Kryten 2X4B 523P

Start by lowering the damping options on any robotic parts such as hinges / pistons / servos that have them to zero. if that doesnt cure it move onto reducing the spring / damper settings on the wheels and / or landing gear. I had exactly the same issue with a truck based fuel bowser / isru / mining rig (3 vehicles) that would kangaroo all over. with a bit of tweaking it doesnt do that now.

All stock - those suits came with one of the expansions IIRC, you can change the colour they light up with in the suit RGB sliders. Theyre only available for the Jeb, Bob, Bill & Val i think.

I havent played for ages, currently in isolation die to this virus. So I went to the mun.

These new fangled propellers are ushering in a new era of flight..

Solar powered electric prop. V lightweight at just under 1.6T, top speed of 57.5ms with a static pitch prop.

Been playing with props and light aircraft - learning a lot. First attempt at a single engine, design - low powered but flies quite nicely. Lots of trial and error to get it working, and Im sure I can get some more speed out of it. Currently cruises at 60ms on the lowest engine size / power setting - which also sips fuel. Also had a go at a twin engine design. Initial test flight to Island Airfield pictured. Current iteration has boosted power (5% engine size / power), three blade props with variable pitch and a top speed of 166ms - which cruises quite happily at 7000 metres altitude and runs out of fuel (just 80 units) just short of the landmass directly east of KSC. As in I could glide/ deadstick landing there about 30 seconds after running out of gas. Left it flying itself for most of the journey. I think the only thing that niggles me about these is that on smaller aircraft the engines look massively oversized. A couple of variant options on size would be nice just for aesthetics, but I get why they combined it all into one unit. And been having play with electric props as well.

Hi folks Ive been tinkering with props and think I have enough info to get folks started on building a single engine light aircraft, as in the picture below. Here's a pic in the assembly building with some pertinent info: First up, engine: These are massively overpowered for the application at hand. Under "Motor Size and Output" drop this down from 100 to 1. Yes, seriously. This will allow you to run the engine at max torque & RPM without it twisting the plane over. It should go without saying, but the more powerful the engine, the more torque it has. Once set, disengege the motor, and set action group1 to toggle motor enagagement it, followed by action group Main Throttle with both Torque & RPM bound to it. Prop Blades Ive set these as static pitch, so it gives you an idea of how things work. First off attach the blades to the engine and adjust so theyre flat faced when looking at them. Now set them to "Deployed" and the authority limit to -35. At the bottom of the prop PAW window youll see theres two variants based on rotation. Pick the relevant one for the rotation of your engine - ie if the engine is going clockwise, set it as clockwise as above. Edit / Update : with experimentation Ive found that you only need 2 blades on an engine when its power is set to between 1 - 4% of the original, max power output. Any more than that and the drag from extra blades means you get less power. 3 blades seem to operate in the 5 - 12% band (roughly). All testing done with the Type B prop. Youll still get some torque induced rotation when in flight. To counter this I added a set of elevons, removed one from symmetry and set it to deployed at -9 on the authority limiter. To start going, reduce throttle to zero, engage motor with your action group binding, then throttle up. This little set up is slow, will take off around 45ms with a little encouragement from pitch control, and top speed is about 55ms. You will probably have to trim it out or set wings with a slight AOA depending on your build, but I took this over to the island runway fairly easily. Should be enough to get you all started, hope its helpful.

Mapping rotor torque to the Translate F/B axis group seems to work as a vertical control, although a bit awkward on key controls.

Well, this looks awesome and no mistake. But with giving us a reason to visit bodies outside of Kerbin space, are we going to get an in-game method of planning transfer windows rather than rely on mods or external websites? Ditto something like KAC. Both could be tied in to a revised upgrade path for both mission control and the tracking station, having missions to put telescopes in orbit to discover other worlds before visiting them (alt use for the asteroid tracker?) or similar. Anyway, really looking forward to the DLC, quiite annoyed now that I wont be able to play for a few days after release as I have to go to a family wedding....

