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Hi, just suggest to add a new type of vessel when you rename it: A Spaceplane, for SSTO and so...

I have this vessel and intend to improve it a bit, adding a bit of extra deltaV in orbit , a docking port, and some RCS. Higher tech may be used but I prefer to avoid (specially I'm not going for the simpler solution: RAPIER). The main question is if there is any hope to extract more juice from the spark+whiplash combo or should I just change to stronger rockets? If the later, how do you think a single Thud will fare? I feel that 2 Thud may be a bit to much for that small craft, but using 2 terrier means 2 stack of 1.25m. Thank in advance for any input.

Hello All, I recently learned that I'm heading back to school to do some postgraduate study and I need an excuse to revise and touch up my MATLAB skills. Simultaneously I have been grappling with the SSTO design problem and the fact that I cannot find any tools that will guide me in the design of an SSTO and payload. My thought is that while fluid dynamics was not my strong suit (I am a mechanical engineer) the simplified modelling of KSP should make this a reasonable endeavour with a bit of research. My a first step will be to produce an aircraft design tool that I will input a desired payload, ceiling and perhaps a few other parameters and the program will output required thrust, lift surface area and required coefficient of friction. In this way, the 'art' of aircraft design still exists because you have to design something within those parameter (x lift surface, y kN of thrust etc) so but at least the science gives you a starting point. Would be keen for thoughts, guidance, advice or be pointed at any existing tools. Good flying

My spaceplane somehow has more drag acting on the nose during re-entry than on the delta wing and tail, causing it to be unstable and flip to retrograde no matter what I do. Why is the drag so mismatched? The center of lift is well behind the center of mass.

Hi, I recently started hard career with every parts reused except for heatshields, separators and fairing. I want to do it as cheap as I can, so I want to know if Panther-based spaceplane is cheaper than reusable TSTO. Basically these are what I want to know: 1. Cost per crew 2. Cost per ton of payload (does it beat 400/t easily?)

SPACEPLANE PASSENGER CHALLENGE! Categories: The Dunatian:Go to Duna and orbit it. Local Tourist:Stay in Kerbin orbit. SpaceX style:Go suborbital. Munar Mission:Go to the Mun. There's more than one?:Go to Minimus. Rules: Mods are ok(pls ask and state)* Do NOT go past Duna(people have deadlines) Do not use Nuclear engines or RTGs(people are afraid of the radiation) No Xenon gas(people don't like the gasses)** Scoring: Price divided by number of kerbals. Bonus points: Lander:Land on the body you are orbiting. -10 points There can only be one:Use an SSTO. -25 points Happy Easter!:Land near an Easter egg. -15 points My own Easter:Land near an Easter egg without looking it up. -20 points Oops:Lose a kerbal. 5 points. Scoreboard: SpaceX style: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Local Tourist: 1. Wanderfound:53.73/kerbal 2. 3. 4. 5. Munar Mission: 1. Wanderfound:158/kerbal 2. 3. 4. 5. There's more than one?: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The Dunatian: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. *:No cheaty mods(hyperedit). **:I know Xenon is an inert gas but most people don't really know. Will post my try soon.

Every time I've tried to build a Mk3 spaceplane in the SPH, (shuttle, airliner using the Mk3 crew cabins, cargo plane or even a sea plane), they either NEVER take off, fail on the runway, steer in a random direction, or even take off really quickly but then just flip around. Is it possible to actually design a Mk3 craft and take off with it and not need a rocket? Because I get a bit frustrated when they NEVER work. So is their a way to actually build and take off using Mk3 parts on the runway? Or do I just suck at aircraft design.

I have attempted many a spaceplane, but I have never managed to get one to orbit that uses jet engines. (For some reason, I can get ones to orbit that use only rockets, but... not jets.) I believe that it is my launch profile and ascent. What I currently do is I rise to about 10-12k, then accelerate nearly as fast as I can, avoiding blowing up to reentry. I then try to rise to a 5-15 degree angle, but I never manage to make an apoapsis above the atmosphere before the jets flame out. When they do flame out, my apoapsis is usually below 30km, and I am unable to get out of the atmosphere with whatever weak rockets I added. When I add heavier rockets, I either do not get enough speed using the jets, or I no longer have enough DV to circularize once out of the atmosphere. Adding more DV means more weight, which results in the first problem again. When I just eliminate the jets entirely, I can just make orbit with about 200 delta V spare, using the standard rocket gravity turn. What is a good ascent profile for SSTOs, and what other good tips are there for building them? EDIT: I should probably add that I haven't unlocked Rapiers yet in my Career save.

