GradientOGames

I've done my research a while ago about COL and COM, for rockets its easy, have the col below the com. For smaller planes, I always have it just a bit behind the com. But for a super heavy plane, how far behind do I put the col. I also heard about having the sol slightly below the com, should I do that?

so I should switch my liquid fuel tanks into rocket fuel tanks?

so more wings or bigger wings? Also, I forgot to mention, a iteration of it did manage to get into orbit, although doing so was very hard and took many attempts, getting off the runway isnt the problem, its just delta V and stability. Ill try more wingspan when I get back on.

I'm quite knowledgeable in rockets, but what's always stumped me, is heavy planes (and fuel cross feeding but that's for another question), whether its space planes, or sstos, they're just so... difficult. I can sort make mk2 and mk1 planes, but never mk3 style planes. I'm trying to make an ssto to go to the Mun for recovery missions and I want to have at least 20t capacity in its cargo hold. I tried replicating Matt Lowne's ssto to the Mun but no luck. Here it is: image I'll send craft file if necessary.