Captain Vlad

Congratulations, man!

That's...considerably less of a headache! Thanks. I'll send her up again tonight.

She takes 15 minutes to get to orbit with that payload (more than I usually fly with her), and I kept having to remember to take screenshots the entire way. There was no way, no WAY, I wasn't going to post all of them. So just for clarity, to get the payload credit, I need to fly it up, decouple, redock it back to the ship, and then fly it back down?

Other spaceplane tips... 1. Make good friends with your action groups panel. When I first started tinkering with planes I realized how rocket-oriented staging was and how maddening trying to click on an engine to turn it on and off was. Have 'push to' buttons for turning your engines on, off, closing inlets, etc. 2. Flight profile is everything. Early on, you may build a nice bird that you can't get into space, then weeks later learn a different way to fly it and find it'll make orbit with plenty of fuel to spare. The basic SSTO ascent profile is thus: 45 degree climb until 10-15,0000 meters, level out as much as possible and keep climb reasonable until your engines simply cannnot suck any more air and your speed is near-orbital, then pitch up to 45 again to set at least a 70K apoapsis. Then circularize like any other craft. Some designs you make might be able to use a much simpler profile, or some might not be capable of the basic profile (usually the last pitch-up) but can make orbit anyway...but that seems to be the 'basic' idea. 3. Problems you will most likely have: running out of air before you're high/fast enough, loss of control (especially spins) at high speed/altitude, loss of control on re-entry with nearly-empty tanks. There's multiple reasons for all these, but all are very solvable and people here are usually happy to help, so just ask specific questions and you'll likely get either specific answers or requests for screenies so they can analyze your ship in detail. 4. Download Kerbal Engineer. Having actual numbers instead of guesstimates for your thrust/weight ratio is a God-send. It doesn't alter anything about the parts your using, it just gives you more information about your plane. It's so unobtrusive even I use it, and I'm an old fuddy duddy about most mods (that seems to be changing...). 5. Listen to everything other posters have said about Center of Mass and Center of Lift.

Well, here goes. This is the RO-1 Torpedo. My orbital truck, which turned out to work way better than I expected. I decided to show off her payload capabilities for this flight and put a 4.5 ton fuel tank in the cargo bay. I'd hoped to get it to orbit and then back to Kerbin for that 'land the payload' accolade, but alas, the landing didn't work out like I'd hoped. Here she is in the hangar, with her vital stats displayed, and the arrangement I used to hopefully keep the tank secure and to keep the center of mass more stable. Take off is a little hair-raising with the tank, which weighs more than the cargoes I usually haul in her. She's got a vernor thruster under the nose to help lift off earlier, but with a heavy load, it doesn't help so it was actually off for this flight. This is the Torpedo on her orbital ascent. While I use all three engines in air-breathing mode to get her to around 30,000 meters, the fuel in the wing tanks runs out around the same time I get my apoapsis up where I like it. This works out, as by that point I don't really need them and use the centerline engine to finish off my orbit. She can make a 150,000 orbit while carrying a payload of this size. The delta-V there seems a bit low...using the RCS thrusters I didn't have any trouble arranging a landing point at KSC, but I did run out of oxidizer well before the LF was gone, so that could be it. She had jussssst enough fuel to do a fairly soft landing. The problem was I lost the cargo...it clipped through the bottom of the cargo bay on impact and exploded, which frankly scared the hell out of me. I didn't think to take any screenies of the fuel tank in the cargo bay during the descent, so if I need to establish that I didn't use the gas, I can always take her up again. Overall results: Took off with 4.5 ton payload. Reached 150,000km orbit with payload. Landed on runway. Any thoughts on how to keep the bay-clip thing from happening would be appreciated...I thought the modular girder sections would do it, but alas, no.

I was fiddling around with my little 'fly for fun' jet last night and switched its basic jet engine with a turbojet and ended up in a vertical climb and a apoapsis of 72,000 meters. Figured a Rapier and a different fuel tank would put her in orbit. I was correct. Weight at launch is 5.2 tons. Made a 100,000 km orbit and landed back at KSC on about 17 (whatever fuel units it uses) left, so not really a 'to the Mun' type of plane, but still...kinda happy with her. She's all stock, with no clipping (not that I care about clipping; everyone else just seems to like to specify). Edit: Forgot to get a map view shot...is the one with the Ap/Per data displayed with Kerbal Engineer sufficient or should I fly her back up again?

