Van Disaster

Finished test assembling my Duna station candidate around Kerbin... sadly despite much culling the parts count is still over the lag threshold.

Mods with larger rocket parts ( like KW ) can also keep the part count down in usable figures for larger launchers - similarily for stations if you poke around for large trusses, docking ports etc. I think FAR is an essential, but that's because I build a lot of planes and the default aerodynamics are horrid. Do what you like though, it isn't a competition.

I have a ( FAR ) heavy lifter spaceplane that'll take 25t to Kerbin orbit ( I'm not actually sure how far it'll take it, I never get the same ascent profile ), weighs 74t fuelled but otherwise empty. That's a reasonably old design & I'm sure it could be bettered, but it works and I don't really want to touch it. I very much doubt I can get that fraction of payload in orbit with a rocket... Can't really go much bigger though without combined parts, it's already sluggish as it is.

Well, they're quite good at efficiently lifting cargo, just not very much of it. If you're launching vertically you might as well just make it a straight up rocket, though - the advantage of a plane is using the wings to counter gravity drag.

Exactly what I have been after, thanks! lets me avoid all the awkwardness of trying to fit an extra stock engine.

Yeah, my 75t/25t payload plane has 6 of each engine type ( note - FAR turboramjets ) - 20t is probably quite optimistic for those, they're a bit scaled down from the defaults. My 180t+ tanker has 12 of each .

I considered that when I was doing my spaceplane K17 ( few pages back ), I even got round to trying it a little but the props *really* limit your speed. Eventually settled for something 50s-ish with jets & intakes that look a bit spinner-ish. I'd really like to see a successful prop-spaceplane though...

Spaceplanes aren't necessarily SSTO anyway - I've added ( rocket ) drop tanks to a couple of mine if I needed a slightly bigger payload and had to use the NERVAs as atmo boosters occasionally. That's just like staging extra tanks on your rockets. People are using "PhysX" for "Physics"? that's not just wrong, it's very confusing if you know what PhysX is and aren't aware of KSP's engine details yet. [Edit: Thanks to Arawas for educating me so early in the morning too]

No space today for that one...

Testing out some aero tricks on a way overweight design. Trimming in flight worked rather well, made it to orbit with 4.7k deltaV left, not quite sure where to go next now .

I'd really love a Mk2 cargo bay, if there's suggestions being taken. Doesn't have to be Mk2 sized completely, just Mk2 compatible at the ends, can be swollen in the middle somewhat. Using a bunch of adapters for the existing smaller bay makes for a really long plane. You could just about fit well designed Mk1-diameter bits in there if it was gently bulged, would be useful for satellite launches & dropping tiny rovers and so on.

Mass yes, drag no iirc. Are you losing parts because of violent manoevering? might want to fiddle with the FAR damping settings.

Indeed, I was probably going to shift a fuel tank or two to the tail at some point ( or just get rid of some - I'm not used to judging the fuel capacity of those parts yet ) and just by glancing at it you can tell it is really lacking in pitch authority. Having it shake itself apart during taxi tests was a rather larger worry, given I've had the same problem with other FAR-based aircraft - practically always related to the triangular structural wing segment. If you didn't get that particular problem then I suspect I shall have to reinstall a bunch of things. I've found using the TT wheels cushions impact on the runway enough that you can attach them to the fuselage - I don't like attaching landing gear to wings usually because wings have a habit of bending, which can then steer you off the runway. If we're going to have to strut everything, it'd be cool if someone made some parts with grooves in them that you could run struts through; that way they'd look integral rather than the mess we currently end up with. Either that or just recesses so we can attach struts externally & have most of the strut itself inside the part. I realise that would bump polycount up a bit, but is that a bother with this engine?

iRacing, LFS, also rFactor/rFactor 2. And people still play Grand Prix Legends!

Well, a) it won't get off the runway, if it did it probably needs twice as many engines anyway but I haven't got past structural testing yet, and c) the strutting needs redoing because I'm still working out what needs strutting. I believe the struts are from the KW pack and it has a MJ 1.9 pod & TT wheels, other than that I don't think I added anything. Maybe you'll get the same issue as I have & know how to fix it... Does remind me of some Soviet aircraft, somehow. http://tinyurl.com/d9pksd3

I realise this thing is considerably underpowered, but before 2.5 it just exploded when it was dropped on it's wheels at the start so I left it alone. Now however it's suffering from that peculiar FAR wing flutter issue which just makes it shake itself apart at 30-40m/s. It is strutted although not overly so, but that I don't believe is an issue in this case. The control surfaces are from Taverius' pack, so they should be compatible. Haven't done anything daft, I don't think?

Caveat: I am a FAR user. This is true of designing atmo planes too, but: sort your CoL positioning out before you add any control surfaces other than ailerons ( and the rudder, I guess ), that way they should have the same authority in both directions. Canards can be especially deceptive, if you're not careful you'll balance everything with them acting as wings and you'll have rather reduced ability to pitch up. Don't worry if the SPH shows the CoL forward of CoM once you add them. TAC fuel balancer mod is really useful for larger craft. You can rarely go wrong by adding more wing area. I notice someone's having issues transitioning to space; it sounds like you don't have enough rockets, simply. One nuke per jet is my rule of thumb unless I'm taking two jets just to be symmetrical. Nukes are reasonably efficient in the upper atmosphere so you can use them as boosters with drop tanks rather than add more jets.

I think the "motion blur" is just the low-altitude high speed effect and I just picked a good moment for the screencap. Ferram's mod does make major changes to aerodynamics ( and nerfs jet engines slightly ), it won't affect anything in space or structurally.

I use them as fuel lines, mostly, or grabbing the odd ship that doesn't have a docking port. If I ever get around to constructing something huge at a station ( it'll have to be when we get a multiprocessor game core though ) I suspect they'll be handy for moving things into position, but docked components clip so you can't really hold two things and put them together.

FAR/B9/Taverius' ( Taverius did the B9 FAR aero also ), nice clean design but about limits for FAR mod stuff. I haven't touched stock aero for months, sorry.

First spaceplane landing on Mun did not go exactly as planned ( software error, one rocket didn't fire - how realistic ) so off we go to dig the pilot up.

I usually left it turned off because of the map issue, but after trying Haystack I turned it on again. However having just tried to access a crash site on Mun and finding the debris cut my fps down to about 3 seconds per frame, off it went again...

Hyratel - use negative angles. I've used those as large trim tabs when deploying enormous flaps.

Inspired by Pleborian's effort, tried to build something that didn't want to make you pull your hair out building track. Failed miserably! the track is too parts-expensive to lay many segments, sadly. It's given me lots of ideas for cheaper options, but it's horrendously timeconsuming to test