Ketatrypt

been working a while trying to revise this design to get to the mun/minmus with a 7.5t cargo. And I am really close.. Currently, with that 7.5t of cargo, I can get to LKO with about 1200 dV remaining. which, is close, but I would be more comfortable with 1800 dV. And there is 2 issues I see right away which I am not sure of. With the whiplashes, I can only seem to get up to ~1100 m/s easily. (about mach 3.6) this happens at around 18km, I level off a bit from 15km to pick up speed, and then start climbing again, and turn on the rocket engine at about ~20km, which leads to the next issue - getting up thru the atmosphere quickly. To keep max speed, when I switch on the rocket engine, I am only climbing at about 120m/s, which I feel is really slow, and I am not really sure how to go about the problem. I could gain speed lower in the atmosphere, pull up steeper, which would get me thru the atmosphere quicker, but, with low TWR I would need to ignite the rocket engine at a lower altitude to keep a high speed. So I am in a pickle, not sure where to get this last 400m/s dV... Any ideas?

Thanks for the tips I didn't know that above 23kms that ships don't dissapear. I will have to try that. As for the reasoning, its just something to do. I have something like $2.5m so recovering it for the $ isn't really worth it. More for the style points

Hello, according to your second pic, you are stacking SRB's.. That is a common mistake. (I made it too heheh) Liquid fuel is much more efficient then solid fuel. Your first pic there actually looks pretty nice - you use the Solid rocket boosters to help the rocket thru the lower atmosphere, and ditch them for more efficient liquid engine. but I would get rid of the SRB under the liquid engine for another fuel tank.. basically extend it, so you have 3 liquid tanks with a swivel engine (it has gimbling, helps with control) and then add your 4 SRB's radially... Here is a rocket that I whipped up, basically followed your design, and it has enough fuel to almost go to the mun if flown right. (it should at least get to orbit) A couple notable differences - You don't need as much power at take-off. 4 SRB's is just way too much power. Even 2 SRB's is quite a lot, but it works, just power back on the liquid engine at ~300m/s until you are over 10km altitude. Then you can power back up. The reason to do this is aerodynamic drag. If you go faster then 300m/s at those low altitudes you are just wasting fuel to aerodynamic drag. I also added in the second fuel tank for the main liquid engine, which will be burning from takeoff to orbit. And if you wanted, this has enough fuel/power you could even add another small engine/fuel tank on top of this for going to the mun/minmus. Also, if you don't have a trained pilot, probe cores help a lot, as you can use stability assist. smaller rockets in general are harder to control as they can whip around pretty fast, but, with stability assist on (press T) it shouldn't be an issue. Hope this helps and happy flying

I know what you mean, I am still on the verge of interplanetary trips, but, nothing is lined up properly. Instead of waiting the complete year or whatever, I am building up a minmus station, and other things like that. It takes almost a half month to do a minmus round trip, so the time goes by pretty quick once you have some missions going.

lately I have been seeing people emulate the success of Space-X stage recovery operations, and I am wondering how this is possible. I have tried recovering simple things like droptanks and SRB's but they get destroyed as soon as the main craft gets 20km away.. Only other way I could figure it out is go all the way to orbit, and once the payload is in a stable orbit, I can de-orbit and land the first stage. So wahts the secret for returning those things? thanks

Click on the flagpole when you are in the facility overview screen. its clickable like any other building. Actually I just found this out a few days ago accidentally

that sounds like a good idea in the future. The other ones I left pretty much stationary to the station, and although they are moving away, its really slowly. Ive made 4 trips up to the station, and the furthest one is only about 800m away. but I think I figured out how to use the docking clamps, so hopefully that works in testing, because that would be the best I think, seems most modules need docking ports anyways and things that don't, I don't need to bring near a station

You can use docking ports in there, just like decouplers, you just have to face them right, and having to work with SPH, it tends to be a bit annoying to place stuff in the cargo bay of a plane, but you can do it and you need few camera angle changes to be able to place them right. OR Hold your mod key (should be LALT), while trying to place the part in the cargo bay, and it should be placed as it is without it orients with the part orientation... (I'll try to get something more clear about this to explain it better). EDIT: This link has some info about it: Hmm guess I will have to fiddle with it a bit in the SPH. when I tried I didn't fool with it too long, but it wouldn't snap exactly and I wasn't patient enough to move it to the exact proper spot - but if it is possible I will take a second look. - I already have docking ports on the payloads, and it would definitely help to keep part counts down.