Took me about 4 hours, many reloads and step by step referencing to a tutorial video. Most satisfying feeling ever when it finally all clicked.

ooh, the possibilities for modular base building just went up a notch or ten!

It does take practice, just like docking. Veering is caused by a combination of factors including braking too hard. Tipping usually means your landing gear are too close together (think wide triangle as ideal) or mass shifting from side to side on the landing gear suspension, especially over 4T for the LY gears. You can bleed speed off by cutting all thrust and circling the landing area or performing a series of banking turns to get to the desired airspeed before final approach - but that's where having the right amount of lift comes in. For a 4T plane, aim for at least 6 lift minimum from your wings, control surfaces and horizontal tail - 8 would be much better to practice with. One final thing to watch for with the starter gears is that they are very sensitive to vertical speed, which we don't have a readout for, hence the need to be gentle on approach, low speed and a very light plane. Come down too hard and they snap like the twigs with wheels they are. It also doesn't help that the mass of the first cockpit is huge in comparison to the rest of the parts, which means unless designed well, early planes all have an overwhelming desire to lawndart. Essentially, early planes in KSP tend to hit some of the same problems early flight pioneers had - fragile but heavy parts, low thrust and little margin for error resulting in heavy but delicate machines. In many ways planes are much, much harder than rocketry. I'm no means an expert, just someone who has played around with light aircraft in the game quite a bit.

Going disagree somewhat on this - perfectly feasible to do the kind of plane you describe with 27 parts (no chutes) and a little creativity, as per screenshot. No part clipping, service bay, structural fuselage or LFO Mk 1 needed. Barometer and Thermometer are mounted on the nose. Twin Juno (one intake) , 3x LF Mk 0 tanks, 3x mat bays and 3x mystery goo, uses the LF tanks as the tail boom, no elevons (tail plane at rear does pitch, tail planes mounted on wingtips give roll and extra lift) Weighs in at 4.9T, ugly as sin though. The only real limiting factor is the starter landing gear, 4.9T is really pushing it for these, and landing has to be gentle (ideally sub 60m/s) and on gentle terrain. Doable though as long as you have a decent lift / mass ratio (I aim for 1.5 lift per ton minimum for small planes), took a quick flight and landed this on the other side of the mountains by KSC. Other things to make sure of are making sure control surfaces are set to single authority and between 15 - 25 value (pitch / yaw / roll), and wheels are set dead straight and level. Imho, the LF Mk 1 tank needs to be moved to a later node, its way too heavy for the starter plane stuff unless you add multiple landing gear over the usual 3, increasing part count.

IRL, smooth side facing the direction of airflow, as the pic Geonovast posted above. in KSP - doesnt matter.

Stock "Alarm Clock" Stock Transfer Planner / way to teach players how to do & plan interplanetary transfers Stock way to put together planetary bases & space stations in a simpler modular fashion - ie module cradles, telescopic legs that lock at a specific height, docking clamps that can lock to a position etc. Current landing legs are limited and way too clunky for base useage. Stock KIS / KAS variant so we can run pipes / umbilicals for refuelling rather than a hard dock Some rotating parts - ie spindles for station rings. Small selection of stock propellers A reason to do all this stuff - a storyline or something. Life support would be fun if optional Ability to define "missions" in the tracking centre and group / sort vessels by mission (including assigning mission patches to personnel) Basically Id like something where I have to run as few mods as possible. Almost all the essentials are there now, which is great.

After a complete rebuild Ive now got this: 101 Kerbal capacity, 3 relay sats, and 5k Dv. 460 ish parts not including launcher. shame we dont have rotating parts (and Im crap at bearings!)

Just a little something Im working on - explorer / crew transfer ship, 12 passengers, 2 science lab personnel and 3 in the command cockpit make for a total crew of 17, and equipped with 3 small relay sats for a local probe / comms network around whatever body it can reach. Almost 5800Dv in Kerbin Orbit and a TWR of 0.51 Still needs some tweaking but Im pretty happy with it. so far.

