Bay 12 Games Forum

Alright. Everyone seems to want Advanced Rocketry, so we'll start with that.
Also requested are Advanced Flight Control and Advanced Construction, and implicitly the new technology of Heavy Rocketry. We finish the stuff off with "Large Electronics," which doesn't exist, so I go for Large Electrics instead. At this point, we have 108 Science, not enough to unlock much.

Heavy Rocketry was unlocked, giving us a couple new fuel tanks and a couple new engines. Currently unlocked techs:


Anyways, Bob's Rocket Car inspires a new product people are demanding: Rocket cars! Sure, they're a little less effective on Kerbin, but who cares? Not the customers!
We lose the initial market to various entrepreneurs, but now that they're reeling from regulatory shock, we can release the next model, a hybrid of Rocketcar and airplane!


_{"The Model K: A Rocket Car for the next generation. The Model K combines the best features of airplanes and rocket cars, producing a safer, smoother ride. Buy now and you'll be able to get the Meleny Model, with fancy control surfaces!"}

A bit over ten tons and with just over 2900 m/s of ideal Δv (est. ~2230 in atmosphere), it can't reach orbit, but it probably can go far. Meleny Kerman, our star, prepares to give it a test-flight.
Sadly, it has trouble taking off.


_{Eh, I've seen worse.}

While taking the screenshot, it spontaneously took off! Sadly, I didn't manage to get a screenshot before it landed (sorry, but I can tell you that it was missing the left wing and soaring maybe a couple dozen meters off the ground!
...Yeah, it crashed into the VAB. We're going to try something...else.


_{"The Model K: No, It's Always Looked Like This."}

Under 8.5 tons and with two stronger engines, the new Model K is more promising. It flies well, but...


_{Um. I shouldn't have turned.}

...not great. It didn't really take off, and turning made it tumble. We add more winglets, hoping this will add control.


_{"The Model K: Needs to stop releasing advertising before they've made sure this stupid rocket-car is safe!"}

I fly it, take off, and discover that my throttle's being reduced! Opening the MechJeb tab reveals a bunch of new things, including "Limit to terminal velocity". Well, that's one less thing to worry about! I start checking out the new options, but the Model K runs our of fuel in its ascent and begins slowing. It reaches a maximum height of just over 10,400 meters, before falling.
A design flaw is noted: No matter hat we do, the nose remains pointed more or less directly at the ground as we fall, up until we open the parachutes at 1,000 meters. We manage to swing it around the other way, but it's not comfortable-looking. Next version needs a way to deal with this, and ideally separate Landing Gear and Takeoff Gear buttons. More fuel might be nice--look how far we got!


_{Eh. How far are people gonna try and fly these things, anyways?}

More "practically," we prepare another mission. We decide to set up a little research base on Minmus, then return. Lovely little plan.


_{The first design of the SpaceLab, which remained largely unchanged.}

The full rocket is pretty big. At 146.5 tons, it's one of the biggest rockets we've launched.


_{Some say it's a work of art. Others say it needs some LSEs and struts.}

We will launch this tomorrow, if none have objections. EDIT: I just realized that, if we want to be able to use it for much, we'll need to add a docking port somewhere. So, I'll need to redesign it first. Dag nabit!