Val

Great work on getting it to orbit. I have series of craft very similar to yours, though it is a little heavier, with a bit more fuel mass, but less dry mass. It looks to have about the same wing area as yours (pic in first post). Maybe a little more. There's also a version with crew cabin like yours, but none with docking ports. When I pass 20 km at ~1250 m/s, the craft is at 15° pitch above horizon. My prograde marker is a few degrees below that, at 12°-14° above horizon and dropping slowly. My LV-909s will have been turned on shortly before reaching 20 km, usually at 18 km. I keep holding 15° pitch. At ~32 km it reaches AP and might start descending a little. A few 100 meters maybe, but then it starts climbing again as speed goes above 1750 m/s surface. A little unsettling and probably not very efficient, but it works. What is the angle of your prograde marker at when you turn on rockets at ~20 km? [TABLE=width: 800] [TR] [TD] Launch profile, more info and other versions[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

Maybe you could try one of these designs? The left one has more fuel. The other 2 have same amount of fuel as yours. The right one can decouple the tanks and legs after leaving Mun, but only has one engine. They're all shorter, wider and the legs can touch the ground.

Nothing in games have a reason to exists, other than to keep you playing. Player retention mechanisms. A lot of games have them.In MMOs the gear grind is prevalent. And once you have all the best gear, you wait for the next level cap increase, so you can grind gear again. Whether you like a particular form of player retention, depends on how that game does it, how well it's presented and personal preference. EDIT: Single player games often use difficulty levels for player retention. Finish the game on Normal. Play it again on Hard. Sandbox games like KSP often also have less formalized player retention mechanisms. To a larger degree, players create their own ways to keep interested. Mods is one way to do it. Challenges another. Whether you like it, is also a question of personal preference. Good games usually have many different mechanisms to be able to cater to a wider audience. But eventually, no matter the mechanisms, any game will lose their ability to keep you interested. When it happens it is fine to say so and to suggest improvements. But don't belittle others, just because they still find enjoyment in the game and you don't.

Without using Part Angle Display, there's at least one way to reliably mount all wings with the same uncertain incidence angle. Rotate the fuselage opposite the incidence angle with the gizmo in free mode Attach all the wing parts, if not done already. Use the rotate gizmo in snap mode with Absolute rotation on each wing piece, to set them horizontal. Use the offset gizmo in snap mode with Absolute offset on each wing and move those that need into the same vertical plane. Use the offset gizmo in free mode to make nice horizontal joins. F toggles Absolute and Local rotation/offset when a part is selected. It's a bit of work, but all wings are now mounted with the same incidence angle. I used this method until I got Part Angle Display.

I tried to answer some of your questions. My findings are, physicsless parts: add the same drag no-matter the stack occlusion status of the parent. add more drag to wings, than they do stack attached parts. Unexpected! The pictures I based my findings on.

Anything attached near or on a cargo bay, is at risk of being considered as "stowed". Open cargo bays for a sec when deploying, then close it again.

Hmm. That's not how I understand it to be working.The drag is added to the first non-physicsless parent. But the point about, "if the parent is occluded, do the physicsless part also get occluded, even if they are outside the occlusion area," is still an interesting one. Just install MechJeb and Engineer for all! Then you don't need the parts.

Take the 5 letters from the imgur album link: [noparse]http://imgur.com/a/[/noparse]nIGgN#0and put it in a tag like this: [noparse] Becomes

I've heard the name, but won't know the significance without googling it.On topic: Can we have a :-O kerbal-smiley?

OMG!!! You're right on my heels. Big GRATZ on joining the ranks of the 50% payload fraction SSTO club Should I start preparing, to have to beat you? Edit: Also big Gratz to Right for getting Top Rocket spot

It was these lines that prompted me to think that maybe things will change. Not all directly aero related.May impact ascent profiles due to changes in heat. Some designs need revising, because jet exhaust does damage again? Changed drag on hollow items. Just cargo bays or other parts too? Changes to intake logic? The sentence is ambiguous. Could be a display problem. It's just speculation on my part. I guess, we'll have to see.

Thank you for the flatter, but I can hardly take credit for RAPIER-Nuke combos. I may have a part in showing its potential, but I stole the idea from was inspired by Red Iron Crown, after seeing this. A very nice design. Is it pure RAPIER? Looking at the pictures I can't really figure out the engine layout. I see 9 engines in staging, but I can only see 8-ish engines in the pictures. Yeah, cargo bays are heavy. My best fractions with them are 44 and 45%, respectively, for Mk3 and Mk2. I tried a Multi Stage design last night. It's loosely based on my C-5 Modular design, but I couldn't even beat my own Single Stage fraction. I suck at Multi Stage I'm so excited. New opportunities for firsts​. Clean slate on the leaderboard. Is this a good time to discuss new sub categories on the leaderboard? Recoverable vs. nonrecoverable designs? (Show that the craft is deorbit- & landable) New physics to figure out. Any predictions as to whether fractions will go up or down?

