Wanderfound

Counter-challenge: build an SRBless orbit-capable rocket with nothing beyond the first tier of tech nodes (i.e. the two immediately above the start node) and no building upgrades. SRBs help a lot when the tanks are small and the part count is tight.

Which is a trick that works in KSP, BTW. One Vernor under each wingtip, one either side of the cockpit; covers for a multitude of aerodynamic sins. Handy for spin recovery, too.

Hotfix hopes (not all realistic): * Unlockable steering and working wheel animations on the new landing gear. * Another set of gear between small and medium in height; the small gear are too short to be used as a nosewheel in combination with wing-mounted medium gear. * Control surfaces that match the new small swept wings. * Large wings that actually work as modular pieces rather than forcing a single wingshape. * Finally fix the asymmetric jet thrust thingie. Having to fiddle with order of intake placement is a pointless nuisance. * Clouds!

Eddie's got part of it, but I was mostly thinking of the RAPIER/nuke/RAPIER layout with lateral tanks and shock cones. Early tests with NuFAR suggested that sort of layout might be too draggy, and the reduced jet altitude ceiling makes nuke ships trickier to manage. For a while there, it looked like single-fuselage deltas were going to dominate.

Cargo bay + Advanced Grabbing Unit (AKA The Klaw).

Kerbodyne Gull NF. The Frenchman's egg. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/uzsjjsxjgnzs254/Kerbodyne%20Gull%20NF.craft?dl=0

Didn't touch it; haven't even loaded it in the VAB. I clicked the runway, selected the ship, and had my hands off the keyboard as the physics loaded and it tipped back. I did activate the brakes while waiting for the physics to load, though. Maybe CrzyRndm has the answer?

The "limits" when placing parts in cargo bays are seriously borked. Node-attach a docking port to the end of a Mk2 cargo bay. Try to translate it up or down a smidgeon. It will leap sideways and lock there. Similarly, try to attach a docking port to the floor of a Mk2 bay, then move it a bit. It will jump downwards so that it clips through the outer skin. Ditto for, say, a basic jet mounted on a cubic strut inside a cargo bay (standard VTOL usage). You can place it without without it clipping through the underside, but the second you try to translate it will leap irreversibly downwards.

I'm not. Ferram?

Not that I'm aware of; the only parts mod I use is TAC-LS, and if anything that would add mass to the cockpit. It's still possible to launch if you use the jet thrust to force the nose down before releasing the brakes. Maybe it's close enough to the tipping point for a random wiggle to make the difference?

There's a bit of an issue with the landing gear setup on the Firehound...

A nuke spaceplane is a specialised thing, and considerably more difficult to get right than an LFO boosted one. Walk before you run.

Nothing should, but many things do. Radial-mount parts and cargo bays are particularly problematic.

The graphs auto-scale in relation to the maximum amplitude of the curves. So, if you have a design that has a very consistent (but not perfectly consistent) cross section, your lines are going to look wiggly because the graph is "zoomed in" a great deal. In contrast, a ship with massive divergences in cross section is going to have a relatively smooth looking yellow line due to the compression of the Y axis. The black lines provide scale. - - - Updated - - - See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1353891&viewfull=1#post1353891 That post is a spaceplane design guide, but it includes an explanation of how to use the FAR analysis tools (apart from the new area rule stuff, which you don't need to worry about yet). The yellow line being referred to is the Coefficient of Manoeuvrability in an AoA sweep, as seen here:

After many, many "landings" that were actually high-speed impacts (some misjudgements of altitude, plus a whole bunch of "run out of fuel while still a few km up"), I finally made a safe landing with plenty of fuel in reserve. However, as I touched down, the lander legs flexed just enough to tap the engine bell on the ground, detonating it. Apart from the engine, the lander was fine. The next one up had a bit more ground clearance and a spare seat for a rescue. That one touched down perfectly...then fell over sideways and rolled down a hill before exploding. I think I had about twenty Kerbals stranded on the Mun by the time I finally got one back to Kerbin alive.

It's a "how long is a piece of string" question; the answer depends on where you're stuck. Have you made it to orbit yet? The Mun? Etc. If you've made it to the Mun, then you're set. It's fairly simple to pull a few thousand science points out of a single Mun or Minmus landing. If you're still stuck on Kerbin...well, get to orbit and start collecting EVA reports. You can make orbit with only the first two tech nodes unlocked, without any building upgrades. For example: If you're really having trouble, the quickest way to gather some easy science is ye olde research missile: Stayputnik (or a crew capsule if you don't have any probe cores yet); thrust-limited RT-10, parachute, tailfins, Science Jr and Goo pods. Fire a few off in various directions from KSC and you should be able to hit the ocean, desert, mountains, grassland and highland biomes with minimal effort or expense.

What would be the expected symptoms of excess Lß? I've had a couple of ships unexpectedly lose yaw and roll control on the edge of hypersonic as well, despite looking all fine on my usual analysis screens.

Because most airless worlds are low-G, you only need a tiny amount of thrust. You do most of the landing on the main engine, and only flip over to the ventral thrusters at the last moment. Vernors are usually the easiest way to do it, but a few of the little Rockomax radials will work if you don't have Vernors. To demonstrate:

Kerbodyne Tradizione N. The old tricks still work. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/ms545zbicvou4xi/Kerbodyne%20Tradizione%20N.craft?dl=0

I like what you've done with the shoulder intakes; looks nifty. That'd work well for FAR area ruling, too.

Just to prove that a mid-wing airframe still works in nuFAR: Kerbodyne Tradizione. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/9violcj06dpq7nx/Kerbodyne%20Tradizione.craft?dl=0 - - - Updated - - - Decent range in orbit is certainly doable; swap the central RAPIER on this one for a nuke and I suspect we're back to the good ol' days.

Bugger efficiency, go with whatever's more fun. I find the stock aero a bit too simplistic to be interesting, but each to their own.

The RT-10s certainly come in handy in the early game:

Got something cool on the way; self-sufficient Mk3 monster with a full ISRU scanning/drilling/processing rig in the bomb bay. Only needs four turbos to fly, too (plus a Mainsail for the orbital boost). - - - Updated - - - This is making the need for a revived Kerbpaint even more acute; we need to be able to disguise those bumps will colour.

Basically, it's intended to be a competition between aircraft rather than missiles, with an emphasis upon "build and fly your best raceplane" rather than "try to find the sneakiest exploit". As the rules stand, the only engines allowed are basic jets, turbojets and RAPIERs. So, no RATOL. Rocket-assisted landing is such an advantage that it would become effectively compulsory to be competitive (as with parachutes), and I think it's more interesting to require pilots to use aerobatic means of slowing down.