FinalFan

My lander took off from Minmus and put itself into a prep orbit to return to Kerbin; it was a low orbit but I checked the trajectory in map view and it looked like it had comfortable clearance. But as I followed the ship, its altitude above the surface dwindled to 87 meters before increasing again. Well, whatever, I made it ... but then I had another close encounter a mere 26 meters above the surface! Map view shows a gap between trajectory and surface that should plainly be bigger than that. Conversely, in the past I've seen the path sink into the "ground" on map view while I was still a hundred meters up. I had thought it was just because I was suborbital and "close enough" to the ground, but now I'm wondering if it was the same phenomenon in reverse. Is this a known issue?

It's only after reading this that I connect the recent heat issues with the fact that I have an Eve mission en route in my career ...

I've been advised that this is the place to post SSTOs. Big Plane to Anywhere https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1875714661 (Nice try, Bill, but I don't think this is what they meant by "long range ISRU craft"...) I've been fooling with this for quite a while, and recently I decided to inflict it on the world. It may not have as much chrome or avant garde cred as some people like, but I think it's stylish in its own way. It carries 6 kerbals and has all the standard science and a science lab to examine it in. It makes LKO with 2800+ dV still in the tank (as of 1.8), and holds 4600+ after refueling with two large drills (4700+ if it's practical to launch on just the NERVs). The design isn't very minimalist; if anything, it's focused on having lots of bells and whistles: for example, it has two front wheels because one is better for taxiing (can steer) and the other is better for wilderness takeoffs and landings. It's been fantastic so far for doing all kinds of missions in Kerbin SOI (I got a surprising number of requests for 5-kerbal capacity thingamabobs); it's also en route to Jool but said Kerbin missions are slowing down the clock. I'm pretty happy with it, but welcome any constructive criticism.

I'm just spitballing here, but I want to share a thought about why it might be that there is so much trouble over "only" 350m/s. First, let's consider airbreathing mode. This is the "easy" part, not in terms of designing it or flying it but in the sense that the very efficient jets give you a huge head start on the dV you need for orbit. Let's say the jets do all the work of going up to 1200ms, and 2/3 the work of 1200-1500m/s, for 1400 out of 2400. (More than 2300 because orbital speed is higher at lower altitude. For simplicity I will ignore the altitude and atmosphere and hope it isn't too far off.) So you're going east at 1500 (surface) and need to be going 2400 (orbital) and you get 175 for free (surface speed assists orbital speed). That leaves only 725 dV that the rockets need to supply, plus 100 they already did for 825 total; and the rockets are always less efficient than jets and also less powerful on a NERV spaceplane like yours is. Now you want to go west instead, and the difference in dV of orbiting the other way is only 350 (2400+175 instead of 2400-175), but it's not 350 added to 2225, it's 350 added to 825, or a more than 40% increase in the work the rockets have to do! No wonder you had trouble, when putting it that way.

Is that, like, the biker-gang alter ego of Wernher von Braun?

RADIO Remote Assembly Device In Orbit Note: this name assumes that it can be operated remotely, i.e. can build and launch probes without kerbals in the facility.

SkyVAB For the historical pun. I was also going to propose Orbital Construction Dock, but I was beaten to it, so it's got my vote.

After reaching higher tech tiers, I use the Flea almost as often as I use the Reliant. (The Swivel, on the other hand, still occupies a genuine if narrow niche for my vehicles when I want a cheap second stage and the Cheetah isn't strong enough.) You know, what would really make the Flea more attractive is a built-in decoupler. I dimly recall that a big reason I stopped using it was that the decoupler cost twice as much as the booster. It probably just seemed like a stupid waste of credits. And there's precedent now with those Making History capsules. On the other hand, that's just an extra complication for people trying to learn the basics of the game, so it's probably best not to have it as standard equipment, but possibly an upgrade as in your idea.

Thanks for the advice. With SAS off, it has a slight to very slight nose-up effect above 300 m/s. Basically, I'm satisfied with its controllability in normal flight. But I was wondering if I was contradicting any community-identified "best practice" with my placement of the CoM. There could be a situation I haven't considered where it's horrible, you know? [edit: Or relying on fuel placement to be stable during aggressive reentry could be considered a crime against kerbalkind.] If it's just known and identified tradeoffs like "better for low and slow (e.g. landing and takeoff), but you have to be a lot more careful on ascent path" then that's fine. What kind of rules of thumb can I use to guess at my center of drag? For instance, the CoM is about 60% of the way towards the back from the front; is that relevant?

