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[ank]

We should make our space stations fight each other!
Dock them face to face, then fire all thrusters until something gives!
The victor is the station with the largest single chunk left 

[Anvilfolk]

Here's the result of my attempt to land my boosted SSTO on Duna.

-- snip --

"Mission control, this is Duna One. Fancy outhouse established. Send rescue. Over."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

God, I love the Kerbal's faces. Looking into the sun with that face while stranded amidst your spaceship's debris on an alien planet is the ultimate pokerface! It also has a little bit of the "I have no idea what I'm doing" in there

[andrea]

does anyone have a compact design for a duna lander?
I am trying to design one, but sadly I can only test it on kerbin, which has more atmosphere and gravity.
with my current , underdeveloped, launcher / lander technology, I would probably have to build a 2 stage lander. which is going to murder my already low frame rate.

of course, I may be seriously overthinking this, and launching from Duna is much easier than from kerbin.
especially since I plan to cover my lander in parachutes, so landing shouldn't take too much fuel.

edit: this is what I hoped to send there. shown after some parachute tests.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

it should land almost full. both because of 4 drogue parachutes and 4 radial ones ( likely to increase to 8 ), and the unseen deorbiting stage, which should be more than able to also slow it down during descent ( rockomax fuel tank plus mainsail). not sure if it can get back to orbit, however.
although I suppose if it can't, it might be a nice base until I can send a better lander.

[bombzero]

does anyone have a compact design for a duna lander?
I am trying to design one, but sadly I can only test it on kerbin, which has more atmosphere and gravity.
with my current , underdeveloped, launcher / lander technology, I would probably have to build a 2 stage lander. which is going to murder my already low frame rate.

of course, I may be seriously overthinking this, and launching from Duna is much easier than from kerbin.
especially since I plan to cover my lander in parachutes, so landing shouldn't take too much fuel.

edit: this is what I hoped to send there. shown after some parachute tests.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

it should land almost full. both because of 4 drogue parachutes and 4 radial ones ( likely to increase to , and the unseen deorbiting stage, which should be more than able to also slow it down during descent ( rockomax fuel tank plus mainsail). not sure if it can get back to orbit, however.
although I suppose if it can't, it might be a nice base until I can send a better lander.

Hint: Radial engines are your friend here. They're pretty strong, light, and much, much smaller.

[andrea]

but radial engines are an advantage only if I save space and weight by only having a central tank, I think... and then I wouldn't be able to use any drogue parachutes. is the saving worth it? ( aerospikes have both more thrust and far higher ISP)
I'll try designing a new launcher/lander with radial engines.

if only it didn't take real life hours to reach duna, It would be far easier to get a working lander
at the end, I think, I'll just send a lander and cross fingers. should have deployed a probe when I did the test flight...

edit:Just did a final test, and design posted early can achieve kerbin orbit, with some fuel to spare for orbital interception with mothership final design will be slightly heavier, but if it can achieve kerbin orbit it can achieve Duna orbit. time to assemble the last part of the ship! and then add droptanks ( which might or might not actually be dropped. it depends on how hard it is to dock them and therefore my willingness to replace them every time)

edit: and, of course, now I can't build a launcher that works. for some reason, radial decouplers keep failing, making the whole rocket explode.
This despite the new launcher being a copy of the same launcher I used to bring into orbit both lighter and heavier unmanned modules. is having kerbals on the rocket supposed to make the whole thing collapse?
I'll try making a new launcher tomorrow. if it fails, I'll use the unmanned launcher and bring crew later.

[andrea]

sorry for double post, but I had to say it...
It is complete!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

with bill , bob and jeb. and, well, hudbles. he piloted the arm of the station that hosted the big 3, and I didn't feel like sending him to death on the planet ( being an station module, it lacked parachutes)

sadly, lag is huge. and it started wobbling. partially because command module didn't quite dock correctly, I think.
ports seem docked ( I can undock them and they seem to resist to force, but they are not aligned . I may try redocking). mostly however, it is because this spaceship is more than 70 meters long. which is a lot.

