The Gaming Den

So, this is it.
This is the whole reason I started playing KSP so many months ago, what I have worked toward, and what I have mastered.
Behold my greatest creation:

The Modular Cruiser D:

THE PITCH:
The Modular Cruiser D is a fully modular interplanetary capable armored weapons platform designed to be both mission kill resistant by subdividing and distributing mission critical components across the vessel and strategically upgradable and reusable by having dedicated reloadable ordinance docking ports as well as fuel cross-feed capable docking ports of both regular and junior sized, configured in such a way as to allow damaged modules to be replaced in any space based theater of operation with either newly boosted modules or by consolidating undamaged modules from two or more damaged Modular Cruiser Ds into one or more undamaged vessels.

THE HIGHLIGHTS:
Parts: 257 (includes full armament)
Total Mass: 120.19 tons
Total Fuel/Ox: 2,914/3,562 units
Total RCS: 600 units
Armament: 8x centerline forward facing direct fire Reloadable SRBs fired in 4 salvos; 6x manually guided anti-fighter missiles.
Armor: 2x Series 5 segregated, free-floating, replaceable "Clamshell" plate sections.
Fuel Module: A forward keel connects 8 fuel cells to compartmentalize damage; forward armor panel doubles as dock for reloadable SRBs.
Crew/Engine Module: The crew is protected by placing their compartment between the fuel module/SRB armament and battery/ rear keel, which connects 4 RCS cells with 5 Nuclear engines to compartmentalized damage.

THE CRAFT FILE IS HERE, AND INCLUDES THE BOOSTER (536 PARTS).

The operation of this craft is simple: Full throttle to orbit, gravity turn to 90 degrees at ~10-15km, and press the space bar to jettison empty stages. SRB salvos are fired by staging. Anti-fighter missiles must be manually undocked, select the jr. docking port farthest from the ship and control from there, and thrust it like a rocket using shift/ctrl/x into something else at high speed. Fuel/ammunition tenders/stations may come in another post.

The third image presented was took after I re-docked the cruiser to that floating clamshell armor section in the distance to prove that it could be done and document how much RCS it took. PRO TIP: fly the cruiser to the armor, not the armor to the cruiser, and DO NOT USE TIMEWARP; you do it by threading the docking port towers through the 1x6 meter gap between the engine armor cowls. I got it on the third try; it was the most thrilling maneuver I ever pulled off in KSP.

And now I shall end this post with an artsy picture of the Modular Cruiser D high over Kerbin, eclipsing the sun.

I highly recommend Kerbal Space Program to everyone, as it is cool.

First off, awesome. Very impressive. Secondly, anti-fighter missiles? I wasn't aware that was a thing... or a concern. Is that a concern? Just how outdated is my KSP knowledge these days?

Truthfully, "anti-fighter" is a bit of a misnomer, but these missiles are effective against lightly armored vessels (like Macy Dean's 'Spirit of Kerbin', in truth a carrier, or his 'Gladius', an armored heavy fighter) or unarmored targets (like his 'Mosquito' light fighters, and naked fuel tanks found in other vessels and stations). Against a dedicated warship with any version of plate armor the missiles are nearly worthless, but since they are guided you can launch them from beyond the 2.5km load limit, circle around, and knock off an engine. However, that tactic is still marginal because a dedicated warship has at least 3 engines.

Their primary purpose is to be launched at any target where a SRB salvo would be wasteful overkill.

On Fighters: KSP is weird in that the most damaging weapon a vessel possess is itself without any other weapons. Ramming is brütally effective[/u], and any vessel capable of maneuvering in any way can generate enough velocity on an impact vector and wreck your shit, armor be damned. This means that while a fighter weapon is pathetic and will bounce harmlessly off the armor, an actual maneuvering fighter can mission kill a cruiser if it decides to suicide, to say nothing of the devastation a cruiser could do if it decides to ram. Fighters are one of those cost/benefit choices where you trade the effort it takes to get a low mass fighter somewhere for the considerably more effort it takes a high mass cruiser to go the same distance, and counter point is that you don't have to trade a cruiser to mission kill an enemy cruiser or fighter, and you have to trade a fighter for a chance to get an enemy cruiser.

This totally uses unmodded parts, right? I haven't even been able to get to a Mun landing, let alone anything of this magnitude.

Also, what's an SRB?

Totally stock.

An SRB is a Solid Rocket Booster, a KSP staple for direct fire heavy firepower, stretching back at least as far as Macy Dean's first Vanguard Battle Cruiser video. Mine are reloadable, as are the smaller guided missiles.

So this is a thing that happened:

BAM! Didn't see that coming, eh?

On a lark, I boosted this thing from a 600km orbit to a Laythe intercept. It only took all the fuel module, most of the RCS, at least one Oscar B tank, 300+ days, and a partridge in a pear tree, but it achieved stable orbit over Laythe.

Shatner wrote:First off, awesome. Very impressive. Secondly, anti-fighter missiles? I wasn't aware that was a thing... or a concern. Is that a concern? Just how outdated is my KSP knowledge these days?

Wow. I spectacularly misunderstood your question. The official stance of the developers is that there will never be stock weapons in KSP ever, so the unofficial response is to build military spacecraft because they are awesome. As there are no official weapons, members of the KSP community have assembled small craft whose only purpose is to ram other craft at high velocity, because that is a "weapon" as far as the community is concerned; the same physics engine that destroys a ship when it lithobrakes too fast is the basis for all community "weapons"

But only a small subset of the community is interested in the militarization of space. Furthermore, as this is a single player game, battles are waged by sharing persistence files among players in turn. There are projects to make multiplayer possible, but right now they are in pre-alpha and crash frequently.

TLDR: military craft are solely part of a small community if enthusiasts, and any official militarization or support for it will never happen.