I don't think I could use sepratrons unless I add a second decoupler... Here is my current cargo bay config: everything on the right of the stack seperator is payload, and the batteries, rcs tanks, and probe core is part of the shuttle. if I put sepretrons on the decoupler as is, it would just force it back into the cargo bay. or if I face them outwards it would start spinning the payload. (I use 5% force on decoupler so the load doesn't slam into the rear of the bay, and generally the decoupler will stay in the cargo bay until I add a bit of shuttle rcs) I have tried using docking ports, as I think they would be optimal for the designs, but I can't seem to get them to connect like a decoupler in the hanger. Is that possible? Thanks!

Bringing up cargo to a spacestation has brought an issue that I didn't think of at the time.. I have a growing constellation of decouplers around the space station. every load I bring up adds another one. And because they don't have any thrust, they just end up clustering around the station. I could put up a shuttle-load of drones to de-orbit each decoupler, but, that takes a lot of time. what do you's do to keep kessler syndrome to a minimum? My biggest worry is bumping into one of them with the shuttle, then having the decoupler bounce into, and break a solar panel or something.

more weight in the top/front never hurts. If you can't do that, try throwing on the steerable fins (AV-R8 Winglet) and, last but not least, try to keep your speed down until you get high in the atmosphere... Personally I limit my speed to less then 300m/s below 5km, 450m/s below 10km, and full throttle above 10km.. staying slow in the lower atmosphere will give better control, and it might also save a bit of fuel.

Recently when I was building my space plane I noticed that the mk2 fuel tanks contained the same amount as the mk1 tanks. What do you's think of that? personally, I thought it was weird as the mk2 version is much bigger (literally twice the volume), but maybe the advantage of body lift is good enough to offset the disadvantage of sub-optimal fuel quantity?

I think I got this quite nice. Did a few trips hauling some equipment to orbit, and it seems really nice. I still need to swap a rocket fuel tank to a jet fuel tank, but that's not a huge issue. either way I have tremendous amounts of fuel. its great to haul up to my fuel station. soo cheap compared to lifting a disposable tank with a disposable rocket. It doesn't have the awesome cool arrow look it had, but function over form I suppose. Lining up to dock just as the mun eclipses the sun and clamps engaged. Just in time for a great view... too bad the windscreen is facing the wrong way for the pilot

yea thanks for the tips! this thing is flying great now. im glad to finally ditch those 2 extra engines, that saves like 4 tons of weight pretty fun tho, brings an entire new dynamic to rocket building

Oh wow! Can you post a screenshot so I can see what exactly you did? I've been trying to get rid of those 2 extra engines now for a bit... I am really wondering where you put in the extra wings. the center of mass on these kerbal planes is always so far back that its hard to get good wing area without making extra wide wings (which are extra wobbly) edit - Woo finally did it! the lack of lift was exactly what was causing the issue.. I still feel like I should be adding a bit more lift, as I still don't fully straighten out into the air stream until about 550 m/s. The wings have the smallest amount of angle of incidence that I could give them, because any more then the smallest amount the fuselage generates negative lift at high speed which I doubt is a good thing. but yea, I felt like a boat trying to plane out on the water - before, I just powered my way up onto plane - now this is definitely better I think I still might need another small wing, as I feel I am still stuck in the hole a bit - I needed to do a shallow dive to get up over the barrier, but it worked, and I do have about 7.5t in the cargo bay. here is what it is now with the extra wings: (I still think 1 small wing piece wouldn't hurt, and I gotta get rid of those front canards. I don't like them interfering with intake air, even though I realize it isn't modeled in the game)

what is an optimal climb? I just did a mission with my current setup, and made a note to time it, and it took me aprox 11 mins from runway to 75km LKO.. and all that time the engines are doing their thing at full blast (I start up the rocket engine once my velocity starts dropping from the ram jets, at ~20 kms) also, is there a way to secure objects in the cargohold when in space so I can capture something and re-enter with it? I tried using a docking port, but it flexed like crazy and didn't work good. And also would be nice to take things down without them needing a docking port. Are the grabber things strong enough for tht? thx

So think I finally got this polished off pretty nicely fixed the spinning issue by adding a couple basic fixed fins, and overall, redone the rear wing system. and also added the skipper engine which does add a bit of efficiency. Not quite as much thrust, but it is half the weight of those 4 swivels Now I just wish I could get some contracts where I can put this excrementstle to use As for the air breathing engines - I can't seem to get away with less then 6 for this. When I try 4 engines I will get stuck on the mach barrier, and without breaking the mach barrier I can't get the thrust needed to climb to higher altitudes. Where as with 6 engines I can pretty much keep a fairly steady 20 degree climb up to altitude. although I am still getting used to 'flying' to orbit, so I will prolly learn how to gain altitude more efficiently with time.

so after delivering the cargo into orbit, I came back in. Re-entry itself went quite nicely, even though I came in a bit steep, nothing overheated too badly. very hot none the less. But then the troubles started. As I entered into the lower atmosphere at a sedate 650 m/s I suddenly entered a flatspin. Even with all my fuel as far forward as possible I could not regain control. Ended up in an inverted flat-spin and fell like that for the last 10km or so. popped the single chute I had at the rear, and even that wouldn't pull me outta the spin until it fully deployed.. so I have some serious stability issues with empty-ish tanks thankfully the craft is still in its unmanned testing phase.

