ajburges

Trying to be useful with my cry of same issue: Looks like the icons are way point icons. My mod list: Community Trait Icons CorrectCOL KER KerbNetController Docking Port Alignment Indicator PartAngleDisplay [x] Science! PreciseNode RCS buiild aid Trajectories KAC TransferWindowPlanner WaypointManager (given that the icons are waypoints this seems prime for conflicts) WindTunnel Edit: looks like it doesn't play nice with way-points. The save lost almost all my custom way-points. I needed to revert saves after downgrading the mod.

Have you already reduced engine mass? In builder, tweak the engine to 2-10%. You don't need much torque to drive a rotor to make max rpm and the torque is what causes the undesired roll. Reduced engine mass will reduce (but not eliminate) the magnitude of the undesired forces. Also, throttle up gradually to reduce the impulse.

Also pay attention to how you attach parts. Engines are heavy. Attaching them to wings increases the forces they see. If they are attached to the body and offset to where you want on the wings it looks the same but is more durable. You also get some better heat-sink properties.

Also keep in mind that KSP can still run on modest systems. More CPU power just allows you to use higher part count shops comfortably.

Can you capture am image in the VAB? I'm familiar with the problem, but can offer no specific disposition without seeing the payload/fairing relation.

I find the largest wheels troublesome in general. Differential turning requires short wheel bases and the large wheels have enough leverage to cause a lot of torque related issues. If you have kraken issues at 1x, there is something unstable in your design. Try reviewing your use of rigid attachment and autostruts. Remember the wheels have locked struts, so check the vessel tree from heaviest part to wheels for components that would flex on stress.

Autostrut? Pictures could help us understand the scope of your problem or improve diagnosis.

Mk2 parts have excessive drag for their volume. On top of heat tolerance issues, they also are draggy and move your COL and COP forward.

Unity springs don't properly store state in time warp. When you exit time warp, they are displaced WRT the ground and violetly right themselves. Try reduceing spring stiffness. If you flip on exiting time warp, the CoM is probably not evenly distributed over the wheels. If it's physics warp you have issues with: welcome to rovers! Careful turning at speed. 25 m/s is over 55 mph! Do you snap your cars steering to full turn at that speed?

Ya, the MK1 needs careful design and flight profile to work. The only design for more than LKO re-entry I saw actually used canards as a heat shield! The inline cockpit works much better (and allows a forward fuel talk for COM alignment) That said I wouldn't call the MK1 the worst SSTO nose. I would say that would either be an open node or the MK2 cockpit.

Check out graphics optimizations. Some options (like ground effects) put additional demand on a CPU already taxed by ship physics.

50% is a bit much, but for landers you should always have extra budget. Sometimes you need to hover to change landing sites or touch down carefully on a slope. That is really expensive in dV. Sometimes you just goof in design or decent. An extra margin can allow recovery instead if rescue/reversion. The trick is to have a plan for your margin if you are efficient. Mother ship missions can use the margin from successive landings to pay for another or you can bank surplus fuel at depots for future use. Also: RCS. On a light lander the cockpit can provide over 100 m/s. This could be the extra oomph you need to orbit a lander.

What people tend to forget is there are three vertices of efficiency: cost, time, and complexity. Gravity turn accents optimize time while most SSTO spaceplanes optimize cost. Other than challenges, you typically want considerations to all three aspects. There are plenty of trade-offs to make between them.

How low is low fuel? The ratio of Ap to Pe is low enough that 90° inclination change will be expressive. In general the best cost for inclination change angle of u is v/sin(u/2); the vector difference between current and desired velocity vectors. For 90° changes, that is v*u^.5! For more than about 30° changes it becomes better to boost Ap to create a lower velocity for the inclination change. Also consider that reasonable normal components during large pro/retrograde (and radial, but that's less commonly used as a burn vector) burns enjoy sub linear dV costs.

