eempc

I reckon an inline belly-opening cargo bay would send people into fits of euphoria, haha. Think of the weapons that could go in there! Flight deck looks fine with 1.3 and RPM 0.18. I used to get the one-screen syndrome with 1.2 but it was definitely fixed with 1.3. Here's a picture of Jeb smiling at the external camera.

Are you using FAR or stock aerodynamics? It's far easier to make a plane that resembles the 4th-5th generation trapezoidal or swept wing planforms when using FAR. Stock aerodynamics tends to favour the delta wing planform and you also need a lot more wing area, thus making it difficult to achieve any other wing configuration.

Rather than calling for nerfs based on paper calculations before the update has even been released, why not wait and see how it works first? Or is this too sensible? And if you still don't like the O-10, so what? Modify its config to something *you* find acceptable. It's a freaking single player game.

Well I didn't exactly sell the challenge in the first paragraph, lol. But the reason I did this challenge was not only to see if it was feasible, but one day, Eeloo will be placed into orbit around a parent planet and the current challenge will no longer be doable.

Since the old SSTEAB looks dead, here is a new one. The old challenge didn't have many participants and having completed every leg of this challenge except the re-entry to Kerbin, I understand why. I won't lie, it was BORING. The sooner that Eeloo gets put in place around Gas Planet 2, the better. Anyway here are the rules: Stock engines and intakes only. After all what kind of challenge would it be if you could have a 20k DV interstellar craft with super duper warp drives? You can use any propellant containers, wings, and structural components, etc, from balanced mods like B9, SP+, procedual fairings/wings, etc. You must deliver one kerbal inside a module, no chairs. State whether you use FAR or stock aerodynamics and no switching between the two for the duration of the mission. No refuelling and no landers. No exploits or ridiculous clipping. If you go stock aerodynamics, you will need a good ratio of intakes to engines for aerospace planes, so if you need to airhog, go for it. Gravity assists are fine if you want to show off but there is also another challenge of getting to Eeloo with the least DV. Showcase your journey with a few pictures. Mission Summary Aerodynamic model: FAR Time: 17 years Craft propulsion: 2 turbojets, 2 ram intakes, SP+ wings and tailplanes, 1 LV-N, 1440 units of fuel, 1600 oxidiser Mission accomplishments: flew to Eeloo, orbited Eeloo, landed on Eeloo, took off from Eeloo, returned to Kerbin orbit Failed to land. Pictures Showcase Launching the ill-fated craft whose CoM and CoL would be wrong later. 6972 m/s DV once in orbit The ejection burn was messy. With such a long burn time, it actually took around 2500 m/s instead of 2100 m/s. Needed a 345 m/s correction burn to reach Eeloo. 1604 m/s needed for circularisation. I tried horizontal landings at 150 m/s, 100 m/s and 50 m/s horizontal speeds but the terrain was having none of them, so it had to be vertical. 2027 m/s DV leftover to get into orbit and return to Kerbin. In retrospect I probably could have done a better landing. I had to wait about 5 years for this trajectory to open up. 10 degrees phase angle! This was the part I realised when I should have actually tested my ship instead of throwing it together and launching. This is a retrograde entry into the upper atmosphere only to bring apoapsis down into a stable orbit. A prograde entry was too dangerous because the CoM was behind the CoL and there was literally no fuel left to shift. After several attempts to land, I gave up. Jebediah is stuck in orbit after a 17 year journey to the most boring planet in the Kerbolar system.

I just discovered this tweakable, which apparently can help me with landing my planes. I previously landed at 150 m/s which was a bit too fast for my liking and I hear that flaps and spoilers can help in that respect. I just don't really have a clue what settings to use and where. I have bound Increase Flap to 9 and Decrease Flap to 0. Does pressing 9 increase my lift so I can stay airborne at a lower speed without stalling? Should the tailplanes have flaps and/or spoilers activated? What value should I set "Flaps/Brake M..." to? Should the wings have their flaps/spoilers activated? Also what values are good?

I'm wondering why my MechJeb case burns up at 1230 degrees when it is rated at 2900? Is it because I put it on the underside of my space plane? Would putting it on top make it survive? Maybe this is just a silly thing but I prefer to have my non-aesthetic components such as struts, fuel lines and the mechjeb pod on the underside of my space planes.

My spacecraft are named after gemstones (for spaceplanes) or mythological figures (for rockets) with a bunch of letters and numbers to designate its characteristics like fuel capacity, mission type (passenger, cargo, science, mining, etc), and engines used. E.g. "144-Diamond E-JN" = Refers to 1440 fuel capacity, Diamond is its wing planform, E stands for Explorer which means it doesn't actually have a specific purpose, J for turbojets, and N for LV-N. Most of the time however, rockets just get generic names like "Asteroid Grabber" or "Kethane Refinery".

I guess it is too late to aerobrake on Duna. If you flew into Duna's atmosphere with a periapsis of around 12 km, you can form an orbit easily with no fuel expended. Generally speaking, once you enter into a planet's SOI, you burn 90 or 270 degrees to alter your periapsis, this costs less than 10 m/s DV usually. After the aerobrake, a short burn at apoapsis will bring your periapsis above 41 km. If you've already escaped Duna's orbit and can plot any course back to Kerbin, once you are in Kerbin's SOI, all you need is a small correction burn to bring your periapsis into Kerbin's atmosphere.

