prgmTrouble

Maybe try a stratolaunch? There could be three parts: the air launch vehicle with the propellers, the shuttle that ferries the payload to orbit, and a station with docking ports for an interplanetary vehicle. I think this might be the best option for this kind of scenario since everything can be reused with a bit of elbow grease and a viable base with ISRU. It will probably be quite an endeavor to engineer such a complicated system, but such is the challenge when designing a fully reusable system.

I thing you should try fewer but larger propellers. If that is too unsightly or causes other problems (re-entry, probably), then I would go for an ISRU solution. If you aren't too attached to the SSTO design, I would even ditch the propellers at the 7km mark since they are worse than dead weight at that point (cuz drag). You might as well attach some science and probe cores to them and make them "deploy-able flying drones" to make it seem less like a cop-out and more like a "feature". Regardless, propellers are very difficult to integrate into rocketry because they increase complexity two-fold (which unfortunately means that there are few real-world examples to copy take inspiration from).

How exactly is it failing? Is it losing power or does it spiral out of control? The first can be solved with larger propellers to deal with the air pressure gradient (see V-22 Osprey for inspiration) and the second could be a problem with fuel consumption shifting the center of mass (need to set fuel flow priority and perhaps alter the wing position). Regardless, I think ISRU is the way to go since you can capture an asteroid on the way out. If you go this route, the propellers can be smaller and you can engage the rockets earlier.

Good to know! I'll restart in a minute

Anyone else getting bugs with the UI text in the aircraft hangar? It says #autoLOC_[numbers] when I'm looking at the parts. It's not a big deal cause it could be my mods, but I'm just curious.

I am really excited about this! I have always wanted these robotics and experiments in the stock game, mostly so I can abuse their physics and colliders

I think of two words that are vaguely related to the craft, and then translate to Latin. I don't know exactly why, but most of the words just sound pleasing to my ears.

Banned for not banning people who are not trying to capture the free hill.

football / football. Your rating depends on which one is American. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor4.shtml

Step 1: Think of a couple words that are at least somewhat related to the craft. Step 2: Translate to Latin. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit.

Granted, Mark Watney caught a rare disease on Mars that caused him to choke when exposed to sunlight. I wish for the knowledge of a wish without negative consequences in the event I find a genie in real life.

a dart board

I'd imagine that it would be the lag. Ships deemed close enough to warrant physics (200m iirc) dramatically increase lag. Source: tried to land a VTOL with moving parts when approaching a massive aircraft carrier. As soon as it crossed the threshold, the game turned into a powerpoint presentation on why this should not be attempted on a potato laptop.

That's some serious torque! Is this for propulsion or lift?

Designing a new (afaik) cockpit design. I am surprised at how easy it was to make the cockpit; I used a cubic octagonal strut and attached the barometers to them, then copied and mirrored the strut to finish the dome. Might tweak it a bit so that it looks less like a sphere and perhaps try to lower the part count.

I have tested the effect that changing the % has, and the higher magnitudes tend to disappear at higher altitudes. For the purposes I was using them for, -500% was necessary. This effect is easily replicated; all that is needed is some plane and an edited control surface placed flat somewhere. When deployed, they should rotate downward. This is not an urgent problem, for I am basically misusing these parts and inserting values that KSP dosen't expect. I'm mostly just curious about why this unusual behavior happens.

Contract 8 Generation 6 C7R - prgmTrouble X-26 Volantis Ala The lead engineer was eating tortilla chips while derping around in the wind tunnel. Spotting the chief of management out the corner of his eye, he quickly placed a chip on the test stand. The management chief did a double-take, then asked "what the actual ████ is a half-eaten tortilla chip doing in the wind tunnel?" Thinking quickly, the engineer explained that he was "testing a revolutionary new stealth triangular aero-manifold whatever-o-tron thingy." Apparently, the chief was so impressed that the project was entered into full-scale development the following week. Download on KerbalX

I am making a custom cargo bay using the FAT-455 Aeroplane control surface by editing the control surface authority limiter in the .craft file (-500% in my case). For some reason, they disappear whenever I retract them while moving at a low altitude. I noticed that they are recorded in the F3 GUI as "splashed down hard" when I retract them over water. When I was taxiing on the runway at ~100 m/s, it apparently overheated at temperatures exceeding those on the surface of the Sun. My guess is that the instant the surfaces stop moving, their physics is updated based on how far the part was deployed. I usually play with a few mods, but I confirmed that this phenomenon still persists with pure stock + expansion. The engine on my plane is also edited, in case that's relevant. If more info is needed, I'd be happy to provide.

Perhaps you're right. I'll try editing the screenshots so I can see what difference it would make.

I'm building a flying wing... It looks a little wonky and I cannot tell why. Any suggestions? KerbalX

I would love to see how much grant money the government is paying out. Perhaps that could be some form of system to evaluate how well each plane met contract criteria... EDIT: I just had an idea: maybe a futuristic contract involving sub-orbital hops? I think some super spicy space stuff would be fun!

Great idea! I'll use this the next time I make missiles!

Some missiles that I like to make are extremely small (as in the diameter of a cubic octagonal strut) and even the OKTO2 is too small. Even with missiles that are large enough to fit a probe core, it is a bit of a hassle to switch to the missile and activate the engines quickly. The mod that you linked does look interesting, I'll probably download it later.

One problem that I had while making an internal missile bay was that unguided missiles did not have enough time to avoid crashing into the ship once fired. Since these missiles did not have a probe core on it, the engines on them could not be triggered after they are separated from the main body. I think that some sort of fuse system could be relatively simple to implement, so a stage or an action group could have a slight delay between different but related events.

Contract 8 Generation 6 C7R - prgmTrouble X-25 Sanctum Silentium The newest generation of super-stealth aircraft were getting faster and even stealthier, and the budgets were being cut almost as fast. However, a miraculous contract from the government fell into the hands of the CEO, which granted the relatively small aerospace company the unique opportunity to choose an UNLIMITED number of parts from ANY dumpster in the nation! Upon hearing this news, the engineering team was so ecstatic that they demanded to start rummaging through junkyards near the government's top-secret aerospace testing facility. After dragging back some prototype engine blueprints, the project was completed in the space of one week. After government agents inspected the plane, it is rumored that the CEO was not likely to get another contract from the government any time in the near future... Download on KerbalX