The Pink Ranger

Does this work with real solar system?

Hahahahaha! Thanks this was actually pretty helpful. Were you working for a large established company? A lot of smaller start ups come to the job fair at my school. The pay would probably be horrible and there's a good chance any one of them could sink before I graduate but do you think that's a good tradeoff for (possibly) more involvement and experience?

No the problem with the discussion is that Nibb31 has crap reading comprehension and interpersonal skills like the vast majority of engineers. The OP asks about autonomy after several years of experience. Well here's the definition of autonomy according to google: freedom from external control or influence; independence. Pretty straight forward huh? Of course I'll never get a straight answer from someone who's actually in the industry because there'll be too much bias. Forget it, I'll find out when I start my co-op.

Okay so designing a wrench is the same as creating a control interface? *cough* BS *cough* Edit: Okay howabout this. What is your position and if you work with both electricals and mechs/aeros who is more envious of the other's job?

Yea I meant for people with several years of experience. My gut is telling me that there's probably more room for creativity when tackling an electronics/software/control system problem then a structural/propulsion problem. My gut might be full of .... so I'd like to ask someone with experience.

Who tends to have more autonomy in the industry? Experienced mechanical/aerospace engineering grads or electricals? I just finished all of the lower division trash for engineering and I have a choice of either aerospace or electrical. My heart says aerospace but my intuition says electricals might get more autonomy and a wider range of jobs.

Does this mod remove the LV-N?

Yea I'm using experimental. Everything else works fine. Just the thermal helper only works properly on some builds. Not a big deal, not hard to add single digits.

Hey I just unlocked experimental electrics in career mode and the thermal helper isn't giving me the upgraded rates. Works fine in sandbox though. Anyone running into the same problem?

Is the wiki outdated? I was reading up on reactors and the wiki says that Dusty Plasma Reactors are supposed to be less efficient but more powerful and lighter than Gas Core Reactors. However when I look at the stats in the VAB the Gas Core Reactors have a much higher core temp. I thought higher core temp meant better TWR in a nuclear thermal rocket. Am I missing something? Edit: Nevermind. I just watched Wavefunction's video. The verdict? "These things are useless" hahaha.

So It took a LOT of trial and error but I finally got it! I made a falcon heavy style lifter and was having some issues getting the boosters to turn around without getting torn apart in the atmosphere since I'm using Ferram Aerospace. So I tried a steeper ascent to get the boosters above the Karman line (about 30km for Kerbin I think). And separated them with seperatrons equidistant from the booster's center of mass. All I had to do was burn directly west at 0 deg pitch and cancel out all of the rocket's orbital velocity relative to Kerbin's center, which only took about 300 dV. Then the rocket just fell directly downwards while the space center "caught up" with it due to Kerbin's rotation. Popped chutes and came down to a soft landing about 500m from the pad. Repeated for the second booster. Anyone try something similar? Got any tips to make the process more efficient? I don't like the steep ascent too much because you loose too much dV to gravity drag but I don't really see any alternatives. Also I want to try this without chutes but you build up WAY too much velocity plummeting straight down through the atmosphere like that. Since my boosters are long and thin there doesn't seem to be much drag acting on them and I have to cancel over 800m/s in order to land.

What if you made a graphene column? How would its compressive strength stack up (haha get it?) to a steel column of the same dimensions?

I'm using far. Anyone have any tips for landing boosters?

Anyone hear about Aeros? They're developing a cargo blimp with some kind of bladder inside that allows it to change altitude like a submarine. Probably be much more cost effective than that contraption.

Sustainable breeding? Pair me up and ship me out! Ahahahahaha

Oh man that's SICK. I started using this mod with FAR and I've been trying to figure out the best way to turn the side boosters around without the atmosphere tearing them apart. Anyway 10 years from now the cape will be like the adult disney land. Can't wait to see a flaming column of awesome fall out the sky to a gentle touch down.

The recent falcon 9 soft landing has me PUMPED about reusable rockets. Thanks for making it possible in KSP!

Anyone know how SpaceX plans to soft land the falcon heavy's boosters? Assuming the falcon heavy does a typical gravity turn would the boosters actually reverse direction and land back at the launch facility? An article about the recent falcon 9 soft landing mentioned something about landing stages on floating pads but it didn't say if this was just for testing purposes or not. Maybe SpaceX plans on using a ship with a flat top like an aircraft carrier for the boosters to land on? Or maybe even some kind of offshore platform akin to an oil rig?

When I use the auto leveler it tries to level my plane upside down. Anyone else having this issue? The particular plane I was using has the center of lift slightly below the center of mass, could that be the reason? Flies straight as an arrow with no leveler or asas. Edit: Okay I had my k value set to high. Seems to work fine at the default value.

Yes well I'd rather build something that looks like it can actually fly in real life and learn something in the process. Thanks for explaining my own thread title to me btw. Should've posted this in the science labs. Thanks to everyone who actually took the effort to answer my question.

Oh I see. All of the space planes I've seen with low wings are also designed to carry cargo to orbit. Guess that spar wouldn't be a concern in KSP. Don't suppose FAR simulates that last part either.

The space shuttle is a space plane. Edit: Here's some more space planes: X-15, Buran, SpaceShipOne, and X-37 Also why would a space plane need to be maneuverable? Does the low wing position somehow compensate for the small area of the control surfaces in terms of maneuverability? Edit 2: Also of note is that SpaceShipOne is the only one of the spaceplanes listed with wings above its COM. It's also the only one designed to ascend under its own power. Correlation?

I just started using FAR and I've been making an effort to make my space planes as realistic as possible. For inspiration I've been looking at real life concepts. If you Google "space planes" almost every concept you see has the wings far below the center of mass at the bottom of the fuselage. Does anyone know the reason for this?

My mission timer usually goes yellow when I fly space planes through the atmosphere. Will my computer explode if I install this mod?

[Oops never mind]