tseitsei89

Yep and that is the exact reason why I wont try to beat it. It is starting to need part clipping and 'cheating' the physics engine. And 'cheating' the game engine isnt something I like doing. I like finding the limits but limits for me are the ones without any of this funny business like clipping and/or hiding the drag of some parts. But as I said well done. I appreciate what you have done but it isnt something I'm interested in doing since you are using tricks that I consider forbidden in my own game because of some "RP" reasons.

Damn! Just as I was uploading my ~1800 m/s entry Well done!

Yeah mine isnt horizontal either. And identical to that craft. I jut took less fuel

Yep. I actually made one the other day. Spark engine. 2 x smallest fuel tanks. OKTO2 probe core. Small nose cone. Can get to orbit with little over 400 m/s dv left and that leaves ~400 m/s for the landing suicide burn which is just enough to land it in one piece It can be made a 520kg SSTO by taking out some fuel but then it cant be recovered...

Yes you are absolutely correct here! I-beams are definitely NOT MEANT to be used as landing gears. However you obviously CAN use them as landing gears if you want. But if they dont work as expected / look stupid or out of place you shouldnt be complaining since they are NOT DESIGNED for that. And feel free to PM me any time you want. I'm always willing to give people some advice if they want. But I would also suggest using the ksp wiki whenever you get confused. It has quite good pages for (almost) every part and it usually describes what parts are MEANT to be used for. Remember that you CAN however use them for other purposes as well but they wont necessarily aleays work/look like you want them to since they were NOT DESIGNED to be used like that...

Yeah. If I do some challenge that requires me to repeatedly test my craft quickly on the runway/launchpad (a good example would be "minimum mass to orbit" for example.) And then revert to vab/sph and do some minor changes and test again. If I had to put the kerbal in every time seperately it would be a major PITA. And as I said earlier if you dont want autoboard to happen, just use some other part as a root part and it wont autoboard kerbals. So it's a win-win. We currently get both features and can choose if we want to use them or not...

Screenshots would be helpful but it sounds like you need a bigger tailfin to increase yaw stability

And once again I was wrong and you were right Just noticed that my tests were done like an idiot... Shock cone intake for example weighs 60kg more than ramp intake. When I added some xenon as ballast so they weigh the same Shock cone is clearly better. And other parts also behave as expected.

Spaceplanes are fully recoverable so the only cost of the launch is the fuel used. And spaceplanes use much less fuel to get a ton of payload to orbit than any (recoverable) rocket ever could since they can get to 1500+m/s speeds with efficient airbreathing engines. This leads to spaceplanes being very significantly cheaper way to launch stuff to orbit than rockets. Also spaceplanes are cool and look awesome But basically they are used as efficient cargo haulers to orbit.

This I agree with! No reason why the host couldn't participate as long as the rules are clear

Yeah I know that at least Starhawk is one of these gurus as well. Havent been that active in the forums to know everyone. So sorry if I'm missing some names here. But your forum posts were the ones that taught me how to build and fly a spaceplane. So thanks for that

Yeah... There seems to be a lot of different opinions here but I'm just gonna weigh in here again and say just this: When dealing with spaceplanes LISTEN TO @GoSlash27!!!! He is one of the very best spaceplane guys in these forums. Really. Honestly.

So a precooler and a fairing in the front looks like a good way to go for 1 engine craft then Now I'm tempted to try 1 shock cone + 1 precooler/engine nacelle with 4 rapiers on a quadcoupler and then "hiding the quadcouplers drag behind a fairing, That might give good thrust to drag ratio EDIT: How about the ramp intake? all my tests indicate that it has lowest drag of all front/nose mounted intakes, but how does it perform as an air provider?

Yes definitely you can use it to whatever you want BUT if you use a part for something it wasnt designed for you shouldnt be surprised and complain if it "looks out of place" or doesnt work properly...

Are you actually serious right now? http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/PPD-10_Hitchhiker_Storage_Container 1. It is missing a command module so actually HAVE TO have a seperate crew pod for launch. --> it is not designed to be used in launch --> it is a habitation module. 2.Part description says its purpose is to "store 4 kerbals in orbit" --> it is a habitation module 3. Wiki refers to it as habitation module. --> it probably is a habitation module 4. It is too draggy to be efficiently used in airplanes --> it was designed to be used in vacuum --> it is a habitation module. 5. As you yourseld said kerbals couldnt really sit there during launch without dying. --> They are not supposed to sit there during launch --> it is a habitation module. For godness sake it is quite obvious ro see that it is a habitation module just by looking at it. If you really think it was not meant to be a habitation module rather than launch pod, I'm done with this discussion. P.S. It probably is a habitation module

Ok I'll try that sometime then

But once again you miss the point of HH part completely! Kerbals are not meant to be there during the launch so their spine breaking is not a problem here. It is a habitation moduke where kerbals can live during the long spaceflight. There should be seperate cockpit/crew pod for kerbals to sit during launch and landing...

