Wanderfound

Blasphemy!

In practical effect: shorter deploy times give you faster deceleration, but at the price of more strain on the ship. Overdo it and you'll snap it in half.

Whee! Do you have an overview map of the pylon layout handy? It'd be useful when describing what course to take.

Whee!

Of relevance to all airplane fans: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/82785-1-0-2-Kerbin-Side-v0-41-2-Kerbin-SideJobs-v1-2?p=1978065&viewfull=1#post1978065 - - - Updated - - - That's actually not that big a tailfin for a delta, BTW. The size of the fin required is proportional to the distance between it and CoM, so ships with a rearward weight bias tend to need either paired fins or a single jumbo one. - - - Updated - - - The Turbo is a clear winner if you're staying in the atmosphere, but RAPIERs are the choice for space; as it should be. The "use a turbo to get over the RAPIER flat spot" works in FAR as well as stock, but a decently streamlined multi-engine FAR ship normally doesn't have that much trouble busting through transonic, anyway. Apart from low-tech builds, the only time recently that I've found a need for turbojets on an SSTO was for Mk3 monsters that just couldn't get up to speed before the end of the runway without the extra thrust. Thanks to the more realistic atmospheric thrust scaling for rockets, my old trick of "use the LV-Ns as takeoff boosters" isn't really practical anymore. OTOH, a few RT-5/decoupler combinations bolted onto the back of your engines will get just about anything up to speed in a hurry.

Stock aero is about as unforgiving as a puppy. Almost anything with wings will fly, 15G+ maneuvers can be casually accomplished in ships that aren't remotely built for it, and you can land by power-diving at the runway then pulling up hard 20m off the deck.

Speaking of inspirational space music, on the slim chance that anyone here hasn't already heard this:

FAR rather than stock, but just for a point of comparison: Turbojet + Thuds: RAPIER: Clear win to the RAPIER.

Here y'go: Kerbodyne Astrotaxi. High tech not required. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/y7725e0gwgbbvu0/Kerbodyne%20Astrotaxi.craft?dl=0 All of the parts involved are from fairly early in the tech tree, the control authority is mild enough that it isn't too hard to handle (drag chutes for short-runway landings, too), and there's room in the service bay for any minor gadgetry you want to bring along. I deliberately left the streamlining a bit rough, to demonstrate that hyper-slickness isn't absolutely necessary. If you've got 'em unlocked, a pair of airbrakes at the back near the solar and chutes would be a worthwhile optional addition, too.

Awesome.

I've been finding that while single-fuselage ships are easy to streamline and will get to orbit, its difficult to get one there with more than a couple of hundred m/s ÃŽâ€V in the tanks (which is a thin enough margin that an imperfect ascent profile might put it in danger of failing to reach orbit). With fuselage plus outrigger tanks (e.g. like the Tradizione), there's a lot more gas in reserve. NuFAR has made deltas a bit tricky; the delta wings can do nasty things to stability that aren't always picked up by the static analysis screens. The rearwards weight bias of a delta design gives extra leverage to the forces trying to flip you and handicaps the ability of your rear-mounted surfaces to compensate. Conventional mid-wing aircraft are much easier to stabilise. Getting stability right is a higher priority than minimising drag. A turbojet has enough TWR to punch a brick through transonic if necessary. I'll try to throw together a low-tech passenger ship as a demonstrator later today.

Passenger SSTOs aren't all that tricky: But a probe core in the cargo bay is a good idea in general, anyway. As well as providing options in "ran out of jetpack fuel on EVA" type emergencies, they also allow you to dispense with specialist pilots. In my career game, Jeb's been sitting at home ever since I unlocked the first stability-equipped core. Scientists are just too useful not to bring one along whenever possible. OTOH, my usual way of building a small passenger spaceplane is to just swap out the cargo bay, replace it with a passenger cabin and find somewhere else to stick the SAS/batteries etc. Most of the small/medium Mk2 ships here (e.g. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1931901&viewfull=1#post1931901) will work as tourist taxis with minimal modification.