I have been playing KSP for a while now, but I have never managed to make an SSTO. the most recent SSTO that I made, it was partially successful, but it would not climb beyond 14km. when I start leveling out to gain speed, I need to angle my craft at 20 Degree angle to get the prograde marker to 0. if I straighten out more, I will start falling. when I get my Prograde to 0 Degrees, I am still losing speed! I made a mod to the craft (2 ramjets that I can detach, to help with the accent) and I still have the issue! I have looked on youtube and the forums for help, but nothing has helped me so far... I tried downloading SSTOcraft files as well... Please help me! Craft file: https://mega.nz/#!igI0gaIa!aUSLBf1D8VNdZ16HzjNJro6oqfI7PQmG_jBhJiVk_Z4

So I'm making a spaceplace in the 50-60 ton range, and I don't know what I did, but some relatively minor change now causes it to no longer go to space. I can't figure out what happened, but I think something is causing massive drag that shouldn't be, as it now feels sluggish and underpowered, and this is compared to another fairly similar spaceplane that's 15 tons heavier, with the same engines, it it goes to space just fine. Even worse, I just now forgot to retract the landing gear, and it still outperformed the lighter plane. So something's very wrong. I've tried to figure out what's causing the drag, but no luck. I'm not even sure if it's really drag, but it seems to be the most likely culprit. So far, I haven't any way to even see drag values. Supposedly MechJeb shows atmospheric drag, but I can't find that feature. And some other mods I tried were out of date. At any rate, this will only confirm if drag is the issue, not what part is causing it. Any ideas? Any suggestions to see the drag of parts?

I decided to do a sort of roleplay on career-hard starting with the idea of what would a space program be like if it started with ideas like the German V1 and Messerschmitt, but never made a V2. That means planes that primarily land in the ocean (since the retractable wheels are mid-tech tree I have reached a weird point in the tech tree where none of the available nodes are very useful. I could unlock Aerodynamics, but it doesn't really help me. Gives me the J-33 engines, but honestly the J-20s are fine for my spaceplanes and boosterplanes. The LF-800 and external fuel duct are very attractive, but it gives me Oscar-sized tanks without any Oscar sized engines. And why would the player want or need a Rockomax decoupler or adapter before they have the 2.5m parts? Even the description of some of the parts is off. For example: The problem is the Rockomax Brand Adapter is offered in a node before any other Rockomax parts, so what are you adapting to your 1.25m parts to, exactly? At least now that I have unlocked the Fuel Systems node I have a use for the Rockmax Adapter. I might actually but access to it now. The tech tree is pretty much made to force players to follow the sort of rocket-development path we saw on Earth. I'm finding it fascinating just how much changes when you focus on planes vs rockets with capsules. Some images of the jet-plane based program I'm running: Oh, and why is fuel pumping something you can start doing once you upgrade the RnD building? Fuel transfers feels like it should be something researched in the tech tree. Playing on hard has given me a _much_ better idea of what feels broken. 900,000 credits to upgrade the R&D building so I can transfer fuel to something I docked with in orbit? That is _a_lot_ of credits on hard, and super difficult to get without grinding through endless tourist transports.

A question came up recently regarding designs for SSTO landers for atmospheric bodies. Now, atmosphere immediately has me thinking "spaceplane" but the problem is people often want the lander to fit within a cargo bay of the mothership rather than docking it radially, since it keeps the CoM of the mothership centred. Having to fit within a mk3 cargo bay means very small wings and high landing speeds for field landings, unless you resort to cheese like clipping or triplane/venetian blind strake wings. Having to put a docking port on the nose means high drag - low lift and high drag mean generally poor performing spaceplane, though you can still get to orbit with high twr chemical propulsion. My problem is i've never built a mothership before. I normally just go with single stage to anywhere spaceplanes, staged spaceplanes, or use IRSU refuelling facilities. Anyway, I wondered if it was possible to do this a third way. Here is an example of a small SSTO I built, 2 nervs 1 panther. It reaches 150km orbit on Kerbin with about 1200 dv left over. With the Panther in Dry mode it could do a lot of flying around on Laythe and still have plenty left to make orbit. It has a landing speed of about 40m/s fully loaded, and it has two vernier thrusters in the belly to reduce landing speeds on Duna / allow VTOL on low grav airless moons. It has an inline clamp o tron , reaction wheel and some RCS translation thrusters. And here is the mothership i started to make for it. It has two docking ports on the end of the swept wings that my inline clamp o trons should be able to hook on to. It has just shed the launcher hardware. There is a long liquid fuel fuselage in the middle, and a cargo bay at the front , which we can fill up with whatever the mission requires before Kerbin departure. The problem is that i'm totally out of practice docking stuff, and only ever mastered basic nose-to-nose anyway. So I gave up and decided to try pre-docking so i could see if the concept at least flies. It does ! Problem 1 - you cannot pre-dock inline docking adapters in the VAB. I found an old thread that said you can attach the subassembly some other way and line the ports up with the offset tool and the two ports will then automatically "dock" once you launch the vessel. This is no longer the case. I attached the aircraft with a radial decoupler, lined the two ports up so they appear to be touching, but the ports still don't "stick". I had set the radial decoupler force percent to 0, but after firing the decoupler in orbit, the aircraft simply drifts away from the mothership. From what i understand, docking ports that aren't pre-docked , have to spawn at least 10m from each other for the magnetic attraction to kick in when they reach proximity. If they are already close when the vessels spawn, the game assumes you just undocked and don't want these ports pulling back together again. The other problem is that we're really just kicking the can down the road here. To be a functional mothership/lander combo, it needs to be feasible to re-dock after separation. In fact we need to re-dock sufficiently well aligned that the NERVs of the spaceplanes can push the mothership, like in the picture. Build guide slots out of modular wing segments or something? Or i just need to improve my skills? All this re-docking though, is making me realise why i like interplanetary spaceplanes so much.

