Fire-Dragon-DoL

Any COOL ssto that reached laythe and came back? Maybe with Mk2 (which brings 2 kerbals)? Lol Next challenge is with Mk3, which brings 3 kerbals, and weight TONS (4.something!!!)

This looks more like a big antenna, rather than a spaceplane, lol

Ahem, that image man, lol

Thanks slashy, that's a very good suggestion. I'll be trying a new SSTO this evening. One note, remember that some wings have been chosen for design purposes. Are there any table with most efficient wings?

Man, thanks a lot, having an idea of how much delta v I need while in orbit really helps me. So IN THEORY my SSTO now can reach Laythe and come back, but I feel like I'll have troubles when trying to come back after landing there (expecially I don't have a clever idea of how much I'll consume while on Laythe).

The plane was well built, I managed to remove the single nuke and add a coupler for 2 nukes, but it wasn't enough in any case, so I went back to one nuke and added two rapiers. Unfortunately, rapiers consume tons of fuel, so I end up with 3800 delta v in LKO, sigh, looks like I'll need an EVEN LARGER SSTO to go to laythe

Well, I'm trying to make it a little bit cool, otherwise I have a big SQUARE SPACESHIP (that's the name I gave it) which brings a full gray tank in space without using it. But you know, it's terrible, lol Your suggestion is very good, I'm going to try a few times in this way before breaking the SSTO apart and rebuild it.

No, I meant orbital speed, forgot to specify. And when I say "I switch jet off", I already milked everything, speed is going down (very, very slowly, like 0.1 every 2 minutes), and I'm about to descend, so really it was the best I could do. I'll try with two LV-N today and see if it goes better.

Mh, thanks good suggestion. I was using those for design purposes, I imagine I need to optimize those too. Argh. I'll check what can I do.

I'm using that already (I was doing it manually previously, argh!), but 2200 was really the limit, I had the throttle at roughly 10%, maybe less. I have no idea how can I push it out with jet only o.o Laythe too much? Mhhh... How much delta v do I need from lko for a trip and back? I usually have 7k on my big spaceships, but they don't need to land and go back to orbit

As the title says, I managed to reach 2200 m/s at 35000, but I can't really push it in orbit. I managed to reach (roughly) 40000m with the nuclear engine but at that point I start falling back on earth, with speed decreasing. Please notice that I'm not using FAR and I have some experience (I played 300 hours, so I'm not noob but far from expert considering the ~2000 hours people played this game). The issue is obviously that LV-N doesn't have enough thrust to push me outside og Kerbal gravity. I would love to hear a few suggestions. Also, I would like not to disintegrate the design, it's the first time I managed to get a nicely-designed SSTO with a lot of delta V (6200), I'm aiming for a trip to laythe, land, come back to kerbin. Any good suggestion? I need to push this guy in LKO! Delta V with turbojets: Delta V with LV-N:

In my case, save, close game, reopen and reload fixed that issue.

Oh, sad. That's probably why I have that big fat guy which looks like a big flying rectangle, lol

This is fantastic and looks much better than mine. I'll check it later on today.

I'm not sure, can you land and take off with that again? Maybe with a parachute chain or something like that? SSTO means single stage to orbit, so I think it's a yes in any case. Anyway, I couldn't make a good looking ssto that at same time was as efficient as the following one. Also, I removed the cockpit, actually defeating my initial challenge of using MK3 parts, that cockpit is too big for a refueler. I definitely want new engines for SSTOs.

Yes I know the alt+print thing, but I'm using a tool that auto generate the screenshot in my dropbox directory and this stupid thing doesn't support single window screenshot, sigh. EDIT: My fault, found an option that allows me to use window screenshot too

Ok, this time I made an optimized flight and wasn't bed. I ended up with only 500 delta V, really low, but the tank is full and with monopropellent to spare!

I'm doing some tests. Following the suggestion (very good one), seems like lift = weight, you can take off with barely 1.11 twr (I'm doing that right now, keeping rapiers turned off). Also thinking about KSP, there is a high chance that lift = weight is what dev were aiming for, to make a valid spaceplane with twr ~1 (maybe 1.01). It's interesting, I can replace rapiers with much more space-efficient engines, I only need the thrust to get out of atmosphere. Not sure if however I'll consume more fuel with such low twr. As usual, ugly as hell, but this guy reached orbit and came back, with half orange tank and some monopropellent. EDIT: I suggest 2 twr if you don't want get old

Whatever I make it comes out as an ugly thing, refuelers must be really big to bring in orbit fuel tanks Any chance you know how much twr is required? I've read around 4 twr for a plane (which seems too much for me O.o), I wished 2 twr was enough + lift equal (or more) mass of the spacecraft.

After creating this horror, named "Wingsandwich", I decided NOT to bring an orange tank in space, I'll try with half of it.

I was on an adaptor, but I read around for rapier was not enough (definitely not considering the explosion )

This is embarassing, I didn't notice the second page at all (actually I didn't notice I was on the 3rd page), so I missed this FANTASTIC suggestion. Thanks a lot! The previous one in any case didn't manage to make an efficient travel to orbit, so currently I'm working on a new big guy which should bring a full orange tank in orbit, let's see how much it takes.

New problem... Rapier overheats instantly even at 32000m, they explode badly, and yes I'm screwed at that point EDIT: Solved that, moved the rapiers far from eachother. Fun, I used like 4000 fuel to get into orbit, I have like 1600 fuel remaining, completely inefficient. I may try flying it in a more efficient fashion.

Thanks, it also appear turbojets give me that twr I was missing to actually take off. Added a few tweaks (expecially some air intakes), and now it's time for a test flight, let's see if I can get to orbit.

It's meant to be a refueler (that's why so much delta v), that's why rapiers, I don't need efficency in space, I just need to reach orbit. About the plane I know, but in this case, it doesn't lift off at all: when I reach the end of the runaway (at 140 m/s), I can point the nose ~20° up, but the plane looses altitude in any case, it looks quite clear that I don't have enough lift, sigh