something like this in the pipe and just not saying anything?

discuss

[Murph]

Okay, I would like to have a friendly little discussion about my suggestion: Circular/Cylindrical Cargo bays.

I would LOVE to see something like this is KSP. I was just playing KSP and wanted to use the new cargo bays, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to make such an awkward shaped cargo bay conform to a rocket. It is spectacular for an aircraft, space plane, and probably an SSTO, but for a rocket? They, to me at the very least, come up short in terms of utility and how one can use them in a rocket. I KNOW, there are those of you out there who are FAR better engineers than I am, who most likely have come up with some ingenious ways to do this, but, I just cannot figure out how. I would love to have a 2.5m lets say, cargo bay to stick into a rocket and fling 1.5m payloads out into space.

Am I just crazy wanting something like this, or do you guys think perhaps squad has something like this in the pipe and just not saying anything?

discuss

The new cargo bays were never intended for use on rockets, only as part of the spaceplane fuselage system. That's not to say that you can't use them, just they are clearly not intended for that purpose. The good thing is that the stock game should now have the internal gubbins to support cargo bay doors. So, in theory, it should now be "easy" to add random cargo bay type parts, in a very resource-light and supportable fashion.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think that rocket fairings (fairings are usually the way you do that type of thing on expendable rockets) were always a "probably will do" thing for Squad, just not a priority in the past. With the game moving from alpha to beta, I'd guess that we'll start to see many such things start to appear over the next few releases (the skeleton and critical organs are now more or less complete, now is the time for the random missing flesh to be added to the bones, or at least that's how I interpret what they have said recently).

For now, "Procedural Fairings" is a cool little mod that may well give you what you want. B9 has 3.75m cargo bay parts (HL series), and there's various others out there (possibly some in KW, not sure offhand).

[Higgs]

i run proc fairings for sure, but, thats more for a: strap this payload to the nose" kinda thing. I was thinking more of a mid way down the rocket kinda thing. Guess Im just having a dream about it lol. I dont like B9 myself, just too many of everything kinda thing.

[Murph]

i run proc fairings for sure, but, thats more for a: strap this payload to the nose" kinda thing. I was thinking more of a mid way down the rocket kinda thing. Guess Im just having a dream about it lol. I dont like B9 myself, just too many of everything kinda thing.

You can use the "interstage" fairing that comes with PF, to have something hidden mid way down the rocket. Obviously the normal use of that will both split the rocket in half and reveal a payload, so not a cargo bay, but an alternative that's useful sometimes (e.g. Apollo did that type of thing for the lunar module).

[Higgs]

Id not considered that. I like the idea murph