Athos

The Welding mod's no longer being developed, but even if it was, I prefer stock, at least for now. Thanks for the suggestion though!

...LOL. Love the video. I definitely wouldn't have thought of that. Let me know what you think!

That'll have to wait until I get a new PC.. more than 300 parts and the one I've got starts moving in slow motion!

I know your question was already answered, but, I decided not to try this with .25; I wanted better looking craft, and studding them with intakes on struts wasn't doing it. If you're interested, I've got a few other, more practical craft in this post.

Since the release of the Mighty Kurlitzer about a week ago, we've been busy! RKPOS now has a full line of fuel and kersonnel delivery SSTOs from light to super-heavy. We've also made very minor revisions to the original, so we'll include the fixed version here. Anyway, without further ado, the Nano Kurlitzer! RKPOS' light SSTO, and our smallest, this craft is intended purely for orbital crew delivery. In fact, she might need to take on a tiny bit of fuel in orbit to make it home, but she absolutely will make it to 100km LKO on her own, with some fuel left. 56 parts, costs 49,100. Download Next we have the Micro Kurlitzer. RKPOS' medium SSTO, this craft is intended for orbital and interplanetary delivery of kersonnel, and small amounts of fuel and monopropellant. She's probably our most aesthetically pleasing craft, with intakes mostly hidden between fuselages or beneath surface-mounted wing connectors. We're also particularly proud of the wingtip mounting; the slight offset of the trailing edges allows for efficient placement of Vernor thrusters. That may not seem like much of a breakthrough, but we take our victories where we can! Includes 2x LV-N engines for more efficient interplanetary deliveries, but these can easily be replaced by Aerospikes (or any other engines, really) if desired. 140 parts, costs 135,977. Download Third is the Mini Kurlitzer. RKPOS' heavy SSTO, this craft is intended for orbital and interplanetary delivery of kersonnel, large amounts of fuel, and small amounts of monopropellant. She's easily the most refined member of our lineup, having taken several days and many iterations to design and test. However, she's extremely stable during ascent; RCS shouldn't be required at any point to keep her pointed in the right direction. 230 parts, costs 210,388. Download And last, the fixed Mighty Kurlitzer. RKPOS' super-heavy SSTO and the workhorse of our lineup, she's intended for orbital delivery of kersonnel, and large amounts of fuel and monopropellant. 329 parts, costs 364,771. Yes, she still has one hell of a set of pipes: Download We hope you enjoy our craft, and we value your feedback! Please take a spin and let us know what you think.

