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That video wasn't the submission. What he meant was that he has created something lighter craft than what was in the video. His submission was without any photos or videos.

My initial prototypes have the same issue too. Couple hundreds of meters away from the ground it will start over correcting itself. When I pressed F12 I noticed the culprit is the wings of the aircraft messing up the overall aerodynamic. My solution was to put two pairs of wings around the SRBs and the first stage to counter the wing effects from the aircraft itself.

I actually have a whole range of rockets with this capability. Introducing the Kermit 3 family: (P/S: I've just realised the rule says under rocket power only after I've posted this. I guess this means this craft doesn't count.) ... and even this. These orange first stages were designed to return back to Kerbin after achieving orbit. Reason for doing so? I was trying to be frugal in career mode and was inspired to emulate SpaceX. Usually I'll leave about 250 units of fuel (200 units if I'm feeling lucky) for deorbit burn. The landing burn is necessary as even with parachutes the craft still comes down at about 10 m/s. Slowly does it... ... and it has to be a slope. Oh well, perhaps I'll make another attempt at an upright landing when I feel like it.

@Speeding Mullet Thanks for the badge! And on hindsight it does looks like a flying fish!

And Scott Manley videos are the ultimate go to reference for all things KSP

The title says it all: how were you first introduced to KSP? And got you hooked so much that here you are, in the forum, reading this post? In my case, I am a big fan of management and simulation games. At one point I was playing Minecraft and I was on the internet searching for games similar to Minecraft. Came across a website that described KSP as 'The Minecraft for Rockets and Space' and the rest is history. I've been playing KSP intermittently since 2014. My steam account says I've accrued 113 hours (actual number should be higher, considering sometimes I'm offline and excluding the hours I've spent playing the earlier non-Steam versions). Every now and then my work would take me away from KSP up to months, but this is the one and only game that I keep finding myself coming back to.

Here's my entry for K-Prize: Kaiser 4 Kaiser 4 is my first SSTO and it's capable of reaching a 100km orbit with sufficient fuel for docking and returning to KSC. Unfortunately there were no screenshot taken during the ascent as I was too obsessed with getting the ascent profile right. This craft uses purely stock parts, weighs 31t and is capable of returning to KSC without refueling. Below is the album containing more images but the sequence are a little jumbled up.

It does! The craft managed to dock with my space station at the 100km altitude with enough fuel to land back on KSC.

This is my first attempt at building a SSTO. I wasn't ready for how much of a pain it is to build one! The plane itself resembles Blackbird in real life. Since the main goal here was to build a plane that WORKS so outlandish designs would have to take a backseat for the time being.

Done! Thanks for the input.

While I was working my way towards a true SSTO, I made an in-between spaceplane that resembles Dyna-Soar: A spaceplane strapped on top of a reusable rocket booster. Aside from the SRBs almost the whole craft is reusable, with the launch costing only 15,000 funds if landed close enough to KSC. The plane is capable of reaching a circular orbit of 100km above Kerbin (unfortunately I forgot to snap a photo for this!) and safely return to KSC. That's where it can dock with the space station too. Introducing Kaiser 3 Here's the complete album showing the first successful mission.

After I've updated to 1.1.3, I noticed I'm no longer able to toggle the headlights on my Kerbals' helmets. I've checked my settings, toggling light is still bound to the original key (L) but pressing it now does nothing. So I'm left with a Kerbal on Mun who had his headlights permanently on, and other Kerbals who can't use them at all. Anyone faces similar problem?

Finally got the design to work! Special thanks to @Van Disaster, @bewing, and @FullMetalMachinist for the useful feedback! Here's an album of the successful launch:

Previously I've tried to launch a SSTO but to no avail: you just can't seem to do that with low-tier tech. So I've decided to approach the problem with a different solution: a spaceplane on top of a reusable first stage. The design will be similar in concept to Dyna-Soar and Boeing X37-B.

So I've worked on a solution based on the feedback from this post and I've managed to come up with the following craft: Kind of similar to what @Van Disaster did, but the wings ended up in a shuttlecock-like configuration to get the CoL further behind. Tried flying the plane on a jet engine and it works relatively stable compared to the earlier design. But unfortunately it introduced another problem. The lift generated from the wings became much larger, so even the slightest tip of the rocket during takeoff would result in the whole rocket making a 180-degree turn, sending Jeb right back onto Kerbin then to Kingdom Come. Oh well, that's the whole essence of KSP: keep running into walls until we get it right. This is going to take me a while to solve it. Side Note 1: I guess this is why Dyna-Soar, SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo have swept-back wings, to move the CoL further back I guess. Side Note 2: And this is probably why Boeing X37-B has a fairing covering it. The aerodynamics is a pain to deal with during a vertical launch. Side Note 3: @Van Disaster I didn't know a single SRB is powerful enough to launch it into LKO!

Sorry but I don't understand the post. Anyone mind explaining to me? Why is this loop structure important and how is it related to the screenshot?

@bewing @FullMetalMachinist The CoM when it's empty is roughly at the same location.

@Snark I may have found one of the problems. The last I checked in VAB the CoL was right behind the CoM (that was when the plane was vertical). Then when I opened the same plane in SPH again I noticed the CoL is now slightly in front of the CoM.

A bigger landing strut would be great. That way we can start landing first stages just like SpaceX does.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll work on an improved model based on them.

Hi guys, I was trying to design a spaceship/spaceplane hybrid that is similar to Dyna-Soar. I've managed to get it into LKO, rendezvous with my space station and return to Kerbin. It survived the re-entry pretty well, but the issue came right after the re-entry: prograde pointed right towards the ground, and my ship started tumbling like a washing machine. Would really appreciate some help if somebody could guide me on what's wrong with the plane. (I've checked the COM and COL, COL is constantly behind the COM even when the tank is empty. Thanks!

Thanks to @Foxxonius Augustus for the information! Here's a re-post of my Imgur album on my first space station launch. I named it International Kerbal Kiosk (IKK)

A simple and functional space station in Career Mode. I've tried to balance between aestheticism and functionality. <blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/c35vF"><a href="//imgur.com/a/c35vF">Building International Kerbal Kiosk (IKK) - Phase I</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>