TL;DR: is this generally considered a "don't do this" type of thing for spaceplanes, or just a tradeoff? Hi, I've been refining a Mk3 "do-everything" spaceplane for a while now (all science, ISRU, amphibious, etc.) and I'm wondering if I'm making a mistake with the balance. The default CoM is very stable and just a tiny tiny bit forward of the CoL, but I understand that although these being very close makes the plane more maneuverable, it also makes it more vulnerable to loss of control. My question is: is this generally considered a "don't do this" type of thing for spaceplanes, or just a tradeoff? —Liftoff/landing: CoM and CoL being on top of each other is good here, right? —Ascent: CoM being somewhat ahead of CoL makes the plane more stable. But if it seems pretty controllable then is there a reason to worry? —Reentry: CoM being somewhat ahead of CoL makes the plane recover from aggressive reentry profiles. Is it reasonable to say "I expect to have some fuel left to create this condition for reentry" or is that considered a bad design? (It needs 10% fuel to ensure recovery from radial out position) Basically, I like the idea of maximum agility (for a Mk3 spaceplane) but I don't want to overlook a fatal flaw.

Like many of you, I've experienced serious issues with landing legs having excessive bouncing. But it's important to remember the promise of landing legs. I landed a probe on Minmus lately on a slope and this happened: I came down vertically and the legs automatically evened me out. It was beautiful. Hopefully this is what we can have right from the beginning in KSP2, and new players can experience this without bitter memories of landing leg shenanigans.

It's very unfortunate that the demo can no longer be obtained through ordinary channels. However, it can still be found online without too much trouble. For instance, if you put download ksp demo into Google, you'll get a bunch of results, primarily from people on this forum asking how to download the demo (lol), then the KSP website, steam, etc. Ignore these. Further down the list you find some third party downloads, and these are still functional. Just pick one that's not too disreputable. For example, I've never had a problem with softonic's files, but it's a bit of a chore to navigate through all the false links (that take you to ads instead) to get to those files. I tried the demo from softonic; it worked fine, and my computer hasn't caught fire yet.

I still hear people talk about CKAN, so probably that is still the thing to use. But honestly, it sounds like so much has changed that it might be worth considering starting from scratch: play with the base game for a little while, and then add things back in, instead of deciding what mods to cut back on when you don't even know what it is they're replacing.

See, that's the thing, I don't use any mods, so I'm just wildly flailing around when I try to answer his questions lol

Whoa, relay network was new as of 1.4? I must have bought the game right as they introduced it. One of the biggest things for people that lived through the updates was that one of the Making History engines, the Wolfhound, had super OP Isp for an LFO engine, but they nerfed it somewhat so that doesn't matter to you. (420 to 380) Honestly, I haven't been following the updates all that closely so I'm a bad person to try to help you. But I'm really stoked about the updates that are coming soon! 2.5m SRBs at last (no more clusters of 4 kickbacks for me), being able to edit action groups while on a mission (and review what they even are!), and more. I'm assuming that when you say KAS and KIS features are in the stock game now, you are referring to delta-V and TWR readouts being shown for each stage. [edit: I totally agree with VoidSquid: while I struggle to think of huge, attention-grabbing changes (other than the expansions), there have been lots and lots of smaller, just-works-better changes, and it should add up quite nicely. Oh, at some point they slightly changed Eve's atmosphere, but it might have been before you left and it wasn't drastic.]

As someone who doesn't know nothing but doesn't really know programming, that picture really helps, so thank you. I'm still deeply skeptical of your "easier" claim, but "easy" I could buy. More powerful goes without saying.

Ah, but is it rockets with Minecraft?

My Excel experience suggests a potential solution by analogy to recorded macros. I.e., you hit record, do whatever stuff, and Excel makes you some code that does that stuff with one standardized button press. KSP doesn't necessarily have to simulate all your vehicles doing whatever activities in the background. If KSP can determine what one "cycle" of activity produces and/or consumes and how long it takes, then it can just say "you get this much per day" and not sweat the details until you get back in physics range. [edit: looking back at the conversation, this would not apply to rovers "scanning for resources" as I interpret the phrase, but it would work for fixed activities.] If this is determined by player activity that could lead to some interesting "speed run" gameplay incentives, which I'm not saying is either a good or a bad thing.

This scares me, particularly now that we are on the cusp of actually being able to adjust them while on missions.

I'm here to drop a super specific wish that I doubt anyone else has posted, but I only checked the first three pages so far so let me know if I'm wrong. I would like to be able to toggle the VAB/SPH to "Night Mode" and see how my stuff looks in the dark. I sometimes put the floodlights on things and I'd like to see how effective it is without launching and timewarping. Or maybe it's already in KSP and I'm just ignorant. In which case, please cure my ignorance!

This would certainly alter my perception of the kerbals and their motives! Humans, too, would probably throw infinite money at maniacs willing to hurl themselves into space in horrifically slapdash vehicles if the incentive was the solar system disintegrating on a human timescale.