I should have docked some extra fuel tanks, but now I can barely get close. at 200 meters, commands don't work properly.
I'll see if, after the first flight, I can improve it by removing one of the engine modules after it is depleted. and, of course, lander will lose most of its parts.

but most likely after the first mission I am going to rebuild it, more efficent and with less parts.

[nogoodnames]

I've been trying to create an SSTO spaceplane but I seem to have hit a roadblock.

I can get to orbit fine but whenever I go for re-entry, the thing will inevitably go into an uncontrollable roll as soon as it gets down to the thicker parts of the atmosphere. I've tried coming in at a really shallow angle and flying with different wing positions but nothing seems to work.

My little solar-powered drone never ran into this problem when it landed on Eve, despite being much lighter and going through a much thicker atmosphere.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

[sluissa]

The problem you might have is that while your center of lift is fine when you're full of fuel, it might be in a bad position once you're empty which will send you call kinds of out of control. Your center of lift won't change, but your center of mass will which needs to be somewhat close to the center of lift. I haven't found a good solution to this yet. Part of me wants to try a slightly crazy method of two sets of flying wings, 90 degrees offset from each other, one at the loaded center of mass and the other at the empty center of mass. Fly right side up on the way up, then on the way back down, roll 90 degrees and fly that way on the way back down. Might call it the Flounder.

[da_nang]

Things are starting to take shape...

Spoiler: Still not finished (click to show/hide)

And while designing a rover, I made a boat!

Spoiler: Boat! (click to show/hide)

The Love Boat, coasting the seven seas at 3-5 m/s while the batteries last.

[Thendash]

I've been trying to create an SSTO spaceplane but I seem to have hit a roadblock.

I can get to orbit fine but whenever I go for re-entry, the thing will inevitably go into an uncontrollable roll as soon as it gets down to the thicker parts of the atmosphere. I've tried coming in at a really shallow angle and flying with different wing positions but nothing seems to work.

My little solar-powered drone never ran into this problem when it landed on Eve, despite being much lighter and going through a much thicker atmosphere.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

When you want to re-enter, try putting your remaining fuel ahead of your center of lift. This will shift your center of mass forward(generally seems to be more stable with weight in front of the thrust). Also keep aligned fairly close to your prograde mark once you're in atmos.

[Aseaheru]

your on a boat!

[bombzero]

And while designing a rover, I made a boat!

Spoiler: Boat! (click to show/hide)

The Love Boat, coasting the seven seas at 3-5 m/s while the batteries last.

Add solar panels, this is imperative to having a more awesome boat.

[nogoodnames]

Thanks for the tips, hopefully my next flight will land in one piece. I'll have to remember to account for the weight of the fuel when designing aircraft.

Maybe you could use fuel lines to automatically keep the weight evenly distributed. I think it would work best with three fuel tanks, with the middle pumping into the ends and the back tank pumping into the front. If the middle tank is on the centre of mass then the plane will remain balanced as it empties.

Of course I could also just have the plane refuel in orbit so it has full fuel tanks during re-entry, but that seems wasteful.

[Sean Mirrsen]

What you need to remember is this funny thing called the "shuttlecock". When flying, it will turn its heavy nose forward, because the lightweight plumage will aerobrake its hind end and turn it around whichever way it is flying. This thing here flies like a shuttlecock, because you can see that a lot of its lifting surfaces, and most of its control surfaces, horizontal and vertical, are way in the back.

Also, another thing I have noticed. Despite the shuttlecock design, that craft will try to flat-spin (unless steered) if you prematurely open the forward intakes without firing up the turbojets on reentry. It doesn't have enough vertical stabilizers to keep its heading in check, and uses the two nacelle intakes as airbrakes instead. If the six forward intakes are opened without the engines' thrust to back them up, the increased drag on the nose will try to steer the plane off course. Given that I know how elaborately over-engineered some SSTOs are, intake-wise, make sure all those intakes are closed when you reenter.

[Rez]

You should take your boat to Eve and find out what all the purple oceans are made of.