Zamolxes77

I just replicated your build, is very nice, however I don't see the point of the extremely large liquid fuel reserve on board. I just went in LKO, and after Whiplashes burned out, I still had 600 units of extra liquid fuel on board, that after adding 2 additional FL-T400 ! Perhaps something like this would give it greater flexibility? You have 1k delta-v to play with AFTER getting in a circular LKO.

Are those editor extensions a mod? NVM, I'll look it up. Here's the pics with "Expedition Minmus" In orbit, ready for burn : Circularization planning at Minmus: Landing: Success ! : Going home, retrograde orbit: Last orbit before diving for landing: Unfortunately, while trying to land, I discovered a critical design flaw: when bingo fuel, CoL is far forward in regard to CoM, the plane twists and banks uncontrollably, until it crashes, its impossible to recover. Don't know how the hell I forgot that step, its pretty much standard procedure when designing SSTO's. Anyway, I quickly re-designed it, checking CoL and CoM position when empty: I also discovered that when aero-breaking, the contents of the cargo bay are exposed to re-entry friction, so the cheap square batteries got replaced with a medium one that has heat tolerance of 2000 Kelvin. Also twisted slightly plane's wings so lift vector is pointing backwards and is slightly above CoM. Ascent profile is completely different too: get to 1,000 m, point down and accelerate to 425 m/s, at sea level. Then slowly, little by little, as you gain thrust, raise AoA, 5 degrees, 7 degrees, 10 degrees, 15 degrees, etc, until rapier cuts out at 24 km and 1300 m/s. Mission complete. If anyone interested in a youtube video, I can do that too

Ok, another update. Slightly modified the design, holds only 2 kerbals now and more fuel+oxidizer. Did 4 "simulations" to orbit, 3 out of 4 I managed to arrive with over 1800 delta-v remaining and an ascending node with Minmus of aprox. 1 degree. Its a bit too low for a landing on Minmus mission: 950 m/s to get there, 200m/s to circ, 200 m/s to land, 150m/s to take off, 100m/s to circ, 50m/s to escape, another 100 m/s to lower Kerbin PE, that's all the delta-v budget, no mistakes insurance and no landing fuel, well not much is needed since aerobraking. Thanks for suggestion with the cone Majorjim, only reason I didn't use its because I need that node to hold a crew cabin for transfer into chairs. Yes I can use a rover to bring them to the plane on runway, but that will be done when testing is complete.

- update - I'm such a retard. Who says I have to use the 2.5m service bay ? Can't a kerbal fit somewhere else? OFF COURSE it does ! It dawn on me, while taking a dump, best ideas come when sitting on the crapper So IT IS possible to have a Minmus SSTO, round trip, with 100% stock parts, 100% vanilla game, no mods ! It even looks cooler. Note: if you find this too hard to fly, not from maneuvering point of view, but as ascent profile, mk2 drone core can be switched out for a RC-001s guidance unit plus a inline reaction wheel - gain 100 kg there so TWR goes up to .67. The little fuel tank in the front, that was the fuel I had in 2 Oscar tanks before, it can be removed, or more fuel can be added, either as toroidal tanks or oscar ones, fitted in the cargobay. Play around with mass of the plane, watch the TWR and see what you like. P.S. KerEngineer has problems seeing the clipped engine, so it displays the S0 as having no thrust, but once you take off, it recovers. Sadly I couldn't figure out a way to solve the 2 engines occupying same space problem. - update again - It turns out kerbals have ... mass. Who knew ! My previous 100% stock model has been tested, empty ... As soon as I added 4 kerbals, ascent profile got shot to hell. 4 kerbals at 93 kg a pop, is a whopping .27 tons. I managed to get into orbit, but only with 1900 delta-v remaining, BEFORE circularize. So it seems I have to eliminate the mk2 drone core, go for the lighter option, also one chair and a kerbal, perhaps even TWO.

