Brainlord Mesomorph

Slashy: the SRBs cost more than they're worth. Laie: "Straight up and make a right" can never be the most economical way to orbit. Working with the same SSTO booster ( two S3-1440s and a KR-2L), I was trying to determine how much help I was getting from the SRB’s. So I decided to see how much payload I could loft without any SRB’s at all. Knowing that NASA begins their gravity turn pretty much the moment they clear the gantry, I figured that a very shallow orbital entry would be the most fuel efficient. (You see what I did there ,Laie ?) The answer is 23 tons. ($588 per ton!) granted, 23 tons is nothing to write home about. Even my space planes can compete with that. But this booster was never designed to be used alone. You can use 2 to lift 46 tons, four for 92 tons , all the way up to a cluster of nine (eight around one) and haul 200 tons to orbit, ALL for the same $588 per ton! (EDIT: heck, you could put 8 more around that, for 391 tons) At these prices, it becomes no longer economical to try to dock 2 50-ton vehicles in orbit. This drastically effects the design of all my interplanetary vehicles. I have work to do. (Drops microphone, walks off stage, launches rocket.) EDIT 2: I just flew a cluster of five of these to orbit and back, and would you believe its ALSO by far the stablest and easiest-to-steer 100 ton lifter I ever built! NO WOBBLIES!

THAT'S THE KERBAL WAY! \(until you learn better)

I like to own my mistakes. The Apollo 13 "oh, $#!), what do we do now?" moments are some of the most fun of the game. Rescue missions are very dramatic! My reloads are *usually* when the game fritzes out. That said, I totally understand the OP. I think in October I decided to send a truly massive expedition to Jool. Since then I've been afraid to allow time to advance in the game. I spend all my time in VAB, trying to "perfect" all the equipment I need, and planning the mission. Enough is enough! this weekend we officially begin orbital construction! JOOL OR BUST!

Nobody owns Frankenstein ( the book the story, the concept). Its in the public domain. They could make Frankenstein Space Program, and no can sue you. Universal owns a copyright on its version of The Monster that specifies: ."..any monster that has all of the following elements: Green Skin Flat Top Head Scar on Forehead Bolts on the Neck Protruding Forehead" I think we're fine there. I've noticed this: My (90 year old) mother actually thought it was a Simpsons game.

Wait until he docks for the 1st time. (I jumped out of my chair, walking around the room pumping my fists saying Yes! yes! yes!)

Isn't that the "chase" camera?

I was playing w/ SSTO rockets this weekend. Was consistently less than 100 m/s short of orbit! no matter how much fuel I added! It just couldn't lift 50 tons! (was maxing out delta V for the engine)

Funny you should mention, this is the “Gullwing 17D Module Carrier †(even though its wings are no longer gull wing shaped): The big gray tank with the Clampotron Sr. is the payload module for this flight. Able to carry large and irregularly shaped payload modules. As you can see, it carries a payload module docked at the center of gravity, so whether it’s carrying a five ton, or 20 ton payload, or none at all, she still flies quite well. I recently found out the RAPIERs aren’t a good choice for the OMS, and the airframe is a little wobbly, she’s due for another redesign.

A space station (in launchable kit form): 70+ tons another space station (I was going to do in two launches): 120 tons A tylo lander: 72 tons Interplanetary fuel tanker: 150 tons I could go on... Never occured to me to kill SOME of the jets. And I recently learned that the Nuke has a pretty good Isp as low as 10 km. (i'll keep all that in mind when I revisit the spaceplane project) I needed fins on something before I saved that sub-assembly. and it really, really, bothers me that nosecones and fairings are just cosmetic. I get that its a simplified physics engine, but really needs to be some kind of penalty for not using nosecones. (guess I'll be installing FAR) LOL you want me to stop. Like I'm some kind of obsessive who will just keep beating my head against the wall trying to get these last $200/ton. And you're right! It used to cost me over $100,000 to loft 50 tons, now I can do it for $40,000 (and I'm pissed it isn't 30,000) I should stop. Thanks guys.

