March Unto Torment

Hey everyone, Got a small problem here - if anyone could help, it'd be greatly appreciated! So, I'm trying to build a heavyweight SSTO to get large volumes of cargo to orbit. It's loosely based off the Valkyrie shuttle from Avatar - a large, thickly-swept flying-delta design. I've taken up the Mk. IV spaceplane parts mod and B9 Procedural Wings to assemble it, and its engines are four 2.5m RAPIER-style engines. The whole thing, fully-fuelled, weighs in at about 368 tonnes, give or take. However, it just refuses to get off the ground, no matter what I do. Thrust demonstrably isn't the problem - the thing hits over 160m/s before the end of the runway - but after the end of the runway, it slowly descends and can't gain altitude fast enough. I added some VTOL engines from the same mod underneath, but that made practically no difference. Thoughts - 1. It's a delta flying wing - is my centre of lift too far back? 2. I'm using B9 Procedural Wings, which was built for 1.0.2 - has the aerodynamic model changes significantly since then? (That said, the wings work fine for most other things.) If anyone would like, I can throw up a craft file. Otherwise, I'd really appreciate anyone with solutions for how to get this abomination airborne - I'm really fond of its design, and I'd love to see it fly! EDIT: Okay, so the answers were, for posterity - 1. Move CoM and CoL closer together. 2. Make sure landing gear are right behind CoM. 3. MOAR THRUST. 4. Switch modes when you're about to run out of air, not when you've got none.

Hardest thing I've ever done? Well, a few spring to mind. Probably the single most exhilarating mission I've ever done was getting a massive (~80-tonne) station core into orbit; I mistimed my orbit burn and ended up having to burn to orbit with my periapsis dangerously low. The thing wound up doing about 2,000m/s and 41,000 metres, and was on the verge of exploding when I finally pulled it out of the atmosphere. 'Frustrating' has always been landing on the dark side of the moon. That's annoying as hell. My present great challenge is getting a 400-tonne SSTO off the ground. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but it's annoying the hell out of me. It's clearly got the TWR - I'm doing over 160m/s before the end of the runway, for chrissakes - and it's got a wide delta lifting-body design (vaguely similar in structure to the Valkyrie shuttle from Avatar).

Current record is somewhere around 10 tonnes? I'm not very good with spaceplanes, though. I'm presently in the process of designing something that should be good for, at minimum, 50 tonnes to LKO, if not well more. That said, I've got some major aerodynamic issues at low altitude, so I've yet to actually get it up there. Still trying to troubleshoot it. I think it needs more power...

Well, see above. Does 4,000,000 units of Hydrogen fuel and 100,000 units of LFO sound like enough usage? EDIT: And yeah, it's practical. For starters, it allows me to get several hundred tonne interplanetary ships to orbit unfuelled, then fuel them up and send them on their merry way.

The joys of Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, my friend. That said, it's ripe for a Kraken attack right about now. I don't expect it to last.

This beast is probably my favourite thus far. 1,000 tonnes, give or take. It's got about 100,000 units of LFO and about four million units of LH2 (courtesy of Near Future Tech). Room for ~100 Kerbals, although I usually only have around forty on there at any given time. It has extensive science facilities, as well as refuelling functions. It's even got a nuclear reactor in case the solar panels glitch, as they're prone to do. FPS is abysmal, but once I move this save across to my desktop, it should improve. No idea what part count is, but I'd expect somewhere around the 500 mark at minimum. For those wondering how I built it, I created that core truss you see in the middle there first, then attached the two fuel modules, then the large external solar arrays. From there, I've mounted a science module, two habitation modules and what I call the 'Orbital Party Bus', which has passenger capacity for 25 Kerbals and about 3,000m/s of dV - more than enough for any orbital manoeuvring I might have to do. I'm currently putting together an Xenon refuelling unit which includes ore storage and processing, and an Argon/RCS refuelling block. After that, she'll be about done. It's a thing of beauty, and easily my crowning achievement in KSP thus far. A lot of work went into putting this thing together, even though it's not immensely useful. Someday, I'll move it to Jool or something (there are docking ports at each longitudinal end, allowing for even thrust were I to attach a thruster module) and use it as basically an orbital colony. Not yet, though.

