digitaleyes

In that case... This was an SSTO that tried landing near the north pole looking for the UFO. The coast was closer then I thought so it crashed. The pilot walked the last 1500 meters.

I get more a Homeworld vibe. Mostly because the art style is much like the Homeworld concept art.

Jeez my computer barely handles one instance of KSP, I'll have to ascend it to god status and buy another monitor.

As long as it doesn't decouple any parts, it is still an SSTO because it hasn't actually dropped anything. Otherwise an SSTO docking with anything is no longer an SSTO. And yes the station (I'm using a fuel pod) does have to put itself on a suborbital path, honestly the only part I have trouble with is docking before the apoapsis because I suck at docking. My fuel pod can still return to orbit after docking, but I have yet to dock soon enough to fill up the Spaceplane enough to reach orbit.

The second one, the higher the apoapses, the more likely the SSTO doesn't need the pit stop. Also a side note, my current docking altitude record is 70,000 from an intercept of 1 km and intercept altitude of around 115,000m descending. I hope that isn't confusing.

If the fuel pod makes it back to a stable orbit, nothing is wasted and a shuttle can refill later to prepare for another SSTO launch.

Send up the refueling vessel and park it around 150,000 m over Kerbin. Launch the SSTO and try to get the apogee in the ballpark of the refueler's orbit, then switch to the refueler and maneuver to match the SSTO's sub-orbital path. Proceed to dock like normal. I managed to dock these on my own save but I launched the SSTO too late and the intercept was on the SSTO's descent, so they were then greeted by atmosphere.

The goal of this challenge is to make an SSTO that has to refuel before making it to a stable orbit. The rules are pretty simple: the SSTO can't have the capacity to make it to a stable orbit without docking, no mod parts, no cheats, and no ARM claw. This will require a rendezvous craft of sorts to dock with the SSTO in the sub-orbital path, as well as a decent docking ability. Scoring 5 points for every km below 200,000 m for the SSTO's apogee 1 point for every part under 50 for the SSTO 1 point for every part under 300 for the rendezvous craft at launch 100 points if you can return to rendezvous craft to a stable orbit minus 20 points if the rendezvous craft pushes/pulls the SSTO in orbit 20 points if the SSTO doesn't have RAPIER engines 5 points for every 500 m above Kerbin's atmosphere the docking is achieved