Wanderfound

Since you're going for a staged design anyway, you could take it further... http://s1378.photobucket.com/user/craigmotbey/Kerbal/Beta/Kerbodyne%20Showroom/Sabotage/story

Which is why the first rule of motorcycling is: if you put yourself into a position where your survival depends upon another motorist doing the right thing, then you've already screwed up. Riding a motorcycle isn't very dangerous. Learning to ride a motorcycle is incredibly dangerous, and it takes about five years of regular riding to do. The physical manipulation of clutch/brake/throttle/etc is a very minor part. Most of it revolves around learning how to read the "body language" of the traffic around you, so that you can avoid the near misses before they develop. You can get the physical skills down in a month or two, and start developing the mental part fairly quickly as well. But getting the mental skills hardwired to the point that they operate automatically and constantly (especially when tired/cold/wet/etc) takes quite a long time. Bikers have plenty of safety-enhancing options available, but they're pretty much all active instead of passive. Where the cars have crumple zones and airbags, we have agility and awareness. Active defences like those only work if the rider uses them properly.

Given sufficient fuel and time to accelerate, maximum speed is reached when thrust = drag. Notice how mass is not a factor in that equation? It's similar for watercraft; a longer hull is generally faster than a shorter hull, even though it's heavier, due to the reduction in drag (but the shorter/lighter ship will accelerate faster, thanks to superior TWR). Shaving mass gains you acceleration and ÃŽâ€V by increasing TWR. Increasing maximum atmospheric speed, OTOH, is all about drag and thrust (note, not TWR). Especially if you're dealing with supersonic speeds at relatively low altitudes, a tiny reduction in drag can have a massive effect on speed. However, because you're aiming to launch rockets vertically instead of set speed records horizontally, you've got gravity as well as drag losses to deal with. Gravity losses are controlled by TWR (the more the better) and ascent path (the more horizontal the better). As you may notice, the methods to reduce gravity losses are sometimes in direct opposition to the methods to reduce drag losses. Exactly which factor should have higher priority at any given moment is going to vary substantially based upon a host of variables related to ship design and intended mission.

Every male (and many of the females) on both sides of my family have been motorcyclists back to at least WWII. I've been a daily rider for twenty years. I owned a car, once; sold it after a year because I never used it. Never broken a bone, never lost a millimetre of skin; apart from one incident of running wide on a corner when I'd only been riding for a few months, all of my "crashes" have been walking-pace incidents in mud or sand a long way from the tarmac. Best war stories...there was the time I had to dodge a flying mattress that came off the truck in front of me (glancing blow to the shoulder, no big deal), and the time I took a wrong turn into a particularly dodgy neighbourhood and had a guy try to take me off the bike with a cricket bat... The best, though, isn't a crash story. I was riding up the Stuart Highway from Adelaide to Alice Springs, on the gibber plains near the SA/NT border. To set the scene: a "gibber" is a stone about the size of your fist. A gibber plain is a region that is made of nothing but those stones; just red rocks to the horizon in all directions, with the rocks hot enough that they'll burn you if you pick one up without gloves. Scattered through it are saltpan lakes, where the desert has boiled off the water, leaving a brilliant white crust of pure salt. The land is perfectly flat to the horizon in all directions, resulting in a sky so "big" you feel like you should duck. What little rain happens out there just soaks into the dust and disappears. But when it hits the road, it first runs off to the side, concentrating the moisture and resulting in a band of sparse greenery on the verge of the road. This attracts the kangaroos, emus and camels. And since the only heavy freight into that region is by road train (trucks with 3+ trailers) that take a couple of kilometres to come to a stop from highway speeds, there's a lot of roadkill. Every dead 'roo or whatever will have at least a dozen crows on it, and usually also a wedge-tailed eagle. They're magnificent huge birds, and they don't mind eating carrion; it's easier than hunting. But since colliding with a Wedgie at 150km/h isn't good for your health, you need to hit the brakes and horn as soon as you see the birds, and give them time to get out of the way. However, on this particular day the dead 'roo in question had not one but two eagles on it. I did my usual brakes/horn routine, the crows scattered and one of the eagles lumbered off into the air. But the other one just sat there staring at me. You could almost see its crazy raptor thoughts: "I'm the top predator here, you bugger off". So I keep slowing down, and I'm down to 50km/h and nearly on top of the 'roo when the second eagle finally takes off. But instead of flying away from the road as the other birds had, this one flew straight down the road, travelling in the same direction I was. Again, picture the scene: red stone desert stretching to infinity, patches of white salt shining in the sun, huge sky, breathtaking scenery in general. Then add to that the fact that there is now an eagle with a five-foot wingspan, flying in front of me, at eye level, perfectly matching my speed, almost close enough to reach out and touch. I could feel the wash buffet my helmet every time its wings went down. It only lasted about ten seconds before the eagle veered away from the road, but they're ten seconds that I'll remember until I die.

