Warzouz

Yes I noticed that fuel fraction increases with payload increase. BUT, dry mass fraction is reduced. Adding that, the price per ton goes (slighlty) down as payload mass increases. In the end mass efficiency increases with high payload. That's what I've noticed with my Cygnus SSTO rockets. Check my table I posted before.

Does RSS changes something ?

Setting a nice TWR mostly depends on your vehicle structure - Setting it too low and you'll have a hard time flying it straight - Setting too high and you may flip quicker or even blow. Adding wings will make it go straight, but gravity turn would be harder. I find those considerations much more significant than dV fixing.

The issue with airbreathing/rocket SSTO is the airbreathing engines are quite small in size. You need a lot of them to liftoff a heavy payload. Further more, engine are more expensive than rocket engines and you need a lot of them + a regular rocket for high atmo and space burns. Rocket SSTO uses the same engines all the way to LKO (including orbit insertion). They are most simplest rockets. It's doable, but I doubt the cost/ton would be efficient, even most of the rocket price is recovered.

Beware that docking with MJ uses a LOT of RCS fuel.

I understand why small science parts are physicless (more should be...) , but I don't understand why the big decoupler aren't...

Erh, no, you don't disagree with me : I didn't spoke of stacked physicless parts, but radially attached physicless parts which are attached to a already radially attached part (which is not physicless). I should add a screenshot but I'm at work Physicless parts add their mass (and drag ?) to their parent part. In that case the parent part is not the central stack, but the radial part. As the radial part mass increases, CoM moves toward it. If your test doesn't show any deviation, that mean the definition is wrong : the physicless parts don't add mass to their parent, but elsewhere. So beware when adding those nice little non-retractable ladders to your side tank/engine ; you should attach them on the central stack to avoid moving the CoM Heat shields are not radially attached.

Let's take some more real data : 15% to 20% fuel cost is more realistic for a rocket SSTO (space plane don't miss the runway). For example the 150T launcher - Wet cost = 260k - Dry cost = 210k - 100% recover = 50k (cost, not recovered fund) - 98% = 55k - 97% = 58k -> 15% variation (as of 97% easy average / full recovery) If you use SSTO spaceplane, sure you want to land on the strip. That is quite easy with little practice

That's not entirely true. If you attach a physicless part to a physic part which is radially attached, the CoM changes (because the weight of the radial physic part is changed by the physicless part). Always attach physicless parts to the central stack of you ship, not on radial parts. That's a major change since 0.9. I think it's the same for drag.

But even though, the recovery cost variation is very slim. - Land on runway or launchpad = 100% - Land anywhere on KSC ground = 98% - Land at 50km from KSC = 97% - Land at 100km from KSC = 95% - Land on the other half of Kerbin = 20% It's very easy to land at less than 50km from KSC with a non directive object using only airbrakes. There is not much difference with perfect runway landing. The only thing you want to know is where to deorbit and burn dV. If the recovery costs where much higher, SSTO rocket might not be as interesting.

You do that only if you're perfectly aligned with target. that's my first method : - Align your ship - Align the other ship - go forward.

Yes I agree with Geher, I'm not sur that classical staging rocket is more expensive that space shuttle.

Perfection is not always wonderful : If you orbit is too circular, AP and PE start jumping everywhere. It becomes very hard to add a manoeuver node. I aloways keep 2 to 5% between AP end PE.

For "Pure rocket SSTO", you also have the recovery price which is usually 2 to 5% because you mostly never land on the runway. But true, most of the cost comes from the fuel.

Encounters can be glitchy. I already had encourters that I didn't get in the end, even without changing SOI... If you need to do very small adjustements, try "Precise Node" mod (MJ has a similar feature) When I'm in your situation - I delai my burn and set a node closer to SOI. - If I can't, I give prority to plane change and select the closest encounter I can get. Then I fix another node later to tweak it more. I usually do more than 1 dV correction during flight (usually less than 5m/s). KAC mod is my friend !

But the small reaction wheel provides too much torque for small probes.

Well Space planes are quite fun to fly, they are efficient in mass ratio, and in price. But their main issue is that they aren't scalable. If a given SSTO is missing few tons to LKO, you can't simply add fuel, and engines. You'll often have to redisign it. On the other hand, Rocket SSTO are very simple rockets. No staging, constant aero profile and VERY scalable. I find the easier to fly that classic staging rokets. I built the 600T variant of my rocket series in 10 minutes starting from the 300T. I just added radial tanks, engines, and checked I had 3400m/s and a reasonnable TWR. I added airbrakes, fins, checked the staging. Off we go ! First try = success. They are also very cheap. I use the 150tons to LKO model a lot. Sure it costs 260k funds (not including the payload), but you'll get more than 200k funds back.