Not played about with craft file editing, but managed to do so without breaking it and got rid of the MJ part :-) Had a play with the plane this morning - I like it! Control surface authority settings could do with being toned down a bit as its majorly twitchy, but its easy to take off / fly / land under SAS, and a pretty good stock replica of the original. Ground clearance for the landing gear is a bit tight, but thats a feature of the original. Nicely done!

Got a stock version? That appears to use Mechjeb parts on it. Love to give it a go but I dont want yet another mod :-)

Still playing about with my TX range - up to 11 aircraft now. Had to make a design concession on this one though and use Tail Connector B from the next node up, otherwise same as previously in terms of parts used. Must admit, this is my favourite so far. Just goes to show you can build some interesting stuff using low tier parts.

Theres been some great advice in this thread and you seem to be on the right track now Catbus, which is good. As to equations - I dont know of any myself, but I put some rough figures together for Light Aircraft (i.e. under 5 Ton) using the Juno engine that I found successful, as follows: 1.6 lift per ton, with a very rough 5 to 1 ratio on lift surfaces between front and rear (and thats including elevons etc) landing gear - using the LY01 / LY05 with a max of 1.5T per wheel (so if using these, try to stick to 4.5 tons max weight for your plane for max landing gear reliability) Engines - for the Juno I use 1 engine per 3 tons as a rough guide. After that, the main points as previously mentioned: COM / COL is in the right spot (COL just behind COM, as a guide try to put the COL right on the edge of the COM to start) Make sure your wheel positioning is right (and that differs between tricycle and taildragger setups) - assuming tricycle setup start with this lined up with the back of the COM make sure your wheels are dead straight (rotate in absolute mode) Mount the wheels on the fuselage, not the wings Make sure your Thrust is in line with your COM - under will generally push the nose upwards, above will push the nose down (pivoting around the COM) Tweak your control surface settings as needed Make sure your jet exhaust isnt blocked / restricted in any way Veering - this has a number of causes and can be quite complex to sort out especially on bigger planes, but as a rule, do the above on wheel setup and then set the nose gear friction to half of its starting value (assuming a tricycle setup) . After that you can explore things like fuselage flexing etc It also doesnt help these some issues with low end parts as well (cockpit too heavy, swept wings has issues etc) which makes things at the early stages even more frustrating.

modified original entry for resub.

In that case Id better withdraw mine - although in fairness it states the airplane plus bit is optional and doesnt indicate its mandatory for for the turboprop section (and yeah, know what a turboprop is, but as its not a stock part and listed as optional then I figured something juno powered would fit the category in terms of meeting the other criteria - no worries, my bad)

Figured Id have a go at this. Kryten's Engineering Konglomerate (KEK) would like to present: The KEK Accolade Mk 2 Specification: Passengers : 24 Price : 17,746,000 Take off Speed : 77 m/s with flaps (AG1) Recommended cruising speed: 155 m/s Recommended cruising altitude : 4500m Theoretical range : 100/0.04 = 2500km Max Altitude : approx 7000m Max Speed : approx 170 m/s Category: Turboprop PR: Ideal for short distance commuter or sightseeing flights, the KEK Accolade offers comfort, style and reliablility at an affordable price. For the environmentally concerned traveller, noise and air pollution kept low through the use of the venerable J-20 engine which offers quiet running and excellent fuel efficiency. Craft File : KEK Accolade

Must admit, it continually amazes me what you can do design wise with even a limited range of parts in this game. Added another one to my TX range, the TX04. Same as previously in terms of parts used, but only 20 this time. Using the pitching control surfaces on the outer wing as flaps on take off gets the nose up easily, and also helps with keeping the nose up on landing. We could really do with a separate deployment range slider to go alongside the control authority slider though.