Even with 120 objects in LKO, that was as close as I got to any object in the whole 15 minutes before getting bored. Launching eastwards I never got anywhere closer than 2.5 km. I would be so happy to collide with anything, but even deliberate attempts seems like hard work.

One day I might get some online storage and share files. But anyways have fun optimising and see if you can get more than 3600 m/s DV into orbit.

From my experiences with FAR, the only positive aspect is that I can get a larger amount of spare DV once in LKO, but since this is a Mun mission, DV isn't a huge issue whether you go stock or FAR. The downsides to FAR are that planes must be built aerodynamically, i.e. no more flying boxes. You also cannot deviate from prograde too much so if you don't provide enough lift and thrust with <20 degree AoA, your plane will likely fall apart trying to maintain vertical speed. Atmospheric entry into Laythe was also unforgiving. I found out the hard way that FAR will destroy your plane if you re-enter at Mach 36. It's not a straightfoward construction. The intakes and engines have to placed in a particular order to induce symmetrical flameout, which was explained here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84217-Explaining-burnout-asymetry. But in short, you place in this order: outer left shock intake, left engine nacelle, left RAPIER, inner left shock intake, left turbojet, outer right shock intake, right nacelle, right RAPIER, inner right shock intake, and lastly right turbojet. This does mean that the rear tailfins and landing gears need to be placed individually. The RAPIERS are in manual switching mode too. The two outer fuel tanks have 396 oxidiser, and the central rear bicoupler tank has 0 oxidiser. There are 6 VTOL engines on the belly that are hard to see in the picture since only their nozzles stick out, but they are rockomax 48-7S mounted on cubic struts. I can't say these are critical for the Mun, because this plane was designed for Duna originally. Getting the right vertical direction of thrust when placing these engines is a bit of trial-and-error, but any instability from using the VTOLs can be compensated by the reaction wheels. You can also see the fuel lines. While I am not an expert on fuel flow, this way generally ensures that fuel is drained from the back first, thereby ensuring the CoM always moves forward and remains ahead of the CoL. I name my planforms after gemstones and this "Amethyst" is very versatile, you can swap the 3 crew cabins for any combination of cargo bays, fuel tanks or cabins up to around 10-12 tons. Here is an example of the cargo version with an integrated kethane unit (the hidden drill was the most ingenious part), a separate kethane ion probe, and some TAC supplies. The keys I use are: (1) toggle RAPIERs on/off, (2) toggle turbojets, (3) toggle RAPIERS between rocket and air mode (4) toggle LV-Ns, and (6) toggle all intakes As for piloting the plane upwards (FAR), you can just maintain full throttle at ~20-25 degree pitch all the way up using the four air breathers. Maybe pitch down to 10-15 degrees at 20 km. The RAPIERs may flameout but they will flameout together because of the way the intakes and engines are placed in order. The RAPIERs are in manual switch mode, don't let them switch to rocket mode until later. Turn off the RAPIERS with (1). You should be at least 1,600 m/s orbital speed by now. After this, you are running on two turbojets only. At this point, your pitch sort of depends on what's happening and usually oscillates around 5-16 degrees, which corresponds to around ~10-12 degrees angle of attack. The next objective is to reach an orbital speed of 1,700 m/s with the turbojets alone (i.e. as fast as possible), but I'm usually fine with anything above 1,650 m/s. You can maintain full throttle even as the intakes struggle, again because of symmetrical flameout. I also try not to lose too much vertical speed during this phase, no less than -25 m/s vertical. When the turbojets are struggling, their thrust will drop to around ~120 kN combined. It is around this speed of 1,700 m/s and thrust of 120 kN that I turn on the LV-Ns with (4), switch the RAPIERs to rocket mode with (3) and turn on the RAPIERs with (1). All 6 engines are now firing. When the turbojets are outputting a pitiful >30 kN, turn them off with (2) and shut off the air intakes with (6) to reduce drag. Generate an apoapsis of ~65 km and an orbital speed of 2,000-2,200 m/s with the RAPIERs + LV-N combination, then turn off the RAPIERS with (1). Use the LV-N to finish the apoapsis and circularise. You can turn off the RAPIERs sooner if you feel the LV-N are able to finish the orbital insertion. I won't claim this is the most efficient way to pilot the plane and you are free to find any improvements by changing pitches, engine configurations, etc, but it's how I do it and end up with around 3,600 DV.

I did test the design on stock aerodynamics but after losing the LV-Ns to tail strike, running off the runway and flopping into the water I preferred the FAR design. For stock, you would need more wing area to generate lift, either by altering the planform or sandwiching more layers. It would also need more intakes to get high altitude performance.

Also, what is a good ratio of food to oxygen to water to pack assuming you also bring a water purifier and carbon extractor? I took 4160 food, 800 water and 800 oxygen. But because I can convert waste water and CO2 back, does this mean if I activate the converters 6 times (after water and oxygen are depleted), I will have in effect about 4173 water and oxygen?

