FleshJeb

The solution to problems in multiplayer that a LOT of people seem to miss is, "Be a little more chill."

The pitch-up is a side effect of having the CoLift slightly in front of the CoM, but when added to the CoDrag, the net effect is behind the CoM. I usually build space planes to be able to fly hands-off to orbit on Surface Prograde, and I forgot I could trim...DUH. I think this will probably answer your questions better than more text (Neither KER nor RCS BA is set up right, but I'm just using the CoM indicator):

The Spikes have superior ISP to the vector/twin boar for the vast majority of the atmo profile. Right now it's a drag problem, not a thrust problem. I've got so much lift, I actually have to throttle back the three Spikes to fly surface prograde without pitching up too much. I can pack 7 engines into a rear end 2.5m fairing. They're nearly dragless, and I could make them completely so. If I get rid of half the wings, I should be able to get some good flying done. 4 Nervs would be good enough to push it NOW, if I could get it to 16.5km on the Spikes. I still have lots of fiddling to do, but I'm not convinced it's unreasonable yet.

SSTO from somewhere on Eve. I know it's been done with what I'll loosely describe as a "Brad Whitstance-style" fast-climbing, minimal wing plane, but I'm trying for an slow-climb, high L/D ratio "AeroGav-style" plane. I haven't been on Eve since pre-1.0 days, when I just barely made it back to orbit from a mountaintop with some asparagus-staged monster. It's a lot easier now.

Last night, I tried various combinations of Aerospikes, Nervas, and Vectors. This plane is about 150T full, and 50T empty, with approx 80 lift units of wing @ 5deg incidence. It re-enters and lands beautifully, but there's way too much wing, and it's inducing far too much drag to accelerate. Also, oddly enough, the 2.5m service bay is draggier than every other part. Solar panels and radiators won't deploy through a fairing, so I might be stuck with it. In the end, I'll probably abandon the ISRU in the front, since I can de-orbit with 25m/s, and land fully-fueled. There's no way I'm getting anything to orbit from sea level, so I'm going to try some mountaintops with a more stripped-down design.

On Kerbin, with wings, I can escape with a starting TWR of 0.20 on nukes. I'm almost certain I'm going to have to use KRPC to independently run the aerospikes at reduced throttle. I just need to do that long enough for the total thrust to beat the total drag by about 2:1. What that means is this thing needs to be as slippery as possible. I won't be using any MH parts--I just don't think they belong in challenges. Personal preference.

Good enough, thanks for the info. I should be able to float something up there easily enough on aerospikes. Right now I'm looking at 4 or 5 aerospikes and 2 or 3 nukes to push a 2.5m stack.

The python devs could write a style guide that says pulling out your toenails with pliers is now “the pythonic way” and half the user base would do it. This is only a slight parody of the arguments against putting a SWITCH statement in the language.

Heh, I should try that. It was less “interesting”, but way more fun. Also it was much kinder to those who design intuively as opposed to us spreadsheet jockeys.

Provided it’s done passably well. The dv calc and comms system are decent simplifications of great mods. Kerbnet is hot garbage and resource-scanning is a joke. The one consistent thing about stock development quality is that it’s wildly inconsistent. This is why I’m in the “add nothing, bugstomp, and freeze development” crowd. If I didn’t have collabs going, I’d roll back to 1.3.1 and never update again.

@OHara Are you able to explain these lines in the part configs? This particular example is the Mk1 LF tank. I’ve always wondered why the min is larger than the max. I assume the first line is for the auto-generated A and Cd0. dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.3 angularDrag = 2

Ten chutes? I assume the first 2 are to yank the rear aeroshell, the second 2 are supersonic drogues, next 3 are subsonic drogues, and finally 3 landing chutes. You’d think some flaps to get air under the shell would be enough to get rid of the first two.

I took it to mean simultaneous docking of multiple ports of whatever size in whatever orientation. ive used it to dock long drive sections to ships with one port forward and one or more to the side. Like if you have two or more sets of engines attached to a central spine. It keeps them from splaying out to the side, particularly if they have gimbaled engines.

@Gargamel Does it count if I intentionally place it on my clipboard?

Sily gave me a few heart attacks there.

@Laie Do you have the time and inclination to rerun those ISP curves on page 3 out to 50km, and including nukes? I’d like to see where the Aerospike and the Nerva cross over. I have an idea involving wings...

@NewtSoup Sorry to hear that—hope it improves. Which Avenger are you? #2 = $/£/€, so that’s good. It’ll happen if/when it happens. I have so many half-completed KSP projects, you have no idea.

@Eidahlil Ha, I should have spotted that. Statistics is really not my strong point. My analyses involve FWN (Fooling With Numbers) and trying to figure out the implications. Still, I think I see what you’re getting at. Is your proposed solution 2pi and 0-180? Please, go ahead and fix it. I don’t really have the time. Thanks for following up, and the explanation. I’m really just in this to figure out the relative effectiveness of guns (I sort of understand the damage model), so that I can produce a rational point-buy system for competitions.

It took me a bit to realize the solar panels are antlers. This remains top-notch entertainment.

It was called NEAR. Apparently it was intended as more of a joke than anything. Personally, I like to stick to stock physics and parts, because there’s a larger community to share with.

@funkheld I think servo_with_name(vessel,name).move_right() Link to the Discord server but it’s been pretty quiet: https://www.reddit.com/r/krpc/comments/8ojx0i/discord_server_now_available/

Last time I did it was 1.3.1, and it was fine.

Are you sure you’re not thinking of HyperEdit or VesselMover? I’m pretty sure you’d still have to drop it from orbit if you use Alt-F12

Did you do the math for that, or are you just winging it? I’m kind of shocked at the number of KSP players that embark on epic journeys without doing basic mission planning—Then again, I’m the type to do an enormous amount of planning and testing and then never complete anything... Edit: From one of the earlier comics: 152484 total LF / 0.37 LF/s * 19m/s = 7800km. I assume you aimed for Kerbin circumference * 2

Grossly garrulous grammar is great!