Hello again, fellow Kerbonauts! Digging the new spaceplane parts. So, any of you who saw my .24 craft probably already know what's coming; you know that I like building large-ish SSTOs, and I have, ahem, a certain aesthetic sense. Which is to say, not much of one. I was more than happy to ram-spam the heck out of my previous attempts in the name of getting them into space without needing a complex or painfully slow ascent. Besides, I *like* seeing all that exposed machinery doing its work. But, by the time I managed to get an SSTO with two Jumbo-64s into LKO with a reasonable portion of their fuel left with .24, .25 was on its way. I tabled further efforts until release, expecting better things out of .25's intakes, particularly the shock cones. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to deliver so much on that front. Or maybe I'm a worse pilot than I thought, that's entirely possible.. I had a very difficult time building a craft that could pick up enough speed before flaming out without bursting into uncomfortably bright flame along the way, so I ended up mounting shock cones where they made sense and spamming structural intakes, since that's at least marginally less ugly than quad-couplers full of intakes mounted all over the wings. I also went a little nuts with struts and canards to stiffen her up and still allow her to lift off the runway. Anyway, Rudolph Kurlitzer Pipe Organs and Spaceplanes is proud to present to you: the Mighty Kurlitzer! Oh yeah, she's got one hell of a set of pipes: With my bad piloting, she'll deliver ~4100 fuel, ~4400 ox, 1500 monoprop, and 4 kerbals into 100km LKO, with the Long Adapter's worth of fuel for deorbiting and ~600 fuel for flying home. As always, better results can be had by better pilots. 329 parts, and as a bonus, marginally cheaper in-game than my previous offerings of this size. Download Ascent: Before takeoff, activate SAS and resource display, throttle up to max, close two intake groups with action groups 1 (shock cones) and 2 (rear rank of structural intakes). Spacebar to get the party started. Only hit it once, or you'll punch off your nose gear! She isn't safe to take off or land without it. Rotate at the last set of marks adjacent to the VAB. Careful--it takes a short bit to get her nose up, but once it is, it's easy to over-rotate and start tumbling. After liftoff, gear up and 50 degrees AOA. It's a slow ascent, so YMMV, but 2x time compression is safe as far as I can tell. Open intake group 1 at 10km, and group 2 at 17km. Stop using time compression here, if applicable. Start pitching forward at 18km so you hit zero AOA at 19km. The ship will continue to rise while you accelerate. As your rate of climb approaches zero, pitch up to 10 degrees to maintain altitude until she starts to flame a little bit, then pitch up to 13 degrees to start a slightly faster climb. You're shooting for 1800+ m/s at 28km, before the RAPIER engines switch modes automatically, so adjust your rate of climb as necessary as you approach these figures. When one of the center turbojets flames out, shut them both down with group 3. Following that, when your yaw starts to get dangerous due to further flameouts, activate RCS; the Vernor thrusters should add enough yaw control authority to prevent spins at full throttle. If you hold your altitude at about 28km, you might be able to eke out a bit more speed, but 1800 m/s is enough for orbit with a reasonable amount of fuel left for delivery. Eventually, the RAPIER engines will switch modes, and some of the turbojets will spring back to life. Pitch up to 45 degrees to get your apoapsis rising. SAS and RCS should still keep you stable, though you might have a persistent yaw to one side. Once you've reached the desired apoapsis (with a small cushion to account for remaining atmospheric drag), kill your thrust. Group 4 will shut down all jets and toggle all intakes closed. Disable RCS. Above 72k would be a good time to deploy the Gigantors with group 0. Finally, circularize. Descent: If you consider the Jumbo-64s your payload and empty them entirely, transfer the fuel from the Mk1 fuselages into the Mk2 fuselages, filling them relatively evenly, and time your deorbit so you return to powered flight nearish KSP, you should have enough fuel in the nose cone (don't forget to enable its fuel and ox flow) to deorbit from 100km, and fly home. Use your deorbit burn to lower your periapsis to about 40km. (I try to place the periapsis over the nearest part of the desert to KSP.) Once you've done that, hit 4 again to reopen all intakes, then 5 to shut down the RAPIER engines and reactivate the turbojets. You may also want to close the shock cones again with group 1; during a test reentry with them open, she flipped and tried to fly backwards. Don't forget to close the docking port and solar panels above 35km. Let your speed bleed off to the point you're comfortable flying, apply thrust, and bring it home. Use groups 1 and 2 to toggle your intakes, using them as airbrakes as necessary. Use group 6 to reactivate the RAPIER engines and toggle them back to air-breathing if you want more thrust. It really was a lot tougher to make this one work. I was hoping to *not* have to airhog the crap out of larger spaceplanes with .25. Structural intakes just don't provide a lot of air; their only saving grace is being able to pack 'em in. Having done so, I think perhaps the best part of this craft is her name. It amused me, anyway. Back to the drawing board for something smaller!

I've posted two threads of stock SSTO designs, here (newer) and here (older). The best pictures of these: Distant Sun Reaching for the Sky Ready to bring the pain.. where pain = fuel Surprise Munrise (snapped the photo without realizing it was peeking over the horizon)

Thank you! Yes, I know it's a lot. I've tried to keep it down to about 4 per engine. The light SSTO has that, the heavy one has 8 engines and 9 groups of 4 intakes, the super-heavy one has 17 engines and 18 groups of 4 intakes. I know what you mean about aesthetics; I see lots of craft with their internals sandwiched between two layers of wing connectors, for example. My larger builds tend to be wide since they don't do that, and it's not the prettiest. But it keeps the part count down and they are still pretty easy to fly on manual control, and that was really what I was going for. I sort of like the method of 4x intakes on a quad-connector and a cubic octagonal strut, for larger builds. They don't look so great mounted on a wing leading edge, granted, but inside the wing with two intakes above and below, it looks nicer. And I find it easier than spamming single intakes all over the place, so far at least.

Today, I've uploaded three new stock SSTOs, which I think are worthy of being included in the repository for their ease of use and utility. Maybe not the prettiest craft ever, but I think lots of others here pretty much have that covered..

I posted a slate of SSTOs a few weeks back. Some folks were kind enough to toss me some rep based on those. Today I posted three even better versions, and I think these are worthy, for being relatively easy to achieve orbit with on manual control, and deliver significant amounts of fuel in the case of the two delivery vehicles.

