Screeno

I feel that a system that can generate heat tiles on the desired surface of a fuel tank (standard methalox tanks not hydrogen tanks however), wing or command pod/cockpit should be implemented. Unlocked somewhere in the tech tree, aka not unlocked by default, you have to earn it. Perhaps a universal part that when applied to a fuel tank, wing part or aircraft cockpit, becomes procedurally generated and snaps to the surface of part you applied it to. ( similar to how fairings work but it automatically just covers the side of the part you apply it to). It can't be destroyed unless the part it is attached to is destroyed. (or, it could simply act like just adding a texture to a side of a part which is much simpler and less resource intensive because it doesn't add a literal part to the craft) It would add weight to the part it is attached to proportional to the size of the heat tiling generated. Heat tiles would protect the part exposed to the airflow underneath them from aerodynamic heating but would not effect aerodynamic forces because that would cause a lot of issues with building crafts. They simply shield one side (or both if you apply it to both sides) from heating to a certain degree and add weight to the part they are attached to. I feel this would add an extra level of realism and fun factor. This also brings me to an issue: heating is not simulated by skin temp and internal temp like it was in ksp . It's just a generic temperature by part mechanic that isn't very realistic. It also creates part balance issues. I feel for the thermal system in ksp2 to work properly it needs to take in to account both skin temperature and internal temperature. Anyway for a thermal tiling part system to work, skin/internal temperature would need to be separate things. thanks for reading!

Ok so I got restock and restock waterfall config, deleted my old stock waterfall config. All the rocket engines have their waterfall effects but the rapier, whiplash, panther, goliath, wheesley and juno have not got them. (aka they have their rather ugly stock effects) even if I put back the stock waterfall config file in gamedata the air breathing engines still don't get their waterfall effects applied. anyone know how to fix this? Edit: i dowloaded the lastest stock waterfall config and it worked when i used a whiplash, but rapiers are weird, especially the closed cycle mode, the plume is missing

yeah the stages were only 1 tank apart from the S-1C stage.

Title. The mainsail has almost the same thrust at sea level as the mastodon but the mainsail also has far better max isp in vacuum so the mastodon is redundant both as a launch engine and as an orbital engine. The mastodon should really have a higher thrust ( thrust in the middle of the min and maxthrust for the mainsail (around 1400?) would be better then it's got a niche as a more powerful launch engine than the mainsail but with less efficiency) , it's supposed to be a launch engine, at the moment there is no point using it at all except for aesthetic purposes. Also I should add the skiff is pretty weak in terms of thrust too, I made a saturn v replica and the S-II and S-IVB stages with a full tanks of accurate size had terrible thrust to weight ratios, something like 0.3 which is useless for an upper stage in the atmosphere. It should probably have twice as much thrust as a swivel for what it is, it's a 2.5 m engine.

At least splashdowns are safe

Awesome! You can only go up from there! If you struggling with landing you can always attatch a load of parachutes to it, and deploy them when it's safe XD

How 2 ssto: Craft with rapiers(s), plenty of fuel and ,a shock cone intake. These days you only need one shock cone per 2 rapiers. It is very important you balemce the center of mass of dry/wet craft, so it doesn't move much during flight. Take measures to minimize drag, look at the front of your craft straight on and the side straight on so you can see it's cross section, the less massive variations in cross section means less drag. FFinally make sure your rear landing gear are close to the center of mass, make them go just behind it. But to far behind and it won't lift the nose up You can fly just fine with a twr less than one , you don't need loads of engines, this would as weight and make drag... As soon as you pick up some speed it'll go up past 1 again. For an easier flight try not to have a static twr lower than 70, 50 would be to low imo. (I reccomended you get kerbal engineer so you can see the Delta v, and twr. It also lets you see the twr at different altitudes and speeds) Taking off sould be the easyest part, just go up to 100 ms and with enough wing area youll lift off by lightly pitching up. With a low twr you should just fly at 10 degrees pitch until you go supersonic and then you'll gain thrust and speed rapidly. Now is a good time to pitch up to 20 degrees, remain at 20 until you get to 10km up, then begin to pitch down, the goal is to be at 10 degrees again once you're 20km up, by then you will get up to about 1300m/s, but some desgins can get in excess of 1500m/s by pitching down to 10 when they hit 15km up though the limiting factor here is heat. The shielded docking port miraculously prevents ssto's from overheating for some reason. I would reccomended that as a nosecone, and it's also easy to dock like that anyway. Ah, back to the flight. When your craft begins to loose trust rapidly you should switch to rocket mode, pitch up and burn until desired apo. The rest is just standard orbital stuff. But not when it comes to re-entry You want to lower your periapsis to 40km if you are in low Kerbin orbit, (i mean an apoapsis of 70-100km ) You want to basically do it like the space shuttle did. Point your crafts nose 40 degrees up, this way you don't overheat or slow down to fast, you don't even need airbrakes. (Though I would reccomended them for landing!!!) You can remain at this high angle of attack until you slow down and the atmosphere becomes thick enough that you can glide back to lading. Also, if you want to land back at KSC from low Kerbin orbit, just put your 40km periapsis directly above the big peninsula west from ksc

I landed an ssto plane on duna, something I haven't done since 1.05, and as soon as my craft came to a stop on a flat surface, strange behavior happened. It was drifting left and rotating around it's front landing gear, even though steering was disabled on all gear and brakes were on at 200%.... very annoying! To make it stand still so I could time accelerate I had to gear down. Anyone else had this glitch?

My launchers are always stable, I've never had a flip problem or overheat, maybe I was playing it to safe with the throttle, so perhaps I should just let it go full power. I'll see which ends up with more dv in orbit

I would like to know, is it better/ more efficient to let the rocket stay at full throttle the entire journey, therefore letting the thrust to weight ratio go higher as the specific impulse increases and fuel drains? or is it better to throttle down as you go higher and faster, to keep TWR at the same level throughout the flight?

The reason why its slow is becaus ksp's simplified aerodynamic model treats wing lift and body lift as totally separate things, so having a plane made of all wing parts pruduces insane lift but also insane drag. I wonder if this replica flys in ferram....

Is the WIP version stable? Just wondering, as I miss those 2.5 m sabers, I wish ksp had 2.5 m rapiers man...

Need a dispenser here need a dispenser here

Got it down to 10 rapiers so far XD I will probably post it sometime later

Now I'm gonna have to fix mine to be as efficient XD