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[LoSboccacc]

then, dunno

I found this
http://m.imgur.com/a/MIZvl

It's inspirational, mad, entertaining, unbelievable.

Has been my goal ever since, but I still failed it.


Edit: i was in a hurry and got the wrong grand tour.

This is it http://m.imgur.com/a/19USo

[GreatWyrmGold]

That was epic.

Now to test my starship?. 790 tons of fuel and metal. Liftoff is slow, despite having 9.6 MN of thrust, but I know it'll get faster. I notice the outer fuel tanks (oh, right I need to show y'all what it looks like) wobbling, which is...disconcerting. It can't be that bad. Right?
The engines are overheating. That...that is an issue.
By three kilometers (above sea level), we're going at ~90 m/s, have dropped nearly 200 tons of fuel, and our engines are at something like 70% overheat. I think the heat is falling, and it definitely isn't rising. This is good.

While I'm thinking about it, here's a screenshot of the lower half of the spaceship with all its rockets firing.



I slowly, slowly turn my cumbersome creation at 10-11 kilometers ASL.
Around 35 km ASL, not quite three minutes into the mission, the Mainsails run out of fuel and are turned off. Though the TWR (ASL) is now less than one-fourth, we're continuing to accelerate.
52,300 meters ASL. Apoapsis goes past 70,000. I keep burning, so I'll have time to circularize. On the other hand, time to apoapsis is dropping...
Estimated burn time: Over eight minutes. Time to apoapsis: Half a minute. Shite. Especially since the starship doesn't have parachutes.
Five minutes into the mission. Been burning for something like 50 seconds, with about 7:20 remaining. Mass of the vessel is down to ~250 tons, less than a third of its starting weight. Thrust is down to 600 kN, a fraction of what it was at the launchpad. Too small.
5:27. We enter the atmosphere. Barely any of the orbital insertion burn has been completed. Periapsis: Still hundreds of kilometers underground.
6:05. 60,000 meters. Periapsis has risen a few dozen kilometers. Burn maybe a sixth or a seventh of the way through? Apoapsis jittering about but mostly going up.
6:30. 50k. Activating Ascent Guidance and killing node.
6:45. 42,240 meters ASL. Autopilot has been figured out and engaged, then quickly fixed since I set the orbital altitude to 10,075 kilometers on accident.
6:59. 35k. Surface speed increasing, but is it from horizontal speed...or vertical?
7:20. 23k. Re-entry effects. I take the chance to show off my attempted starship.



I'm pretty well doomed.

7:38. I disengage autopilot and turn on Smart ASS, hoping that a retrograde burn will reduce velocity enough that the splashdown won't be lethal. It's certainly slowing us down.
7:56. 9000 meters ASL. Still with a surface speed over 350 m/s. 280 horizontal, 200 vertical. Under 220 tons. Still dropping speed, mass, and altitude.
8:22. With our horizontal speed mostly negated (down to 40 m/s), I have the SASS turn us vertical to kill the vertical. In theory. WE've got 4,400 meters to fall and are losing them at about 150 per second.
8:33. Three kilometers to go. Velocity a bit under 133 m/s, mostly vertical.
8:41. Two left. Horizontal velocity recently reached a trough, and if going back up. Vertical still falling, at 114.4 now.
8:46. Fifteen hundred meters and counting.
8:51. Last kilometer. Falling at a hundred meters per second. With the deceleration, maybe I'll make it eleven seconds instead of ten.
8:56. 95 m/s. 500 meters.
8:57. 93 m/s. 400.
8:58. 92. 300.
8:59. 91. 200.
9:00. 90. 100.
9:01. Splashdown. No surviving debris.




Well. Next version:

1. More fuel for the Mainsails.
2. Some winglets couldn't hurt.
3. Struts!
4. Ejection system.

[nogoodnames]

That thing is absurd. You might want to try adding asparagus-style fuel lines to those boosters. Even if you aren't dropping the tanks, it should help even out the thrust so you aren't left with nothing by the time you're doing the orbital insertion.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That would just make the fuel run out one engine at a time, rather than all at once. (Currently, the outer fuel tanks are all flowing into the central one.)
I guess that the lower consumption for a time might help some, but...well...symmetry mode makes asparagus harder.

[BigD145]

That would just make the fuel run out one engine at a time, rather than all at once. (Currently, the outer fuel tanks are all flowing into the central one.)
I guess that the lower consumption for a time might help some, but...well...symmetry mode makes asparagus harder.

Symmetry makes asparagus easy. However many tanks you lose at once, that's your symmetry. That is usually 2 or 3, depending on how your craft is built above the initial lifting stage.

[nogoodnames]

Nevermind what I said, I wasn't thinking clearly. If you aren't dropping the tanks, asparagus fuel lines would only make things worse. You probably want each booster on it's own, and not connected to the central engine, especially if the central engine has a lower specific impulse or can't put out enough TWR to get you into orbit alone.

[GreatWyrmGold]

600 pages!

That would just make the fuel run out one engine at a time, rather than all at once. (Currently, the outer fuel tanks are all flowing into the central one.)
I guess that the lower consumption for a time might help some, but...well...symmetry mode makes asparagus harder.

Symmetry makes asparagus easy. However many tanks you lose at once, that's your symmetry. That is usually 2 or 3, depending on how your craft is built above the initial lifting stage.

I'd have to rebuild, since I've got 6x symmetry at the moment.

Nevermind what I said, I wasn't thinking clearly. If you aren't dropping the tanks, asparagus fuel lines would only make things worse. You probably want each booster on it's own, and not connected to the central engine, especially if the central engine has a lower specific impulse or can't put out enough TWR to get you into orbit alone.

The central engine has better specific impulse but worse thrust (I think) than the smaller Mainsails.

[BigD145]

You always have to rebuild.

[nogoodnames]

6x symmetry is fine, you'd just need to connect the fuel lines one at a time and manually arrange the stages. As long as things are symmetrical there isn't a problem.

[BigD145]

If you don't want to asparagus then go the route of Munshine.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I have returned to playing this game after a long absence, and I'm back to building weird contraptions.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The command seat is almost invisible on the top there, but it's there. I've no idea how much dV it has, but I'm entertaining the thought of going to Gilly with it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If you don't want to asparagus then go the route of Munshine.

Those sure look staged. I did say I was going for SSTO, right?
My end goal is basically one of those ships you see in all sci-fi which can take off, head to another world, and land without anything but refueling.

I have returned to playing this game after a long absence, and I'm back to building weird contraptions.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The command seat is almost invisible on the top there, but it's there. I've no idea how much dV it has, but I'm entertaining the thought of going to Gilly with it.

Sure looks neat. What is it? What does it do? Are those red things heat radiators or something?

[MarcAFK]

If you're after ssto you probably want to go with rapier/ LVN,
However since you have interstellarim sure there's far better engine choices available.

[BFEL]

If you're after ssto you probably want to go with rapier/ LVN,
However since you have interstellarim sure there's far better engine choices available.

There are, but they require mastery of beamed power, which is indistinguishable from magic.

[Aseaheru]

Nah, just have to be A: Close, B: not too close and C: able to see the target.