Hellothere!

Okay, this took a lot longer than originally intended, but I finally finished the alterations. The new version Is up to date on the used parts, the wings gave been adjusted to better fit the original, the nose got a redesign and I had to change the aerodynamics to fit the new model. You can download the craft over at KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Hellothere/XCOM-Skyranger-MK-2

Sorry, I didn't play KSP for quite a while now and thus didn't notice all the replies on the forum. The part under the cockpit is a large upside down MK3 to MK2 adapter. Anyway, after rummaging a bit on my hard drive I found the original craft file. However, the recent updates made it unusable and ugly in it's curent state. I'll probably rework the thing and reupload it in a few days. I probably could, but I'm not sure I will. From a designers perspective the original skyranger kind of lacks things to make it interesting. It is for all intends and purposes just a glorified box with wings on it. I would also have to figure where to put the VTOL thrusters (since the original deign doesn't seem to have them, despite supposedly being VTOL capable) and the entry ramp is almost impossible to get down like that in stock. I will put some thought in it and maybe throw something together, but I can't promise anything. The new Skyranger from XCOM 2 on the other hand might be more interesting. But first things first, getting this build back working is my first priority.

Wait, why the hell would you want to activate engines inside a fairing? Apart from that I agree. Well, I don't really care in how many parts the fairing breaks, but the other suggestions are reasonable.

So yeah, almost all the time I'm building larger spaceplanes I come across something like this: It's annoying, it's ugly and it's most of all unnecessary. There are quite a few great designs I had to abandon because larger engines blocks just don't fit next next a cargo bay. For the spaceplane above the cargo doors could simply open a few degrees less and the would still be more than enough space to get things in and out. So what I propose is a tweakable to affect the angle the cargo bay doors open to. That way you could use a slider in the drop menu in construction to adjust the bay to the spaceplane you are building and wouldn't have these ugly intersections anymore. Next to large and small cargo bays this would also be useful for shielded inline docking ports and A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S.

Yes, each of the two VTOL engines is made up by three turbofans clipped into each other, so there are six of them in total. If you take a look at them the last picture you can actually see it since I rotated the engines slightly against each other on the z axis so I can still distinguish them. I didn't count it as "real cheating" for myself, since I am just making up for the lack of a larger engine here.

This is my attempt at building the Skyranger VTOL Transport from XCOM:Enemy Unknown. I spend quite some time on getting it right, especially the nose was rather difficult, but I think I did a pretty good job. The craft can carry six Kerbals (two pilots in the cockpit and four passengers in the rear bay), land and take off both vertically and horizontally and has a functioning cargo bay ramp. Link be here The all parts are stock and while I did a little bit of part clipping (Merging three engines for the VTOL each and putting the passenger bay into the (largely empty) hull element) These things are purely for aesthetic purposes and could easily be solved differently. Since the cockpit is tilted forwards I would recomend to steer this thing from the probe hidden in the center of the craft. VTOL Performance is very good, but I sadly could not make this go hypersonic like the original due to the heavy drag of the many cosmetic lift surfaces. In forward flight it also has slight nose up or down tendencies depending on mood. Those get countered by SAS though. Yes, that ramp does actually work. You can walk it up and enter by pressing ( when you are at the top. When disembarking the Kerbal will lose grip to the door, do a flip and land on the ramp standing. (I totally planned that last one ) Have fun with it and smash some Mutons for me!

Well that might actually work, although it isn't how I originally meant the challenge. The main question with this is whether it can carry a ship with enough fuel to reach orbit up to the point where atmosphere starts to get to thin. Good luck with your idea. By the way, are there any recordings on if you can use this for an eve ssto? Just because I'm interested...

Well the main Problem with nuclear Energy is the question what to do with the nuclear waste. I come from Germany and we have an ongoing discussion about this problem which is the main reason why most persons here are opposed to nuclear energy here. I know that all the dumb fears about exploding reactors are mostly irrational. And if there was a way to lock down the waste in some safe container and put it into an abandoned mineshaft I would really be fine with it. But all types of containers known so far won`t keep stable long enough. Metal does corrode, and plastic, cement and many other materials get unstable due to radiation over time. So maybe after some thousand or maybe just ten years radioactive material will get out and into the water. Then we will have huge problems.

Well the problem with that is that some persons might already have done experiments in in Jools atmosphere their saves. Additionally since there are only different science points for upper and lower atmosphere we would only get two different scores in the end. Also this challenge is mainly about how deep you can go into Jools atmosphere without beeing unable to come back. The science stuff is rather there to prevent some super small lightweight crafts and to give the task a little sense

Well you can't really do a challenge on this because the time needed to circumnavigate in space is only influenced by your altitude. So without using Bugs to circumnavigate inside atmosphere the fastest you can get is in a circular orbit right at the edge of atmosphere at about 69 km height. But that's the same for all spaceplanes, rockets and derbris. It doesn't take any skill.

Some atmospheric anomalys have been detected deep inside Jools atmosphere. Of cause the kerbals want to lauch a mission to get some scientific data. Rules: Send a mission into the Jool system. It doesn't have to be single launch and you are allowed to dock parts in orbit. However your orbiter has to be fully assembled once it leaves Kerbins SOI, so no adding parts and/or refueling inside the Jool system. Send a daring Kerbal (inside a capsule not in a seat strapped to the outside of your craft) and some science stuff (at least on experiment of each kind) as deep into Jools Atmosphere as possible. Perform some experiments there. Afterwards return to orbit. You may play both in career and sandbox mode. The Kerbal and all scientific data (in career mode) have to return to Kerbin in the same mission. There will be a stock and a modded category. However even the modded category has some restrictions. You are fair to use most balanced mods like for example b9, also nav helpers like Mechjeb or physics enhancers like ferram. (people with only optical enhancers like Kerb-paint can still send in for the non-mod-sections) However some mods would make this far too easy. For example anything involving lighter-than-air-flight (zeppelins/balloons) is banned. You may also not use some "magically" powerful and yet efficient thrusters or jet engines that somehow work in Jools atmosphere. In general you are not allowed to use any mod-parts that would make it possible to exit Eve with an ssto. Everything else should be fair. However I might ban some other things so beware Scoring works like this: Generally the Person with the lowest reached altitude wins. However if you cannot beat somebody else in altitude (for example because he did the almost impossible and got right over the surface) you can still try to beat him by bringing in more Kerbals or having a lighter craft (at the lowest point in atmospere). To make an entry please send in a picture of your orbiter when entering Jools SOI, one in map view when entering the atmosphere, one at your lowest point, one when leaving the atmosphere and one with the Kerbal/s back on kerbin. Please also tell me about all mods used, the weight of your craft at the lowest point and if played in career mode the science gained. If you want to you can also send pictures of your launch stages or a Video.