Autopilot for SSTO´s???

[Enki3l]

HI

i interested, if there is something of Autopilot for SSTO´s?

Everytime i Droop´t the Cargo (Space Station Parts) into Space, i have to Fly Long and Boring Way back. Is there a way to do that Automatically?

 

THX Enki3l!

Edited April 5, 2016 by Enki3l

[Foxster]

You could return your SSTO to Kerbin rocket-like. By that I mean design it to be able to easily manage a re-entry (air-brakes, heatshield, drogue 'chutes, etc) and then deploy some 'chutes. Land anywhere and "Recover Vessel" it.

[Enki3l]

The Prob. isen´t to com to Kerbin! The Flight itself are Long and Boring! And sometimes i Burn into the Atmosphere....

[Foxster]

5 minutes ago, Enki3l said:

The Prob. isen´t to com to Kerbin! The Flight itself are Long and Boring! And sometimes i Burn into the Atmosphere....

Oh, you mean the flights to orbit are long and boring?

[Enki3l]

Nope! The way BACK!

A Buton to Recover the Vesel from Space ore somting....

Edited April 5, 2016 by Enki3l

[Blaarkies]

well, if your SSTO's has a high success rate...you could just use Hyperedit and do a dice roll(like throw real life dice at your keyboard) to simulate the 1/12 failures, or whatever number better suits your success rate. Yes Hyperedit is cheating, but only if the end result is better than you have done many times before...but then, where do we draw the line on this?

[Foxster]

To help avoid  burning up, try pitching the craft up at 45° or more during re-entry. This will expose more area and lifting surfaces and slow the craft quicker. 

If you take along enough parachutes then once you are slowed enough then you can just let the craft tumble as it likes and then deploy the parachutes below 200m/s. No flying needed.

[FancyMouse]

That's why I always design my SSTO plane to have a relatively high TWR - just to minimize my launch time. I don't care too much about less engine mass or those kind of thing - hey they're going to be recovered 100% anyway.

[KerikBalm]

Do a VTOL SSTO airbreathing/rocket hybrid if you don't care about 100% recovery... I can get them to splash down/land close enough to get 90% recovery.

Last night I tried this, but came in shallow.... nearly scraped the mountains west of KSC coming in... nearly overheated the main engine... and then landed in the foothils of the mountains on too steep of a slope and the craft tipped over... quickloaded and went to bed.

I'd second hyperedit... but I've noticed some weird behavior with hyperedit, at least with Kopernicus (for the OPM mod) installed... somehow, hyperediting to the surface of duna from the surface of kerbin screws up duna's rotation... it becomes no longer tidally locked to Ike, and the solar panels don't have the right exposure... they generate power at night, but barely any when the sun is directly overhead... and other weirdness... since I found that out, I'm glad I didn't use HE in my career save, and resolved to not use it for "fast" SSTO recovery.

Besides... sometimes a new SSTO design does everything except land... I made a really long cargo SSTO (two of the large cargobays, back to back)... and was sure that if I wasn't careful and didn't land it very softly at a low attitude, that the fusalage would snap in half on landing... I wouldn't HE that back anyway because it was an unproven design.

Here's what I mean:

exposue 0.33? look at the shadow... that should be darn near 1.0 sun exposure

How is this 0.26 exposure?

0.07 sun exposure, are you kidding me?

It only happened when I hyperedited there... When I send a craft there "legitimately" (Ok, I did cheat fuel to get there faster without designing a more complicated craft), solar panels/sun exposure worked fine, and duna remained tidally locked to Ike...

So... I don't know under what exact circumstances it happens... but hyperediting can screw things up... somehow... I'd recommend against it in a "serious" save.

[Blaarkies]

@KerikBalm You actually hyperedited from surface to surface?!  Thats confidence. I have seen too many burning up stuff when trying that, so if i have to, i hyperedit to Kerbin orbit, then to Duna orbit, then to surface.

To be honest, I don't use it for recovery...I just save my sanity from bugs.
Those kind of bugs where you reach your mining base and it suddenly overheats and explodes when it reaches the physics bubble? hyperedit a duplicate craft there.
Or those where the space station scatters into pieces after the most gentle docking(bit tedious to redock all the modules even after hyperediting a duplicate).

I am tempted to use it when pre-planned slingshots shows I will hit the final planet but by the time i reach the SOI the physics engine decided to miss that by a 100Mm...but I have to draw the line somewhere

[KerikBalm]

Well, I HE'd from surface to upper atmosphere of duna, to surface... but yea, not orbit to orbit.

If I recall correctly, I also noticed it HEing to duna orbit and then to the surface.

I'm not sure if it happens in stock, or if its something to do with the planet editing mod I have for OPM. It was really frustrating because I had also started editing Duna to give duna oceans and a bit thicker, oxygen rich atmosphere... and ike was no longer tidally locked, and the solar panels were all funky, and I couldn't figure out how I'd changed that... it turns out the problem was my HEing over to duna for testing

Shamless plug because I'm honestly surprised no one has done this to duna before, especially with all the renderings out there of mars with oceans... personally I got the desire after watching John Carter of Mars:

 

[Enceos]

@Enki3l It's actually very easy to speed up the process. Deorbit burn, fast forward till you reach atmosphere, use MechJeb's SMART A.S.S. custom surface mode to pitch your nose up to 40° (or something your plane is designed for) and hold it, deactivate your control surfaces to avoid physics warp wobble, use the Better Time Warp mod to increase your physical warp speed to 10x instead of usual 4x. And you'll be in the vicinity of KSC in 1-2 minutes.

[Enki3l]

OK

Thx to everyone! I Never Imagine´t, that my Qustion Produce such a big Wave...

I will try some things. The Smart A.S.S. sounds good. But i found on Spacedock something like a Fligt Recorder.

I say it Clerly... Craching or Parachots are not an Option! I Want to Recover my Kerbals, and my SSTO!!!

My SSTO´s are ale made withe OPT MOD. With K Part´s. Almost 50m Long.

I Wil Try everyting and will Tell you.

thx Enki3l

[Vanamonde]

Not in stock KSP, and therefore your question has been moved to the modding section.