What’s your favourite rocket type?

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

.....

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Random things no one can identify, definitely.

Also, welcome to the forums guy!

[Zeiss Ikon]

I'll admit, I'm kind of on the border between regular rockets (presumably two or three stages to LKO) and SSTO.  My current standard launcher is a Twin Boar with a 6400 tank on top -- it'll SSTO with 15 tonnes or so of payload, but I usually add another 200 tank and a pair of boosters, each consisting of three 1.25 m 800 tanks, nose cone, and a Swivel, with crossfeed enabled on the decouplers and higher flow priority than the core (modern asparagus).  Some angled  fins or, once I got the tech, Separatrons on the boosters to prevent collision with the core after staging, and I get a 1 1/2 stage to orbit that will easily launch a 2.5 m direct return lander to the Mun or Minmus.  Virtually every mission I've flown in my career since getting the Twin Boar, 2.5 m tanks, and Mk. 1-2 (now replaced by Mk. 1-3) has gone up on some minor variation of this lifter (early Mun landings were on 1.25 m hardware).

HOTOL SSTOs are hard to design, and for my career I'm designing my own rockets from ground up (turned off the "stock vessels" on start); I've flown a few spaceplanes, mainly early Mun flyby and orbit missions, and tourist flights, that launched on a rocket (more like Dynasoar than STS), but with Mk. 1 parts they're hard to reenter without burning up the cockpit, and Mk. 2 is heavy, and I lack even Panthers so far, never mind R.A.P.I.E.R.s -- so just getting a HOTOL to orbit is nearly impossible.

Shuttles (and, I've concluded, other vertical launch spaceplanes) are unnecessarily heavy and don't convert readily to landers for the Mun (though I'm sure my old Taxicab could land on Minmus, if I added a couple drop tanks to get there with enough fuel).

As for "unrecognizable stuff", I tend to avoid it.  If it doesn't look like a rocket or spaceplane, to me, it means I'm trying to launch something that ought to go up in sections.  I've got a nearly full array of docking hardware now (160 tier nearly completed).  The most "non-rockety" rocket I've launched to date was an integrated drill/converter rig for an asteroid I'd captured in my old science save -- rather a bust, after trying to run the converter and drill on fuel cells rather than solar panels for a while, I wound up sucking a 980+ T asteroid with 83% ore dry and just filling five 6400 tanks.  Okay, that's a good portion of fuel when it's already in a high orbit, but having to dock with the mining station to get the fuel made it barely better than just carrying fuel up from Kerbin -- and at that point, the asteroid was a dry husk, requiring either going and catching another, moving the mining rig (which was pretty cranky to fly) to Minmus (where getting the fuel off it without mods would be a PITA), or abandoning the idea of mining fuel until higher tech was available.

[Snark]

My favorite rocket type?

Big, fast, and pointy! 

[DunaRocketeer]

I like rocket SSTO shuttles that are hard to identify .

[SchwinnTropius]

Best type of rocket in KSP? The one that works and allows your kerbals to walk away when(if) they land.

[Urus28]

I like SSTOs, probably because I like science fiction =)

[SpacedCowboy]

1 hour ago, SchwinnTropius said:

Best type of rocket in KSP? The one that works and allows your kerbals to walk away when(if) they land.

Yeah, I like that. Because "Big fast and pointy" doesn't always work.

[Gargamel]

Just to be that guy..... SSTO means Single Stage to Orbit.  Vertically launched rockets can easily classify as SSTO's if they don't stage till after they have achieved orbit.   You might be referring to a spaceplane.....  

[Freshmeat]

Specifically, my favourite launch vehicle is the Raven Vb series, my space programmes answer to the Soyuz rocket. It is a Twinboar with an orange on top of it and four Kickbacks to assist on take off. Takes a Skipper based third stage for 20 t to Mun intercept, and I can fly it to LKO for 3200 m/s even when drunk. I have spent quite some time trying to improve the design, but noting seems to handle as well.

I use spaceplanes for crew transfer to and from LKO, and have recently even done a 36 t payload one, but I haven't got the patience to fly them for routine missions. Space shuttles are interesting in theory, but an equivalent payload of the Raven comes in at roughly the same price and a much higher failure rate (defined as revert to launch). I guess that KSP in this aspect models the current real world in that upgrades to old designs might not be the most cost-efficient way of doing things, but the most reliable.

[suicidejunkie]

On 4/8/2018 at 6:11 AM, Gargamel said:

Just to be that guy..... SSTO means Single Stage to Orbit.  Vertically launched rockets can easily classify as SSTO's if they don't stage till after they have achieved orbit.   You might be referring to a spaceplane.....  

Yeah, the classic 3-parts SSTO (vertical take off, no landing) is simple and fun.  With a launch clamp at the right angle, it can even be a spacebar to space SSTO.

 

Personally it is a toss up between my mining spider and my spaceplanes, so I'll have to go with the random option.

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

Personally, SSTOs are fun, as well as random thingies, but for efficiency, I choose rockets. SSTOs are fun too, although I only use them in sandbox mode. SSTOs are also hard to make low-tech without rapiers and ramjets and mk2 parts, which make them not ideal for science or career modes.

[Adelaar]

SSTOs (with the RAPIER) can be more efficient than rockets, at least when you're using disposable rockets. When you recover (part) of the stages, the tables may be turned.

 

[Jetpackmaniac]

I love SSTOs. There way more efficient than normal rockets, but about all I can do with them is get to Kerbin orbit.

[Mark Kerbin]

I personally like big *bleeping* rockets myself. SSTO’s are even better

[Just Jim]

Oh, I have to go with choice #4 
Random thingies no one can even identify... hehehe

2 minutes ago, Mark Kerbin said:

I personally like big *bleeping* rockets myself.

The official, scientific term for that is BigS rocket... lmao.... 

[Mrcarrot]

Giant robots... but because there's no option for that, #4.

[adsii1970]

Any rocket that will get the payload into orbit without exploding, doing the spaghetti rocket dance, or causing iced tea to shoot out my nose in a fit of evil laughter.

[Mark Kerbin]

17 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Any rocket that will get the payload into orbit without exploding, doing the spaghetti rocket dance, or causing iced tea to shoot out my nose in a fit of evil laughter.

What about  a little wibble wobble?

Edited May 2, 2018 by Mark Kerbin

[adsii1970]

7 minutes ago, Mark Kerbin said:

What about  a little wibble wobble?

A fair enough question... but when the rocket begins to bend like raw pretzel dough... naw, might need to revert and rebuild!

[JadeOfMaar]

My favorite vessel type is SSTO spaceplane. I'm not saying they're the best, but they are what I feel at home with. I generally always build with sci-fi tech too, because I like my planes to reach speeds and provide fuel economies that just can't be done with stock tech and the era that the stock tech and most realism and replica mods are set in.

For me, I have enough struggle building a fashionable plane that can haul any kind of weight and perform well throughout its mission, and I prefer crafts that can use the air to cushion their landings and to some moderate extent have the ability to change where they land, meanwhile, I have no hope of landing a capsule where I want when aerobraking is involved.

[Tyko]

I like the kind that don't explode, experience RUD or crash. The one's the explode followed by RUD and then crash are kinda fun though.

[Lisias]

Anyone that doesn't kills me! :-)

[Corona688]

Random thingies, no question.  I love the lump-strutted NASA space probe look.

[N_Danger]

Rockets, Large Rockets and Large Extravagant Rockets.