Hello again, everyone! It's taken me a little longer than expected to get back to building and posting due to a family emergency, but now that that's all resolved, here I am. I've been working on my SSTO designs some more, so I'm back with three further refined versions of craft I posted in my first thread (which have also gotten some minor updates). If someone else hasn't laid exclusive claim to the name, I think I might just label these Evolution Series. As usual, better results than mine could be achieved with better piloting (or MechJeb). Please fly these and let me know what you think! Hornet-B is a light SSTO with twin RAPIER engines. The original Hornet was just too difficult for me to achieve orbit under manual control with three engines. Also, Hornet-B doubles the most useful science equipment, allowing for more science per mission. Her ascent profile is simple; activate SAS, close most of the intakes with group 1, full throttle, stage for takeoff. Gear up and 50 degree AOA, watch intake air and reopen intakes with group 1. Zero AOA at 20km and continue accelerating as vertical speed bleeds off, pitch up slightly as rate of climb approaches zero to maintain slow climb, then pitch back up to 45 degree AOA once you've hit orbital velocity (or when the engine switches modes, if you rose a little too fast). Group 2 toggles all intakes to reduce drag once engine mode switches. Raise apoapsis and circularize. Group 0 toggles docking port. Her descent profile is even simpler; deorbit to a 40km periapsis, open your intakes with group 2, switch the engine back to air-breathing with group 3, and fly home. For airbrakes, use group 1. Download Orbital Delivery Vehicle 1 (ODV-1) is derived from FDV-2B, has been updated with dedicated jet fuel tanks instead of structural fuselages, and has an additional pair of quad intake groups, allowing her to deliver ~2150 fuel, ~2600 ox, 750 monoprop and 4 kerbals to ~100km orbit, with pilot and reserve FL-T800 to bring her home; a significant improvement upon her predecessor. Ascent: Before takeoff, activate SAS and resource display, throttle up to max, close two intake groups with action groups 1 and 2. Spacebar to get the party started. Rotate just after passing the VAB. Careful--it's easy to pitch up too fast and start tumbling. After liftoff, gear up and 50 degrees AOA. Open intake group 1 at 13km, and group 2 at 17km. Zero your AOA at 20km. SAS on its own should keep you stable through the rest of your ascent. The ship will continue to rise while you accelerate. As your rate of climb approaches zero, pitch up to 15 degrees to maintain slow climb. Try to reach at least 1700 m/s before passing through 30km, maintaining max throttle. Faster is better. You will notice some wobble as your engines start to flame out, but SAS will compensate. Eventually, the RAPIER engines will switch modes, and temporarily, some or all of your turbojets will spring back to life. Pitch carefully up to 45 degrees to get your apoapsis rising and break atmo ASAP. SAS should still keep you stable. If you're shooting for a 100km orbit, your apoapsis will get there before your jets completely flame out. Group 3 will shut them down and close all intakes. If you're going higher, might as well leave the jets on until they flame out completely, then hit group 3. Once your apoapsis hits the desired point, kill your engines. This might be a good point to open the docking port and solar panels with group 0. You may need to goose your engines a bit to keep your apoapsis from dropping below where you want it as you continue rising through the stratosphere. Eventually, circularize. Descent: The fuel in the FL-T800 should be enough to get you home, and the oxidizer in it should help keep your center of gravity forward for stability during descent. (Don't forget to enable the fuel feed from that tank.) If you want to do a little flying around (or, like me, you have trouble with precision deorbiting), put fuel back in the main tank as necessary. Use your deorbit burn to lower your periapsis to about 40km. Once you've done that, hit 3 again to reopen all intakes, then 4 to shut down the RAPIER engines and reactivate the turbojets. That should be plenty of thrust for flying and landing, but if you want more, 5 will reactivate the RAPIER engines and toggle them back to air breathing mode. Don't forget to close the docking port and solar panels above 30km. Let your speed bleed off to the point you're comfortable flying, apply thrust, and bring it home. Use groups 1 and 2 to toggle your intakes, using them as airbrakes as necessary. Download ODV-2 is derived from FDV-3B, has been similarly updated with additional jet fuel tanks in place of structural fuselages, and the RAPIER engines and turbojet engines on the payload sections have been swapped for stability and simplicity's sake. Someone smacked the engineer