Wanderfound

Launch a pusher with some girders on the nose (no claw required). Nudge orbit until the impact point is in the middle of KSC. Build grandstands on the roof of the SPH.

Thanks, Sirine. Much appreciated; my review of Sirine's performance as challenge host is running A+ so far.

Some basic space station tips: 1) Remember that you can lift tanks empty. If you're building an orbital refuelling station, lift the station empty then fill it up later. You're going to have to establish some sort of refilling system anyway, so you may as well start with it. 2) Part count. Lag becomes extreme if you have a chunky space station with half a dozen spaceplanes docked to it. Use a few big tanks rather than lots of small ones (this goes for RCS/batteries/etc. as well), and don't be afraid to deorbit things that are no longer required. Try not to let the parking lot get too cluttered. 3) Lighting. You want to be able to see it clearly from distance when you're coming in to dock. In particular, you want some lights aimed at the docking ports. 4) Probe cores. Make sure that there's at least one on board somewhere. Disable its battery as an emergency electricity reserve. 5) Placement: where do you want it? The lower the orbit the easier it is to get to. OTOH, a refuelling station in a high orbit lets you go further. 6) Solar panels. If you're planning on having a laboratory on board, don't skimp on the solar. Lab work sucks up the juice like nothing else.

Quick ways to get √ at the start: 1) Many contracts offer advances that pay as soon as you accept them. Accept, ignore, spend. 2) Ground testing contracts. Stayputnik, girder section, test part, 100% recovery. Test rockets unfuelled. 3) Splashdown testing contracts. Stayputnik, parachute, test part, RT-10 with thrust limited and 90% of the fuel removed. Pop off the launchpad into the ocean just off KSC, test. Easy ways to get √ once you're established: 1) Leave a Kerbal on the Mun. Every time a "plant flag" contract appears, step outside and add to your flag forest. 2) Leave a satellite in orbit with a probe core, battery, solar panel, radio and thermometer. Every time a "transmit science from orbit" contract appears, send in a temperature scan. 3) Leave a satellite in orbit with a dozen cheap detachable reentry pods built into it (Mk1 capsule, drone core, battery, RCS tank and thrusters, parachute). Whenever a "rescue Kerbal from orbit" contract appears, send one of the pods to go get him. Completely missing the point of the √ system option: 1) Alt-F12, then hold down Alt for five seconds. Set current √ level to whatever you feel like. - And, as others have mentioned, SRBs are a lot cheaper than liquid rockets. Use them heavily in the early game. Once you get the hang of them, SSTO spaceplanes blow everything else out of the water in economy terms (e.g.: fuel to orbit for less than √1 per unit), but that's for the advanced class.

Glad to hear that you're having fun. If you want to polish that plane further, get some control surfaces on the back of the wings and rudders. At the moment, the only control inputs you have apart from engine gimballing are all going through the canard winglets. However, adding wing control surfaces will shift your CoL backwards; you'll want to shift the canards forwards a bit to compensate. If you're getting into planes, I highly recommend that you give FAR/NEAR a try if you haven't already. You'll probably crash horribly a few times while adapting, but it isn't too hard to get the hang of it. Stock aero can be fun, but more realistic aero is a lot better for spaceplanes. Slogging through the soupmosphere takes forever; a good plane in FAR can easily reach orbit in under five minutes. Edit: Ninj!

MrUberGr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet I haven't used any of the scramjet mods myself, but some of them look okay. Google "kerbal scramjet mod" and you'll find a bunch. For escape velocity with stock engines, see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1370535&viewfull=1#post1370535

Congrats! Keep cranking; add some rockets or mod-pack Scramjets and it's possible to reach escape velocity while flying below 30,000m.

While we're on save niggles: From the start screen, I can load a persistent save, but not a quicksave. From the space centre, I can load a quicksave, but not a persistent save. Why? For challenges and such I'm routinely setting up quicksave points at key moments so that I can do repeated practice runs. Having to go via the Space Centre to load these at the start of the game is a pain. I also routinely switch between Career and Sandbox depending on whether I'm designing "for real" or just throwing something together for fun or as a request for someone else. It would be very nice to be able to flick between the assorted saves from any point in the game. Swapping craft between saves without having to go out to the file menu would also be handy, BTW. This would also be good for uncluttering your VAB/SPH load menus; have one "all ships" menu, plus another "this save only" menu.