Planes not flying right? I can help turn your Christmas Bullet into a Spitfire. Post a screenshot with all three SPH indicators on (like below) as well as a short description of what it's doing or not doing, and what you want it to do. I'll read it over and do my best to offer some tips and tricks to get it flying purrrrrfect. Some other examples of my planes:

Hi all, I recently tried making a plane with a bunch of rover/probes (Provers?) in the back, to drop at certain locations, parachute down, then activated later to do the contracts for science on kerbin. I thought I had made them too heavy, or not included enough parachutes. But as I've read, space plane "Debris" is destroyed after the main craft is a set distance away. Is there a mod that removes this, and possibly makes terminating debris from the tracker easier?

Hello all. Ive recently been refining my spaceplane building and flying (particularly cargo lifters), and come to a question regarding ascent profile. I normally keep a quite shallow ascent to keep the speed up for the rapiers to keep their 200+ Kn of thrust. When nearing the 10 Km mark, i try to gain as much speed as possible with a shallow climb. Now at what point do you switch the rapiers to close cycle mode? I've found that I can get up to 1520m/s depending on the heat tolerance of the parts used, but the last ~40m/s are gained very slowly. Am I better switching to close cycle at some point before this? And the main question: when switching to close cycle, do you pitch up, if so, how much? I've found that often I loose a lot of speed in the pitch manouvre, and I feel like I might just keep going straight (actually about 5-10 degrees of positive pitch)- the curvature of Kerbin and the speed you'redoing by now will guarantee you leave the atmosphere soon anyways.

So when I came in for a landing My spaceplane keeps rolling out of control once it goes below 27,000 Meters. It basically doest the motion you do when you press A and D. It is uncontrollable my whole place is symmetrical, anyone knows what it could be?

Hello all. I am having a slight issue with a career mode space plane of mine (not really a "space" plane but you know what I mean). When it lands, I can not get it to come to a complete stop. Example; I took off from KSC, and flew to the abandoned airfield off the coast. I landed fine, but despite cutting all throttle, and even unnecessarily manually shutting down the engines and closing the intakes, and even with applying brakes and leaving them turned on, my plane would just roll at about 3 m/s. Constant yawing would bleed it down to under 1 m/s, but no matter what, it will not come to a complete stop. It is early in my career and early in my plane research, so the gear I am using is the starter fixed gear. I have not fiddled with their parameters other than disabling steering for the rear 2 and only have the nose gear steer.

I am not sure if there is anyone out there who is as OCD as myself. I really want to see a texture where the underbelly of a space plane has black tiling for it's heat shield. There are a bunch of mods that exist for space planes like MK2,3 expansions and the MK4 system. However none of them have the option to have a texture like this. Is there anyone out there in the forums who feels the way I do on this or has any desire/plans to implement some sort of a change like this?

Hello everyone! I have not really been interested in spaceplanes/ssto's,but today,i built my first fully functional spaceplane! I present: Mk1 "Arrow" Spaceplane It has airbrakes,it has ladders,it has everything! Here it is in action: I hope you enjoyed it!

Today I made 2 SSTOs with around 20 launches and every time I launch one it slightly steers to the right, when I was first playing with small (Mk0) Jets I got small steer to the right as well. Any real explanation for this? Downloads for 2 SSTOs mentioned: SSTO1 SSTO2

FIRST SPACE PLANE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! X-376 Valkerie This thing is Awsome! With four whiplash turboramjets and four flea srbs for rato she flies.

