Nich

The reason you exploded was your SSTO has too much engine back off the throttle, remove some thrust or add to your payload. Also I may have forgot to mention SLOWLY pitch down. I start at 10 km but do not hit 8 degrees until 16 km. My design simply didn't have the power to break the sound barrier at 10 km. I also didnt want to climb to 10 drop to 9 to break the sound barrier then accelerate and try to pitch up without breaking my SSTO. What do people use to record their flights? I would love to find another 6%

Ya I am pretty sure you would need some sort of warp drive to make it to Eeloo in 2 days, Not even a mamoth with infinite fuel could do that

This just doesn't have any challenge to it and it feels like just another contract that doesn't pay any Kredits. Most people would meet these requirements with little effort. for example; The challenge is to build a sustainable colony in space. You get 1 point for every Kerbal (each kerbal requires 5e/s and 500e storage capacity) all living quarters must have artificial gravity (9.82 m/s*s) and no Kerbels are allowed to live in command modules. You are limited to 5 launches You lose 1 point for every 100,000 Kredits spent If your Colony requires monoprop for starting stopping artificial gravity for docking purposes you need enough spare for 200 docks Orbit is required to be 'low Kerbol' If you manage a positive score you can apply this TBD badge to you signature.

this is obviously ripe for abuse. I SCI lab only need 1 solar panel and maybe 500 charge. Start research and switch to another ship. I as a rule of thumb force my self to put enough solar panels and batteries that it can run continously

It is a matter of opinion. Personally I think any Biome Map is cheating. However if I was going to use biome maps i would just use the biome map in the debug. Then again the whole idea of Biomes is kind of dumb too. Why is this lowlands exactly the same as the lowlands on the other side of the planet so I get no science. Why is the north pole the same as the south pole? Once you get ground scanners you can seen what biome you are over and map the planets biomes your self which feels more like you are exploring. - - - Updated - - - Learned my computer is a POS. Scaled up my SSTO for the number of Kerbals in space challenge. Sat 324 weighted in at 1,024t and had 279 parts. Took 7 minutes to get to the end of the runway and by then I was too board to deal with what looked like a 45 minute slide show to orbit

Only thing I have notice is it only counts scientist in the MPL rather then on the station or base. This limits you to 2 scientist. They did however booster the science per pay per scientist. break even point is about 5 scientist. if you have 50 on a station will will get a lot less if you had 2 you will get a lot more.

Beautiful concord

at that point you might as well just fly around rather then use a rover.

Beautiful craft what is the assent profile? Your AOA in the pic is enourmous seems like a lot of drag and your cosine losses at 30 degrees would be 13.4%. If you don't mind sharing the craft file I think it would beat mine fairly easily.

No I get the same thing if I point a station towards the sun and come back 3 days later there is no telling which way the solar panels will be orientated. The Kerbal year is 425 days or something so the sun should have only rotated 1 degree.

Go as fast as you can. start your gravity turn the second you launch. Depending on TWR you want to get it to 1 degree (low TWR) or 20 degrees (high TWR) within the first 5 seconds. It takes a little practice to know. Then take your hands off the controls (assuming you built a stable COM COL COT rocket) Just about everything I launch has SAS off until upper atm. And yes I can not build a stable plane all my planes require SAS and if you go outside 20 AOA it is over.

I am going to have to disagree I managed 57t payload with a 128t starting weight by going level past 350ish pull up to 15 degrees until 10 km. go down to 8 degrees (this should get you 1350m/s before engines flame out) burn LF/OX at a 5-8 degree angle of attack until AP reaches 75km. I only used 4 rapes and 2 whiplashes. giving 21.33t per engine. Lift is based off V^2 just like drag so wasting energy to pop out of the ATM doesn't really help you as your SSTO creates more lift then drag but turning 15-20 degrees at large AOAs will eat up a lot of your speed and you are now burning against gravity again. The hardest part was not snapping the MK3 cargobays in half when going from 15 to 8 degrees at 1000m/s+

Ya no point of landing an MPL on the Mun unless it is for a contract. build a separate lander and leave the MPL and refuel in orbit. It will hit 500 data with 1 trip to the surface.

I have done the calculations for a space elevator on earth and the main cable only weights 10 million lbs if made out of carbon fiber 127,000 lbs if made out of carbon nano tubes. I will have to see if I still have the matlab code I can plug in the numbers for Kerbin.

So after about 30 attempts i have come to the conclusion you can not land a shuttle on the runway with wsad :/ Has anyone else managed to do this?

