Mister Dilsby

Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt! But..."only" a plane? Dude, I made an SSTO without RAPIERS! Or rocket engines! And landed it within meters of the summit! I don't want to leave any doubt in your mind. What if I can get this damaged bird back to KSC on its own power? I think I have a way...

You'll have to be more specific please if you want help. Exactly which part did you attach to the ship for SAS control? As @eddiew said, not all parts that give torque also include a control system. It's just like RCS: would you expect the ship to steer itself simply because you put RCS thrusters and monopropellant tanks on it?

My entry for the challenge, an SSTO/VTOL spaceplane. I don't usually use RAPIERS for my SSTOs, so to avoid those and still keep within the letter of the rules I designed this ship using monopropellant engines for orbital maneuvering and VTOL. I think this is my first ship to carry no oxidant! The keys to success: (detailed in the Imgur stream) 1. Designing on the centerline 2. Fuel flow management 3. WHITE KNUCKLE PILOTING! Pictures below, enjoy! After much soul- and mountain-searching (and multiple re-edits of this post) I think I am at the correct location for the summit, and can't figure out how @hoioh is at 6767 when I'm at 6764 (and OP calls the altitude 6763) Can anyone shed some light?

Hmmm, interesting! I'd heard you could do that with Minmus but not Ike. Numbers show it must be possible-- dV map gives 535m/s required to get to orbit from surface, and IIRC the packs hold 600. From one of the high peaks, it should be even easier.

Thanks! I'm actually not quite sure WHAT I'm running, the folders are Environmental Visual Enhancements (of course) and BoulderCo. A little embarrassed here, I get a lot of joy out of that mod and I can't remember the source.

If you're not above editing the save file, you can just find the affected vessel and change the status of its panels. I'll admit to having done this before, after sending up some kind of "repair" ship as justification.

I'd be happy if the degree to which the doors opened were a tweakable: that is, I could set the doors on my spaceplane to open only 150 degrees instead of 180, which would be more than enough to get things in and out and yet would not clip wings on the centerline.

Don't panic! Before you give up entirely, have you done all the things to make docking as easy as possible? --Orient ports N-S (one points heading 000, one points heading 180) Assuming you are on an equatiorial orbit, ports aligned in N-S direction will stay aimed in that direction. If you are not equatorial, point the ports orthagonal to prograde. --Get as lined up as you can using main engines This doesn't work on all ship designs of course, but sometimes when RCS thrust is weak its the only way. Hopefully you have sufficient gyro torque to orient the ships' headings where you want them. If main engine thrust is too strong for effective control, you can tweak it lower by right-clicking. --Pick Up Your Visual Scanning! Sometimes you cannot trust the navball to aim for the port, if the port is not on the ship's central axis. I like to put the camera directly under one of the ports and rotate views until I'm satisfied the other port is lined up in every direction --Sort Out Directions In Advance You need to know as you're coming in which way the "IK" and "JL" key pairs are going to send your ship. --Take It Slow! Invariably you are going to end up 5 meters from the target and be misaligned. If you're going slow enough toward target you should be able to make a lateral correction (see Sort Out Directions In Advance, above) and magnetics will pick it up from there. Likely you are already doing many or all of these things, but often a small tweak to technique can be the difference. Good luck!

Hear hear, this is a great way to present a mission--just enough RP elements, and it puts the pictures in better context than vanilla Imgur. +1

This sequence completes the mission, with a lander launched from KSS Kerbin Maru going to Ike's surface and back. Compared to the Duna landings above, and my many trips to Mun, this seemed really easy. I suppose the Duna system is even more "fun-sized" than Kerbin's, it's great to play around in low gravity and light atmosphere. Had a bit of an adventure lifting off from the surface; while I was distracted taking pictures I achieved Ike escape velocity! But did manage to correct before I got too high, and set up an intercept with Kerbin Maru within one orbit. Following these missions Kerbin Maru is left in Ike orbit with about 1800dV, and the Gliido spaceplane is in LDO with about 1500. Both ships are slated to return to Kerbin on the next transfer window, but by that time I will likely be starting all over again in V1.0. Thanks everyone for your views, and your comments!

Never seen or heard of this, so probably need some screenshots to diagnose. Does pressing 'F' key do anything interesting? It sounds to me like your "T" key (toggle switch) is doing what the "F" key (momentary push switch) is supposed to do.

Aha, thanks to both of you for confirming that! I suppose I should either avoid physics warp on the ground, or retract the gear before doing so. In any case, no more wheels on this mission; all that's left is for Kerbin Maru to get into Ike orbit and send down the non-atmospheric lander.

Gliido has tanked up, we've swapped crews in order to share out the XPs, and we're ready to try a second landing in a polar region. Departing the KSS Kerbin Maru from low altitude, Gliido has to spend quite a bit of dV to change its inclination enough to hit the poles. (800, if I recall correctly). Knowing I would need extra dV to get back to an equatorial orbit, I didn't incline all the way to 90 degrees, instead aiming for a spot near the south edge of the icecap. And, I missed . No worries, I did get a landing in a second biome, and this leaves something for my Duna mission to accomplish in V1.0. Here's a brief slideshow: So, what caused the ship to roll down the hill? When it happened I was running Kerbals around on EVA, with time accelerated 4x. I know that sometimes a control input meant for one vessel will steer BOTH of them when those ships have recently been docked. Does the same thing happen between Kerbals and ships? Or was the physics warp simply high enough that the frictional force of wheels on the ground got lost in a rounding error, and gravity won the tug of war?

For the Mun, a rover can be made light enough that the magnetic force of a standard docking clamp is enough to pull it off the ground. I just land this rocket, detach the rover, drive around, and when it's time to go home drive the rover back underneath and wait for it to dock automatically. ETA: Rover is also light enough compared to the lifter that there are no problems controlling the ship in flight.

