Raptor kerman

Make your own NRO-esque KSP mission patch. As you may well know the NRO makes some rather sinister but nonetheless totally badass mission patches. The aim of this challenge is simple, to make your own Kerbal-esque patch in the same style. Think about the Kraken, lithobraking, rapid unplanned disassambly, explosions... Here is some inspiration to get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches ______________ To keep things simple, post one patch per reply. Most liked patch gets bragging rights. If you don't have Photoshop, GIMP is free, Pixlr is very good as an online tool and so is Logo maker Good Luck and happy designing!

remember your not at sea level. Adding your sea level altitude component to the radius of kerbin and calculating circumference from there might be of slight help.

cheers, just fleshed out basic operational requirements, and I'm looking at a a cruise speed of 2100 m.s^-1 among other things. While I have previous high-alt, high-speed experience, this is completely new for me. I'm wondering if I've bitten off more than I can chew.....

No visible difference between 1.8 and 1.8.1 on the controllability side but some (not all) planes appear to behave slightly better when it comes to pitch responsiveness. This is mainly related to blended wing bodies and ultra high speed (+1500 m.s^-1) aircraft. Which is what I'm concerned about as it's what I make the most. Although this could be a false positive as I played around with control surfaces and angle of incidence on those aircraft. Also it seems the atmosphere is much thicker than before. Could be the unity change as you say.

Okay, I'm mounting a serious attempt at this challenge. I have spent an incredible amount of time making 1600 m.s^-1 ULR aircraft. But I haven't done circumnavigations in a LONG TIME. Question: what is the distance to travel the full circumference at the equator?

Realised my mistake, asked the mods to remove the post. The post was based on the old kerbin (air breathing) circumnavigation challenge where the record was at around 37 minutes. Bear in mind, I saw this thread and didn't read the posts.

Two ways of approaching this. Make it accelerate hard enough that it reaches its design speed and slows back down again before heating becomes an issue. To do this with air breathing engines, you're going to need some sort of lite™ heat sink. Even a properly designed rapier missile in my experiences can't get past 1500 m.s^-1 before a. running out of athmosphere b. running out of acceleration for this to be the case That is unless you're copying Brad whistance and strap ~40 rapiers to one fuel tank. The second, more viable option is to design the plane for maximum heat resistance and minimal drag. Heat shields are out of the question unless you do stuff to them. In my many experiences (mach 5+ planes are my fav' design challenge) your best bet is this: -minimal aero surfaces, they're the first to go bang from heating. Big-S wing strakes are a good idea as they carry a lot of fuel so you can make a smaller fuselage. No need for loads of flaps, elevators etc. 3 control surfaces max. period. If you can work out a solution for roll then 2. (don't rely on thrust vectoring), powerful reaction wheels are worth looking into. -tiny fuselage. Go drone. If you need a kerbal for the challenge, go command chair stuck in 1.25m payload bay. (plus's include better heat resistance and free airbrakes!). Put drone core or kerbal as far back as possible for heat protection. Do you need all that fuel? Heck no. Get it right and a few mk0 tanks work fine. Go Mk1 size fuselage, anything else has too much drag. If you can just get rid of the fuselage by using wet wings. -tiny wings. Strakes are the way to go, you're going so fast and high you won't actually need that much lift. Strakes have enough lift for take off, but have low drag. Minimise size, it is possible to just slap one rectangular wing thing, centre it and call it a day, but this is hard. Cause: higher drag. If you're not using wet wings use a pre cooler instead of a normal intake. it works amazing at high speed and carries fuel as a plus! -heating. THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE. Think of the whole thing as a battery that accumulates heat. Not Just, heat resistant nose as a shield and that's it. Medium sized landing gear are a good way to go for the nose, just remember to remove it from the action group. Long and thin payload bay nose is a good idea, or stacking 2 or 3 short and stubby ones. Test at high speed and see which parts are the hottest and deal with the problem. Engine and nose tend to be the hottest, auxiliary parts such as batteries are usually the first to fail. First thing to look at when selecting parts is max heat. Any important part that's under 2200k is nope. That or above, heating can be manages. And remember: Remember part clipping is a thing!

Has anyone else noticed that planes, even rockets behave very differently, much more sluggishly in the Kerbin atmosphere to the point that it rives me crazy. Even my supermanoeuvrable aircraft and rockets act sluggish, no matter how much I play around with cog/col, wing area, control surface authority limiters etc... It feels like forces are applied perpendicular to the CoG and any control surfaces placed (say at the far back of the plane) no longer create a torque, or at least a visible one that I can feel and react to. Nothing rolls with any particular speed or responsiveness, planes that could previously sustain an AoA of ~45° now only ~5°. Yaw doesn't seem to be affected but pitch ALL my creations don't pitch about the CoG anymore. When I apply pitch they simply increase in climb rate while staying flat as a pancake. Great if i want a flying wing, not so great if you build anything else. Sidenote: flying wings require serious work to get right, I doubt they've been unaffected either. Even my U-2 look alike plane which is one of my successful designs (40 m.s^-1 lift off, 24 000m cruise altitude, 20° max AoA, 1200m.s^-1 cruise speed [for a glider with an engine!]) fly's like a winged brick carrying a particularly obese blue whale. Even the vertical speed is gone. I'm not much of a rocket scientist, but I've made working ICBM's with working MIRV warheads that impact Kerbin ~1600/2000 m.s^-1 and they don't work anymore either. For rockets this is less of an issue but the same sluggishness is found in most of my designs. And max AoA seems to have been at least halved in most designs. Is anyone else getting this or similar? Is this something that has been mentioned in patch notes? Has it been changed but NOT mentioned or is this a bug? Genuinely would appreciate as many answers on this to try and build up a picture of the wider community. I'm not much of a rocket scientist, but I've made working ICBM's with working MIRV warheads that impact Kerbin ~1600/2000 m.s^-1 and they don't work anymore either.

nah, all made pre 1.8.

I'm running 1.8.1

Don't know if this has been talked about, but aerodynamic behaviour has change majorly, and not in a good way. All my craft are now sluggish as hell. Even the ones specifically designed with aerodynamic instability which could hit over 40g while turning. Can someone enlighten me on this?

Will it be mac compatible? HOLY excrements. MULTIPLAYER.

Do we HAVE to use the DLC?

Work has been postponed until further notice on my MIRV project, new warhead, ABM and Center-X replacements. I am working on a project that until now was a fun tangent. It will blow your mind (no pun intended) and unless I am mistaken has not been done before in this format in KSP. While I can't give an exact date as I can't open KSP every day, this should take about a week or two to develop, test and release.

The Fiocci variant has been removed because while it had mind blowing acceleration and was satisfying to fly. 50+ G acceleration coupled with powered warheads makes intercepts basically impossible. Also probably because my laptop couldn't handle screen recording and KSP. However I have begun work on a new short range missile with ABM capabilities, think of a shotgun style approach so the missile only has to be near the ICBM for an intercept, in real life this would be comparable with the russian A-135 system (probably the only ABM system in the world which actually works in a real environment and not just tests) and certainly not THAAD or Sprint missiles which is what the Fiocci was. Mobile road launchers would present a fun challenge and are definitely on the to do list although I want to finish a full range of working ballistic missiles and a new warhead as the current one has many limitations (it is my first working re entry vehicle after all) mainly drag, mass and thermodynamics.