Mat2ch

Yes, I did break 1.0 on the day of its release. I made a SSTO by only clicking randomly and made an orbit at second try. This definitely tells me I'm doing it wrong.

@xub313 aaaaand? Is it working?

Hi! Have you ever tried orbiting below 70 km? I did and it's a fun experience. But since the physics warp only accelerates to 4 times the normal speed it takes a loooooong time to do an orbit. But I made at least 2 and only lost 500 m while at it. I guess it would've taken at least 3 or 4 more orbits until the atmosphere would have slowed my vessel enough down to reentry. So, Challange?

Hello Claytsuk, also if it may be called cheating the KER mod gives you and overview of what dV your stages have. You can use it while constructing your rocket. Then have a look at the Cheat Sheet in the Wiki. It has a dV map posted there. Just add the values you need to get into orbit, transfer orbit, to the moon, etc. and back and from then on it's just plain stupid (that's why some would call it cheating. But NASA did have computers back then. Not as powerful as ours, but they did. And why get stuck in the past? Kerbals are very creative, they have computers! Look at the kOS screen )

Ok, I only thought it's a problem with my system. Where can I report this? Does Squad have a bug tracker?

Hello Sandworm, so I'm not the only one with this issue. It's annoying as hell. Why isn't this fixed in 1.0?

Hi, I'm running 1.0, the linux 64bit version and I've got a problem with menus. Example: When I'm in the VAB and want to overwrite an existing design, I get asked "Do you want to overwrite". If I click on the button the click also get's forwarded to any underlying part in the VAB, most of the time detaching things. As a GUI developer myself I'd say the button click event is not cancled here, but kept in the event loop. Is this a known problem or just here on my side?

I'm totally exhausthyped! Let's lean back and fly some rockets first!

Jep, one of my first things to do was to build a spaceplane! I even wrote a short tutorial. Feel free to comment: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/116972-1-0-SSTO-Spaceplane-Things!

Hello, yes I love space planes and so the first thing in 1.0 was to build one. Actually it looks a lot like one of my spaceplanes from .90, but it needed a few modifications. First of all: Sadly, no more canards for me. The stress seems to be too much for those, so I built a delta wing. So, how to get in space? It's a bit like before, but also much different. Climb as fast as you can, but watch your speed. Don't go fast than Mach 1 (~332 m/s) or it'll become hard to control your place. Level out in the higher atmosphere, above 20 000 m and gain speed and slowly climb. If you get too fast in the lower atmosphere, you'll burn up. Then wait until your engines stop making you faster. The RAPIERs didn't flame out on me, like they did in .90, just stopped to make me faster. But to go into space you need to get faster. So if that happens switch to closedCycle. Do it manually to have a better control over it. And close your intakes, they produce drag. And then it's just waiting until your apoapsis goes above 70 000 m, stop your engine, wait until you get near your apoapsis, do your orbital burn and your in space! I did it on my second try, it's really easy. Here's a first pic of my plane, it still needs some tuning: You see me here on my way back to KSC, but I'm a bit too high there. Don't do that, our you'll need to fly back. The outer control surface are used for pitch and roll, the inner most are "speedbrakes". They're used to slow me down. Which brings me to my next point. Re-entry! Don't point your nose down on re-entry. Don't. Never. You need to loose speed if you want your Kerbals to survive this! And you wont, if you go nose first. Instead point your space plane anti radial when you hit the atmosphere. That's why I'm using control surfaces as speedbrakes: They also help keeping the nose up. Doing this should slow you down to 1500 m/s when you hit the lower, thicker atmosphere and your plane will survive. Well, mine did. Now, do a nice landing (you can control the break intensity now. Wow!) and you successfully had a plane in space! What did I miss?

But computers! They work all week, if you let them!

Did somebody mention that next friday is a holiday in Germany? Well, this will be a bad day for my back.

No video!? Why? Oh whyyyy?

I hereby declare this as minutes! (Please don't remind me that it'll take 90 of them...)

One last mission to Jool and it's moons. Trying to visit Tylo, Bop, Pol and Laythe. Currently my lander is on Tylo. Boring planet. And needs a huge rocket just to get there...

Only a few minutes until the next video!

So, what will we do, if the hype train stalls? Add more boosters?

There's someone in the SSTO thread who brought a full orange fuel tank into orbit! Click! Now I've got to try this myself...