I'm still getting used to the gizmos, and that sounds like a handy trick. I usually place them 'by hand' and sometimes I'll put them on the outside or inside of things for more or less height off the runway then manually adjust. Thanks. This plane has some of the more unusual runway behavior I've seen. When I first start to accelerate, it'll turn to the right, but fairly gently and I can turn back to 90 degrees if I do it gently and it'll stay once it gets up to speed. I tested it at 1/3rd throttle and if I keep the speed low the instability gets worse and worse. That's why I wasn't terribly worried about it at the moment, since my usual gear placement trial and error involves flips and explosions. Like I said, tends to be the last thing I 'perfect'. Also, after a test flight just now, gonna mark this one as answered. I did adjust the wing some, but I feel the intake advice was what really helped; high-speed/altitude stability is worlds better (though I did manage to find its limits...). The help is much appreciated. I built a cargo SSTO awhile back and it works very, very well for me. This design is sort of a shortened version of that plane. But the cargo bird has a reaction wheel on the nose...I think I may add one in the same spot on this plane and see if that helps too... Didn't in the first place as I wasn't going to lug space station parts into orbit with this one. - - - Updated - - - Update: She did make orbit. She didn't have as much fuel left as I'd wanted, but I may be able to change that with some alterations in flight profile. More than enough to meet up with my space station, though.

I hadn't thought of that. I have an OCD tendency toward symmetrical inlet arrangement that I didn't indulge on this plane...it may've been helping my other designs without me knowing it. I'll fiddle with the intake/action group arrangement and see if it helps...I suspect it's this and not the wings given it's always happening at the precise moment I switch to closed cycle. I have the 'close intake' button mapped to a different key, too, which might be aggravating the problem. I'll fiddle with this and the wings and see if I can get her into orbit. Thanks. Thanks for the heads up on the rudder, too, I have a tendency to place it and forget it and not notice it's misaligned until the third or fourth mission. Don't get me started about the landing gear, I have a hell of a time getting them straight (it'll roll down the runway...sort of straight. Getting perfectionist with the wheels I save for last cuz I've been known to fiddle with it over an hour.)

Been fiddling with a Rapier/Nuke engined SSTO tonight and I've having a problem. The plane's a wee bit underpowered IMO, but if I manage her climb angle she can make speeds/altitudes that I shouldn't have any problem turning into a successful orbit. But, when I get to the point where I switch my Rapiers to closed cycle, the plane's nose will start to pitch up and it ends up tumbling end over end. I'm usually toggling the engine around 1,600-1,700 mps at 28,000 meters or so when I hit the button. My first instinct is 'center of mass issue', but fuel use doesn't seem to be moving the center of lift ahead or in-line with the center of mass, and the center of thrust looks to me like it's lined up fine with the CoM. I've got all kinds of stable spaceplanes, and don't know if I'm missing something or if this is actually some problem I've never encountered before. Any assistance would be appreciated...it's driving me nuts.

I voted for the aerodynamics, which I know they're changing, though I don't give too much thought to the current air densities. Anything that improves the in-atmosphere experience for me is great since I spend a lot of time just making planes, though. If I had to pick any one thing annoying enough that it HAD to change... ...I'd be able to start my guys in an external command seat.

To me, even walking on Minmus is tenuous. The gravity is so low that each step is basically a short spaceflight, and since there's no atmosphere, there no feeling of resistance to help dispel the illusion that if you just jumped real hard you'd fly off into space. So I think it's sort of an agoraphobic's worst nightmare, especially when out on the ice lakes with kilometers of flat, featureless chemical solid around. Total silence too, of course, since you're in near-total vacuum, but after reading the description the seismic sensor gave me, I always imagine that if you're standing still on one of the lakes you can feel constant, distant vibrations underneath your feet as really deep portions of the chemical stew cracks and heaves under its own pressure. On the real 'land', I think that there's a bit of an icy glaze over everything, like on a cold morning where your front yard is covered in a layer of frost. It's greenish, of course, but so thin that you can still detect the base color of rocks, etc. Any misstep and little rocks are sent flying and flying before the minimal gravity brings them back to the surface. In the Minman night, I feel like there's just enough reflected light from Kerbin to make things slightly visible as that glaze shimmers and the lakes turn more 'blue'. Except on the side facing away from the planet, where I think the term 'dark' is redefined. In the day, I think the place literally sparkles, as the sun ever so slightly melts some of the frost and maybe the very, very top layer of the lakes. Things get slippery them, and while there's no real 'fog' in my imagining, landers and bases are gradually covered with a fine coat of Minmus-ice that gives the Kerbonauts fits climbing up ladders and such.

I keep my boys alive if at all possible, to the point of having an orbital rescue craft that doubles as an escape pod on my space station. That said, I don't believe that the crazy-brave astronauts in my space program would be satisfied with a probe-based effort; they're there to explore, damnit, not to sit around and let robots do their job for them. I do USE probes, just mostly as precursors to manned missions or for repeated contract fulfillment.

I'd love to have a two-man capsule, if for no other reason than I don't like sending my boys up alone. And for all the crew experience/practicality reasons listed here. Early on, didn't the Mark I cockpit hold 2? I like the idea of basing it on the two-man Soyuz capsules, just to diversify parts inspiration a little more. That said, to me, the Gemini was the US's sharpest looking capsule.

That explains a lot.

