Wanderfound

One RAPIER up, one RAPIER down. No staging, no other engines. Just try to figure out the most efficient load-carrying combination of wings and tanks that you can get to orbit and back down again.

This is very basic: 1) Fly an SSTO to LKO (a 70 x 70 or higher orbit) and then back to a safe horizontal landing at the KSC runway. 2) Engine is limited to one RAPIER only. All stock, no physics or part altering mods. 3) Must be crewed, with a cockpit. No drones, no command chairs. 4) Highest ΔV in LKO wins. It's a test of building and piloting efficiency. How much fuel can you hoik into LKO on a single RAPIER? LEADERBOARD Rosvall 2,792m/s Zolotiyeruki 2,766m/s Foobar 2,570m/s ManEatingApe 2,463m/s Wanderfound 1,983m/s

This. Pottering along at minimum throttle on a grounded jet requires very little fuel. You can do it for miles. Try something like this:

The other point is: if you're using a plane, you don't need the rover. Just land and taxi to where you need to go.

The Sci Jr is the problem; it, like most science parts, has a very low heat tolerance. Either hide it in a fairing or cargo bay, or collect the science from it and dump it before reentry.

Like so:

If you've got Kerbal Engineer or similar to look at the ΔV values of your ship... KSC to LKO requires about 3,500m/s. LKO to Duna landing under power requires about 3,000m/s, but you can replace up to half of that with aerobraking and parachutes. Getting back off Duna takes about 1,500m/s, returning to a Kerbin Intercept for aerobraking and landing needs about 750m/s. Build in a bit of slack to allow for piloting imperfections and you're all good. Be aware that Duna aerobraking needs to be done at scary low altitudes due to the thin atmosphere.

Demonstrating the above suggestions re: hydrofoils etc... Water landing is more about controlling your vertical velocity than an issue of horizontal speed. You just need to have a stable, controllable aircraft and practice flying level at extremely low altitudes. A pair of downwards-facing searchlights (Dambusters style) can be useful as an easy altitude reference mark, like this one has: See here for inspiration:

Low-tech budget space taxi. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/tejunadl18mczvn/Twotone.craft?dl=0

Another vertical-stack build: http://imgur.com/a/ZSqot

Given what everybody has said above about console processing limits...your other option is to build for part efficiency. It's entirely possible to make a Mk3 interplanetary ISRU-equipped SSTA with less than a hundred parts. 102 parts on that one, but you could drop twenty from that if you removed the seaplane floats and hydrofoils.

Rule of thumb: you always want the nose as close as possible to prograde, and you want prograde as close as possible to the horizon [1]. However, limiting factor: you don't want prograde to drop below the horizon. So, I'll generally do the 45 degrees at 10,000m thing to get out of the low-atmosphere soup, but from then on I keep the nose on prograde and watch the time to apoapsis. If it's getting too close to zero, pitch up a few degrees; if it's racing away from you, drop back to prograde. A bit of practice and you can get your circularisation burn down to almost nothing. [1] Within reason. I'm talking about the latter part of the gravity turn, not going straight sideways at launch.

Handy on spaceplanes, BTW: That one has a fairing stashed just in front of the RAPIER, stuffed full of low-heat-tolerance science gear.

An addendum: while the Terriers/Poodles/etc are the most efficient space engines after the nukes, they aren't compulsory. Any motor you carry unused is dead weight; sometimes it's better to take the efficiency hit of a lower-isp rocket in order to avoid the mass penalty of an extra space-only engine. For example: OTOH, if I slapped a pair of nukes on that it could do Minmus and back on about half the fuel that this ship uses. It wouldn't have anywhere near the TWR, though.

To demonstrate what is meant by "wide and low" for landers: Or Wide-spaced landing legs, a bit of torque and a gentle landing on the flattest spot you can find.

Air brakes will work on Duna, but they won't slow you very much due to the thin atmosphere. Either use a heat shield or a space plane with extreme AoA for maximum drag. Either way, the periapsis will need to be very low. Duna is easy enough to reach that it isn't hard to take a little extra fuel for a powered capture.

