Slam_Jones

Aw, bummer Looking forward to your next attempt though!

Might need an extra pair of side landing gear. At that weight and configuration, there could be a lot of pressure on the back wheels, causing them to tilt slightly and cause the whole "veering-off-the-runway-BOOM!" problem. Also, you may want to try taking off and replacing the vertical tail fins (even if you replace them with the exact same thing). Sometimes a symmetry bug will come thru and cause issues (it's happened to me, at least). Another idea is to change up the gear so that the nose is tilted higher on the runway, allowing the wings to create more lift quicker, hopefully getting you into the air before instability occurs. Then, you just need to be careful about tail-strikes (slamming the tail into the ground, usually causing an engine to fall off). You could also try unlocking steering for the front wheels, as sometimes this allows you to correct any wobble. It can also cause much worse problems if used incorrectly. So that one's kinda a 'maybe.' My final idea is to add a pair of canards on the nose of the plane, to help get the nose in the air quicker and safer. Also, this is the part you need for the album: (it's the jumble of letters and numbers at the end of the album's URL, minus the # symbol an anything after it.) (And minus the spaces in there) [ imgur]fhlCs[ /imgur]

@Illectro - I'd be willing to submit my Gladius to get massacred Here's the post (and d/l link) in the Top Gun AI thread.

Hmm as far as I can tell, it does coincide pretty closely with the steepest part of the mountains there. I remember there being a lot of very steep cliffs and some (almost) flat pits in that area. Could just be texture/lighting issues. But how cool would it be if it were an incredibly well-hidden easter egg? I mean I really (REALLY) doubt it is, but that'd be cool anyway

Here's my attempt to lighten and compare with a Kerbin map (also first time using GIMP, I changed the Hue setting to get the colors to "pop" a bit more): (EDIT: guess it was nothing anyway. Oh well!)

You may want to install a mod that would display some extra numbers regarding your vessels. I recommend Kerbal Engineer. I haven't done many shuttles myself, but I know one of the most important values is the Thrust Torque. Basically, if your vessel has 0 thrust torque, it will fly perfectly vertical. The higher the thrust torque, the more the engines want to spin the ship, rather than push it straight ahead. You can try angling the engine on the shuttle itself, as I've seen many successful shuttles do that. Off-setting and rotating the engines are two ways to change the thrust torque. Play around with it, and try to get it as low as possible. Good luck

People are oddly passionate about console choice, which is something that as a PC person, I can only shake my head at. To me, they're just shades of the same color, in a phrase. Personally, I think having KSP on as many different consoles as possible is a great idea. More people get to experience this great game that way, and I can't see anything wrong with that.

Nice! How fast did you get going before the thrust cut out?

Hope that a 0.625 LF tank comes along with the 0.625m jet engine. (And a 2.5m LF tank would be nice too )

12 gB here, and it seems fine for what I'm doing with it.

True, my designs do make use of some clipping for aesthetic reasons, but I always try to make sure at least 50% is shootable (meaning you can see it, and if fired upon, it will take damage, rather than the damage going to whatever part may be covering it). If it appears I have more of it hidden than that, then by all means, call me out on it, and I'll check and modify it to make sure it's all legit. I think below that (50% threshold) is starting to reach the "abuse" region. Then again, more rules means less options, means less unique craft. We could certainly try to get some rules hammered out for the next tourny, if the community agrees on them. I think 50% is a fair point to start at. Should it be required to have more exposed? Allow less to be exposed? Or just not worry about it?

Interesting (and very impressive). But there certainly is a difference between making an emergency landing without a wing, and continuing (and eventually winning) a dogfight without a wing.

Well, if it does I'll take a look at the one too. But the FA-27 didn't win 100% of it's rounds, so there's less reason to look into it.

