Warzouz

I don't even use LVN for Duna/ike

I have 4 airbrakes at the rear of the plane. With the TJ alone, I have much more range. I just have to figure the optimum reentry configuration. Last try was much better. I overshoot but was able to turn and land. I do the same retragrade as mu rocket SSTO : 60m/s, but I'll try a steeper retro-burn

BTW, I replaced the central rapier by a turbojet. After messing with ascent profile, I increased the dV left. Now I get 1100m/s. the TurboJet help when ascending and to pass 340m/s. The dive is nearly inexistent. I cut the TJ before the Rapier which give them a little more boost. I switch to close cycle at 26km now. 2 rapier are enough. My issue was the fuel efficiency at landing. I still haven't figure the correct reentry profile. I have to rely on engine and I'm often short of fuel, even I reenter with 6000m/s

GoSlash27, Rune, I find this discussion very interesting : it shows that there are not any "obvious" design to do stuff in KSP (for instance plane SSTO, which I just start tweaking about very recently). For example, I worked on a passenger SSTO, (with your help BTW). I tried switching the 3 rapier with 2 TJ and 2 Aerospikes. But that didn't end well. I see now that may have to deal with the design of the ship. Some ships might get some better results with rapier, some ships with other confirguration. And I've discovered it also depends on the flight plan to orbit. I find 1.0.x way better than 0.9 because of that game balancing SQUAD did. At first I disliked it, but now I appreciate it a LOT ! I use most of the engines where I only used a few of them in 0.9. Sure Rapier have some downfall, but what the point if they outperform any other configuration (or the other way around) ? I find interesting we have to fly (and probably design) our planes differently depending on its engine configuration. Thx for your valuable input

It depends on what you hide under "SSTO" but technically any ship that would land from Tylo orbit and get to Tylo orbit again can qualify as a SSTO. I used a low TWR SSTO in 0.9. It had to be trucked by a reusable tug from and to my Laythe space station for refuelling. It had 2 LVN, weighted 14T and had the full science package and 6050m/s of dV. With the nerf of LVN it would have to be tweaked. As for Eve, I never tried, but this seems harder...

I agree that the MPL is an alternative to science grinding. I think it's quite well balanced, even though I don't use it, except for RP. The tech tree can be unlock without quiting Kerbin SOI in few days. My first Duna window is 2 days away and my whole tech tree is already unlocked **. I only gather 50 points is my 2 MPL orbiting Mun and Minmus. I find science grinding quite fun. It's a gameplay feature : you have to plan where to land, pile up the corect dV, design you landers to manage hops. Exploring poles have some significant impact on your mission design and route planning. I don't use the MPL except to reset science experiments. I filled them with scientists for RP, but very small amount of science poured out of it. Minmus can grant you a ton of science with only 3 landings (with 2 hops each). You might have to do it twice because you might not have all the experiments the first time, but it's quick and a very good landing trainer. The whole point of MPL is if you don't like to do that, you can get science in another way. So there is not only ONE gameplay to get science. That's quite nice from SQUAD. ** I had to plan an emergency return of a Minmus lander to LKO, docked to the space station and wait for a SSTO, passenger plane to get the Kerbal to KSC to get the mission science. That was quite fun, because I set a dirty orbit from Minmus to get to LKO, 2 days before the "perfect" one. I found that quite RP and not possible with MPL.

Short of using the mod mentionned above, you can't reuse everything. As the range is now 22.5km, you can recover very early stages such as boosters, but they don't cost a lot. You can also recover very late stages. but you can't recover mid flight stages (which is usually the most expensive part. Further more, if you want a good rate of recovery, you have to control the landing site. For cost efficiency reasons, I went also into reusable launchers and ended with SSTO rockets. The easy way to do it is to design SSTO rocket stage able to orbit payload then deorbit itself and reenter as near as KSC as possible. If you time it right, you get a very cheap price to LKO. When you have your basic design, you can easily tweak it for each of you needs. Here is what I did : Cygnus family reusable rockets (SSTO). In the end, it's as very simple design which is quite easy to fly.

I did a 38500 science point mission into Jool SOI in beta 0.9 which I finished just before 1.0 was released. In addition, I send in the same windows a multprobe mission to polar orbit which radioed 2500 science points. The whole mission brought back 41000 science points. This was in science gamemode For this mission, I fired 14 rockets. 13 where to be assembled around Laythe obit. Each payload was around 40T - Station core for 11 kerbals - Return vehicvle - 6 orange tanks - 1 RCS tank - 2 SSTO lander (Bop + Pol) - 1 SSTO lander for Tylo + Tug - 1 SSTO for Vall + 1 SSTO for Laythe - 1 addtionnal staged lander for Tylo (in case the SSTO fails, but it didn't) + Tug - 6 Probe launch (would not meet the station around laythe) All 13 parts were assembled at 500km orbit around laythe (because of the nice view). The full space station with landers was ober 900 parts and 420T. I had to use KAS to remove parts to get a reasonable framerate. The mission was to land twice on each moon in addition to a fly-by. The use the return vehicle. the station is still operationnal, but uncrewed. Only 3 of the 6 tanks were used. As I assembled the station around Laythe, I doesn't qualify for Jool-5 mission, I think. SSTO landers were 14/16T LVN powered rockets able to get from the station to their dedicated moon (with help of a tug for Tylo) and back to the station. Laythe SSTO used a 2 jets / 1 LV30 combination, but the design was roughly the same. I had to do some rescue twice on the whole mission (the tugs were really helpful) Meanwhile I sent a smaller mission to Eeloo, I parked the mothership into polar orbit and did a full science strip of Eeloo for 18000 science points. I had to dump the lander and the science section if the mothership there. It isn't operational anymore.

