Nich

Bah you blew my 27t monstrosity out of the water and for 1/2 the cost and 1/3 the parts......... Back to the drawing board lol - - - Updated - - - Oh I see I thought that was a visual mod z1k

That is a nice little Mun lander. Question those are fuel cell arrays correct? Do they contain fuel? I dont see where else it could be coming from.

Hhhmm... it is a tie between the LV909, docking port juniors, or struts once I have these Kerbins SOI is my oister. My least favorite are the lifting engines minus the Rhino

HAHA ya I was super disappointed in the science returns at the poles. Imagine how pissed I was when I found out the south pole and north pole are the same biome :/ I used flags for a while just turn them on in the tracking station. Also you can use flags for an ILS system. Place 3 flags due west (1 km 10 km 30 km) at 270 degrees exactly from the runway. Then just follow those in and you should be pretty well lined up. Spaceplanes are a lot of fun and dirt cheap but turbo jets and LOX engines just dont put enough payload in orbit to make it worth the time(30 minutes vs 5). Not to mention the 2 million kredits to upgrade the facility are a huge sink. Best you can hope for is crew transport so your experimental launches can go unmanned in case they fail and you dont lose any kerbals.

Meh radiators just need to go. why add obligatory parts on a game that is already part limited? I never had a problem with the old nukes. Amazing ISP, good thrust, weight and heat off set the advantages. What I hated was a week after a burn my batteries are still overheating but the nuke doesn't even show a temp bar. In my opinion they need to add a scaled up versions for 2.5 m and 3.5 m in stock. As you go up in size you would get more heat and slightly better ISP plus corresponding thrust.

BAH you screwed me lol I was just tweaking my design costing about 5k after recovery. Oh well it will still probably be a contender for light weight.

Ha Ha ok I will tell you what I will do. Because you made me laugh If you drop off your orange parking markers at a station I will count them as payload (seeing as gas stations can always use more tanks) And yes you can launch the craft and it should recover for the same value. If it crumbles and blows up you will have to subtract the launch cost - recovery (dont put any kerbals in it ) Also am I doing the LF calculation correctly I have 1100 LF = 8.8t or 17.6 points

Yes because of volumetric efficiencys of larger engines will always have better performance. You could make a small engine almost as efficient as large engines but then they would cost just as much or more then there larger counterpart. Tolerances are much easier to hit on large parts because a .0001% error on a rhino is 1 mm where as the same tolerance on a terrior is 1 nm. Also larger engines get more complexity (cost) that is just not worth it to put in small engines. From real life fan blades from the 787 cost 60k apiece vs a DC9 at 2k. The blade on the 787 is 7.5% more efficient but you could never justify that extra cost on an engine that puts out 1/10th the power. The DC9 blades while 1/4th the size would cost about the same to produce (55k) because the materials are cheap the manufacturing is what is expensive.

I think my pro SSTO build can do this but at the same time I want to design something new lol I will be trying this later

My current save is on day 46. About half way done planning my first Duna mission, nothing left to do in kerbins SOI so I suspect I will be warping ahead very soon here.

does the DPAI mod take care of the control from here/root part inconstancy? But yes I never put RCS on any of my craft as docking with main thrusters and momentum wheels is super easy. It probably did take 15 docks before something clicked in my mind. 1. Stop all velocity 20-30m from docking craft 2. Accerlerate directly towards the docking port (.1 m/s) 3. Pull the propragrade so it is perfectly centered (.2 m/s) 4. Stop looking at the nav ball as it only works if the docking port is lined up with the root part. 5. While floating in make sure you know which way is up/down/left/right in camera mode 6. Slam the 2 ports togeather and turn off SAS 7. Once perfectly vertical turn SAS back on to stop wobble. May take 2-3 applications of SAS toggling

I too went to the mun just this morning but I don't have an awsome vid Not going to lie it took 6 tries to land on the Mun but everything else was a 1 shot

Wow I just did an SSTO to the Mun and it was scary how similar it was to yours. Great vid btw and hell of an impressive landing.

