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I play with no reloads, no reverts, no respawns etc... sometimes its fun. Sometimes it is frustrating as all heck. Deffo give it a go though, makes the LES actually useful... though only if you add a mod that causes part failures.

There have been a few designs that do similar things to this. There was a cold-war bomber proposal along these lines... also you could argue that air-launched vehicles do kind of at this way. Though more importantly, this is KSP, who gives a monkey's what aircraft irl do? There's a few parts in the pack I like... especially the Mk2 nose, but I just didn't get on with the pack for some reason. Plenty of parts I didn't like but I just felt they looked different from the stock Mk2 somehow.

this would actually make the part so much more useful! Shame its unlocked so late in career mode though

I thought I was the only one! I much prefer playing this way Yeah, I was about to tell you this but seems you beat me to it too slow once again!

I've only ever used drop tanks on shuttle-like designs. Though I do have a really nice TSTO space plane (runway launch) that drops its jet engines - not drop tanks I know. Not overly efficient cost wise either but it is cool as all heck.

I'm pretty sure this is to be expected... how would it make sense if they had the same or less drag? The spaceplane parts are wider and flatter/squarer so ofc they have more drag with a higher angle of attack. But they also generate lift that basically negates this being an issue. Aerospikes are fine. They shouldn't be a perfect engine which is what you seem to be requesting. Same goes for Skippers and Rapiers. You aren't really describing balance issues, you're just making them better than they currently are, which ofc will make other designs and engines redundant. As it stands, we have a reason to use something else to boost aerospike vehicles to orbit, a reason to strap SRBs to a skipper mainstage and a reason to still use conventional engines once rapiers are unlocked. Some of the other stuff though seems agreeable, especially if you factor in cost if you play career mode. The MH parts made optimising designs really bizarre and in general not overly cost effective compared to 1.25m or 2.5m pre-mh rockets.

That is true, but I believe you are misapplying it to the situation being addressed. If I am in HKO, somewhere around 10 000 000m, I will have a substantially lower orbital velocity, or in OP's language I'll be going *slower* - not "faster", than if I was in the 80 000m orbit he suggested, which is doing somewhere around 2200m/s I guess. However, in terms of how much "easier" it is for either one of us to reach the target at 12 000 000m, something that we can only measure in dV, it is pretty clear that I, from my 10 000 000m orbit, have an easier task than OP at his/her orbit. This is because, whilst the Oberth's comment is obviously true, "going faster" or higher orbital velocity is not how we measure the ease of a task - difference in velocity is. My difference in velocity to the target is much lower at HKO than it would be at LKO and hence I have the easier task despite going slower. What Oberth is addressing is, of course, the benefit of burning prograde at PE for efficiency and vice versa - or analogously, lengthening the mechanical lever in order to increase "mechanical energy"/decrease mechanical effort. I believe, by extension of analogy, what I am talking about is moving the position of the fulcrum closer to the object being moved (vessel closer to target), also decreasing mechanical effort required, but by a larger amount in this example. I think we probably have some confusion about what "faster" actually means too, especially when thinking about what our frame of reference is. For example, accelerating (burning prograde) should increase orbital velocity correct? Yet accelerating prograde twice, at pe then ap, results in a lower orbital velocity (going slower by OPs logic) despite being in a more energetic orbit with a lower difference in velocity between myself and higher circular orbits.

His original comment didn't make any mention of getting to the launch altitude - that it was why it was wrong. He simply stated 80k to mun is "easier because you are going faster" than a higher orbit. See above. Also original altitude given by me was just an example - by his logic it is easier to get to the mun from 80k than 800k. That isn't what I said and nor is it what the original comment was saying.

What? Are you suggesting that the higher velocity at LKO makes reaching the Mun cheaper that starting at, say, an altitude of 150k? That seems to be the only way to understand your sentence and it is fundamentally wrong. it takes less dV to reach the Mun from 150K than it does from 80K.

That's nice... not really relevant thought seeing as we don't have to worry about "station keeping" in KSP. Nor do we have the ability to implement automatic orbital period synchronisation in a given constellation... so that thousandth of a second sure does come in useful after a few decades of time warp.

Well seeing as there's been a bit of thread necromancy here... can somebody make this a mod so it plays when we launch KSP please? aha Also the 8-bit version that is in the recommended videos after this one

Hardcore mode is launch a satellite constellation where all orbital peridods, according to KER, match EXACTLY. So within 1000th of a second

I plan my launches so that all stages (except the payload obviously) are sub-orbital or outside of Kerbal's SOI... even then, stages going to another planet can be on a collision trajectory if that stage doesn't have enough dV to circularise or whatever I'm doing. I don't like debris floating about, but I don't delete it for realism's sake.

If you do find anything, let me know and I'll do the same for you I vaguely remember Ryzen being touted as twice the single threaded performance? Sounds a lot but considering the time gap it was about where they should have been...

Do you use mods? Are you playing career? There's a series of mods that alter contracts, particularly the way bases and stations are managed. You get contracts like crew rotations, add/repair a specific module/component, evacuate crew/ill crew member. Pretty cool for RP. Other than that, space stations aren't actually all that useful... even as refuelling stations as its often a lot less effort to launch supply tankers directly to craft rather than an equal number of tankers to a station and then dock with that

I'm running an A10 - 7870K and I try not to have part counts that high... but yeah, It would be laggy af for me too at 200 parts. Though in fairness, I've noticed that some designs do end up with the counter going yellow even though they have less parts than some that remain consistently green (all during launch). Edit: by laggy "af" I do ofc mean by the standards I consider acceptable, which apparently are higher than the other commenter I'm really interested to see how well the Ryzen APU's perform, particularly the 2400g. Anyone using one???

Yes, but it isn't being moused over in the screenshot. That how it appears permanently.

Well I have a craft that is capable of taking 3 Kerbals to the space station at 200KM (and a bit beyond) that uses a Skiff as a first stage engine... its pretty efficient and fun tbh, does require two srbs though... but still fun. I'm in Career mode so I also factor in cost and the Wolfhound certainly isn't cheap. If you want some help with the numbers, download Kerbal Engineer... does all the math/s for you and you'll quickly pick up what the output numbers mean But as for your question, it TOTALLY depends on the situation wolfhound for vac flight is generally a good idea though

Shoot now I feel silly. I'm really tired atm so I'm not reading things properly... that's my excuse anyway lol

I'll give it a go as soon as I get the chance seems really unusual though! Honestly, the bugs in this update have been entertaining lol

Can you not see the massive gaps in the fairing? lol Known issue though @sean409. It is a base game bug, so don't worry, you've not broken anything yourself

Sorry, I wasn't overly clear with what distinction I meant. Reading my own comment back, I would have given the same answer as you. But what I actually meant was why is one combinable and one not? Seems like a bizarre thing for squad to have done IMO

Knew it was something along those lines! Which one is the 16S? The non-retractable one or the retractable one? Also, why did they make the differentiation between the two? Any ideas?

Really? Hadn't noticed this at all... none of my rockets had been performing noticeably worse than 1.3... you sure that wasn't fixed in 1.4.2? I heard rumblings that some work had been done on them but the 5M fairing was still screwed.

Yeah, iirc they're actually the only antenna that combine properly i.e. 2 antennas are twice as good as 1... all others have diminishing returns.