who felt sorry for the pile of neglected basic jet engines, and put a turbojet on the centerline instead of the previous basic jet. Some other minor changes were made to aerodynamics and landing gear. With these changes, she can deliver ~4700 fuel, ~5400 ox, 1500 monoprop and 2 kerbals to 100km orbit, with pilot, reserve FL-T800, and some leftover fuel in the jet fuel tanks; a notable improvement upon her predecessor. Still 312 parts, still causes a fair amount of time dilation on my PC, but much friendlier to fly. Her only downside compared to her predecessor is that grouped RAPIER engines in closed-cycle mode overheat easily, so she has to be throttled back to 80% to keep them from exploding. (The first time that happened while I was watching orbital view was a surprise, let me tell you.) Ascent: Before takeoff, activate SAS and resource display, throttle up to max, close two intake groups with action groups 1 and 2. This leaves a total of 16 intakes open at takeoff to feed the 17 engines. Spacebar to get the party started. Only hit it once, or you'll punch off your nose gear! She isn't safe to take off or land without it. Pay attention during your takeoff roll; I've noted that *occasionally* the wings flex unpredictably and try to send you off the side of the runway, possibly due to the landing gear changes. Arrest any motion by attempting to rotate early. If there's no trouble, rotate at the first set of marks on the far end of the runway. Careful--it takes a short bit to get the nose up, but once it is, it's easy to over-rotate and start tumbling. After liftoff, gear up and 50 degrees AOA. It's a slow ascent, so 2x time compression is safe as far as I can tell, but more introduces a strange wobble for me. Open intake group 1 at 13km, and group 2 at 17km. Stop using time compression here, if applicable. Start pitching forward at 19km so you hit zero AOA at 20km. The ship will continue to rise while you accelerate. As your rate of climb approaches zero, pitch up 10 degrees (and maintain this AOA) to maintain a very slow climb until your ship starts to flame ever so slightly, then pitch up to 13 degrees to start a slightly faster climb. You want to be flaming only a little bit through your climb, so if the flames get bright, pitch up to 15 degrees, or if they go out before 30km, pitch down to 10 degrees. Once you reach 30km, pitch down to 8 degrees or so to maintain your rate of climb. You still want to be flaming slightly, but after this point, it's OK if the flames vanish. When your yaw starts to get dangerous due to flameouts, hit 9 to shut down the outer four turbojets. When your yaw gets dangerous again, activate RCS; the Vernor thrusters should add enough attitude control authority to prevent spins at full throttle. You may re-stabilize as you continue to accelerate, so feel free to deactivate and reactivate RCS as necessary to preserve fuel. Try to get to 1900+ m/s surface speed. Past this point, acceleration becomes really slow, so if the RAPIER engines don't automatically switch modes by then and you're getting impatient, feel free to start pitching up at any time to force the change. Eventually, the RAPIER engines will switch modes, and temporarily, some of the turbojets will spring back to life. Pitch up to 45 degrees to get your apoapsis rising, and lower your throttle to 80% to prevent the RAPIER engines from overheating. SAS and RCS should still keep you stable. Once you've reached the desired apoapsis (with a ~10k cushion to account for remaining atmospheric drag), group 3 will shut down all jets and toggle all intakes closed. Disable RCS and kill your thrust. Above 72k would be a good time to deploy the Gigantors with group 0. Finally, circularize. Descent: If you consider the Jumbo-64s your payload and empty them entirely, deorbit using the nose tank (enable the fuel and ox flow from it, of course), and return to atmospheric flight nearish KSC, the remaining fuel in the Mk1 fuselages should be enough to get you home, and the fuel and oxidizer left in the nose FLT-800 should keep your center of gravity forward for stability during descent. Use your deorbit burn to lower your periapsis to about 40km. Once you've done that, hit 3 again to reopen all intakes, then 4 to shut down the RAPIER engines and reactivate the turbojets. Don't forget to close the docking port and solar panels above 30km. Let your speed bleed off to the point you're comfortable flying, apply thrust, and bring it home. Use groups 1 and 2 to toggle your intakes, using them as airbrakes as necessary. Download I tried making a version of ODV-1 with the engine layout of ODV-2, but I think ODV-1's best feature is how stable it is during ascent, and swapping the engines around thus really screwed with its stability, not to mention requiring heat management. For manual control, it's way better the way it is. Cheers!