This is a dead simple challenge: * Build an SSTO spaceplane. Must be purely RAPIER powered, although you can use as many or as few as you want. Must be a winged, HOTOL conventional spaceplane. * Take off from KSC runway, get to an orbit of at least 70x70, return to KSC runway. Simple. * No parachutes or other against-the-spirit trickery. Fly to space on wings, establish an orbit, fly back to KSC as fast you can. Wheaton's law applies; if in doubt, ask. * No mod parts, no performance-altering mods (except for optionally FAR). Informational mods are fine, but fly it yourself; no Smart A.S.S. or other autopilots. * Separate leaderboards for stock aero and FAR. * Prove your time with a screenshot showing you in orbit and another showing you stopped on the KSC runway. Extra shots detailing the whole flight are welcome. * Post your craft file as well. * Fly in the morning if you want a well-illuminated ship. Demo Run Orbital return time of 20:07. I know that I can do better than that. Can you? Full album at http://imgur.com/gallery/yGcVO Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/wt8jqrlps5kjbir/Kerbodragster.craft?dl=0 LEADERBOARD STOCK Obi_Juan, 11:09 Nefrums, 11:17 Wanderfound, 16:57 NightshineRecorallis, 19:17 FAR

Moderator edit: This thread is now deprecated, please move over to the new thread for continued discussion of this mod: Thanks to blowfish, and numerous other contributors for continued support and development of this mod for KSP 1.05, and now, KSP 1.2.2. This pack adds a vast selection of new parts, introducing new spaceplane components such as new engines, cockpits, wings and fuselage systems, new structural components for orbital installations and colonies, and so on. COMPATIBILITY Compatible with KSP version 1.2.2 (build 1622) NOTES If you find yourself with out of memory errors, try 64-but version of the game. RECENT CHANGES Release 6.2.1: Changes: For KSP 1.2.2 Replace remaining firespitter animation modules with ModuleAnimateGeneric Add EVA range to some animations Fix RPM color tags Remove hover function from VTOLs as it was causing them to overheating Add editor-attachable node to shielded docking port Use new SmokeScreen feature to reduce memory consuption of exhaust effects ____________ Release 6.2.0-pre: Changes: Fixes for KSP 1.2 Use new part categories (thanks flashblade) Fix some previously inconsistent part categories (thanks flashblade) All data transmitters to all command pods and Kerbnet access to all drone cores (thanks flashblade) Adjust subtype names to that they display better in the editor Fix FAR patch on Mk2 Intake Cockpit Use custom tank types in B9 rather than default B9PartSwitch ones - for now they are identical ____________ Release 6.1.2: Changes: For KSP 1.1.3 (didn't really require any changes) Fix mesh switching issue on R1 RCS Port Fix flipped node on T2 tail Fix lights illuminating planets from orbit (thanks taniwha ____________ Release 6.1.1: Changes: For KSP 1.1.2 (didn't really require any changes) Fix RPM resource displays (credit to danfarnsy) Update DRE patch (also danfarnsy) Fix FAR voxelization on S2W parts Known Issues: DRE patches may still need work TweakScale support not yet implemented in B9PartSwitch ____________ Release 6.1: Changes: Updated for KSP 1.1 Get rid of KM_Gimbal, as most important functionality is now stock and it will not be maintained Fix smoke effects Increase response speed on some thermal anims Move landing gear to broken, since they are broken (no way to fix them without the source files, plus they were already legacy) Adjust cockpit thermals to be more in-line with stock (thanks flashblade) Add tags, thanks sparkybear for the hard work Known issues TweakScale does not work with the part switcher Some MFD screens have some issues ____________ Release 6.01: Fix L2 Atlas effects persisting after flameout Fix smoke effects not showing up on all engines Fix legacy Mk2 crew cabin not working for contracts ____________ Release 6.0.0: Integrate bac9's beautiful new Mk1 and Mk2 parts Move nearly all fuel/mesh switching to new plugin, B9PartSwitch Move old Mk1/2 parts to legacy Update all compatibility patches (some untested) Remove fuel switching in cargo bays - there's really not that much space Remove Virgin Kalactic as a dependency Make HX pack independend of core Pylons are now integrated into podded engines Bring back the airbrakes (now functional for no apparent reason) Combine textures on HL Extension B and RCS blocks Remove MP_Nazari folder - it just messes with things Improve thermal anims on HX HPD Fix patches applying to procedural wings Dependency updates Many minor tweaks ____________ Release 5.4.0: Full compatibility with KSP 1.0.5 Lots of bugfixes Rebalancing of parts for new aerodynamics B9AnimationModules added as a dependency, source is available here. This plugin provides more customized animation modules CrossfeedEnabler is no longer a dependency KineTechAnimation is no longer a dependency HX parts split