[100% Stock Airship: The Kindenburg!]

Wonder if it's possible to lock the lift rotors to the up vector.

[Gimbaled Engines+Stabiliser Nacelles(Breaking Ground) - Allows 160t ship to land and manoeuver without RCS]

5 hours ago, Gavin786 said:

Having the reaction wheels away from the main body of the craft maximizes the torq they can produce on the body -> substantially better maneuverability than if they were at the center of gravity.

How certain are you about this? AFAIAA, reaction wheels produce fixed torque rather than fixed force. Length of lever arm shouldn't matter.

[Alternate solar systems in the skybox]

Moreover, the skybox is not a physical object and has no location. You can't collide with it.

[Moon is a Black Hole]

41 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

I don't think there'd be much advantage there, since you leave with the same relative velocity you came with. 

Gravity assists harness the body's orbital velocity, which wouldn't change.

Best,

-Slashy

Couldn't you still get far closer to the centre than with our current Moon, allowing for a wider selection of changes in direction for a given relative speed?

[What is the true shape of light/soundwaves]

One part of your question is indeed easy to visualise. Here, I animate how sound would look if you could 1) see air pressure as darkness, and 2) see in super-slow motion. Bear in mind that the wavefronts are spherical, so this is how it would look from any direction. The usual mental image of expanding concentric circles is really pretty accurate.

[Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread]

12 hours ago, Servo said:

Additionally, due to drag on the droop nose, you can't rotate the nose into the flight position while in flight. This isn't really a problem, because the Concorde would take off and taxi with the nose drooped 5 degrees, as opposed to the 15-20 degrees of landing. It just means that you have to leave the nose in the cruise position for takeoff.

What's to prevent the addition of counterdrag flaps that reside in a hollow segment behind the nose and bring the CoDrag of the tilting part exactly onto the hinge? 

[Kerbin should have a pole on its poles]

On 16.4.2018 at 3:12 AM, DAL59 said:

You should add a poll at the top of this thread so we can vote on it.

And as a logical extension, the Pol pole pole poll. 

[Colonizing Eve in stock 1.3.1]

I wonder if an expertly crafted, redockable (quicksave magic) electric rotor can offset its own mass in a single-stage Eve ascender. You could use it in a locked position to aerobrake, or maybe aerosteer. 

[Ultra-heavy spaceplanes]

On 26.12.2017 at 9:04 AM, Brikoleur said:

Single stage to Duna? That is impressive. How does it handle on re-entry and landing?

From the pics it looks more like a plane-shaped vessel to Duna orbit with a ton of extra boosters, some of which are solids.

[Release quality trendline]

46 minutes ago, Harry Rhodan said:

By that measure 1.4 will not only have no point releases, but will be the last release ever.

After which, instead of the update beinɡ created by devs to be ɡiven to players, it will rise from oblivion on the computers of players to then be transferred to Squad's machines and erased line by line over months.

Extrapolation, not even once.

[Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread]

On 14.11.2017 at 5:56 PM, Azimech said:

Since I didn't calculate anything, I don't know how much delta-v it has. But in LKO liquid fuel is at ~50%, with 12700 units, oxidizer has 3180 units left.

Other specs:

Mass after reaching LKO: 179t.
Mass tanks empty: 99.1t.
Mass tanks full: 269.1t.
Part count: 266.

Let's see if I can land this bird on Duna.

Neat bird! How much does it carry into LKO?

I ran the numbers for the heck of it based on your stats.

