TheDarkMechanic

Someone linked this the other day and it's too damn useful. Most of this we already know but there are definitely some nuances to be gleaned. Sorry in advance for how long it's going to make this post.

Coolest first thread ever. Oooo... good question. Sounds like my next ssto is going to be rapiers and nukes. How integral are the intercoolers to more advanced designs?

I didn't even notice the docking adapter has monoprop. Yeah, I can definitely ditch those then. There have been a couple other tweaks since then as well but I can lose one set of fuel lines and accomplish what I want. Hadn't occurred to me, thanks

I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion on struts. It's kind of nice not having to strut EVERYTHING down these days. As far as the spaceplanes go, with minimal consultation I was able to make a very primitive plane exceptional, so I'm not going to take issue with the difficulty of their creation/use in game (as said, especially considering the difficulty of reality). It would be nice to have an aerodynamics system that is a little more natural and accounts for things like the drag models we were talking about earlier. I'm thinking about trying out FAR for the first time ever. I'm a little afeared though. Related, I reentered "Toothless" today and it was beautiful. Aside from an action group failure with the air-brakes at high altitude (easily fixed manually) she floated right down over KSC, which I over shot because I'm a crap pilot. I'm not quite used to the descent of an actual space shuttle so falling that vertically was scary and I screwed it. My planes before this were a little more f14. Went right over the tower, like 4 meters. Gene might have had a heart attack. I easily fired the jets and came around though. My final variant is sans the vertical wingtips. Has anyone thought that someone might be using game-theory to have us solve actual spacecraft problems?

I had this same problem pretty badly. Someone recommended that I disable most of the control surfaces and now my super cheap plane screams into orbit. I think something about letting SAS access to all your planes capabilities is over compensating for minor (normal) trajectory issues during flight. the only active control surfaces I have are canards for pitch and ailerons for roll. I keep even the rudder disabled during normal flight and just manually activate it if I need during reentry. Seriously, disable like everything and give it another go.

So, does that mean we're just biting the bullet and adding a lot of drag to our rockets every time we use boosters? Or am I the only one still strutting boosters down?

I should have joined ages ago. I love you guys.

Willkommen! Post a picture of your most 'legendary' craft? Can we do that here?

With change. You people are so freakin beautiful. And Slashy, you are a steely-eyed rocket whisperer. I will probably steal that design soon. I present the x1.3 final, re-designated "Toothless." Yes... Lost the struts, turned the rams down 5 deg, went with the locked swivel. I rely heavily on RCS to maneuver (to my station at 110,000m because I'm stupid) but I had way too much. This will suit me more than fine. Can we/I mark this thread answered? Thanks again all. You will be annoyed with questions again soon. I still miss B9 and Interstellar which made this so much easier. Sled, not a fighter. So noted.

Think I can get away with a terrier?

Valentina and Robert did not deserve what I did to them. By the time anyone reads this I will have just launched another pod to my station out of frustration. Today's variant is angering me. Craft here:mad: How it's going: Crap for thrust or ability to climb up to 8000m. Much fuel wasted here. I'm getting much better thrust performance from there to about 15000-16000m (7-800+ Kn). I can get past 1km/s now but all that thrust craps out long before 20000m and I cannot get a more severe ascent angle without killing my thrust. In the upper atmosphere she WILL NOT pitch up more than about 25 degrees. Things that helped: Had too much wing surface, big change when I knocked some off. Changing out big LF tank for smaller one and a larger LFO tank. Moving LF tank forward (even though the cargo bay is not actually being used for deliverable payload (no worries, all I need it to do is carry passengers). Ditching nacelles. A couple things about my design philosophy: Some of you are probably looking at me crazy about the dorsal and ventral tail planes. I had a lot of luck providing more stability with this idea in earlier versions, not sure how well it's translating. Same with the upturned wingtips (obvious). The airbrakes have no priorities at all. They are linked to an action group and I only use them to slow down during decent through the upper atmosphere. Questions: Why does my plane randomly roll/yaw without any controller input? I frequently find myself off course port or starboard (mostly starboard) and when I try to correct this I lose inclination, roll unpredictably or it just nudges and then goes back to the previous or slightly worse attitude. TL;DR: HOW TO KEEP THA THING STRAIGHT!? Is there an advantage to mounting the RAMs pointed slightly downward? What are you using that gives you that red trajectory in atmosphere. I see that on youtube and am jelly. Thanks everyone for helping and making a new member feel welcome. I will be launching for Duna soon and upon return I should be able to pick up some better spaceplane tech. If someone doesn't fix me by then I'll just scrap this thing and use the better parts.

Thanks, everyone, for getting back to me. Included is a pic of the relevant centers. Where/how would one host a craft file? I am playing science mode this patch because I wanted to progress a little faster than career. Still, I haven't built far enough down the tree for the aerospikes, rapiers, or shock cones. As soon as I do you can be sure I'll incorporate them. But I'm very tired of launching a rocket every time I want to go to my space station (old habits from conserving money) so I'm hoping to make something work. I assume you mean the engine nacelles? I am not very familiar with them but I read the stats and figured they accomplished a lot at one time so I slapped them on. Should intakes go in front of them? Also, I fitted a version with a srb assist stage which produced only marginally better results.

I've been playing since the tail end of like .24 or so. Decided to finally get on the forum. Have lurked for a long time and you all (and the youtube guys) have taught me a whole lot. Intro made, now... Never been all that great with spaceplanes but until now I've always been able to at least get something working. So what the heck is wrong with my gorram SSTO? She doesn't want to do much more than a 5-10 degree ascent without losing thrust or knocking off velocity. Around 15,000m and past mach 2 she starts losing a lot of thrust on the air breathers and I engage the rocket engines. She will make space but I never have the fuel to circularize. This is modeled after many working designs, both mine and ones I have seen in videos. Am I overlooking something? Or am I just a crap pilot?