So I took some of the advice yas gave, and refined the ship to this: Stripped out a lot of the wing section, added another pair of the air breathing engines (was having trouble at the mach barrier), and extended the cargo bay (yay!!) it works much better then the first one I did, was able to lift a 8.5 ton payload to a 80km LKO, and still have about 25% fuel remaining. And about those air-breathing engines.. when I initially put this together, I figured each engine would need an air intake, but, then I made this, and even with 6 engines sharing 4 air intakes the engines didn't have any problems. What sort of ratio is ideal for those intakes to engine quantity? would just 2 intakes be able to feed all 6 engines? I have the SRB's on there for rocket assisted take off. They look cool. no real reason. they are jettisoned at the end of the runway (that's as far as they last) and they parachute down for recovery. I also now have a pair of drop tanks as well, which get me to 2km altitude before I start into the main tanks. Thanks very much! this thing really is coming together

ahh thanks. I don't think I have any of those parts unlocked yet (I am playing on carreer, heard its a good way to learn, and ive been enjoying it) and I just unlocked the turbojet engines. So thought I would try to build a spaceplane I havn't really a use for it yet other then experimentation, and maybe some contracts for launching sats/rescuing kerbals. I did throw on a jr docking port, as I may use it for refueling things, but, I don't really know yet. I've only tested it to orbit once so far. I am not even sure of the max payload yet, but I would be entirely happy with getting 15 or so tons to LKO. On my test run I went up with an empty bay and had about 35% rocket fuel remaining. I will also have to try different combos of engines. 3 of each engine might make it, but with 2 engines I ran out of rocket fuel too soon. The other engines I have unlocked of that size would be the reliant which has more thrust but not as efficient, and also doesn't swivel, and the terrier which I doubt would have enough thrust. So yea, thanks! im gonna go add some extra struts and see if that at least helps the wing flex

After a few attempts, I finally managed to build a space plane that managed to make it to orbit and back! pretty happy about that! was one of the more difficult things I've built so far. I was trying to make it with 1 and a half cargo bay things there, and in previous attempts I found that the 4 engine combo + wider wings works wonders. But then another issue imerged: wing strength. It maxes out at about 10g's before the wings snap. they have a lot of excess flex. Any ideas to stiffen up the wings? And also, I am wondering if the swivel engines are the best for this job? should I be using something else? thanks

So I am doing a bit of experimentation on interplanetary orbits, and I am trying to figure out the most convenient starting location. LKO is pretty basic, and from there, with a nice moon slingshot I can get to interplanetary space with ~ 875 delta v. And then I could also use a station in orbit of one of the moons, but, in that regard, I am wondering if it is worth the trouble of making a moon-station for interplanetary voyages? and also, I have been wondering... how can I use kerbin as a slingshot assist starting from a moon? Its simple enough when going from kerbin to the mun, I can pick up several hundred deltaV from the muns gravity assist, but I don't quite understand how to do it in reverse with the planet. thanks

Personally I use canards as a cheat. In kerbal, the CoM is generally much further back then what it would be IRL because of the way the engines are made. (in real life engines on most small jet fighters are half the length of the plane rather then just a short module at the rear) And with the mass so far back, it is hard to get any leverage from rear mounted tailplanes. So canards are the next best option, and they do work pretty good.

I am trying to build some modular rocket designs, but I am having issues with snapping the modules together for final assembly. I will have the pieces all ready to put together, but they won't snap to the stack at all. Otherwise I don't see any issues with the design, as I can continue to add single pieces to the stack, but when it comes to adding an entire section it just doesn't want to attach very often. (Iv'e only got it to work a couple times out of many tries) is there anything I should be doing that I am missing? thanks

I killed Jeb. I feel horrible. he was so obedient. He did everything I asked of him, even when he knew it would end in certain disaster. But even all his badassery couldn't save him from my wraith. Anyway, I was reading around and I saw that you could buy him back? (or maybe one of his clones?) Is that true? If so, where would I be able to find him?