Thanks for your kind words! I hope someone will fly them and tell me what they think. I look forward to sharing some of my rockets, too.

Let me know what you think! Now, off to bed!

Hey everyone! If you couldn't already tell, I'm new and this is my first post outside the welcome forum. After spending a lot of time ignoring them since I started playing during the Steam Summer Sale, I've been busy working on SSTOs lately, reading the forums for help and inspiration here and there. Noob that I am, I figured I'd share the results of my work. Unfortunately, I've not thoroughly tested exactly what these craft are capable of, so I can't tell you precisely how much fuel or tonnage can be delivered to orbit with a good pilot, or what other destinations in the system they can reach. I can tell you that they do achieve orbit, and are capable of docking with a space station in a 150km orbit. Everything spacegoing in this post has a standard-size docking port, so any of them can refuel in space to attempt other destinations. The larger ones can be used to deliver fuel, monoprop and Kerbals to a station, or attempt to transfer a payload from one orbit to another. Before I get into specifics, my design philosophy was to keep things as simple as possible. After doing some research on the forums, I know that better results could be achieved with precision building, flying, engine management, and more patience during ascent, but I really enjoy playing this game with dead reckoning, and building an SSTO that can make an easy successful ascent is highly satisfying to me. After unlocking most of the tree with rocket missions to Minmus and the Mun, I started building air-breathing aircraft with a very simple 'fighter': A single-engine jet with cockpit, two fuel tanks and four radial intakes, delta wings, tail, canards. I later upgraded it to a turbojet and added science equipment. Stinger is a joy to fly, even lifts off the runway with no control input. I moved on to SSTOs using the Aeris 4A as initial inspiration. I built one with the wiki's recommended mods to see what made it tick, but had trouble achieving orbit. After consulting the forum a bit to learn about how to fly an SSTO, and discovering the wonders of proper flight paths, ram intakes, aerospikes, throttle, engine and intake management, airhogging, strut spam, and multiple canard sets, I put the Aeris-based design aside and tried a medium spaceplane. (This thread helped me understand what was necessary to build one with acceptable performance. In particular, SalmonellaDingDong's post and RoboRay's screenshot on page 3 inspired my preferred intake mounting method.) Fuel Delivery Vehcile 1 (FDV-1) was a difficult beast to fly; she tended to tumble on the runway if you tried to steer at all, had to roll off the end of the runway before she could pitch up, unbalanced flameouts would send her spinning at the drop of a space helmet, and she required a fair amount of fuel management to keep the center of balance where it should be. But, Jeb managed to get her docked to a space station at 150km, with enough fuel that I could've dropped some off. She and Jeb stayed up there for a spell while I went back to work. I went back to the forums and noted the advice about center of mass and center of lift, and realized that FDV-1 couldn't take off because she might not have enough lift overall, and her CoM and CoL were not close enough together. I decided to try smaller craft again, but after having trouble with engine management on FDV-1, I started looking for ways to simplify things. Enter RAPIER engines! I took Stinger, removed the turbojet, and bolted on two RAPIER engines with some extra fuel and extra lift. I replaced the single intakes with bi-couplers and dual intakes (didn't really have room for more). After some test launches and transitions to closed cycle with Hornet, I realized that I could probably make things even simpler with a single-engine craft and more airhogging. I would later come back, borrow the airhogged wings from my next project, and put the turbojet back on the centerline: I went back to Stinger again, swapped the turbojet for a RAPIER engine, and replaced the forward fuselage with an FL-T200 and 400 and a monoprop tank. I mounted 8 intakes on cubic octagonal struts to the leading edge of the wings, added a bit of lift and an inline docking port. I still couldn't seem to get ascent right, though; I couldn't get Wasp fast enough before I rose too far and the engine switched modes, sucking up all the fuel. I could make orbit, but barely. (Wasp is pictured behind FDV-1 above.) I decided to come back to it later, and using all that I'd learned thus far, I built a new heavy SSTO, FDV-2. I started with a Jumbo-64, ASAS module for additional torque, and large monoprop tank, adapter, and mk2 cockpit. Knowing I'd need a place to mount canards and a way to keep the center of gravity forward as fuel was used during ascent, I mounted an FL-T800 with fuel and ox flow disabled, and forward-facing shielded docking port. Mindful of FDV-1's failings, I mounted 4 turbojets at the rear of the Rockomax tank using a quad-adapter to keep them as close to the centerline as possible. I kept the basic wing structure from FDV-1, and attached them in two rows, again supporting them with struts. I very carefully placed a total of 4 Mk1 structural fuselages at the rear wingroots on the Rockomax tank, and capped each with an intake and a RAPIER engine, rather than aerospikes, so I wouldn't be hauling idle engines during ascent. I abandoned monoprop RCS in favor of Vernor thrusters, two facing in each direction. I replaced the static solar panels from earlier SSTOs with 2x SP-Ls arranged radially at 45 degree upward angles. Here I started airhogging and canard spamming in earnest. I mounted 3 pairs of advanced canards to the nose and a set of delta-deluxe winglets to the Rockomax adapter behind the cockpit, and used cubic octagonal struts and quad-couplers with 4 ram intakes to mount groups of them to the leading edges of the wings. I ended up with a total of 20 intakes, including the ones at the rear, and 8 engines. Not a great ratio as airhogging goes, but this got the FDV-2 prototype into orbit with way more fuel to spare than FDV-1, she could actually lift off the runway, and with the engines all mounted close to the centerline, she was fantastically stable all the way up, with SAS able to prevent flameout spins on its own. Even better, with so few tanks, she requires very little fuel management through the mission cycle. For FDV-2B I added a Hitchhiker so I could deliver redshirts--err, additional staff--along with the fuel and monoprop, replaced the delta-deluxe winglets with two pairs of