I'm having a similar problem with gravitational scans on Kerbin. I get over the area above the minimum altitude and if I hit the gravitoli device, it says it can't do a gravity scan there.

Actually, it strongly suggests that the game's community is large enough and taken enough with the same to not only attract a large number of mod makers who are willing to devote time to KSP projects, but that many of them will see a large-scale use of their work. A healthy mod community is one of the best indicators of a game's popularity, and your statement is actually pretty much the only time I've heard anyone saying otherwise. That's very curious.

I haven't seen anything...not one thing...in this thread that's anything more than a quibble. Quibbles that may be emotionally important to some people for personal reasons, but quibbles. Almost everyone on this forum has probably spent more hours on KSP than any other game on their Steam list (even if it's an imaginary Steam list), though, and I think that puts thing in perspective. This is a great game, and every addition has only made it better. There's probably tiny little things that we'd all like to see added, included or changed and quite a few people here probably couldn't agree which are "OMGHIGHPRIORITYTHISHASTOBEPUTIN" and which are just some icing are an otherwise tasty cake or would actually make it less enjoyable (reentry heat? I can take it or leave it). I love that people are so passionate about the same game I am, but I gotta admit...some of these passionate people have a gift for rhetoric I've never seen the likes of, the patience of a lit stick of dynamite and the overall perspective of Nick Fury's left eye. Guess it comes with the territory. Some people who love gush and compliment. Others freak when he or she combs their hair different.

I tend to like stuff that looks sort of like the 60s or 70s idea of the future. I guess you can say sleek and futuristic for that. Also enormous delta wings. Like these.

Aside from the equipment bay that's now basically included on every spaceplane I make, I've used cargo-capable spaceplanes to haul fuel and RCS propellant to my space station, to haul up new parts for my space station, to deploy money-making probes to other Kerbin-system bodies and (in a test), to recover a probe I had orbiting Kerbin. They've also saved me a ton of money as, for smaller cargos, I don't have to expend most of a rocket just to do these things, instead going most of the way in a 100 percent recoverable craft. Wish every part was so useless.

Nuclear engines were big for me, but honestly not as big a deal as landing gear.

Had too. Needed to kidnap him and use him to test my latest lander to make sure it was Kerbal-safe. Was still yelling about cleansing souls halfway to Jool.

I'm mostly a pilot. Any builder tendencies are only so I can figure out a way to make the craft do what it's supposed to do in a way that pleases the pilot half more. More of a purist than a modder, though I have no objections to mods, I just don't want to fool with installation etc. I fit neither definition on space/sci-fi geek, though I'm definitely a sci-fi geek IRL. I'm more of a space tourist than a realist or astrophysicist. And I know that, like Jeb, forum posts are never truly dead.

Don't feel that's an exploit at all.

Working on my orbital 'truck', the X-14. She'll keep that designation till I'm through testing and making some tweaks. So far, she's managed to haul a girder assembly up to my space station and get one of those four-ton fuel tanks you get early on to a 150,000 meter altitude with some inclination adjustments (basically taking it to the space station, I was just in a rush and didn't want to wait for the station to catch up with me). Good points: Effortless ascent with the girder assembly on board. Had to stash some extra liquid fuel (Mk1 fuselage) in the bay to get the LFO tank up there, but I wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to to do that, so I'm pleased. No re-entry instability and pretty easy to land. With a lighter load, has plenty of fuel left once she reaches orbit. Bad points: Center of lift is very, very close to being too far forward when the tanks are full, and I have to make sure the forward tank doesn't get used first. Small price to pay for the utility she promises. Takeoff run is abysmal: I have to ramp it off the end of the runway, though she doesn't have any problems doing that. Since moving the wheels closer to the COM results in tail strikes, I may just live with that. No docking port. Could likely fix that, but the shock cone on the nose looks cool enough I probably won't;). Going to revise the RCS system, too. It's more for approaching it's orbital destination since it's perfectly controllable in vacuum with just the SAS, and I just don't like the way I have the 'place anywhere' ports attached right now. Don't have any screenshots that show the arrangement of air intakes under the wing and engines. I mostly used the new inline ones and freely admit it was for aesthetics. She's got about 5 per engine (including the shock cones) and I think I managed to arrange them where they don't look too bad. She can make it just above 31,000 meters before she stops gaining velocity, and she's at 1,650-1,700 mps at that altitude, and that varies depending on her cargo. Here she is after reentry, angling down toward KSC. Prior to that, she'd offloaded the girder assembly and I successfully docked it to the station. Note that while I'm loving how the plane works, the little maneuvering device I made to fly the girder really sucked...liked to never get that thing attached. And here she is after landing, with the doors open to show off the dual cargo bays.

This would actually be my suggestion as well, if you're married to the two-engine set up. If you're not, a single engine on something that size is more than enough. Have you just turned off the fuel feed from the front tanks so it'll use the rear fuel first?