Andetch

I wish I could dislike this post....on so many levels.... Level 1 - I feel your pain on the SPH, that really must hurt Level 2 - You're reviews are really fun to read, and this thread needs MORE reviewers not less..... Level 3 - We will all miss you Level 4 - Much the same as level one, it sucks when stuff like that happens. I remember having to restart my career first time around because it stopped letting me complete contracts, needed to fully re-install the game..... and it was only after I had got rid of the old version I realized that I could have save my VAB/SPH from all my saves, and was before my KerbalX days - stupid me. Level 5 - Did I mention I enjoy reading your reviews? Level 6 - I am sure by now you get the point, so I will stop this now.....

KIS/KAS are two of the more interesting mods I think. They allow really cool construction techniques, like building massive ships in orbit! Exactly as Maverick says... Forget an antenna, enough solar panels etc etc.. As for stock, I have found trying to repeat basic achievements that you have done stock under Caveman rules is quite a challenge, and really rewarding (As in land on the Mun, leave Kerbin's SOI, build a SSTO Spaceplane, make a space station etc.)

I really need to work on my interplanetary travel techniques.... I tend to do one way journeys mostly, and I get impatient waiting for launch windows etc.... Mainly because I played on career mode mostly trying to build mass transit systems. I should probably do some sandbox playing to perfect these techniques!

If you can do a Duna flyby and return to Kerbin in a Caveman Tech Spaceplane I will dig out that old photo of my wife in a bikini before she had our child and use that for the badge However, I am just thinking, the small size docking ports are caveman tech. So..... I guess plotting an orbital RV and docking with the lvl1 tracking station will be a challenge in itself, so I am inclined to allow it. SSTO only means Single Stage to Orbit (implied LKO so refueling in LKO still means it meets SSTO requirements), so I am leaning towards saying if you can do it then go ahead.... but it would be far more impressive and warrant me going back and putting a gold background into the badge if you can squeeze those extra m/s dV @ManEatingApe to get the flyby and return as a SSTDFB/SSTDO. Remember (if you haven't already) that 7.5 monoprop and a single thruster goes a long way with an empty craft as is shown in my research. If that helps at all.....

@Gordon Fecyk @ManEatingApe @Muetdhiver Seeing as you've done a great job, and really helped me answer KSP questions I have used my rudimentary, neanderthal image creation skills (with the assistance of logomakr.com - the mention is part of the terms of the free to use licence) to fashion a badge of some sorts. I am pleased to present you all with your Caveman Tech Spaceplane Builder badge! (Copy it from here, or from the OP).

Must say I am really impressed by the Cave Tech Spaceplane Mun flybys. Not something I thought that probable initially. As you will see from my offerings the room for error is so fine, the leftover dV in orbit is not much at all. Although, if I am right (correct me if I am not) these mun flyby's you circularize while below the Karman line (70km)? So launch has to be perfectly timed.

That makes a lot of sense..... Although it is thoroughly un-Andetch. We like to live on the extremes and have never made things easy for oneself. I have a SSTO that without the weight of the 1000KN engine on the back is just shy of 14T.... Makes it a stand-up guy to fly, but when that baby ignites it makes all those lost kerbals worth it! Although again, as I have advised @Muetdhiver KSP is all about learning new techniques and then looking back and going "duh, why was I doing it that stoopid way" so I will probably start exploring the gentle re-entry approach.

@ManEatingApe just out of interest - what was the fuel load in your design like? Did you fill both LF and OX up or did you drain some OX to allow for what the air breather drank? @Muetdhiver Well done on that run! Again completely different to my design... Making me feel like this could turn into a K-Prize Caveman style challenge as there clearly are many ways to do this. You're good enough to make a Caveman Tech SSTO Spaceplane which is something few have done, so feel proud of your achievement! Have you watched the videos from @Gordon Fecyk's entry (incidentally, I really liked the editing on the rescue mission, and the visual mods you use are very nice.... puts my videos to shame!)? They're really good to show how to approach a KSC landing. It does take some practice, but just like maing an orbital RV and docking once you get your head around it it becomes quite easy (can't believe how at first when I didn't understand orbital RV and docking how I used to try and build stuff that never needed to be docked, and what a game changer learning to dock was!) and it is a really satisfying feeling when you get the approach just right and nail a nice perfect landing. Even if you overshoot and have to turn around of land on the island, it's still good

Dude, you're kinda missing the point of the challenge. I know I am not a judge on this thread, but I know that they will not modify your plane in any way (except maybe to add fuel sometimes if you have sent it with dry tanks), so when you submit and entry you gotta make sure you are only using parts from the authorized list of mods or you're just wasting your own time And for variant like you mentioned (by adding more fuel tanks) again you need to do that yourself and upload another one to KerbalX, as in; LA-67 LA-67-ER LA-67-EL etc. etc.

