Mic_n

If you're using something like the stagerecovery mod that lets you recoup (most of) the costs of the stage, so you're basically just paying for the fuel - then yes, they're still very useful, especially for lighter payloads like kerbin-orbital probes. Does take a tiny bit of extra thought in using them - mainly in ensuring you manually shut them down and stage away before they flame-out. The big benefit, as noted, is in the huge ISP they have - when you can get so much energy from so little mass, you can keep that exponential growth down.

Kerbal Thunder (War Thunder) Replace Spitfires, Messerschmidts, Shermans and Panzers with Kerbal contraptions and have them fighting WW2 battles. Alternatively, try to launch a Tiger Tank to the Mun. Either way, it'd be pretty awesome.

End of April, 2012 - which would be in 0.14...

I happily just built a little unmanned science gathering probe rover that snugs neatly into a 2.5M service bay. Clamp-o-tron Jr mounted on the underside snugs neatly onto the matching one mounted into the base of the service bay, which in turn sits on the ground (surface-mount engines on the sides, landing struts deployed to take the impact and then retracted to let the bay rest on the Munar surface). Admittedly on such a small vehicle, the relative area of 'magnetic influence' from the clamps is well and truly enough to cover any slight differences in alignment that might occur. Bonus is that it has a nice little garage to tuck into and rest That said, waaaaayyyy back in the beforetime I made a "rescue" seaplane (floating girders, jet engines pointing everywhere and inventive action groups) that was completely stock, for picking up splashed-down pods and delivering them back to the KSC. It had a gantry on the back - a double-set of rectangular wing sections forming ramps with a gap down the middle, upon which a small 'sub-craft' would ride on landing gear. That one had a docking port underneath (protruding through the gap) that could dock to the pod, and another at the front that could dock with the main craft when run all the way forward. A probe core, battery, small fuel tank and engine make it controllable and allow it to be pushed up the ramp, meaning you could adjust the height of that docking port by rolling that gantry along the ramp, then take it right up to the top and lock it all in. It's not particularly elegant, but it works, completely stock. These days: KAS/KIS. Don't leave home without 'em!

The J58 used in the SR71 (which is no doubt the inspiration for the engine in question, right down to the new shockwave exhaust graphics) was commonly referred to as a turboramjet. Not technically correct, but quite widely used. Essentially it had a series of ducts and vanes from the intake to exhaust that could redirect varying volumes of air around the compressor turbines. A turbojet at low speeds, and "ramjet-ish" at higher ones, relying on that ram effect to compress air through the turbine bypass. It's not a Kerbal engineering wonder, it's a SkunkWorks engineering wonder

Speaking of paragliders... in the waaaaaaay back for a challenge in here I built me a "set and forget" plane (ie, throttle it up and then disconnect it from all controls) with one Round-8 toroidal tank worth of fuel that covered well over 1000km.. at an average a bit under 10m/sec... It'd be interesting to see how the new aero handles a similar concept...

correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the 'basic jet' (turbojet) produce more thrust at low speed than the 'turbojet' (turboramjet)? Also, although I'm pretty confident you're doing it for the aesthetics, no need to mount the entire "engine pod" vertically like that, it'll be creating masses of drag in forward flight. Only thing that needs to be pointing down is the nozzle.

Erm... not sure about this "repulsorlift" thing, I'm presuming that's the weird non-standard things you've got there. I'm going to sound like a jerk here, but if you don't understand something as fundamental as that, stop mucking about with mods and figure out the basics first. Stop and think about what they're representing. Think of the CoL as a fulcrum, and the CoM as the point mass hanging from it (and the CoT the force you're applying to the CoM). If the mass is directly underneath the fulcrum, it'll happily hang there. A thrust 'forward' on that mass from directly behind it will push it forward and rotate it a little around the fulcrum, meaning you'll nose-up a little. Cut the thrust and it'll settle back to its normal orientation. Move the fulcrum down and the 'turn' will be less and less pronounced until it vanishes altogether when they're directly aligned. Move that fulcrum forward, and the mass will drop away and attempt to point the whole craft straight up. That means your craft is quite likely going to stall and you'll lose control of it. Move the fulcrum backward and the nose will want to drop. No stalling there, you'll speed up instead, so as long as you can raise the nose enough to lift off the ground, you can overcome that tendency. It's not rocket science. Aeronautical engineering, sure. Maybe a little rocket science.

