GoSlash27

well... Rey could die and leave Luke as the last... Or Kylo Ren could kill them both, realize the error of his ways, and turn to the light side...

I'm with RIC. I take the title to mean Luke is gonna die.

A nit- picky point: "delta" literally means "difference between" or "change in". Therefore, you should never state "delta vee" (change in velocity) without clarifying the units and you *definitely* do not use DV as the unit itself.. You do not say "3400 delta v", you say "a delta v of 3,400 meters per second". I know it comes off as pedantic, but it hurts my ears when people say that, as nonsensical as "how many talls you are" or "130 heavies". When you phrase it that way, the people who know what you're trying to say look at you like you were dropped on your head and the people who *don't* know what you're trying to say are even more confused than when you started. Apologies and carry on, -Slashy

I think it's safe to say that the idea of an Eve SSTO is a pipe dream as of 1.2.2. Even if it is *technically* feasible, it's still totally impractical in a career game. Sorry, -Slashy

Cunjo Carl, You wouldn't happen to be from Pittsburgh, would you? "Slippy" is a Pittsburgh thing... Go Stillers, -Slashy

If I keep running out of fuel like in these scenarios, I'd first ask myself why my DV budgets are suddenly no longer adequate. I plan my missions and DV budgets every step of the way and plug in a 10% reserve for each burn. Thus, "running out of fuel" isn't a situation that normally happens to me. Best, -Slashy

NeverEnoughFuel, My spreadsheet calculates each sidereal period from the sun's mass, the universal gravitational constant, and each planet's semimajor axis. That information is all available in the tracking station (or at least enough info to calculate it). You can, however, plug in those numbers from the wiki. Best, -Slashy

Carl, My spreadsheet agrees. A 7 km/sec stage from Kerbin's surface is indeed impossible*. in fact, a 7 km/sec stage at 1g acceleration is impossible even in a vacuum. Best, -Slashy *Not counting air breathers

NeverEnoughFuel, My formula for window frequency is this: ABS[perAperB/(perA-perB)]; the product of the periods divided by their difference. Kerbin -> Duna occurs once every ABS[1*1.88/(1-1.88)] = 2.14 years. HTHs, -Slashy

dennislee, the real life SRB used with the Atlas V has the exhaust nozzle canted to drive through the CoG, so it doesn't really matter how they're arranged. If I were to replicate it in KSP, I'd reduce the propellant and throttle on the 3 booster side to 70% so they make the same thrust as the other side but still burn out at the same time. Best, -Slashy

The first place I heard of this "torch ship" concept was Robert Heinlein. He was a wise old bird... Best, -Slashy

SlabGizor, There will always be a little misalignment in the early going because the airspeed is so low. The yaw drift is a result of the engines trying to correct for roll. You have to train yourself to not respond to the yaw misalignment with yaw, but rather roll. Likewise, if your wings aren't level you need to correct that with yaw. The plane wants to respond in such a way that the prograde vector is below the nose and centered. If you kick in a little left yaw, it will immediately roll left to try to get the prograde back below the nose, and vice versa. If you roll left, it will create a yaw left response. It's a weird way to fly, and takes some practice, patience, and finesse to get the hang of. I find that most of my work during launch is done using the yaw vectoring of the engines, with just a little roll to keep the turns coordinated. HTHs, -Slashy

SlabGizor, No, afraid not. The relative t/w is static for the orbiter by itself, but changes wildly for the booster and tank. Plus, you spend most of the time during the launch without the SRBs. That's why controlling the movement of the CoG and aligning to it's path is so critical. Yeah, you can do that. I just find it's easier to launch consistently with the center of combined thrust directly beneath the CoG. Best, -Slashy

SlabGizor, You won't need it for reentry or landing. Just having it back there is enough to keep your turns coordinated. Plus, having it active with SAS engaged tends to make the plane crab during turns. You dip a wing and it attempts to maintain your previous heading by yawing away from the turn. Makes everything a lot sloppier. Try building a simple plane with the rudder deactivated and you'll see what I mean. As for how to keep the CoT centered, that's the real trick to shuttles. Basically, you do this: I start with the bare orbiter, making sure that the OMS engines are thrusting through the CoG. Then I add the tank. I set up the tank to drain in such a way that the CoG descends along a line towards the main engines. Then I point the engines along that line. When I add the SRBs, they are offset slightly away from the shuttle so that the total thrust vector is through the CoG. It will take a little tweaking and trial runs to get it all running smoothly, but if you do it right you never have a thrust misalignment during the mission. Shuttles are tricky -Slashy

