Bdyer

When I land the interstellar tow on any planet (stock no mods), when I come out of time accelerating(for mining purposes) the entire ship in launched at about 200 m/s straight up usually resulting in multiple explosions.

Honestly I'm not a fan of the mk3 look, if I want to build big I use the mark iv mod for fuselage. It looks so much better. And you get lift out of it. and honestly I'm loving my mk2 right now. I havnt unlocked the mining yet in my career so I can't go everywhere, however 6,900 dv in LKO means I can go mostly to any planet. I just hve difficultly getting back :0. I have been to gilly and Ike and back but it was close. 51 tons full and 16 tons empty not sure if I could push it much farther without mining.

The problem I find with large sstos is that you end up needing secondary propulsion to vtol it down as landing on your tail usually has disasterous results or even if you do land how do you get back up with just horizontal thrust.

Once I gain speed 20-30 m/s. When I get close to take off speed ~50m/s and start to pull up (but havnt left the ground yet) everything evens out

I've been using the snap to grid to get the wheel perfectly aligned in the front. My current ssto craft is 48 tons on the runway and is very solid/doesn't bend. I havnt tried a heavier wheel base because thats a lot of extra payload. Ive experimented with the spring strength and dampen strength and havnt made it work yet

"Unmodded" I would totally win the award for largest plane with my 2,100 ton monstrosity however I use the mark iv mod and procedural wings mod

I am having this problem where during take-off on completely balanced and symmetrical planes that the ships always want to pull hard to the left. I am using medium gears with 2 on the back and one on the front. Once the ship is in the air it's rock stable. Can someone suggest what to do with the wheels?

Here is my latest creation, It has 6K dv once it gets to orbit and I think I can make it to duna with it. I just need to test and add some extra Vtol capability http://imgur.com/a/h5dd4

https://imgur.com/a/6qNgm Thats my "goliath" over 2000 tons on the runway

I had one in 1.0 that wanted 4 tourists to go suborbital on the sun and then get returned to kerbin...

Ahh ok I can understand that. I got bored of rockets myself when I could accomplish any mission with MORE BOOSTERS and MORE NUKE ENGINES. Honestly I love vtol spaceplanes, both for how they look and the challenges they present. I will admit that I still have a go big or go home philosophy as my ssto mothership interplanetary ship is up to 2,000 tons. 24 vector engines at 1000kn each makes up its vtol rockets. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5DtklZeBZKVVlZWS1hYRjc2czg

Why put a cargo area on a return glider? I saw the lift vehicle in the other thread and it seems extra work to build a return glider when a pod and a heatshield is much better to return people. Also could just put your payload in a fairing with automated control to get a larger payload in orbit.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5DtklZeBZKVRE1BZmhyNWxUX1k https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5DtklZeBZKVSnE5Q1pscVZ6RjA imgur isn't agreeing with me but here you go note the dv calcultions are way off because I disable non liquid fuel tanks on takeoff. it gets to 90-100km on jets alone and then uses the vtol engines to circularize and to maneuver in vac. The vtol engines are 6 sparks so good twr and decent isp On a trip to the mun you end up ejecting the last tank before landing

I do 3000 science start, 1000% funds, 1000% rep, 10%science

I'm worries that it's not as super scaleable as described. When your massive spaceplanes get past 400 tons x2 I feel that the whole thing is just going to fall apart on the runway or smush your cargo.