standard canards, and later added two more intake groups for a total of 28. FDV-2B is definitely the most practical SSTO I've built, making orbital deliveries on manual control safe enough to be routine, even if it's not a huge amount of fuel per trip. After a few successful test flights and orbits, I went back to the drawing board and decided to go bigger. For FDV-3, I wanted to make a super-heavy SSTO. For the prototype, I decided to go with a Mk3 cockpit, two fuselages, Mk3 to Mk2 adapter, Mk2 to Mk1 adapter, and a basic jet along the centerline for its tiny kick at takeoff. (I figured a well-meaning KSC engineer looked at the forlorn pile of basic jets abandoned after turbojets were invented, and decided to give one a home.) For payload and main engines, I went with a copy of FDV-2's payload and engine section mounted on either side of the fuselage, and for canards and reserve fuel, a copy of her nose tank in front. I also placed fuel lines from the frontmost fuselage to the Rockomax tanks; since engines pull fuel from the furthest tanks available to them, this ensured that all the engines mounted to the Rockomax tanks pull jet fuel from the rearmost sections of the main fuselage first, keeping the center of gravity forward. I spammed everything: 4 SP-L solar panels, 8 sets of canards, 12 Vernor thrusters, a total of 17 engines, 3 rows of wings, a total of 72 intakes, and ye gods, the struts. I can't tell you how much time I spent launching and reverting and adding struts, and there's still some wing flex. But you know what? Despite having 300+ parts and causing time dilation on my PC, she flies pretty well, and can haul a lot more fuel, too. She's less stable at flameout, but with RCS, SAS, and optionally shutting down the outer 4 turbojets, still controllable. For FDV-3B, I replaced the 4x SP-L solar panels with 2x Gigantors, added a centerline tail, a third Mk3 fuselage right behind the cockpit for additional fuel, a structural wing pair right there, and reworked the aerodynamics at the nose: I reduced the number of canards to 5 pairs, and added a set of delta wings to the main fuselage, which extend just barely over the top of the Rockomax tanks on either side. She actually has the same number of parts as, is ever so slightly 'cheaper' than, and performs slightly better than the prototype. One item of note: I discovered that since the main fuselage has more ground clearance than the payload sections, the best way to mount the nose gear is with a large structural pylon. I have to be careful not to punch it off by inadvertently staging a second time. I did it on purpose to see what would happen: She can't take off without it. Doubt she could land either. With how easy FDV-2 is to fly, I doubt FDV-3 will ever be used for anything other than special occasions, but she is an amazing beast as far as I'm concerned! And after all that, I finally brought Jeb home from the space station and parked FDV-1 outside the SPH, deciding to leave it there as a permanent static display (as pictured earlier). He then flew Wasp up to my space station and back with a much better ascent than before, and parked it right beside FDV-1 afterwards (also as pictured earlier, behind FDV-1). Last on my checklist is a successful mission with Hornet. She really hauls arse into orbit, it's hard to keep her from breaking atmo too quickly. And now, onto the ships themselves! I've included ascent profile and descent profile with most of these, but I'm pretty sure they can be improved upon. If you'd care to suggest improvements without too much complexity, feel free. Stinger: This single-engine jet is light, fast, stable, has plenty of range, and mounts science equipment. Download Wasp: Simple light SSTO prototype. Her airhogged RAPIER provides excellent performance with the right flight plan, again leaving plenty of fuel to spare after ascent. Her ascent profile is simple; activate SAS, close most of the intakes with group 1, full throttle, stage for takeoff, gear up and 50 degree AOA, watch intake air and reopen intakes with group 1. Zero AOA at 20km and continue accelerating as vertical speed bleeds off, pitch up slightly as rate of climb approaches zero to maintain slow climb, then pitch back up to 45 degree AOA once you've hit orbital velocity (or when the engine switches modes, if you rose a little too fast). Group 2 toggles all intakes. Raise apoapsis and circularize. Group 0 toggles docking port. Her descent profile is just as simple; deorbit to a 40km periapsis, open your intakes with group 2, switch the engine back to air-breathing with group 3, and fly home. Download Hornet: High-performance light SSTO. 12 intakes for 2 RAPIER engines and centerline turbojet. Use Wasp's ascent profile, but go to zero AOA earlier, say about 19km, to prevent her from overshooting the atmosphere. More care must be taken to prevent spins with throttle management. Also, group 2 shuts down the turbojet in addition to toggling all intakes. Use a similar descent profile; group 2 toggles the intakes back open, group 3 shuts down the RAPIER engines and activates the turbojet, group 4 reactivates the RAPIER engines and toggles them back to air-breathing if you want more thrust. Download FDV-1: Medium SSTO. 4 turbojets with centerline aerospike. She's a museum piece, not worth regular use on manual control, but good for a challenge, if you like that sort of thing. I'll let you figure out your own ascent profile if you so choose. Download FDV-2B: Heavy SSTO. It's the most practical I've built; she carries a fair amount of fuel and monoprop, and with her engines all mounted close to the centerline, SAS alone is enough to keep her stable during ascent until they've all flamed out (or at least, it was during my test flights). I'd consider her the best of the bunch, and I'm proud to share. Achieves 100km orbit with 4 kerbals, 750 monoprop, 1000+ fuel, 2000+ oxidizer, and reserve FL-T800. Better pilots should be able to achieve better results. Update: I think I'm getting the hang of SSTO ascent. I tried again and achieved 100km orbit with ~1550 fuel and ~2450 oxidizer, plus the reserve. Ascent profile updated accordingly. Also, I've made some minor strut changes for fuselage rigidity and updated the craft download. Before takeoff, activate SAS and resource display, throttle up to max, close two intake groups with action groups 1 and 2. Spacebar to get the party started. Rotate just after passing the VAB. Careful--it's easy to pitch up too fast and start tumbling. After liftoff, gear up and 50 degrees AOA. Open intake group 1 after passing out of the lowest atmosphere layer, and group 2 once your intake air drops to 1. Start pitching forward at about 19km. Zero your AOA