Extraneous

I can't wait until 0.17 and us getting a centre of mass indicator when making spaceplanes - will make designing them so much easier. Think of it in this way - look at your plane from the side and draw a line from the centre of your main wing perpendicular to the wing's surface. If the majority of your spaceplane's weight is behind this line, it will pitch nose-up under thrust. If the majority of your plane's weight is in front of it, it will pitch nose-down. The further away from the line, the stronger the effect is.

Woah, man! That looks fast enough to compete in the highest speed competition, even faster than things with engines!

At the moment, my plan is to set up an orbital construction dock or similar around Minmus - its low gravity and position near the edge of the planet's SOI mean that it should be easy enough to launch from, and I shouldn't have to pack that much power to fight against gravity on the way up. Minmus landers are already easy enough. Step 2 would probably be a high-efficiency, high-fuel interplanetary module. It will probably carry a few boosters to get it going from Minmus, but once it is off it only really needs one engine to change the orbit to match that of the planet I am visiting. I'll use the fuel tanks with the most capacity per weight and attach them so that they can be decoupled once empty to increase performance. I'll have to do some maths using the weight of decouplers and fuel lines to see how often to decouple in order to save weight, and thus how to arrange the tanks. Step 3 would be a large lander for the last planned step, carried by the previous stage. On approach to the planet I will perform a quick scan, but only of the orbit that I am in when I approach - the best landing site in that orbit will be where I get off. The descent itself will probably be a retro-thrust assisted by parachutes to soften the landing. At this point I will probably pull a quick EVA, grab screenshots, et cetera. Step 4 is an escape from the planet and a return home. I don't actually expect to have enough fuel left for this - in which case, I will try instead to put my brave explorer Kerbal either into orbit or onto one of the moons of the planet I visited, if it has any. This should make it easier to rescue them than simply leaving them on the surface. In addition, the moons of the planet can be cause for more sweet screenshots, or if I get into orbit I can scan for further landing sites for future missions. Future missions: - Get a second construction station into orbit around the target planet, or one of its moons. Being able to reconfigure the rocket at each step means I may be able to get several smaller landers out of each interplanetary journey, instead of being forced to either use all of its cargo at one time or underuse its carrying capacity. - Put probes into orbit and fully map the surface. - Place a base onto the planet itself. Man, that would be so fun. And dangerous. I would probably break it before it even got near to the planet. - Fill up the construction station with a metric freakton of fuel. In future, it can be used as a refuelling depot for interplanetary flights going further away from Kearth. What do you think?

Ehehehe, I can just imagine Jeb going to the cafe with his shuttle for some coffee and a snack of Booster Bitesâ„¢! (The crisps with added BOOM!) In other news, however, I do agree that this music is indeed very inspirational and simply beautiful when in space! Doesn\'t quite match my standard choice though - I generally work to the sound of metal, or for more atmosphere I play the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore. Sometimes I even sing along whilst bashing the table with my hand.

With the addition of EVAs and variable crew numbers, I was wondering - how many crew can YOU land on a single lander? A one-man landing is the same as in 0.15. A three-man landing is harder, but no doubt possible to our many landing fans. But - are more Kerbals than this possible? Only one way to find out - challenging the community! Scoring: One point per Kerbal landed. Extra kudos for doing ridiculous things on the way there, earning ALL points that you are applicable for (for example, Mun and Minmus flight would get +4 points): - All crew survive mission: +1 - Your lander takes no damage when landing: +1 - Your lander returns home: +1 - Your lander returns to the area around the KSC: +1 - Land on the Mun: +1 - Land on Minmus: +2 - Land on the Mun and Minmus in the same flight: +1 - Landing made with one or more crew members holding ladders during descent: +1 - Landing made with all crew except pilot holding ladders during descent: +2 - Landing made with another ship attached in some way to yours (landing leg grip perhaps): +2 - Anything I missed in this list? Add points anyway! (+1) Tell me your scores, complete with pictures for anything that needs proof, you crazy people. Rules: You can launch as many rockets as you want - so long as you land everything in one go. You could, for example, set a few small landers in orbit before nabbing them up with your big landing claw monstrosity, but they must all land in the same group - no landing them one craft at a time! If you have a ridiculous number of little green fellows out there, try and enjoy yourself too! (I believe this is doable! My score is 5 - 3 crew on a Mun landing that I managed to return from. I tried to get Jernand to EVA whilst starting my descent: sadly he fell off when I got a bit scared about going too fast and hit the ground, at which point I landed on him, breaking one of the landing legs in the process. RCS managed to get me back upright, at which point I left hurriedly in the hope that nobody had noticed my mistake. I guess you have to start slowing down earlier and make your deceleration less sudden.) Leaderboards: ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

No need to slow down! Just collide with the mun in style. Far more exciting/explosive.

Actually, I think that the altitude cycles constantly. If you quit the game whilst in NULLSPACE, does the ship remain? Can you switch to it from the tracking centre or see it on the map?

Congratulations! You\'ve found a Mun Arch! You can land on top, just not inside.

618: When you realize you left the engines on whilst you decoupled them, meaning the force has you stuck to the front end of a rocket you can no longer steer. 619: When all the effort from the first stage of your heavy lifter gets it a grand total of 17 metres off of the pad.

Liking what you are doing here, Romfarer! Current remote control is great I was just wondering if there was any idea of adding functionality to have a way of using your lasers to remote-control the lasers on another vessel. For example, when using fly-by-laser (as you plan it) you could aim the laser on, say, a scout plane from another ground-based vehicle and let it fly itself. Or, if you add more LOS-based issues, you could use a comsat\'s laser by communicating from another ship in order to see targets that would otherwise be around the Kearth\'s curvature. That would be so sweet! (I forsee a future where I can control by laser all of my flights from a single station in orbit.)

