Raptor's Craft Download Catalog - Tested & Proven

[TopHeavy11]

You know you've done something right when you get complimented by @Firemetal.

Love your work, keep it up!

[redmonddkgamer]

I can't get the LV-2C payloads off the lander, the PL in specific, and it's liquiding me off. Any tips?

[Raptor9]

6 hours ago, redmonddkgamer said:

I can't get the LV-2C payloads off the lander, the PL in specific, and it's liquiding me off. Any tips?

I assume you're referring to the LV-3C and the BM-series modules.  That being the case, the drop down text box in the VAB below the craft title will have a series of action groups listed for each payload configuration.  Since you mentioned the BM-PL, the following is the list for that payload:

LV-3C Action Groups:
[1] Initiates BM-PL lift sequence from LV-3C
[3] Toggles LV-3C Engines

BM-PL Action Groups:
[1] Activates 24-77 Lift Engines
[2] Toggles Landing Legs
[3] Deactivates 24-77 Lift Engines

The vertical lift engines that allow each payload to "hop" off the LV-3C to the surface is thrust-limited so that for each payload/cargo rack you should place the throttle at ~50% prior to initiating the lift sequence via Action Group [1].  This will ensure a smooth, clean and controlled separation from the LV-3C lander itself.  The BM-PL and BM-H are identical in use, but the cargo rack that lifts the BM-A, BM-P, BM-U, and BM-4H modules are a little different so make sure you look at those and perform a good pre-seperation check.

[drhay53]

On the two C7 passenger transports, I can't seem to get a kerbal up the ladder to the hatch. I've even tried moving the ladders around a bit in the editor. Any help?

edit: I ended up pulling them out of the sides of the aircraft and tilting them upwards a bit more. They're pretty ugly but I finally was able to get a kerbal past the end and up to the hatch.

Edited March 31, 2017 by drhay53

[Razordraac]

Excellent job on all these! I really love the consistency throughout all the designs in the graphics and design traits. I personally use your ships with the also excellent ASET Props and Avionics mods as well as some IVA patches for the stock cockpits. From the Thunderbird's IVA I took a screenshot: 

It's really pretty awesome to use mods like this with your already detailed crafts. Makes KSP like a proper in-depth space sim

[Cynor]

Loving all these crafts, especially the SSTO stuff. I've always had an ok grasp of SSTOs/Space Planes but the DV and how many engines and stuff needed for orbit always just flubbers me some, so something like this is awesome for me. However I do have one small question that is giving some pause that maybe someone can answer. Namely how friendly are these designs to small tweaks of certain things. For example I normally don't like using fuel cells/RTGs and just use solar panels, but it seems like most of the designs don't use solar panels. Another consideration I have to make is that while I don't use many* mods I am using life support (TAC-LS atm but moving to USI soon) so need to factor in that. 

*Well more so many mods that radically change systems as I do run a few part packs and utility mods

[Raptor22]

I LOVE your style. It's the right mix between complex and simplistic. For your Atlas aircraft, I've seen tons of people make other aircraft like that (a C-17-like aircraft), but they use tons of parts. Yours are low part-count, but still amazing. I honestly prefer these over modded planes.

I'd love to see more come out of the C7 series. I love the style of the C7-140 and 142. They don't look like any real aircraft that I've seen, but they can fit in great.

I've seen you post a few screenshots of designs, but you don't have them in the catalog (such as the Mk IV aircraft and the CV-15). It'd be awesome if you could post them somewhere.

[Skylon]

You may have posted this somewhere before, but did you make these craft on career or sandbox mode? Love your craft BTW, good balance of simple, aesthetically pleasing and, from what I can see, functional. 

[Raptor9]

@drhay53, glad you got it sorted.  I haven't had any trouble before, but maybe I'll revisit the ladder locations during the 1.3 craft update. Thanks for letting me know.

@Razordraac, love that screenshot!  Glad you like the designs.

On 4/2/2017 at 5:28 AM, Cynor said:

Namely how friendly are these designs to small tweaks of certain things.

The SR-19 isn't really friendly to more equipment or tweaks.  I've squeezed as much delta-V as I can from that design layout.  The SR-21's have a larger delta-V reserve that you could play with for making small tweaks.  But at the end of the day, experiment and see what you come up with. 

17 hours ago, Raptor22 said:

I'd love to see more come out of the C7 series. I love the style of the C7-140 and 142. They don't look like any real aircraft that I've seen, but they can fit in great.

