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[Shadowlord]

I think they may eventually run out of mass? I haven't tried, because I'm still waiting for 1.0.3 to break all my rockets and haven't researched that far yet.

[nogoodnames]

Well it looks like the ion burn to get to Laythe is going to take over four hours rather than the one hour the maneuver node originally gave me *sigh*. Now I'll really be mad if I get there only to find out I don't have quite enough fuel to make orbit again. Efforts to optimize my ascent have failed to give me any more fuel than on the first try. The excess oxidizer will continue to bug me, but with a quarter of the transfer done, it's too late to turn back now.

Wait no, without being able to take advantage of the Oberth effect it's now 6 hours on top of all the time it took to achieve escape velocity. Uggh! This is why I don't use ion engines.

[MarcAFK]

Oh I forgot to mention, launch clamps are 15,000 liters of KIS storage, and seem to work quite well for surface attachment with a wrench.
When you time warp the entire structure including the clamp moves east a few inches, then when you warp back the clamp pops back to it's initial position, and drags the craft with it.
This would require a craft that was structurally sound enough to survive the wrenching however, but I'm sure with enough clamps the effect would be distributed quite well.

[nogoodnames]

Well this looks like the end. Valentina has made a courageous effort, but her SSTO "The Last Straw" has burned through three quarters of its xenon and still needs about 1000 m/s of dV to make an encounter with Laythe. It'll get there, but I very much doubt it will be able to get back. I am almost certain it is possible, maybe even using this craft with some more optimal piloting, but as I said earlier, this is my final attempt for now. I can't take any more redesigns and multi-hour ion burns and I want to start using mods again.

I'll continue Valentina's mission to see how far she can get in case anyone wanted to try and beat me. I'll post some screenshots whenever she gets stranded.


Edit: Well the encounter was made, and she landed successfully.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately, the liquidfuel ran out mere moments before getting back into orbit and the ion thruster wasn't quite powerful enough to make it on its own, not that it would be able to get anywhere anyway. Valentina is now stranded on a small island. Mission failed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Still, a tiny bit more liquid fuel, a bit more xenon, less oxidizer and a better transfer and it would have been perfect. The ship at launch was 33.3 tonnes if anyone wanted to know. It seems a shame to give up after getting so close, but I was getting pretty tired of this challenge and for now it's time to move on.

[Akura]

Spoiler: Things Kerbals were not meant to build (click to show/hide)

Kerbal analogue to the the Thunderbolt. I can't seem to figure out how to stop both 105mm cannons(on either side) from firing without manually disabling one gun or the other. I'd cover the ammunition boxes on the rear, but I can't get the fairings to work quite right.



Range: about 5km, depending on how fast I'm driving and how hard I brake just before firing. The 5km came from firing from a full stop, brakes locked, and SAS turned on.



Bomber with the bomb bays open. Ordinarily, they'd be closed during flight.

[Aseaheru]

You arent using the GAU gun on the thunderbolt?

[RedKing]

Trying to replicate a Space Shuttle type transport for moving Kerbals to and from orbit. Failing spectacularly.

Two main problems:

1. I cannot get my orbiter to anchor to the main fuel tank. I have four hydaulic attachment manifolds arrayed along the bottom of the orbiter, perfectly lined up and even. Only the bottom one seems to make an attachment. This means as soon as I go to launch, the orbiter is trying to peel backwards and rip itself loose. Once I get airborne, it starts bobbing back and forth against the tank until it eventually penetrates it, with explosive results.

2. Lift. The orbiter has my whole launch system trying to a do a backflip as soon as it launches. I've steadily pared down the wing surface and tried to add a counterweight and/or counter-lifting surfaces to the backside of the tank, but with little effect.

Ideas?

[Aseaheru]

Dunno about 2, besides advising you to checkout what scott manly has to say about that subject, but for one, ditch all the manifolds, put one in the center, attack the tank there, and strut. Things only attach at one point without struts/magic. Yes, docking ports are magic. Struts are also magic, but they are strutmagic.

[PTTG??]

Redking, in KSP only struts can bridge gaps. Yeah, it's a bit of a problem. Struts do separate automatically though.

[dennislp3]

A picture would help.

For #1 just use struts as everyone is saying

For #2 you don't need lift surfaces as much as you mood control surfaces. Wings might be extreme but if normal fins can't stop the tilting then wings could be an answer

[forsaken1111]

2. Lift. The orbiter has my whole launch system trying to a do a backflip as soon as it launches. I've steadily pared down the wing surface and tried to add a counterweight and/or counter-lifting surfaces to the backside of the tank, but with little effect.

Give me a picture of your craft at launch please, and what mods if any you're using.

[MarcAFK]

The space shuttle does this, asymmetric thrust from the placement of the Space Shuttle Main Engines in relation to the much more powerful solid boosters, asymmetric center if mass from the detachable fuel tank, asymmetric lift from the orbiter, boosters and tank.
The shuttle uses this to perform it's gravity turn immediately as it takes off from the pad, belly up it heads west, I suggest rotating your vehicle so that it backflips west as you want, apart from that you need good control surfaces to retain control, and you can always tweak the boosters thrust to help get less flip and more control.
Also Scott Manley covered this, if you're making a shuttle I suggest watching that video.

[Baffler]

So I'm pretty new to this game, and even though it isn't all that objectively impressive it still made me happy. I managed to launch a probe and get it into an eccentric orbit around the Mun (to get data from close to and high above the Mun) with a secondary component to launch at the surface to gather and transmit data from the ground. Everything went off without a hitch while it was still in space, but the lander wasn't as stable as I'd hoped and it ended up crashing into the surface upside down. The probe had heavy landing legs to absorb an impact at speed, but the top of it did not. But I still have the orbiter, and luckily this was an unmanned mission, hehe.

[BigD145]

Be careful when adding Remote Tech to an existing save. Actually, don't do it. Craft will disappear. I don't feel like starting from scratch at the moment and I'm so glad I copy and label saves before adding big mods.

[Akura]

You arent using the GAU gun on the thunderbolt?

Can't aim it; it's on a fixed mount.

Spoiler: Meanwhile, more things Kerbals should never build (click to show/hide)

Well, you wanted the GAU cannon. Here's three!
Note: Capable of leveling the KSP.


Surface-to-Air Missile drone. It is surprisingly hard to A) hit anything with SAM missiles, and B) get an autonomous craft in the air(as the game refuses to exit flight while moving within the atmosphere).


A goddamned tank. The armor(stock structural panels) works fairly well. It took several shots from one tank to another before the game considered the HERP pod that is its cockpit to be hit.


And finally...


...That's the last time I let Valentina design a rocket.

This abomnination was dealt with via airstrike... with acceptable collateral damage.