Edax

It's really just easier to build an SSTO that can lug the other ship all the way into orbit. Then you can land both ships separately whenever you have the time. (Picture was taken in 1.0.4 when you needed an intake for every engine). Granted, you will need LOTS of engines to overcome the huge amount of drag carrying a second ship will cause, but who doesn't want to build a 17 engine super-plane?

My advise? Aim for the lowerest possible point on Duna, as that'll give you the most atmosphere to work with. You'll want to glide with almost no vertical speed during the last few seconds, and you should aim for a slight upwards incline to minimize bounce.

Toggle the angle snap off.

The only use for the early tech air breathing engine for an SSTO is reentry to safely land it without parachute, but to get to space, it'll have to do it purely with rocket power. The J-33 Wheesley do grant you the ability to fire your rocket engines in close to vacuum, thus allowing you better efficiency, but I've never really found it justified the extra weight and drag of an air breathing engine at early tech.

The Kerbal Way no doubt!

Maybe I'll be the only one who goes against the grain, but I actually recommend putting your landing gear as far back to your aircraft as possible and as far forwards. This makes striking your tail and destroying your engine impossible while taking off and will make landing your aircraft far easier, since your'll have a far easier time having the landing gear touch the ground and begin braking. Also, it makes the aircraft very stable both on the runway and on rough terrain, ensuring the aircraft's parts wont strike the terrain. There are cons to putting the landing gear in the back though, the speed necessary to take-off will be dramatically increased, and if your aircraft doesn't have a lot if pitch authority, it might not even be able to take off, put that is the price of safety. It's also recommended that you use two landing gear in the front, as opposed to just one as you see in most real aircraft, for some reason, just having one in the front causing instability and allows wobbling.

If it's a LF-SSTO, you can just gently land on the LV-N engine bells, then let the SAS topple you over onto your landing gear (this is the simplest and safest technique). You can also zero your velocity just a few feet above the ground and just flip over and land on your landing gear, I've had success with this technique Minmus, Mun and Duna, but there's always the risk of misjudging where the ground is and hitting it too hard and rcs thrusters alone wont overcome gravity, even on Minmus, and vertical twitch engines tend to destroy attitude control from imbalance, so it's not rec commended to use when landing, but they can help you take off. Also, using hills as a take-off ramp is surprising easy since gravity will naturally roll you down to the bottom of the incline, you will need to use slight thrust to turn around on the ground though.

Wait, Jeb outsmarted another Kerbal? That can't be---*gasp* He's under the control of a Ceti Eel! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRTTTTTT!!!!

This is how I test my SSTOs for manned use. Can it reliably take off the runway? This often requires refinement, phantom forces and wobble can kill a design. Can it reach low Kerbin orbit? This is perhaps the hardest part of the test, since it's time consuming and requires fiddling with fuel ratios. I usually conduct this test before putting on the bells and whistles such as science gear, airbrakes and rcs. And can I fly it and land it on the Island Runway? This is sometimes the last test, or the second test, which I run to see how airworthy a spaceplane is. If it has enough control to land on the Island Runway, takeoff again and land at KSC, then I know that this spaceplane can reenter from orbit safely, and can conduct emergency landings if necessary.

Yes horizontal as soon as possible. Be aware though that you will not be able to clear terrain quickly though, so if a mountain is headed toward you on an assent, there's really nothing you can do unless you have powerful acceleration to dodge.

Another simple rule is that when your SSTO is traveling 850-1450 m/s via air-breathing engines is to keep the front pointed prograde as much as possible, as during the phase, the spaceplane will be very sensitive to drag and pitching the plane could cause a large loss in delta-v.

Aww...I like Mort better as a plucky over-worked stressed-out money manager barely trying to hold the space program together with duct tape and underhanded contracts dealings.

Huh? Awfully paradoxical.

Or complaining that your refrigerator can't freeze nitrogen into liquid, or that your rocket engine can't take you to the speed of light.

I like stack separators because you can never attach them on backwards.

Ehh, the partial point I was trying to make was that you can test delta v on the ground with full/empty ore tanks with full/empty fuel tanks with mechjeb to get the delta v values that you wanted.

In order to test the dv of my interplanetary ship that was loaded mostly with ore tanks, I tested it on the launch pad with mechjeb and launch stability enhancers. Mechjeb only measures fuel dv, so I would write down the dv amount, go back to the VAB, remove the fuel, and have the IRSU convert the ore into fuel, until the fuel tanks are full, calculate dv, and remember how empty the ore tanks are. Then replicate the ore numbers and remove the fuel in the VAB, and begin the test again until the ore tanks are empty, and I have all the dv figures, in which I add them all up to get my total dv.

1.25m is my favorite for spaceplanes. I just can't stand the MK2's tendency to tumble uncontrollably and fly apart when pitching up, and I haven't been able to work out how to build a stable MK3 SSTO yet. 2.5m is my favorite for rockets cause it's the size of the IRSU, Lab, Cupola, and Hitchhikers, so it looks cool when the base of the "rocket" is all the same size. Plus the boars exhaust thrust has a cool color. My only gripe is that none of the 2.5m fuel tanks match the Boars engine paint scheme.

Does anyone have the exact statistics on fuel cell vs mining and IRSU conversion? I'm planning a mission to Pol, I've got 6 giagantor solar panels, 3 Pb-Nuks, and 2 fuel cell arrays and plenty of batteries but I only have 2 star engineers and the lander can't move to exploit richer deposits of ore, it can only land in a general area of concentration, so I'm unsure if the fuel cells will actually power the drills for a net profit in fuel. I can use solar power to use the IRSU since that wont turn off when low on power but would I get more ore/fuel just using them to fill up the ore tanks?

My first attempt at filming the launching of a rocket. Was going to be part of my Jool mission video, but since it took me two weekends just to film the launch, I decide to just upload it as a separate video. Comments, criticisms appreciated. Still trying to get the hang of pacing when it comes to firing engines, I don't want my videos to drag on by showing every second, but I don't want the viewer confused at what's happening either.

I choose negative mythological names for my spaceplanes. My first line of spaceplanes was the Diabolus (Latin for Demon.) The Furisoa (Latin for Fury, plus it sounded cool from Mad Max) spaceplane line known for it's excess of engines and the parasite line Valkyria (Named after the game and the Valkyrie.) My LF-only SSTO line are named Morta (Roman goddess of death), and my interplanetary spaceplane carriers are named Nyx (Greek goddess of night). The first ship in the line will have "The" before it, and subsequent changes to the model will have the name, then the model number ex:"Valkyria III". If I have multiple copies of the same model, the second ship will have first letter of the name, then model number such as "V-3" and then be given it's own unique name.

I'd have to say the lack of dedicated moon/planet base parts and the lack of planets (gas giants with tons of moons and rings) means to me that this game still has work to complete on top of the polished this game needs. I'd say 60% is a rough estimate. It's not an alpha, still feels a bit like a beta, and I get the strong impression that a year or two from now, this game is going to be a lot bigger then it currently is.

And here I thought CR-7RAPIER stood for CRAPIER engine. That's disappointing to hear that my pure Lf-only SSTO should have been using Rapiers instead of whiplashes...[h=1][/h]

Jeez, didn't think I'd get so much flak for using a stayputnik...

Maybe a visual aid would help. I need a control-from-here point backwards so that I can use the maneuver point on the navball for the LV-N. I've tucked a Stayputnik in-between the landing gear pointed aft for that purpose, and the only place to fit that on is via strut. I could have put a mechjeb in the cargo bay, but then I'd have to move the monopropellant tank or battery elsewhere, plus I'd having an annoying red/green light coming out of the cargobay.