Actually, lvl 3 can be obtained much more efficiently. 16 XP needed: Launch (2 XP from Kerbin orbit). 6 hours before Min -> Minmus transfer window burn for Mun flyby (2 XP). Wrangle your burn such that Munar ejection puts you near Minmus intercept. Halfway between Mum and Minmus execute course correction to correct plane, Pe hight, and time to Pe (for lander/station intercept). Land on Minmus and plant flag (6.25 XP). Eject from Kerbin SOI (6 XP). Once you are in Kerbol SOI, burn for Kerbin intercept and return. This route is also nice for a lot of tourist contacts! Wonder if I should compile that into a how to?

One practical use of a Munar fuel depot is that the Mun is approximately at the gateway orbit for Eve and Duna. That means Munar orbit is one of the most efficient locations to perform a Duna/Eve election burn from. Don'tmix things up though: LKO election is still achieves a lower dV for mission, it's just that Munar orbit lowers the election burn cost (and you just refueled in orbit)

A few notes: Due to limits of RL systems, staging involves noticeable coasting. Multi-mission craft (like the Falcon) will coast before circularization. Also I've heard RL missions will use pitch instead of throttle to tune Ap and TTA. Many KSP players are too shallow on gravity turn for their TWR. The better stage design is the first stage is to get you an ap of 50 km with significant horizontal velocity and TTA. Then, an underpowered second stage that takes almost twice that TTA to burn the remaining dv to orbit! 50 km will get you clear of most atmo to control drag loses, the horizontal velocity will control gravity loses. You normally want vacuum engines suitable for a node smaller than the stage when you do this. Matched nodes vacuum engines topically have more thrust than you need.

With sufficient persistence you can make ladders to Mk2 cockpits work. Lots of persistence.

Not implying this is an issue, but without craft, all avenues need to be explored... What is your lift to mass ratio? Stalling on wings designed for full wet mass takeoffs (without said wet mass) are a big reason space plane reentry works. I've had successful cargo SSTO designs that would burn up if they didn't dump excess fuel at an orbital depot before reentry. I would consider aerobrake to LKO before deorbit pass (two+ pass reentry). That initial bleed of energy is your most hazardous time. Popping back to vacuum for 15+ minutes during deorbit really helps thermal management. YMMV. I don't use space planes that do both SSTO and interplanetary. There isn't much point to haul jet engines out of LKO (except for Laythe). My interplanetary space planes use Mk2 bodies for extra drag and only capture to LKO from SOI boundary.

Correction: you need a certain ore percentage (depending on engineer level) to break even using full cells as your electricity source.

The only way to change magnitude of wing lift is to change AoA or occlude it in a closed bay. Changing wing shape only affects the where of lift, not the characteristics. Note: moving the wing does change CoL. You can use this to make designs that have variable flight stability. For example, bring forward for more subsonic manuverability but sweep back for supersonic cruising. You can also create wings with variable incidence.

Protip: even if you follow a LF only design paradigm, use the "not enough" oxidizer for some more kick at the start of anerobic flight. Adapters typically have oxidizer capacity and not using it messes with dry mass ratio. Since you have Rapier engines (and said adapters) regardless, having a little oxidizer makes for a nice little nitro that boosts the efficiency of your least efficient flight phase.

Long burns have two inefficiencys: cosine lossess and lower average burn velocity (oberth). Separating the two is impactical (impossible?). While there is little utility to do so, you can approximate your cosine thrust losses by taking the integral of cosine over your burn angle and time. A more complicated fuction can determine dV losses. The loss of work (by engines) is beyond what I care to derive.

No, not really. Cis-Munar orbits only offer optimal ejection/capture dV for Eve and Duna. Do the math and you find that optimal ejection for anything else is lower due to the Oberth effect. You also need to spend the dV to get your fuel reserves there. If you want optimal Eve/Duna ejections with refueling, best to have a Munar station IMO.

That is still the case to my knowledge. The actual altitude is a little lower. The second reason to choose 250 km is to achieve 1000x time warp (unlocked at 240 km).