kcs123

NathanKell already explained problem better than me, thanks. There is no crashlog, but due to KJR plane is not reached runway when destructability is enabled, so when it reached runway, destructability is enabled again and runway is destroyed. I guess you have missed picture galery with heaviest tested plane/payload and another picture galery that partly explain my solution to workaround problem. I undersand that I have build realy heavy crafts 600 - 1200t depends on payload those craft designs were more research of capabilities to find safe weight limit for both plane and runway. So, I have put plane on launch clamps to assist problem with game engine physics and my craft have some wheels on IR pistons. When I adjust IR landing gears to reach ground before I release launch clamps runway doesn't explode, so craft weight itself is not problem if weight is distributed properly on more wheels. However, it is tedious to use IR parts for each larger craft and those are not suitable for all aircraft designs. Problem is more noticable on crafts with uneven front/rear landing gears. Wheel distribution works only if all of landing gears are on the same level. Otherwise, due to game engine spawns, at least one section(front or rear) is shorter and "hit" runway with heavy weight and destroy it. If your large craft launch fix help with heavy weighted craft on launching, landing will not going to be much problem becouse usualy those craft returns from orbit almoust empty, without fuel and without heavy payload. I didn't exactly measured and it probably depends a lot on CPU power on different PC, but I think that KJR is running for 3-4 sec, so if your fix have a larger invincible window for 5-7 sec for example, that could solve a problem. Thanks for your time for looking into this.

Ok, I have updated my entry post again with Sporty MK1 craft file. Nominated for Category: Best sporty pleasure craft. Best non-space aeroplane. Best all stock parts spaceplane. (although I don't know if it could be nominated for last one becouse it is not spaceplane) That should help to fill FAR/NEAR candidates. That should be all for my craft nomination, however I will update post with more info and partly tutorial how I have build those. All of my craft are designed as example for people who are still afraid to use FAR mod, to see that planes can be designed in a way that you can fly them almost like planes with stock aero.

It seems that large craft launch fix does not work well with Kerbal joint reinforcment. Both mods postpone stock physics for short period of time. Is it possible to detect KJR and prolonge indestructable building time for few sec. more, so large craft launch fix last at least 1 sec. longer after KJR finished stabilization ? Maybe I have to stop build so heavy SSTOs, some of my craft files are in Design Contest II Akademy Awards thread if you need something to test runway ruins.

Another craft in my entry post Space Plane S3 IP V3 - craft file for KSP 0.25 Category: Best usage of B9 parts Best interplanetary science explorer spaceplane. And I have reserved place for another plane that will fill the gap for small sporty plane category.

My contribution to ruining runway with heavy planes. Total take off weight 1200 t (No, it is not a typo or cheat in any way) More pictures with heavy loaded SSTO is in this galery and you can find my craft files in this post, if you are curious.

I have used some parts of picture in OP to explain my own design process with SSTO aircrafts. Please, let me know if I'm violating any copyright/ToS, so I can change/remove picture. And thanks for this thread, I have learned a lot from it and I hope that this picture will help others too. You can find my recent craft filles and more info in SSTO/Spaceplane/Airplane Design Contest II: Akademy Awards thread - that post is still WiP and I will update it with more stuff ASAP.

I have updated my entry post with two more craft files. I'm still working on screenshoots and descriptions, but crafts are ready to download. Each craft have info popup about used action groups and essential info inside craft file.(Description in editor or direct lunching from runway)

It is a little offtopic, but not completly, better to ask here then open new thread for this. I would rather not to open account on imgur, since I already have accounts on other web sites, so I have tried to put image on my posts, but neither of following links worked: (img)[URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/view-source:https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rzno83jceedeql/SpacePlane_MK2_V8_low_res.png?dl=0"]"https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rzno83jceedeql/SpacePlane_MK2_V8_low_res.png?dl=0[/URL]"(/img) (img)"[URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/view-source:https://www.dropbox.com/s/awrugknd71gmwdy/SpacePlane_MK2_V8_low_res.jpg?dl=0"]https://www.dropbox.com/s/awrugknd71gmwdy/SpacePlane_MK2_V8_low_res.jpg?dl=0[/URL]"(/img) (img)"[URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/view-source:https://www.dropbox.com/sc/20bxhjpbjsthg8o/AADSD1enW0XmlfFBB1YCaWkUa"]https://www.dropbox.com/sc/20bxhjpbjsthg8o/AADSD1enW0XmlfFBB1YCaWkUa[/URL]"(/img) (img)"[URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/view-source:http://www.moddb.com/members/kcs123/images/space-plane-mk2-v8"]http://www.moddb.com/members/kcs123/images/space-plane-mk2-v8[/URL]"(/img) I have used"[" "]" instead of "(" ")". I'm noob to this forum and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thanks.

