rtxoff

Here is one of the most simple rocket SSTOs you could build. I reached orbit on my first try and it was a very sloppy inefficient ascend. I am sure you could spare plenty dV with a proper ascend.

Maybe this one?

I like that flag, maybe not as much the design as the idea behind it.

This gave me lulz:

Also another thing not mentioned yet is the compact design of the aerospike. It is also much more esthetic on a plane then the LV-T45.

I am not sure what is this all about you want to tell us here. You are sucking some numbers out of your fingers like T/W ratio 1.0 which might or might not be the case for my plane. Also you pretend to know exactly how i fly my plane (firing the aerospike in vacuum) while i might do something else (supporting the turbojets with the spike while still in the atmosphere). And also to make your claims look more believable you are linking to some charts which are the great work of another guy but do not fit at all in my case. Well done, you just punched into my face with your ingenuity.

Read it again, i very well mentioned payload capabilities. It's just that people nowadays can't or won't read. But it doesn't matter people managed to make SSTOs with Rapier engines with over 30% payload fraction so i will shut up now. I guess i am a lousy pilot :/

No, i never claimed such a thing. I claimed that for my SSTO planes an turbojet + aerospike combination works much better. However the people here in the forum showed me planes where Rapiers work better. I guess finally it depends on many factors what will work better. However i still wish for slightly more powerful Rapiers, they are unlocked very late in the career and they have the right to be more powerful then anything else.

Ahh yes you made a simple SSTO plane that can reach orbit and return without even a payload. Very useful. You sir will be awarded with this years "professional airplane design" award. The name "no brainer SSTO" is fully justified i guess.

In your save file: On the 2 outer Rapiers automtatic mode switching still activated, is this intended? Also on the action key 1 your intakes are not getting closed when switching. I tried the plane but with my flying skills i lack 140m/s dV for a stable orbit. I really don't see the point why 1.0.2 makes it so hard to get into orbit with the Rapiers. My opinion is still that Rapiers need some balancing to make them more playable.

@KerikBalm, yes by now i already tried that and you are right. It works however you won't save any weight with the T45 over the Aerospike like chris claimed. Also at the end you will have more fuel left with the Aerospike because of better efficiency.

@LordFjord , i don't think this is by the rules. Your plane is using intakeair which also is an resource.

Well i did some more tests and the Rapier just doesn't work for me. I managed to get a somewhat small SSTO airplane with 2 Rapier engines into LKO. However the payload fraction is useless. I don't know how all you guys manage to have high payload fraction with them it certainly does not work for me. To avoid misunderstandings, i am talking about the stock game without any mods at all. I don't know about FAR and other mods but in the stock game they are almost useless. As soon as i switch to turbojets and one aerospike i get much more efficiency even with the addional weight of the Aerospike with 1.5t i am also able to put a small payload into the plane which i can't with an Rapier only configuration. Reading some of the posts here i really ask myself if you guys use the same engine as me? Can you all please verify your game files in Steam? I know that some people had problems where some parts did not get updated.

Great words but obviously you didn't even try to make an SSTO plane with an LV-Txx and 2 turbojets. I would really love to see your airplane in action on 1.0.2 with such an configuration. Of course if you cheat everything is possible.

Idk maybe it's bugged for me but the Rapier wont get me to space. As i wrote a combination of 2 Turbo jets + 1 Aerospike make a nice SSTO for me with even some payload capabilities. As soon i try to make a SSTO with only Rapiers i won't even reach 1000 m/s @ 15000m . Speed stays under 400m/s. The datasheet says they only a bit weaker then turbojets in air mode but i think they completely useless.

After much experimenting i finally manage to make some decent SSTO planes. However in all my working designs one engine is missing, the Rapier. The engine that is made for the only purpose of being useful in SSTO planes is not. My best combination so far was 2 Turbojets + 1 Aerospike. Anyone else made that experience? I think the Rapier needs some balancing because right at the moment it is completely useless for me.

You just made my day, thank you

I don't think it's about realism, it's about playability. Activating cheats kills the fun and is against playability. Too much realism kills the fun and is also against playability. There are also other things that kill fun in games like grinding, too hard difficulty level and so on.

Looks like i flew my SSTOs wrong. Finally i managed to put an SSTO plane into orbit while still having 1000m/s dV left.

I agree with that, we are hitting a wall in science progress.

i7 3770K @ 3.5GHz NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 RAM: 16333 MB os drive Windows 7: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB data drive: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB os drive Arch Linux: OCZ-VERTEX3 120GB

Try this. Also check out other not christian songs from her like "Miserere Venere" and "Spente Le Stelle".[h=1][/h]

I don't understand the big deal about necro posting. I mean yeah it's forbidden by the rules but why is this? I don't understand how someone gets offended by it. I mean there are by far worse things out there then necros. If someone has something to say even in an old thread then IMO it should be allowed if it's not a bump.

Very nice +rep

If it got easier then why all my SSTO space planes suck now? It's not only the atmosphere it's also the drastic nerf of the jet engines. My planes worked perfect in 0.90 Now they all useless pieces of crap. I want the old OP jet engines back. I don't care for them not being realistic.