Make a plane. Put a mass of parachutes around the front, and some landing gear/struts hanging out the back. Make sure it has a TWR > 1. Build it, then in the hangar, select the whole thing and rotate it so it's pointing straight up. Launch.. throttle up on the runway and take-off straight up, then nose-down as you build speed to cruise. When you're ready to land, slow down and nose-up to stall, then hit your chutes and drift gently down to land on its tail end. Take the engineer that's flying it on eva and repack the chutes and you're good to go again. Ta-daaaa, VTOL. Also a lot more efficient than you're likely to get otherwise.

I'd suggest an SSTO to LKO and then disposable transit from there, it'll be a whole lot easier. I've made some pretty beefy SSTOs, but you don't really want to be sending them out away from Kerbin, it's a waste. The problem with taking SSTOs (by which I, and the vast majority of people, mean a spaceplane..) much beyond LKO is that all the bits and pieces that you have on there for atmospheric flight are now superfluous, and dead weight.. and those jet engines are heavy. That means you have all this dead weight to accelerate and stop and you're burning waaaaayyy more fuel than you need to. Get yourself up to LKO, open your bay and send a lightweight payload on its way. You'll need an engine to land on minmus anyway, so you can use that for your transfer as well.. what I've done in the past is strap a fuel tank to the TOP of my lander and pipe the fuel down to that to transfer across. Once you've used that fuel up you can stage away and dump that weight before landing.. although on minmus it's really not all that significant anyway.

don't forget all the different biomes right in the KSC.. Most things there have their own biome (some have multiple, depending on tech level), so you can do a bunch of experiments in and around without going far at all and rack up some quick science.

It really depends.. don't make the mistake of going too big.. it's easy to start adding engines and fuel and it really can be counterproductive.. I did an example one here for the passenger compartment, but the same principle applies to any sort of payload. I'd say in general, try to keep it reasonably balanced.. if you have 'outrigger' engines and fuel pods, try not to hang them out the back but keep them relatively centered... Make sure it's still balanced when empty (CoM in front of CoL) and keep a fuel tank at the front that you can push fuel into to keep that front heavy as it drains fuel.

I'd also suggest (though it wouldn't be a HUGE change) moving your ailerons inboard. It's surprising how much they influence your CoL. Because they're attached to the trailing edge of your swept wings there, moving them inboard will also bring them forward. It's highly unlikely you actually need (or indeed want) all the authority they'd provide out there on the wingtips like that, especially when your weight is all quite centred along your roll axis like that. You could also use the option of attaching them on the leading edge and clipped back within the wing.. You could also (if you wanted) switch out your 'conventional' tail section for a two-piece 'V' tail, which can still produce the same directional forces but generates less lift (and drag, for that matter) in the process.

Take a timeout and stop to think about what you're actually trying to do. You're pushing the orbit of your craft out to enter the gravity well of another body out there. That gravity well is going to influence the shape of your orbit, pulling it in towards the centre. So.. assuming that by "prograde" you're meaning orbiting towards the east, then it's just a matter of making sure you enter the SOI in that direction.. IE that you have the body "on your left". If the center of that gravity well is "on your left", then your orbit will be deflected in towards it - 'to the left'. So if you look at your full orbital path once it's back out of that SOI, it will be bent "inwards". If you're passing by with it on the other side, your orbit will be bent "out". So.. which way does your 'exit' orbit deviate? Does it tighten, or open out?

Check the underside of of your craft in the hangar and make sure there aren't any parts clipping through it. The Mk2 bays are only just slightly larger than the 'standard' rocket parts, so if your payload is a rocket and you have things like landing legs radially attached, then those parts can clip through to the outside of the bay. The doors still open fine, that won't clip things.. but on the underside that one part goes through the outside, with the rest on the inside, but it all still attached. Once you've found the culprit, you can perhaps either rotate your payload so that extremity is more off to the side where there's more room, or use the offset tool to move it a little closer in to the payload's centreline so it doesn't stick out so far (or both).