at 20km. SAS on its own should keep you stable through the rest of your ascent. The ship will continue to rise while you accelerate. As your rate of climb approaches zero, pitch up to 15 degrees to maintain slow climb. Try to reach at least 1700 m/s before passing through 30km, maintaining max throttle. Faster is better. You will notice some wobble as your engines start to flame out, but SAS will compensate. Eventually, the RAPIER engines will switch modes, and temporarily, some or all of your turbojets will spring back to life. Pitch carefully up to 45 degrees to get your apoapsis rising and break atmo ASAP. SAS should still keep you stable. If you're shooting for a 100km orbit, your apoapsis will get there before your jets completely flame out. Group 3 will kill them all and close all intakes. If you're going higher, might as well leave the jets on until they flame out completely, then hit group 3. Once your apoapsis hits the desired point, kill your engines. You may need to goose them a bit to keep your apoapsis from dropping below where you want it as you continue rising through the stratosphere. Eventually, circularize. Optional: The docking port and solar panels can be toggled with group 0. The fuel in the FL-T800 should be enough to get you home, and the oxidizer in it should help keep your center of gravity forward for stability during descent. (Don't forget to enable the fuel feed from that tank.) If you want to do a little flying around (or, like me, you have trouble with precision deorbiting), put fuel back in the main tank as necessary. Use your deorbit burn to lower your periapsis to about 40km. Once you've done that, hit 3 again to reopen all intakes, then 4 to shut down the RAPIER engines and reactivate the turbojets. That should be plenty of thrust for flying and landing, but if you want more, 5 will reactivate the RAPIER engines and toggle them back to air breathing mode. Don't forget to close the docking port and solar panels above 30km. Let your speed bleed off to the point you're comfortable flying, apply thrust, and bring it home. Use groups 1 and 2 to toggle your intakes, using them as airbrakes as necessary. Download (Some minor strut changes have been made since initial posting) FDV-3B: Super-heavy SSTO. The biggest I'll be attempting with this old PC. 312 parts and one huge advancement over previous SSTOs: A ladder. Causes time to slow down about 25%, for me. With my imperfect flying, it can deliver 2 Kerbals, 1500 monoprop, ~4000 fuel, and ~5000 oxidizer, into ~100km orbit, with reserve FL-T800. Better pilots will achieve better results. Update: Ascent profile changed slightly. Also, reuploaded because I failed to re-lock steering on all the wheels and re-save after taking the photo. This caused the ship to depart the runway in an unexpected direction upon takeoff. Oops. Update 2: Reuploaded after I realized I forgot the forward pair of lateral Vernor thrusters. Double oops. A few other minor changes. Before takeoff, activate SAS and resource display, throttle up to max, close two intake groups with action groups 1 and 2. This leaves a total of 16 intakes open at takeoff to feed the 17 engines. Spacebar to get the party started. Only hit it once, or you'll punch off your nose gear! She isn't safe to take off or land without it. Use about 3/4 of the runway, then rotate. Careful--it takes a few moments to get the nose up, but once it is, it's easy to over-roll and start tumbling. After liftoff, gear up and 50 degrees AOA. Open intake group 1 after passing out of the lowest atmosphere layer, and group 2 at around 17km. Toggle the centerline basic jet off with group 9. Start pitching forward at 19km. Zero your AOA at 20km. The ship will continue to rise while you accelerate. As your rate of climb approaches zero, pitch up 10-12 degrees to maintain at least a slow ascent. Activate RCS; the Vernor thrusters will help prevent spins. Try to reach at least 1700m/s before passing through 30km. More speed is better. SAS and RCS should keep you from spinning out of control as your engines flame out, but if your flameouts are too unbalanced, quickly kill the outer four turbojets with group 8; that should help stabilize you while still allowing you to eke out some speed from the inner four. Eventually, the RAPIER engines will switch modes, and temporarily, some or all of your turbojets will spring back to life. Pitch carefully up to 45 degrees to get your apoapsis rising and break atmo ASAP. SAS and RCS should still keep you pretty stable, but if you didn't before, you might want to hit group 8 now to shut down half your turbojets. In any case, once your turbojets have all flamed out again, group 3 will kill them all and close all intakes. Once your apoapsis hits the desired point, kill your engines. You may need to goose them a few times to keep your apoapsis where you want it as you continue rising through the stratosphere. Eventually, circularize. Optional: The docking port and Gigantor panels can be toggled with group 0. If you offload most of your payload, deorbit, and return to atmospheric flight near KSC, the fuel in the FL-T800 should be enough to get you home, and the oxidizer in it should keep your center of gravity forward for stability during descent. (Don't forget to enable the fuel feed from that tank.) If you want to do a little flying around (or, like me, you have trouble with precision deorbiting), put fuel back in the main fuselage as necessary, filling from the front. Use your deorbit burn to lower your periapsis to about 40km. Once you've done that, hit 3 again to reopen all intakes, then 4 to shut down the RAPIER engines and reactivate the turbojets. That should be plenty of thrust for flying and landing, but if you want more, 5 will reactivate the RAPIER engines and toggle them back to air breathing mode. Don't forget to close the docking port and solar panels above 30km. Let your speed bleed off to the point you're comfortable flying, apply thrust, and bring it home. Use groups 1 and 2 to toggle your intakes, using them as airbrakes as necessary. The first time I attempted to land this thing's prototype, the tailfins over the Rockomax tanks detonated for no apparent reason not long before reaching the runway. I'm at a loss to explain this, and I have no idea if it will happen to anyone else flying it. Makes yawing a bit more difficult. Despite that, I managed a safe landing. Hopefully, if it happens again, the additional centerline tail on FDV-3B will at least help a bit. Download (adjustments and fixes have been made since the photo was taken) Whew! Well that was fun, especially with the forums being up and down today. I hope you SSTO fans enjoy some simple, straightforward craft!