 

Δv_Nerv = I_sp(Nerv) * g₀ * ln(m_full/m_empty)

= 800 s * 9.81 m/s² * ln(269.1*10³ kg / 99.1*10³ kg) = 7839 m/s

 

Δv_Rapier = I_sp(Rapier) * g₀ * ln(m_full/m_empty)

= 305 s * 9.81 m/s² * ln(269.1*10³ kg / 99.1*10³ kg) = 2988 m/s

 

Δv_LKO = I_sp(Nerv) * g₀ * ln[(m_empty+m_lf+m_ox)/(m_empty+m_ox)]

= 800 s * 9.81 m/s² * ln[(99.1*10³ kg + 12700*5 kg + 3180*5 kg)/( 99.1*10³ kg + 3180*5 kg)] = 3450 m/s

[Sundae Lifeboat]

10 minutes ago, SchwinnTropius said:

Impressive return shuttle. How do you get it back up there though?

On the same lifter that rebuilds the station, I'd imagine. 

[I made a... trumpet-shaped spaceship.]

I'd call this a good bassline for any instrument-shaped craft.

[Unpowered flight]

Can we mount reaction wheels on the craft's body to provide torque or is this strictly aerodynamic controls only? 

[Deploy Elevons Further]

Build the door so that "closed" means deployment forward at 150 authority, and "open" means deployment in reverse at 150 authority. 

[Reaction Wheel mode and torque toggle.]

The two-way split presumably makes for less cycling whenever you want to cut the charge consumption of a reaction wheel, such as when entering atmo on a glider with limited solar panels. I haven't run into a situation where this is crucial, but since the context menu is not overly wordy I'd prefer for the settings to stay separate.

[Automated Drones?]

1 hour ago, The Dunatian said:

Much of the fun of KSP is piloting the mission yourself, and there is already a mod for this called MechJeb. I do occasionally use MechJeb for particularly boring mission in to Kerbin orbit, but never for challenges or interesting stuff like that. Here is the link. https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/mechjeb/files/2425713

MechJeb does not let you plan an ascent one throttle setting and one degree of heading at a time, though. Actually programming the autopilot yourself is a whole different challenge.

[Automated Drones?]

Your suggestion will receive better momentum if you mention kOS, the state-of-the-art mod, and say why it won't do. 

[Remember when "We are dedicated to adding multiplayer" was a thing?]

3 hours ago, Selfizz said:

Hello there,

Has anyone ever suggested to replace time warp for Multiplayer with a Warp-drive?

Not many people except for everyone and their goldfish. Not even us warp-then-sync proponents like the idea because it wreaks havoc on the idea of predictable transfer orbits. 

[P-101b Boomerang - Personal Flying Wing]

That's no Boomerang, it's a Möwe.

[Stock VTOL Planes still have uncontrollable torque]

31 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

The important thing for this conversation is that it does actually produce a noticeable improvement in stability which players can utilize.

I'm still inclined to think the effect is psychological, but I will now make sure to test it for myself. It might have something to do with the aerodynamic forces on vertical and angled nacelles with lateral velocity. 

Edit: the results are in and it seems @Dafni was right. Having engines far from the CoM and tilted toward the CoM are two ways to give their gimbals a longer lever arm - better control authority. If you lock gimbals, all-vertical and tilted setups work identically except for thrust loss. 

[Stock VTOL Planes still have uncontrollable torque]

1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Rotating the lift engines so they are pointing out away from the COM by a few degrees can help stability as well. (However you will lose some power.)

Physically speaking this should not be the case, unless it's some consequence of ground effect (not in KSP) . I wonder if and how it really happens.

[New node tool]

This thread could do with a name that avoids confusion with (part attachment) nodes. Maybe "Separate editing of maneuver vector and magnitude"?

[My grandfather visited Hollow Earth in 1952. He took a picture.]

3 minutes ago, MedwedianPresident said:

And you did not see the hole because the North Pole is a no-fly area and no plane goes over 82 degrees northern latitude. Anybody who sees one of the holes (military pilots, polar researchers or astronauts) are not allowed to speak about it.

Thread's over, folks. Yall have better things to do than this. 

[New node tool]

There is no end to how much I support this ability. I often fly impromptu grav assist routes on little fuel, and it would be an amazing help to see where the same Dv can take you if you point your nose differently.