Wanderfound

One day is not very long in KSP terms. Learn to enjoy failure; it's an integral part of the rocket building process. And when you finally do get there you'll enjoy that too.

As others have said: your pics aren't showing up. Chuck 'em on Dropbox/Photobucket/Imgur etc. I recently had similar issues adapting my old planes for the new nerfed-jets FAR. You might find some things of use in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88200-Power-or-aero-%28issues-with-old-planes-under-new-FAR%29

The way I usually do it is to put a probe core, a solar panel, a docking port, a roundified monoprop tank and a few RCS thrusters on the orange tank itself. Detach tank from spaceplane, dock tank to space station, done. Alternately, dock the spaceplane to the station, pump the fuel across and then carry the empty tank back to KSC. It all depends on whether the station just needs fuel or whether it could use some extra tank space as well.

http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/al.html might be of interest to some folks, BTW. The theory of relativity explained in words of four letters or less.

Imagine all you want, but it still ain't gonna happen. Anything that a manned space fighter can do, a drone or missile can do better. And space combat is likely to see a return to the early 1970’s F-111/Foxbat style of long range speed and missile based fighting. Stealth in space is impossible (the heat signature of a spacecraft is clearly visible from across the solar system, and there's no way to avoid emitting heat without cooking the crew), so it's all gonna come down to whose missile gets there first. And, sorry, but warp drive doesn't exist;looks like Einstein was right about that whole speed of light thing. While there are a few theoretical methods to get around that (wormholes etc.), the power requirements and engineering involved are beyond anything that could ever be realistically achieved (for example: the "how to make a wormhole" thing starts with "tow a black hole into the same position as a white hole...").

Same here; my Rockomax 64 lifter costs nearly √200,000 to build, but as it lands on the runway the delivery cost to orbit is something like √5,000.

The latest release of FAR (v0.14.1.1) reduced the thrust of air-breathing engines by 50%. They were unrealistically overpowered before. Pre-nerf, I could get a single turbojet basic plane (delta wings, fuselage, engine, intake, not much else) over 2,200m/s at altitude. You just had to be willing to fly around Kerbin a time or two at 30,000m while you gathered speed. At that height, very little thrust is required to continue slowly accelerating. Haven't tested the limits post-nerf yet.

1) Switch control to the target before docking and turn on its SAS or whatever to kill any pre-existing rotation. 2) Try not to create any new rotation by ramming the target. You should be moving at about 0.1m/s when the docking ports connect, and you should try to line it up well enough that they connect on the first attempt.

For me, rendezvous is trivially simple (match inclination, higher orbit to slow down, lower orbit to speed up; how hard is that?) but docking is a time-consuming chore much of the time. A lot of my docking antipathy is due to the fact that my first space station got heavily hit by 23.5's docking port bugs, though. Nothing more frustrating then spending half an hour trying to get two unwieldy station sections together, only to eventually realise that the docking ports aren't working.

Certainly hope they get onto it soon. One of my biggest disappointments in 23.5 was spending weeks getting an orbital lab and lander to Duna (early days for me in KSP, long list of epic stuffups requiring repeat launches) only to then find out that it was pointless to land on Duna more than once except for sightseeing. I would love a Saturn equivalent, though. Gotta have a ring system somewhere.

Which is why I'd expect Squad to implement it as a switchable difficulty/realism option. Keep stock aero for them that wants it, but integrate something equivalent to NEAR/FAR into the stock game. Ditto for things like reentry heating and the like.

This was under 23.5. The plane was still responding to control surfaces in the sense that I could change its orientation however I liked, but nothing I did would alter the velocity vector or rate of descent. I had about as much control as an unpowered reentry capsule, even after I got down into the thicker air. It was a big plane coming in hot from orbit, though; there may have been some subtle effect that wasn't apparent at the time. In contrast, with a similar plane under FAR I can usually glide to KSC even if reenter halfway around Kerbin.

Unless the wings are angled down at the front, I'd expect any lean in the CoL to be caused by the tail section. Non-vertical tailfins act as wings, and having part of your lift generated from the top rear of the plane is going to tilt your CoL a bit. Anything that looks too much like an F22 is likely to be somewhat unstable. Modern fighter planes are built that way on purpose, to enhance manoeuvrability. If it wasn't for all the fancy fly-by-wire computerised avionics stuff, they'd be completely unflyable.