"KSC has run out of funds ! We're sorry Jeb, Valentina, you have an upcoming mission to Minmus but we cannot afford to give you a capsule. Or parachutes. Or air pressure. Nor snacks! I'm not going anywhere without snacks, says Jeb. Well, we can give you two extra seats, think hard whom you want to take with you ... they might become ... your snacks. Ewwww says Valentina. On the upside, you get a big radioisotope generator, in the middle of your ... service bay ... for ... heating, yes, HEATING ! Its surrounded by some additional fuel tanks that should shield you from radiation. Someone saw too many Earther movies, Valentina frowns." Saw another youtube video with someone taking a small SSTO all way to Minmus, land and come all way back to KSC. I wondered if something similar was possible in current version, 1.1.2, and after about 4 hours of design, YES, it is possible.As one can imagine, on such a SSTO, mass, ANY mass, is at a premium, even 50kg for a control seat, gives significant fluctuations in TWR and alters ascent profile, A LOT. So I had to ruthlesly discard a pressurized cabin, placing 4 seats inside a service bay. For a while I considered even tossing the service bay and just use struts, but that seemed a bit too extreme heheh. Sadly, I couldn't find a solution that involves vanilla game, at least not yet. Both ends of the spaceplane have to be aerodynamic, sadly there is no stock part that I know of that contains liquid fuel only (for the atomic engine and atmospheric phase) and using available tanks means employing a structural part to resolve the aerodynamics. ANY extra mass is a killer. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions here, as it stands, I end up using Fuel Switch mod that comes with Interstellar, it allows to switch fuel configurations for all stock parts. A second compromise I had to do is clipping the engines inside each other, and inside the tanks. I don't like this kind of ... exploiting ... three times the mass occupying the same space, oh well, I had to do it, only other solution would have been to employ more structural parts, that have mass and well you know the rest. Here's the plane in circular LKO, I left KerEngineer windows up. As you can see it has nearly 2100 delta-v left, which is more than enough to get to Minmus, land, take off, come back and land. It flies very well, I like my planes to be stable and maneuverable, even a rookie shouldn't have any problems taking this into orbit. Is a bit twitchy on the runway at low speeds, probably because the rear landing gear is relatively narrow, but around 30 m/s it stabilizes and takes off around 70-80 m/s. Ascent profile is rather easy: adopt an AoA (angle of attack) that maintains a positive rise in velocity, but without going supersonic bellow 7,000 meters (30 degrees at 0m, 20 degrees at 2000m, 10 degrees at 5,000m). Once at 7 km and around 350 m/s you can start the "speed run" - maintaining 10 - 20 degrees AoA, after 20 km 5 degree AoA. By the time intake air is out, you should be around 24 km up and 1200-1300 m/s. From there, switch modes on Rapier, raise AP to 75 km then coast to AP and circularize. If everything has been done efficiently, you should run out of oxidizer during circularization phase, finish it with the Nerv. Here's the plane on factory floor for some detail: The batteries aren't entirely necessary since power is provided by the radioisotope in the middle, their weight is so small however. I think a 3rd oscar fuel tank can be added next to the other 2 and that should give enough oxidizer to finish circularize with the Rapier, however the ascent phase will become more difficult, lower TWR. Personally I like smooth ascents, but en experienced player could take the plane up with a TWR of .65. At TWR .64 I found this plane un-flyable, it tanks in speed around 350 and while it is recoverable, by diving, you basically waste fuel which will cut into your remaining delta-v once in orbit. Let me know what you think about it !

I have an SSTO about the same size that takes off and lands on its own Stock parts only !

For some weird reason, after watching several youtube videos, I became obsessed with Micro SSTO's, in other words, getting a kerbal or two into orbit, in a minimalistic fashion. Now I know there are plenty of designs out there, that takes them up in a service bay and sum-such, but I wanted to try my hand with some simple designs. After 10 hours and some 20 different designs, I arrived to this. Albeit some of my designs used tweakscale and interstellar fuels, I wanted something that can be done with stock parts, no heavy clipping so beginners can see the components, a more "classic" look. Here it is in orbit, I left Engineer data up: Here's ready to descend: It has RCS controls, 160ish units of mono-propellant and a shielded docking port on the belly of the plane, so you can take it up to 100-120 km KO, dock and return. Its a great joy to fly, aero brakes like a pro and handles very well, no flips when aero braking or weird control. Let me know what you think about it !

Spent 6 hours making a nuclear TUG with solid core atomic engines, at 1st aerobrake, the folding radiators come off, disintegrate into 204 debris which I cannot terminate and remove from the game, bringing the whole game to a crawl. Suggestions ?

I'm trying to science mine the Mun and I need several extra copies to feed my hungry science labs. My question is, if I send a science hopper with 4 different capsules, can I store a copy of each experiment in each capsule? Or I have to do multiple trips down to same biome to get multiple copies?

Ok, I got a question. I installed this mod and looks beautiful, however, my orbits and maneuver nodes have become very difficult to see against the background of the planet. Is there any way to alter the intensity of color, or change the color altogether for orbits and nodes? I watched Scott Manley using the exact same mod and he doesn't seem to have same problem, his orbits are crisp and clean.

Problem is all 3 of my tourists want 3 objectives each: Mun orbit, Kerbin orbit and Minmus orbit, except one of them, wants a landing on Minmus instead of an orbit, so I kinda have to send them all at once. Makes no sense to split them up and launch multiple missions, when all can be achieved in one trip. Guess I'll have to do two landings on Minmus, Very little dV anyway, my hopper can do 2-4 separate full descents and ascents to orbit, gave it plenty of fuel, 5xFL-T200. Thanks for your reply.

