GoSlash27

Wouldn't be a problem with overspeeding. KSP doesn't model that. You could have a clipping issue with the gear where deploying them triggers a collision. I have a shuttle with clipped OMS tanks and every once in a while the OMS clusters will forcibly eject themselves from the vehicle on the pad. Best, -Slashy

I guess I'll throw this in here. If it's not cool, just let me know and I'll remove it. How to get science from the rooftop biomes the easy way using only early tech: It should be arranged so that the CoM is below and just a bit behind the parachutes. The CoT should run right through the parachutes. This makes an inherently stable and easy-to-fly STOL paraglider aircraft. You don't need a pilot to fly it. Steering is controlled with yaw. Altitude is controlled with throttle. Speed is controlled with pitch. These will fly easily at walking speed and set down gently on a dime. After recovering science, recover the aircraft and relaunch. Best, -Slashy

My biggest launch so far in 1.04 is pretty tiny compared to the rest of the pics here. Just 250t on the pad. The fuel tank itself is the payload. It's the storage tank for my orbital platform where I assemble/ fuel/ staff ships for interplanetary expeditions. The lower section with all the goodies is detachable and recoverable. Here's the tank in place on the station: I prefer to do small launches and assemble the pieces in orbit. Here you can see the research vessel KSS Arcturus Docked at port 1. Best, -Slashy

Starhawk, So far, on all the bodies I've visited the tanks are a good deal lighter than the payload. Certainly when the tanks are partially drained from the descent burn. Probably a different story on places like Tylo... *edit* doing the math back-of-the-envelope... A ship with fully loaded tanks exactly equal to the mass of the payload/ engines would have a Rwd of 1.89. Even at 300s Isp, this would translate to about 1,900 m/sec DV. Much higher than would be necessary on almost all moons, and even then the tanks would weigh less than the payload at the moment of touchdown. So yeah... tanks should be on top. Best, -Slashy

I like the idea of adding this dynamic to the game! I'm not sure how it would work in the early going with the ability to click on different bodies, but it would be awesome if info from probes helped to fill in the blanks. Of course, this would mean that scanning sensors would need to be moved up the tech ladder... Or conversely a manned pod would act as a low- res surface scanner for topo info, but the bitmap doesn't show up in the science complex or tracking station until either the kerbonaut is recovered or the data is transmitted. Best, -Slashy

My new lander designs put the fuel tank above everything else. Low CoG is good. Best, -Slashy

Wings provided actual "lift" in old aero and they still do. If they had acted like large flat panels, lift and drag would've been proportional to the sine of pitch and on the same order of magnitude. They actually provide lift proportional to the sine of twice the pitch and it's much higher than the drag they generate in the process. Best, -Slashy

Nich, There's no reason why you shouldn't make the run with less fuel, particularly if you're going for lowest possible consumption. Not gonna do that carrying dead weight. Also, congrats on the landing! Best, -Slashy

I'm struggling to understand the utility of 2-way ducting. I've never needed it and can't imagine how I ever would. Best, -Slashy

Nich, I see what you did there This is why I always build my SSTOs just barely big enough to do the job. Best, -Slashy

Nich, Working from memory, afterburners roughly double the thrust, but multiply the fuel consumption by 5. Best, -Slashy

Surprisingly (or perhaps not) it really wouldn't save much. Atmospheric effects don't give much of a penalty on Kerbin. Best, -Slashy

Starhawk, Yeah, I can well imagine! I don't really want them "nerfed" per se... I think spaceplanes are reasonably accessible as they are. I'd just like to see it rebalanced so that jets make lousy rockets. I think it's possible to have both by simulating afterburners in the throttle curve. At under 90% throttle the thrust is halved but you have over 3 times the current Isp. At over 90% the thrust is as it is now, but the Isp falls to half the current value. I would imagine the Weasley wouldn't have the afterburner, so it would have lower t/w but excellent Isp at all times. This would make spaceplanes work about the same as they do now, but would make jets less efficient as vertical lifters. Not that I'm all that wound- up about it. If they never fix this, I'm not going to jump and scream about it. Best, -Slashy

Exactly the way Brutezzi said. You have the units of fuel in the resource screen and each 200 units is a tonne. Count only the fuel when dealing with the LV-N. You have the ship's mass in the info screen in tonnes. You have the LV-N's Isp as 800s (give it a quick tap of throttle while looking at the engine's stats if you don't have it handy). Step1 find the fuel's mass. fuel units/200 is the mass in tonnes. Step2 find the ship/s mass when you're out of fuel. current mass minus fuel mass. Step3 find the wet/dry ratio. Current mass/mass when out of fuel Step4 find the natural log of the wet/dry ratio. ln(Mw/Md) Step5 find the DV remaining. Multiply the result by 9.81 and the Isp (which is 800) Best, -Slashy

