Baneblade

My Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) space plane with the Mün and Minimus in the background.

Further off topic: Read Dune. Classic Sci-fi.

Last I checked, oil rigs were mounted to the sea floor by support beams and oil pipes. Kinda immobile in that sense. However, a water-based launch platform is a very good idea.

Don\'t destroy the Shield Wall! You\'ll let all the sandworms in! ???

Despite my lack of spaceplane (or normal plane) design experience, I decided to try this challenge after seeing the Dreamchaser SSTO spaceplane on the spacecraft exchange. Thus was christened the TASD SSTO-SP 'Icarus'. Following several design iterations just to have a successful takeoff, my first orbital flight was white-knuckle the whole way. A slight construction fail meant the fuel drained from the rear tanks first, which made the whole plane nose-heavy. This is especially fun around 30,000m, where ramjets or control surfaces are no help to the slow pitchdown. After boucing twice between 20,000 to 35,000m I finally boosted into a 70km circular(-ish) orbit. Not one orbit later, I decided to deorbit. Despite my totally uninformed guess, I still managed to land on the same continent as KSC. Only clipped two of the engines on the first successful landing too. ;D Pictures for the picture god: A sudden design idea prompted me to swap the attachment point for the side fuel tanks to the back tank, which fixed some drainage issues and generally made the flight very enjoyable the whole way up. Managed to get into a 150km by 70km orbit with half a rocket tank to spare (hadn\'t even touched the main body tanks either ???) Still haven\'t figured out how to land without clipping some engines. Shut up Bob, you\'re alive. That\'s what matters, right?

Going back to the music jokes: What\'s the difference between a violin and a viola? Viola burns longer. How do you prevent a violinist from drowning? You take your foot off his face.

This is one of the most practical looking spaceplanes I have seen yet. Very nice job! I decided to try it myself and designed a similar looking craft. It is a bit larger, but manages a bare orbit with around 400kg of fuel left (even with terrible piloting). Despite my utter lack of knowledge in the building, flight, and de-orbiting of spaceplanes, my journey was somewhat successful. Following several design iterations just to have a successful takeoff, my first orbital flight was white-knuckle the whole way. A slight construction fail meant the fuel drained from the rear tanks first, which made the whole plane nose-heavy. This is especially fun around 30,000m, where ramjets or control surfaces are no help to the slow pitchdown. After boucing twice between 20,000 to 35,000m I finally boosted into a 70km circular(-ish) orbit. Not one orbit later, I decided to deorbit. Despite my totally uninformed guess, I still managed to land on the same continent as KSC. Only clipped two of the engines on the first successful landing too. ;D Pictures for the picture god:

I told a chemistry joke. But there was no reaction! :

Really amazing ideas, Nova! Just waiting for more sexy Space Engine screenshots of our new system...... BTW Ralph and Ralph Jr. are my favorites

My thoughts exactly. But you have to remember that even when you make something idiot-proof, Nature herself invents a better idiot. Another sobering fact is to look at the average intelligence. Average. By the very definition, half of people are smarter, but half are less intelligent. Just some perspective from another 16-year-old internet kid.

You must remember, Kroot have NO armor save without a Kroot Shaper. None whatsoever.

The way you capitalized Fun made it seem very.....http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Fun Back on topic, placing jump jets on the Big Track isn\'t enough to make the dev satisfied!? I\'m curious already. 8) Also, I think having jump jets negates the need for any other !!SCIENCE!! instruments on-board.

Squats?= (40K inside joke likely to get you kicked out of a GW store)

Not the first one to say it, but 'If Eldar could win the game before the first turn on a roll of 2+, they\'d still whine about not getting re-rolls.' Eldar FTW.

<engineer voice> How\'d that plan work out for ya, dummy? </engineer voice> Chaos is good at close quarters combat, with daemons brutally effective at ripping through space marines and the like. However, the Chaos space marines are stuck with pre-Heresy (Mk5) armors and tech, which is not always quite up to par with Loyalist Chapters (i.e. the best armor, MK4! 8)) To each their place, I guess.