Disclaimer: Crafts made with procedural wings requires FAR mod. This is due to bug with NEAR+PW mods combo. Because of this aircrafts made with FAR+PW are loaded corrupted in game with NEAR+PW (symethry bug, only half of plane shown in SPH editor). I will try to reproduce same crafts for NEAR users, but I don't know if I will be able to finish them by the end of contest. For people who are willing to test them quick solution is to install FAR, even if you are not use it in personal games. EDIT: Unfortunately, even with new craft build I can't make it to work PW+NEAR combo. If some kind of patch is going to be released by authors of PW mod, or some other modder, I will try to remake those crafts, but until then you can use them only with FAR. Same and improved crafts are now in KCS SpacePlanes Craft Repository thread. FAR - with mods - FAR,B9,Procedural Wings Space plane MK2 V8 for KSP 0.25 - two versions of the same craft in zip file. Parts count: 97; Cost: 97,821.30 Multipurpose light STTO for passenger transport and all kind of orbital tasks. Easy to fly and control. Confirmed lifting capability of 30 t of usefull payload. Total craft weight ~90t = 40t Craft + 20t fuel + 30t payload. More info in spoiler section. V8 variant includes pimped up cargo bay with essential parts for various orbital tasks. You need mods: - FAR - B9 - Procedural Wings - you may also want to install NathanKells NEAR dll fix - Firespitter (only FS3I info and trim adjustment part) - TAC life support - Infernal Robotics V9 need less mods due to striped parts from cargo bay. Essentials mods are: - FAR - B9 - Procedural Wings Category: Best light cargo spaceplane. Best passenger transport spaceplane. Best-looking craft. Various pictures of Space Plane MK2 V8 collected in galery. I have made another variant of the same plane, slightly modified for Advanced Jet Engines mod. You will also need new Adjustable landing gear mod. All craft files are included in one zip file on the link in title. For a fair contest, I didn't replaced original files when I uploaded craft file for the first time. I thought that will be cool to show that plane is possible to use even with AJE mod. Only minor changes for plane were needed for AJE mod due to different fuel economy, some LFO tanks changes with LF tanks, added sabre engine precooler that also holds additional fuel. Anyway, to keep long story short, I have made another trip to orbit with 30t payload, even with highly nerfed jet engines. Not compleatly orbit due to my lack of piloting skills, but close enough to show plane capabilities. Here is galery from my test to orbit wit this one. Later on with more carefull piloting I was able to establish full orbit, didn't uploaded screenshots for those though. I have also made craft that should be used with real fuel mod. RF mod nerfs fuel volume/mass in a way that you need more tank volume for same required dV. So, I replaced SABRE engines with RAPIERS that use kerosyne instead of liquid hydrogene to have same stored chemical energy in same tank volume. Kerosyne is heavier then same amount of fuel used without RF mod, so plane can't carry 30t payload, but performance are still not disturbed too much. I was ~200 m/s dV short for full orbit, meaning that with 20-24t payload it is still possible. For lightweight space probes it is still good craft for small orbital tasks. This plane have high L/D ratio. Aerodyinamic forces are strong, don't fight with them, use them to your advantage. Before you take off from runway take a look to FAR graphs. AoA graph will tell you that this craft have best L/D ratio @ 5-10 degrees. At high speed 10 degrees of AoA could be unstable (L/D line starts to split) this is area you should avoid because craft wings could stall at this AoA. Mach speed graph tells that craft have most L/D in speed that is up to 0.8 mach (highest subsonic stable). After transition to speeds above 1 mach, lowest most stable speed with highest L/D ratio is 1.4 mach (420 m/s). Now, put that info pin practical usage, to get craft into orbit in most fuel efficient way. Before you take off from runway aplly full flaps and raise throttle. You will need full throttle only for heaviest payloads close to 30 t. Don't touch trim to pitch up, just speed up to 130 - 140 m/s, as you gain speed, craft will be starting to raise pitch by itself to optimal AoA 5-6 degree. When you take off lower throttle to keep low speed(140 - 160 m/s), decrease flaps (at this speed you will have higher L/D ratio without flaps) and don't forget to raise landing gear. Optimal plane pitch should be near 10 degree and with 4-6 of AoA craft will have optimal 