plotz

Well, we don't call it College over here but in Germany its basically the same as in the rest of Europe (ref KerikBalm's post ). I'm a post-grad for some years now - B.A. Eastern Asian Economics, Management & Politics - University of Bochum, Germany and Tongji University, Shanghai, China ; 2009 - MSc Management and Economics - University of Bochum, Germany ; 2011 I might add a PhD some time, when I find a topic that will keep me interested for a long enough time.

@Korizon: Though right now the poll results support your reasoning, most people I know have paired Intel CPUs with ATI/AMD GPUs. CPU-wise my personal impression is that Intel offers a much wider range of products catering to different budgets (Pentium G to i3, i5, i7 to Xeon CPUs that nowadays are also very nice for gaming PCs), implying people will also hunt for different budgets of GPUs.

Basically, KerikBalm is right, but as always, it highly depends on your craft. Regarding the OP's questions: - You can stick to two or more kinds of engines (or just use Rapiers for practice, though these still make your life too easy, imho). For highly efficient designs, I recently abandoned R.A.P.I.E.Rs altogether. For a 30t craft, two turbojets paired with two LV-Ns are always sufficient. You can make do with a single turbojet until around 27 tons (using high lift wings), though. - My last two sentences from above also show the impact the engine layout has on the ascent profile: Two turbojets usually deliver a TWR that allows for a quick 20 degree climb. A single turbo is much slower but may be equally efficient (low thrust in low atmosphere = low fuel consumption + only a single engine + less weight) --> 7-12° climb angle. - When dealing with moderate TWRs Profiles for ascent from my experience should always include a sea-level acceleration phase to at least 250m/s (for the ram-effect) and another acceleration phase at 10kms (Turbojet) or 12kms (Rapier). When parts start to overheat, do not adjust thrust but increase the angle of attack to climb more quickly. - Small SSTOs with a Rapier or a Turbojet + a few of those small orange radial engines can be around 8tons and thus have tremendously high TWRs. Just lift off, at 250m/s pull up to 40° and reduce thrust until your acceleration is around 10m/s. When at 7500m, revert to full throttle, slowly reduce AoA until you hit 1300 (Turbojet) or 1400 m/s (Rapier) and climb out at the edge of overheating. - When acceleration comes to a halt with turbojets, additionally switch on your LV-N or LF-O engines until flameout. For Rapiers, switch to closed cycle as soon as you begin to lose speed. Hope this helps. If you need any example craft designs for ascent profiles, just write me a PM. I have some simple ones in my crate .

Yep. Also, the K-Prize challenge thread shows many, many working examples. Small tutorial (deliberately without pictures): A simple blueprint (no payload) from back to front, in order of construction sections: - Hull: 1 Rapier, 1 1k battery, 2 "long" adapters Mk2-1.25m, 1 short mk2 liquid fuel tank in between these two, 1 mk1 inline cockpit, 1 shock cone intake. - Sides: 2 delta wings, 4 elevon #1 control surfaces attached to the trailing edge, 2 airbrakes mounted to the top, 2 moving winglets. - undercarriage: three small landing gears, two below the wings, 1 slightly clipped into the hull (aim for a few degrees of nose-up pitch). Optional: 1 1x6 solar panel with "hard-casing". - top: small delta wing + 1 elevon #1 as rudder. optional: small antenna Tweaks: - unlock steering for front gear, set brake power for rear landing gears to 30/30 - inner elevons of main wing and front winglets: yaw: no; roll: no; pitch: yes; - outer elevons of main wing: yaw: no; roll: yes; pitch: no - rudder elevon: yaw: yes; roll: no; pitch: no Action Group: #1: toggle intake Further instructions: put the CoL slightly behind the CoM (can be relatively far behind it, but does not have to). Rear landing gears should be only slightly behind the CoM Flying instructions: You will probably end up with an initial TWR slightly below 1, so: Take-off, level at 200m altitude or below until you reach at least 250m/s, then slowly pitch up to a degree where you can still slowly gain speed whilst climbing. Do so until 10,000ms, level off. Gain speed until >800m/s, pull up to around 10 degrees. If parts start to overheat, pull up a bit and try to climb more quickly. Stay in air breathing mode as long as you gain speed, only switch to closed cycle when you cannot accelerate anymore (target terminal air breathing speed: >1400 m/s). Use action group #1 to switch mode by closing the intake. Pull up to ~30 degrees until apoapsis hits 72kms (for safety margin). Set SAS to "prograde" to minimize drag. Circularize as usual (prograde burn via SAS can be helpful). checklist prior to deorbiting:open intake, manually switch mode for rapier to air breathing. Transfer any fuel and oxidiser to the tank in the front. You can already click the brake button to deploy the airbrakes. retract solar panels, if extended. de-orbit by aiming for a periapsis of ~10,000m around 30 degrees behindKSC. Land safely .