Do it! You've said it now, you have to! (And look, I'm using bold font so that makes it even harder to say "no"). I scrapped this idea after toying about with it because I figured that the weight of the decouplers needed was waste and opted for fuel instead. Heck, I even scrapped the idea of an aerial because of drag/weight concerns and opted to keep the single battery instead. I wasn't so interested in payload to LKO on this challenge, more that it is SSTO... However, seeing as you mention it have you seen this thread by Slashy? Cunjo Carl's Huck leads the way at over 4T into LKO with a similar concept to what you have mentioned above!

If you want maneuverable you need to make the design aerodynamically unstable, then balance it, much like the Chalduro. I found with piloting it that (I may have made it slightly too unstable, and this can be rectified by moving the wings a few nano-metres towards the tail - this is the less pointy end where you can find the engine) because it is unstable but balanced you can throw it around loads, and yes it spins but also recovers.. Wing shape helps with this, but COM/COL alignment is more important. It's getting to be a "mine is bigger than yours" competition here. About the plane though, I have no idea.

By the FAR/easier comments I am talking about the way shape of craft affects drag/lift. I had to make mine long and thin or drag would prevent it getting there (same amount of fuel, thrust and parts but configured differently won't make it hence why it used the engines it does). Also you will notice in my SSTO (I think the same as yours, but not to the same degree) I have to play with throttle a lot and the pitch. It really was a "goldilocks" formula.... rotate at the right speed (the craft can lift off earlier, but you want to build to forward momentum, not too little, not too much), pitch up to the right angle (not too steep, not too shallow) accelerate to 200 m/s and do not exceed that speed much until you clear the soup, then allow yourself to pitch down (again, not too little, not too much - you see the theme here).... The return in mine is so easy though as when it is that light it gets so much lift you can glide for ages and ages.

I like your method of cheating. Taught me a lot - I have generally tried to limit my use of the F12 menu and don't really know how to use it and usually resort to throwing a capsule around each planet and getting crew reports! I tried using FAR once, and couldn't work out how to get the flaps/control surfaces to do what I wanted them to do (but my flying car still seemed to work, just not quite as well or easy to control) and haven't explored it since. I really should get back around to it as I know it is a very good mod. Someone always comes up with a FAR request on every challenge, so I should have foreseen it too! Now, as I am sure you gathered from reading (did you read?) my rant at the beginning, this was more about showing me new ways to achieve the Caveman SSTO, specifically a Spaceplane. I am assuming that by reducing wing strength, it reduces the mass of the wing allowing the tanks to be filled to the brim? As far as rule violations go, I don't see anything wrong with your entry and video - I really liked it and learned a lot from it, so thank you for the lesson. I have more ideas to play around with now. (My SSTO didn't even have an air-breathing stage as I viewed carrying the engine as dead weight, and used the 7.5 monoprop in the cockpit as it's fuel to de-orbit, so you really smashed my initial thoughts there. Although, I wonder how much FAR affected it/made it easier? (if at all?)) So definitely a big thumbs up and a pass from me! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 700 m/s of dV is quite a bit (I believe IRL the Space Shuttle operated with around 300 m/s of dV once reaching LEO, needing to save 150 m/s for it to set up it's landing) to have left over in LKO as far as I am concerned. Especially for a Caveman SSTO Spaceplane. Ugly looking brute, very neanderthal. I like it. Again, gives me plenty of food for thought, and does teach me a lot. So without question a thumbs up and a pass from me! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think my problem is, as you will see from my two videos is that (and this is not necessarily a bad thing) that once I have found something that works I find it hard to "think outside the box" and variate away from the idea and get something else to do the same job differently.This even goes for the way I re-enter and land back at KSC - @Gordon Fecyk does it completely differently to me (he kept a PP at 25KM where as I always try to set a collision course to somewhere between KSC and "Korea"), yet gets the same result! So, once again, thanks to both of you for taking the time and effort to do this and teach me some new ways of doing a low tech space plane SSTO! That guy takes the liquid! Lol! So I am definitely not special with my CaveTech SSTO then Meh, I am fairly confident mine handles better though! And I was pleased that the concept of sending down something that the game identifies as junk, but with an already triggered parachute worked in the vertical rocket! Back to the drawing board again, with a mind full of new ideas!

RE - W10, Sorry - Got carried away I know. But look on the bright side, now your thread has loads of posts to sucker in new takers RE Yaw Control - It has very powerful yaw stability from the tail fins. Give her a fly, you will be pleasantly surprised how nimble she is for a big girl at low altitudes. Above the 10km - 15km mark there isn't enough air for the control surfaces to react with though. Also, above mach 3 it tends to want to keep going in the same direction.

So, I've recreated various iterations of this design (like replacing the 14 fuel tanks with the same amount of fuel in less tanks, and putting a reliant in for the swivel) and yes, it is interesting. Still, I can't seem to put wings on it and make a spaceplane style SSTO style from it. Any other takers for a spaceplane style caveman SSTO?

