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I believe screenshot shows us an asteroid reentering. Also, I think the sequence (6585, 21, 7, 29, 7, 22) refers to asteroids; 6585 O'Keefe, 21 Lutetia, 7 Iris, 29 Amphitrite, 22 Kalliope. All of them (except 6585 O'keefe, couldn't find info about its size) are quite huge, diameters are at least >100km. Kalliope even has a moon. Still don't know why 7 is repeated...

Wow. 15th place? Twice better than I expected for such an unusual design! I was originally expecting something like 30+ place And for the final vote, I'll vote for Mallard. It incorporates essential design techniques (angle of incidence, abort action groups, etc) and has good handling characteristics.

Side ports are primarily for ground refuel duty. It can also serve as auxiliary refuel port when docking with heavily occupied space station. I'll give bonus points to any SSTO that can be used with General Purpose Tanker system, i.e. having Jr. docking port at correct height. See screeny below if you can't understand what I'm saying. I'm quite surprised by my Volley's consistent top 10 ranking among voters. As Rune said, it's quite unorthodox and may not serve for beginners to learn ordinary SSTO design. However, with Dual Engine Serviceability, I thought it can be easily modified and expanded by user's will. I was originally going to submit recently recommissioned STX-3B Lynx (engine changed from 2x LV-909 to 4x 48-7S), screenshot below. The main reason I didn't submitted it is that, apart from aesthetics and name conflict issue with another contestant, it's just a generic turbojet SSTO. It didn't have that much 'edge' over others.

I believe it's caused by Module Manager. That's why I'm not using Hot Rockets, etc.

I'm planning to rank everything from 1~50 or something, ties included.

Exactly what I'm thinking. It's cool to have like ~2km/s of dV on orbit or pulling off 9G maneuvers at full tanks, but I think that's not the spirit of Aeris 4a... Most of biplane-ish submissions do not even has struts or support structure linking upper and lower wings somewhere midpoint along wing. I guess they didn't wanted to ruin 'aesthetics' of their craft whilst removing one set of wings seems more attractive to me than biplane. Some crafts have joined wingtips. I would only allow it for wingtip-less boxwing derivative design, which NONE of the submissions use. For body lift, I do have wing overlaying for body lift listed at exceptions.

Of course. Tell me if you saw hypersonic biplane in real life I honestly can't understand why people build space biplanes. Most of them flies just fine without upper or lower wings except for heaviest designs. Also, I think if one tries to sorta cheat his inherently low maneuverable design into supermaneuverable design by simply making it biplane or using wing clipping, it is a procrastination. A procrastination to forcibly cheat out of basic aerodynamics instead of looking for other designs e.g. delta + canard. An obsession and over-reliance, I should say. But that's just me, others can agree with you on that matter.

From now on, anyone else requesting for reassessment should PM me with entrant name and reason stated in order to not spam the thread. Thank you.

Due to the overwhelming amount of entrants, some mistakes can be made. I'll check again.

Alright, I'll check again and PM you if any changes in score and rank are made

Now that's the flaw of my scoring system. Some do need to be flown in order to determine tweakables on control surfaces have negative or positive effect. Due to RL matters, I should leave that to other voters although I'll revise ranking if one requests reassessment.

I have to disagree with you with 'reach KSC from any point of Kerbin after deorbit' part. I think beginners should learn how to deorbit efficiently so that one can arrive at least 300km away from KSC. But don't worry, I'm not the only voter here Others could agree with you on that. On the other part, I might have to do some flight test for that. Second Pass won't start until Tuesday, anyway. If there's change in your rank, I'll notify you with PM.