Did some of my own testing as well: Some results: (not all tests are shown in the videos. At least not yet) 1. Fairing is the least draggy part in high speeds. Circular in take at low speeds. 2. Shock cone intake is not that good at low speeds and altitudes. 3. But good at high speeds. (That is why it was able to almost match ramp intake at airbreathing test but lost clearly on rocket test. We were traveling faster in the airbreathing test than in the rocket test.) 4. 1 circular intake can't feed 1 rapier enough at high altitudes. (I added engine nacelle to otherwise same craft with circ intakes and got a bettter performance.) 5. 1 shock cone intake can feed (at least) 3 rapiers. 1 ramp intake can't but it can feed 1 rapier at least. So use ramp or shock cone intakes still not really sure wich And use fairings as nosecones! That's pretty much it at this point but I'll continue testing... EDIT: These results are wrong! Sorry for that. Please see my other post little further down this page

There is some nice drag testing in that playlist. I recommend you watch all of these videos. It also answers to the question "Should I close my intakes?" among many other drag related things

The different "stages" of "normal" spaceplane ascent go as following (assuming rapiers or rapiers + nukes): 1. Subsonic stage. Get the speed above 400m/s. The point is to get to supersonic speeds where rapiers start working properly and producing significantly more thrust. If your plane doesn't have huge amounts of (unnecessary) thrust you probably have to go pretty much horizontal here and not try to gather altitude yet. 2. After you have sufficient speed (~400-450m/s) you start the climbing stage where you slowly pull the nose up and fly up to thinner atmosphere to minimize drag. The ascent angle here is very craft dependent but can be something like 10-20 degrees. 3. Acceleration stage. Once in the thinner atmosphere you start to lower your ascent angle to keep in the region where jet engines still work to gather as much speed as possible using airbreathing jets. You should be flying almost level flight (just slightly ascending slowly) at around 20-23km here and try to get speed as high as possible before switching to rockets. 4. Rockets and/or nukes stage. Once you stop accelerating with jets it is time to switch rapiers to rocket mode (if I'm using nukes I usually fire them up a little earlier and then switch rapiers to rocket mode after they flame out completely). Depending on TWR and your initial ascent you probably have to burn little over the prograde marker on the navball at first and then lower the nose to prograde when time is right, Also this is the stage where you will have to watch the overheating issues. Just keep burning (as close to prograde as you can without blowing up) until your Ap is out of atmosphere. If executed correctly your Pe should also already be pretty close to appearing above kerbins surface once your Ap reaches 70+km. 5. Circularization stage. Obvious and easy. Keep pointing prograde. Coast to apoapsis and circularize.

Ah, ok. I thought that would increase drag too much but apparently I was wrong

Wow! What sorcery are you using? All my tests indicate that rapier has a flame-out speed of 1751.8m/s. That is what I always achieved no matter what I did Looking forward to see what you are doing to get 1800+m/s. But for now I have this craft that can reach 1751.8m/s momentarily and maintain ~1748m/s speeds for a long time. And without any user input once leveled out too. If you are in level flight at ~20km and click prograde on SAS it will hold itself between 19.5km and 21km and between ~1746m/s - 1751.8m/s I present you the Bat Out of Hell: Video of 30 minutes flight and I still have fuel remaining and I only took ~1/3 of my fuel capacity on board to start with so this could go on for a long long time. The batteries that are about to blow up are completely unnecessary, I just forgot to take them out. So overheating won't be a problem for even longer flights either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaY8s6iYOW4 Kerbal is in a command chair inside a fairing since cockpits got really explosive at those speeds...

Thanks! This was a fun challenge I enjoyed it

I present you the Passionate Mammoth. Weighing a whopping 543t on the runway and using not 1 not 2 but 3 mammoth engines! Able to reach 156km x 155km orbit with a surface TWR of 5.94 and still have 1995m/s dv left Again a couple of cuts in the video (before reentry and before landing) because of quickloads. Reentry took some attempts since balancing the fuel load is an accurate job with this craft: Too much fuel in the front and it cannot keep the nose up --> Overheat and explode Too much fuel in the back --> It flips and crashes to the ground But after finding the right balance it was quite easy Landing was hard because I havent flown a plane this big in ages. It still weighs 184t when landing. Score here will be ln(1+5.94)*1995 = 3864.92 points for team Passionfruit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkU8C4oEetA

Currently working on it. I take it that new rule is that every part you launch must come back to kerbin safely?