Wanderfound

That isn't related to just my phone and tablet; Twitch past broadcasts aren't available to any iOS device without third-party hackery. Twitch has been promising to fix this "real soon" for over a year now.

The network here could be faster, but it's plenty quick enough for hi-res Youtube or streaming television. And this isn't the only network I've had Twitch trouble on. Twitch is horrendously bad in many, many ways.

First suspect for pitch wobbles: are you using a PID tuner such as Kerbal Pilot Assistant to correct the awfulness of stock SAS? If not, do. Second suspect: body flex. If there's any flexing between your cockpit and your control surfaces, they're going to constantly go nuts trying to compensate for it. Use some struts to reinforce each end of the fuselage. Third suspect: too much control authority. Wind down the maximum deflection until it's no more than what is required (note: how much is required at 500m is often somewhat different to how much is required at 25,000m).

I like to get there fast. I generally scale the engines by "will this get me to orbit before I get bored?" rather than "what is the minimum engine to get off the runway?". It may be the case that I'm trading wing for engine, while you're trading engine for wing. Not sure about the "really high TWR" descriptor; there are a fair few single-engine ships here, and most of the three-engine ships are doing so in order to carry multiple engine types. The only really absurdly overpowered things are the ones that were deliberately designed to be silly (Goblin, Dementia, etc). They are nearly all intended to be "sporty", though.

They're pretty much all intended for orbit, so I don't do a lot of low-altitude low-speed. In order to reduce atmospheric drag and post-atmosphere mass, I tend to aim for as little wing as possible while maintaining good flight behaviour from supersonic to hypersonic. While building, I'll generally check the FAR numbers at 25,000m/Mach4 and work to eliminate the reds there; I'll often also check 500m/Mach0.5. Post takeoff, I'm climbing as steeply as possible to 20,000m or so; on reentry, I'm usually supersonic above 10,000m until I pass the mountains west of KSC, when I drop to the deck and bleed off the speed. The only part of the flight where the small wings are an issue is during final landing approach; I'm generally still substantially above 100m/s at touchdown. But that's no problem if you've got your gear set up right; half the runway is generally enough stopping distance. With most of 'em, the canards will go into a minor stall long before anything serious happens, and I try to design for good stall behaviour. With a lot of mine, they'll happily sit in a minor stall all day long without any undesired yaw, pitch or roll. My takeoff routine is generally to pull up hard into a minor stall, hold that posture until I've got 50+m of air under me, then drop the nose back down to clear the stall before gradually pulling up into a climb of a steepness sufficient to almost but not quite negate my acceleration. I've then got several minutes of just letting the SAS hold pitch while I climb; by the time there's any further need for manoeuvring, I'm generally over 20,000m and supersonic, and therefore virtually stall-proof. The stalling stops once you go supersonic; even tiny-winged things can pull large AoAs without stalling once they have sufficient speed up, and the only subsonic parts of most of my flights are the bits immediately before and after the runway.

Not intended as a replica, but inspired by the Me163: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1699318&viewfull=1#post1699318 Might be useful for inspiration.

It basically came from me building a small RAPIER/nuke ship (Nenu I) and realising that I didn't need to turn the RAPIERs to rocket mode at any point. Keep the weight down, and a nuke or two is enough. A nuke and turbo working together really is the most efficient way to orbit.

Unfortunately, Twitchtools demands a premium subscription to download anything over an hour (ie: Squadcast).

I've been unsuccessfully trying to watch Squadcast for over a month now. As well as the recently frequent last minute cancellations and reschedules, there's also the bigger problem: Twitch is awful in every detail. Past broadcasts are totally inaccessible via iOS, and unwatchably laggy even if I fire up the laptop; I get five seconds of video followed by two minutes of buffering, rinse and repeat. The help forums on the Twitch site are covered in years of identical complaints, all unaddressed. Is there any sensible reason why Squadcast isn't mirrored to Youtube (or some other video site that isn't as unbelievably awful as Twitch)?

Thanks! Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/iex9g00n1evw5m5/Kerbodyne%20Narrowcast.craft?dl=0

Kerbodyne Narrowcast. Requires the Mk1 Cargo Bay mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/116052-0-90-Mk1-Cargo-Bay Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/iex9g00n1evw5m5/Kerbodyne%20Narrowcast.craft?dl=0

Nice bay... I'm thinking I could squeeze a satellite into there, too. Cool.

A demonstration build with similar layout and capabilities: Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/sp9hqzpi5mudpox/Kerbodyne%20Demonstrator.craft?dl=0 It occurred to me afterwards that you probably don't have shock cones; swapping them out for ramscoops would not significantly affect the design.