Lajoswinkler has the right answer, but as another consideration: heat, for those of us using Deadly Reentry. Although you can do a successful direct-from-Duna-to-runway extreme aerobraking maneouvre, it's a lot easier to keep your temperatures down if you stabilise in a low orbit first. As for insertion style...I think coming in from behind is more efficient (uses the Mun's velocity to reduce the required retroburn), but double check that; I routinely get things like that backwards.

Firstly: thanks for the mod. Y'all do great work, and the rest of us are your fans, not your customers. You don't owe us anything, and I'm grateful for whatever I get. However, since you asked for feedback: From the point of view of a not-stupid but not-interested-in-hours-fighting-with-Adobe person, the level of user friendliness that something like this needs is the ability to just take a single flat logo image (eg: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/w/images/thumb/f/fa/Kerbodyne.png/180px-Kerbodyne.png), cut and paste that into the mod without alteration, and have it work from there. The current templates (http://i.imgur.com/rpELz6F.png) are confusing and a bit intimidating: I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with those stripes along the bottom or the square in top right, and figuring it out would take this out of "game" and into "work". Ideally, there would be a menu to choose from presets, as with the default flags. Add to that the ability to use custom images, preferably just by a "select image file to use" or "enter URL of image file" method. Similar to how you'd post a screenshot to the forums. It would be nice if the preset options included all the iconic KSP companies, but even just having one or two would be a big improvement. At the moment, if you're not up to messing around with the templates, the choices are placeholder text or nothing. Would making the billboards double-sided solve the symmetry issues? It doesn't matter if the "wrong" side is facing out if both sides look the same.

Whoops, sorry: try https://www.dropbox.com/s/3u2omnejrwstcma/Kerbodyne%20Velociraptor%20ST.craft?dl=0 Original post now updated; both ​Velociraptor and Velociraptor II ​still available. The Velociraptor II is a lot more sensible and plenty fast enough, but the original is twice as quick at low altitude and will get you to orbit sooner if you can avoid blowing it up with rough piloting. Roughly speaking: Velociraptor I: Dodge Viper Velociraptor II: BMW M5

It's not just about wheels in the correct place, centre- and symmetry-wise. Even perfectly symmetrical gear can send you astray if the thing it's mounted to moves, and it's hard to completely eliminate wing flex without extreme strutting. Angled gear is similarly problematic; even momentarily uneven suspension compression during takeoff wrecks your steering geometry and can create a nasty positive feedback loop.

Another vote for the axial tilt proposal here, BTW. But robopilot has it right, too. Scenic, accessible and fun: these are Minmus' strengths, don't mess them up. It's a good newbie destination that looks harder than it is, and it's a useful challenge and construction venue for the experienced sorts. The ice lakebeds are particularly good for sillyness; it's KSP's equivalent of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

BREAKING NEWS FROM MINMUS! Reports just in state that the investigators pursuing the Kerbodyne Dementia stolen in yesterday's daring Skunkworks robbery have traced it to Minmus. The robbers seem to be using the vehicle to practice ice-racing runs. To begin with, investigators assumed that their investigation was concluded. It appeared certain that the reckless piloting seen on Minmus was sure to rapidly bring to a close the careers of our unidentified spaceplane thieves. However, orbital telescope images seem to show not just one vehicle on Minmus, but countless numbers of apparently identical Kerbodyne Dementia raceplanes. All of these vehicles appear to be piloted by suicidal lemmings with an unhealthy fascination for green ice. Is this a new gang-related streetracing craze? Is this some strange new variation on the ice bucket challenge? Is the Dementia the hot new cult sportsplane for the youth of today? Or are we instead seeing confirmation of the "many worlds" theory of physics? Is a giant Krakenhole about to appear and swallow Kerbin? And what happened to the snacks? Closing in on Minmus, racetrack of the stars A gentle approach... First attempt: regardless of original trajectory, the thrust provided by the awesome Kerbodyne KR-2L powerplant of the Dementia makes it quite difficult to maintain heading. Should've put more Vernors on. Note the current reading on the G-force meter. But still, no biggie; just dust off and go around for another try. Minmus looks rather small from this angle. Let's try it with just the RAPIERs instead... Oops. Maybe if I just force the KR-2L down a bit harder. Seems to be working...hang on, didn't I use to have landing gear? Drat. But what's this I see flying out of the debris? Could it be...no... The HYPETRAIN? Flying on Minmus as promised? Why yes, I think it is. Another go with the RAPIERs; bouncy bouncy. Still working on piloting/screenshot coordination. Mysteriously vanishing landing gear seems to be a consistent theme with the KR-2L. Hey, another Hypetrain! Maybe the pilots will survive this one, too. Nope. What could be the explanation for these mysteriously inexhaustible hooligans? Are they immortal, or do they just reproduce very rapidly? If so, how are they doing that seeing as they seem to be 100% male? Stay tuned; more news to come.