I have finally finished my craft. It took 5 test flights but I feel it was worth every kredit. It was based off my SSTL for the Laythe competition with more control surfaces, power and lift to make it easier to fly. I had a payload set up but forgot to fill it up. It should fly fine with the payload full but might need a slight tweak. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0iPRE-stt2CVWxpNzdwcmJ0bDA/view?usp=sharing development cost 12,905 6 kerbals to Minimus (could go a lot further) 1156 LF delivered theoretical score of 19195 cost (-19.2) 6 kerbals to minimus (26.4) payload .15t (.66) LF delivered 1156 units (20.35) Total = 28.21 Flight path is super easy. Full throttle, engage SAS, and fly off the runway. At 200 m/s tip up to 8-10 degrees (if you go 8 you may have to back off the throttle if things get too hot) At 20km press space to turn on the nuke and switch SAS to follow propragrade When you stop accelerating press 1 to switch modes on the rappiers When AP hits 50 km press 3 to turn off rappiers (they should run out of fuel at this time anyways) Circularize 70x70 Move all fuel to middle tanks Burn to minimus Meet up with station 2 opens docking port and cargo bays I was able to dock with no RCS however I have provided forward/backwards ports for your convenience Depending on your skill I recommend 200-400 LF for the journey back Burn back to Kerbin with an AP of 50 km Move all fuel to furthest up middle tank At this point my screen shots are wrong always brake with nose up so you fall down in normal flying attitude (I was trying aero turning for more braking but heating is a major issue) It took me 3 passes above 45 km and the last pass at 45 km blew up the solar panels. (don't dip too low) Circularize below 100x100 Set PE to 40 km above KSP press 3 to turn on rappiers and 4 to turn off nuke I also overshot the runway I recommend aero braking until orbit intersects KSP then follow top of propagrade to KSP (lift will keep you on target while slowing down) Approach speed is 100 m/s Landing (stall) speed is 65 m/s - - - Updated - - - Good looking craft slashy. Those tier 7 ones are tough. What do you think the max LKO orbit it can achieve is? I would test it but I am super drunk. Friends dont let friends play no save no revert when drinking - - - Updated - - - Also how do you make a link not show the link but different text like Evantis did?

Thanks good to know but not necessarily true Others have stated for the Mine ore on Eve and deliver it to Guilly contracts that you can mine ore on Eve and then deliver different ore (I am assuming with a different ship) to guilly

Reaction wheels create torque by spinning faster and faster. After a while they will reach a speed where they will blow up. At this point the ship will be extremely stable in this plane due to gyroscopic forces. Now the other momentum wheel will spin up at a 90 degree offset. The ship will not rotate because of the gyroscopic forces from the first momentum wheel hold it stable. Now the first wheel can slow down because the second wheel is stabilizing the ship with its gyroscopic forces. The further the moment arm the two wheels have from each other the more efficient the process. A single momentum wheel with 3 dof can do this with its self however because the moment arms are 100-1000 times smaller it is 100-1000 times less efficient. I generally run VERY large ships (30-50 tons) on the smallest reaction wheels or command pods alone and probes use the .3Nm probe core until about 5 tons. The only exception are landers where control is a must for landing. Most of my problems occur when I have two equally sized reaction wheels (5 Nm) put very close together it will drain 2-3 E/S and if I turn off 1 it will only drain .3 E/S

I normally like to keep my alarms 30 minutes apart but even in Kerbins SOI it takes 9 days for a ship to get to Minimus. In that time I can reascue 15 kerbals and land on the mun 8 times and Build 10 stations. I normally have 10+ alarms set up. Do a burn, set an alarm switch to a different ship never go faster then 4 arrows. Quick saving and good designs are extra important since once you switch you can not revert. On my career I think I had all the Mun and Minimus biomes done by day 22ish. Although I am still face palming as I brought enough fuel to do 50+ landing on minimus but I cleared all the science in 5....

Ya there only worth it if you have like 3-4 of them on the same body. one polar satellite can net you like 500+ kerdits in a 7-8 days. I prefer the station building contracts I wish they had an upgrade a station contracts though

Hello my name is Nich, I am a KSPohlic lucky I have been able to avoid mods so far otherwise I know I would fall into a deep dark empty vacuum where no one can hear my screams

Buy it and sue amazon for damages

Yes clearly that is the time to accept the mission, pic or it didnt happen

Especially since multiple reaction wheels tend not to play well with stock SAS (face palm as they should be used in pairs) I always disable all reaction wheels other then the biggest one. Takes EC usage down 10 fold

GoSlash that is just disgusting lol. Ok time to try some truely persision landings Perhaps a challenge?

I would think because all command pods have mono prop. Even if you drain it your still paying for the tank space so might as well use it. Why people bring extra monoprop is beyond me

Does that work if you have 3 stations two of which do not fulfill the contract and a third that does? i.e. from station 1 and 2 it is grayed out and from station 3 it is green? I always thought all you need is a ship in your fleet to meet the requirements even if it is not the ship you are controlling.