The C7 140/142 airframe layouts are inspired by the V-280 "Valor" concepts.  I do have a couple working prototypes of additional C7-series aircraft I'm working on.  Namely, I'm trying to build longer-ranged utility aircraft that can expand the science-collection mission around Kerbin.

17 hours ago, Raptor22 said:

I've seen you post a few screenshots of designs, but you don't have them in the catalog (such as the Mk IV aircraft and the CV-15). It'd be awesome if you could post them somewhere.

A lot of designs in the early pages of the thread were designed in alpha versions of KSP, like 0.25-era.  They've since become removed from my inventory for a variety of reasons, usually because they no longer worked or no longer viable.  The Mk IV-based VTOL and the CV-15 are such designs that fall in that category, along with the XV-series or prototypes.

17 hours ago, Skylon said:

You may have posted this somewhere before, but did you make these craft on career or sandbox mode?

I design and test them in Sandbox before moving them over to my Career save.  These are all craft that I have designed for my own uses in Career mode at some point or another, so sometimes I'll encounter a design deficiency I wasn't aware of, prompting me to execute a craft update or revision of some sort.

To all, I apologize for the late reply, my real-life job has kept me quite busy; and will probably continue to do so for the next couple weeks.

[drhay53]

I'm curious how you use the large aircraft in career.... or do you really use them regularly? I'm talking the strato-soar and tri-soar type of planes. 

The reason I ask is that I've been using them with KerbinSide and KerbinSide GAP, and I find it nearly impossible to successfully land one of them at a kerbinside runway. I think it's really that wheels still are pretty terrible in KSP. If I want to really play a flight sim, I'll go back to DCS world or something, I guess. I just find it relaxing to sometimes take a kerbinside gap contract and go for a nice flight

If you ever feel like designing a new plane, something that holds somewhere in the 20-30 passenger range would be a nice supplement to the designs you already have  There's not alot of good ones on KerbalX and that might help with landing at KerbinSide as the plane will be a bit smaller. 

Anyway, no pressure, just some feedback. Your planes are basically the only ones in my SPH fleet, but for various reasons in my current save I've decided not to use kerbinside gap (or really, any non-science contracts at all). So just consider this some light feedback

[Raptor22]

Unless you have contract packs or need to get a ton of Kerbalnauts to another continent, the stratosoar is really just for fun. The Atlas aircraft are pretty useful.

BTW the Atlas R is in the 20 or so range. You can also get science data on the way.

[Raptor9]

@drhay53, I originally designed the 300 and 320 when I had a grand plan to set up a research station on the Kerbin north pole as a precursor to a Munar base.  It never worked out, but the two planes taught me a lot about the new Mk3 fuselage pieces when I designed them.  A lot of my X-planes are in the same boat in that they were never designed for regular use.

Story time: when the SSTO pieces first started appearing in KSP, I thought probably the same thought as most KSP players at the time. "I'm gonna make an ultra-sleek, ultra-fast spaceplane!"...at which I failed miserably (such is the way of KSP ). I went through a few cycles of getting the spaceplane bug, trying to build a spaceplane, failing, giving up for a few months, and then repeating the cycle again.  I then just tried to make a MiG-21-like basic jet plane, which sucked.  So I started a sequential X-plane series (along with the origins of this thread) to teach myself how to build planes in KSP.  I should note that this was also the alpha version of KSP with the soup-o-sphere atmospheric placeholder.

I tried straight(-ish) wings, swept wings, delta wings, flying wings, canard-delta wings, supersonic planes, etc.  These all resulted in a series of revisions when the new atmosphere/aerodynamic system was added.  Granted, there are still a lot of KSP-isms with the way the stock aero model works; I'm not going to get into a stock vs FAR debate.  But the bottom line is that trying the various airframe designs and layouts taught me a lot on how KSP planes handle when equipped with certain wing pieces, engines, fuselages, etc.  I still use my favorite X-plane derivatives to perform atmospheric surveys like the T-4, WR-8, and SR-9.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Raptor9

[Raptor22]

I think a north pole base could work. You could airdrop modules or land and unload them. They could be laid sideways on the terrain. I was actually trying to do something like that for a south pole base yesterday.

I would love to see more utility-ish aircraft. More cargo planes. More VTOLs. More Search-and-rescue and passenger planes. 

Perhaps you can put up a legacy section, with "retired" aircraft (designs that work, but are outdated, etc.) Put in your old designs, if you still have them.