Alright, I'll keep that in mind. One of my reasons to stay stock is, becoming dependent on mods is becoming dependent on another dev. If a mod maker goes dormant and a new revision breaks the mod, well, I don't want to have my arse hanging in the wind without my favorite functionality. I want to be excited about new releases from Squad, not dreading them! re: MechJeb, I'm thinking precision flying will eventually become interesting, and probably necessary for me. I doubt dead reckoning will get me much further or much bigger than I've already gotten, so some measure of precision is going to be required for long-range missions.. but I have had a lot of fun so far. Not that my opinion matters to anyone, but I do think precision flight computers would make sense to include in later branches of the tech tree, given how difficult dead reckoning is, and how much math it takes to DIY. In any case, thanks again for your help and advice!

Fantastic! Thank you for the tip, Claw. I'll be sure to point Inspector Gadget in the other direction next time I see him. I'm sure I'll eventually succumb to the draw of MJ, but for now, dead reckoning is still fun for me. Occasionally exploding in new and interesting ways has its charm..

Greetings and salutations, fellow Kerbonauts! I picked up KSP during the Steam Summer Sale and have been really loving it ever since. I spent a lot of time on rockets in the science sandbox mode, and unlocked the tree with repeated missions to Minmus and the Mun, thanks in part to a lander design by Scott Manley, seen in the YouTube video where he unlocks the entire tech tree in the newest game mode in two missions. I've captured a small number of asteroids into Kerbin orbit. I have simple space stations in orbit of Kerbin and both its moons, and once I got them there, I got a little bored with rockets, so in the last few weeks, I've been working on SSTOs. I have a couple of SSTO designs that I'm pretty proud of, and I'll be posting them to the craft exchange. Later, I might add some of my rockets. I look forward to constructive criticism from the folks that have been doing this longer. In these forums, I've seen some of the fantastic things that can be done with mods and MechJeb in particular, but at least for the time being, I've decided to stay bone stock. I've also seen plenty of ways to 'abuse' mechanics, ie asparagus staging, airhogging, and in general, spamming certain components like struts and canards. In my humble opinion, if the game allows it, I have no problem with anyone taking advantage of it. At this early stage in game development, there's something to be said for the idea that it's compensating for things the devs haven't fixed, balanced, or implemented yet. Also, doing so seems to be rather well-suited to the simplistic mindset of Kerbals as portrayed by Squad. Bigger and more can only be better, after all! Personally, I want to try to strike a balance with my designs, so particularly in my rockets, I try to limit where I use these things. Still, I'm amazed at the things people have gotten to fly, taking these to extremes, and I'm not immune! My SSTOs would never get anywhere without at least some airhogging, strut spam and canardapalooza. However, I try hard to build craft that are controllable and not too ridiculous, and so far, I'm pretty pleased with the results. As of now, I have just one question for my fellow forum members: I read the board rules and noted the section on walls of text. If you haven't already noticed, I can be verbose. Does this board have functionality where you can hide text behind a link that will expand it, like a spoiler tag? I'd love to be able to go on, and let those who want to read it, do so with a click. Pleased to meet you all!