Evanitis

Probably there is, but I never looked into the alternative tech-trees, as the only feature I wanted is the one you just described. And that's easily achieved by giving yourself enough starting science to unlock the required parts in the middle. If you want the ramjets instantly at the start, you'll need additional funds for the Sci-Center upgrade too.

Strange, I have the opposite problems: those pesky pilots always snatching a seat from the engineers and scientists who has actual use. Here's the mod to fix it. Though I never used it. I -want- the common problems to happen from time to time, these make missions fun..

I'm just nitpicking here, but semantics-wise if you only jettison the cone after you reach orbit, it's still an SSTO. Though it would invalidate a K-Prize entry, so I see why you hesitate. I always just used two jet engines radially attached to the rocket fuselage, so I never faced your design-difficulty. But I love the idea of a nuke facing other than backwards. It's inefficient, as you can't use that engine to reach orbit. Well, most likely. And there will be drag, unless you use the nose-cone way. But Kod gave the kerbals moar boosters to cope with inefficiency and drag, so I wouldn't rule out any option because of these... and the silly looks. I'm somehow tempted to test how would a spaceplane fly that has a nuke diagonally slapped to the CoM. We could call it a chimney if anyone asks..

Did my first (just a tiny bit irregular) space-shuttle mission. A 42t fuel pod delivered to a circular orbit beyond Minmus and back home. Let's hope the STS Challenge comitee finds both the craft and the landing acceptable. Both were pretty much borderline cases.

You must have some legendary patience. :-]

Here's my attempt for a Flight Director mission. I hope the craft I made qualifies for being a shuttle, and that my 'landing' also qualifies as a landing. I had to realize that I forgot to add gears, so I had to improvise. The kerbals and the payload are definately intact. I'm willing to redo the task if you deem my landing too hairy. I also tried to screen an orbit with AP-PE being in the 100m range... but I got the wobbly physics bug, and on 50 million kilometers it means a fluctuation of like ~500.000 m. But I swears, there were seconds when I fulfilled the requirement a dozen times.

I'm yet to get a 'chute mission, but I totally intend to do them without the mod. You know, kerbals are surprisingly resistant to impact, especially if you activate RCS and turn them upside down. I really hope the contract won't actually check for actual 'chute parts to be present.

Thanks, I actually did. Very nice solution. It's a lot harder to spot and understand the mechanic than on that stock helicopter I saw.

That's awesome... but how? I can't recognize the part you used for hinges. Or... I kinda' see now. But sill don't understand.

Can't deny that. Even my phone is relic of better ages. I sometimes -call- people with it who has no better things to do to google things for me. My only calculator is a Microsoft software. Though I barely found it inconvenient to detach stages and empty some tanks to get drymass readouts. I do it too much when making SSTO planes, but I don't find it bothersome enough to get RCS build aid. Math is cool and amazing.

Not that I know of. Maybe Sol-0 looks the closest to what you are asking for. But I hear it's a bit unpolished at the moment. I'll wait while they work on it. Planetbase is more refined and looks nice, though players tend to complain about a lack of actual goals after a while. If I wanted to do 100% management and 0% actual flight, I'd dig into the kOS mod. Though I guess the actual running of the space program would be overshadowed by the process of getting my crafts do what I want to. But probably you could find scrips that can do whole missions without you touching a key.

Dunno. It shows a preview without clipping, but you can see how it looks at your posts anyways. I'd guess people are just lazy to fix. After the forum-change, my sig got clipped too. I didn't mind it for a long time before I got around to fix it. Getting myslef to fix the blurred avatar took even more.

"We don't launch stuff from planes and do the other things because it's easy, but because we are very stupid." Had my fist attempt yesterday. Though I wanted to do it STS style, so the carrier plane's main fuselage carries rocket fuel and engines, and only ditches the turboramjets and the wings. The shuttle carries Inigma's 42t standard STS fuel pod as payload (it's LF/O is locked of course). I managed to reach orbit on the first try (well, actually on the first try when I managed to lift off). Though when I detached the useless jet parts, the shuttle wings broke off too, so I had to abort the mission. Also I had some strange engine-damage: the 6 vectors didn't stop burning when I cut the throttle, so the craft went for a highly elliptical and eccentric orbit. Yes, a standard SSTO plane would have been easier. Hell, I felt it would have worked if I just didn't stage anything. But it looks cooler this way. We'll have a quick rescue mission today, and off to perfect the design.

My new cargo-spaceplane-shuttle-alternative went to space after surprisingly few attempts. Sadly it decoupled a few more wings than what we initially planned. But it feels it's only a few separatrons away from perfection.

I'd hate to alt-tab to access my only calculator. But I believe I could write a kOS script for that. Ohh, wait...

I feel with you. In the meanwhile: random mission from a random player - land a plane on Duna. Bonus rep if it can take off and go home after that. Extra science if kerballed.

Oooow, math looks so neat... but also intimidating. Some mortals would just build a 23.5t dummy-payload to check a DV readout with it. Though I'm interested if there's such an equation for determining how many parachutes I'll need for a few hundred tonnes one. *searches* Hey there is! Wonder if it's accurate these days.

OMG, that's exceptionally beautiful... That canard! Much sleek. It shouts balance.

Silly me... That was an eye opener. As a spaceplane enthusiasts, most aircrafts I saw were well.. spaceplanes. Canard was always a natural choice. Now it feels so OP delightful to fly tail controlled atmospheric crafts.

Just my wild, layman guess here is that if a mod breaks career mode, it will break the sandbox + missions variant too, as the main difference between the two is... well, the missions. Are you sure the authors of the mods in question didn't find a workaround? What mods are these by the way?

Dun-dun-dun. Make way for the glorious Inigma Kerman as he observes his hirelings from his Seat of Power. No other kerbal has ever observed the surface of Kerbin from such height before (by that time anyways).

Dang. I always wanted to do something like this since I saw this picture: It actually got me back to KSP after some hiatus. Of course that was before I watched a lot of space exploration documentaries, so I didn't know it's not an actual way to launch the Shuttle. Though not much later I discovered what are SSTO spaceplanes, and forgot everything else while I built a few. Now it's time to do a plane-launch! Though I guess I won't be bothered by grabbing the mod for the extra hassle of landing the host craft. I tend to not lower the funds income slider enough, so I always find myself sitting on piles of cash to burn for silly projects. Like that one.

Umm... why don't you just set all positive looking sliders to the max, while lowering all that has the word 'penalty' in it in a new career? You could unlock the whole tech-tree before even leaving Kerbin... ok, maybe not that soon, but definately on the first Mun landing. Or you could just open a save file with a text-editor and give yourself 10.000 science or so.

^ Note: I include 'having a better computer than mine' into that. And since I play on a potatoe, you are -all- cheaters!

Makes me wonder if the term 'politics' apply in a case when there aren't multiple parties or candidates. Where's the 'poly' in that? (i refuse to believe that the word comes from the greek term for 'city' instead of 'multiple bloodsucking insctes')