Gnome Matter What

*uses KAL 1.2.1

Career mode friendly launch vehicle designed around Gnome engines. Almost a meme rocket. No one thinks of using 400% Gnomes on stage 1. But it's also very effective.

The impulse SRBs are to kick the rocket to a high enough altitude for the Gnomes to operate. The central Goblins are ramp-up grain, just to burn the last few % faster. If you're played around with impulse grain SRBs in a similar config, you'll know how they hang around longer than you'd expect. It's just better to get rid of that weight and use that thrust earlier on.

As uploaded it has a 5t dummy payload, and circularises with ~4km/s d-v remaining.

Lower stage has parachutes and a command chip, and it's fun to watch it land on said parachutes. But it's not economical to recover. I like designing rockets to fit Ali Pad for parachute recovery south of the DSC, but this time it's just for show. In career mode -- I've maxed the tech tree -- with every possible recovery cost decrease, it's still not worth it to recover Gnome engines.