My main hatred of W10 stems from the 1990's...... It is derived from an ingrained dis-trust and hatred of all things Microsoft from the way they they went so far out of their way to kill cross compatibility, and force you to have to pay for MS everything even though for the most part there was a better, open source alternative.

Windows 10 is designed to kill older devices. I was working for Toshiba in their laptop sales last year and interestingly, most the new hardware like the kabylake generation of processors are not backwards compatible. A lot of the new ancillary products like docking ports etc also won;t work unless you have W10 and the latest generation chipsets etc. Toshiba were different in that they were keeping the legacy compatibility where they could. Now I saw quite a few people accept the "free" W10 upgrade from W8 and it promptly killed their older machines, when I say killed I mean made such poor use of the available CPU and memory that it slowed them down to the point they became unusable. My mother even bought a brand new, entry-level spec machine that came with W10 pre-loaded and it is so slow it is pretty much unusable for most things. Thing is, I have W10 on one of my laptops, and when i got it I asked for the cheapest laptop possible, the CPU is a Celeron, but I have upped the RAM from 2GB to 4GB and fitted a SSD and it runs super quick! So, now to make this post relevant to the thread so admin don't remove it..... Above is my (going a the really long way around) guide to flying the Skotts VIII on Crazy Jeb Guy's laptop without lag. Ubuntu + SSD + double the RAM using some rescued sticks pulled out a machine that someone threw away after "upgrading" to W10 (and I mean I literally took the laptop out of a refuse bin, took the RAM and some other bits I fancied, and then put it back!).

I got 292T with 14 secs on mission timer. Probably realistically nearer 10 secs as rules states time from staging, and to moment the wheels lift, and the image is delayed slightly. The pics for evidence can be seen in the kerbalx page. Probably going to do it properly with this, adding an extra bit of weight to break 300T and time it properly. https://kerbalx.com/Andetch/ADXL-Mister-Tiddles Speaking of lag, I recently put an SSD into my years old laptop (3rd or 4th gen i3) and it has really helped clear up lag issues. Oh, and scrap windows for Ubuntu

There is a cat I think might be able to do this well.....

It can make it uncomfortable if you have been eating something like curry or mexican food the night before......

Thank you for your kind words. Kind of pins everyone into their seats on take-off though with it's acceleration rate. Definitely needs those big "fasten seat belts" signs.

Which I think I achieved in the end with Mister Tiddles. Although, I am sure to be able to improve, as it still didn't handle as well as Colossus!

That comment was directed at me.... I think the puzzling aspect of the Colossus was that it worked whereas the day fury didn't work so well as an airliner as it did as an electricity generation station. I focus too much on looks and too little on fly-ability!

@Kergarin thanks for that. I wouldn't have even considered the concept, so that's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for! You could have had a fair bit of dv left in lko also, had you not raised the AP so high, so kudos! Now I gotta play with that concept. Hard career mode just got easier!

Right, I was thinking about this for a while. I have been playing with low-tech craft for a little while. It's a challenge as there is usually a higher tech part you need. I have recently made two CaveTech SSTO craft, one horizontal launched spaceplane style, and one vertical launched that leaves a capsule in LKO, with the booster being put on atmospheric capture and returned to Kerbin's surface for recovery and potential re-use (but as no probe core the game sees it as junk, sadly). Now, I've tried to repeat the achievement using a different combination of parts and despite repeated attempts I have failed miserably. Every. Damned. Time. And I am sure it isn't pilot error, as I can put the original CaveTech SSTO up there every time now. I figured getting more minds involved would help, see if I have stumbled upon a holy grail here or what? So...... (explanation of why I am posting the challenge over!)..... The Prize Mainly kudos and bragging rights. I could make a simple badge if someone does it! EDIT: I have made a simple badge as a few people have done it. As for scoring it is all subjective. The Challenge! CaveTech Only. My difficulty was set to normal - easy would be too easy, but any harder than normal and you're insane! Cheat your science points up if you want. Build a SSTO, either spaceplane or vertical launched style. Make it different to my examples if you can - I appreciate parts are limited but I am not looking for clones of what I already have here. I am mainly interested in you achieving SSTO, but you should also have a plan on how to return to Kerbin's surface. Stock preferred (visual and information mods okay). Making history is also fine. Rules quoted from The Caveman Challenge; Facility upgrades are forbidden. Terrible runway and launchpad. Part count of thirty and vehicle mass limit of 18.0 tons. No fancy patched conics, no maneuver nodes and no Deep Space Network. Abhorrent fear of technology as primitive as can be. No mods that alter game play (mods used for filming, radio chatter, etc. are fine) No cheat menus or any other shenanigans No kraken/ladder drives or similar contraptions Proof of Concept My videos below to show it is possible. Feel free to download and reverse engineer my craft (available via the KerbalX link in signature) to assist you, but as i said, you gotta try and make them different!!!!!! Good luck engineer pilots, and thank you for helping satisfy my curiosity!