Edax

I wouldn't mind joint weakness so much if struts didn't add to the part count and reduce the framefrate. If the strut was based on a stage that was released, does the end point of the strut still count as a part and increase lag? What about decouplers? They leave traces behind on the ship after they get released, but do the leftovers still count as a part? I wholeheartedly agree about planetary exploration. Landing on Duna for the first time was a huge achievement for me, but all Valentina did was planet a flag and collect some dirt, she didn't even stick around for a sunset before I had her return to orbit. I've never bothered with any of the bases because it's just spacecraft and spacestation parts that you build a base with. Even if you can make the aesthetics work, you can't really do anything with it, it's less interesting then a doll house, cause at least in a doll house you can see the interior. There's two ways I can see planet colonization become more fun, we go with the Kuzzter / Minecraft approach, where the bases are built so that you can walk around in your own base without the helmet and man command chairs. The other option is to take advantage of the ISRU and ore system and make planet colonization like a first-person RTS/colony building sim, where you go out in an ore harvester, bring back the ore and use the material to build base parts and infrastructure, and have a well-developed colony provide some sort of advantage, like unique tech, a way to generate income, or a space-dock that allows you to build spaceships, or modify ones that land there. Now THATS a reason to motive people to launch rockets to other planets.

If you got the big drill, you'd be fine with 0.5% ore concentration, since time warp makes everything better. If you got the little drill, you'll need 2.5% or better, but your'll need multiple drills and an engineer if you want your tanks full within the kerbal year.

I guess I wasn't referring to what you wanted to accomplish. I was somewhat agreeing that towing an SSTO to LKO was somewhat redundant.

Yes, engineers make the extracting ore a MUCH faster process. Automated drilling platforms can take up to a year to fill up an ore tank.

The smart thing to do would be for a SSTO to carry a small non-SSTO spaceplane. A spaceplane stripped of all SSTO components means shedding all that excess weight that's useless in space and will give you excellent fuel efficiency, and you still retain the option of reentering and landing at KSC with just basic aircraft components.

Stayputnik is useful as a minimalist means of reversing the navball if your spaceship/spaceplane has both front facing and back facing engines. Visually, it appears to look like a radar doppler or monoprop tank and has a nice streamlined look, so it wont look as out of place as a hex-a-thingy.

I used this little thing, merely to test out the thermal limits of the shielding docking port in the new 1.0.5 atmosphere, so the minimalist design helped it go as fast as it could possibly go with a blunt "nosecone". The fact that it can SSTO is incidental, and has no real functionality apart from putting a Kerbal into orbit. I'm sure it could have been made smaller if the RAIPER engine didn't keep complaining about a lack of air intake, that I needed two whole parts to feed it. (maybe it's a bug?)

I spend today and yesterday redesigning and overhauling my ol' Everything-In-One Spaceplane Carrier/Mobile Refinery and turned it into a more dedicated ore freighter. I've more then doubled the original ore capacity, and added a modest increase of the liquid fuel capacity by 20%. Then I striped out the lab, removed the aerospikes and cut down on the oxidizer by half, and added 4 extra LV-N in their place, so that all engines can be used at all maneuvers. (The original model) Take-Off of the new Ore Freighter. I had to add 4 extra SRB to the original design, though I'm not sure if it was the result of the patch's changes to the atmosphere, or because of any added weight. The launch configuration just get's more and more complicated with time... Profile of the New Freighter

A K-Prize Ribbon set would be cool.

It would solve a lot of problem if cockpits had an inflatable slide to be used to exit and enter the spaceplane. -WHEE-

I agree, the release video for Kerbal Space Program, where Valentina and the gang were horrible killed because Sandwich Kermin choose not to put a parachute in the parachute really rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, I don't mind wacky antiques, ex: First Kerbal in space experience a decoupler failure because it was attached backwards, during reentry and get's rattled around and panics, First EVA spacewalk to test the spacesuit results in the Kerbal's spacesuit comically ballooning up and tries to reenter the spacecraft but gets stuck since he can no longer fit back into the hatch of his spacecraft, First docking of two spacecraft is immediately interrupted by a malfunctioning thruster that spins the spaceship hard and uses up all the monopropellent, the Kerbal pilot hits an emergency release that opens up a comparment full of barf bags. These are just just minor parodies of what actually happened during the space race, and when abridged and done with the Kerbals, it could genuinely be funny in my opinion.

