HardKerbin

So I've built myself an all purpose SSTO work in progress, but I really like it. It has room for a couple passengers, so I can do Kerbal rescue missions. Once in orbit, it has about 1700+ dV (on the solo nuke), so I can do a fly by of the Mun or Minmus if I so desire. Parachutes so I can land anywhere on Kerbin. It has a service bay with some science gear, batteries, antenna, and monopropellant tanks. Overall, it's a versatile SSTO MKI spaceplane that flies nicely, and gets work done. This is my atmospheric workhorse. Fly it up to 20,000m and it's fuel efficient, and cruises at 1/3 throttle at about 1350m/s. I can make multiple flights, landings from one launch. I use my Engineer to repack the chutes for ground missions, so I can to a Short take off and get going again. The wide stance of the landing gear makes it ideal for rover-like surface work, but makes takeoffs a bit sketchy. Has all science needed for mission work in the service bay. I've used several variations on this theme since the early game and it's always worked well, they just get faster as I science-up.

I have another question, getting off topic, but it's my thread so... Is there some way to activate navigation for the space center? Sure would be handy to be able to fly home more accurately.

Hey AeroGav, what's the reason for the reversed aerodynamic nosecones placed behind the Engines and moved forward?

Dernit, something isn't working, or I'm doing it wrong. I've done exactly as you said and I'm getting no new information. Right clicking on parts in the spaceplane hangar/editor, correct? On the craft, in the menu, seems to make no difference. I even tried to restart the game, that didn't help, it just reset the cheat anyway. Could mods be interfering? Oh, nevermind, you have to click on it in flight.

Thanks for the tip, is there any way to know how much drag any given part imparts? Yeah, at that point I'm just fooling around. No purpose for that particular plane but speed. I was trying to see how fast I could go without going suborbital, and staying low-ish. No reason why, just because I was having fun. I've already got a MkI design that makes orbit easily. It doesn't do anything once it's there, but then again, I don't really need an orbiter. I already have a geosynchronous com-sat network, a mobile space station (as in, it can go between Kerbin, the Mun, Minmus and back, but it's mostly a floating gas station and science lab so I can make repeated mun and minmus landings to keep the science lab full. I have a probe on the way to Duna, and Dres is next in the transfer window, so I'll be sinding a probe there as well. The science lab is making my progress on the tech tree move along pretty quickly, so there's lots of new toys to mess around with.

Rocketman mode...and then it blew up...lulz. I just realized after looking at this that I'm hauling around monopropellant for no reason.

I like the minimalistic route really, that four engine thing I posted above is not really my style.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!! Now to make it not explode when I kick on Rocketman mode. G

I don't understand where you're getting the fuel to run the Rapier that long. My ship blew up on re-entry, the interior exceeded the heat tolerance. I did he same thing with a MkII. Probably coming in too steep, I've managed reentry before just fine, maybe I'm getting greedy. As for getting to space, I just took off, set the pitch to 35 degrees and let er fly. Got up there and I had 500+ deltaV in reserve. I'll play around with it like you said though. I didn't even know about the pre-cooler, thanks for the tips.

And a simpler, more efficient MkI with the Rapier engine I just unlocked. Hooray for science labs!

I managed to get a MkI SSTO in orbit...barely.

Yeah, I have a TON of AoA to fly my MkI at 23k M with the whiplash. And it still wants to burn up the cockpit, I had to slow down to just below 1,200m/s, which is still twice as fast as I was cruising with the panther, and with better fuel efficiency (0.08). I'll keep toying with this plane.