You have more than enough tech to handle this sort of thing. For the satellite missions, just put the satellite (usually just a probe core, radio, solar and batteries plus maybe a little science gear) on top of an FL-T400 and a Terrier. Stick a pair of FL-T800s under that with a Swivel on the bottom, plus enough SRBs on radial decouplers to give it a launch TWR of about 1.5. That should give you plenty of range. For an inclined orbit, timing your launch is important; look at the map screen, and wait until the target orbit passes directly over KSC. Then launch towards it; if it's inclined "up", launch towards the northeast, if it's inclined "down" launch to the southeast, if it's a retrograde orbit launch west instead of east. You should be able to see little moving dots on the target orbit indicating direction At launch, do your normal gravity turn and then keep burning prograde until your apoapsis is close to the altitude of the target apoapsis or periapsis, whichever is nearest in time. Don't worry if you don't get the inclination exactly right; big orbits are easy to fine tune once they're established. Wait until you get to your apoapsis and try to correct any errors in the orbit as you raise your periapsis to match the target orbit. If your inclination is correct, burn prograde. If you need to raise it a bit, burn a bit off prograde, towards normal. If you need to lower the inclination, burn a bit towards anti-normal. Again, don't worry if it isn't perfect. Once you've got a stable orbit established that is roughly the right shape, you just need to tweak it until it's close enough to fulfil the contract (you usually need SAS turned off for a few seconds as well to make it complete). Set a maneuver node on the place where your orbit crosses the target orbit, at whichever of the two places is at higher altitude. A normal or anti-normal burn there (your ascending or descending node relative to the target orbit) is the cheapest place to alter the inclination. If you need to do radial/anti-radial burns to tweak the location of the apoapsis or periapsis, those are best done at periapsis/apoapsis respectively. You shouldn't often need to do that, however. If you're not sure what to do, just go to the map screen, set a maneuver node, then experiment with the node while watching what happens to the orbit. Or lock the ship into normal or radial or whatever, apply a small amount of throttle and watch what happens to the orbit. You should be able to figure out how to make them match once you see it happening. Just remember to do your burns at the nodes etc.

However, for the sake of being helpful: 1) Build a rocket. 2) Launch into a 100km x 100km equatorial orbit. 3) Wait until you see the Munrise. 4) Burn prograde until your apoapsis reaches the height of the Mun's orbit. 5) You should now encounter the Mun's SOI once you get close to it.

Nope. You want enough air to keep the jets at 100% air supply until they reach their altitude ceiling (about 29,500m for RAPIERs); any more is a waste. In early versions of KSP there was an air hogging exploit, but that hasn't been the case for years. My example ships upthread are running two, three and five jets respectively. The first two are fed by a single ramscoop/nacelle combo, the third just has a pair of shock cones. All of them can easily get up to cockpit-melting speed and extreme altitude. One shock cone or intercooler will feed three RAPIERs; one ramscoop will feed two. Any excess intake is just wasted mass and drag.

Specific orbits, for either satellite or rescue contracts, don't require tech: they just need a bit of skill. Once you know how to launch and manoeuvre into a particular orbit, the satellite contracts are actually easier, as the payloads are typically very lightweight and there's no rendezvous involved. For a rescue mission, you need to intercept and rendezvous with the target in a vessel with a spare seat, then bring it back down. Either a two-seater or one + probe core will do. What tech do you have, and what sort of orbits are required? Have you ever done an orbital rendezvous before?

Interplanetary / Grand Tour SSTOs: 1) You need NERVAs. Some folks go for pure LF Turbojet/Nuke builds, but I find that RAPIER/Nuke ships (or RAPIER/Panther/Nuke ships; the extreme thrust vectoring ability of the Panther makes it ideal for off-centre mounting with minimal angling required) are much more versatile and pleasant to fly. The RAPIERs weigh a bit more, but their higher air breathing top speed more than compensates. Additionally, a few seconds of closed-cycle boost is good for getting through the 30-40km altitude region and up into the low-drag upper atmosphere where the nukes can easily finish the job. 2) Fuel mix: you want just a smidgeon of oxidiser to help boost your apoapsis, and then you want to stuff in as much LF as you can possibly carry. Fuel-carrying wings are useful; so are NCS nosecones. If you've got any spare room in a cargo bay, stuff the gaps with small LF tanks. 3) Body shape: you can do Mk1 interplanetary ships, but for a Grand Tourer you'll need ISRU. That means either Mk2 or Mk3. There's nothing wrong with Mk2 fuselages, but you do need to build appropriately: they require wing incidence to minimise fuselage drag. Angle the leading edge of the wing up a couple of degrees so that the nose stays on prograde during the speed run. 4) If you're going interplanetary, that means rough landings. For vacuum worlds: belly vernors for low-g VTOL. For atmospheric worlds: wide-set landing gear and drag chutes for post-touchdown braking. 5) Make sure that everything in your cargo bays is actually recognised by the game as being shielded by the bay. ISRU drills are particularly bad for this; if they're mounted near the edges of the bay the game is likely to treat them as unshielded, and they create a huge amount of drag. 6) You want to crank the speed up to 1,500m/s while below 20,000m (beware overheating), hit the 20,000m mark with as much vertical speed as possible (without dropping below 1,500m/s horizontal speed), turn the nukes on at 20,000m and keep the RAPIERs in air breathing mode until 29,000m. Burn all of your oxidiser after switching mode (save a little if you're using vernor VTOL) and circularise on the nukes. 7) Heat tolerance matters, and you're only as strong as your weakest link. Don't leave low-temp parts like science gear exposed to the airflow. 8) Fuel cell arrays are the simplest way to power ISRU rigs. Yes, they burn fuel, but if you're mining that doesn't much matter. Carry an RTG or a bit of solar to handle power generation when not mining. Fuel cells also double as batteries; you don't need both. Some demonstration ships: https://kerbalx.com/Wanderfound/Kerbodyne-Pathfinder https://kerbalx.com/Wanderfound/Kerbodyne-Aqua https://kerbalx.com/Wanderfound/Kerbotruck-Interplanetary All of those have sufficient range for interplanetary trips. The latter two are ISRU equipped and can go direct from KSC to Minmus, the first wants a refuel in LKO to get the most from it. The latter two are also seaplane-capable, but a similar design without the aquatic gear would work equally well. You'll maximise your range if you strip your jet thrust down to the bare minimum, but it is possible to tour in a hot rod if you want: That one is an oldish ship now; the design isn't as polished as I'd manage these days.

Likewise. The oxidiser capacity of a Mk2 dual engine mount (and sometimes a Mk2 -> 1.25m piece for the nose) is usually just enough to boost the apoapsis up to the point where the nukes can finish the job at zero AoA and low drag. Nuke + RAPIER with minimal oxidiser makes a very nice synergistic combo. The oxidiser comes in handy for Vernor VTOL setups, too; very useful for thin- or no-atmosphere landing.

In very early versions of KSP, yes, but that hasn't been the case for a few years now. No matter how many intakes you have, turbojets will die around 26km and RAPIERs around 30km. So long as you have enough intake to keep it at 100% air supply at that altitude, you have enough; any more is a waste. For a two-jet ship, one good intake is all you need.

That's a good revision, but it's still massively oversupplied with intakes. One ramscoop will feed two jets, one intercooler will feed three. There's enough there for fourteen engines. Swapping out some intakes for tankage and nosecones would reduce drag and improve its range substantially. It also wants a Mk2->1.25m adaptor on the back of the central fuselage.

You'll need to limit fuel types. A RAPIER on LF maxes out at 1,755m/s or so, but if you then flick them into closed-cycle oxidising mode you can continue to accelerate until you burn up or run out of fuel. There have been plenty of jet speed challenges before, and they all inevitably end up around 1,755. It could be interesting to see what folks can achieve in closed-cycle mode... You need to keep heating on to make it interesting, though. Otherwise it's just a ΔV contest. What do you mean by "mesosphere", BTW? Better to give the altitude limit in metres.