I'll have to go look, I think my standard "Large SRB" is the KD25k, plus a nosecone, one fin, a sepratron and a radial decoupler. I guess I could lose the nosecone.

Slashy,do you use a modded atmosphere? because I am not coming up with the samenumbers Basically the same ship, using 4 s3-7200s same fuel, same mass, (oddly not the same price*) I thought the white ones were prettier, hauling 42 tons (one 33 ton tank and a 9 ton) here's what I get: Entire vehicle cost: $157,430 Payload incl probecore etc (doesn’t count) $21,370 Booster (recoverable value) $102,381 Cost of 6 SRBs (plus addl hardware): $20,460 Cost of fuel $13,219 Divide by 42 tons = $ 801 per ton. Am I missing something? *off topic side note, , the 1440 is $6000 cheaper than 2 7200s. Every other capacity based part in the game is priced linearly (the half-sized one is exactly half the cost and half the weight of the full size one) the 1440 is $2280 but based on a linear projection it should be $2880. i think its a a typo. doesn’t effect the cost of fuel though. EDIT: ran the numbers on my best spaceplane, after the turbojets cut out, its RAPIERS burn a bunch of LF+O above 30km, so hauling 18.5 tons with $3,500 in fuel comes out to $190 per ton. Are you using an *only*turbojet solution?

Hodo: Dang I gott get me some of those mods. I didn't think mods make the game easier, just saying that the stock game is just biased against big spaceplanes.

well, in a perfect world, yes. But Kerbin is not a perfect world. But if you actually want to talk about estimating operating costs, I've been taught you should always is estimate your costs high and your profits low. And I was. (Given random payload drops your average recovery rate would be 75%)if you want to talk about maximums: One KR2L SSTO Booster costs 130,000 funds, has a maximum recovery value of $113,000 and a payload capacity of 33 tons. So that technically $27000 per flight (minimum) and $810 per ton of payload. (I had rounded to $30000 per flight, and 30 tons and called it $1000 a ton) And if I do the suborbital recovery thing I can increase the payload capacity by 50% which comes down to about $500 a ton. But of course suborbital recovery cannot be at the KSC and cannot get maximum recovery value. And the convenience of parking those boosters in orbit until I’m ready to carefully deorbit them directly to the KSC… seems to be worth it. - - - Updated - - - yeah, it's looking to me to be more complex than its worth.

LOL! It IS the KR2Ls I'm using and turning one into an SSTO "booster" works, and strapping 2 said boosters on a 70 ton(!) payload works. And I DO add SRBs! (it can't get off the pad w/o them) I've been trying Laie's thing of trying to recover a suborbital first stage: It sez you can't switch vehicles in the atmosphere. (although I do at the KSC all the time) Your first stage has to be aaaallllmost orbital if you're going to have time to switch to the 2nd stage, do some kind of burn to to get to a safe (if suborbital) trajectory, wait until your officially out of the ATM, and switch to the first stage and reenter, recover and switch back to the 2nd stage for the rounding burn. (whew!) In doing all that you lose "revert to launch" and so far, I've only seen about a 50% improvement in payload capacity. (I'm pushing what the KR2Ls can lift off the pad) It's almost not worth it! Laie, I want to see pics of that thing! EDIT: Shash about those prices, I think you're forgetting all the hardware needed to turn that SSTO into a functional probe SAS, RC unit, etc, PLUS all the recovery hardware; chutes & gear, it adds up.

Those are neat! But you sort of make my point here about spaceplanes. One, your game is clearly modded out the wazoo (NTTAWWT) , and 2 your "heavy lifter" has what? 15 tons in that payload bay? No offence but that's not really heavy lifting by interplanetary standards (IMHO) Thanks for the pics! Cool planes.

