UmbralRaptor

Hm. Almost got it into orbit (80 x 15 km), trying a revised design... And it works: Changes: Replaced Mk1 cockpit with Mk2 (-0.25 t, improved stability) Added another intake (+ .01 t, partially undoes that stability) Removed FL-R25 RCS tank (-0.55 t) Removed 8 RCS quads (-0.4 t) Replaced LV-T45 with LV-T30 (-0.25 t) Net savings: 1.44 tonnes (~6% ), 10 parts. Unfortunately, it now has some instability issues (in-atmo at high speeds), and will pitch up while firing rockets. I'm not entirely thrilled about the I-beams running along this thing's spine, but ditching them would require greater changed. (I was surprised by the strut running from the aft beam to the rocket engine...) And the dynamic instability (the thing is notably tail-heavy). And the lack of air intakes. Vanamonde mostly successfully avoided both flaws.

As designed, this seems like the sort of craft where you can't/don't run the jets into a 75 x 30 km orbit, so the drag of open intakes hurts somewhat on the later portions of ascent. That said, I'm still not thrilled by the huge amounts of rocket fuel it's lugging around, or that it's using an LV-T45. (The TVC tends not to activate if you're using action groups without staging, and is not all that necessary, given control surfaces and pod torque)

My immediate in-SPH question: why are the jets on 2 different action groups, and why is there no action group to toggle the intakes? edit: okay, the other engine action group is for landing. But now I'm curious as to the very large amount of rocket fuel tankage. (Enough for an LV-T30 to power SSTO by itself, if it didn't have to carry so much other stuff!)

For objects with nodes at both ends, you can find the relative positions in part.cfg files and subtract.

Munwig (and friends). Other graysuits: Danger, and the one that has been banned by recent versions of the name generator.

Planets (somewhat harder to hugely harder, depending on the world) or moons (barely harder)? The minimum ÃŽâ€V to get back to Kerbin from the Munar surface is ~850 m/s. Bring along 1 km/s, and you have a decent margin. For Minmus... 300 m/s, maybe. (As long as you plan ahead about Minmus' inclination, it takes _less_ ÃŽâ€V to go there than the Mün.)

Initially I was seeing quoted, so...

I'd go for solar panels (and more instrumentation). The other major things worth getting at this level of the tree would be the 48-7S and fuel lines. RCS isn't necessary for Mun or Minmus missions. Strictly speaking, neither are solar panels, but they let you do a lot more transmitting, so...

Er? I think you mean the antennae (for transmitting science) on the side of the pod?

*goes digging through some of his old tables* LV-T30 vs Poodle: Payload masses above the breakpoint favor the Poodle, masses below that the LV-T30. [table=width: 800, class: grid] [tr] [td]Propellant (L)[/td] [td]200[/td] [td]400[/td] [td]600[/td] [td]800[/td] [td]1,600[/td] [td]3,200[/td] [td]6,400[/td] [td]12,800[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Payload (t)[/td] [td]21.26[/td] [td]20.66[/td] [td]20.07[/td] [td]19.49[/td] [td]17.32[/td] [td]13.59[/td] [td]7.98[/td] [td]0.52[/td] [/tr] [/table] (Payload would be instruments, landing legs, probe bodies, mapping equipment, kittens, RCS, or whatever non-fuel, non-engine parts your craft has. TWR breakeven is when the non-engine parts of the craft are 52.5 tonnes. (TWR of ~0.41)

If the craft in question is below about 50 tonnes, the LV-T30 is better than the Poodle. Higher TWR, more ÃŽâ€V, and it still fits under the LT-2 landing struts.

Since before the first time this question was asked. (More seriously, 0.8.4)

Well, yes. Even with the 48-7S, you're unlikely to break 11% with a rocket. Meanwhile, something like KwirkyJ's HELPr series can hit 70%... Isp != simplicityIn KSP rockets can (excluding payload) have as few as 2 parts, show consistent thrust in all environments, and are relatively forgiving in terms of control and ascent path. Those 2 part designs are even practical lifters! (eg: LV-T30 + x200-16, Skipper + orange tank) When adding a rocket to a rocket, you can also easily synergize (eg: asparagus staging), getting enhanced performance. Even with bad staging, current parts mean that you're more likely to see minor performance improvements rather than losses. Jets are none of these. At a minimum, you need 3 parts. Practically, you'll be looking at over a dozen. Lift and drag must be dealt with in greater detail to produce a stable and controllable craft. Thrust is affected directly by speed, and indirectly by environment (altitude, speed, angle of attack) and craft design (intake count, directions, and types). Worse-still, synergizing is hard and mostly impractical. If you're using jets, it's well worthwhile to push their performance to the point of giving you a 30 x 75 km orbit. Switching to rockets at 25 km and 1000 m/s (mostly horizontal) leaves you in a rather high drag situation, with a velocity vector poorly suited to establishing orbit. Fairly often, craft show up that would see greater performance by switching to fewer/smaller engines or less fuel(!)