I picked up 2 missions, one to ferry 3 tourists around the Mun, Kerbin and Minmus, and one of them has to land on Minmus. I have another mission that requires to pick up 4 surface samples on Minmus, close together in one spot. I have 1 Science hopper type ship I left in orbit of Minmus, with a lot of sci apparatus on board, but room for only one person, a scientist - preferable. So my plan is to take my recently built SSTO, fill it up in LKO, then send it on a voyage, Mun 1st, then Minmus. Once there, a tourist will board the science hopper and land, achieving his journey contract and retrieving the surface samples. One hitch in my plan, everything hinges on: "can a tourist actually take surface samples? ". I better send Valentina with them too, watch over those crazy tourists and perform 2 landings on Minmus, one with the tourist, one with Valentina. But if I can get away just with 1 landing instead of 2 ...

Zoom in really close, pick your node and drag it along the orbit? You can get it within 5 seconds or less to the apoapsis/periapsis, although I don't see why such precision would be necessary, you have a time to <insert node here> right? In my experience though, perfect circular orbits are not dependent on where you place your maneuver node, but how carefully you execute your burns.

Uhm, if you bother to establish a maneuver, follow the proper reticle. Why would you burn half way between maneuver reticle and prograde? That must be an extremely simple maneuver you established. Once you start playing with the other vectors besides prograde and retrograde, the blue reticle might not even be in same postcode as the prograde vector ... Also by not burning the right way, you waste more fuel because you have to adjust the result again. For most transfer orbits, I actually execute 2 maneuvers. First gets me to a good solid encounter, with lowest periapsis I can manage, then I follow up with a second one that refines the result.

Wow, I guess just me and another guy that posted earlier (sorry if I missed your name) are really fans of checklists. Mine isn't as involved as his, but generally I turn on the resource button, check the missions ones, move Engineer window so it doesn't obstruct anything, check staging, turn on SAS and lately RCS (found it it helps a lot with stability at low speeds off the pad), press Z to max throttle then launch. If my mission is somewhat different, like testing a component, or survey something on Kerbin, anything else than a launch to orbit, then I press M, target the objective, or check the direction and identify which way I have to turn towards it (sometimes they are hidden on NavBall even when targeted) Also I like to do flights just to test the design. I rectify many, many flaws before my design actually gets to fly in a mission. Does it fly right? Does it turn? Can it survive the heat? How about a hard landing? Water and land? Does it wobble? Is it difficult to steer? Loses charge or monoprop too fast? Is it stable at low speeds? How about high speeds? I like to fly easy, maneuverable crafts, that sometimes leads to over-engineering, but I have ... never ... lost ... a single craft due to design failure. Plenty of test crashes though. I might crash a design 10-20 times before it gets to fly a mission. One of my latest designs, a first flyby mission to Minmus, with 2 passengers, didn't test it enough, I put monoprop tanks on it ... but forgot the RCS jets lol, so I just went to Minmus and back with nearly half a ton of useless cargo. Anyway, to answer to OP: I only use full throttle off the pad. As soon as my craft reaches 600 m/s, I start to throttle back, once you jump to orbital speed(25 km?), its a game, chasing the apoapsis. My procedure involves playing with the throttle, to maintain a 10-20 second time to apoapsis. It almost never goes to zero throttle during that process, always maintaining a speed increase at lowest setting possible to save fuel and only goes to max in an emergency. The only situation I can think of, that would require such use, is if you use a very light craft with a very powerful engine and questionable aerodynamic control, like a test bed for engines/chutes: those are almost always launched at 50%.

I only had to make a dedicated sub-orbital passenger rocket once, in the very beginning. Since all subsequent contracts require a 2nd condition, besides the suborbital flight and since sub-orbital condition gets completed when doing something else, this design is dead, at least for me. I use a 9 ton passenger orbiter, which lifts a full hitchhiker container into orbit and the main stage gets recovered. The blasted thing costs 50k, but you get 22k back for landing the engine stage close to KSC and a further 20k for recovering the orbiter, so I only lose around 10k per mission. Just for fun, I tried building an asparagus stage Lifter that hauls same module into orbit. It costs 10k less, but you can't recover the stages, except the last engine and the orbiter itself. My 9 ton orbiter: and its very fuel efficient (but not economic without a stage recovery mod) brother:

The CLAAAW !

Yes, thank you both, here's my orbital taxi, a 9 ton craft:

I'm wondering if I can send 4 kerbals up in orbit to complete sub orbital and orbital tourist missions, using the Hitchhiker storage container. Would be really helpful, if not, i have to build something else.