I played around with the MkI, found some more heat resistant parts, made the wing smaller, added a canard, and now I'm cruising at 23,000 meters at 1342m/s while consuming 0.08 units (litres?) of fuel per second. Doesn't get much better than that! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=860720121

Ah, I see. I thought KSP had drag over-simplified, as in it was tied into weight. Not sure where I read that, somewhere else on the forum, or the interwebz, or youboob, who knows. The larger profile of the MkII parts making more drag makes sense. (I actually do understand aerodynamics fairly well, I was a jet mechanic in the Marine Corps, I built and flew model aircraft, I also just enjoy the subject, etc.) So the obvious actually makes sense. I was over-thinking by under-thinking. Since I made that post, I got a contract which gave me the Whiplash RamJet engine. Holy hell, it about burned up the MkI's intake. Was pushing 1,300m/s and had to back off. The MkII topped out below 1200m/s with two of them, still, pretty sick. In the MkI, its actually reasonably fuel efficient at 23,000 meters, but there is virtually no control at that speed, that high up, so it's fairly useless as it turns out....Or, I just need to get my "foot out of it". Still, its good fun Maybe I should add a canard...

I'm experiencing something of a curiosity with a couple of my aircraft. Two designs in particular, one is an older, earlier game version I made. It's pretty simple, fairly light, designed for speed, and initially had the Wheezy engine. I've since upgraded it to the Panther afterburner engine and I can make it do some interesting stuff that I haven't been able to do with a MKII airframe. But before I get to the MkII, let me talk about the MkI and what it is, and what it does. Here is a hangar shot of the MKI http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=860593732. It's a single engine design, weighs almost 8,500 kilos. If I take off in dry mode, climb to 6000m, I will reach a top speed (full fuel) around 312 m/s. Kick it into wet mode and it'll push 900+ m/s. Now here is the oddity, when I kick it back into dry mode, it'll maintain a speed of about 612m/s. Freaking awesome, right? (MkI In flight, 612m/s maintained dry mode) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=860594477 Here is a hangar shot of the MkII http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=860593672 It's a twin engine design, weighing in just over 10k kilos. Quite a bit more thrust per kilo with this one. However, it has a similar top speed a the same altitude in both wet and dry modes, but it wont do the trick that the MkI will do, it'll just slow all the way back down into the 320m/s range. (MkII in flight, 316m/s maintained dry mode) http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=860594319 I'm fairly sure I've controlled as many variables as possible. Same altitude, same flying conditions, same procedures. Is my MkI just experiencing a bug in my favor, or is there some aero wizardry I'm unaware of? If it's the latter, can I solve it on my MkII?

Thanks Phineas Freak, that seemed to do the trick... Except... Now all of my satellites and my space station are missing.

Hi, I'm experiencing a compatibility bug between this mod and the VenStockRevamp mod. The game hangs on start up in the exact same spot every time. The file it seems to be hanging on is; Squad/Parts/Utility/CommsAntennaDTS-M1/CommsAntennaDTS-M1/meidumDishAntenna Can anyone suggest a work around? I'm really wanting to try this docking mod out. If I uninstall the VenStockRevamp the game will load, but missing a bunch of parts so I can't play my existing save game. Also, if I uninstall the Docking Mod, the game will resume as before, I have several mods installed, but I'm still pretty new to this game, so I'm still hashing all this out.

Thanks Tex_NL, that second link of yours is the most in depth I've seen. All the videos, and even the links directed by your first link, just say take the zip file and stuff I in the game data folder. Well that didn't work. After reviewing the second link, I unpacked all the mods, drilled down and found the proper file(s), (the file inside the game data file, if applicable) and placed those in the game data folder. After doing so, I managed to get 1 out of 4 of the mods to work. Pilot-Assistant was the only one that took, the other three never happened. It's OK for now, I just needed one flight assistant. I'll have to tinker around with some different mods and see if I keep having this issue.

I'm new to the game, just got it a couple days ago, and I'm trying to install some mods to help me with flying aircraft through the atmosphere. I'm not a newb to modding, I mod Farming Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator and the like. I've reviewed all the online documentation and videos and it seems pretty straight-forward. Just take the zip files and stuff em in the Game Data folder. I'm running 1.2.2 in 64bit, and I'm reloading an existing save-game in career mode, and none of the 4 mods I've tried are showing up in-game. I've tried MechJed2, AtmosphereAutopilot-master, DynamicDefflection and Pilot Assistant. None of them seem to be working. Any help would be appreciated.