Mister Dilsby

I've made a liquid-only SSTO! The key is to thrust to 1200 m/s with a high rate of climb and get the heck out of atmosphere before anything explodes. Full post and album here Now if you want such a thing to be able to go to Moho, forget it! But it may be possible to scale the concept big enough to carry light cargo to LKO, and be the beginning link in a chain of orbital/surface LH2 mining operations that will truly conquer the Kerbol system. ETA: Rune beat me to it, posted a couple of pages ago on this thread.

I wasn't sure if it could be done, so I tried to do it. The Nooxie 4A is as far as I know the first SSTO spaceplane in V1.0.2 to orbit without oxidant. Engines: Twin turbo ramjets, singe LV-N Crew: One Takeoff Mass: 12.7t Cargo: Minimal (single 1.25 meter bay) Ascent profile is to climb to ~8500m at mach 1-2, then punch the throttle and accelerate to max speed in a 30-40 degree climb, shooting through the 'danger zone' before anything burns up. I turn on the LV-N at about 18km and turn off the jets when they run out of air. I think I could optimize to a more efficient ascent profile, by reducing the angle of the high speed climb phase. Will wait to do that until temp gauges no longer cause a system crash Next experiments will be to scale it up: with two LV-Ns and three or four turbojets, will I be able to carry some cargo? Album below of one round trip to and from the KSC runway. Enjoy!

I wasn't sure if it could be done, so I tried to do it. The Nooxie 4A is as far as I know the first SSTO spaceplane in V1.0.2 to orbit without oxidant. ETA: Rune beat me to it, I missed his post on the "Is there any hope for SSTO?" thread. Engines: Twin turbo ramjets, singe LV-N Crew: One Takeoff Mass: 12.7t Cargo: Minimal (single 1.25 meter bay) Ascent profile is to climb to ~8500m at mach 1-2, then punch the throttle and accelerate to max speed in a 30-40 degree climb, shooting through the 'danger zone' before anything burns up. I turn on the LV-N at about 18km and turn off the jets when they run out of air. I think I could optimize to a more efficient ascent profile, by reducing the angle of the high speed climb phase. Will wait to do that until temp gauges no longer cause a system crash Album below of one round trip to and from the KSC runway. Enjoy!

Landed a crew on the Mun aiming for the NW crater. Realized that we had just missed it and had actually landed in the Highlands, south of the crater. Further realized that we were quite near the reputed location of [REDACTED]. Made a little suborbital hop and sighted the [REDACTED] in flight, made a close landing and paid our respects.

Thank you! Yes, it's mated with Jr. ports, and I did indeed have to be very careful turning. I disabled the reaction wheels on the lander for the entire time it was mated, and made sure to let everything 'settle' periodically during maneuvers. As mentioned in the report there was a pretty bad 'pogo stick' oscillation mode until I hit upon balancing the two aerospikes of the Wasabi Maru with two from the lander. Appreciate also that you liked the lander's Kerbin SSTO performance. Perhaps not all Eve landers can do that, though: some may not fly well without dropping stages. My lander could get away with almost anything in 0.90 due to the riduculous thrust of my Kerbodyne core stage.

Unfortunately, I think it's going to be impossible to evaluate this challenge in V1.0. Used to be all a reviewer had to do was check for impossible Isp and thrust, or evidence of hyperedit. Now we'd pretty much have to confirm the atmosphere wasn't changed at any time during Kerbin ascent, Eve descent and ascent! And which atmosphere? 1.0.0? 1.0.2? "roll your own" tweakables? Maybe at some point there will be an stock aero everyone agrees on, but there is no such thing yet in V1.0.

Agreed. I like the gameplay very much, and appreciate being able to tune atmosphere to what feels right to me--but this is the death of challenges. How are we supposed to evaluate each others' craft and performances if it's not only easy, but expected, to change basic parameters?

I trust this will all get tuned further, but for me the game has always been about trying to make the best spacecraft I can with the parts and physics that exist in stock. Change the rules of the game, and I'll change my gameplay to match. There is no such thing as a "broken" game if one can find a way to succeed at it. ...though one mistake Squad definitely made was in the V1.0 tagline ("Conquering Space was Never this Easy"). It should have been, KSP V1.0: "Change is in the Air!"

You stuffed a 2.5m equipment bay with gyros and made it into a wheeel, didn't you.

Now that I've completed the challenge I'll offer myself as a reviewer. I'll take ILikeRovers's entry to start. Will be a couple of days as I, too, am learning the new version

Not a request for help so much as a thread to discuss high altitude performance of the turboramjet and techniques for safely approaching orbital velocity. I've started experimenting with non-RAPIER platforms for SSTO. Looks like one can get pretty high on 'conventional' jets after all, though not nearly as fast as we did in 0.90. I got this very simple plane up to 24km by throttling way down to about 1/3 until I passed into the upper atmosphere, around 20km. I found I can do 800m/s at 24k safely, and start to get heating effects at 1000 m/s and 24km. Seems like this would be a decent place to start rockets, just like in the old days except 1 km/s slower. How is everyone else doing with this? Similar experiences?

There are a few parts that block crossfeed; structural panels are one of them. Insert a 1x1 panel everywhere the two ships connect and that should solve the problem. I have not done this personally but I saw a Twitch streamer pre-1.0 release doing this to make his replica space shuttle feed only from the external tank and not his orbiter's internal fuel supply.