Well, my crafts are a bit boring, compared to what I'm seeing here. But anyway, this is Lucy: Takes 6 Kerbals to LKO with some fuel left (very little). I used it to take my Kerbals to my Space Station. It's not easy to get into orbit, no room for errors. And here is my little satellite carrier: Takes two sats into LKO. I'm using it for the "place a sat in orbit" contracts. I'm really curious if they will still work in 1.0. But I like challanges. And space planes.

SSTOs are really only practical to bring things to a space station or - like the Space Shuttle - to put satellites very cheap into orbit. SSTOs may be realistic one day. Have a look at Skylon! I wanted to show you some of my SSTO space planes. There's a thread which collects them, so I posted the pictures there. Click here!

Hello Dragonchampion, I love making Space Plans that classify as SSTO. So maybe I can give you some hints. First you've got to create some kind of plane that has enough lift and power. Usually two RAPIER engines are fine. Make it slick as possible. Pack 1/3 liquid fuel (or less! Airbreathing engines are very efficent) and 2/3 rocket fuel. Now build an air craft that can fly. Means: Have a look at the Center of Mass (CoM) and the Center of Lift (CoL) (the buttons down left in the SPH). The CoM should be slightly in front of the CoL. Now empty the tanks in the SPH and check where the CoM is moving. If you've done it right it should stay almost where it was before (this will become a whole lot easier, when the tanks empty equally as it shall in 1.0) Play around with the wings, so that you get a good CoL on the plane. Now add gears. Put the front gear where you like, but the aft gear right under the CoM. This will make it easier to lift the plane from the ground. Now do flight tests. Is the aircraft stable? How does it handle without SAS? A good plane just stays where you point it. Watch the prograde marker on the navball, it should be a little bit beneath where you're pointing your nose. If it is not you may need to add more wings. Don't forget to add inlets. Lots of them. I usually pack 4 per engine. (The ugly grey ones) Flying to space: Get to 12000 km as fast as possible and point your nose almost horizontally. Now gain speed and slowly climb. Something between 10m/s and 100 m/s is fine. Less is better. Always watch the intake air (the fuel icon top right, click it and you'll see it). When the intake air goes below 0.10 it's time to switch to rocket mode. I always do this manually. Don't forget to close all the intakes, they produce drag when they're open. Do not try to pull your plane up, just go forward, don't touch the controls. Switch to map mode, watch your apoapsis. When it goes over, say, 75 km, cut the engine. (Oh, the RAPIERs tend to overheat, watch that, too). Now point your plane prograde. Use SAS if you like. Watch your apoapsis, it will go down a bit, due to air resistance. Push it slowly back up to 75 km. Once you're above 69 km plane for your orbital burn. Do it and you've got a plane in space!

Hi, my first post here, but I'm quite active in KSP doing stuff... So today I finished my Space Tug, to explore Jools Moons. Or at least some of them. Have a look: I carry two landers and a plane with me. The one lander is for Tylo and will get dumped on return of my Kerbals. The second, smaller lander, is for multiple landings, like Bop and Pol. And my plane... I hope to get down to Laythe in one peace. It makes LKO (you see it here at 100 km) with 200 m/s rocket fuel left. If it's enough for Kerbin I hope it's enough for Laythe, too. But I've already heard that it's mainly a waiter planet. I've packed some chutes to get down on a small island... hopefully big enough to get back up again. So, wish me luck, mission starts tomorrow.

Oh, wow. To return with three Kerbals from Eve it really needs a huge rocket... I always thought I'm doing something wrong, but apparently I only have to fiddle a bit more around to create something that will work. Thank you for your answers! - - - Updated - - - Sending three ascent vehicles instead of one is a great idea. I'll try to build one and see how it behaves. As it will be a lot lighter it will be easier to land anyway... And I already thought about a tug ship. In fact I had one with 12000 m/s dV in orbit... don't know how much this will be after I connect three ascent vehicles...

Hi, I'm trying to build a lifter for Eve, which shall be my next mission. I know that I need around 12000 m/s dV to get back from the surface, worst case. I want to go in style and bring a small party to the planet, so 3 lander cans is the minimum. Now I'm trying and trying different designs and they all end up being huge monsters. It's actually pretty easy to build something with 6000-8000 m/s dV, but from then one it's hell. Lightest build so far had 400t. I have no idea how to get that into LKO or land it on Eve... So, tell me, what did you build to get down to Eve and back up? I've found one thread, but the rocket there used a heavily clipped design and that's what I want to avoid. Traveling light, but in style I say

Class A are tiny rocks in space. They're easy to move around and I suggest a pusher here. No need for something big. But I wanted to upload a picture of my Class D mover. Here it is on start ramp: And in orbit: