Corona688

Theoretically, nosecones ought to REDUCE drag... Might try a modded nosecone...

Make sure that the folder you put in /parts isn't just a folder inside it with the rest of the part stuff. That's the only way I've managed to provoke infinite loading when installing working mods.

Lots of drag, no weight. SAS holds it in a position of maxiumum drag.

It's an expansion on the Mark II with enough oomph to heft a satellite part and full manuevering tank to 2800m/s. The bottom stage was more than doubled -- seven liquid motors now. More SAS was needed since the shape's less elegant. The top stage actually still handles the same, since one tank was dropped to make room for the sat part(which I'm sure must be made of depleted uranium). [edit] Have successfully put the satellite part into an admittedly very eccentric orbit, but nonetheless an orbit, and deorbited afterwards.

I think he was asking about their recently-exposed parameters. Afraid I don't know much but they probably have to do with how hard and how quickly the force grows with relation to angle. Right now we have SAS modules that overcompensate ridiculously for small craft but won't bother shoving a large craft full-force until the aerodynamics already have it circling the drain. If you could match them perfectly to the acceleration characteristics of your craft you'd have rock solid flight

Sure, if you want to run the game for decades or centuries.

Haha, I tried making a ramjet with negative drag. It kind of worked but was incredibly unstable, the slightest deviation from vertical would produce a gigantic sideways reverse-drag sufficient to rip it right off. You could get several hundred mps below a thousand feet -- usually downwards, as it would accelerate you down as fast as you were going up even butt-first. If drag were a vector instead of a scalar, maybe...

I notice you're not saying they're wrong

Gryyyyyyyyyyyyyy!?

Oof. Just tried carrying the sat and had to increase everything massively. What is it made out of, LEAD?

...or just F1.

Inspired by the design of the Cortex 1, I replaced all 21 25 solids from my Mark I Orbiter with three liquid engines. The upper SAS was also ditched to save weight. The result is still bigger than the Cortex, but the forked upper stage makes it much less tippy -- more weight further down. (Top-heaviness is what forced me to use so many solids in the Mark I...) It's also extremely well balanced, manuevers smoothly, and carries a microtank+microengine payload. No SAS on the top stage means you really must major-tom it if you want to orbit though.

Adding one more tank to the top stage gives it a lot more delta-V and makes first-stage flight much more stable. It might even be able to carry the satellite!

Very nice and simple design. It's really hard to fly though, the SAS is never enough and the second stage has none at all!

72 gees!? I think you've established that you can't kill kerbals with gee forces yet.

Your pics are way too wide for my screen and the dumb forum software doesn't even wrap your text readably. Would you mind putting them in spoiler tags so people can read what you say?

Okay, efficient single-stage-to-orbit is probably not possible without cheating. Here's a serious try at a real orbiter. Though it was not totally in vain, all that experimenting with number of tanks versus number of nozzles, found a sweet spot at two nozzles, 3-7 tanks. The first stage is sixteen stock solid motors and four SAS modules. Double and triple in-line couplers were used to build it. It tops out about 2800m and 160m/s. The second stage is nine solid motors and two SAS modules. It tops out about 7500m and 200m/s. It's H-shaped to let the tines of the third-stage fork pass through it. They can be fired simultaneously even, but that's less efficient. It takes some gimbal work to make it fly steady. The third stage is six fuel tanks, a three-way in-a-row coupler, one SAS module, microengine, miccrotank, and the control module. It accelerates from 200m/s to >2500m/s on those six tanks alone! It took trial and error to find a shape for all that which is still stable with one SAS module. [edit] I have successfully orbited in this craft now, and as such call it the Mark I Orbiter.

Been experimenting trying to make a single-stage to orbit craft. This isn't quite it, but close, or could be if it didn't steer like a battleship embedded in concrete. Gentlemen, I give you the Longcat: Jettison two engines once you break 300m/s for increased efficiency.

Very nice. Very nice indeed. Capsule and mini engine, outside of air resistance and when high enough, develop THREE GEES. Make the tank any bigger and it can't even beat the miniscule gravity. So useful yet realistic I think.