Not that I've noticed, but I never use active rudders on my planes. I don't imagine that having your rudder active is doing you any favors, though. It'll give you the same roll coupling as the engines. Best, -Slashy *edit* Nice lookin' shuttle, by the way

SlabGizor, That's actually normal behavior from a shuttle stack. The SSMEs are so far off the centerline that vectoring them to control yaw imparts roll and roll imparts yaw. I recommending turning down their vectoring range and practicing how to fly it that way. You need to learn to use your rudders to impart roll and your stick to correct yaw. It's tricky. Best, -Slashy

Jarin, You're into territory I haven't explored, I'm afraid. I'm used to engines staying lit so long as they have resources even if they happen to be producing *negative* thrust. Something must've changed in the code that I didn't notice because I don't drive that fast on air breathers due to heating. You've eliminated air starvation as the culprit, so the engines must be causing it. I'm going to take a page from @Speeding Mullet and summon the Kraken. @NathanKell is the resident expert on the coding regarding engine resource allocation and shutdowns. Perhaps he can shed some light on this weird phenomenon... Good luck, -Slashy

Jarin, The engines themselves limit the top speed and their efficiency varies with altitude. The intakes, OTOH, are only limited by minimum airspeed. I've never run an air breather fast enough to replicate what you're seeing, so I'm not sure why your engines are cycling. That usually happens when they're starved for air, not when they cease to produce usable thrust. I'm guessing you need to add intake area and see if the problem goes away. There's also a quirk in KSP where the order of assembly affects how engines are fed. You can run into a situation where one engine cuts off and then all intakes feed the other engine. To keep that from happening, you need to not install engines and intakes using symmetry. Instead, do intake 1, engine 1, intake 2, engine 2, and so on. HTHs, -Slashy

thelordrahl88, I'd recommend starting a thread about this in the "modded bugs 'n' fixes" forum. It looks to me like you've got something that's keeping your indicators from working properly. Good luck, -Slashy

suicidejunkie, Yeah, I don't disagree with any of this. I think we're just talking past each other. My point was that it's not difficult to make a stable rocket that doesn't need SAS to keep from tumbling. It's just a PITA to work with in vacuum. Best, -Slashy

Ten Key, I agree, but OTOH I think the tech tree is too slow in providing biome scanning. suicidejunkie, I actually turn off the SAS during the atmospheric phase, so that doesn't bother me so much. It just becomes inconvenient once I leave the atmosphere. Best, -Slashy

thelordrahl88, It looks to me like your procedural wings are confusing the CoL indicator. It isn't showing a lift vector. Best, -Slashy

I've used the stayputnik early in previous careers, but didn't need to use it at all in 1.2.2. I don't know if it's due to the reshuffling of the tech tree or a difference in my strategy, but by the time I was ready to send up a probe, I had already unlocked the HECS. Best, -Slashy

a few points: #1 The rocket needs to be designed from the top down, not the bottom up. You start from the payload, minimum t/w, and the DV budget and design the upper stage. Then you treat that as payload for the lifter and repeat. I do this using the reverse rocket equation in a spreadsheet, but you can do it with MechJeb. #2 High t/w saves DV, but low t/w saves mass and cost. 0.7 t/w is fine for an upper stage and 1.4 is plenty for a lower. #3 SRBs are cheap, but heavy. I don't recommend using them in early career for orbital boosters. My recommendation is to use the LV-909 for an upper stage and an LV-45 for the booster. Upper stage needs a t/w of 0.7 minimum and 1,700 m/sec DV. The lower stage needs a t/w of 1.2 minimum and 1,800 m/sec DV. If you follow this approach, you can orbit and safely recover up to 3 tonnes of payload without upgrading the starting facilities. Good luck! -Slashy

sardia, Yes, if you define efficiency as dollars per tonne delivered to orbit, the RAPIER is more efficient than any jet/ LV-N combo. There are some combos that can get close, though (at least in the closed cycle portion). Jet/aerospike and jet/Poodle are both pretty good in 1:1 ratios. The downside is that the additional nodes are much draggier, especially with Poodles. Best, -Slashy