Adelaar

I really don't have much of a clue what's the big issue here. True, the workings of the landing gears are in general worse than they were in 1.05, but much of the problems can be resolved by craft design, landing gear placement and proper alignment. The only landing gears that are giving me real issues are the smallest (fixed) landing gears, which can't even carry a feather around, let alone a plane of 10 tons. Some general tips: Make sure that the main landing gear sits lower than the nose landing gear, because when taking off, a negative pitch will put more pressure on the nose landing gear, causing it to wobble. Make sure that the braking power of the nose gear lies at around 30% of the main gears, this will help prevent spinning around due to the CoG being forward of the centre of brakingforce (if that is a thing). Uncheck steering on main landing gears if option is present. Make sure that the main landing gears are properly aligned, but a bit of toe-in is okay. a too high weight pressing down on landing gears, especially when they are attached to wings (which can now flex) will increase wobble, either strengthen the wing or reduce wheel load. Finally, properly determine the take-off and landing speeds, adjust lift on your main wings if your take-off speeds are high (I generally want to have my light aircraft take-off at 70-80 m/s, medium sized aircraft at 90-100 m/s and heavy craft (in excess of 100 tons) around 100 - 130 m/s... As a result, I have virtually no wheel wobble.

The lazy way is to install Kerbal Engineering Redux, with which you can check the TWR of your craft's stages (fully fueled and empty), on different bodies, from within the VAB/SPH. If you want to feel more like a rocketscientist, use the equations as mentioned by Empiro and Plusck.

You're absolutely correct. I've decided to build a test bed by placing a Rockomax brand adapter in a 0 degrees position (which should yield the highest possible drag), testing at 3000 m and 250 m/s, and then tested with 90 degrees position (which should yield the lowest possible drag), testing again at 3000 m and 250 m/s. Tests yielded the same drag (at 225.000 kN), but opening the cargo bay sharply increased drag (322.000 kN). So my previous comment regarding drag generation inside the cargo bay can be disregarded...

I'd be happy to get more than 2 on the L/D ratio, most of my spaceplanes do close to 1 L/D on ascent, and most of my conventional planes don't do much better. I don't have absurd designs, and work with angles of incidence on the wings to minimalize the AoA the craft has when flying. I did however notice that the way drag is calculated might not be realistic. It treats every object in the craft as solitary, even if they reside inside a fuselage. e.g., a reaction wheel (tiny) inside a fuselage (small) will generate significant drag. A better way to calculate drag is to use the surface area of the craft as a whole, not the aggregate of parts. The latter will have a significantly higher drag. Also, parts inside cargo bays STILL generate drag, which becomes most obvious when parts inside a cargo bay start overheating due to high speeds.

The one thing that was most difficult to do for me was trying to dock with a docking node for a space station which was spinning violently and didn't have any control of it's own. Of course I could've just quickloaded or fast forwarded to stop it spinning, but if Cooper could do that trick in Interstellar, why wouldn't I be able to? Didn't take me a minute like it did in Interstellar, but I did actually manage to dock (after 20 minutes...), which was my most hollow achievement of my life. Yay!

Using only stock parts or mods included?

That sounds awesome as f*! I would so want to see your plan come to life!

The way heat is managed now means that some skill is required when de-orbiting SSTO's. This means that you'll have to be careful when de-orbiting, and place your PE on a manageble altitude, instead of aiming for the runway and hope for the best. Other than piloting skills, heat issues can also be a design issue, if you cannot create a lot of drag whilst de-orbiting you may not be able to shave off enough speed before entering lower parts of the atmosphere. I usually try to keep the angle of attack of the craft at +10 degrees pitch from current heading, that way the wings and body help aerobraking. So to conclude, heat management systems would be neat, but would perhaps make de-orbiting too easy...

As promised, some pictures of the current space station build (work in progress):

Awesome! Thank you so very much! Is it possible to make this the "official" update for Aviation Lights? I've added these lights virtually to all my craft and replacing them with a new mod would mean starting a new career...

1. Yeah, I have a few on Curse, the S2 Athena (max return orbit 250 km), the S6 Axe (400km), both with capacity for four passengers. Also on Curse is the S8 Mastodont, capable of carrying 16 passengers into an 1000km orbit (with fuel for return), or able to put 25 tons of cargo into orbit. In line for uploading on Curse is the S7 Mammoth with 350 km orbit and 10 tons capacity. I do have to update all the craft to 1.1's wheels, which are causing me mayor headaches... The last of which I'm currently using to assemble a twenty part space station, attached to a C-class Asteroid. Pictures will follow.

I'm experiencing minor stutters as well, although I'm not able to find out why. My guess is mods that are somewhat incompatible and are causing this.