It's should be enough for rendezvous and docking up to at least 250 km orbit, I'd guess.

No, you don't. It is a very fine and capable spaceplane SSTO you created. You just need the right ascent profile.Unedited I managed to get it to an 80 km circular orbit with 400 m/s dV spare in the second try. First try I exploded when doing physics warp, while coasting to space. It does have a few minor issues. It's a little wobbly when loaded on the runway, but that's nothing to worry about. CoL can be moved closer to or even right on top of CoM to improve handling, especially dropping the nose after steering input. The cargo bay explodes when doing max physics warp. Is there some clipping going on? It also has a some good features. It has plenty of lift, making it easy to take-off. Good control authority, making it easy to fly. CoM and Dry CoM are very close, for less chance of ending up with unstable craft. Wing Incidence and other good low drag features. Main gear right below CoM, to avoid buckling landing gear and veering off the runway. This is how I launched it: Full throttle, SAS on, Stage. Just before reaching runway end lift nose to 5° pitch. Pitch down as needed to keep below 300 m until speed is 450 m/s. Carefully pitch up to 10°. At 7 km start pitching down to reach 5° pitch at 8 km. When speed is above 1000 m/s start pitching up slowly. Aim for 15° pitch at 15 km and hold that pitch. At 22 km switch RAPIERs to closed cycle. Keep going at 15° pitch. When AP is 50 km pitch down and follow the prograde marker. Throttle down when AP is 82 km. Coast to space while following prograde marker. I didn't try docking, deorbiting or landing with it. So can't comment on those aspects. I had to transfer fuel to the rear tanks to get MechJeb to display dV correctly. Here are some pictures of my ascent.

Excellent entry, tewpie.I wonder if I should give multistage air-breathing a go, though, it didn't go as planned, when I tried rocket-only.

I'm honored to have been an inspiration. Using aerobraking as part of setting up a capture takes a lot of skill, some really good tools for calculating trajectory, or a lot of reloads. Either way, it is really very impressive.

It's your thread, so you have a large say in what's allowed. The mods have the final say though - - - Updated - - - What I mean is, you set the topic of the thread to SSTO 101 class. So I see no reason why we can't discuss more than one design in your class.

Claw's Stock Bug Fix Modules has a fix for symmetry action groups and lots of other stuff. I never play without them.

When do you measure TWR for airbreathing engines? At what speed and altitude? I'm never really sure. I prefer using launch-mass per engine, as I find that less unambiguous.I usually make my designs with target of 25 t / RAPIER, but I've gone as high as 34 t, and as low as 10 t. For TWR in orbit I don't really set any specific targets. I do try to keep it above 0.25, but 0.5 is less tedious on interplanetary burns. There's a bunch of RAPIER-Nuke discussion and designs in the SSTO to laythe and beyond thread.

Impressive, especially the return trip. Not seen it done like that before.

That is great news. Gratz Do you have any pictures to share of this joyous event?

Like RIC said flat panels create lift.And they do it the same way regular wings do, by redirecting the airflow that's passing by them. Flat panels just create much more drag doing so.

Your craft is probably more hampered by the big landing gear, than by piloting skills. They have too much mass and drag for a craft that small.And I'm a bad pilot, too. I don't actually fly the crafts I make. MechJeb Smart A.S.S does. All I do is set throttle, enter what pitch I want and click on Execute. You can see it in the upper right of my in-flight screenshots.

I recreated the craft as best I could from the pictures. And I found a few more things. As RCgothic mentioned the tailfins need to be further back. I can see from the Mass, ~18 t, that you didn't put any fuel in the wings. It'll be much easier get off the runway and fly if you move the CoL closer to CoM. My version (Craft file) has the small landing gear, so be careful when pulling up from the runway and when landing. Launch Instructions Full throttle, SAS, and Stage. At 100 m/s lift nose 5° and let the craft lift-off. When clear of the runway pitch up to 15° and set 2/3 throttle. At 10 km set Full throttle again. At 22 km switch RAPIER mode. Press 1 At 30 km start following the prograde marker. When AP is above 80 km, cut throttle. Coast to space and circularize.

To me, it looks reasonably OK, but I would get rid of those large landing gear. They create a lot of drag. You should also mount the gear right below CoM. It'll make it easier to rotate for lift-off and eliminate any tendencies to veer off the runway. I can't see how much fuel you have. Might be too little, compared to the total mass of the craft. There are some really great tips if you read through these threads: SSTO cookbook. "simple" rule to build spaceplanes? Hope that helps.