SSTO V8 57.63 if the link doesn't work let me know https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0iPRE-stt2CbGFlOUtoQ1ExanM/view?usp=sharing

YA improved with an MK3 design "SSTO V8 57.63" Decoupler was attached to the payload. I have no idea how to get it to flip when working inside a cargo bay so need to subtract .025 from the payload Flight path is as follows. Brake and full throttle engines until a whiplash gets 95 kn+. At the end of the runway don't pull up too hard or the back end will hit the grass. Not splashing in the water takes a large AOA 15 degrees at least DONT HIT THE WATER lol. Accelerate level till 400 and move LF forward to center the COM (you can tell by how much up force is on the tail fins). Tip up to 15 degrees until 10 km and then follow propagrade. Things will get hot and can explode don't be afraid to back off the throttle if it is over 1100m/s below 10 km. Air breathers die at about 22-23 km and 1350ish m/s Switch to LF OX the moment your not accelerating. This thing is a tank do lose to much upward momentum by waiting until it is too late. 57.605/129.86 44.36% and all i have to do is add airbrakes and possibly a parachute (i didn't for the purpose of the challenge) My first successful try made it with 100 LF and 67 OX left but I screwed up the screen shots :/ How do you upload a craft file?

It is extremely bendy. It is not too bad to fly just tap the s key about 50 times and it will pitch up a degree. I also ran a strut from the first ore tank to the first mk2 adaptor tank that helped stiffen it up. If I had a joystick it would be even easier, bendy and full deflection controls surfaces do not play nicely together

I am very proud of this one it is based off a 2 man exchange orbital refuel SSTO. Not sure how to add an imgur album or a craft file 40.34% but I am sure someone could fly it better and get more. I skimmed the water till about 400. Pulled up to 15 degrees until 10 km slowly level out to 8 degrees until AP reaches 71km, circularize.

That and I think porting from PC to console is a lot easier. It forces you to think "ok how am i going to simply everything so that it works on console with limited buttons and processing power" The problem is going from console to PC is done with no thought too often they just move this button to this key, menus work with arrow keys, and a mouse? no one on a PC uses a mouse so we don't need to support that in menus only used for targeting.

If you have to force the rocket over after 10k that means you are going to fast at 10k. What is your TWR? However going slower at 10k will increase your gravity losses, lowing thrust at 45 will increase your gravity losses. Your best bet for improving the efficiency might be to increase payload weight. or switch 2 or your engines to rhinos and tanks and stage off the mammoths before the rhinos since they will run out of fuel first. Can you change the thrust limiter on 2 engines at once? You could always just toggle the rhinos on/off to maintain the speed you want. Also having the 2 rhinos at the end should greatly increase your dv of the craft as they will be more efficient after 15ish km. you might use more dV but you will have more for the same mass. Also I do hate how concerned ppl are with dV efficiency's. Payload fraction is a much better measure i.e. you can get to LKO for only 2900 dV but you only have a 1% payload fraction or you can get to LKO using 4700 dV and have a 22% payload fraction.

I would like a cross between the old method and new method. reduce the conversion rate from 5-1 to 2-1 (i.e. 1 science for every 2 data) Make it much faster 10x or even 100x make it consume 5 elect/sec per scientist does not consume the experiments can use experiments even if no value left on there return Keep SOI bonus triple landed bonus or give triple processing rate (dealing with a landed MPL is not worth the effort I have found) Move it to hitchiker tech node or lower. as it is now it is like giving someone a Kredit printing machine after they have upgraded all of KSC They way I see a hard game play now You need the science at KSC to get to suborbital You need the funds from suborbital to get a new launch pad You need the science from Kerbin to get orbital You need funds from orbital to get EVAs You need EVA around Kerbin to get temp and pressure probes You need Temp and pressure around kerbin for tech to fly by the Mun You need flyby the Mun unlock tech to land on the Mun/Minimus YOU HAVE FINALLY UNLOCKED MPL You need Mun/Minimus to fund tracking/flight planning/Soil samples/fuel transfer/245 parts With tracking/flight planning/Soil samples/fuel transfer/255 parts you can reach Duna with Mun landing tech but while doing all this we have already unlocked enough tech for just about anything.

I am a bit confused on your math. Doesn't ore convert at 2/1 to LF (assuming your using nukes) giving you 481.6t of LF so 800*9.82*ln(56.2/537.8) = 174 km/s

WHAT???? ok I have to try putting a satellite in orbit on rcs alone.

I have to disagree here it doesn't mater how fast you can launch it takes 2 days to fully explore the Mun. 4 if you want every landing to be on the Sunny side. Add in the 5 day return flight and your looking at under 30 science. Minimus is even worse After a 9 day journey I think I manged to explore all of minimus in less then a day (5 biomes the first landing) Three soil samples filled the MPL