I generally choose my tailfins based on aesthetics, then tweak as necessary if yaw stability is an issue (usually only a problem on tail-heavy deltas). Mk1 ships normally get a Tailfin or similar (AV-R8, Delta Deluxe, etc,) Mk2’s a tapered swept wing piece, Mk3's one of the new large tailfins. Like so:

They're a bit dated now, but for some more examples of the challenges of flying and landing on Duna, see: (the Duna landing is in part 3) Basically, flying on Duna is similar to flying at moderately high altitude on Kerbin. The hard part is the landing; no runways, low traction, low gravity. A wide and long wheelbase plus drag chutes or retrothrusters (for post-touchdown braking) are highly recommended.

I was trying to avoid excessive complication. But, yeah; not so close together that they block each other's airflow once you start to yaw.

Worth noting, however: only in stock. If you want more realistic drag physics, Ferram is waiting for you as always.

Do whatever's fun for you, just let me know so I can put an asterisk on the leaderboard.

See post #3 in the Kerbodyne thread and some of the build videos on the Youtube channel. This one in particular is likely to be useful: They're all a bit out of date now (particularly in regard to area ruling), but the basic principles still apply.

Repeating what some others have said: The main function is to control yaw instability. Amount of control is a product of vertical fin area and distance from CoM. More fin, further back = more stable. If you're accustomed to building in stock, you're going to need a lot more tailfin than you're accustomed to, especially if you build rearward weight-biased ships (e.g. most deltas). Twin fins are for when the needed single fin would be excessively large, or when there is some design logistics issue discouraging a central tailfin placement. Angling the fins out will provide some lift and dihedral, but will reduce the vertical fin area. Lateral spacing doesn't matter much; centralised is better from a weight distribution PoV, but if you can manage central, you probably wouldn't need two tails.

Mouse over the part (on the ship, not in the menu) and press "p". No Ctrl, no Alt. It'll only work for parts included in the mod (i.e. not all of the recent ones).

Another: Kerbodyne Swagman. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/ulctvafknwl9ilw/Kerbodyne%20Swagman.craft?dl=0

I'm still routinely getting phantom overheats on small parts in cargo bays, no clipping involved. Time acceleration seems to aggravate it; I've had thermometers/batteries/etc explode during takeoff when 2x physics was applied on the runway. But it doesn't happen predictably, and I've no idea if FAR has anything to do with it.

Kerbodyne Swagman. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/ulctvafknwl9ilw/Kerbodyne%20Swagman.craft?dl=0

Norcal: awesome entry, but unless you land it at KSC it should include recovery cost as well...

As the others have said above, especially for Minmus. For the Mun, either add a handful of Vernors on the belly for low-grav VTOL, or very carefully land it all the way (until the engine bell is on the ground) before toppling forwards onto the wheels. A bit of VTOL does make it a lot easier, though:

The scoreboard is based on the current release version. TAC-FB is fine by me.

This one didn't actually beat my old score, but I'm sure that it's a more efficient ship than the previous design anyway; there have been several physics and engine thrust changes since the first version flew. Anyway: Fuel use: 6745 LF, 5335 O. Cost of delivery: √6356.3 Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/tobg1lya3yqtokb/Kerbodyne%20Kretaceous%20II.craft?dl=0

Cool, thanks. Time to polish up the old ship amd optimise it...

Sucks fuel like crazy and tops out around Mach 1.5. It's not the lowest-drag thing around.

Kerbodyne Sweep. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/platz9krpclg8g9/Kerbodyne%20Sweep.craft?dl=0

If you're having fun building heavies, give this a go: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/122243-Heavy-Lift-Economy-Challenge

Considered doing it as a three-wide fuselage job? Less gooseneck, more of a blended-body delta design. Move four of the cabins from the neck to where the engines are now, put engines on the back and intakes on the front.

Speaking of overcoming drag without area ruling: Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnz42bj8w03q3vk/Kerbodyne%20Scihop.craft?dl=0