That's why I never accept those contracts, it's just too much trouble to do in-atmosphere on a 1g world, and not much reward. I much prefer to do surveys for cash on Minmus, where I can hop around in a rover with an ion engine all day long. But your way sounds like one of the easier ways to do it. If I HAD to take a multiple location survey contract on the other side of Kerbin, I think I would put a tiny plane with rover wheels into a big-S fairing and send the whole thing over the pole like an ICBM. Re-enter, eject the fairing right before it explodes, decouple the plane and fly around. Land and drive to the surface site.

We saved the ROUND-8, we can get some space agency somewhere to name something after Jebediah Kerman.

On realizing the engineers put too much delta V in the Munar transfer stage, Val says "hey, why not do an extra biome or two?" and sticks the landing on the Poodle's engine bell.

You sure did--clipping the tower to decelerate at the end was pure jeeenyus,

Hey all, as expected everyone looks pretty busy trying not to explode at mach 2 in V1.0 so it may be a little while before reviewers get to the last crop of Beta attempts, which are: iLike Rovers 26 April Meithan 26 April ShadowZone 26 April HelmutK 27 April I have not looked at any of these in detail, but I REALLY appreciate those entrants who have highlighted the possible sticking points of their entries (i.e. clipping, potential cheats). That's admirable and in true honest spirit of KSP. In my opinion, any cheats, however necessary, would tend to invalidate an entry--but it may be OK to "build a quicksave". For example, suppose you lifted off from the surface, messed up, exploded the ship, and then realized to your horror that your last save was at Kerbin launch. In my mind it would be OK to rebuild the lander in the VAB and hyperedit it to the point on Eve surface where the original lander landed, duplicating all resources exactly as in the original. If an entrant could provide documentation showing that the 'before' and 'after' lander are identical in construction and resources, that might be OK by me as a reviewer. But I don't speak for the reviewer community or for Laie who is really our "founding kerbal" and who should be consulted on all constitutional matters.

Same thing happening to me, even re-entering from a pretty shallow angle with Mk1 pod + science jr + heatshield there is just not enough torque to maintain heading. After killing Val a few times I tried popping the 'chute just as the craft was about to flip over. That seemed to work, it did not rip off at 1400 m/s and it deployed for a successful splashdown. WOW re-entry just got a lot more exciting. Haven't decided if I love this or hate it, but it's certainly one or the other.

Quick, need translations! ¿Alguien habla español en revés?

Landing? What landing? Velocity HYPE >>>>>>>>> Kerbol/galaxy/kluster/kerbiverse ESCAPE SPEED!!!!!

Gene Kerman: Version 1.0 flight controllers listen up! Give me a go/no-go for hype. Booster! Essarbee Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: Retro! Retro Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: FIDO! Fido Kerman: Woof! I mean, hype, Flight! Gene Kerman: Guidance! Sass Kerman: Guidance hype, Flight! Gene Kerman: Surgeon! Bones McKerman: Dammit Gene, I'm a doctor, not a doc... oh, right. Hype, flight. Gene Kerman: EECOM! Sylieber Kerman: We're hype, Flight! Gene Kerman: GNC! Geencee Kerman: We're hype! Gene Kerman: TELMU! Telmoo Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: Control! Kontroll Kerman: Hype, Flight! Gene Kerman: Procedures! Wikki Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: INCO! Inky Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: FAO! Schwartz Kerman: We are Hype! Gene Kerman: Network! Netwerk Kerman: 502! Gene Kerman: Refresh! Netwerk Kerman: 502! Gene Kerman: Refresh! Netwerk Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: Recovery! Perryshoot Kerman: Hype! Gene Kerman: Capcom! THE ENTIRE FORUM: Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Hype! Gene Kerman: Squad Control, this is KSC. We are go for hype!

Well, in all honesty I would have guessed Dominican if it weren't for the location tag, just from memory -- clearly though the pattern is la bandera de Panama. I do love how you tilted the color fields to match the lines of the rocket in the KSP logo, well done!

Well, (1) that looks like the Panamanian flag, just offset and tilted a little and (2) your location says Panama.

It'll depend on how the tech tree and contracts are arranged, but the general direction for Kerbfleet V1.0 Career is as follows: Phase 1. Basic suborbital missions to unlock aircraft parts Phase 2. Kerbin surveys in aircraft for moar science/funds Phase 3. Kerbin orbital program to Mun/Minmus crewed landings. Phase 4: Establish refueling base on Minmus surface STRATEGY: Divert FUNDS-->SCIENCE Phase 5: Using new refinery, farm Minmus survey contracts to amass huge funds/science Phase 6: Finish tech tree and begin launching capital ships for interplanetary exploration. STRATEGY: ALL TO FUNDS Phase 7: Capture a Class E asteroid and convert to kerbosynchronous orbit refueling base Phase 8: Establish infrastructure (survey probes, mining/refueling bases, space stations) ...8a: Duna/Ike ...8b: Eve ...8c: Dres and asteroid belt ...8d: Jool ...8e: Eeloo and Moho Phase 9: Jool-5 challenge Phase 10: Eve Rocks challenge ...not that I've thought too much about it

Yes, I think that would be best--certainly, insane entries should be posted here for our amusement, but I'm not going to maintain a leaderboard for Unlimited with the present rule set. We may have to see how SAS devices change in V1.0 to see what the rules should be beyond Open. I do hope someone finds a way to beat your Open record of 2200m, Starwhip! As I recall there is some gyro use in yours, with midair flips to gain speed prior to hitting the launch ramp. I wonder if some kind of sliding mass rig would work to increase speed even further, i.e. get momentum from the 'fling' effect I and Juzeris used, but keep the craft together to meet the Open requirement? Or maybe spin the craft in air after launch and 'pole vault' by having a stiff enough section impact the ice.