Drag seems to be always independant. Look at the right booster, during the hard pitch up maneuver : the drag increase is significant and comes from the tank. which seems to create alos a light blue line which is orthgonal to the tank drag. Anyway, this blue line aren't that a problem because they are rarely visible : you don't want to pitch like that with a space plane becaus you loose a lot of speed.

thx, i'll test it.

I've noticed that the small RCS part doesn't seem to generate drag. I need RCS so I added them even though they could add drag. But I would like to add some lights to my plane. I tested it and there is no drag out of those parts (lights, RCS...) But maybe the drag is added to the parent part (as the mass seems to do now) ? Do (previously-)massless parts generate drag ? How to evaluate it ? Is it significant ?

They seems orthogonal to the drag Why aren't in the same orientation as the regular lift ? and why does that only appear on harsh maneuvers ? (I noticed it when I botched an AoA change. EDIT : and I don't understant why the indicator only shows on the right side of my plane :/

Thx, it works

But why those lines goes to the front of the ship ?

I did a 1050m/s of fuel left at LKO. The ascent speed to 11km seems to have some significant consequence. ascending from 200 to 220m/s make the speed increase at 11km (up to 500m/s) much easier. Here is the spaceplane at my space station

I've already asked that question, but I can't figure in which topic (stupid me...) Is there a way to activate MJ without using the AR202 part onboard ?

I do'nt think so. Look at the picture, each MK2 part has a deep blue line which is lift. I think it's related to air intakes. Those light blue lines seems to go from the intakes to the front of the plane.

When Aero diplay is toggled : - Dark blue : lift force - Red : drag force - Yellow : lift from control surfaces - light blue : ? What those light blue lines stand for ? They only appear on heavy turn Further more on my plane, I have this light blue line on the right side only. I don't understand where it come from as my plane is symmetric. (click to enlarge)

I use it also this should be the normal game mechanic. At least everything in fairing shouldn't wobbling at all.

And none the less : it's enjoyable to fly !

OK, I sticked with the final design (I added it in the first post). - Lift off at 100m/s - Increase speed to 200m/s then up to 11km with constant speed (during this part the plane swing a little) - Follow prograde (it'll dive a little to 10km) until speed is around 500m/s - Pitch up without loosing speed (tricky part) and then increasing speed to 800 m/s - Make the real ascent to 22km/24km - Switch to close cycle as engine start to fail - Pitch at 5° until 35km, then prograde until apo is 76km. - Orbit insertion should be around 300m/s I end with 800/900m/s left and on a quite clean equatorial orbit. - Before reentry, transfer fuel to front tanks. I still have to figure reentry parameters to arrive very near KSC. I succeeded twice but I was very short the first time on overshoot a lot the second time. I think I should place the place vertically but nose DOWN. So when air flow would force the nose prograde, it'll dive faster instead of gliding and overshooting KSC. NB on close cycle only, the plane has 1875m/s of dV

(click to enlarge) I opted for a probe core tested if from runway to runway : 900m/s left at 75km. The nose cone heat a lot on reentry, it nearly exploded. Before reentry I send all fuel up front. So : - 37T - 3 engines - Lift factor should be around 2.9 (core) + 2*3.46 = 9.82 (sic) Rapier loose power around 22km, I engage close at 23km. and follow prograde to reduce drag.

OK, I've swapped to 3 engines add some more fuel. and slightly bigger wings. I don't have to dive to much now. Switched to inline cockpit and frontal docking ring, event I don't like the shape. I get to orbit with 500m/s left. Comfortable. I'm testing landing now EDIT : Hmmm, I changed the landing gear and extend wings. Now I can't pass through sound barrier anymore...

With staying at 2 engines ? As for the elevons, the plane is nicely maneuverable (under 10km) On reentry, the CoM seems to be behind the CoL, hard to tell. Last try I ended in flat spin. - - - Updated - - - Further more : are precooler useful ?

I'm working on a passenger SSTO to go to my space station. The plane achieve LKO all the time, but I'm not satisfied with it. Issues : - Not enough dV after LKO (only 100/200) - Unstable around 12km. The plane don't always go straight so I often end on a non equatorial orbit which cost 100/400dV to fix. - I need to dive to pass 340m/s. I usually go to 12km then end at 500m/s around 8/9km. Then I have a hard time to pull it up. - Plane don't lift of, I wait for the end of the runway. I had canards but it ship la CoL to much to front - CoM/CoL are very near. I've a hard time to keep CoL behind CoM. The plane is very long, arrow-like. - I add a bay to put the RCS fuel tank and some solar panels (to avoid more drag), but that's not really nice and add to the CoM/CoL problem. I think I need 3 engines... but where to put the air intakes... Some clever insight ? EDIT: Finally I did that and went better - 3 engines - Probe core and more fuel - Bugger wings - Bigger landing gears - Removed storage bay