Samniss Arandeen

This is the AAC Porco Rosso, an SSTO spaceplane currently undergoing its first orbital test flight. Originally scheduled for suborbital trials, CMDR Jebediah Kerman was given permission to perform orbital insertion after powered ascent far exceeded design expectations. Mission Specialist Jiji Kerman and Payload Specialist Bob Kerman are preparing for EVA to examine the spacecraft after the next sunrise.

You hit the Action Group mapped to your Rapier modes and suddenly lose all thrust. Protip: When using Kerbal Engineer or Mechjeb, you have to set the Rapier closed-cycle thrust limiters to zero to get accurate TWR readouts in the editor.

Project Ghibli made a (quite literally) sizable advancement today, with the nearly-successful test flight of Porco Rosso. While originally slated for a suborbital craft trial, the vehicle performed so admirably that the crew were given permission to make an orbital insertion burn anyways.

Tweakable fuels would be amazing, and should be stock.

DOUBLE UP The Kerbal Times-Acceleration, 5 September 2016 Samniss Arandeen, already in the news recently for Project Archer, is already showing progress. After amateur video reportedly showed Arandeen mentioning a "Project Ghibli" in his reasoning for not attending the party, spacecraft enthusiast communities are speculating as to the as-yet-unknown master plan behind the Arandeen Aerospace Corporation. Legendary pilot Jebediah Kerman, reportedly in the midst of efforts to train additional Kerbonauts, reported to us in a Times-Acceleration exclusive report on "a most promising student". Described by Jeb as a curious young soul, the up-and-coming Kiki Kerman accompanied Jeb on the recently-declassified "Project Bowstring" in order to learn the finer points of SSTO spaceplane flight. In addition to gathering valuable flight hours and, for Kiki at least, the experience of a lifetime, the two of them helped collect flight data and observations for Bill's new, larger spacecraft. "Project Bowstring", as it's been dubbed, appears to be research into the characteristics of multi-engined craft and larger airframes. Unfortunately, neither Bill Kerman nor Arandeen could be reached for comment. Jeb's remarks also revealed a glaring weakness in the craft's design. Insufficient battery power rendered the reaction wheels ineffective, and destabilized the ship so badly that Kiki needed to give up on a KSC landing. Fortunately, a landing just west of the nearby mountains proved effective enough, and the vessel was safely recovered along with Jeb and Kiki. Says Jebediah Kerman, "Kiki enjoyed herself up there. I'm sure she can't wait to do it again." Jebediah made sure to include mission photos, which can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/AksFS

Ever notice that spaceplanes tend not to have perfect, balanced 9 LF to 11 OX ratios? Nuclear engined craft also suffer from this as the Nerv now only consumes liquid fuel. This becomes an issue for spaceplane pilots who want to know how much jet/rocket fuel they have remaining. Having Liquid Fuel only shown as one singular "lump" in the resources panel (even with Alternate Resource Panel, whose closest feature is the stage-by-stage fuel bars) means not only precalculating how much fuel I have to react with the oxidizer and how much I have to use on its own, but using the displayed fuel and oxidizer values to do mental math while trying to fly at the same time. That's where this theoretical mod comes in. It's a quality-of-life mod that takes the amount of oxidizer aboard ship and, in real time, computes the amount of liquid fuel necessary to react with it, displaying the Oxidizer and resulting Liquid Fuel stoich values. It also displays any surplus LF amount as its own meter, with low fuel alarms of its own - and fuel deficit alarms if your LF engines eat into the rocket fuel supply. Optional additions may include: The ability to specify exactly how much fuel is allowed to be used by a particular engine or cluster of engines, displaying each as its own meter Forcibly cutting an engine/cluster when its rationed fuel supply runs out Excluding certain fuel tanks and their contents from consideration/display (e.g., because they're payload) Applying the above to Electric Charge and power consumption

Thanks for the invite, but there'll be time to party when we get Project Ghibli done. I'll keep you posted.

ARROW INTO THE SKY The Kerbal Times-Acceleration, 3 September 2016 Arandeen Aerospace Corporation issued a press release today concerning the state of its long-dormant spaceplane program. Having had a spate of failures, layoffs, cost overruns, and eventual departures of many key staff, it was revealed in this press release that AAC lead engineer Bill Kerman had decided to return to the very basics. Using a simple spacecraft, massing just under 17 tonnes, the orange-clad problem-solver was able to enter a stable orbit and land back on the runway inside of an hour. Photography of the craft in flight shows a very controlled and extremely stable flight; the lessons learned from this flight, says Kerman, will be increasingly scaled up as AAC returns to the fold of designing large single-stage spacecraft. The release also revealed the use of advanced avionics produced by Mechanical Jebediah Flight Controls, LLC., which Arandeen states subsidiary Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Co. produces in-house under license. Arandeen refused questions regarding the future of this partnership, but speculation amongst the space community is that AAC will be bringing these rare and expensive flight computers to the masses. With the days of Arandeen's previous craft, Mockingjay and Fletchinder, long past, Arandeen also stated his desire for spaceflight monitoring authority BoolyBooly to pass judgment on Project Archer. "It's a great day to be building [EXPLETIVE] again," he said while KCC officials scrambled for the bleep button. "This hasn't been the best year for [AAC], but hopefully this is sign of things to come." Photography of the test flight has been posted online: http://imgur.com/gallery/m2kdp

I fly a similar but lesser mission to test the craft in all stages of flight. Mun flybys in preparation for a landing. Dummy payloads to target orbit for cargo SSTO. The like.

The first of a craft type gets a name beginning with a "F" or "Ph" sound. Fletcher, Phendrana, Firecatcher, the like. The following ships of the type gain similar names. "Sparks", "Bushwhacker", and "Thunder" are all Fletcher-class craft, for instance.

"SSTO 8-2?" You mean, the USS Overkill?

Deep Space Wedgie!

I'm not a fan of the needle aesthetic, but I can't knock the capability of that cargo SSTO.

My inner child squeed reading that statement. Having actual countdowns in KSP? Not even something to enhance normal gameplay, but that last bit of presentation that got my eleven-year-old self hooked watching the Shuttle launches. You, sir, deserve rep. You managed, in one short sentence, to actually get me to grin ear to ear as well as stir up a well of emotion in me, neither of which happens all that often.

That way, when the relevant stage or Action Group is triggered, the particular action on delay won't happen immediately. Say, for example, I didn't want my spent stage's parachutes to deploy until some time after the seperators finished firing. I'd edit the stage such that the parachutes had, for example, 10 seconds of delay. Also, by tuning different delays of different lengths, events could be more skillfully and carefully choreographed.

Another fan of the linear ports here, I see. I prefer to mirror-symmetry two pairs of two four-ways on the sides at the front and rear of the craft, with linears right beside them. Full 6-DOF RCS. But your approach has its merits. Need I mention the linear has more thrust than an individual on the 4-way? That's a frackin' cool plane there, good job!

Not "in the wild", per se, but I have Skype calls with a friend of mine as the two of us play our respective games. After hearing what must have been days' worth of delta-v and orbital period and TWR calculations aloud, he actually asked me to get him KSP as a Christmas gift this coming winter. A shipmate of mine in the Navy was a casual KSP-er. That's the only "In the wild" encounter of a fellow KSP player.

Craft currently in development: "Fletcher" SSTO, pictured aerobraking.

Meet Fletcher, my SSTO currently in development and flight testing. This was during the fourth of six aerobrake passes to deorbit the craft. This manages to survive a 45km aerobrake from 1585km apoapsis like a champ.

Here's a speedrun: measured in real-time, unlock the entire tech tree.

Screw it, we're going for a Moho mission!

Skipper's useful in Career mode when you don't have the Mainsail unlocked yet. Just cluster some Reliants around it. Concur. The Thud (that big white one) is totally useless. You mean the one that's been a staple of every single RCS I've ever had success with? The one that allows me to use four of them and four of the RCS thruster quads to get full six-axis control? Yeah, "pointless" indeed.

Landing on fumes, dead center of the runway.

"There's no gravity in space" I'd like to see them explain how orbits even work with that statement.

Empire, New Hope, Revenge of the Sith, Return of the Jedi, Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones. That's my best-to-worst, I'll have to see how Awakens plays out.