I\'m going to try to slingshot Jeb around the mun! Take a rocket with lots of fuel, accelerate into a high-altitude gravity turn and EVA whilst still accelerating, hopefully flinging my Kerbal in the right direction. Burn fuel to try and stay in the right place for catching Jeb instead of some fancy-shmancy orbit somewhere. As Jeb approaches, try to match his velocity - watch as my carefully-planned flying fails and I get a green face pancaked against my command pod. Exit KSP, delete persistence file, repeat until Jeb is caught.

Oh, if we ever get any way of controlling multiple planes at the same time I would love to see some ship-to-ship combat. Even launching a broadside from one of these things is so sweet...

In that case, we probably ought to update the front page. We have a lot of planes that need displaying!

Allow me.

MY BEARD Uh... I attempt to use my beard as a soft landing pad to protect the rocket from impacting the ground. Cue explosion to the face.

I believe joining would be a very good idea, yes! Sign me up, if you please. I\'m working on a large glider delivery system at the moment. EDIT: Finished the Koimasa Glider System! Or, as it should be known, 'where struts go to die'. Turns out that simply sticking a bunch of engines to the wings of a glider is not a good idea. It will carry the glider long distances - however, you had better hope that it\'s pointing in the correct direction because even a slight jolt will tear it into millions of tiny explodey pieces. http://www./?mf88os8i6amykqa Kids? Don\'t try this at home.

Hello! I made some planes, and I was wondering what the engineers here thought of them. I\'ve hidden them in this spoiler for convenience! Dorallo Heavy Cruiser: http://www./?n2j7yraaqa8akkvAtroxolith Heavy Cruiser: http://www./?tarrveuw8eatkk5 Gamasco Heavy Cruiser: http://www./?9x6wz4b3bckbhpl Kavassara Heavy Cruiser: http://www./?mf88os8i6amykqa Osmura Heavy Cruiser: http://www./?dh2had0pyp6nd0g The Dorallo is essentially a long-distance scout plane. Although larger than the average scout or interceptor, it is smaller than the other cruisers here and uses the denser rocket fuel in places in order to avoid increasing the plane\'s size for, say, railgun targeting. However, it is heavy enough that it does not handle cargo well. The Atroxolith is a six-engined low-altitude cargo plane. A ring of fuel tanks surround a central hollow space which can be filled with any 1m parts, the effective cargo. It carries a grand total of 31 fuel tanks and can henceforth fly for relatively long distances. The Gamasco is a four-engined cargo plane with a more open structure than the Atroxolith. A radial decoupler is provided for attaching cargo to the roof, and a large under-wing space is also suitable for another role - holding missiles or bombs. When full of cargo the plane is quite heavy and so a booster rocket is provided in order to reach takeoff velocity by the end of the runway. The Kavassara is another 6-engined plane, using tricouplers to get the most from 2 long stacks of fuel tanks. Only 22 tanks mean that this plane has a shorter range than the Atroxolith, but this plane\'s advantage is a massive wing area which is simply perfect for bombs and missiles. Fitting the front swept wings with 3 missiles each, for instance, arms the plane with a salvo of 12 missiles total, suitable for wrecking any plane on the recieving end of the assault. The Osmura is simply massive. It has a lot more engines and wings than it needs, and so can survive an impact or a less-than-perfect takeoff. Again it has a lot of wing area, but the placement makes railguns a more suitable weapon than missiles on this ship. Please note that all of these ships cut it quite close with takeoff and landing - make sure to pitch up well, and if the ship has RCS turn it on! With the Osmura be careful not to pitch up too sharply as you leave the ground, however, as that\'s how you lose an engine or a wing or two. And be careful whilst rolling as well - it does not always go quite as planned in crafts with such wide wingspans. Feel free to comment, improve, and generally mess about with these crafts! For one thing I find it can help to mess around with changing which type of engine is used for better flying, for instance. Gameassassin, you may also note that the Gamasco fulfils your request! Happy flying!

You should try folding one of these beauties up in mid-air. Just wonderful. Even better if you somehow manage to make it survive, unfold again and fly up just before hitting the ground.

Maybe you weren\'t using enough wings? I do a whole range of \'heavy cruisers\' which generally port around a metric freakton of wings. That, control surfaces, maybe some RCS if it still won\'t fly well and appropriate use of capslock for when it reacts far more than you expected it to and you have a plane that flies like a dream.

I was interested whilst waiting for my request so I made a plane of my own that fulfils it. I\'ll PM Luigi with it: you guys can have it as a donation. Enjoy!

Guess I found something for a lot of the more... kerbal rockets I make.

Mach 2 is just over 680 m/s. I, personally, am looking for a large, stable plane that can handle low speeds well - reaching a high speed is not necessary. It should be able to hold some small parts on the underside of the fuselage or wings - use radial decouplers for this, they\'re almost exactly the same as the mod part I want to use.

How do the two of them line up? Is it possible to make an orbit that will pass through both of them? That would be so awesome.

Well, Mr. Meteorite. May I suggest you look at Blender modelling tutorials and the like? If you are willing to put in some effort, you will be surprised to find how easy modelling some of those parts can be. Look at your drawings and photos and choose something with a simple shape from them, and then make it. Once people can see you are willing to make models they are far more likely to help you. Still, finding help always has been hard because people always prefer what they want over the wants of other people.

I\'ve gotten to huge heights with much slower craft than this - all you need to do it hit escape velocity and then wait for ages. Height isn\'t really a measure of how good your craft is. Good work on the speed though, that is very fast!