OK, something from my side once again: The uninspiringly named "Twin Turbo SSTO Planetoid Edition" did its second flight today. Complete album: Summary: - Roughly 26 Tons incl. payload - Payload for this mission: A science probe of 1.4tons, two ion thrusters, 9xxx m/s delta-V - Two turbojets - Two NERVAs - one Kerbal Mission profile: - this time (as suggested here) a relatively quick and steep climbout after runway, no real leveling, slight corrections at 10kms - parking orbit: 71x74 kms - orbital insertion burn of roughly 900m/s to the Mun - payload drop-off, the probe completed the orbit on its own - retroburn to 46.000m periapsis - three aerobraking circles at Kerbin: from 12.000kms to 900kms to 74kms apoapsis height. Turn three was the final re-entry. - no pilot precision award . My orbit was a bit inclined and the craft started to tumble on the wrong side of the planet. At least I was lucky enough to find a little Motu to land on after I regained control .

I didn't mean to patronize you . I just found that keeping the plane at sea level for ~30 seconds results in immense fuel savings (for my lame ducks at least) and a much quicker ascent afterwards, as the TWR receives a big boost due to ram effects. Will post a twin-turbo/twin nuke spaceplane later when I get home from work that does the trick and weight-wise plays in the same league as your bird .

That whole lab thing completely flew past me. So maybe I should put some of them back to orbit, Mun, Minmus now... Pre 1.0 they were a bit meaningless, as it was easier to just shoot a Kerbal to a body and back...

Congratulations to your premiere regarding SSTO spaceplanes (if I read your post correctly) and a nice concept for the airbrakes. Did you consider just leaving the turbojets out of the equation? You should be able to get the same cargo into orbit with much less fuel and weight (and costs ) with twin rapiers only. This will be a slightly less sporty plane and require you two level off twice during ascent: Just after runway to get the ram-effect going and then most practically at ~10-12kms to use maximum thrust to accelerate to >1100m/s. After that, climb as shallow as you can without killing any parts. It looks like your ascent profile was relatively steep anyway (800m/s at 22km/s is roughly 500m/s short of average speeds found in this thread). Looking forward to your next submission !

Btw: The DC-10 in your picture does not have a "larger" engine on top of the fuselage, but three CF6-6D / -50 powerplants rated at exactly the same net-thrust. The bigger cylindrical shape is for air intake reasons. For another interesting spin on Tri-Engine aircraft, take a look at the TriStar design which incorporated an S-Duct to feed air to engine #3.

Hello everyone, for quite a while I have been wondering how people manage to build nice and sleek (and quick) boats in KSP. My own attempts so far usually stall at around 5 m/s in the Great Kerbal Seas. Is there any guide or advice on how to make things float in KSP? Thanks!

Okay. I will look into it. Maybe this will see another challenger rising . Thanks for the heads-up!

Except for the missing T-Fuselage, this craft could have also been named KAe 146 . Nice one though, take a rep .

I have a basic 1.02 related question for this challenge... I have not gotten as far as to try out mining. So: Is refuelling through mining possible on Kerbin (=are there abundant ore deposits around)? That would open up some very interesting possibilities for the circumnavigation .

Then the parachute will do it anyways.

Ok, that made me think enough to stop work on my heavy entry. Here's the Lorry #19, waiting for your download. It follows my interpretation that a craft has to come to a full stop at the end of the runway. - At 15,445 kgs it's heavy. - Four wheels - Two Winglets - Single Parachute Command instructions: - stage boosters (S1) until fuel runs out - stage parachute (S0) - when at less than 5m/s, apply brakes for a full stop