Pappus

It feels quite strange that so many people say they would pay more if they could and comparable yada. Wanna pay more? Take a letter, put in dollares and send it on the way to the KSP producers or simply purchase several copies and give them away or let them rot.

Thanks for the help so far, I am still cycling through stuff and I mean I am not far off orbit just like maybe 10s of thrusting away and since most of my changes make no difference I am gonna wait until I have the wings with fuel, because I tried adding more fuel on the sides and that went worse because of the additional drag all around, I tried making the plane a bit longer to add fuel and it also didn't work because then I think the lift wasn't enough for that long plane anymore. So what I think I need for that design is wings that can hold fuel. See I added like 2x spark with something like 5x of those miniscule tanks in a row and slapped that additionally on the wings. In total I added maybe a ton if even and I couldn't get the plane to 20k anymore with the rocket and could hardly steer so that led me to beleive that if I want to succeed I need to optimize my drag in terms of adding either more fuel without more drag or reduce drag somewhere, but the design choices are really slim for me to even go with less drag. There are only 2 wings, 2 intakes, 2 engines that are outside the "mainstream". I tried putting a air protective shell around those outer engines but it wouldn't let me for whatever reason.

Also a quick question: How to fix that the turbojets eat fuel of the rockets, but the rockets can't do the same with the fuel attached to the turbos. - - - Updated - - - Just a question on those calculations: If I want 5 terries, why not 2x LV-T30? Those could deliver more thrust for the same weight or the same thrust if I don't full throttle them. 5 terries weight 2.5 afterall, b ut mainly when I put in the data you gave me I am getting mostly reliant and skipper

The problem is if I add that fuel, then the plane will not make mach 2 anymore. With 1000 units more I capped at not even mach 2 but more like 700m/s. For example I tried incorporating your advice and double my rocket thrust and added another fuel tank mk2 long and it is definitely worse than 1x 215 thrust and 1x less fuel.

I simply dont understand why your craft makes LKO while mine looks pretty similar through the interations and doesn't make it. I tried 215 thrust, 200 and dual terrier. Nothing breaks orbit. More rocket fuel & wings was tested too.

How do you guys measure peak airspeed in stock? With the first comment Kerik made I assumed he meant to engage rockets when my AP isn't increasing anymore, which pretty much coincides with their burn out for me or do you click your intakes and start the rockets when their airspeed intake starts decreasing?

Shut up are you seriously getting spaceplanes done with basic jet engines? What is this madness. I am struggling to do it with turbojets

Are you sure that it is processing science on kerbins surface or rather kerbins stuff itself yields little data? - - - Updated - - - Why don't you just play sandbox? I don't get your logic at all. In simpler terms: There is no progression anymore once the science tree is done. You can now design rockets without anything remotely resembling science stuff, because why would you. All missions before always try to pack what they can to get at least some science out of it. The game is more enjoyable as long as there are tradeoffs you need to make. I can design a rocket that lands once on mun, gather science and come back. I cannot design it in a fashion that also allows for 4 tourists to be sight-seeing at the same time. Most beginners will likely be in the same shoes as me and I like the seperation that having the science tree not fully unlocked brings. I was doing science only mission for a purpose, be it turbojet to start spaceplaning, to go further or simply cheaper. There is no exploring as far as I can see. There is nothing to see on those planets, you mostly need to click on some science stuff to even check if you are actually in another biome. The career mode should be all about being limited, because if I don't want to play it THAT way I can just press sandbox where it really is about exploration. Career mode should be about establishing bases with rudimentary stuff you have.

Is there something preventing just parking the lab next to the KSC and take the data of any returning vessel there first for data collection purposses? I mean I get it should be rewarding to orbit this stuff etc, but I see no reason why I just couldn't place it next to KSC and build a small plane to collect the data around the globe should I gravely missaim my re-entry