I think a good air-racing track is more about gate placement than small gate size. Ideally, you want a course that alows both extreme speeds and extreme G's: decent length straights followed by clusters of tight turns. Something that requires throttling down occasionally, but where the consequence of a slight error is mostly a slower time rather than an explosive death (not that there's anything wrong with an occasional bit of explosive death, but all things in moderation etc.). Relying on the honour system isn't too much of a problem; screenshots as you pass the gates covers that. And an overly-competitive low-honesty player is just going to abuse F5/F9 to get past difficult collision-enabled gates, anyway. Cheating in Kerbal challenges is so easy to do that it's usually not worth the bother of attempting to prevent it. But a waypoint system would be nice, too.

I'd be more keen on the Red Bull version, personally; they had good reasons for doing it that way. KSP wingspans vary a great deal (and while you can roll to fit your wings through a narrow gate, that doesn't work for rings), and the difficulty of flying at speed through a tight ring increases massively if you move from stock aero to the much more slippery air of FAR (which is what a lot of aircraft-focused players would be using). Races aren't much fun if it takes twenty attempts just to complete the course; it becomes more frustrating than enjoyable, especially if you're also trying to do it fast. Perhaps a mix of numbered gates and rings, so that people could set up an all-ring or all-gate course as they choose? Regardless, I'll be glad to see more of whatever you come up with. Thanks again for the nifty mod.

I've been known to leave the game running in the background all day just to keep the birdsong going. The VAB/SPH music, however...yeesh. Cute for a bit, immensely irritating after a while. I'm getting into the habit of muting the sound while building.

The extra gimbal, TWR (good for punching out of the drag zone rapidly) and easy radial mounting (particularly useful for FAR area ruling; the Thuds fill the gap between wings and tail, and have enough nozzle clearance that they can be partially sunk into the fuselage for fine-tuning) are winners for me. Anyone want to try a direct Thud vs Terrier comparison in stock to see which wins the ÃŽâ€V contest?

Yes, Github. Be aware that the dev build is a work in progress; there will likely be bugs, and don’t expect all the bugs to be fixed until it hits the official release.

Repost this to the FAR design thread (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121176-Official-FAR-Craft-Repository) and there are a bunch of people who would be happy to help you out.

Another known (but admittedly very irritating) bug. It appears to be fixed in the dev build.

The intakes were near the back of the wings, under the fuselage; I often use them to smooth the drag transition between wings and tail. I tried adding strakes to the Minithud (the red thing above) to give it a more reasonable stall speed. Same thing: perfect until it gets up to speed, then instant explody death. Looks like deltas are a high-risk option until we figure it out. I'd be surprised if an oversized vertical stabiliser doesn't sort it, though. That unicycle tailwheel is less than ideal, BTW; rolling your wings out of level mid-takeoff ain't good. A pair of wheels either side of the fuselage will protect the rear just as well, and will also be much more stable. Electric drain is a perennial problem with RAPIER ships, thanks to the lack of an alternator. I always stick a few batteries in the cargo bay.

Happy racedays are on the way: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/82785-1-0-2-Kerbin-Side-v0-41-2-Now-With-Contracts?p=1975265&viewfull=1#post1975265

You have made me a very happy Kerbal.

See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92229-How-To-Get-Support-%28READ-FIRST%29 for how to find the logs that are needed. The zero drag thing is a known bug. Unfortunately, it's hard to squash because it's transient.; it only happens occasionally. If you can find some method of reliably causing the bug to occur, then reporting that here would be helpful (but please follow the steps outlined in the link above if you do so).

No idea about your calculations, but: flying Duna isn't that tricky. As you noted, Duna sea level is roughly equivalent to moderate altitude Kerbin. If it can fly slowly at a moderate height on Kerbin, then it'll fly just fine on Duna. The hard part of Duna planes isn't the flying, it's the landing. Wide and long wheelbase, tailstrike guards, Vernor VTOL, retrothrusters and drag chutes are all recommended. If you shift to FAR, the analysis data allows you to select speed, altitude and planet.

Kerbpaint has been revived. Still a bit buggy, and missing a few parts (e.g. the Thuds), but at least it's now being actively worked on.