Hmmm I certainly agree that a plane being able to maneuver with little to no difference after losing a wing seems a tad suspicious. I'd certainly say it's indicative of some techniques not used by any of the other jets, but the question is: is anything done to the plane illegal? I'm not sure, but I will take a look at it after work. There are many indications of wing spam, and very little change in maneuverability after losing a main wing (not even a minor one... a MAIN WING) seems to be pointing that direction. At the very least we should have seen some loss of stability... which I saw no indication of. It maneuvered and took down its opponent as if nothing were wrong. Not accusing you of cheating, Alpha, but you do have to admit it looks a wee bit odd.

Eh, I guess it could be funny to the right crowd. Personally I've never even had a smartphone, so comments about apps and stuff have little effect on me. Or maybe I'm just a grump? Who knows

And this is relevant, how exactly...? OP: Never had that bug happen to me, you musta got lucky and if I had to guess, I'd say it was the mod that did it. Maybe you just can't have any vessels in-flight when installing certain mods or something, though I've never had an issue like that, and I install mods frequently. Either way, hey, could be worse

Nah, they turn brownish, like a dead leaf. In my canon, at least, they're filled with chloroplast (explains why they need no food), and would, well, kinda wither like a leaf in fall.

Super-Human Khan: under railways, this person attacks filthy felons. hebcbja

Wait, fully inside? Shouldn't that be considered illegal clipping? I know we established it for fuel tanks and engines, but I don't see why wings shouldn't fall under the same category. Happen to know which page the plane is posted on? I'd like to take a look, myself.

So in order to travel fast than light, you have to be far enough from everything else. Or accelerate the stuff "proximate" enough to you to not break any laws. Would it be possible then?

and proceeded to

"You have died now!" cheered Xavier's zealots. mptdwg

I think this has been recommended in a few different forms, but I fully support it. A "Hall of Achievements" or "Hall of Science" or something of the sort would be awesome

CommanderWolfenstein! Achtung!

What exactly is the payload? Just Kerbals for the station? If so, you have way, WAY too much fuel. Below here, I've posted an SSTO that I designed, able to reach orbit and perform a Mun fly-by before returning and landing at KSC, with a crew of 2 as well as 8 passengers (typically tourists). I think the "standard" is about 15 tons per RAPIER. It actually went through multiple revisions with different engine set-ups, and it was even able to achieve it's objective with only TurboRamJets and LV-909's. RAPIERs help a ton, though, due to being able to (usually) go a little higher and faster before losing thrust. I do recommend something like a set of LV-909s as your orbital, high-ISP engines, but ONLY if they don't weigh much. If they're too heavy, they'll really slow down your jets, causing you to lose any dV gains to friction. One of the big humps to get over is the 200-300m/s "barrier" that occurs with a lot of low-TWR spaceplanes. If you can get through that with no problem, you should be able to get orbit no problem (assuming correct fuel amounts). You can probably reduce a lot of weight in fuel by really working on your ascent profile. What I typically do is angle up to about 5 or 10 degrees, so that as I'm climbing, my thrust output continues to increase smoothly. During this time I manage the throttle so my TWR never rises past 1.3 (I use Kerbal Engineer for this info). Once I reach about 12km (at which point I'm usually between 300-500m/s, depending on how much attention I've been paying), I crank the engines up to full and pitch down a couple degrees (but still about 5 - 10 degrees above horizon). My intention here is to reach about 1200 m/s at about 20-24km, then switch to closed cycle, pitch up, and complete the burn. You might also consider adding some more wing area on there. As it stands, it looks like it doesn't quite produce enough lift. The more lift you have, generally the lower TWR you can get away with. In most cases. I actually made a drone SSTO the other day for use as a miner on Laythe. It's TWR is high enough that I can pitch to basically 45 degrees after take-off, and have my thrust continue to increase. This, I think, might save a lot of fuel, since I'm spending significantly less time in the thicker part of the atmo, losing speed to drag. SSTOs are extremely difficult at first, but trust me, they get easier with experience. The Laythe-miner SSTO is actually one that I slapped together in all but 5 minutes, and it achieved orbit without revisions. Just practice, and you'll get it The bigger they get, the harder they are to manage and fly precisely, especially when you move into Mk3 territory