Vectura

Corrected, thanks

So there seems to be primarily 3 methods of boosting rockets in the real world- No boosters at all, with a powerful core stage (eg, saturn V) A pair of large, powerful boosters, with a similarly powerful core stage (eg falcon heavy, ariane 5) A large number of smaller boosters, often with a variable number depending on requirements (eg energia, delta III) I personally tend to use a single powerful main stack, only resorting to a pair of boosters if there isn't a core engine strong enough. I imagine having several smaller boosters would allow you to create a single lifter with a wide payload range, by simply varying the number of boosters, but I tend to build my lifters custom for each payload. What do you usually do?

I won't use any part based mods so that my vehicles are always compatible, but I did use a mod for it back in around the 0.25 era. It's quite silly that it isn't a stock option anyway. Aircraft on stilts look so odd.

Currently, we have several sizes of retractable gear with different numbers of wheels and strengths. However, they all share a problematic design flaw: the bigger ones are longer. This almost exclusively means you can only use the bigger gear mounted high up (eg, underneath a high wing) if you are using a shorter steerable gear as a nose gear. As KSP has part variant options now, each of the gear should have 3 or 4 variants, which all conform to a standard set of heights. This way, you could use the different gear types all mounted at the same height on an aircraft, which would make design easier and would improve visuals too. Just as an example, here's the landing gear on an airliner. Notice how short the whole thing is compared to the bigger multi-wheel gear we have in KSP:

Ah, thanks, that makes sense.

What's the purpose of the rocket mode for the fly-by-wire?

Maybe it's just me, but I simply can't figure out how to attach any of the wheel arch pieces. None of them have end connectors so you can't connect them inline with other chassis pieces, the only way that seems to work is clipping the chassis girders through them, which looks pretty bad.

I've just encountered an issue where a vessel marked as debris, which was otherwise a fully functional vessel with life support and kerbals, didn't actually have any resource consumption until marked as a ship. After 200 days in space, even all of the non-renewable consumables were at max still.

Another little update. I hid the escape pod bits (they still exist though) because I'm really not happy with their current state. I added a set of 3 small radial probe cores (textures are almost non existant, will likely be improved in the future). Added a WIP vacuum engine (similar case with simple textures to be improved). Also added the containers from a side mod I was developing- these are a rectangular probe core RCS service bay with junior docking port, an identical version with no walls or service bay functionality, and a partially textured adaptor for the wall-less version for mass attachment of the wedges from the new Universal Storage 2.

Another update! This one adds the Integral and Derivative, a pair of engines, one for atmosphere and one for vacuum, stats subject to change. They have a 1.875m stack size, though with the nozzle size and power they'll readily fit on a 2.5m stack. They haave a high max gimbal too. Still working on a custom particle effect for the atmospheric version, and emissives. And no, still no IVA.

Thanks. Still got quite a few kinks to work out and development will be slow though!

Another update! Big old escape pod for all of your large escape pod needs. WARNING: Uses a borrowed IVA, only seats 3 kerbals (will seat 8 when I've done with the IVA). This consists of 3 parts- a launching bay (fancy decoupler), the orbital maneuvering system (get your kerbals on a re-entry course) and the pod (get them down safely). The pod does have some drag problems right now, so I really recommend a shallow re-entry unless you want to smack into the ground.

There are a couple of good dark skyboxes out there with high-res stars and other details. I also recommend planetshine as it reduces the general ambient light level in shadow (to absolutely 0if you adjust the slider).

Added a new part, an enormous 15m LF tank: Also slightly tweaked the emissive on the nuclear engine.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I have already grabbed most of the minmjus science, I am playing on a low-science multiplier save. To get the spaceplane tree unlocked I’ll need to go interplanetary again.