Theoderich

I failed to go to space for a very simple and not screenshot worthy reason: The lack of funds to launch what I wanted... time for a few satellite contracts then.

That is a neat little tug. - - - Updated - - - I flew a survey. ONE survey contract, that took me nearly 2h. Flying to the southern ice cap of kerbin takes time. Trying 6 times to get my single jet engine plane above 19600m at the last survey point took longer.

FAR? And it still look like it is going fast. Backwards.

I just had something similar build, but smaller, only 1.25m tanks on the side, but 6, 4 of which are just fuel and get ejected when empty.

That's how Kerbal Starfleet's Coprs of Engineers rolls

I flew and flew and flew... surveys take so long but at least I got to land in one piece again, thanks to researching new wheels

Finally got around to start a new career after switching around some mods ( got rid of B9 for the RAM cost, finally have TAC LS back and so got MKS too). So far I did a few surveys, reached orbit twice and will now set up my comsat network around Kerbin. Those surveys needed a lot of legwork from Jeb, since landing a jet with only the Firespitter biplane wheels available is too tricky for me as I had to find out again. So he flew into the area of the eva surveys in question and ejected, using his personal chute to land safely.

I am with the person that already posted the Aurora class Starfury from Babylon 5's Earth Alliance. One of the few true space fighter designs, and sensible too: Thrusters as far away from the COM as possible for maximal torque, pilot close to COM to minimize it ( not artificial gravity available), thrusters in all directions and equally strong front and back ones. I also liked how (at least in the beginning) the show took care to only show the engines firing when they accelerated, not for cruising.

Those are awesome. Especially with the limited part selection you had to work with.

I tried to build a space plane. So far I had 5 iterations, none made it to orbit. They can get to 28km on jets only though, with a horizontal velocity of about 1km/s. And got so much fuel left, that I will replace one of the LF only tanks with a LFO one, that will hopefully give me the dV to make it to orbit.

Apart from the already mentioned, very fine and sensible ( and true) reasons there is another: Lights. When I send something up for orbital assembly I always pack some lights into a box, so that my Kerbals can place them once I am done. Or maybe earlier, if I notice some work in progress area needs more light. I just hate time warping just because I am on the dark side and can't see stuff.

I just designed and flew a plane for a temperature contract just beyond the northern ice caps. So I flew for an hour, real time since it is allergic to time warp, and ran out of fuel shortly after passing the pole.. so far so good, I though.. let's glide the rest. Saved and flew on.. turns out: my target zone is on the other side of a large lake, and I could glide to the middle of the lake, but no further. So I decided to land on the ice instead, safer and closer to home...BUT I forgot to check center of lift vs center of mass when empty. Which was already a problem when I still wanted to cross the lake. I is very as soon as you go below about 170m/s, at least when empty. Landing took me a long time, but I made it loosing only one wingtip. So with the failed glide attempt, and the landing I spend about 2h for NOT getting the contract done.. hurray for doing that again

And should destroy your ship too close to Jool

I wasn't sure what the Kerbal equivalent of Europa, so I just stuck to the real one.

Don't attempt any landings on Europa

Nice. What is your FPS with that insane part count?

I build and used my first VTOL. Due to lack of piloting skill it is more a VTO(L), but still. The engines are mounted on IR rotatrons, so far allowing 360° turns. The first iteration suffered from an acute lack of electric power, which made fuel efficient gliding impossible, so the next one got solar panels and a bunch of batteries. And a small wheel in the back for conventional landing. The next goal is to make it more stable at high altitudes and that tricky moment between slow gliding and powered vertical landing.

I flew, and flew.. and flew. While waiting for my first munar orbiter ( no landing before upgrading the VAB..damm part limit) I send out my old vertical take off/chute landing plane to survey some things. landing legs were not able to keep it upright, so the second EVA report was gathered by walking to it. Luckily it was only some 4 km away from the first. Then I tried to build a karbonite fueled plane for long distance flights, but it turns out that I would need more scoops then my current hangar and runway could manage, having only radial tanks for the stuff doesn't help. So I landed my munar orbiter, unlocked some parts ( landing gear!) and took another survey contract, near the south pole. Build a new arrow shaped plane and flew there. In real time since I found FAR and time acceleration mix even worse then stock air and acceleration. 1h43min later I am still flying. Gliding to a landing after all 4 surveys are done. For all the instability it gets from high angles of attack, and every little course correction above 16km, it glides like a feather. Half a continent without really trying, from 10km starting high.

Makes sense.

Are those unmanned rockets? Because 3km is the range of the build in antenna of probe cores if I remember correctly. So you might either have no external antenna with longer range installed and active the rocket, or if you use FAR and used anything but the DP-10 it might have been ripped of due to drag forces.

I flew some more surveys for money and a bit of science, unlocked wheels, landed on the runway after a flight halfway to the south pole. Which is a first to me, never did do much with planes, so I really need to work on my landing skills. And then I took a rescue mission, forgetting that I still had the basic tracking station..well. I got my orbit pretty close.. but so far I didn't get my ship closer then 5.8km to the target. I mean..I could do without maneuver nodes, and even without close distance to target indicators...but I can't even set the poor soul as a target to see relative velocity Will try again tomorrow.

I played some more career, and those survey contracts really give a reason to build planes. Something I always feared, but in stock air it isn't that bad. Here is my fist survey plane after my first survey contract. Can't go too far if it wants to come back, and has no landing gear (not unlocked yet ) and shouldn't go too high ( getting the second survey was tricky, above 19km the engine does not get enough air with just one intake). But it flies fine and one can land it pretty good if flying in low and slow and then deploying the chutes for the last meters. My next goal is getting landing gear, so that those contracts that require landings get easier. In theory this plane could do them by landing on the tail and then lifting off again like a rocket, it got the TWR, but that is probably beyond my piloting skills.

I would be quite for those restrictions, but for those that aren't can't you make a checkbox to turn them off?

...when you mount your engines radially on IR rotatrons since that makes rendezvous and docking so much easier then turning the whole craft around. ...when you need to send life support package including electricity to the mun and use a 2.5m fission reactor from interstellar for that. Hey, nothing wrong with that. They make great mun landers, once you get your landing gear placed in a way that compensates for their length.

Great update. The building system is nice, the new editor tools are really, really awesome, and kerbal xp is on a good way. By that I mean that it could be made clearer ingame what gives, xp. And looking at the patch notes, also some more abilities for the highest ranks would be nice. Suicide burns for pilots come to mind here, or buffing engineers by giving them more readouts the higher they level, or decreased resource use. But hey, it's a new system, doesn't need to be perfected already In order to not end the post on a slightly negative mood, let me just say again how much I love the new editor tools!