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[Peewee]

<feels ignored>

[sneakey pete]

Is docking in the next update? Otherwise, that might be a bit tricky.

No. The framework they're using to set it up should make it easier to add in the future. (by the way they specify crafts and parts of crafts)

Also, have some rocket:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I built that to try and get into an orbit around the sun of the same distance but exactly opposite direction as the planet. Went alright, got myself to zero speed at the planets orbital distance, and got 2000 or the required 11000m/s in the other direction. But it needs more boosters, obviously.

Also, if I delete the third stage entirely and just radially attach 9 tanks with fuel lines to the top stage it'd be more efficient, but I really don't feel like redoing the staging.

[alway]

Spoiler: 2.4 MILLION m/s (click to show/hide)

Funny things happen in the center of the sun. On my craft's second journey to the center of the sun, it began rapidly rotating when it went below the "surface" of the sun. The map screen showed an altitude of -20 million or so. The speed of the craft increased more and more rapidly, and either due to the acceleration or the accelerating rotation of the craft, it was ripped apart (the 2 structural failures). The acceleration started relatively slowly, but as its altitude got increasingly negative, the acceleration increased first to 100 m/s increase per second, to 1000, and finally to 10000 per second (on 1:1 time compression). When the craft was ripped apart and rotation ceased, its altitude began increasing again and its velocity decreased. Done with conventional engines. More study is advised, particularly involving the rotation imbued to the craft and its possible relation to velocity increases.

[Roboboy33]

Can we use ASAS to stabilize the craft?
I got an orbitfor 70,000,000 meters from the center of the sun, (Cause I ran out of fuel.)
I'll post the results.

[Roboboy33]

There they are, my orbit actually got slightly bigger while closest to the sun.

[Aqizzar]

Actually getting to the sun is a lot harder than it looks.  At about 1.4 times lunar orbit distance, I achieve a solar orbit, usually millions of kilometers around.

Bigger rockets, obviously.

[olemars]

An interesting challenge would be achieving a solar orbit that intersects Kerbin's orbit in such a way that the orbiter pod after some years would reenter the planet's atmosphere unpowered. And survive.

[PsyberianHusky]

Shoot for the mun, even if you miss you will still dye slowly in the stars.
I hope docking missions will mean I can rescue stranded astronauts.
t

[sneakey pete]

Bigger rockets, obviously.

Spoiler: bigger (click to show/hide)

[Tarran]

Needs more solid fuel rockets.

[alway]

Another launch; much faster speed.

Spoiler: 14 million m/s (click to show/hide)

This one was a much more direct route; all horizontal velocity was reduced to 0, whereas the previous had a small horizontal velocity (50 m/s or so). I would advise against any sort of powered rotation or a slowing of the rotation the craft gains, as there seems to be a problem which causes your rocket to shake itself apart, as shown with the instantaneous disintegration of the entire craft in the log. But at 4.3% the speed of light, it's almost to the point where it would be a viable interstellar speed.

Another interesting note, as it approached the very core of the sun, the velocity was under 1 million; the G force meter zoomed upwards, and the craft almost instantly accelerated to its speed of 14 million m/s. I think the rotation of the craft comes in part from gravity. As it's calculated independently for the parts, the extreme gradient near the center of the sun causes it to rotate the oblong craft as it pulls on the ends of the rocket at different rates.

The shaking of the ship components seems to continue even after the ship shakes itself apart, I think it may have something to do with floating point precision at such high velocities; though I'm not certain.



Edit: Next successful flight went even faster!

Spoiler: 61 million m/s (click to show/hide)

61 million m/s, or approximately 20% the speed of light. Overall a pretty decent speed for a sub-luminal interstellar spacecraft.
Again, horizontal velocity slowed to near 0; this time I thrusted horizontally just as I was reaching the center (in the ~5 second window between G force rising drastically and hitting the center), though I'm not sure if that was the cause. Had a slight rotation of the craft going on, and it appears my first craft's massive rotation may have been due to an orbit around the center, as it had some horizontal velocity left. This craft was ripped apart upon its speed up at the center, with the bottom half of the rocket being torn off, with the remainder oscillating very quickly with an offset caused by the oscillation of about 1 meter. Another thing to note, as the craft does have its RCS still, the velocity seems to be unable to be changed through linear thrusting; likewise I noticed it wasn't decelerating as it left the sun. Again, I suspect some sort of floating point or other precision problem is at the root.


My particular design for these endeavors is a circular design like I previously mentioned, with hexagonal symmetry. Stages are concentric rings, with 1, 6, 6, 12, 12, 12 engines respectively. All liquid fuel; and all fuel comes from the outermost ring via fuel pumps. Rings are reinforced with struts, with fuel stacks of 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3  in the rings. Thus, the thrust is 49 engines in stage 1 drawing from 36 tanks, 37 in 2 drawing from 48, 25 from 48, 13 from 24, 7 from 24, 1 from 3, respectively. Unfortunately, this build is probably impossible on most machines, as it makes even the 8-core i-7 930, geforce gtx 480 alienware machine in the game dev lab run slowly, particularly in stage 1 with 49 engines firing.

[Aklyon]

I copied one of the designs from Jefmajor's most recent kerbal asplosionings, moved the Adv. SAS, removed three of them, and added an extra RCS fuel tank. Now I just need to figure out how to get back down with this thing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Roboboy33]

Just crash it.

[Sirus]

*some crazy-ass thing*

How does that even fly? O_o

[Aklyon]

It flies because 4 SAS-controlled RCS is apparently enough to stabilize the whole thing. If I turn it off it goes spinny like that a lot sooner, but it does that anyway once I've run out of main fuel. Connecting them togther works just as well, but if i was trying to actualy succeed I wouldn't be copying one of Jef's designs.