mdgates

Install hardmode mods, take up some challenges, attempt to recreate some real-life missions... Or install a total conversion mod, like Better Than Starting Manned, or Interstellar, and set yourself up with some specific objectives and restrictions. Basically, when you take the game out of the box, it's too easy.

I'm also in the "never for launch, but sometimes to take off of heavy planets" group. For ultra high fuel consumption interplanetary work (e.g. to haul a Jool 5 mission out to Jool), I prefer to attach with 6x symmetry and decouple manually. As for the bonus, "stalks of asparagus" or "asparagus-staged rockets" is the plural, but if we want to talk about multiple individual plants in the genus Asparagus, that would be asparagi.

I mean, with stock KSP's unrealistic physics and soupy atmosphere, I just strap together a plane with five airfoils and five control surfaces, then shift the wings until the center of lift is just ahead of the center of mass. This is true for just about any payload up to some large weight limit, and the craft is not very sensitive to payload aerodynamics.With FAR, it's half an hour of fussing around to get the stability & control derivatives in order, then half an hour of tweak-crash-repeat before getting to orbit. Then I decide for the next mission I need to lift a Science Lab, and it's time to start over. I find FAR planes more fun, more rewarding, but WAY too frustrating for me to develop the 40 of them needed for a KSP planes-only playthrough.

I absolutely love the mod, and have had many hours of good fun. But for my current playthrough, I made the difficult decision to disable FAR. This playthrough is 100% horizontal takeoff and landing. With Ferram, the engineering burden of developing planes that would actually be flyable is just too great. More so when you consider that I'll be dropping tanks and engines on the way up. Great mod, but too realistic for a spaceplane playthrough. :-P

I empathize wtih the last three posters, and I'd love to see a guide to understanding aircraft stability. The answers you seek are out there, yet not incredibly accessible: http://undergrad-catalog.buffalo.edu/academicprograms/ase_courses.shtml MAE 436. BTW, see also MAE 425.

On the way up, you need your center of drag below your center of mass to keep from tumbling. On the way down, you need the center of drag *above* the center of mass to keep the flamey bit pointing at the ground.I can think of a few ways to do this: 1. Stowable drag surfaces. Drogue chutes. The easy way. 2. Movable center of mass. Sounds easy, but designing the rocket so the center of mass is behind the tailfins when empty is a hundred times harder than adding a parachute. 3. Overpower aerodynamic forces with RCS or a stack of cheaty kerbal flywheels. 4. A second landing rocket on top of the ship. I often have "up side down" nuclear engines for an interplanetary stage, but you could do it with landing engines too.

"Terminal velocity" refers to the airspeed at which drag equals weight, and you can reach it going straight up with TWR=2, or straight down with TWR=0. Another real-world concept misused by Kerbonauts. But to answer Quasar: the thinner atmosphere makes your terminal velocity much higher, but that's the wrong question to ask. You can put nosecones on the top and fins on the bottom, and still go to space with a pancake. But the more realistic aerodynamics will drive you toward more realistic designs. I'm enjoying FAR, and I recommend it to those who would like to add a bit of complexity and immersion to the design process.

ThereIFixedIt, but it was alchemy rather than science. Why did that work? Also, what should I do on the other designs I've made with positive Zw?

Now it's time for a lament: I am a mechanical engineer working for an aerospace company. But, I am not an aerodynamicist, and I find there's not a lot of documentation about how to bring an unstable craft under control. The help button and simulations explain exactly what the problem *is*, but not what to do about it. So, how do you decrease Mw? How about correcting a positive Zw?

Again rockets offer an easier solution: ditch your last lifter stage just before your orbit is circularized.Know what's really fun? Staging a plane's wings and main engines, then later reentering on canards and tailfins.

I do wish this thread had more gameplay discussion. Maybe I can help. I started a new save when I installed FAR. My goal is to fill out the entire tech tree, while launching only planes. My working definition of "planes" is that they have almost all of the following characteristics while in an atmosphere: horizontal takeoff, lift generated primarily by wings, attitude control provided by movable surfaces, gradual atmospheric reentry, and horizontal landing. My first few flights were really pathetic rocket sleds, for exploring KSC. Once I invented winglets, it was possible to explore the grasslands, mountains, and highlands. The invention the wheel and the jet engine were huge steps forward that allowed me to reach space, but I have not yet achieved orbit. I will not be able to unlock "Supersonic Flight" until I've done a manned orbit of the moon. Turbojets and ram intakes are a long ways off. Taking this path is teaching me that, for *any* payload size, planes are the wrong way to put it in orbit. They require far more engineering time, the launch is way more complex and slower, designs do not scale as well, and modifications to the payload for the sake of the launch vehicle are more extensive. Even for SSTO, rockets are simpler. A Mainsail on two orange tanks has a parts count of three, and goes SSTO with a small payload. So why build only planes? Not because it is easy, but because it is hard. :-D