Lesbiotic

I am totally fine with there being nerfs to pre 1.0 jets but the ones we have now seem weird to me. I must confess I do not know enough about the subject. I understand that jet thrust lowers the higher up you go but I don't understand how that relates to potential air drag/density. What I've seen in KSP since the update(s) is that the optimal altitude for reaching maximum speed with a jet is right at sea level and any point above that will result in a lower speed which seems weird to me. Do jets in real life work the same way? I was under the impression that the lower air resist at higher altitudes would provide some sort of benefit for airspeed (similar to what we experienced pre 1.0) outside of fuel efficiency/heat. Most of my displeasure with the recent updates are from my idea that a jet plane built for speed would not behave at all like how it does with the current KSP mechanics. That and sea level speed jets are nowhere near as fun to make or fly.

To be fair, ~850 m/s does not really compete with ~2,000 m/s, which is the reason why I made my comment. It's not impossible to go fast at higher altitudes but I do not think it is as easy considering how jet thrust drops off the higher up you go. I'm not yet convinced that the lower air resist scales in a way to match the thrust scaling but I will do more tests to confirm. So far all of my fastest runs have been in the sub 500m altitude range.

With how silly the thrust scaling is on jets now, I'd go as far as to say it's far easier to get high speeds at low altitude than the other way around. The lower the better. Long gone are the days of the ~57km sweet spot!

I pretty much just did a straight shot at around 300 meters with very minor adjustments to optimize aerodynamics. After that run I did another with more fuel and with the minor adjustments to make sure it was perfectly streamlined was able to maintain around 2k m/s (topped out at 2004) until the engines began to overheat which took about a minute or so with my configuration. The extra weight didn't seem to matter at all. There doesn't seem a whole lot to it yet, there's probably ways to go even faster that I have yet to discover.

2,000 m/s status: broken

It feels a lot like black magic how it doesn't explode, everything else I tried attaching, even with my many attempts at shielded heatsinks would fail around 1600 m/s and yet this configuration did not. I did not pick night time specifically to do my runs, my save just loads in at night, but it might have an impact on temps. I am not sure. There probably is a way to get heatsinks to work better, I almost had one working perfectly using heatshields but it just barely didn't last as long as I needed it to. The struts holding the shields would have the heat transferred to them and then explode but it did buy several seconds. I might play with it more as improved aerodynamics should allow for faster speeds.

Well I have topped 1900 m/s with a manned craft. And I reached top speed in under 30 seconds. craft name is Marpesia

Well if we were to judge their power by being able to go from 0 to 1700 m/s in 30 seconds without going higher than 1.5km, I would consider the new jets to be hilariously more overpowered compared to the previous version. Yet they are also much much less useful or fun. I very much hope they get another look soon along with revisions to the heat mechanics. Here I was looking forward to the new drag system and finally having a reason to use nose cones and wings on my speed jets. Much to my disappointment, all my speed planes have been dumbed down to flying pringle cans since the update If both are working as intended I'll honestly be pretty bummed out as speed jets were pretty much the main thing I did in KSP.

I decided to give this a little try, going fast is far too much fun 8732 m/s on my first run. There is huge room for improvement so I hope to see more.

The main problem is that turbojet thrust drops to 0 as you approach 2400 m/s, meaning that reaching escape velocity alone is more or less impossible with jets, regardless of the number of engines used. Doing closed intake jetting at lower speeds outside of the atmosphere would work in theory, but the number of intakes required to get anywhere is completely mind boggling.

Not quite but if you keep up the effort you'll get there for sure. Good work

Considering there hasn't been an update for the Machingbird challenge thread since march and quoted from TheHengeProphet's sig; "The Machingbird Challenge!: A challenge which is now defunct, due to my own magnificent powers of neglect." It would seem we are in need of a replacement challenge thread, or someone to kick TheHengeProphet into updating it again.. This one should do nicely as long as it is maintained and scored fairly. I won't be submitting anything since both of my Machingbird designs do not fit the rules for this new challenge, (the first for no wings, the second for closed intakes and also no wings) and I think I've held that top spot for a long enough time. Best of luck to everyone working on this challenge, I'm eager to see the designs!

I'm pretty sure your plane will be disqualified for being decoupler powered, see; (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/39947-From-the-launchpad-to-the-Mun-in-13-seconds) but I just wanted to challenge what you said here Since it's been like a month since my entry I've decided to share the prototype design I was holding onto the past few weeks while waiting for someone to beat my record Here's the results from the run I did today Orithiya Super Runway beauty pic Runway moving pic Flight pic 1 Flight pic 2 (at speed) Flight log 2418 m/s top speed! Mach 7+ and breaks the 2400 m/s "wall" 100% stock, 100% single turbojet powered, and nothing is modified.

Since I'm a special kind of crazy.. after 15 hours and 15 mins and I finally reached the north pole! I drove all of it at 2x speed I didn't get a flight log screenshot at the end of the first leg of the trip. It didn't occur to me that the logs reset when you load a save and I didn't drive all of it in 1 sitting. I drove from KSC to the north coast on day 1 (roughly 670 km and 11 hours), and continued from the north coast to north pole on the second day(305km and 4.5 hours). The terrain is really rough and combined with the traction issues it's nearly impossible to avoid rolling. If you are to do this challenge I highly advise you make a seriously crash resistant or roll resistant vehicle. Also, it is a good idea to bring a kerbal with you to repair wheels as they get damaged. I must have crashed and rolled at least 30 times, even launching Philmore from the seat on at least a dozen occasions. I lost 3 parts along the way; a headlight, a side panel, and a strut connector, luckily it was only minor damage and my buggy held together the entire time I also cannot tell you how refreshing it is to get to the ice cap and have perfectly smooth driving for the last 150-200km or so after having to deal with 13 hours of mostly hilly terrain and mountain ranges with tons of traction issues making it almost impossible to control. There's no feeling quite as helpless as sliding down a mountain at 45 m/s with no way to slow down without rolling the car and potentially destroying it. Best of luck to everyone! Here's an extra little clip of the funny kerbal mechanics at the north pole

Since I mistakenly thought I deleted my post while trying to add the flight pic I ended up doing a new one of a different run. I had no idea it sometimes takes hours for noobie posts/edits to get approved with seemingly no indication it ever existed! It's the same craft from my original post but has 6 more air intakes Orithyia On runway (moving) Time to pull up! Goin up! Gaining altitude and not crashing into the water! Time to pick up speed Final result! 2377 m/s

Edited my entry with a better flight pic, sorry for the confusion!

My submission to the machingbird challenge: Orithyia Stock, Wingless, wheeless, single jet, manned speed plane Nothing too fancy about the design A little tricky to take off without wheels but it works Off she goes! A proper flight pic (sorry the former wasn't convincing enough) First speed run! But i must try for more.. She topped out at 2377 m/s! I'm sure there's a way to go faster!