kerbinoid

I use the Ascent autopilot all the freaking time. I've played this game for a long time, and I cannot be bothered piloting another launch. Plus it's not like astronauts in RL pilot their vehicles during launch, so why should I?

So after watching a vid where a rocket is launched from a plane, I decided to have a go. I present the 'Well that\'s one way to do it' version 1. She flies surprisingly well, climbs to 14000m with ease. Separation is a bit hairy, so I let mech jebs ascent auto pilot take over after that. The way the struts are placed causes that wings to fold up after sep, but with a bit of fine tuning and an extra mech jeb it might be possible to land the plane portion of the vehicle after rocket sep. thoughts?

Agreed. If you have enough delta v to escape kerbin gravity you\'re golden. With the implementation of mission planning (not sure when that\'s coming), getting to any planned planet is just going to be a matter of time.

You betcha. Booster and bottom core stage are almost enough to achieve orbit @ 120km. The orbital stage get\'s me to the mun, into low munar orbit. Lander stage usually has fuel to spare to land, ascend, get into kerbin orbit, and even deorbit. You have to be precise with your burns though. If you mess up you have to restart the flight or doom your kerbals to a cold death.

I don\'t normally play with stock parts, but I was looking for a bit of fun and though I\'d try a minimal while still somewhat realistic mun rocket. When I say realistic, I mean it has to look like it wouldn\'t tear itself to pieces on ascent, even if it isn\'t in anyway aerodynamic with stock parts (Though that might change now that nova works for squad? Stock fairings anyone?). I was actually surprised with what was possible. I thought I would need at least dozen tank and maybe six or seven engines. I managed to do it with nine full sized tanks, one half size tank, and four engines. So without further ado, I give you my stock mun rocket. Craft file attached.

Just signed up to post this, have lurked for a while. Nova, yours are the only packs I use. To me they are the only packs that keeps the essential feel of the game, while also giving you an amazing range of possible rockets. Thanks for all your time working on them, it has not been wasted.