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[NS] Seraph Shuttle [contest winner]

A big cargo shuttle.
⨴ Ensure cargo is balanced or the vehicle will auger into the ground like a nuclear-powered dinosaur-killer asteroid.

Lifting off
- Turn on main engines until shuttle starts ascending (gradually for heavy payloads)
- Ascend to suitable altitude. Stay level.
- Pivot engines to 45d (or 5-10d for very heavy payloads); avoid sudden movement
- Once control surfaces start working, turn on turbines
- Pivot engines back to 90d to clear obstacles as necessary
- Pivot engines to 0d once any obstacles are safely cleared

Maximum takeoff weight: 1,400t
At 1400 tons payload, there is no controlling the takeoff. There is only stopping it from augering into the ground.

Flight
Do not pull hard turns with heavy payloads (+500t), as this will cause the wings to fall off.

Landing
- Main engines off
- Pivot main engines to 90d
- Level off, pitch up, and stall
- Ignite main engines as necessary
- Stay level.
- Burst main engines just before touchdown to minimise impact.
- Put turbines in full reverse.
- Keep main engines at 20% until the shuttle has stopped (or the engines will shear off).
Good luck!

Maximum landing weight: 700t





To fill what Nanite Systems increasingly viewed as a 'capability gap', they developed the Seraph - a cargo shuttle with pivoting engines that allowed the cargo bay to be accessed from the ground without cranes or gantries. The vast majority of interface shuttles were tail-sitters, which put their cargo bays far from the ground, and fully HTOL plane-like shuttles had been long ago abandoned.

The Nadia military clearly agreed, since they procured a great many of them. The additional reinforcement required to support the pivoting engines (originally a deficit) plus the plane-like structure proved to make the vehicle extremely survivable - but those same pivots also causing no end of headaches for Navy technicians.


Won RLM Contest #9: Big Durable Cargo Planes!

This is my first design using entirely scaling blocks and bracecubes for the hull - before this I used wooden panels, which have small collision boxes and are easier to work with. This was mostly to make it iceproof, but has turned out to have other benefits (like decreased block count for a hollow hull).

The original had steam jets (as seen in all of the pictures). These have since been replaced, as steam jets have a lot of drawbacks.

Was a bit iffy on the design to begin with, but it has turned out really nice. I'm pretty happy with it.

Contrary to what the description says, in Besiege two separate sets of engines for up and forward would have been much less trouble. The bracing required to stand up to the thrust is utterly ridiculous.

The main engines are also the landing gear - they are the only things apart from the shuttle's hull that can stand up to the necessary loads.
Speaking of loads, the blocks underneath the shuttle are to stop the shuttle dropping half a metre and breaking the engines when spawning with a heavy payload.

Shuttles are dedicated cargo and crew transport craft.
They carry their payloads to and from orbit and beyond. While planetside shuttles are typically the smallest of practical spaceships, their orbital counterparts are often the largest.

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