CptRichardson

Got a link to that?

No... no they didn't. They just made brand new, bloody hilarious mistakes. The park is running. Perfectly, I might add, with apparently no deaths since it was opened. Then they decided they needed more tourists, and instead of looking for another species built one of their own. It went Horribly Right. And Starlord Rides with Raptors.

The TIEs have obvious additions to their design, the Falcon got cleaned up quite a bit, and we've already seen several times that the X-Wings are of a new design that could best be described as the difference between the original F-18's and the Super Hornets. Plenty of real world examples of similar things going on (MiG-21's, aforementioned F-18's, C-130's...).

In other words, you want an ARA. http://www.projectara.com/

Yeah, the classic design doesn't make much sense as a ship without some fancy tricks. STO's Guardian class would be more along the lines of what we would build with a few tweaks to balance it out. Still wouldn't do it unless the cannae drive motors produce a useful amount of thrust (at which point having nacelle housings with dozens of them mounted inside on gimbals would actually make sense)

.... You have to ask this question in a game with Jebidiah Kerman? He just wanted to fly a moon... Just a little one.

Here's a whole bunch of planet concepts that a guy with too much time on his hands came up with to challenge the normal preconceptions of how life-bearing planets could form. http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM He's working on a tide-locked planet right now, it's all pretty interesting.

My head is now scattered in atomized pieces across five states.

Don't use FAR. It does seem to have a similar failure mode to what I get from FAR aircraft, though, now that I think about it...

Every single launch of my test aircraft for Nert's Mk 4 hull system has flipped out in the air and back flopped onto the hangar.

Playing with it, it's horrifically unstable. I think the CoM is off-center from the aircraft, but I need to do some investigating. Also, could it be possible to have some alternate variants of the cockpit based off of the current formfactor? There is a metric butt-ton of space beneath the flight deck you could play with, and I can think of several variants that could be put into practice.

Close enough that apparently the planet is undergoing significant tidal forces, to include near-vertical walls of water as 'tides', according to one of the latest trailers.

The NASA tests were conducted with equipment specifically design to null out any other force other than 'test rig producing thrust'. This literally cannot be 'just' a flawed experimental regimen anymore. That worst case is now off the table, but the real cause of the thrust remains to be determined. This being an atmospheric heating effect is also fairly unlikely, as they've documented roughly similar thrust in near vacuum. So, without an orbital test that cannot be left off the table, but it's almost certainly not the case. There is still 'pushing off the earth's magnetic field' and other effects which might be possible that would be bad, but still useful. As for the 'NASA is almost certain a superconducting version will work 10 times better', they're basing it off of certain superconducting magnet quirks they think will have an effect. Even if it doesn't pan out, this thing is still a pretty awesome drive system once they figure out what's going on.

Given that they seem to be interested in settling on a planet near a black hole... yeah, no. Don't want.

Let's say that this IS an atmospheric only thing if the worst case is true. That still provides much more available thrust to us if we can get superconducting versions work as experimental data suggests. Space becomes that much closer, as you now only have to provide rocket thrust above the bulk of the atmosphere, and you can theoretically speed up to nearly orbital velocities while at 10 miles up before pulling up in some crazy KSP-esque maneuver. Even the worst case scenarios for this drive suggest that there is something incredibly useful to be gained from these things, and we would be fools to ignore them.

Also, it doesn't have the Falcon-9...

My god, it's like some unholy pudgy budgie, balefully glaring at aerodynamics and daring them to say something. And it can EAT a SP+ spaceplane.... my god, it's full of win. Currently, I have the perfect soundtrack for this wonderful piece of designwork: Can't play with it yet, but planning on doing so. Addendum: One thing that would help would be specialized 'wing base' wing parts. The funky shape of the hull means you need a root of some kind to anchor to in order to make your structural wings sound. Plus, the design might make it so that you would want to mount above the CoM to help provide better lift and to keep potential engines away from the ground where unfortunate incidents involving an engine calling the ground fat and finding out that it's not so tough after all.

I suppose auto-polarization screens just behind the windows could work, but there are issues with that, too.

Hence why I'm going to using expanding Mk 2 fuselage sections instead.

What moron would take out satellites in orbit? That's just asking to deny space to everyone! Unless... well, what if it eats satellites? That'd be a reason to make an anti-sat spaceplane!

It's literally too small. Smaller than most cars small. If it was made out of balsa wood or plastic it might fly, but would be worthless as a military aircraft if it was. In short, if it was a genuine attempt at a fighter it's ambitious, but rubbish.

Started taking screenshots for reference for the design of a Mk2 fuselage based set of space-station parts.

If I wanted to build a stack-spaceplane (Certainly not SSTO), I'd jigger up some way of mounting it on top of the stack instead of that.... I'm not sure even Jeb wants to fly that thing.

Yes, I've decided on the plan of going with a modified version of the Mk2 parts. They are slightly more than 1.25m tall, and with fold up panels to allow them to expand upwards by approximately 1-1.25 meters, they could be turned into passable space station sections, and the design would theoretically let you lock them in place for added strength. Still working on a couple of concepts for how the mechanisms would work.