So, I'm having the same problem a couple of other people have reported about placing wings and then being unable to change their shape or remove them. Here's my output log: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0IvQ0TbDcGORGFYTFNSZ3Fla0k Any clue as to what went wrong? I really love this mod (the stock wings are frankly feeble when trying to build heavy aircraft), so I'd really like to be able to use this mod! If you need any more help, just ask

Man, Nertea, I didn't realise this was your work too! I don't think I have a single mod that's not by you. Your work is amazing! Any chance of getting that high-speed cockpit soon? It's the only thing left that'd be needed to make this mod truly amazing! (Also, would you ever consider getting some interoperability between this and your Near Future mods - eg, Mk. IV hydrogen tanks?)

When you're sitting in a Physics exam working on gravitational equations and you find yourself visualising the questions as though in KSP to figure out how they'd look.

Rejoice, friend! You have been graced by the Kraken! In seriousness, this happens and there's not much to do about it. Often, you get GameState errors caused by issues with loading crafts into the so-called 'rendered worldspace', often caused by the game not properly saving the craft when it was un-rendered. There's not much to do, sadly, aside from hoping it doesn't happen again. If it becomes too regular, try reinstalling the game.

This is actually really cool! I really like the look of Kidonia - it's way more aesthetically pleasing than most ships. Can't wait to see more!

Largest thing I've ever actually used was this: http://s1194.photobucket.com/user/Zero_Reaper_00/media/screenshot0.png.html Around 4,900 tonnes on the launchpad, 700t to LKO and 350t to Geostationary Kerbin Orbit. It's carrying the main liquid hydrogen fuel block for my refuelling station, from Nertea's Near Future Tech. It allows me to launch massive magnetoplasmadynamic-engined interplanetary ships with empty tanks, then fuel them in GKO before sending them to other bodies. Surprisingly, the rocket mostly works great. Its bottom stage is x7 5m engines (many thanks to SpaceY), which boosts it to 100km. Second stage is x1 5m and x4 3.75m engines, which serves to circularise orbit. Third stage is x1 3.75m engine and x6 2.5m engines which I use to boost the payload to GKO. The third's intentionally got a little fuel left over with which to deorbit itself after it's done. One problem during the initial launch of the Station Core (a slightly lighter payload) was that the original second stage was underpowered, which led to a low TWR. This meant that the circularisation burn took much longer than expected - and resulted in atmospheric re-entry during the circularisation burn. It dropped as low as 41,000m, where I managed to move the Periapsis to. After that, it managed to emerge from the atmosphere and I circularised, then pushed through to GKO. Still, it was definitely the most dramatic orbit I've ever attempted! I've altered the original third-stage engines to Mammoths to boost TWR, and we're in much better shape now. The thing works great; I just need to finish docking the hydrogen block, and then I'll lift the LFO refuelling block to dock to the station as well, using this same rocket. It's a great and reliable all-purpose lifter.

Has anyone reached out to Squad for comment about this?

This is a joke, right?

The entire aerodynamic system got overhauled; it now bears more in common with Faraam Aerospace than with the original KSP aerodynamics system. I'd advise seriously reworking your designs. As a rule, anything built to fly before 1.0 won't fly now.

Hello everyone, I'm sure that this is an incredibly stupid question, but I can't figure it out for the life of me. How do I figure out how to align orbits for docking? I can match up my orbits perfectly, but every time I do, I end up with my two docking crafts on opposite sides of Kerbin. Is there some trick to knowing exactly when to launch, as so that you can dock? Any help would be much appreciated! Best regards, - March Unto Torment