Those categories are not penalties but bonuses. Your submission didn't gain those bonuses. As for the lack of use of tweakables for fuel and oxidizer, I tend to minimize abundant liquid fuel and oxidizer out of balance (0.9:1.1, I remember). Those are just dead weights on orbit especially oxidizer. Liquid fuels do have impact on cross range performance, however, it's still a dead weight on orbit. Thus I concluded that, if one did not use tweakable on this, one did not tested enough that himself does not know how to minimize dead weight on orbit. And as for the lack of use of tweakables for control surfaces, if one does not assign individual maneuver axis (pitch, roll, yaw) for individual control surfaces it will result in sudden loss of acceleration (=G force) when performing combined maneuvers. That may result in fatal crash if one's close to ground. This is currently unavoidable as KSP's control surface does not support custom movement angle i.e. its maximum deviation is limited. I try to give this bonus to anyone did that. Also, elevons and other 2-axial control surfaces do gain this bonus because some design inevitably needs those and others have spare set of dedicated elevator, rudder and ailerons that using single set of 2-axial control surfaces do not significantly affect maneuverability and result in catastrophic crash near ground.

Can you clarify your question?

Yes, although I'm sure most of them will make it to orbit without upper or lower wings. I once thought about making them to monoplane by removing upper or lower wings and then begin flight testing and scoring...

Check out your outer delta wing. It's vertically overlapped, forming biplane. And I think I should change category name to something else. This word 'clipping' will confuse people, even me. Maybe 'overlap' will be better?

To ensure fair judgement, I'm using 3-pass scoring system. First Pass - Scoring biased toward spacecraft construction. Top 30 entries will enter Second Pass. Rest of the entries will be ranked according to section score. Second Pass - Scoring biased toward flight performance. Top 10 entries will enter Final Pass. Rest of the entries will be ranked according to section score plus previous score. Final Pass - Likely centered on minor but important design bonuses. Last 10 entries will be vigorously tested and ranked according to total score. The reason why I'm using this method is that although establishing many categories at once for scoring is possible given enough time, I don't have THAT much time... Furthermore, I don't think it's fair to have part-clipped, intake-spammed, biplanes to enter competition with other ordinary, truly Aeris 4a-ish designs, especially from performance aspect. So at First Pass, most of those designs are filtered, though some will make it to Second Pass. And I just finished first pass. So far satisfied with it. Check each category cells for memo. It contains information about penalty / bonus formula or standard and exceptions for each category.

Got it to work. I apparently trusted author's word too much that I didn't even bothered to click the link...

My SPH craft loading button does not work when breakthrough's Project A4C is present in the save folder. Can anyone else confirm this?

So I haven't touched turbojet SSTOs for awhile. Thought it would be better to practice some before assessing other submissions. Swapped basic jet of my Volley with turbojet, took off with mission to land on Minmus. I actually forgot to remove oxidizers from FL-T100 tanks, nonetheless successfully landed on Minmus with pinch of fuel to spare. If I did pre-flight check thoroughly, I could have returned from Minmus without help of another one since unused oxidizers are dead weights.

@Xeldrak I've updated my entry. Please check and revise my entry's name. Also, to all those already downloaded Volley, you'll have to download updated 'E' version.