Check out the first few posts of the Kerbodyne thread for building and piloting guides, and the Youtube channel for demonstrations. Both linked below. The Kerbodyne thread also includes a hundred+ example designs. Most RAPIER based designs will also work (less efficiently, but they'll work) if you swap out the RAPIERs for a combination of Turbojets and LV-T45s. You'll see with a few of the later three-engine airframes on the thread that they've been done in three versions: RAPIER/Turbo/RAPIER, RAPIER/Nuke/RAPIER, and Turbo/LV-T45/Turbo. I can't actually see the image accompanying your post, so I can't give more specific advice. But if you can post screenshots of the ship from above and the side in the SPH, with CoM/dCoM/CoL markers on, we can have a shot. FAR analysis screens at 25,000m/Mach 4 and 500m/Mach 0.5 would also help. Edit to add: can see the pic now... The basics look okay. You have more wing than you need, so you could shave a fair bit of weight by trimming that down. I'm not sure what engines you're running due to the non-stock appearance; is it two Turbos plus an LV-T45? Anything lower thrust than that is going to struggle. What do you have the control surface settings at? You want the canards to be set to influence pitch only, with a low maximum deflection, and the trailing edge wing surfaces to be set as elevators near the centreline, elevons near the wingtip, with a moderate maximum deflection. Rudders set to yaw only, low deflection. You might get better results if you swap the two pairs of wingtip extensions for a single pair angled at a 45 degree dihedral. Pulling the vertical stabiliser as far back as possible on the fuselage should also be helpful. If that vertical stabiliser is an all-moving control surface, you have massively more rudder authority than you need. Yaw is the axis that needs the least control influence (followed by roll, then pitch).

AV-R8s make perfectly good canards. Your delta needs a tail if the trailing edge of the main wing is too close to CoM for the control surfaces to work as elevons [1]. But if you want a tailed/tailless delta, you can place the wing appropriately. Changing to a tailed delta usually involves shifting the main wing forwards slightly, so what you're mostly getting is a slight forward shift in the CoM and CoL. The cost is that your elevator duties are now restricted to the stabilator, instead of being able to divide the load amongst the main wing's elevons. The stabilator can probably do the job, especially if paired with canards, but greater deflection = greater drag and earlier stall. If you're rolling, the problem isn't lack of tail, it's insufficient dihedral and/or wingspan. Where are the red numbers in the FAR screens? [1] Yes, there are experimental canard-only things. Trying not to overcomplicate it, okay? - - - Updated - - - BTW: a sample Mk2 tailless delta satellite carrier. Nukes here, but with a bit of rebalancing you could swap in LV-T45s on a similar airframe. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/refxbd1gub30oqf/Kerbodyne%20Nenu%203.craft?dl=0

Continuing the theme: Kerbodyne Nenu III. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/refxbd1gub30oqf/Kerbodyne%20Nenu%203.craft?dl=0

You'll have to learn twice; landing on the Mun is a bit different to landing in atmosphere. Demo:

Kerbodyne Nenu II. All the latest in nuke-turbo synergy. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/geipj4ast0xsnbg/Kerbodyne%20Nenu%202.craft?dl=0

1) Build a nuke-powered spaceplane (one nuke and two RAPIERs works nicely) with a landing gear setup that makes it hard to clip the wings or tail on rough ground. 2) Add some tiny radial engines or Vernors for low-G VTOL. 3) Fly to the Mun. 4) Cruise all over the place on your landing gear with occasional puffs of nuke thrust.

Kerbodyne Nenu. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/yjkxihjixzmd4sc/Kerbodyne%20Nenu.craft?dl=0

Increasing the jet ceiling would only save a small amount of oxidiser. The idea was to have something with just enough oxidiser to reach orbit, plus some LF for atmospheric flight after reentry. Shaving the (already thin) fuel load would save a small amount of weight, but the bulk of the mass is in the engine, cockpit and wings. Low TWR is just the price you pay for xenon; if you want faster, go nuke. There are plenty of 5-6,000m/s nuke ships here.

More expensive and nicer looking. I also like pretty planes.

More cargo bay. Passenger cabin with no Kerbals in. Inline docking port. More fuel. Anything except useless monoprop tanks. Just put the Skipper and Turbos in separate stages. RCS Build Aid only looks at the first stage.

Lower the wings until the Skipper's torque is zeroed. It doesn't matter if you have a bit of pitch-up on the turbos; it'll actually help to ease the load on your control surfaces. But the vacuum thruster needs to be balanced.

The main problem with orbital assembly for interplanetary craft is ending up with an overly wobbly structure that is a nightmare to fly. There are a few things that help with this: * Keep the structure linear and symmetrical. * Snr Clamp-o-trons are your friend. * Pull, don't push. A demonstration of possibilities: Craft files at https://www.dropbox.com/s/8xexx9dpsewt719/Kerbodyne%20Expedition%20Leader.craft?dl=0 & https://www.dropbox.com/s/7qeyivobrr23jho/Kerbodyne%20Expedition%20LabHab.craft?dl=0 & https://www.dropbox.com/s/no7sjpxmgxh6vd5/Kerbodyne%20Expedition%20Fuel%20Module.craft?dl=0