Empiro

Has anyone actually experimented with spaceplanes on Eve? Even if you can't use jet engines, it seems like a space plane could still help in the following ways: You can have have a lower TWR in your lower stage and save weight on engines. You can ascend more slowly, and not lose as much due to drag / gravity losses.

I actually recently had a mission that sounds very similar to yours -- a space plane for Laythe, a staged lander for Tylo (and the ascent stage gets reused for Vali, Bop and Pol). I also had a pair of probes I dropped into Jool and Laythe. I used a reverse gravity assist around Laythe to get into orbit around Jool. I think the gravity brake works better because you can more easily tweak both your periapsis and apoapsis around Jool. I put myself 3 million km from Jool at periapsis, and my Apoapsis touched Tylo's orbit. This let me get low orbit science around Jool (you can't get atmospheric data without being sub-orbital anyways, I believe). After the maneuver, I dropped off my Laythe space plane (weighs about 10.5 tons), and it was easy to get an encounter with Laythe with just a few m/s. Aerobraking around Laythe was actually the hardest part -- Laythe's atmosphere grows thick very quickly, and it has a tiny SOI compared to its gravity, so either you're on an escape trajectory, or you won't leave the atmosphere. I'm playing with both Deadly Reentry and FAR, and I had to make use of the overpowered B9 air brakes to control exactly how much I slowed down. It's pretty hard to land on Laythe --I used a B9 VTOL engine on my space plane to let me land more easily. It wasn't balanced enough vertically, but it let me land at a very slow horizontal speed. The main ship then went to Tylo before going to Vali and then finally to Laythe to pick up the space plane (it's very light when empty). I then used a gravity assist around Tylo to put myself close to Pol's orbit. It took a long time to get the orbit to match up with Pol. After landing on Pol I waited until Pol crossed AN/DN of Bop and did both the transfer burn and inclination correction burn at once, which really saved on fuel. In the end though, my mission turned out to be massively over-engineered, and I had tons of fuel left after leaving Jool, but it was a great experience and I thought that I did a pretty good job with the flight plan.

I posted this in the suggestion thread, but thought to post it here too: If it's possible to spawn beacons/flags, it would be a cool mission to generate a cluster of 3-5 or so beacons within a few km of each other, and generate a mission that asks you to get really close to them (close as in <5m) while bringing along a piece of heavy scientific equipment (that's otherwise useless). It would give players a bit of extra challenge to lift and land this equipment at a precise location, and make rovers useful without artificially requiring that your wheels touch ground at all times (if you're a badass pilot, you can certainly fly to each location and land).

I'd love to see a combination of these, as well as missions requiring lots of precision I'm thinking something like: - Crash a probe weighing at least X tons travelling at least Y m/s (and optionally for a bonus payment: to within Z km of some spawned beacon (maybe flags can be used?)). The weight and speed restrictions make it hard for you to just have a single "mothership" that drops pieces off. I'd also love to see some complex, multi-part missions have have a clear logical goal and progression: - Land some esoteric scientific equipment X (it can be big, heavy, expensive and otherwise useless) to within 10km of some spawned beacon - Run test / scan using the equipment - Randomly generate a handful of new beacons nearby within a few km, and require you to bring a different piece of heavy equipment (like a drill) to extreme precision (like with 5 meters) of those locations. - At any of the locations, have a chance of "finding something really interesting", which generates a new mission that asks you to bring the sample back -- again, the sample should vary in mass (from very light to extremely heavy), but it shouldn't always happen (so always bringing along a huge return lander is wasteful). If you bring it back, you should get tons of science (but maybe very little extra money, so you have to decide if it's worth it or not). The combination of: the weight of the equipment, precision at which you must place it, and the fact that you have to do this 2-3 times make it natural for you to want to use a rover. However, if you're badass enough of a pilot and bring along lots of extra fuel, you can also do small rocket hopes. I generally like giving multiple options and ways of doing things, and I don't like arbitrary limitations or requirements (for example, the rover mission mod requires you to be touching the ground as you travel, which I don't like). I don't think it's possible within the game at the moment, but if you can generate unique equipment names and ids (perhaps using the same hilarious contract description generator), you also force players to have to launch a new rocket for each mission, which prevents them from doing cheese like leaving a Kerbal somewhere to plant a flag now and then.

Ah okay, thanks for the advice. I was trying to get a probe into a sub-orbital trajectory, so I figured that with 2 heat shields I ought to just dive right in. I still find it a bit surprising how quickly the heat shield overheated and exploded though -- at around 100km. The Science Jr module underneath it lasted MUCH longer, and actually got into about 80km or so before exploding.

I was wondering if anyone was having issues with the heat shield itself burning up? In my game, I was trying to get a probe into Jool's atmosphere, and not one but two 1.25m heat shields quickly overheated and exploded, even though the ablative shield resource was still at close to full (it was depleting very slowly). The science module underneath took much longer to burn up than the heat shields. I'm 100% certain I have the heat shields installed the right way (went into VAB to check, and confirmed the rounded side was facing the direction of travel). The heat shields seem to have worked in the past as I was returning to Kerbin, though of course there I was not travelling at 9km/s. I do use FAR if that makes a difference.

Ah thanks for looking into it! If it's possible, maybe it would be simpler to just have all runway landings be considered the "best" kind of landing? It seems like if you manage to get your craft back to the space center in one piece, it should be cheap to refurb what's left.

I too wouldn't mind a smaller version (and one with a science lab as stated in the top post). I love the look and feel of the module, but so far, I haven't found much use for carrying 24 Kerbals around.

It had a B9 VTOL and RAPIER. I don't know if B9 is counts or not since it's in a mod, but I think that RAPIER should count since they're popular for spaceplanes.

Yeah -- it was minimal since I literally took off and then landed. The ship cost display was also showing $83k, but recovering the vessel on the runway just yielded the $68k or so.

I'm having an issue with the amount returned when I land a space plane on the runway. I seem to be getting about 80% or so of the ships value instead of 95+%. I tested this just now by taking off in a plane worth $83k, turning around, landing on the runway, and recovering. I got back $68k or so, according the after mission report. I have both "cheaper construction". I don't know if that is the culprit.