RedeyePete

Ok it looks like I'm going smaller. Having said that, have you all seen Matt Lowne's 124 seat SSTO to Lathe? and it wasn't a pole landing. He then followed up with a 500 seat to Lathe, and then there are the monster creations of Bradly Wistance. So big things can land. Food for thought! I don't think that the ground around the space centre is that bumpy. I'll do some speed tests to see what happens. Lathe polar landings are also an option, although it would mean having to set all my craft in a polar orbit, or...."oh the plane matching burn!" Re my landing attempts on the equator, yes some were slamming into the side of the mountain, but some were on the flats, so there must be invisible bumps me thinks. Is there anything to gain by tweaking the 2 landing wheel settings? I can't remember what they are off the top of my head.

To try and answer both posts, yes it is big, although I have seen videos of some ridiculously large planes with umpteen wings and engines fly and land - albeit on Kerbin. So I figured as long as I add enough wings, wheels and engines it will go. I tried putting floats on it but it was too heavy (I know I know) Crew is 4 in the cockpit and 2 X 2 crew cabins in the cargo bay, which also houses a reaction wheel and big battery. No mining/refining equipment. The idea was to dock with the aquatic rover in the picture below - RHS. Both craft pictured have mining/refining onboard. The ship to be refueled has a 10000 fuel tank. (Mk3 long,) 3 nuke engines and carries 4 + 16 Kerbals. I do have a refueling setup on Pol. I just thought it would be nice to have one one on Lathe as well. I could also try using the smaller space plane in the picture to shuttle crew and some fuel and then top up at Pol for the trip home. It is easy to land and take off on land and water. Its purpose was to island hop and to visit the floating base, but I guess I can try to go into low orbit with it. However it has no docking port, so I would have to send up another one with a docking port. KSP version = 1.4.3 on PC. Vanilla except for MechJeb. Polar landings: Is it easier to land at the poles? I'm not up on astrophysics much. If thats the case then I could land Mr heavy there. I could also land a mining/refining rover of a more basic type which I use on the other refueling planets/moons. BTW the current location of everything is on the equator.

Hi all, I am trying to build a Space Plane for Lathe. It's 2 functions are to ferry crew (current version pictured = 8) into orbit to dock with an interplanetary shuttle and to supply the shuttle with fuel (no LOX). I tried this with a modified version of Matt Lowne's Blunderberg 2. The stall speed for this craft on Lathe is about 120m/s and no matter how gently i touch down... Well to quote Skipper from Madagascar 2: "Touchdown gently, just kiss the ground, a little smooch" ...... Kaboom! So back to the drawing board, and now I'm modding and testing on Kerbin. I have moved the wing tip Rapiers closer in thinking that the landing impact was snapping the wings. Added more wings, bigger connards and more rear wheels. So takeoff/stall speed is now about 80m/s (which I tested with less than 50% fuel load) Is pretty stable in straight flight. Turning isn't the best and I need to concentrate or it will spin easily. Wet fish! I have tried to land on the ground and not the runway many times and the result is always the same = Madagascar 2! So any tip and pointers would be appreciated (that's "Tupps and Punters" if you're a Kiwi :) If you know of an existing craft that fits the bill - I'm not too proud to pinch someone's design and mod to my liking. I have been playing KSP (sandbox "Add more boosters!") for a few years now, but only recently started sticking wings on things. Thank you in advance for any assistance, or ridicule! https://imgur.com/sUj0qd8

Yes thank you - Shift worked. I located the Rotate button you mentioned and will have a play with that later. 1 problem down. many to go!

When I moved the main landing wheels on the stock Mallard plane I could not get them to point straight down. They would point inwards, even when I tried to place them in the original spot. I could only get them to point straight down if I moved them 1/2 way up the tank. Is there some button to hold when placing or something to click? BTW this is not an issue to fix with the WASD buttons. Thank you

I tried disabling crash damage and it worked. I'll leave it like that until 1.4.3 comes out (or longer if need be?) So I won't try to revert to 1.4.1 for now, but I did save the instructions which might come in handy some day. Now I can land my refuelers back on Pol, juice up the tanker in orbit and refuel the Lathe floating base so that it can deorbit. Thank you PS: that's what I look like after staring at the screen for too long.

So does that mean that there is a way of adjusting the settings on a lander's legs before the physics kicks in and they blow up? Specifically - LT2 Also I was able to roll back to 1.4.1 on Steam, but my game would not load because it had already saved in 1.4.2. Is there any way around that as I did not have any issues with 1.4.1 Cheers