Lt_Duckweed

This is an example of a 90/10 technique. 90% of the result for 10% of the effort. The lift to drag curve absolute peak when supersonic is remarkably shallow and broad. l/d ratio absolute peak is at an AoA of 3.81 degrees at Mach 2.5 Using a value of 5 instead of 3.81 degrees nets you a loss of efficiency of... 3.46% 5 vs 4 degrees is a loss of 3.33% at Mach 2.5 5 vs 4 degrees is a loss of 1.95% at Mach 6 So yeah, if that 2-3% is super vital, one can feel free to faf about setting up 4 degrees, but most of the time, it just isn't worth it. For what it's worth, I often opt for slightly more wing area at a lower AoI for the superior landing flare and pitch up handling (5 degree AoI with 3 degree flare = 60% more lift, 3 degree AoI with 3 degree flare = 100% more lift)

SMH no Minmus assist.

The poodle has a one bell variant

Once supersonic, lift to drag ratio stays fairly constant, only dropping maybe 10-20% from Mach 2.5 to Mach 5. You cover twice as much ground per second, at only slightly higher fuel cost. In addition, the closer you get to orbital speed, the less you feel the effects of gravity, and the higher you are, the weaker gravity is. Together, this means going as fast as you can, as high as is reasonable, reduces the amount of lift you need to have to continue flying. Since lift to drag ratio is relatively constant, this means less drag as well. End result being that with whiplashes or rapier engines, the most efficient speed and altitude is as fast as you can as high as you can.

While this is technically true, there is a way around it, using messenger assists, also known as a Vinf leveraging manuver. on your first encounter with Moho you simply fly past, bending your orbit slightly radial in/out (if you are coming in tangent which way only matters in terms of lining up your future periapsis with Moho's pe). This reduces both your periapsis and apoapsis somewhat. Then, at apoapsis, you raise your periapsis such that your orbit and Moho's orbit are once again tangent at their intersection. Then a few orbits later you encounter Moho again. The amount that your Moho relative velocity decreased by will be significantly greater than the cost of the pe raise. From an Eve flyby, a fairly optimal set of flybys is 5 flybys with 5 dsms and then a final encounter and capture burn. Done this way, you can reach low Moho orbit from an Eve flyby in under 600 m/s

In terms of game mechanics, no, they don't really serve any purpose. They just look nice.

Today, I flew a very small ssto to Duna and back. As far as I am aware, this is the lightest flown Duna ssto.

This is actually the issue. Deeper in the atmosphere = higher atmospheric density Eve = higher pressure, CO2, both mean higher atmospheric density Eve = higher gravity, meaning you need more lift to fly, so for a given speed you must fly in denser air than on Kerbin Eve has 70% more gravity than Kerbin, so you need 70% more lift, which means, with the same plane, roughly 70% more drag. This means 70% more thrust, which means 70% more torque needed. If the torque needed is higher than the rotors can supply, the rpm starts to bog own. The inconsistencies of KSP building can mean that the two rotors have different torque to thrust ratios, so one bogs down slightly earlier

If you tie thrust limit to a axis group, and then turn on fine adjustment mode with caps lock, you can get very very fine grained control, allowing you to use a very very small thrust limit.

The mod CorrectCoL is useful for many other things, but it has one esoteric use that is likely unintentional. When you update the CorrectCoL window with a new altitude and speed setting, all the parts on the craft update their debug data as if they were actually traveling at that speed and altitude, even though you are in the SPH. Though for whatever reason it always simulates as if the airflow is coming from the left of the root part, so to get accurate values you have to rotate the rest of the craft 90 degrees to the left relative to the root part. It's the only way I've seen to do anything like what you are looking for.

Sounds like you are on 1.12.1 or 1.12.2 In those versions autostruts could not span across docking ports, thanks to unlocked rotatable ports technically being robotic parts. In 1.12.3 docking ports are locked by default, and autostruts work as per normal.

Too long has stock Kerbol gone unloved. No longer will it sit at the center of the solar system, ugly and drab. With new high resolution textures, Scatterer support, and custom light curves, BetterKerbol attempts to remake Kerbol as eye candy worthy of pretty screenshots. Towards this end, the radius has also been tweaked by an imperceptibly tiny amount, to get around a quirk in KSPs engine. This change does not effect the orbits of the planets, as Kerbol's mass is unchanged. Experience the searing light of Kerbol as you approach the corona, or watch is it dims to a pale flicker as you travel beyond the orbit of Eeloo. Additionally, for those who desire a more realistically scaled Kerbol, that better aligns with stock scale, a optional patch is provided to reduce the radius of Kerbol by a factor of 4.24x Changelog v1.0.1 Fix optional rescale not applying Clean up readme Features Base 8k Photosphere and Corona textures A visual surface that aligns with the true surface, opening up the possibility for spectacular close passes Scatterer configs for close up corona glow and sky tint when in the Kerbolar atmosphere Custom light curves for starlight that realistically changes brightness with distance from Kerbol Optional Reduced radius by 4.24x, bringing Kerbol into line with the 1:10.63 scale of the rest of the Kerbal universe Notes Due to a long-standing bug with the way KSP calculates solar heat, temperatures near the surface are extreme, with radiant power density approaching infinity! Bring your exploit shielding or it's a one way trip! No sunflare is provided. If using Scatterer, pick your favorite sunflare mod, personally I recommend Sunflares of Maar. This is my first Mod, pls be gentle. Gallery Download https://github.com/jamespglaze/BetterKerbol/releases/tag/v1.0.0 Installation Base Extract the zip file Place the GameData folder into your KSP directory Optional - BetterKerbol Rescale Open the Optional Mods folder Place the GameData folder into your KSP directory Provided Compatibility Scatterer, v0.0831 Requirements Kopernicus (latest version for your specific version of KSP, or latest backport release for older KSP versions) ModuleManager 4 or newer Recommended Mods Sunflares of Maar Licensing BetterKerbol is licensed by Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Not to toot my own horn too much, but if you want to learn nor about how lift and drag is calculated, and how wings work in ksp, I highly recommend you check out my 2 videos: Then, you will want to check out F00FlGHTER's ssto tutorial: Between the 3 videos, you will get a pretty solid understanding of how the KSP aero model works, how to optimize for it, and how to implement those optimizations into a spaceplane ssto.

One big-s wing is .5 tons, 5 wing area, and 300 fuel storage. 5 big-s strakes is .5 tons, 5 wing area, and 500 fuel storage. In other words, each pair of big-s wings that you replace with 10 strakes saves you the need for either: 1 mk1 tank (250kg dry mass) or 8 mk0 tanks (200kg dry mass) Another way to think about it, each strake replaces 2 mk0 tanks (the absolute best liquid fuel tank) so it is essentially 2 mk0 tanks (50kg) + a half mass wing (50gk per area instead of 100kg per area)

You can change the number of engines the engine plate can hold, up to 8+1. Any engines attached directly to the plate nodes are shielded from drag while the engine plate shroud is still attached. The engine plate is a decoupler. It's a multiadaptor, interstage fairing, and decoupler rolled into one part. If you need to mount a cluster of engines, for example nervs, they save on part count, and can save on mass as well, depending on what exactly they are replacing