So I read somewhere that the best results are to wait for launchpad and AN/DN to be aligned with it. However I tried but I have no luck being well off-mark so I start to think that my launchpad should actually align with pe/ap if I want to "remake" the same orbit just smaller yet. I don't need to nail it 100%, but I want at least for my efforts to account to something and right now I think I would do better just heading east and doing 2 burns to finish the job, but it pokes at me being unable to launch roughly how I want to. It is also really hard to align the launchpad with those nodes for satellite contracts because I have no target, I can't aim for it and if the desired orbit is huge aligning those points becomes hard for me. I know I could just slap more engines and fuel to the thing, but that wouldn't teach me anything so this is the situation: I already aligned the thing as best as I could with the AN and tried launching 135°, but the result weren't that great. At first the ascending node was decreasing and then increasing massively and since I don't understand the whole concept it was like magic. http://imgur.com/a/WESql#3

I am on my first playthrough and some things bother me: Mun gives too much, not even landing there with careful equipment like the lab, but simply orbitting it is already several hundred science. On another note some things are too far in the tech-tree I think the game should actually emphasize more on the plane part of the game and graduate to mun and stuff from there. Like getting your first plane done, then fly a bit do a couple missions and save up actual credits to even pay for the rocket trials and then slowly go to kerbin orbit, kerbin space, mun, minmus really needing to explore it to advance further in the techtree. So planestuff should come earlier except rapier of course, but the turbojet could come early, then you unlock the first rockets. It doesn't even need to be gated by science exclusively. They could slow down the process by increasing rocket prices a big margin. I mean 500-1000 for a booster isn't exactly a lot so check the missions and make sure their payment isn't too far ahead of the "do" cost. Especially looking at those orbital tourists and it gets even worse. If I would bother to do one of those deluxe mun/mimum/kerbin missions of ~4 tourists I think that would net me more than half a million and then you got the rocket booster price.... 2k a piece - dafuq?

For testing purposes I put a 4.5 T fuel container into the cargo bay to mimic any form of additional weight. I also wonder how am I supposed to avoid adjusting my pitch below 35km when you say that the turbos will give out at 20km. Do you mean go steadily and then just start the rocket? The problem I have is that the swivel or whatever the correct name for the 215 thrust engine is, that it is a bit too weak I will lose out huge margins of speed, which I think is not the way to go so maybe I should double the rocketry power to not lose too much to gravity? Kerik so you think the plane itself should be able to orbit as is? I feel the transition to the rocket part is definitely the weakest about it. It doesn't feel like having real power

I mean it could simply always have autosave 1-5 and always overwrites the last one and the problem would mostly be solved, because there is little chances to behave in a way that leads to triggering autosave 5 times before you do something.

Mechjab and that one that helps with ascension profile look really interesting, but I feel I would be moving away from the spirit of the game. It also doesn't help me that much since I specifically do not want to calculate while designing and so those numbers would only lead for me to check if I have them or not. I also don't want to follow up closely on mod upgrades, with kerbal in steam I know it is always up-to-date whenever I press play. If I start modding the game it might not be the case. Also I found myself so often at mun in a situation where I thought: Can I land one more time or do I need to go back, my fuel looks good, but.... I don't know, but regardless you go forward knowing full well that if it fails it means rescue mission so you get ready for the next landing, but then you decide .... it - back home it is

I am currently working on my first SSTO Spaceplane with Mk 2 parts. I already tried it with the basic jet engines but those didn't have enough power so I postponed my try until I unlocked the turbo engine. However my craft doesn't make orbit and while I technically know that more fuel for my rocket thruster attached to it would eventually lead for it to orbit it would also be wrong for me to design it that way, because it would go more towards rocket than to spaceplane. So I try different stuff, more turbo engines, more wings, less wings, more intakes and switching it up, but the results stay the same and I have no clue as to where to begin to push the craft in the right direction and if I don't know that (since obviously how am I supposed to know what I am really doing I don't have a spaceplane degree after all) I can't finish the plane. I also don't want to see too many different finished planes as that defeats the purpose of building your own craft - I just want to know what the key problems are to solve them. So here is an orbit try with the little craft and obviously I lose control because of overeager steering, but it doesn't really make a difference that 215 thrust engine doesn't get me into orbit from that position since I tried it numerous times - at least not with a 45° angle I run out of fuel too early. Also remember since this is career mode and I don't have everything unlocked more intakes is a problem because I manually need to close them all. Personally I think I need to reach ~30k AP on the turbo engines alone to have a shot, but maybe I am wrong. http://youtu.be/q6FNpw0cG-o