Waited for this challenge to come!!! ARX-6E Volley The bit more updated 'E' variant has many interesting features. No intake spam & wing stacking – You seriously want beginners to play with space-fairing biplane or spam-like-hell intakes? Nah. No turbojet engine – Use of basic jet will greatly expand beginners' cognition of SSTO spaceplane design. 80x80km orbit insertion within 10 min – Rapid orbital deployment, cause I'm Korean and don't want to spend 10 min in atmosphere. Hefty fuel capacity - ~700m/s of dV for standard version, +1.5km/s of dV for turbojet version after orbital insertion. Ground refuel capable – Total re-usability. Beginners should learn how to dock after landing and design specific refuel vehicles. Reliability – Easy to fly and has almost same dV after orbit insertion. Tail-strike proof, no asymmetric flame out, balanced RCS ports. H-tail - Enhanced roll performance due to v-stabs tangential to angular movement around roll axis. Also has extreme yaw authority and ease of docking. Neat VDP - Everything from action groups to ascent profile is neatly described within Vehicle Description Panel. Design technique - Canard's angle of incidence, engine clustering in VAB & using sub-assembly, H-tail, landing gear position, etc. Everything you should learn. Engine Swap-able - Now this is unique to Volley, I've never seen any other craft capable of this feat. Description below. This Tie-fighter-ish light weight(16t) SSTO is perfect for beginners to play with and develop combined building & piloting skills. Even with smaller airframe, the ARX-6E Volley nevertheless performs better than Aeris-4a. An unique feature of the Volley is Engine Swap-ability. Swap basic jet for turbojet and you can achieve orbit with 2x dV but at the penalty of +50% time to orbit. This is possible mainly due to ARX series' high vacuum dV combined with advantage of light airframe weight of the Volley. Turbojet ascent profile is not included. This is intended as to allow beginners to try-and-error standard shallow turbojet ascent profile. I achieved 1.5km/s dV after orbital insertion with my own ascent profile. For those who want to test out, check VDP. You only have to get rid of oxidizers from all FL-T100 tanks, swap engine and assign action group. You may try the same with RAPIER engine, but I'm highly dubious of that. As for relatively but not-that-much high part count (86), I added 10 struts between fuselage and wings for increased airframe rigidity. You don't want your aircraft to disintegrate upon hard landing, right? 3x 48-7S cluster was made in VAB using cubic struts and imported to SPH by sub-assembly, a trick which I think beginners must know about. Compared with 'D' version, the 'E' version slightly lacks in on-orbit dV but has 4 minutes more fuel for basic jet engine. I also reconfigured lower wing layout. Now it has body flaps. Initially, I was going to upload turbojet version. However, for the sake of diversity, I chose to upload standard basic jet version as I believe it stands its own place among other great designs. The ARX-6E Volley is dual-engine serviceable after all I'm open for performance evaluations and suggestions.

Lodestar Family My first attempt at designing tail less, low radar cross section SSTO familiy For download, click title and you'll be redirected to my thread.

Back from all the tiredness of helping my relatives prepare load o' food for Lunar New Year's Day!!! To celebrate the day, I completely redesigned ARX-6 Volley. Screenies will be updated asap. Also added Lodestar stealth SSTOs. If you're telling me, "There's no point designing stealth SSTOs when you don't have radars!", than I have to reply that's the point

Lodestar Family Have your wife suspected your secret affair and you want stealthy getaway? Than Lodestar Family low-observable SSTOs are just for you! There're 3 versions included in download: Lodestar Low-observable Orbital Vehicle is baseline design. Equipped with 2x RAPIER plus single LV-N, the Lodestar LOV is designed with low radar cross section in mind. Primary missions are stealth orbital recon and clandestine VVIP transportation. Capable of reaching 80x80km LKO with ~1.5km/s of dV to spare. Lodestar-I Rapid Response Recon uses ARX series style propulsion layout. With orbital deployment time less than 8~9 minutes, this unarmed interceptor version is perfect for rapid recon operations. Capable of reaching 80x80km LKO with ~600m/s of dV to spare. Lodestar-M Prompt Global Strike. This militarized version is where things get serious... No pilot, one purpose; TO WREAK HAVOC UPON YOUR ENEMY! Armed with 2x KGM-2 Skylance kinetic guided munition, this version is capable of reaching 80x80km LKO with ~600m/s of dV to spare plus deadly payloads. All Lodestar have pair of canards semi-clipped under linear docking port, but its control surfaces are locked tight to simulate true tail less aircraft. Single ventral pin will provide some degree of yaw axis control, but if you feel guilty, you can remove it and Lodestar flies just well, although yaw control will be more difficult. LV-N equipped versions have single FL-T400 clipped inside LV-N, but it does not contain any fuel and only serves as attach points and means of gauging fuel for refueling. Note that rapid maneuver above 5G is dangerous; the Lodestar family is not designed with extreme maneuverability. And finally, always fly with ASAS turned on!!! Good luck on your mission.