OOOHHH. (the things you expect, then learn, then have to re-learn in this game...) When I first started in career mode, I put parachutes on all of my SRB’s, and couldn’t figure out why they weren’t waiting for me in the ocean after launch. (I could watch them land but if I took my eyes off them for a moment they would disappear!) Then I found out about the 2.5 km bubble. And more recently I couldn’t figure out why some stuff that was suborbital or even “in-flight †was being saved. Jeez. Redesigning this as a two stage launch system, I should be able to lift twice the payload. $500 a ton: Here we come!

Sorry Slash, I didn't mean to give you attitude, but you can imagine my disappointment. I was all excited that i cut my launch prices in half, and you tell me you spend 0.35% of that! Also I am frustrated at the "failure" of my own spaceplane project. After my first successful orbital fighter jet, I spent weeks trying to "scale it up" into a payload carrier, but the biggest payload I could feasibly carry was about 20 tons. As I went larger it just kept burning more and more fuel, taking longer and longer. I am told its a flaw in the stock game. So I suspect that anyone making real use of spaceplanes is using mods. I never bothered to count but I expect I was putting those 20 tons in orbit for next to nothing, just fuel and jet fuel at that. But you can't build a massive interplanetary space program lofting one big gray tank at a time. (well, maybe you can, but I don't want to) - - - Updated - - - I'd like to see a pic of that. Were you one of the guys talking about a "recoverable first stage"? I couldn't follow that. How does that work? How do you keep it from falling out of the 2.5 km simulation bubble?

I'm talking about payloads of 50, 75, 150 tons. (not 6, I can do that in a little spaceplane too) But I mean big rockets. Raptor sez 1<>4 kilofunds. That sounds like the game I'm playing. EDIT: I tried turbo rockets, there's a reason NASA doesn't do that. - - - Updated - - - that sounds like what I'm getting, but for payloads of 150+ tons

Stock game pretty much rules out large payload spaceplanes. But I had a $68,000 "50 ton Lifter" now I have $130,000 SSTO that I get 70,000 <> 113,000 back on (depends on how well I throw it at the KSC) that carries 30 tons. And its scaleable, 2 cost 60,000 and lift 70+ tons, and I just launched 160 tons with 4 of them. (I'm not really talking about "1" ton)

My new launch system (100% recoverable SSTO rockets) costs me about $1000 (funds) per ton to LKO. (after recovery) Is that really good? My previous system of multistage rockets cost more than twice that. How much do you pay?

You had to loft it. (in pieces I assume) Why not just share the launch vehicles (and provide assembly instructions) I think the fun part of space stations is all the orbital assembly.

I think it was Scot Manley who put wings on one, and flew it home. (dunno if he got $$)

I put a rock on the keyboard. - - - Updated - - - OMG it is!

On the subject of an SSTO Rocket Tanker: it seemed silly to carry around the giant terrestrial rocket engines and empty fuel tanks on orbital maneuvers. So I came up with this: That is my standard orbital Fuel Tender nestled comfortably between two of my brand new “Saturn SSTO†booster rockets. Each one apparently has a payload capacity of about 35 tons, and between them they can easily lift this 70 ton payload to orbit, and still have exactly the three drops of fuel needed for a deorbit burn. Interestingly, the two of them only cost a fraction more than my previous “70 Ton Lifter†multistage rocket that was entirely disposable. (Maybe I could recover a big gray tank and a mainsail from the top stage) these are 100% recoverable, and don’t even leave debris in orbit! Even if I splash these down on the far side of Kerbin for 50% recovery value, it still costs half of my previous launch system. And it should be scalable, if 2 can lift 70 tons, four should be able to lift 150, and eight should be able to carry 300 tons! So again, thanks guys, this is a more efficient solution. UPDATE: Those things are going to need WAY moar parachutes and perhaps some landing gear I am going to recover them!

Probe cores and parachutes! Jettison as much as you can before orbit. Yes, grabbers work. I have special de-orbiters, that are a probecore, grabber, small engine, and parachutes. RECOVER IT ALL!