prgmTrouble

Maybe try a stratolaunch? There could be three parts: the air launch vehicle with the propellers, the shuttle that ferries the payload to orbit, and a station with docking ports for an interplanetary vehicle. I think this might be the best option for this kind of scenario since everything can be reused with a bit of elbow grease and a viable base with ISRU. It will probably be quite an endeavor to engineer such a complicated system, but such is the challenge when designing a fully reusable system.

I thing you should try fewer but larger propellers. If that is too unsightly or causes other problems (re-entry, probably), then I would go for an ISRU solution. If you aren't too attached to the SSTO design, I would even ditch the propellers at the 7km mark since they are worse than dead weight at that point (cuz drag). You might as well attach some science and probe cores to them and make them "deploy-able flying drones" to make it seem less like a cop-out and more like a "feature". Regardless, propellers are very difficult to integrate into rocketry because they increase complexity two-fold (which unfortunately means that there are few real-world examples to copy take inspiration from).

How exactly is it failing? Is it losing power or does it spiral out of control? The first can be solved with larger propellers to deal with the air pressure gradient (see V-22 Osprey for inspiration) and the second could be a problem with fuel consumption shifting the center of mass (need to set fuel flow priority and perhaps alter the wing position). Regardless, I think ISRU is the way to go since you can capture an asteroid on the way out. If you go this route, the propellers can be smaller and you can engage the rockets earlier.

Good to know! I'll restart in a minute

Anyone else getting bugs with the UI text in the aircraft hangar? It says #autoLOC_[numbers] when I'm looking at the parts. It's not a big deal cause it could be my mods, but I'm just curious.

I am really excited about this! I have always wanted these robotics and experiments in the stock game, mostly so I can abuse their physics and colliders

I think of two words that are vaguely related to the craft, and then translate to Latin. I don't know exactly why, but most of the words just sound pleasing to my ears.

Banned for not banning people who are not trying to capture the free hill.

football / football. Your rating depends on which one is American. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor4.shtml

Step 1: Think of a couple words that are at least somewhat related to the craft. Step 2: Translate to Latin. Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit.

Granted, Mark Watney caught a rare disease on Mars that caused him to choke when exposed to sunlight. I wish for the knowledge of a wish without negative consequences in the event I find a genie in real life.

a dart board

I'd imagine that it would be the lag. Ships deemed close enough to warrant physics (200m iirc) dramatically increase lag. Source: tried to land a VTOL with moving parts when approaching a massive aircraft carrier. As soon as it crossed the threshold, the game turned into a powerpoint presentation on why this should not be attempted on a potato laptop.

That's some serious torque! Is this for propulsion or lift?

Designing a new (afaik) cockpit design. I am surprised at how easy it was to make the cockpit; I used a cubic octagonal strut and attached the barometers to them, then copied and mirrored the strut to finish the dome. Might tweak it a bit so that it looks less like a sphere and perhaps try to lower the part count.