After my "success" with the Brick Mk. II (which you can read about here), I thought to myself, "Now it's time to get this thing into space." Or low orbit. Space was the goal, but I knew that there would be many explosions between that and now. I redesigned the Brick Mk. II. I replaced its three jet engines for one rocket engine, because jet engines are useless above a certain altitude, and are slightly more useless outside of atmosphere. I also gave it a new name.

Now it could propel itself through high- and non-atmosphere altitudes. Then I began experimenting with various methods of assisting this thing into the air. So I looked into building sleds that would propel this thing down the runway. The plan was for it to detach from the sled before there was no more runway, and then launch itself into the air with the additional speed it had gained from the sled.

After my first attempt, it became clear that this sled would have to be a massive endeavor on its own. As the picture above clearly shows, I didn't take into account how heavy eight solid fuel rocket boosters actually were. Out of curiosity, I hit the spacebar to fire up those rockets. It went down the runway and lifted off, and then promptly lost control and found the ground again.

Success! Creating a "rail" behind the rockets to support it gave the sled the stability to go down the runway without blowing up. There was a problem, though. Despite how fast the entire thing was going, once I detached the plane from the sled, the sled would only continue to pick up speed. If the Space Brick wasn't already firing its engines, the sled would go faster then the plane. And those rocket boosters are nicely aligned with the rear of the Space Brick.

Yeah. There were a few explosions.

So this is where things went crazy for me. It was already the early morning. I didn't have to wake up early the next day, so I went crazy with my designs. They only became more insane as I became more sleepy.

After sleeping and thinking back on my one success and more than one failure, I opted for something far more sensible. Something more space planey. In my heart, I knew that the "sled" would work, so I tried it a few more times, but with wings.

I'm not quite sure how I ended up with a crossbow death sled, but I ended there. I may pick up the sled design again, but my next attempts will definitely use the plane-on-a-plane method.

After my "success" with the Brick Mk. II (which you can read about here), I thought to myself, "Now it's time to get this thing into space." Or low orbit. Space was the goal, but I knew that there would be many explosions between that and now. I redesigned the Brick Mk. II. I replaced its three jet engines for one rocket engine, because jet engines are useless above a certain altitude, and are slightly more useless outside of atmosphere. I also gave it a new name.

Now it could propel itself through high- and non-atmosphere altitudes. Then I began experimenting with various methods of assisting this thing into the air. So I looked into building sleds that would propel this thing down the runway. The plan was for it to detach from the sled before there was no more runway, and then launch itself into the air with the additional speed it had gained from the sled.

After my first attempt, it became clear that this sled would have to be a massive endeavor on its own. As the picture above clearly shows, I didn't take into account how heavy eight solid fuel rocket boosters actually were. Out of curiosity, I hit the spacebar to fire up those rockets. It went down the runway and lifted off, and then promptly lost control and found the ground again.

Success! Creating a "rail" behind the rockets to support it gave the sled the stability to go down the runway without blowing up. There was a problem, though. Despite how fast the entire thing was going, once I detached the plane from the sled, the sled would only continue to pick up speed. If the Space Brick wasn't already firing its engines, the sled would go faster then the plane. And those rocket boosters are nicely aligned with the rear of the Space Brick.

Yeah. There were a few explosions.

So this is where things went crazy for me. It was already the early morning. I didn't have to wake up early the next day, so I went crazy with my designs. They only became more insane as I became more sleepy.

After sleeping and thinking back on my one success and more than one failure, I opted for something far more sensible. Something more space planey. In my heart, I knew that the "sled" would work, so I tried it a few more times, but with wings.

I'm not quite sure how I ended up with a crossbow death sled, but I ended there. I may pick up the sled design again, but my next attempts will definitely use the plane-on-a-plane method.

Clearly the solution is MOAR ENGINES!

Keep going! I have faith in you!

Also your space crab looks kind of like Silpheed, which instantly makes it badass in my book.

You design rockets the way that I kind of wish they would in real life. Crossbow Death Sled thing needs to exist.