Wanderfound

A lower-tech demonstrator: Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/feUJX Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/iq9z0jxy3q3mqz0/Kerbodyne Cavelifter.craft?dl=0

In that case, you can do whatever you want with them. Including things like this: Or this: http://imgur.com/a/XMj7g

Examples do it best: Album at http://imgur.com/a/tsf3M Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgpi3ed6efvlg7w/Kerbodyne Unorap.craft?dl=0 Things to note: 1) Minimal drag; no unnecessary surface clutter. 2) Good heat tolerance on the leading parts. 3) Enough fuel to get up, plus a bit of extra LF in case you miss your reentry. 4) Minimal weight shift as the fuel drains. 5) You could easily add a small service bay to this if you want to stash some science gear.

Not any more; Klaws default to no crossfeed allowed now. Which is how it always should have been, really. When I'm doing a mining operation, I usually don't bother with a separate mining rig. You lose too much fuel while you're bringing it to orbit. Instead, I normally just build the mining rig into the mothership and land the whole thing. You don't need a huge vessel if you do it right:

You're getting there. Most of the basics are already covered, but to recap: 1) Enough jet thrust to reach take off speed and crack transonic. Any more is a mass-wasting luxury. 2) Enough post-oxygen thrust to reach orbit without losing excessive energy to drag. If you're going interplanetary, nukes are worth the hassle; if not, dump the nukes and mount an oxidising rocket instead. Pure LF planes are possible, but LF/O designs are much easier. 3) For high-tech orbital, just RAPIERs. For low-tech orbital, Whiplashes plus either Swivels, Thuds or Terriers. For beyond orbital, RAPIERs plus a nuke or two. 4) If you're going orbital, enough LF tankage to run the jets until switchover, but no more. If you're going nuke/RAPIER, enough oxidiser tankage to lift the apoapsis above 70km, but no more. A nuke ship should circularise on the nuke, and carry as much LF tankage as it can lift. 5) Go easy on luxury goods, especially drag-inducing ones like RCS. If you don't need 'em, don't take 'em. This includes things like using bulk SAS to compensate for aerodynamic imperfections. If you use the thrust limiter, even high-power engines are fine for rendezvous. 6) Think about heat tolerance. Low-tech aircraft parts are not designed to handle reentry. If you're careful enough, even a low-tech plane can manage it, but it's a lot easier if you stick to high temp tolerant parts. SSTA demonstrator:

Stock Aero Grand Tour Part 3 No Ike detour; I can get down and up easy enough, but if I take the time required to mine the fuel expended I'd miss my window to Dres. Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/Nsi1R

No Ike detour; I can get down and up easy enough, but if I take the time required to mine the fuel expended I'd miss my window to Dres. Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/Nsi1R

Ike or Dres?

Stock Aero Grand Tour Demo: Kerbodyne Planet Hopper Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/ujLIL -- Stock Aero Grand Tour Part 2 Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/F3vzM

Stock Aero Grand Tour Part 2 Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/F3vzM

Stock Aero Grand Tour Demo: Kerbodyne Planet Hopper Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/ujLIL

Imgur album on getting started in stock Career: Album at http://imgur.com/a/0zCVG

Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/viTmD Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/v1aphj7h861yvyf/Kerbodyne Explorer.craft?dl=0

Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/272HU Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/f5x6xjivrenvqn3/Kerbodyne Orbit Express.craft?dl=0

Album at http://imgur.com/gallery/SdY24 Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/vf96bw684oq0vp3/Kerbodyne Wedge.craft?dl=0

Turn on angle snap, absolute instead of local, and rotate the landing gear so that it's perfectly vertical and straight. Angled gear don't work unless they're rigid; the suspension and part-joint flex warps the steering geometry in unpredictable ways.

Heya, Crzyrndm. Does KPA still include a PID tuner for de-wobbling stock SAS? If so, how do you access it? I can't seem to find it if it's still there.

When are you lighting your nukes? They should be going on well before the jets flame out; I normally kick mine in at 20,000m or so.

As soon as you get your first jets and wings: (advanced canard tailfin just for aesthetics; it'd work just as well with an AV-R8 or similar instead) However, that's an extreme example. Juno-based SSTOs are novelties. A Wheesley SSTO might be useful for crew transfer, but not much else. Once you've got Panthers, you can manage a bit more, but they don't become truly useful until the Whiplashes arrive. Once you've got Whiplashes, though, you can annihilate the career game economics. Minimal-cost fuel delivery to LKO makes everything else much, much easier. When refuelled in LKO, a RAPIER/LV-N spaceplane can go pretty much anywhere.

Start small, start simple, walk before you run. Single-RAPIER designs are probably the easiest to start with. So long as you don't overload it with excess gear, one Mk1 LF tank and about an FL-T800 of LFO should be enough fuel. Possibly add a bit extra LFO if you're unused to making an efficient SSTO ascent. For example:

I've been getting into scratchbuilding RC planes lately. A lot of the simpler ones are three-channel designs: elevator, throttle and rudder only, no ailerons. They rely entirely upon dihedral or polyhedral wings for roll control. Like this one: As you give it rudder input, the plane begins to sideslip. This pushes the "outside" wingtip into the air, generating extra lift, which banks you into the turn. Once you stop sideslipping, the inside wingtip now generates more lift than the outside wingtip, rolling you back to level. I've no idea about stock, but the same concept does work in FAR. With enough dihedral, ailerons are unnecessary. They're still nice to have, though; dihedral forces often don't act as quickly as you like, and on a high-dihedral airframe there is frequently a tendency to oscillate on the roll axis.

Be careful with wing-mounted wheels; if the wings flex, it'll disrupt the alignment of the landing gear, causing lethal takeoff wobbles. You can only get away with wing-mounted gear on very light aircraft and/or very stiff wings. However, you can get the look and wheelbase of wing gear without the flex by mounting it to the fuselage and then translating it outwards.

Minimum tech SSTO spaceplane: The tailfin I used there is the highest tech part, but that was just for aesthetics; you could easily replace that with a lower-tech equivalent. However, while it is possible to make SSTO spaceplanes as soon as you unlock the first wings, it isn't very practical. Spaceplanes don't become truly useful until you have the Panther, then become a lot easier again once you unlock the Whiplash.

This was done for FAR, but stock aero is close enough these days that the same principles apply:

You can alter the game by modding it (I'd go for RSS over Interstellar, but it's all down to how well the mods are working in 1.1), you can alter the game by self-imposed restrictions, or you can alter the game by just altering your ambitions. You've maxed the tech tree, but have you established mining/research colonies all over? You've been to Duna, but have you flown a 20 seater SSTO tourist spaceplane on a Jool-5 tour? Have you sent a probe into Kerbol? Have you put the tiniest probe possible on the biggest rocket possible and flung it out of the system as an interstellar probe? Etc.