Land on Minmus or the Mun? Or failing that, try landing at various sites on kerbin (including the pad!) and getting samples, etc?

Blast awesomeness is (I think) loosely related to explosion size. Fuel tanks did have a blast awesomeness related to how much they had at the time, but I'm unsure if this is still the case. (I last checked 10ish versions ago) These messages do not show up in the F3 log, but do in the Alt+F2 one.

Command part (probe core, Mk1 pod, doesn't matter), rockomaxx x16 tank (the medium one), LV-T30. If you want something bigger, use an orange tank and a skipper. Getting the most payload out of a single engine SSTO means fueling it to rather poor (1.3ish) TWR, though.

*Most being fuel, air, and oxidizer Monoprop is 4 kg/unit Solid fuel is 7.5 kg/unit Xenon is 0.1 kg/unit Electricity is massless

Arbitrary Fuel Units. Liters or some other volumetric units are a "good enough" approximation, though you get somewhat silly densities.

The thing is, the default curve diverges so far from the inverse square law so fast as to be all but unrelated. Providing adequate solar power out to Jool is trivial, as you get 50% effectiveness, rather than <4%. I'm less clear on the inwards curve, but should the panels saturate at 10x the Kerbin value?

They still use that weird 4 cubics system (at least in the part.cfg files). Mods for getting a proper inverse-square curve have existed in the past, though I'm not sure if there's anything current.

Uh... You probably want a bi-elliptic transfer, rather than a Hohmann one. The Mun is all but useless for interplanetary gravity assists, and may have course corrections may have cost you more than you gained. Eve or Jool might work, but aren't strictly necessary and only save a few km/s. For circularizing, you're almost forced into using ions over the LV-N due to the 20+ km/s ÃŽâ€V requirement.

In the mean time, you can activate it by editng settings.cfg and changing VAB_ANGLE_SNAP_INCLUDE_VERTICAL to True. (restarting KSP required) Or install Editor Extensions. (The problem isn't that it doesn't exist, but that it's not easily available in stock.)

I'd say that the main problem with the original design is TWR. replace the forward cockpit with a ram intake, and the center engine with a turbojet, and things should go better. In general, less is more. Though sometimes intake spam gives fun results. (With 1 ram intake it would probably get 1600 - 1700 m/s. With 3-5, it could get one of those fun 75 x 30 km orbits when going east. This is just for fun.)

Control + Z, much like other programs.

Skipping the math aspect, and going with general principles... 0) Plan ahead, but don't be afraid to blow up a few rockets. There are many existing resources (such as the KSP wiki and wikipedia!), and you can fairly easily look ahead at what you'll need. At the same time, experience is highly useful, and may tell you where you need to look ahead in the future. (This applies to both construction and piloting) 0a) You don't need very many struts. Just place them more carefully. 0b) If you use MechJeb, use it to learn more, not less. 0c) A craft needs: Propellant, engines, control systems, and payload. Some parts may fulfill more than one of these. Losing any may end the mission, or force a rescue. Additional parts (or ones that only sometimes fall into one of these categories) also exist. 1) Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is not your friend. (If you can reduce your ÃŽâ€V requirements, things will be easier.) 2) Less is more / more is less. 2a) Especially anything that isn't fuel. (Less payload, control systems, even engines, mean better mass ratios.) 2b) If you're new, this also applies to mods. 3) KSP rockets and especially aircraft do not operate under the same conditions as real world ones. Copying real-world designs and mission architectures is very hit or miss. Adapting real-world ideas to KSP's environment can be hugely successful, however. 3a) Examples include asparagus staging and direct ascent vs orbital rendezvous. 3b) If it looks right, it flies wrong. (partial exception: FAR) 3c) Rockets are easier than jets. 3d) Sending a kerbal is simpler and gives more recovery options than sending a probe. 4) If efficiency and simplicity are opposed, it may be worth choosing simplicity. If they are aligned, then what you need to do with your design should be obvious. 5) There's playing to be silly, and playing to do something (relatively) serious. If you have questions, we tend to assume the latter, and making the former entertaining to others is an art.