Nice'n'easy LF-only stock "interplanetary" Mk1 SSTO

[Signo]

Oi mates,

here we have an easy and full stock (no expansions) LF-only Mk1 SSTO, useful for sightseeing and more. Just 51 pieces, for any PC. Name is CoMF, acronym for "Crack O' Ma Face". 

3 Kerbals on board, dockable, can easily land on minor bodies (sorry for the dark pic of the craft on Mun below). The craft is powered by 1 rapier and 2 nervs and weights more than 35t at take off.

Ascent profile as follows:

eat up all the strip to reach 90+ m/s then pitch 5° till you reach 6000m. At 6000 level to 0° and build up your speed till you reach 15000. Now you should be well over 1200m/s. Pitch 5° again and climb to 19000 before powering up the nervs. The rapier will flame out at 28000m. When your Ap will be around 35000 level to 0° and push until your desired final altitude. You will need less than 100m/s to circularize.

If carefully piloted to orbit you should have around 4500m/s @0.44 TWR to exploit from LKO to reach your destination. I use it to ferry crews around. Cheap trips for your careers.

Action buttons below:

1 - toggle rapier

2 - toggle nervs

5 - toggle bays

6 - toggle solar panel

WARNING: the 80 units of LF in the nosecone are locked and are there as a ballast, so you should use them as your last resort/final approach.

No ladders here, you need to raise the front gear and climb up the wing strake to reach the hatch. 

If you name a dirty trick to reduce atmo drag maybe you can find it here. Nothing really fancy but it works and your F12 overlay will show you. It is not what you really see, but it is what KSP really feels. 

Get the Crack O'Ma Face here (KerbalX link)

 

 

 

Edited September 29, 2019 by Signo
Typo

[Signo]

No love for a SSTO that can go to Duna and back?

No love for such a simple craft that can go to Jool SOI? 

Not even a little bit of love for a craft that can go Laythe - direct (and back to orbit to refuel) that you can actually "fly" there, even from the cockpit, and could run on your mobile?

 

Sheesh, we became pretentious...

[IkranMakto]

That's a good ssto, but community have seen a lot of them since first versions of the game. Also rate system is off

[Signo]

Surely we've seen many. But since @GoSlash27 seems not being around I am not so sure many people can lift 35+t with a single rapier. 

However, nvm. I was just faking a rant as an excuse to add pics

[IkranMakto]

1 hour ago, Signo said:

Surely we've seen many. But since @GoSlash27 seems not being around I am not so sure many people can lift 35+t with a single rapier. 

However, nvm. I was just faking a rant as an excuse to add pics

KSP's aerodynamics is weird. Just align every part and reduce their count as possible - you'll be fine. Wanna make an interesting craft with volumetric wings and cargobay? Suffer  enjoy your drag. 

P.S. Does it worth to spend 15 minutes in atmospheric acceleration instead of adding 1-2 SRBs?

[Signo]

4 hours ago, IkranMakto said:

KSP's aerodynamics is weird. Just align every part and reduce their count as possible - you'll be fine. Wanna make an interesting craft with volumetric wings and cargobay? Suffer  enjoy your drag. 

P.S. Does it worth to spend 15 minutes in atmospheric acceleration instead of adding 1-2 SRBs?

It depends on the settings you are playing your career I suppose. 2k of funds are a good investment for a tourist contract to jool SOI. Do you want to see an infiniminer, a Bat Wing, a Mk3 cargo, a Flying saucer? Do you have a picture of an interesting craft made by you? How much can you lift with a single rapier? You said It Is easy, show us. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by Signo

[IkranMakto]

3 hours ago, Signo said:

It depends on the settings you are playing your career I suppose. 2k of funds are a good investment for a tourist contract to jool SOI. Do you want to see an infiniminer, a Bat Wing, a Mk3 cargo, a Flying saucer? Do you have a picture of an interesting craft made by you? How much can you lift with a single rapier? You said It Is easy, show us. 

A detachable SRB on your craft you just saves fuel, engines, intakes and credits. I made a lot of SSTOs since 0.24.2, but all the screenshots and crafts are gone with my formatted HD and cleared forum s****d***.ru where I posted 2 of them.

------------- upd

Yaay, that site is alive! 

Moar by me

Spoiler

FAR shuttle for 0.25

K-380

Infinite SSTO

 

 

--------- upd 2

I remember the days when nobody used Rapier engine. And I don't understand why you do on LF-only craft.

Edited October 3, 2019 by IkranMakto

[Signo]

27 minutes ago, IkranMakto said:

A detachable SRB on your craft you just saves fuel, engines, intakes and credits. I made a lot of SSTOs since 0.24.2, but all the screenshots and crafts are gone with my formatted HD and cleared forum s****d***.ru where I posted 2 of them.

Shame for the pics. Good suggestion tho. I cannot really save on engines here since I have just one airbreather. Keep in mind that a single Kickback will bring the total weight to 60t so the TWR will be less than 1 at take off. I can not strap them without adding radial decouplers because there are no open nodes on the craft so I will try with a couple under the wings. No more SSTO tho.

 

LF only because of dead weight and autonomy. Rapier on LF only because it is the best airbreather available: top thrust and flame out altitude. 

Rapiers on mixed cycle are thirsty.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Signo

[IkranMakto]

Look at my edited post

[Signo]

7 minutes ago, IkranMakto said:

Look at my edited post

Same

 

With Rapiers in closed cycle you are actually carrying a lot of dead weight. You can lift a lot but your craft is almost "done" just in LKO.

 

 

LF only crafts are a flying tank, anything you carry that is not "payload" is either fuel or a tank you actually need.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Signo

[IkranMakto]

Anyway, for career I definetly would prefer whiplash. Rapier is end-game technology when you just lose interest for playing it. 