Well, off I mine for treasure!

Embarked on my first mission to Jool. And learned a terrible flaw in my spaceplane carrier: the laborious 31 minute burn time out of Kerbin (I literally just started watching the movie Patton while KSP ran in the background). Turns out 4 LV-N take a LONG time to push a 230 ton mothership. I also learned that the carrier has far less delta-v then what I had calculated a long time ago, apparently having little more then 5000. Maybe filling the oxidizer tanks up was a mistake, since it's mostly dead weight. Hopefully entering Jool with 3000 delta v is enough for a landing on Pol to refuel.

Yes, my SSTO has a range of 5000 delta-v, shaving it a bit too thin for landing in my opinion (and if I don't land, I don't refuel), so I figure a stopover at Gilly will increase the safety margin (since I've never even attempted to go to Moho before) and hopefully provide a kerbal paycheck.

I am looking at a contract asking me to mine 1050 units of fresh ore from Gilly. I planned to send my mini-ISRU SSTO to Gilly to refuel for a later mission to Moho, but it's ore capacity is 150. Could I theoretically complete this contract? Bonus question: If so, will it still count the ore mined if I run the ISRU at the same time to immediately refine the fuel?

Well, I can definitely confirm the OP's assertions from my own experiment. Made my own test with this Thermal Test Prototype. Flying as level as I could manage with this simple craft, I achieved a top speed of 1576, with no heat warnings what so ever. To further test the heat resistance of the shielded docking port, I aimed for a steep descent. At 2000m/s at 22k attitude (right in the thick of the soup), I had no heat warnings triggered what so ever flying pro-grade. It appears shielded docking ports are great for reentry to provide more aerobraking options..

You can make an unpowered landing with a plane on Duna if you have plenty of lift, lightweight design, and you aim to land in the canyon where you have more atmosphere to work with.

I think the top speed depends more on engine power, don't you think? If you just attach another engine, even if it doubles your drag, you will still go faster and accelerate harder. You will burn more fuel though.

Sweet, another excuse to have moar engines!

Yeah! What were they thinking putting the fuel tank in the back? There's no way to pump the fuel forwards to keep the COM forward on reentry, bunch a noobs!

At high altitude, it's your reactions wheels that maintain most of your pitch control, not your control surfaces. Attaching more will help keep your plane pitched up during reentry, so you'll aerobrake better. A good place to stick them is just in front of the engines, since that's a free mk1 attach point. Just make sure you have enough batteries to keep them running for several minutes, or you'll lose most of your reentry control. Here's an ol' 6 crew shuttle I use, 100% Raiper free. I did change the canard with a AVR8 winglet because it was more stable.

Also, sticking docking ports on struts helps keep distance between the docked ship and the refueling station. Sometimes the shape of the plane just won't fit on a docking port attached directly to the body of the station. Plus, the extra distance means an accidental collision won't damage anything important, and your free to use the front and back ends of your station for modular expansion.

One of my limiting factor is aesthetics. Often I can easily solve a problem by adding a part, but if doing so greatly damages the spaceplane's appearance, I'll leave it out and find some other way to tackle the problem. Sometimes there is no other way, or it'll take me days to figure out a solution, leaving many of my designed abandoned for the next idea. I have so many non-SSTO prototypes just sitting in the save file gathering digital-dust. If it doesn't look cool, I'm not flying it!

Read an article about Flying Wing designs on the BBC website a few days ago and was fascinated by its history, so I decided to take an unstable prototype I designed to tow parasite spaceplanes into space and instead refine it to be airworthy and K-Prize capable. Needless to say, Flying Wings are tricky, and it took me several days to solve the engines melting off, the flexing, the flat-spinning, the pitching problem, the excessive maneuverability problem, the fuel flow problem and the structural stability. Thankfully my insistence on incorporating a high-thrust design negates any drag issues this SSTO no doubt suffers from. This is probably the widest plane I've yet designed in this game. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160201-the-wwii-flying-wing-decades-ahead-of-its-time

Just ignore the part about nose cones increasing drag.