ForScience6686

I think they were much needed for early career, now survey contracts on kerbin are much more doable. Granted your flight time will be long. But I do like this addition, just need to keep your drag low.

Nope, my first two rescues are engineers. Sorry about the luck.

I believe the notes state crew occupied components max temp reduced. There are living creatures in there after all. Gotta use that upper atmosphere as much as you can. And since we are talking space planes, use lift to reduce your vertical speed.

I use the small lf tanks, that way I can shed dead weight faster than with mk3 parts. I've found using one small radiator per engine to be effective, but I also attach engines to tanks for more heat absorption. Other than that, make sure it's built for the mission. A craft I sent to duna I accidentally put the non retractable panels on, but also designed for aero breaking, so I'll end up losing those and may need to pop my fairing early to access the panels on the payload.

Use the rocket equation to determine fuel needed. The way I do this is to take the payload and attach the engines I will use on the tug to give me the dry mass. Them use the following equation dv=(ISP*9.81)*ln(1.125x+ dry mass/.125x+dry mass). Dv will be the amount required for your travels, then solve for x. This accounts roughly for tank mass as well as fuel. I use that as an estimate, and design with drop tanks to improve the numbers.

Time for an upgrade. Or wait until the 1.1 update. Just saw another post where they disabled ground effect smoke, but that was only for lag issues off the pad. Don't think it would help once reaching orbit.

I sent multiple crafts instead of one large ship. Better performance and I get plenty of practice with interplanetary travel. My eve explorer was over 300 parts in orbit and a pain to use, especially with long burn times.

I have the same concerns on my duna trip. I decided to go with multiple crafts and only one being manned. This way I can test landing with the unmanned craft to get a hang of it for the manned craft. If I mess it up I've sent a rover to ferry the crew. Anything that might need exact placement can then be moved on ground with small hops or wheels.

Use a fairing to block. With the setup you have, air must fill the void behind your ablators as you move through the atmosphere causing a lot of drag.

I was losing panels and rcs, so I would climb as fast as possible above 13km before really going for speed. My ssto tend to use nukes, so I need as much vertical speed as possible before nukes to compensate for the low twr.

Correct, you need the thinnest atmosphere to slow you down before the thick stuff. It's just air but when moving that fast there is a lot of friction generated on moving the air around the ship.

One thing I found that my help is putting more force in when you dock. I built a fuel truck that docked to the plane from above with a boom, and had to slap the ports together to get or to work.

You want to bleed off speed in the upper atmosphere. The lower you go, the thicker the atmosphere, the faster the heating.

Srb are cheap and made to be disposable, so stick with those to get through the thick atmosphere. Poodle is a good engine choice, and you are correct in the larger legs. But if you are using a tiny lander you'll be better off with the 909 I think. Less weight, and you don't need the power of the poodle. I use it more for a transfer stage. Always build as light as possible.

Well you can activate navigation on those spots. No probe needed, that was more for when I set up mining where I had to continuously land in the same spot.

I find it best to land a small probe that can be targeted. Then with the nav ball in surface mode, adjust prograde marker to slightly below target. That will indicate you're ship will over shoot the target. Adjust as you get closer. I can routinely bring it down within 100m. Atmospheric landings are much harder if you don't have a plane.

I gauge my burn based on velocity on regards to target. It is much easier if you rendezvous at the ap as both craft will be at there slowest velocity.

I would like to see buttons near the burn dv bar that allow finer control. However my thoughts are the node tool is just to help plan missions. I often close the node before I've even reached my target velocity as it doesn't seem very precise on long burn times.

I enjoy the challenge they present. It's also a nice feeling to glide out back to the runway from orbit. My duna mission is primarily all rockets, except for my last craft which is a space plane that will bring everyone home. And just because it's a space plane does not mean it has to be an ssto. I used boosters on mine for accelerating above mach 1 and again to boost the low twr of the nukes. There's endless opportunities by having both aspects to the game.

Has anyone done testing of the drag for the shielded port in comparison to nose cones?

I choose individual ships to start. That way you get plenty of practice setting up interplanetary burns, your computer isn't lagging with the high part count.

Well it did work. However I think it was more of slamming the docking ports together that got the connection. You can still see misalignment at the connection to the plane but it is connected. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=539256553

I'll try out the docking ports. I believe I have enough room when the boom is elevated. I'll post the results soon.

Do you mean stack the cubic then the port? One other thing, I haven't used the wheels before, they seem horrible. No option for locking suspension and the brakes are so weak.

So here is my design so far, redesigned as a fuel truck. I am having trouble getting it to actually dock though. Must the alignment be perfect? If so I'm not sure how to get more precise, maybe leave the boom straight and elevate it slightly. Any ideas? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=538974873