I am really surprised that you consider the Vector with its 315 isp to be some kind of overpowered beast for deep space craft. I'm honestly dumbfounded, actually. For me the Terrier/Poodle/Rhino triumvirate reign supreme in space among the stock LFO engines, with Cheetah and Wolfhound adding to the mix from MH. What about the Vector makes it superior to these engines in vacuum in your estimation? For the NERV, I don't disagree nearly so much, but I still think you're overstating your case a bit. Its weak thrust means multiple engines are needed for reasonable TWR on larger craft, which can be annoying and potentially design restricting. For non-reusable craft, I imagine a staged LFO design might do at least as well as a NERV setup, though I must admit this is a bit outside my KSP experience as I have not done much yet with large, non-reusable interplanetary craft. And there's also career mode to consider. Do you use 6 or 7 NERVs at 10k each, or one Skipper and extra fuel?

Well, to be fair, I burst out laughing at that flying saucer, so craft of the week wasn't undeserved, lol. I'd "like" your posts but apparently that feature is currently unavailable. Thanks again. The new version is at least as well balanced as the old one, lower stall speed, more dV but less weight, etc. Sluggish to accelerate after liftoff but somehow still lifts off at similar speed, lol.

Thank you SO much, from the bottom of my heart, for this wonderful feedback. Firstly, thank you for letting me know whether the overall dV is appropriate (it is, yay!) Secondly, thank you for warning me that the "anywhere" could annoy people who thought I meant it literally. It's what I actually named the craft, but I will reconsider that and also think about what else to call the thread regardless of the craft name. Thirdly, thank you for reminding me that people would like to see a picture of the craft at the promised Minmus. I have to admit that the version I uploaded was still en route to its first Minmus landing (earlier versions, with medium TCSes had gone there). But most of all, thank you for alerting me to the fact that a plane of this size could reasonably fly with that much less engine. Three RAPIERs, wow! I think that craft was somewhere in the vicinity of 104 tons based on your picture? Significantly less than mine, but still—my eyes are opened! I immediately tried to modify my own, and while the initial test of three RAPIERs failed miserably, four seems to have done the trick. It handled like a pig on the runway, but it circularized with 2400 m/s left in the tank—without a nosecone! (I noticed this lack while on my upper-atmospheric speedrun) As for where to post it, I am a bit confused—I thought individual threads were a common way to debut craft unless it was part of some kind of series or collection. But I'll look at what you said.

Thanks for your feedback. Although "wow effect" is extremely vague and subjective, I think I know what you mean and I agree that this doesn't have a lot of it. I also agree that it has a lot of things that a minimalist design would cut away. This was not intended to be a minimalist design. I would like to answer your questions, though; and, in turn, I'd like to ask you a few questions. A--airless landings: Indeed, I anticipate going in tail first as that is how I would be decelerating; however, I would plan to land at an angle and hit on the wheels instead of the tailfins. I sort of thought this was standard practice for spaceplanes but I could add it to my OP if you want. Does this answer your question? A--docking: You rendezvous, approach the other ship, zero out thrust again, turn nose-on to target docking port, and then accelerate a little and hold steady. I've docked this way with even larger vessels (on both sides of the equation) and been fine. (Including a larger, earlier version of this spaceplane, but I wouldn't inflict its handling characteristics on others.) Q--Mk.3 cabin: is the objection that it's heavier, on a ton per kerbal basis, than other command pods and kerbal carriers? That's true, but it also has a very high heat tolerance and I thought that would be a useful feature for reentry. Also, I'm not even sure how I could replace it without totally redesigning the plane; I don't think I need another Mk.3-2.5m adapter. Q--reaction wheels: I presume you mean that having three larges and the cabin is unnecessary and I could cut two of the larges and still be okay. If that's what you meant, then I agree; I believe it made a 180° turn in 25 seconds (after making LKO, so longer full) but I just wanted to be faster in case of having to make fast adjustments on airless landings/takeoffs, since I'm not highly experienced in doing those in vacuum. However, if you meant that I could cut down to ONE of my four reaction wheels (counting cabin), then I have to disagree as that would be an unacceptably slow turn speed to me. (Note: While I stand by all of the above for the originally posted craft, the revised craft indeed cut out the two side wheels, being a good 20 tons lighter.) Q--"looking better and more efficient": how would you go about mounting six RAPIERS and four NERVs to a plane with approximately this size and shape? Considering the weight of the vessel I would be surprised if you could afford to use fewer jets and I would not accept the <0.1 TWR that would result from cutting NERVs. (Note: I was indeed able to use fewer jets, dropping LFO.) In closing, I agree that this plane would not require all the skill of an expert spaceplane designer. I myself am not an expert spaceplane designer. However, I don't think it's quite as easy to slap together as you seem to think. For example, most people don't seem to remember that radiator panels (as opposed to TCSes) even exist, and they are the key to avoiding the need for medium TCSes which, in order to fit inside the cargo bay, would practically monopolize the science lab's upper surface. (Or a horde of small TCSes, ditto.) Also, nothing in the cargo bay uses part clipping, except for a tiny overlap between the materials bay and the perpendicularly mounted probe control (which could be omitted, except I don't have level 3 pilots available to fly it, and others might not also) as well as small parts of the fuel cells in the drills' big main bodies.