How it was supposed to help was to ensure that Ferram and SP+ were both working properly before going on to make assumptions. I had a previous issue where my planes went haywire in FAR; it turned out that I'd missed an update and had some clashes, but the effect was reduced thrust and increased drag in FAR, which in turn brought out a bunch of previously trivial aerodynamic issues on my designs. Most folks with complaints about aerodynamic failure under FAR are just having an unexpected brush with reality, but occasionally the game and/or mods are at fault. After he makes sure that the install is okay, then we get on to the "no, planes are supposed to explode if you try to fly them like that" conversation.

Ninja'd a few times before I got here, but yeah: the mention of runway veering is a red flag. Does this happen in the air as well, or just on the runway? If it's just runway, it's almost certain a landing gear issue. Wing-mounted gear are particularly troublesome: as the wing flexes, the steering geometry goes out of whack.

Genius. Should it go in the ThunderAerospace folder or or out on its own?

I've been doing quite a lot of crazy stuff with SP+ wings under Ferram; see the links in my .sig. The wings are strutted, but usually only with one or two struts per wingpiece. I don't strut SP+ wings any more than I do stock wings. Most of what I do is high speed low altitude stuff rather than aerobatics, but I've been giving the wings a decent workout on the reentry challenge. I usually snap the fuselage before I break the wings; the forward canards get too much leverage and rip the cockpit off. If you're right about the different CoLs, though: cool. Fix that and I might not have to strut at all. EDIT: actually, we've been using an all-stock plane for the reentry challenge. Most of the SP+ stuff has been straight line speed. Y'all might have a point. Is this something that needs a Module Manager patch for Ferram, or for SP+?

I'd delete and re-download both FAR and SP+ first. Might not work, but it's worth a try.

Got a non-anhedral pic for comparison? The ladder idea is plausible, although I thought those were physicsless; not sure if Ferram applies drag to those. Could also be nont-quite-perfect auto-symmetry problems. Anhedral will accentuate the issue; inducing roll instability is what it's for.

Warning re: Porklifter: docking two SP+ inline ports together can be done, but it's very fiddly. It may be worth changing the top intake for a shielded docking port to make it easier.

Anything posted here will be either competing or spectating on Minmus, and it will be shown doing something interesting, not just sitting in a showroom. That's how it always was; the fan Migration was the only exception to that, and I think Shimmy's Throne justified that one. I may have to give up on the paintjobs, though; my laptop has been seriously crash-happy lately, and I suspect Kerbpaint is to blame. Hence the lack of racing livery on the "stolen" Dementia. The video is worth waiting for. Especially the second half.

Seriously tempted to stick wings on a hypetrain and launch it off the cliffs of Minmus now.

Bravo. The way it should be done. Up for another attempt with an audience and some grandstands?

Incidentally, if you got it up to maximum air-breathing speed at about 25,000m and then held the nose down to stay in atmosphere while you bled the oxidiser tanks dry, I wouldn't even want to guess what sort of Mach numbers you'd crank up. Kerbin escape velocity is a certainty, Kerbol escape velocity seems frighteningly plausible. Ooh, that's a challenge idea...take one Porklifter and, without leaving the atmosphere at any time, see who can have it at the highest altitude at the time that it detonates completely from shock heating. Either that, or lowest altitude when it runs out of fuel, without any throttling off regardless of engine overheating.