The green indicator is where you want to translate to. If the line are red : you are on the other side of the ship (distance is usually negative). If the line is grenn : you are on the right side of the target If pograde/retrograde vector is where you go. If lines are red, beware not to go straight to the target, you would hit it. Translate so you prograde go near the green intersect. Meanwhile shorten your distance (the right one) be not below 2 meters. Wait for the green intersect to comme to the middle : your are alinged. Finish by going forward a little. I recommend that your prograde never go farther than the green intersect. With this method, you use very little RCS fuel. Don't forget you can warp to go faster instead of expending RCS fuel. Another tip : if your ship isn't well balanced, you might rotate when you translate sideways. Don't bother too much because when you'll translate back, your ship will mostly correct its aignment. That only works for small imbalance. Further more, I noticed you have a lot of RCS. Except for refueling a station, Docking require very little RCS. I can dock a 7tons lander with only 2 to 5 unit of RCS fuel. Take your time, that's the secret.

Those "Explore" contractsd are quite rare. I only got Minmus, Ike, Laythe and Tylo. Even I discarded a lot of contracts.

Thx, I starpped reasonnable fuel tanks (ONE orange or one half orange) because the science landes don't use much fuel. And the Miner is capable of refueling from 43 to 80% of an orange tank, so the station can be filled quite easily. Half an orange tank can refill the lander 4 times at least. This is more than enough to get multiple biomes. - Mun : 2 ot 3 hops with 3000m/s - Min : 4 hops - Ike/Dres : 2 or 3 - Moho : 2 hops - Pol : 4 hops So inly a very small amount of fuel is needed for exploration. The miner is only usfull to reduce the station weight and provide a engine block. En beta 0.9, I used to send fuel tank apart.

Did it worked out ? It's the easier way to handle docking. 1- Taget the dockling port, Go near it (10m) with SAS activated 2- Swith to other ship, control from the targe doching port 3- rotate your ship to your docking port is aligned, wait for perfect stabilisation 4- Swtich again to first ship. Simply go forward slowly This way, you don't have to translate sideways, but both ship must be able to rotate (they usually can, even very slowly). This is the easiest way to dock without indicator mods. Personaly, I use indicator mods, because I love to translate around target ships and end perfectly docked. I find it that much relaxing.

I had this issue some times, but I recenly figured why What happens When starting KSP, the game starts as it was the the first time (asking for uploading data). All settings are reset. Cause I play with a joystick (an old Wingman). I configured the keys in the settings. If the joystick in not plugged when the game starts, all options are trashed and a new settings.cfg is recreated. (Hopefully I kept a backup settings.cfg) Fix Settings should not be trashed or option unconfigured if a joystick is mission.

I've recently designed the Salamander space station. : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132464-Salamander-Exploration-simple-and-efficient-space-station-to-everywhere Fully loaded fuel and ore, one configuration can has nearly 7000dV (at a very low TWR, though), even if I prefer using a proper transfer stage. It can go everywhere. The miner can refuel everywhere, except Duna/Tylo/Eve and Laythe. The generic lander (around 7 tons) can land and return from every body, except Tylo, Laythe and Eve (which need dedicated lander). The station is designed to be stationary, but I already moved my Joolian station from Pol to Bop, then Vall by balancing fuel from radially attached lander and return vehicle. Creating what you want might not be that hard even with a simple station. The issue would be to carry all those specific landers in a way your station is still maneuverable. Then packing enough fuel and have an engine section with reasonable TWR. Then, beware about dV : you must always know, not your total dV, but your FREE dV : You'll need to land to get ore/fuel so you can't use that fuel during flight or your entire station would be stuck... Check here about mistake on my first prototype : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130691-I-m-smart-%28or-not-%29 So calculations and preparation is a very long way. It took me hours to design the Salamander Space Stations (with prototypes sent on every body), and it's far from being flawless... Still, fixing ourselves objectives that are a bit outside of what we can do is what KSP is for, isn't it ?

Well, I don't usually timewarp to the transfert window of the planet I want to go. I usually plan to go on the next planet which window is coming. For example, I'm planning a Eve ascent vehicle because I've a window in 20 days. But I still need to send return vehicle to most of my stations to do crew rotations. That's why, i beta 0.9, I didn't go to Eve, but Jool instead. I had a window in 30 days, so I design a hugh exploration space station (13 fight parts assembled around Laythe. I played 3 weeks on that one...

It think it does. They removed the gimbal in 1.0.