5 degree overall pitch degree. As you gain altitude atmosphere will become more rare, and you will not have enough L/D ratio to keep plane in overall 5 degree pitch angle, so you will need to raise speed to compensate lost L/D. Tricky part is to find optimal throttle value that will slowly raise speed (remember that as craft spend some fuel it becomes lighter and lighter) just enough to keep optimal climb rate. Near altitude of 10 km you will no longer have enough L/D at subsonic speed, so you will have to raise your speed up to 1.4 mach. Once the craft is stable again, try to keep that speed as long as possible as you raise altitude. Once you reach point where plane no longer have enough L/D add throttle to slightly accelerate. If you do it properly, near 30 km craft speed will be near 5.5 mach. Keep in mind that near 5 mach jet engines will start to loose thrust. At this point watch your engine thrust, when becomes to low, switch engines to closed cycle mode. Before switching, lower throttle because jet engine will have low trust at this point and you don't need full throttle power from rocket engine mode - this also saves fuel. If you have done everything right you will be able to establish stable orbit without much problem. In this way I was able to lift 30t of payload to stable orbit and have ~150 m/s left for small orbital maneuvers and be able to re-entry to Kerbin. Re-entry to atmosphere is not much a problem but it requires patience and it is somehow tedious. Try to lower periphases to ~30 km. Once you enter atmosphere activate spoilers and raise flaps. Both will have produce some drag to help you slow down craft. Don't go below 20km until you have lowered speed closer to 2 mach or atmosphere forces will rip off the plane apart. After some trials and errors I find out that 30-34 km is good for slowing down from 2000+ m/s to 1700 m/s; 20-30 km is good to slow down from ~1700 m/s downto ~1000 m/s and 20-10 km to slowdown from 1000 m/s to subsonic speeds below 300 m/s. Slowing down further depends how much you have until you can see runway. Craft don't have any parachutes and RCS are not such powerfull, but you can add those for yourself, more powerfull RCS comes with KW Rocetry mod, but I didn't put dem on craft to keep small mod dependencies. FAR - with mods: B9, Procedural wings, KW Rocketry,(IR - optional) Space plane S3 V3 for KSP 0.25 - two versions of the same craft in zip file. Parts count: 150; Cost: 415,412.60 Category: Best heavy-lift cargo spaceplane. Made for lifting 2.5m parts in orbit. Successfully tested with 200t of useful payload. Could also be used as passenger craft with total crew capacity of 7 Kerbals. Tehnical info from SPH editor. More pictures in galery. FAR - with mods: B9, Procedural wings, KW Rocketry,IR Space plane HL V3 - craft file for KSP 0.25 Parts count: 214; Cost: 702,770.30 Category: Best refuelling tanker spaceplane. Primary purpose is orbital fuel tanker but also have large cargo bay capable to carry landrovers inside. Could also be used for lifting realy heavy cargo at the same time. Maximum takeoff test with total weight is ~1200 t (~225t craft, 400t payload and fuel), but reasnoble payload to orbit is 300-350t, still have to made trip to orbit with this one. Heavy cargo payload test require to turn off destructable buildings. (Didn't know that Jeb have secret stash of karbonite buried below runway when I was designed this plane). More info in spoiler section. EDIT: This plane still can be usefull with destructable buildings. Install stock bug fixes, release v0.1.5 fixes launch pad and runway explosions when launching large vessels. There is still limit in plane weight. Overall safe craft weight to takeoff is somwhere between 600 - 650t. You may want to unload some fuel from tanks if you want to use it in career mode. Tehnical stuff and short story with 1200 t test fligtht are in picture galery. Another galery that shows usage of hidraulic landing gears. Pictures from orbit with delivered payload for MK2 V8, S3 V3 and HL V3 craft. FAR - with mods: B9, Procedural wings, KW Rocketry Space Plane S3 IP V3 - craft file for KSP 0.25 Parts count: 266; Cost: 912,808.00 Category: Best usage of B9 parts Best interplanetary science explorer spaceplane. Tehnical info and action groups on picture. S3 V3 and HL V3 are slightly unstable in space because trust is not compleatly aligned with CoM, so you need tu be gentle on engin power to stay on curse. This plane have more aligned engines and more fuel capacity for interplanetary travels. Not designed for heavy weight, although it can deliver 350t of payload in orbit, but it is designed to have a lot cargo space for lot of lightweight equipment. FAR - stock parts only Sporty MK1 - craft file for KSP 0.25 Parts count: 31; Cost: 19,193.00 Category: Best sporty pleasure craft. Best non-space aeroplane. Best all stock parts spaceplane. Tehnical info from SPH hangar. And another two pictures not already linked for this plane is in this galery. Unlike my other crafts, this one doesn't have popup info window with assigned action groups,so here is list for this one: AG5 - Lower Flaps AG6 - Raise Flaps AG7 - Activate spoilers AG0 - Toggle engines Don't be afraid by number of used parts in my larger craft designes, those are mostly additional struts, lights and fuel line connection for automatic CoM distribution. Due to use of procedural wings, only few parts are calculated in flight for lift/drag and will not burn your CPU. I'm noob to this game and lousy pilot. Because of this I need a plane that is easy to control, have to be cheap as possible to build, have to be simple to build, have to lift a lot of payload as possible to establish orbit and have to be easy adapted for various orbital tasks: - Deploy / recover space probes - orbital rescue missions - passenger transport to space stations and delivery/recover various cargo to and from space stations in one trip On top of that, have to be most fuel efficient craft, because I'm lousy pilot and need a lot of DeltaV to compensate my mistakes. I have lot of issues in my airplane designs with take off and landing procedures, so aircraft have to be easy to control when you take off without gear woobling on runway. Also it is not so easy to safely land airplane in KSP. For safe landing I need a plane that is easy to control on low speeds, so I have more time to correct mistakes in runway aproach and for more gentle landing without killing poor Kerbals. When I'm returning from orbit, I want to left most of unused fuel at space station so, SSTO need to be easy to control glider without help of engine trust. All above plane share the same idea, only difference is size and type of payload. S3 was designed with larger volume payload for space station assembly, HL for refueling/light rover transport needs and S3 IP for longer journeys. Impossible to achieve ? Well, download craft and check for yourself. More info why such unusuall design coming soon in section below. 1.) First, I have created main plane hull with cargo space for payload and fuel tanks with possible engine mounts. To be usable in space, plane need tu have alligned engine trust with CoM. I wanted to have some extra space for fuel, to have some aditional dV when I reach orbit for various tasks, so that extra fuel also adds some extra weight. 2.) Next I have created main wing shape that provide a lot L/D ratio without adding too much on craft weight. After that comes position of control surfaces on wings and tail. But, before fine tuning control surfaces, I have positioned landing gears. 3.) To have more stable craft on taking off and landing I have positioned landing gears to have negative AoA on ruway. In that way all main wing surface area is used like spoiler on cars to provide some downforce and help with bouncing unstability when plane still doesn't have enough speed for safe take off. Problem with that aproach is that extra downforce along with heavy payload could be too much for wheels. To solve this, I have used flaps. Flaps itself doesn't produce much more lift, but they produce drag in widest wing area on rear and in that way overall lifting center is shifted more to front. You can see that well on picture below. By doing this, I have produced positive lift even when plane have negative pitch. 4.) I'm using control surfaces on tail to produce some small downforce. That small downforce along with well placed rear landing gear makes leverage and fulcrum. So only light push on tail is needed to pitch nose up. In flight there is no landing gear that could be used as fulcrum, but if you remove control surfaces on tail, you will see that lift from main wing is almost on the same spot as rear landing gears. So, lift from main wing could be considered as fulcrum when the plane is in air. When plane pitch up too much main wing will going to stall and provide less lift and weight placed in front will push nose down again. If it's pitch down too much, downforce on tail will couse nose to pitch up again. 5.) Cm on FAR graph is not CoM. Cm is summ of all lifting and downforces from both, wings and craft weight. On graph, if it is above X axis it will make a plane to pitch up, if it is below it will couse a nose to pitch down. This depends on overall plane AoA and degree where yelow line cross X axis is naturaly stable AoA pitching moment. Unlike other people advices, by placing control surfaces on tail I have shifted that neutral pitching moment in area where aircraft have a lot L/D ratio. It is usualy somwhere between 4 and 10 AoA degree, depends of main wing shape, overall plane weight and probably lot of other factors. With that aproach, you will need less input from pilot to maintain optimal AoA while you are chasing altitude and speed needed to reach orbit. 6.) How to have more green over the red numbers on FAR graph. I have cured rolling unstability by placing CoL above CoM. There is several ways to do that. One is to make main wings slightly angled, so the tip of wing is raised compared to wing root. Another aproach is to place small vertical wingtips surfaces on tip of main wings, or you can place some raised surfaces on tail. Sideslip problem can be solved with more vertical surfaces, more effective on tail then on hull center, but wingtips could also help with that. Pitching problem could be solved with both, larger horisontal surfaces on tail or near front, but with different AoA. Because of shifted neutral Cm in optimal AoA area, SAS will not going to couse your plane to wooble so much, but if still does smaller control differences helps with that. Picture with sumed up described design info. I'm not saying that this is best aproach with plane design, but this is how I was able to figure out. I'm rather using lifting forces to help reaching orbit, rather then using brute engine thrust forces. Those planes will not going to fullfill everyones expectations. Designed to be efficient and stable but for that reason they were not higly maneuverable. For that reason a lot of people that expect fighter plane performance will be disapointed. But if you consider them more like a heavy truck then a sports car, you will like them more. As I build those and test them I also learn more and finding out design flaws and what I could possibly improve. Mk2 V8 is more optimized then other planes because I spend more time building it then other crafts, also my first SSTO for 0.25 KSP. After Mk2 V8, I was wondering will the same aproach work for bigger SSTO, for heavier payload. So, I build other crafts based on the same concept. Found this thread by accident when I was looking for something else, so I was deceided to entry with my planes, so more people could notice this, rather then in some craft exchange thread. I was rushed a bit to publish my heavier design without proper test in space and when I was reached orbit wit them I found out that engine thrust is not properly aligned with CoM. S3 V3 and HL V3 suffers that effect. Not a big deal, both are designed to deliver something heavy in orbit, release payload and return back to surface. Problem is that RCS on them is not powerfull enough to rotate and correct plane direction. You also may want to reduce thrust on engines to be have more control on plane when you are in orbit. I learned from my mistakes and I corrected issues by using more vernor engines instead of RCS. I have updated original zip files to include improved version of the same crafts, but I have left original craft files for the fair play of contest. Besides this contest, I wanted to use this post to promote some of my favorite mods, like FAR, B9, KW Rocketry, IR parts, Procedural wings and some that I found recently like Adjustable landing gears and Advanced Jet Engines. When I need to ask someone about something in other threads it is easier to pinpoint them to this post, so they can see pictures and even download a craft file to see what I talking about. The last plane in post is made just to show that I can make a plane only with stock parts, but who will want to stay only on stock parts when you can have more interesting parts from various moders ? Not visible on picture, but have to be said - I was deleted HX parts from B9 mod and all parts from Firespitter mod except utility parts(FS3info, Trim adjustmend and custom launch position (water,KSP runway,Old runway)). You may see MechJeb windows on my screenshoots, but those are not required for my planes, because I also use MJ embeded that include MJ with each command pod. MJ is essential part for noob of game to catch up quickly and I use it mostly for maneuver node creation. It is screenshot from install folder with visible version number for each mod. I think that all of them are latest available builds at the day of making this screenshot and craft above. Screenshot taken on 07. november 2014. You can found my crafts review from other contestants in this post.