Next installment: a surface meetup. We'll leave one Kerbonaut aboard Dunablab, and pick up the rest of the crew for transport back to orbit. Anyone who's tried to put a spaceplane on Duna knows there are some challenges. The thin air limits both lift and drag, making it difficult to touch down at a speed that won't break off landing gear and explode engines. But on the other hand, the light gravity makes VTOL a viable solution. Gliido employs a set of Vernor thrusters arranged around, and close to, the line along which its center of mass will vary as fuel tanks empty. It has enough of them to lift off in Kerbin gravity, so we're sure to have plenty of thrust on Duna. Regular hypergolic RCS is needed to stabilize the ship in VTOL mode: I find it works best to have the attitude control blocks as far from centerline as possible, so a small bit of thrust gives you the necessary torque to counter the inevitable imbalances. Finally, don't forget to put the Vernors on an action group so you an disable them--otherwise docking is going to be a nightmare, as you have 4-5kN of thrust in five of six directions, and over 200kN firing whenever you press 'K'! So anyway here we go--in pictures: For the next phase we'll refuel, swap crews, and try a Gliido landing in the northern polar region.

I really like the Kerbodyne/mk3 styling of the aft section, it reminds me of Soyuz/Vostok which is appropriate for something that huge. Well done, and nice sequence of pictures! So, does it have a mission in mind or are you still in proof-of-concept stage? With that many NERVA engines and the right hookups I think you could get a Class-E asteroid under tow.

Well done Nik! I am taking notes, and will attempt the Jool-5 myself in V1.

Thanks all! Next up, the three vessels separate and Dunablab executes its de-orbit burn, targeting a lowland zone on the equator. Crew consists of pilot Thomwig, science officer Mac, and engineer Bill. We expect to need all three Kerbals' special talents before this is over. The descent, landing and subsequent repairs, in pictures: I'm finding I really like driving a 10t rover around Duna! The gravity is heavy enough to hold the ship down, but light enough that you can blast straight up most hills. I would definitely consider using a rover like this to road-trip from biome to biome. In the next installment, Dunablab finds a nice, flat landing spot for Gliido--which the spaceplane overshoots by a couple dozen kilometers, Mission Control still not quite believing how thin Duna's atmosphere really is.

With V1 coming out soon (soon?) and the probability that I will have to change all my spaceplane designs, I am just going to finish up my long-planned Duna system exploration mission and then hang out in the lounge car of the hype train until its time to download. Mission Goals: --Establish a permanent mobile base and laboratory on Duna --Make landings in multiple biomes --Recover atmospheric data from high and low altitude --Land and explore Ike Vessels: --KSS Kerbin Maru: 44t long-duration tanker/research ship, with mk3 bay for the Ike lander --Gliido Mk90: 20t SSTO/SSTA (Single Stage to Anywhere) interplanetary-capable, V/STOL spaceplane with seating for four Kerbals --Dunablab: mobile base and surface laboratory And here's the fleet in pictures, up to rendezvous in Duna orbit: Next post, Dunablab's landing (and subsequent repairs...)

Kudos for no part clipping! I guess I'm using the wrong profile then, I tend to have a couple of shock cones per turbojet plus a bunch of structural intakes and still go to rockets at about 28km. I think the idea of an 'economy class' crew transporter is a good one. Here's my interplanetary shuttle, the Gliido, with jump seats for two in the experiment bay. The Mk2 is just deep enough to close the doors and not clip the kerbals' helmets.

Looks great! A nice, clean, minimalist design that does the job. Are those four radial intakes the only ones, or are you hiding more inside?

Hm, I suppose some extra engines could have worked, but this is what I ended up doing: ...the Mun rover is light enough that the magnetic docking clamp pulls it right off the ground as soon as you drive under the port. And away we go! Without ions it can only manage two landings before needing to get back in orbit and refuel. I use this one mainly to deliver and retrieve crews from various Munbases.

One of the things I love best about this game is that ships have to be optimized for the mission and environment. In this case, I developed the flying rover after wasting too much fuel trying to hit EXACTLY the right spot on the surface to fulfill a contract. Now I just have to land within a few hundred meters, and go for a drive. This does NOT work in Mun gravity, so I have a different rover concept entirely for farming the larger moon...

I've been having a lot of success with this concept, farming Minmus for millions and millions of funds with each mission. I accept all the surface and low-orbit science contracts I can (gravity and temperature scans, surface sampling, etc) and then do them all in one go with this very simple rover. It has enough deltaV on board to make several suborbital hops on its ion engine, can drive a good distance on the surface, and when it's low on xenon it returns to orbit to replenish from the service module. Here's the rover separating from the service module. There are four xenon tanks attached radially, but one could certainly bring lots more. Minmus gravity is low enough that a small inline reaction wheel is enough to save the vehicle from almost any flip, or cause one if you're not careful. I disable the reaction wheel when in 'rover' mode to avoid SAS interfering with the driving controls. In flight mode, I control from the small probe core under the seats which is in line with the engine. The craft is completely stock, and includes a full non-atmospheric science suite. Thanks for looking!

Ok, I did a little experiment with the help of Hyperedit. I put various single stage ships with different dV and takeoff TWR(eve) of around 2 at a launch site 452m high, and sent them straight up. The results: dV || max altitude _____________________ 1483 || 3210m 2457 || 5283m 4051 || 9277m 4976 || 12929m ...so, looks like the deltaV savings for launching at altitude is pretty close the deltaV cost to get to that altitude. For example the wiki says you save about 2400dV if you launch at 5000m, and it my test it cost about 2400dV to go about 5000m. And I guess i answered my own question: I need about 4200dV to lift my ion ship to 10km from sea level.