[Beetlecat]

On 3/31/2017 at 6:25 PM, Razordraac said:

Excellent job on all these! I really love the consistency throughout all the designs in the graphics and design traits. I personally use your ships with the also excellent ASET Props and Avionics mods as well as some IVA patches for the stock cockpits. From the Thunderbird's IVA I took a screenshot: 

It's really pretty awesome to use mods like this with your already detailed crafts. Makes KSP like a proper in-depth space sim

what set is that? It's pretty cool to see all the analog gauges!

[Raptor9]

9 hours ago, Raptor22 said:

Perhaps you can put up a legacy section, with "retired" aircraft (designs that work, but are outdated, etc.) Put in your old designs, if you still have them.

Unfortunately, I have long since deleted those older designs.  But as someone that has mild OCD, if I recognize a capability gap within my craft file list, I try to fill it.  Even though I personally no longer have a need to move >60 Kerbals in one sortie, I still maintain the C7 300/310 designs just in case I or anybody else requires a mass airlift in the future.

[Raptor22]

Well I mean things like different cargo aircraft or smaller craft (larger than the learjet clone, but smaller than the C7 300). More utility aircraft (things that can move cargo or kerbals, VTOLS, etc.)

[redmonddkgamer]

Do you have any plans to make moar unmanned landers/rovers soon? Loved the ER-4 Duna rover, but you have no unmanned landers... I love your stuff by the way. I'm flying a C7 325R down to my Amundsen-Scott station replica.

[Raptor9]

On 4/10/2017 at 6:51 PM, redmonddkgamer said:

Do you have any plans to make moar unmanned landers/rovers soon?

Not at this time

[redmonddkgamer]

On 4/12/2017 at 4:38 AM, Raptor9 said:

Not at this time

Aww, man!

[redmonddkgamer]

On 29/11/2014 at 2:53 PM, Raptor9 said:

C7 140 'Kestel' vertical takeoff personnel transport

Typo? I think it should be "C7 140 'Kestrel' vertical takeoff personnel transport". Sorry, I just can't help noticing thing's like this. It's a little quirk of mine...

[Raptor9]

3 hours ago, redmonddkgamer said:

Typo? I think it should be "C7 140 'Kestrel' vertical takeoff personnel transport".

Indeed, it's been corrected.

[redmonddkgamer]

The description on the Gateway station implies that it is a fuel depot for Munar landers. It's base configuration barely carries any fuel.

[ExplorerKlatt]

Sounds more like a research station to me. 

[Raptor9]

31 minutes ago, redmonddkgamer said:

The description on the Gateway station implies that it is a fuel depot for Munar landers. It's base configuration barely carries any fuel.

No idea where you're inferring that from.  The description doesn't say anything about refueling or fuel storage on the station.  The intent behind it is a staging location for surface missions.

The concept behind this type of small station is an SLS-like rocket carrying a crew capsule and reusable lander (like the EV-2C/LV-2B configuration) is sent to the station to deliver the first station crew and lander for a single, initial surface expedition, supported by follow-on research in the station's processing lab.  The crew would then return home via the EV-2C.  The second mission would follow with a similar rocket configuration, but with a propellant module in place of the lander in the payload fairing under the EV-2C.  After arriving with the second crew, the propellant module would refuel the lander for another surface landing, and so on so forth.  This mission scheme is illustrated in the 'Wernher Station' graphic, which shows the crew capsule bringing with it a propellant module to dock to the station.

Having said all that, these station graphics are not exclusive configurations.  They're only examples based on real-life analogies on how you can assemble the station module subassemblies.  There is nothing stopping players from adding additional modules...like fuel storage tanks.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Raptor9
typo

[redmonddkgamer]

1 minute ago, Raptor9 said:

No idea where you're inferring that from.  The description doesn't say anything about refueling or fuel storage on the station.  The intent behind it is a staging location for surface missions.

The base concept behind this type of small station is an SLS-like rocket carrying a crew capsule and reusable lander (like the EV-2C/LV-2B configuration) is sent to the station to deliver the first station crew and lander for a single, initial surface expedition, supported by follow-on research in the station's processing lab.  The crew would then return home in the EV-2C  The second mission would follow with a similar rocket configuration, but with a propellant module in place of the lander in the payload fairing under the EV-2C.  After arriving with the second crew, the propellant module would refuel the lander for another surface landing, and so on so forth.  This mission scheme is illustrated in the 'Wernher Station' graphic, which shows the crew capsule bringing with it a propellant module to dock to the station.

Having said all that, these station graphics are not exclusive configurations.  They're only examples based on real-life analogies on how you can assemble the station module subassemblies.  There is nothing stopping players from adding additional modules...like fuel storage tanks.

Thanks, now I feel silly.