Nich, The P&W F-100 gets a higher t/w than both of those plus the Rapier. But that's in zone 5 afterburner, and it's Isp is only 1552s when you do that. That changes things considerably. Best, -Slashy

To all personnel, We are conducting a base- wide safety standdown. All flight ops are cancelled effective immediately. All section leaders are to conduct procedure reviews and safety training until further notice. -Mgmt

Nich, Not the way I do it (evil grin). I can afford to skimp on the testing because I already know it'll fly decently and do the mission while still in the VAB. The first flight is to make sure that it handles well throughout the profile. The second flight is to ensure that it has sufficient DV to achieve orbit. The last flight is a full- up mission to ensure that everything works as designed. If I'm feeling confident, I skip the last verification test. Best, -Slashy

http://s52.photobucket.com/user/GoSlash27/slideshow/KSP/Tanbal Tanbal gets his shuttle wings! BadSS mode engaged! This trainer makes it easy. Steady handling throughout. The only gripe is the downward- facing tailplanes. They give a weird yaw reaction. It's slow and draggy on the way up, so use a conservative launch profile. It's clean on the way down, so I set Ap at 47 km. Best, -Slashy

Samniss, That looks like more than enough spaceplane to do the job from my house. I'll give it a whirl. Best, -Slashy

The harrier jump jet is perfectly feasible. A harrier jump jet as the booster stage of an orbital rocket not so much And a single weasley is perfectly adequate for lifting a Harrier- sized airplane. If you're using 4 of them, your plane is much bigger than a Harrier. Nich, My beef with the engines doesn't extend to spaceplanes. I think spaceplanes are just fine the way they are. It's the engines I have a problem with. IRL jet engines have half the game's t/w in military power and terrible Isp in afterburner. If the game reflected this, nobody would bother using air breathing engines as a first stage. I wouldn't even necessarily want the game to reflect that. I'd just like them nerfed enough that rockets make better rockets than jets do. Check out the leaderboard for the payload fraction challenge. Air breathers are pulling down nearly twice the payload fraction of rockets. This should not be. Best, -Slashy

That was my first thought. If you're over 36km altitude an equal indicated speed northbound is 175m/sec faster than eastbound. Best, -Slashy

Nich, I'm totally fine with a 6 kerbal limit if that's your preference, even if it DQ's my PB 3.0. I'd rather have that than a big transport arms race. If we're getting 2 points per kerbal, then 4 points per tonne of cargo makes sense since a 4 kerbal pod weighs 2 tonnes. The penalty for costs really needs to rise dramatically though or you still have a race to huge spaceplanes. The penalty for orbiting a kerbal should be about equal to the reward for orbiting a kerbal. That way there's no incentive to build bigger and bigger ships, but rather more efficient and cost-effective ones.] Best, -Slashy

RIC, I agree, but my beef is specifically with their t/w ratio and unrealistically high Isp. They really shouldn't be suitable for vertical lifters, but I'm a big fan of using them for spaceplanes. Best, -Slashy

noobs, That would certainly be the point of a sandbox toy (and a perfectly valid way to play), but as a *game* it must have balance. If it's not challenging enough it's not very much fun. Having the ability to make spaceplanes that do interplanetary round trips is a pretty good indication that it's not sufficiently challenging. But that's not my point exactly. We should not have access to jet engines that make better rockets than actual rockets. Having that defeats the purpose of using rockets. I'd like to see them nerfed just enough that you can't use them as vertical lifters with enough payload to be worth the trouble. Best, -Slashy - - - Updated - - - Grumman, I would agree with the second option. Just because an option would be useful doesn't necessarily mean we should have it. It should be difficult to move an empty airframe to another planet and back, not easy. Best, -Slashy

The Probuilder 3.0 is an example of what I mean. It's about the smallest thing I'd care to make with Mk 3 parts and I took some extra flights to tweak it out. $6,836 on R&D, but because it carries 20 kerbals, it can get over 30 points. This one has a lot more orbital DV than is necessary to do the job and I've run 2 full missions to make sure it's got no kinks. Flies pretty much like the 2.0. A little shallower on the initial climb and a little cleaner on reentry (include s-turns in the descent profile). The wings have a lower heat tolerance, so take care. Let them cool before doing the reentry and don't push it. I don't normally do large- scale passenger transports because I never have a need to move large numbers of kerbals at once, but this is about the smallest thing I can do at this scale. Increasing from here will only make the scoring sillier. Download link http://wikisend.com/download/493856/PB30.craft Best, -Slashy