I rather be more interested in Kerbal reproduction and children. Gonna send Jeb and Valentina on a long trip to populate Duna. Want colonists, then make them

Two thuds instead of one? Even one guzzles fuel and oxidizer, I don't see how you can keep two fed to reach 18 km. Here is my 1st design, only with rudimentary parts - made it to 17km - spined out 3 times in an attempt to reach 18 km. And here is an advanced version, made when I unlocked the delta wings: Note that second craft is a multipurpose vehicle, taking a scientist along with the pilot, to reset all those experiments to different biomes. Currently I have it kited with 3 jet engines, just finished a trip to the North Pole, 6 landings and surveys on the way lol. It still uses the 1st set of landing gear you get, which dramatically limits its speed to around 260 m/s, however it can reach mach 1, compared to 1st design but the landing gear will heat up and explode if you sustain speeds over 260 m/s. The middle jet and the 2 aviation fuel tanks can be swapped out for 2x fl-200 and a thud engine - carefully installed and "sunk" into the fuel tank, make sure you have center of mass and trust turned on, to line them up properly.

I unlocked the delta wings and I'm trying to build a large wing area for a Delta Interceptor. However, the different wings and wing connectors don't seem to "link" to each other to form one continuous wing. They stick to the body, but that's about it. Is there a trick to this process?

For the last two days I spend numerous hours and designs pursuing the quest for a stable plane, made out only of the parts you unlock with aerodynamics. Found plenty of designs that use later parts, but virtually none that use the early ones. There is one caveat however, you need the LV-909 Terrier rocket engine. Capabilities: 1. Fly to above 17km to grab those survey missions. 2. Relatively stable in flight. 3. Low take off speed. 4. Science Junior and Goo canister - excellent for biome exploration on Kerbin. 5. Adaptability to mission requirements - it has 4 intakes, 2 can be removed and extra goo canisters added, or even a science junior. Also fuel can be altered if you go for a altitude mission or just cruising for biomes. Problems: 1. Using yaw controls flips the plane in a weird barrel roll. With all my sincere efforts I couldn't solve it, steer the plane with pitch and roll controls, which is actually quite easy. Small yaw increments are not that bad, but they have a certain jerkiness to them. 2. Sometimes, if using less than full throttle and NO SAS, plane would turn on the runway. I ended up replacing the wheels and move them further out(rear ones), makes it very stable during landings. 3. Its a hybrid, because well, normal jets flame out around 12-14km so you need a rocket engine to reach above 17 km. It uses the LV-909, small, light rocket engine. Feel free to use and tinker with it, my knowledge on building planes is fairly limited, I'd be very happy to learn how to improve on design's flight characteristics. Kept the center of lift behind the center of mass and at a slight angle towards the back, that way the plane has a natural tendency to climb.

Thank you all for input. @Laie actually the Science lab weights 3.5 tons, 3500 kgs, adding that on top of my 45 ton empty Lander is (was) not possible. My last trip from the moon brought in 3500 science points, some 55 odd experiments, that allowed me to unlock the whole tree, less the grappling hook. 3500 kgs is a lot more than the extra canisters, to carry that much around will increase the size of the craft and fuel it has to carry. Here's what I used: @Gescho I don't know what version you playing, but on .23.5 you can only use one canister and science module per biome. Well you can use as many as you want, but if you try to store multiple versions of same experiments, they get discarded when you board your capsule. Your suggestion doesn't work, that's why I put 4 of each on the Lander so I don't have to dock after every biome visit.

I'm exploring the Mun, looking for biomes and doing experiments for science. I have a orbital laboratory, used to reset the experiments on my lander. The lander itself has 4 Science Jr, 4 goo canisters and all assorted science tools. It's a 7,000 or so delta-v craft with 4 nuke engines. In current trip, I managed to deorbit from my laboratory and do 3 hops, storing experiments and samples at each stop. My conundrum is regarding how to perform these hops, what would be the most efficient way to save fuel. Initially, after landing, next hop was one continuous arc, from point of origin to point of destination, with immense burns at start and arrival. Atm, I proceed in following way: 1. Quicksave, after all experiments are stored and ready to bunny-hop. 2. Identify my next target and what heading I have to take. 3. Burn at max throttle, immediately after launch turning into the heading at 45 degrees from normal. 4. Burn until the apoapsis hits 10 km. 5. Cut engines and wait for Aps. 6. Point ship straight up. 7. When I'm 1 second away from Aps., I start burning, at very low setting, maintaining that countdown of 0.5 to 1 seconds until apoapsis. Basically I "migrate" my apoapsis towards where I want to go. Pro's: - When my burn brings the apoapsis to 10 km, my surface speed is only around 150m/s, very little to kill off when you land, compared to 500 m/s I get when doing a parabola sub-orbit, from point of departure to point of destination. - Easy to control surface speed and altitude. - The angle of descent, when coming in for landing, is 45 degrees or more, usually over 60, coupled with relative low speed makes an easy landing. Con's: -I don't know, that's why I'm asking about the subject . - fuel consumption? I don't use Mcjeb nor do I intend to, all flights are done manually, I use Engineer redux for data display. Please leave your input, I appreciate the help.