into a separate archive due to separate dependencies (check the bitbucket link for the download) FAA Q: The mod crashes the game for some reason, what can I do? Make sure that everything is installed correctly, your dependencies are up-to-date, and you are on the correct version of KSP (1.1). If you can't find the issue read this helpful topic and post the issue in this thread. Be sure to include your logs! If you are quite certain that you have found a bug, you can create the issue on our Github page. Try to provide as much detail as possible - logs, example craft, reproduction steps. Also be sure that the issue is reproducable with only B9 installed. Posts along the lines of "Its not working" or "Everything is broken" won't really help us much. Q: I don't understand a thing in those IVA displays, there are too many buttons and screens Here is a very helpful manual. Q: Why aren't you respecting stock balance? Mods should reference stock for the configs of the new parts, otherwise balance of modded game would be all over the place! While we try to respect stock balance as much as possible, there are a number of inconsistencies in the balance of stock parts that make it impossible to keep balance against every stock part. If something seem very far off of what it should be, feel free to ask in this thread. Q: I can't find those huge blocky parts from the opening image in my part catalog. Why are those missing? They were recently separated into another download as they mostly don't share dependencies with the main part of the mod and as many people prefer not to use them. Q: I can't find the modular wing pieces that are depicted on many screenshots of this mod. Why are those missing? They were removed and will no longer be developed. They are available as an optional download in the Bitbucket repository linked on top of this post, but we do not recommend using them. A far better option is using procedural wings, since you'll have just one part with just one material and just one texture covering any possible wing shape then. Good for performance, good for design freedom, good for looks. Grab the procedural wings here. Q: Why aren't procedural wings integrated into the main B9 package? Because they have entirely separate dependencies and are maintained by different folks. Merging them will only needlessly complicate updates. HOW TO INSTALL Double-check whether you are using KSP version 1.1.3. Your root KSP folder should already contain a GameData folder. Merge the GameData folder inside the download with it. Do not extract just GameData/B9 Aerospace/Parts folder alone, the mod won't work this way. With a proper installation, you should have multiple new folders in GameData alongside with Squad folder that was there originally. Do not try to move the part folders elsewhere or sort them using category subfolders, that will break resource linking in all configs. Do not remove or skip installation of any plugins. INCOMPATIBLE MODS As of Release 6.2.1 and KSP 1.2.2, these are the known incompatibilities: None currently Other incompatibilities are unknown. Please report them to blowfish if you find any. OLD SCREENSHOTS ALBUMS CREDITS New updates: blowfish - plugin code, maintenance, balance, coordination of new updates flashblade - many contributions V8jester and M4ck - stack node adjustments danfarnsy and JaredTheDragon - RPM fixes joshwoo69 - RT compatibility sparkybear - Part tags taniwha - Fix for planet-illuminating lights Old core team: bac9 - 3D modeling, texturing, editor tools (been a lazy ass and hardly contributed over the past year, to be honest) Taverius - balance, 3D modeling, craft design, maintenance (no longer active) K3|Chris - 3D modeling, texturing, IVA (no longer active) Contributors and bundled mods: Nazari - HotRockets Engine FX: forums Snjo - Firespitter.dll plugin: forums Sarbian - SmokeScreen.dll plugin: forums Ialdabaoth, Sarbian: ModuleManager: forums Mihara - RasterPropMonitor forums jadebenn, Hyomoto, Helldiver - RPM MFD configuration. alexustas - RPM MFD configuration FPSlacker - HR exhaust pressure compensation Special thanks: DYJ C7 r4m0n Sarbian NathanKell egg snjo ferram4 Mu mrBlaQ LICENSE This work is shared under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. Dependencies may come under their own licenses. Please check dependency documentation for details.

This post is invalid. Looking back at it, I realize I didn't achieve ACTUAL orbit, just a temporary orbit, which would have died if I had cut my engines.

This is my SSTO, the Neophron VI (named after a genus of vulture), capable of going to the Mun and back. Specifications: Part Count: 88 Mass: 72.560t Height: 4.6m Width: 22.8m Length: 20m Here it is on the Mun. It can make the trip no problem. Here it is after a successful Mun trip, back on the runway. Here it is in the SPH. Here you can really get an idea of its shape. This flies nice and stable, and I really like the wing shape, it might be my new favorite craft.