There are a few ways to get landers down. The simplest is probably to attach the rover vertically to the top of the lander (be careful to balance the mass) then lower the landing struts on one side and decouple to drop the rover onto its wheels. You'll probably blow some tyres, but they're easy to fix. Or you can make the rover into its own lander. A rover with detachable thrusters along its sides (a few of the mini radials or some of the new monoprop engines should be enough) shouldn't be any more difficult to set down than a conventional lander; just make sure that the thrust is balanced around CoM and that you've got an upwards-facing probe core or docking port on board so your navball is aligned right for landing. Alternately, skycrane. Build a lander with a rover slung underneath it (arranging the lander jets so they don't fry the rover). Land, decouple, take off again.

Seconded. I think a Mun bike is going to be tomorrow's design project.

I'm going the other way: Vernors. While a decently built plane shouldn't need it to fly, adding some vectored thrust to an aircraft massively increases the performance window. Slamming a plane into supersonic aerobatics is way fun; waiting to see if the wings will tear off provides an amusing amount of tension. Gotta save it for when you need it, though; fuel goes fast in atmosphere.

The difficulty bump from stock to FAR is slight, and stock aero is spectacularly broken. The event that finally inspired me to go to FAR was attempting a dead-stick landing with an out of fuel spaceplane under stock aero and realising that the orientation of the plane made absolutely no difference to its speed or direction when the engines were off. That's just ridiculous.

Post-nerf or pre-nerf turbojet? Make it a slow enough ascent (<10m/s) with a couple of climb/dive bounces (between 35,000m and 25,000m; "skip" off the denser atmosphere, similar to a too-shallow reentry) to build speed beforehand plus some careful throttling down at altitude and you should be able to get that thing close to Mach 7.

Cool, thanks.

Presenting the Kerbodyne D7 Heavy X5, updated for post-nerf FAR. Capable of lifting a fully loaded Rockomax 64 into orbit, or whatever other payload you see fit. As a matter of pure lift, it can probably handle better than 70 ton. However, the landing gear struggles at that weight; warranty void if payload exceeds 40 ton. Make sure to check the action groups; it isn't designed to use staging. Keep the Vernor thrusters turned off until it's time to lift the nose for the final burn at 30,000m/Mach 4. The abort system works fine in flight, but raise the nose before ejecting if something goes wrong during takeoff unless you feel like having 100 ton of spaceplane run you over. The degree of deflection on the forward flaps can be adjusted in flight by right-clicking. The forward-facing Sepratrons (triggered by action group 0) are for emergency braking assistance on short runways. https://www.dropbox.com/s/o0mgvh9jws...avy%20X5.craft

Nice. I'd be interested to see how you constructed that all-moving tail. Stacked AV-R8s?

Smart A.S.S. has been going haywire for me as well. Previously I could use it in surface mode as a cruise control on my planes. Now, if I engage Smart A.S.S. the plane starts an oscillating roll that increases the longer you keep Smart A.S.S. on. The plane flies fine on its own, and the roll quickly dampens if you turn Smart A.S.S. off. I don't think the problem is in the plane. The behaviour of Smart A.S.S. seems to have changed dramatically with the latest version (2.3.1.0).

If, however, for some reason you do need to continuously balance some tanks, there (of course) is a mod that will do that: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/25823-0-23-0-23-5-TAC-Fuel-Balancer-v2-3-22Dec

Yup, mea culpa. If you want to fly spaceplanes, you need FAR; it's that simple. The stock aero model is ridiculous.

Basic quick version: level planes turn horribly. To make them turn, you need to bank and then pull up. As you bank, watch the navball. If your nose starts dipping below level, either reduce your bank or yaw upwards to keep the nose up. If you have FAR installed, watch the flight condition indicator and back off if it gets beyond minor stall. As for landing...the trick is to get lined up, slow and low as early as possible. Watch your bearing; the KSC runway is east-west, so if you're in line your bearing should be 90 or 270 degrees. You may find it helpful to park a rover just off each end of the runway to use as navigation beacons. Set the furthest one as a target on approach, and aim for it. Occasionally flick your target to the other one; if both targets are on a heading of 90 (or 270 if you're coming from the east), then you know that you're roughly in line with the strip. At landing, bleed off as much speed as possible, but try to avoid any vigorous manoeuvres once you're over the strip (you'll probably over-correct and make things worse). A touchdown speed of 100m/s or so is fine. Be prepared to do a bit of very gentle steering after you land, and make sure that you have the steering unlocked on your front gear.