Wanderfound

Mechjeb has a spaceplane landing autopilot. However, it really ain't that hard. KSP, especially in stock aero, is very forgiving by flight sim standards.

However, the challenge is for fun and I don't fly stock unless I need to do something like above. Vote from the potential competitors: do you want a rules change to let the stock aero flyers shuffle the winglets back a smidge for stability?

Sharp turns: Steep climbs: Can tolerate an aggressive landing approach: Downward glide on edge of stall speed, give it a touch of throttle just before landing. Recovers easily from deliberately-induced spins: Back on deck: You need to lead the plane, don't try and force it. Every time you move the nose away from prograde, do it by 10° or so, then give the prograde marker a chance to catch up with your new heading; it should only take a second or two to get back to an angle of attack of 5° or so, then you can do it again. If you need to turn a lot, you just need to keep leading it. If the nose starts moving without you telling it to, it means that you're either on the edge of losing control or have lost control. Once you get the hang of it you can ride the edge, but for now you should reduce your angle of attack as soon as the nose starts wandering. How much angle you can get away with varies depending on speed and altitude, but as you see above it's a lot more than 10° down around KSC. If you do spin out, throttle up all three engines and get the nose pointed prograde. Stabilise there for a second, then start leading prograde back to where you want it again. I will say that it does benefit from the gimballing on the engines, though. You need the power on if you want to pull out of a dive or a spin.

Stock-aero aerobatic demonstration photos coming soon.

Aerodynamic markers with FAR: It was designed in FAR, and that's what its aerodynamics are tuned for. But I took it to orbit in stock aero last night to make sure that it flew okay. It does: I didn't touch the yaw or roll controls once between takeoff and final landing approach. Stock air is thick and chunky enough that it can tolerate quite a bit of active instability before it becomes a problem. Keep the SAS on (an actively unstable plane like a modern fighter needs fly-by-wire assisted avionics to be controllable; that's what the SAS is representing in this design), don't let the nose get too far from prograde, flatten out to build speed between 20,000 and 30,000m, shut off the RAPIERs when they switch modes and turn them back on when the turbojet chokes. Reentry was similarly uncomplicated. Have you taken it for a spin yet, or just looked in the SPH? Try flying it according to what I said above, and report back on how it goes.

An early attempt to get it started. The Adventures of Sherwig Kerman, official Kerbodyne test pilot A dawn launch: Sherwig Kerman, calm and focused: Away we go: Up into the minimum drag zone: Before flattening out a bit: That'll do for now: And we're in orbit: Hit the brakes over the target: And smoothly descend to the runway: Who's next?

Hodo: pics with the reviews?

Howdy again. This is another pure piloting challenge. It's very simple: take a Kerbodyne Benchmark from the KSC runway to a 70 x 70 orbit. Post a screenshot with your resources tab and orbital details visible. Scored by adding together your remaining units of LF and O; highest total wins. No adding, moving or removing parts allowed (apart from Mechjeb and Engineer flight instrumentation bits), but it is permitted to alter the tweakables on the control surfaces to your personal taste. Infinite fuel obviously not allowed. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...=1#post1357777 Separate leaderboards for FAR, NEAR and stock, as well as Deadly Reentry or not. Let us know what flight data mods you used, if any. Feel free to explain how you did it and why you did it that way.

Agreed. It should be something that players can avoid entirely if they want, but balancing the profit of sales against the cost of prototyping could be an interesting way to play the game for those that want to. And once you've "bought" a craft, you can tear it apart and reverse engineer it. It should converge on increasingly cool designs. Crowdsourced engineering. It's impossible to stop people from "stealing" designs, so don't even try. Encourage people to sell other player's designs in their showrooms, allow them to acknowledge or even pay royalties to the designer if they want to, but don't demand or enforce anything. Make sure it stays a game, not a business.

Noice. Any idea if it flies in FAR/NEAR? It looks like it has a decent chance of doing so.

I'm posting this as a discussion, because I've had an idea. But I'm not sure if it's a good idea, so I'm not suggesting it yet. But I think it's an interesting idea, so I thought I'd throw it out there: Work out a mechanism to let players trade designs to each other for in-game √ currency. Thoughts?

If this works smoothly, I'm giving you my firstborn child as reward. Thanks.

Major no. As has been pointed out every time this comes up, a large portion of players like the test contracts and want them as precise and difficult as possible. Most of the criticisms of "unrealistic" contracts have been based on a misunderstanding of what test pilots actually do, and off-world test contracts provide a reason to revisit single-biome planets that wasn't there before .24. There are a wide variety of contracts to choose from (and hopefully that variety will increase substantially), so there's no reason why anyone is forced to do a contract that they don't want to do. Expand the choices, don't contract them.

Major yes on both big and small. We'll want larger and smaller nacelles, intakes and pylons to go with them, though.