Edited October 3, 2019 by IkranMakto

[Signo]

13 minutes ago, IkranMakto said:

Anyway, for career I definetly would prefer whiplash. Rapier is end-game technology when you just lose interest for playing it. 

I can see your point - endgame career is just a sandbox. I forgot to tell you "cool craft".

Whiplash was my first choice but than I had issues in lifting power and top speed. 

I switched to rapiers while fiddling with this one that had several drag issues by design because the nervs where inside the back ramp.

[swjr-swis]

11 hours ago, Signo said:

Surely we've seen many. But since @GoSlash27 seems not being around I am not so sure many people can lift 35+t with a single rapier.

https://kerbalx.com/zedextreme8177/Tholhi-LF-only-long-range-SSTO

Not my craft, just an example. Btw, when it comes to spacecraft, heavier does not usually mean better... more the reverse, since this isn't about payload. The above craft achieves all the same things with less parts and lower starting mass. In spacecraft terms, that's winning.

 

https://kerbalx.com/Hotel26/Four-Of-Diamonds

Also not my craft. Mk1 and same type and nr of engines, but using lower tech parts otherwise. Less total parts and starting mass. Less dV in orbit, but does lift 5 crew instead of 3.

 

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/SX-60L

Again not my craft. Same type and nr of engines, higher starting mass (so yes, one rapier can lift more than 35T). Somewhat less dV in orbit, but arguably more aesthetic mixing advanced Mk2 with Mk1 parts, lifts twice as many kerbals, full RCS capability for docking.

 

1 hour ago, Signo said:

Whiplash was my first choice but than I had issues in lifting power and top speed.

And yet others have made working spaceplanes using Whiplash, Panther, and even Wheesley and yes, Juno. Examples can be found in this forum and on KerbalX, if you wish to search for them.

 

6 hours ago, Signo said:

Do you want to see an infiniminer, a Bat Wing, a Mk3 cargo, a Flying saucer?

Would it surprise you to hear that each one of those has been done and published here and on KerbalX multiple times over the years? I'll spare posting even more links, but you get the idea.

 

TL;DR: yes, nice craft, worthy of publishing and being proud of. Clean lines, KSP-optimized drag, relatively low on parts - all things I like. There's things I would do different or change, but that's all a matter of personal design priorities or preferences.

Just know: KSP has been around for a good nr of years now, with a lot of pretty creative people working the same problems with a limited nr of stock parts. When optimizing, many similar solutions tend to come out of that. Odds are stacked quite high to find that it's been done before, or better, by multiple people. Most work doesn't even get published anywhere. I only publish sporadically myself - the time it usually takes me to gather screenshots, record a movie, edit, and post it all is often a deterrent for me when I prefer to play (or more likely, keep tinkering on the design).

No less achievement for you, and keep sharing, that's what KerbalX and this forum are for.

[Signo]

@swjr-swis:Never wrote anywhere this was a "first" in any field. It is a craft that I built while commuting that does not need a 250k$ rig to fly. And man, I read many of your threads around here and you go like "not my craft" "not my craft either" and so on. I am impressed. Should I answer with Manley's videos?

This community does not feel like a healthy one anymore: it feels like a safe space for people playing with miniponies. I hope people around here enjoy their soy milk. 

Goodbye.

EDIT: Just in case, I first published this craft on a "country" forum in 2016. Just for your love of "firsts".

Edited October 3, 2019 by Signo

[swjr-swis]

3 minutes ago, Signo said:

I read many of your threads around here and you go like "not my craft" "not my craft either" and so on. I am impressed. Should I answer with Manley's videos?

This community does not feel like a healthy one anymore: it feels like a safe space for people playing with miniponies. I hope people around here enjoy their soy milk.

I am confused and do not know how to take the above. Took quite a while editing that post to make sure I did not discourage you from sharing your craft, but that closing phrase sounds like I missed my target. I expressly avoided answering with my own craft and took time to search for examples from others as it seemed more appropriate.

In a rather ironic way, you seem to be right about some people here needing a safe space - I'll rethink hitting the reply button next time. I do hope you're wrong about soy milk though, it's awful.

Peace and rainbows and stuff.

[Robdjee]

On 10/1/2019 at 11:57 PM, Signo said:

No love for a SSTO that can go to Duna and back?
No love for such a simple craft that can go to Jool SOI? 
Not even a little bit of love for a craft that can go Laythe - direct (and back to orbit to refuel) that you can actually "fly" there, even from the cockpit, and could run on your mobile?

 

be quiet and take my love! (auto-edited Futurama reference)

Serious: awesome design!

Edited October 21, 2019 by Robdjee

[Laie]

On 10/1/2019 at 11:57 PM, Signo said:

No love for a SSTO that can go to Duna and back?

of course. Always.

*cough* SCNR *cough*

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Laie

[Signo]

@Laie I forgive you just because it is you.  

Moreover with 1.8 you have a lot more d/v to spare but you almost can not re enter. So now this craft of mine is a piece of "you know what" at least until next patch.

@Robdjee Lovely quote. I am currently puking pearls.

@swjr-swis Sorry for being rude, I brought to space some IRL stress.

[swjr-swis]

3 hours ago, Signo said:

Sorry for being rude, I brought to space some IRL stress.

No worries. Stress has certainly gotten the better of me a few times too, it's a sneaky one.

 

3 hours ago, Signo said:

So now this craft of mine is a piece of "you know what" at least until next patch.

Yeah give them some time to fix whatever the engine upgrade screwed up with the drag cubes. No point making changes that will just be invalidated in the next patch or two.