KerbalX

Description

1:engine 2:dive chute 3:sfc chute 4:dock

A submersible named Cousteau. Built in the KSP 1.7.3 SPH with 30 stock parts.

This project started out being a mere bathyscape to descend, rove, look and return. And dock with a sub base…

It would have had POSITIVE buoyancy and NEGATIVE buoyancy with no control in between except chutes.

It has turned out, though, to be quite capable (and fun) as a submarine. The only thing it can’t do is fly (if you don’t count the air-drop sequence on deployment).

It’s my first time using the retractable rover wheels. yay. [Pictures depict earlier versions of Cousteau]

Once again, my trusty Kerbal engineers have utilized the now-legendary, hush-hush Tardis Effect.

Cousteau has an 800-kallon sea-water ballast tank (located on the keel) and a 250-kallon trim tank (on the deck).

You will require the excellently versatile ShipManifest mod in order to flood your tanks. Use Jettison Contents to blow the trim tank. Bleed ballast into the trim tank for precision control of how much ballast to jettison.

10 m/s underwater and 16 m/s on the surface…

PLEASE NOTE: being a Kerbal design, the passengers in the cabins are TRAPPED once inside until the vessel is docked with either a sub base or a ship/seaplane on the surface. The vessel is perfectly controllable via the probe controller as long as it has radio comms (which may depend upon how much Commnet ‘occlusion’ you have dialed into your settings.) To be safe, deploy a kerb in the deck chair, if you wish.