Hey, is it possible to make a moisture condenser that uses intake air and makes water? How could one modify the AirFilter.cfg to generate both air and water? Would the line in the code look this? outputResources = Oxygen, 1.0, false, Water, 1.0, false

It's a nice, simple challenge, whether or not you use the lander-loophole. FAR-certified space bus taxi thing. It was originally designed for Duna operations but it seems to cut the DV requirements a bit too close for my liking (3600 once in LKO). It handles Mun outings fine though. There's not much margin for error with the take off angle. RAPIERS and LV-N to generate an apoapsis. After which, the RAPIERS are switched off and only the LV-Ns circularise the orbit. There were 2 empty seats on the bus because there weren't enough kerbals available. They were all sent up on pointless LKO test missions and never returned. They now pose a hazard for launches. Retrograde burns for landing. Transition to vertical. Belly flop onto landing gears. Group shot. Since I landed in a crater, I had either the option to taxi to the edge of the crater and use it as a ramp or just use the VTOL engines. I chose the latter. And away we go. Time to head back now. Atmospheric entry. FAR destroyed my plane three times at this part and I had to rage-reload and enter in at different angles. Close call with the mountains west of KSC. Didn't even have to use the emergency drogue chute for the landing.

This gave me the idea to conduct a single launch westwards into this mess. Technically those are all ships and probes in LKO, but since I don't intend to deorbit them, they might as well be debris. Will post a further pic if I get a collision but so far the closest I've gotten is 0.651 km.

Asteroids are treated as a "part". Monopropellant and electricity does feed throughout automatically. The claw does not have crossfeed so an engine can't access fuel beyond its claw, but you can still pump fuel manually from one tank to another through the claw.

Loving the new SP+ pieces, but I feel it is missing one key piece: matching canards. I'm not a big fan of canards in general and ordinarily I would replace them with a hidden winglet-cubic strut inside the pit but this trick only works on stock aerodynamics. I installed FAR today and FAR is not fooled by it. I would love a set of canards that resemble the chines of the SR71, even if it doesn't make functional sense to have a control surface that way.

If you're not a fan of rotating asteroids, then you could attach engines to burn in multiple directions. Each engine here is pointed at the centre of mass and also in one of the 6 directions you'd find on the manoeuvre node.

I guess I must've done something right by accident. Looks like that thread has the answers. Gotta love the quirks of KSP. Cheers!

I am wondering if anybody has managed to replicate this phenomenon when using 2 or more turbojet engines where the engines would flame out symmetrically, i.e. both engines would output the same thrust when deprived of air. (All stock parts). I managed to get this one plane to do it but I have no idea how I managed it. As you can see, the intake air required is about 9 times more than provided, but both engines are still giving out the same thrust with maximum throttle. Whenever I try to create a new plane from scratch, I can never replicate this phenomenon. I can maybe retain full throttle on the new plane until I have 90% of the air required before going into a flat spin. Unlike this particular plane which can retain full throttle until 10% of air required. I assume it is something to do with the construction but I cannot pinpoint exactly how to replicate this.

KSP allows you to do things not normally in real life (such as recovering a Mainsail engine), so try to think in terms of a video game. I think it has been stated that random critical failures are not going to be part of the game (correct me if I am wrong). If maintenance were to be required when reusing an engine, it would most likely just be a deduction in money. I can't see how a mini-game where you take apart an engine to inspect for damage would be fun in any way.

If you haven't requoted the OP's quote that I quoted, then what I said is out of context (as your response implies). I never said the definition of SSTO was ambiguous (so yes you were being a bit of a **** by misquoting me). But in this thread, the OP has used the term SSTO in the title to mean spaceplane but not specified spaceplane, hence the ambiguity between rocket-SSTO and spaceplane-SSTO, and why people are posting their rocket-SSTOs without reading the first post.

I've been designing a lot of SSTOs, both aerospace plane and rocket based, in anticipation of the contracts-based economy. I have found that the rocket-SSTOs are far easier to build, fly and can lift a bigger mass. As an example of a simple SSTO-rocket: command pod on top of fuel tank on top of a big engine with wings. Launch vertically, land horizontally. I could not descibe the construction and piloting of an aerospace plane in such simple words. Which made me wonder what drawbacks the rocket-SSTO was supposed to have. The issue I see is that I am using a rocket engine that was designed for a single launch. I know that the Ariane 5's main rocket engine can be reignited, it was such a big deal that even Wikipedia mentions it. Even if an engineer could somehow recover the Ariane 5's rocket, can it be reused? By contrast, nobody raves on about the reusability of a jet engine, since it is obviously supposed to be reusable. If you had to assign a number of reusable flights to various engines, what could they be? Example numbers (comparative): RAPIER: 200 flights, based on the Skylon's airframe's reusability of 200 flights. S1 SRB-KD25k: 100 flights, analogous to the space shuttle's SRBs. Mainsail: 5 flights, by analogy to the Ariane 5's engine's tentative reignitability.