Alshain

Claw, I don't know if this will help but it is possible one of the crashes are something saved with the craft. I wish now I had saved the craft file, but sadly I did not have the foresight. I had one lifter I was working on, and I grabbed an SRB by it's decoupler. The game crashed. I started the game again, loaded the auto-save from the test I had just done, tried to grab the exact same decoupler, crashed again. A third attempt, once again crash, just from picking up the decoupler with the SRB attached. After the third time I grabbed by a different decoupler in the symmetry set and did not produce a crash. I'm really kicking myself for not saving a copy of that broken lifter file (this was before the thread was posted here). I'm running an Intel 2500k, Nvida 950, Windows 7 x64, 8GB RAM, 64-bit KSP.

I would beg to differ. It matters a lot, it's the difference between your plane flying steady or nosing down toward the ground. I prefer my planes to want to be in the air, not have to hold back on the stick just to keep them there.

Nope, has to be a mod. You have to add a ladder collider to the model.

Looks good, the off center engines may cause you some problems though. Raising the elevators wouldn't cause any significant issues, but engines that aren't symmetrically in line with the CoM will give you headaches in the long run. I suggest swapping them.

Isn't that how it's supposed to be? It's always done that for me. (kidding) It's just joint physics going nuts cause you have such a big rocket and you didn't put clamps on it, so it's trying to center itself when the physics load. When someone says "The Big One"... this is what I picture:

I believe this will do what you want. No rivers necessary, I believe you aren't a witch.

In this case KER will always assume you are decoupling. The reason is your active engine is on the stage 0, so it assumes you will decouple before using it. Move the engine down to stage 2 (before decoupling) and I think your results should change.

No fine adjustment should be made with bursts like that, it's too imprecise. It's better to set the thrust limiter down and make the burn longer.

Check the second link in my signature.

Oh gosh no, what I mean is make it an editor tool, not a part tweak. Like symmetry and angle snap, etc.

Yep, a way to lock the fairing in the editor would be very nice. I would suggest making this a global feature that locks the effect on the entire craft, rather than something like a tweakable on the fairing itself.

Goodness yes! I hate flying with the keyboard. Heck, a XBox gamepad is better. This is the taildragger pictured above. It will not go Mach 1. Keep in mind, in current versions of KSP, speed is more limited by engine choice. While it might be possible to get a Tier 4 to Mach 1, maybe by diving at full speed, the engines performance will wane the faster you go, as will the intake performance and drag. It's purposely designed to prevent you from doing that now, you can't just slap a dozen engines on it to go mach speed because the engine performance drops. You need an engine capable of mach, which you don't get at Tier 4. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5trwqzhkvos7hds/T4%20Finch.craft?dl=0

Actually, it's easier to do it that way. Your craft orbit the planet so quickly that they get back to the burn location very fast. So they don't all have to leave at the same time in the same orbit, but they still more or less end up as a fleet. If you are using remote tech and you want constant communications without giant dishes on every single vessel, that is the best way. You just need one long haul vessel (often the very sattelites you plan on putting in orbit of the destination) and the rest of your ships aim at that ship. You don't want them all arriving at the same time anyway, you might miss an insertion burn. The more stock way to do it is to find the first ship's departure, burn it. and then switch crafts. You will be able to see the first ship's trajectory as a grey line, so at it's apex around Kerbin, create a new node and drag it out until the lines overlap and you should be very close to an encounter, minimal tweaking depending on the planet. Rinse, repeat.

Well if you make your rocket cheap enough, it doesn't necessarily need to be an SSTO. It's not clear from the final image what you were attempting, but that rocket seems way overpowered to lift that little lander can (what is the mass of the payload?). I like to build my lifters designed for a specific payload mass and save them as a subassembly. The lifters end at the top decoupler and their only design is to get the designated payload mass to orbit. Any extra-orbital engines and fuel are considered part of the payload (though sometimes to save engine cost I will add a little more fuel to the upper stage rather that put a second of the same engine on it, but I have to add that to my payload mass). SSTO's are fun to do just to prove you can, but to have a cost effective career they are IMO not necessary and way too much trouble compared to a 2 stage disposable lifter and some SRB's. Now, to answer the immediate question. Landing gear isn't going to be large enough for the mainsail unless you extend it with some girders or something completely unaerodynamic. You could just set it down in the water near KSC with parachutes, that would certainly get most of your money back on it. Without a landing gear mod, I think that will be your best option. Long and short in my opinion SSTOs are far overrated, unless you just really want to build them of course, but if all you want to do is save money there are much better ways. EDIT: Just to drive the point, I could put that payload in orbit for under 10k in funds, not counting payload cost. You have almost 6k in just fuel cost on those two Rockomax tanks, that's not counting the cost of the tank. If you'd like to try out that lifter, here are the subassemblies. https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2r04ocotli5foi/Tier%204%2C%2004%20Ton%20S1%20Lifter.craft?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ev2kz9w91a9ifjq/Tier%205%2C%2004%20Ton%20S1%20Lifter.craft?dl=0

Well that is certainly one of them, but also the save/load craft needs a lot of work and the subassemblies section needs to be easier to find what you want, the filter by function needs better categories already, especially for utility and aerodynamics. There are things hidden in the VAB/SPH still that have no visual representation of what state they are in, so there is no way to know (Rotation absolute/local). It's a lot more than just mission planning. A lot of the user interface is still very difficult to use, it's gotten better over the years, but still needs work.

This is one of the interfaces that simply needs to be overhauled IMO. Finding a subassembly in a list of dozens is just ridiculous. You can categorize them, but still there needs to be a better way of find both craft and subassemblies.

Agreed, that launch tower was a menace and a half. I do not miss it in the slightest.

Oh, like OPM? I've seen the OPM thread, and it's quite beautiful, but I've never played with anything but the stock solar system (mostly due to memory cap reasons, and the fact that 1.1 doesn't work).

I don't even know what that is, but ok. But as I said, if they do, it's very few of them.

You are talking about outside the editor vs in the editor. Outside the editor there is an option to shut down the engine, there is not an option to turn on the brakes. Apples and oranges. You can still do this without symmetry, you just have to reassign the brake action group elsewhere.

Yes, but there are massive issues. Landing gear doesn't drive straight, landing legs and gear explode when a Kerbal bumps them in space, Landing legs slide down mountains, and craft orbit decays (and not in a slow, normal way like real life but rather rapidly). So I wouldn't recommend updating at this time, as it will likely trash your game. 1.1 is barely playable at this point, I mean you can play it, but a serious career is not really a good idea atm.

Oh, that. Well they didn't disable it for a version number, they disabled it for an unstable platform. That's a little bit different. No mods I'm aware of will purposefully disable themselves if used on a version number later than the one they were designed for. They could, but I don't think any modder does.

Do you guys realize this 4 page discussion is the exact reason Squad has chosen not to name it?

@Gman_builder I think if they did it they would likely use the mod that does this as a model. I don't think they will though, something in my gut tells me they wouldn't view that as something that belongs in the stock game. Who knows though?

Yeah, there is some issue with the forum software that is misquoting and mis-attributing quotes. It's weird, you click the button and it's almost random.