Yup. You don't even need to do that: you can edit funds and science from within the hidden second alt-F12 menu. Start a career game, give yourself a squillion science, unlock the tech tree, zero your science back out. This is a really good idea for a feature to improve sandbox, and I endorse it heartily. But I think it's a feature that's already in the game. Maybe just add an "unlock all nodes" function somewhere if you have sufficient science.

UPDATE: Although the Kerbodyne Epinephrine is still available at all Kerbodyne showrooms, it has now been superceded as Kerbodyne's official contest entry by the Kerbodyne Migration. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86202-Better-SSTO-Spaceplane-Challenge-%280-23-5-0-24%29-Extended?p=1372294&viewfull=1#post1372294 for the new release. ----- Now you can fly with the technology of tomorrow today. The Kerbodyne Epinephrine represents the pinnacle of modern-day SSTO multipurpose spaceplane design. Featuring a superbly balanced combination of cutting-edge parts, the Epinephrine’s sleek, lifting body airframe and substantial bank of high-performance engines delivers speed more normally associated with specialist interceptor aircraft. And yet, the Epinephrine is also a capable workhorse, able to deliver substantial loads of cargo to a wide variety of terrain and destination. Low-gravity VTOL capability, substantial fuel capacity, refueling ability and high-efficiency Aerospike propulsion make the Epinephrine the spaceplane of choice for any first-rate space program. Don’t be fooled into false economy; the Epinephrine remains exceptionally cheap to operate. This is a spacecraft that will more than return your investment, in both practical use and sheer piloting enjoyment. Kerbodyne. Quality you can fly. Available at all of the best spaceplane dealerships, prices starting from √102,301. For the discerning pilot. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86202-Better-SSTO-Spaceplane-Challenge-%280-23-5-0-24%29-Extended?p=1364206&viewfull=1#post1364206 Requires Spaceplane Plus and FAR/NEAR.

Suggestion: put a link to your original release post in your pitch, along with your one best screenshot, without hiding it with spoiler tags. If you can't decide which to use, edit a bunch into a single image the same size as one normal one. We don't want to just duplicate the initial posts, but it helps to remind people which is which and provides an easy comparison for aesthetic judgements.

Howdy. This is a pure piloting challenge. As the title says: how fast can you get from a 70x70 orbit to stationary on the KSC runway. All pilots should use the Kerbodyne Benchmark to keep the aircraft factor even. No adding, moving or removing parts allowed (apart from Mechjeb and Engineer flight instrumentation bits), but it is permitted to alter the tweakables on the control surfaces to your personal taste. Deliberately raising and lowering your orbit or using TAC Fuel Balancer to dump fuel is allowed. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1357777&viewfull=1#post1357777 Separate leaderboards for FAR, NEAR and stock, as well as Deadly Reentry or not. Let us know what flight data mods you used, if any. Feel free to explain how you did it and why you did it that way. Losing parts on landing disqualifies the attempt, but if you manage to lose things during descent but still land, more power to you. Post screenshots of yourself in orbit with apoapsis, periapsis and elapsed time visible, then another on the runway at 0m/s. Highlights of flaming spin recoveries and explosive landings during attempts encouraged. Leaderboard: Stock Aero Kasuha 2 minutes 22 seconds FAR Wanderfound 6 minutes 27 seconds Wingblaze 29 minutes 42 seconds FAR/DRE Wanderfound 6 minutes 27 seconds

BTW folks, I'd be really happy to see more entries in the speed challenge, particularly with the Benchmark (or Goblin; use whatever planes you like from here, or bring your own). Stock and FAR/NEAR both welcome. Even if you can't beat the posted times, try to see what's the best you can do and let us know. A bunch of ascent runs with different profiles is a really good way of sharpening your skills. Consider it my designer's fee. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90354-Spaceplane-speed-challenge-shortest-elapsed-time-from-runway-to-orbit

Anyone feel like running back-to-back test flights of Scattershot and Benchmark and telling me which you prefer and why? I'd also be keen to hear feedback on the Epinephrine. Quite proud of that one.

Thoroughly endorsed. Hunting for the right click menu on small or obstructed parts is a major PITA.

Watching old Kurtjmac videos, I've noticed that explosions looked better in early versions of the game. No idea why they changed it.

1) Install the Editor Extensions mod and disable radial attachment when hooking things to the end of the bay, or 2) leave a pair of mated docking ports permanently attached to one end, attach cargo to that.

That is partly my fault. Because I made the Velociraptor II as a quick modification after you said the first was a bit tricky to handle, I didn't bother giving it the full "how to fly" writeup that I usually do.

Just uninstalled FAR to take the Benchmark up and down with stock aero. I don't understand how anyone could have had trouble with it. Just don't let the nose get too far from prograde, flatten out to build speed between 20,000 and 30,000m, shut off the RAPIERs when they switch modes and turn them back on when the turbojet chokes. Reentry was similarly uncomplicated. Didn't touch the yaw or roll controls once.