sloth

I flew a resupply mission to minmus. The idea was to deliver a new and improved lander to a science station in orbit around minmus and bring back the old one. I wanted to do this using an SSTO because I don't know whats good for me. The first thing that went wrong was that when I got there I did not have enough dV to return to kerbin. So I had to ferry fuel between the station and the spacetruck (which does not have a docking port .. doh) using the small fuel tank in the landers. This took a few trips and was very annoying. Then, back kerbin orbit it turned out that my SSTO minus most of its fuel was no longer aerodynamically stable enough to do that whole landing thing that people are always so fond of. So I had to fly up a second ship into the very weird orbit that the SSTO was in and pump some fuel into it to make it balanced. Upon touchdown low ground clearance also meant I lost some bits. All in all it went wrong in the design phase but I didnt know it till the end Went to space though, so thats something I guess. https://www.flickr.com/photos/87741443@N06/sets/72157646290276101/

The most complicated thing ive ever done unaided by mechjeb is a simple mun landing and return. Everything else was with smart ass and the man node planner. (though, to be fair, I'm pretty sure real life spaceship pilots have some kind of smart ass like system and sciencey people that plan burns ahead of time). But i get the impression that mechjeb is sinfull the way it is often portrayed on the forums fortunately, im not losing any sleep over it

Indeed. Aren't cargobays more of a spaceplane/shuttle thing anyway? I always thought rockets mostly shot stuff up in the air with the payload sitting at the top shrouded in a payload fairing.

I dont think its possible to fix with fuel lines alone without adding/moving parts. Another reason why I would like interconnected tanks to drain in order of staging but thats a whole other debate

If you stick something that doesnt feed fuel between the aerospikes and the 400s and then place a fuel line from the 400s to the 3200s and then from the 3200s to the aerospikes, then I think the 400s should drain first, followed by the 3200s until such a time as you ditch the aeros. Does that fix your problem or am I misunderstanding it?

Set updated with second mission (start here http://tinyurl.com/9x59e6a). SETO Mk2 differs from Mk1 in that it replaces parachutes and a decoupler for landing gear. Because meh, screw safety (Achievement: "Screw safety"? ). It all went reasonably well until at the very end old Bill stepped on the brakes too hard and the craft flipped over on the runway at KSP during landing. But, he is on the ground, the craft didn't break and Bill is still alive so mission control is calling it a landing, kerbal style.

Mission complete with SETO Mk1 (Single Engine To Orbit). The brave Kerbal wanted to see the whole planet so he went for a 'roughly' polar orbit. If the staging is to be likened to a vegetable I would say it most resembles corn. The idea is to orbit and expend corn grains as it goes along. After the deorbit burn the leaves at the base of the corncob detach and flutter back down to orbit. The gliding ability of the descent stage allows a minor degree of control over landing after the deorbit burn. After speed has decreased enough by the glider stage the nose is pitched up and the pod detaches to float down on parachutes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/87741443@N06/sets/72157631723767289/ Perhaps a later mission will go equatorial and attempt a landing at KPS.

PeriKee refers to the lowest point of an orbit around Kerbin and exclusively Kerbin.

Completed. http://tinyurl.com/8rkvjws (Flickr) But it doesn't really feel like an accomplishment really. I also think it should be cranked up a notch.

Ive never messed with that mod, perhaps its time I do

Ok so, its far from an exact lookalike but it does sort of look like the defiant right? Cmon, you gotta give me that http://tinyurl.com/9h9v24t (for multiple angles) Sadly it more or less ends here for me. The whole thing is made of fuel and engines so Im fairly certain it could do 2 planet hops (vacuum: something like 17-18 minutes of full throttle burn, delta V slightly over 10k according to engineer mod). However my computer is way too slow to handle a model with this many parts when any kind of propper piloting is required.

If this many people misinterpret what you wrote, maybe the problem is that it wasn't written very clearly Anyway, I see its made clear now in the OP so all is well!! Might have a stab at it later though not entirely sure how to make something saucer-like.

Incompetent? I dunno man, those are some serious highbeams you created http://www.flickr.com/photos/87741443@N06/8056387565/in/photostream I don't know exactly what the lumen on those suckers is, but to have that effect at that altitude .. yeah, alot

Isn't what a starship looks like incredibly subjective? "A certain similarity" isn't exactly a brilliant rule and should imho be omited. I think the reality is that if/when we start building large ships in orbit that never need to enter atmospheres they will probably be big bulky box things. So in my opinion Martonauts design is probably fairly realistic. Saying something isnt a starship because it doesn't look like some fictional starship is rather odd. If anything disqualifies it (and any other vehicle that will be in this thread while 0.17 is the thing) it is that KSP does not currently have other starsystems to visit and as such it is impossible to prove an interstellar capable flight.

I like strapping space planes to a big rocket and launching it at something. Sometimes, landing gear is a nuissance in this case. 1) Is there a way to make a copy of the current landing gear and cfg edit it to start retracted? 2) Is there a way to separate landing gear hotkey from landing legs hotkey? On crafts that have both I would very much like individual control. (3) Are there already mods that do this that I just didnt find?)