kepicness

When it comes to spaceplanes I find aesthetics to be as important as function. I love the challenge that aesthetic builds provide, since it adds a whole other layer of design. Most of the time things magically work out and I get planes with perfect CoM/CoL balance. Sometimes I have to compromise though, which is rather unfortunate. For example, I had to remove some wings on an SSTO because the added weight made a duna mission impossible... With wings (the good looking version): Without wings (the not as good looking but practical version): I placed the rocket fuel tanks internally on the version with less wings to have a matching color scheme, still looks pretty decent imo, and I managed to do a round trip to duna without refueling (while carrying a rover! ) For rockets I really don't give a damn though, so long as it flies it's good enough for me

Thanks! You just forgot the advanced pilot precision award since I also managed to land back on the runway

Thanks! Having my planes look good is one of my objectives/priorities, so I'm glad that you like it :D. I would have covered up the entire thing in wings (because I hate exposed parts), but it ended up being too heavy for a duna mission. In the end I settled for having the rocket fuel tanks in the middle covered up by wings and the jet fuel on the outside, for a better matching color scheme. Yes, I know thag it's borderline OCD but hey, it works :P, and the plane actually flies better thanks to how the CoM shifts. Here's what it would have looked like if the additional wings didn't add 3 tons: I used every single pixel of non-"blocked" space. After some trial and error I found that if the suspension mechanism and inner portion of the wheels aren't blocked (aka have nothing clipping into them) then it works fine. The wheel's exterior mounting block (the solid plate of metal that attaches to the vessel) can have stuff clipping to some extent, and the external portion of the wheels is ok as well.

I found an other reference: The RTG's description's last line says "not to be used for providing heating during emergency rover excursions". It's a direct reference to what the protagonist in "The Martian" does, which is exactly that: he uses an RTG to heat his rover during an emergency excursion. If it's not an intentional reference then it's one hell of a coincidence

I flew a SSTO to duna, messed around with the rover it was carrying and came back. I also managed to get a couple of nice pictures in the process Low duna gravity + high speed/performance bike = fun aaaaaaand we're back Here's a hotlink to the full mission report if you're interested Now it's time to make something that can refuel and go on flying for eveeeeer (but I need to learn how the resource system works for that :P)

This is my entry for the NISP XII (nuclear interplanetary space plane version 12), and my first K-prize post since 0.18. Here's a little prelude: Here's the full mission report: Plane stats: It was my first real mission since I started playing this game again 4 days ago. All the prep, building and testing required to make it happen refreshed my knowledge of this game. All in all lots of fun, I hope that you enjoyed the mission report, cause I sure enjoyed the mission! PS: Look at Tanny's facial expressions if you haven't already

I remember the original video on which this is based on. But my god, I never expected it to ever be made in KSP. Amazing job, I'd give more likes if I could.

When it comes to SSTO spaceplanes, is adding more wings (as in covering it up to make it prettier) detrimental to performance? By that I mean, do they make up for the extra weight and drag they add to a craft with the lift they provide? For example: The reason I'm asking is because I vastly prefer to cover up the components that make up my planes, for aesthetic purpose. However, I'm unsure if it's negatively impacting the efficiency of the craft. Any answer will be appreciated!

I call it the NISP XI (nuclear interplanetary space plane version 11, though I'll admit this one isn't entirely interplanetary, but that's a minor detail ). It can get to orbit with around 1850m/s dv left, with an empty cargo bay. The thrust/mass ratio is ludicrous thanks to the 6 rapiers and 2 nervs, which makes it a breeze to fly at any altitude. Thanks to the twr it can climb very fast (~50 degree climb after takeof while gaining speed), and get into orbit in a very reasonable (read: excessively short) amount of time. All the fuel is linked by ducts because it'd be a pain to transfer with all the tanks being covered up. Clipping was also kept at a minimum, but that didn't keep me from using a bit of trickery to increase the fuel a bit while keeping it compact: It could probably be more efficient without all the extra wings, but I like my spaceplanes fancy If anyone's interested in getting the craft file just let me know and I'll upload it.

Now that 1.0 is out, will having resource extractors and fuel converters on-board a plane be authorized? Sorry if this has been mentioned before, last time I played the game for real was in 0.18. It's nice to see that the challenge lives on! (I'd be really surprised if anyone remembered me, but I used to frequent this thread a lot).

Started in 0.14 (or 0.13, I'm not too sure about that). 0.18: Got an SSTO plane to duna, landed and came back to land on kerbin, all without refueling. 0.19+ Kinda stopped playing since then. I'll boot up the game from time to time and make some funky contraption. The truth is that I don't really have the patience to redo a mission of the same scale as my 0.18 duna mission. I also can't really top the performance and looks of the plane that I used for that mission... oh well.

Thanks I just thought that I'd share it, in case anyone was crazy enough to require such thrust.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present the sunflower-engineâ„¢ !!!! (the guidance unit is only there for the purpose of the demonstration) This bad boy has been designed for all you planetary lifting needs! With it's hefty 9650 thrust (you read that right), it is capable of lifting even the heaviest loads on it's own! Here is a little demonstration: That's right, 9 S3-14400 tanks lifted with a single engine To use it, simply download it from the mediafire link below, drop it in your sub-assemblies file and attach it like you normally would a normal engine. The fuel flow is all sorted out. WARNING: Using more then one may or may not destroy the universe, we are not responsible for the missuses of the Sunflower-engineâ„¢ Download link: http://www./view/ala1q18b9ct2jdc/Sunflower_engine.craft

That is one smexy engine!

Novasilisko (aka: knova, he'd kill me for calling him this) was the one in charge of making the easter eggs back when the SSTV was implemented. However, he's not on the dev team anymore, so I doubt that anything got added to it. HOWEVER, he did give a hint, which was a picture of the Apollo plaque if I remember correctly.

Was it moved from it's original ike orbit? I really haven't played for a while...

In a realistic setting infiniglide wouldn't exist, but I'd expect electric propellers to. I think that at least a single control surface should be allowed, considering that it's necessary for control and that infiniglide is an unavoidable glitch in the game's code.

I've been wondering, would it be acceptable to take off from kerbin, go to a planet, decouple a part of the ship (pander part), land, get back up in orbit, RECOUPLE with the other part, getting back to kerbin and landing the whole thing? Basically it's to avoid carrying the heavy transfer stage to orbit twice, and it's still part of the same ship since it reattaches afterwards (with docking ports).

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!! Let's see if my old stock SSTDABTK plane can meet all the criterias. It should, considering that it got back to kerbin on a single fuel load

"oh my" *zooms in* "what the..." "I bet kerbal weathers didn't predict THAT" (It rained parts for a good 20-30 seconds)

With a tea spoon of patience, a cup of explosion and a pinch of quicksave

This is an SSTO VTOL using infernal robotics to make swivel engines (fully stock apart from that) This thing is just incredibly fun to fly . Also has quite a bit of fuel left in orbit. I could probably do a two way trip to the mun or something.

Did I mention this? It actually has more thrust than the big rockomax engines I know that the technique isn't new but I don't really see engines as compressed as these usually.

I usually do that with my plane cockpits XD. Ejection system, emergency chutes, emergency engines and other stuff.

With that much delta-V you could probably get past Jool and back... @redrobin