101m4n

Hey, for some reason none of the download links in the OP are working for me. This the case for anyone else? 2.8.1 doesn't seem to be on github either, releases are only listed up to 2.7. Whats going on?

An excellent plugin! I would like to see the option to hold a sea level altitude rather than an absolute one, for those times when I feel like doing some atmospheric builds. (perhaps just a check-box somewhere in the space-plane guidance section?) That minor quibble aside, using this has been flawless! keep up the good work!

Hmmm, *googles \'john carter sky ships\'*

if so then earth has shrunk (or grown) quite a bit kerbin is roughly 1200 times smaller than earth in terms of volume xD

thank you very much! anyone experienced the slight pitch up issue it has yet :?

another one that i quite like ^^

Back when I started playing this game, I set myself the challenge of building an atmospheric plane capable of flying around the world, as it turns out this isn\'t too difficult, so i then set myself the challenge of doing this as fast as possible! 3 hours and 2 minutes is my current best! so, ladies and gentlemen, I present, the sunbird industries fft mk2! \'fft\' stands for \'flying fuel tank\' which in itself is an adequate description of the craft to say the least, as it carries 14025kg of fuel into the sky, here she is! - utilises multiple wing surfaces for high stability and substantial lift, allowing high cruising altitudes - maximum speed of 510m/s (dependant on remaining fuel reserves) - 8 high performance turbojet engines - range of 4,000km + - cruising altitude of 13-16km at pitch angles of 0-5 degrees - good controllability, land-able even when still full of fuel - round world flight in 3 hours with fuel to spare! some flight instructions: - use fine controls! (caps lock) - pitching up violently results in catastrophic structural failure, a parachute and decoupler have been installed to help prevent loss of life in this situation! - plane glides a really freaking long way on landing, be prepared for a slow approach - refrain from throttling engines to max, overheating will ensue. The optimal thrust setting is 2 divisions below maximum thrust. - avoid entering banked turns of greater than 45 degrees, why? do it and find out - manoeuvring at high speed is quite tricky, if it is too much for you then ease off the throttle a bit to do your course corrections Sadly you practically need a supercomputer in order to fly this plane at any reasonable framerate, for reference, my quad core i5 clocked up to 4.5ghz and my xfx 6870 manage a meagre 10-15 fps whilst flying this plane. disclaimer* (sunbird industries is not liable for any damage to computer systems or loss of life due to the operation of this product) .craft files have been included, one has a mech-jeb unit installed, one does not. So if you do not have the mechjeb mod installed, then you know which to choose. both are equipped with avionics packages for easy flight enjoy!

well yes, but let\'s not be too pedantic. either way it makes little difference to gameplay, so i don\'t see the need to read too much into it If however, i were being pedantic I would point out that kerbin also has a blue sky (nitrogen based atmosphere?), liquid oceans, land distributed in continents, and a value for acceleration due to gravity of 9.81ms^-2, all of which are traits it shares with earth, and most of which are far more integral to gameplay than the shapes of the continents themselves. you see my logic now :?

This reminds me of trying to find shapes in clouds, people see what they want to see, and nobody sees the same thing.

right ok then, that explains a lot! i may try messing with that at some point in the future

602) when your rocket does have an asas unit, but you forget to activate it until several seconds ater launch.

nice never actually been to ksc2 probably going to be my next destination my plane the globetrotter, named after the basketball team whom i know nothing about, flew all the way round kerbin and then about 2/3rds of the way to the north pole after that, some 4 and a half million meters, using only fl-t500 tanks 8) also the wing design you see in the picture seems to be quite efficient, give that a go as well, and don\'t forget to post back with any interesting developments you should find it towards the end if page 7: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=8772.90 hope that I helped

holy sh*t that there, is the most beautiful thing that ever did fly :\') now, stick a couple dozen more engines on it

haha stalls... the number of times that i have simply drifted the full length of the runway... fair enough i guess though, best alpha i have seen for a long while not been playing very long but it has proven to be great fun despite the few shortcomings, excellent community also so they are... hadn\'t noticed that ground-speed is what i was reading however, and as the two craft have the same forward component of thrust acting on them (same setting altitude and pitch) so they should still be travelling at similar forward velocities. but this is besides the point, if as sofweir says, the simulation algorithms are liable to change in the not too distant future, then im not at all worried by this thanks anyway

=P http://youtu.be/Tl7fGwLJMUI

I have noticed something rather peculiar things whilst mucking around with various plane designs, particularly to do with the mass of a plane affecting drag forces, which is rather peculiar. So earlier today I devised a simple experiment to clear things up, my plan was to fly two different planes one with a single fl-t500 fuel tank (liquid rocket fuel) and another with a single mk1 aviation tank. as seen here: Now, these two craft have identical aerodynamic properties, supposedly. The only difference between them is mass, as the fl-t500 fuel tank has a mass of 2.5 whilst the mk1 has a mass of 1.2. note that the drag ratings for these parts are also identical. my method: (note that mech-jeb was used for accuracy) - set heading of 90.4 degrees (runway is aligned to 90.4 for some reason) - set a pitch of 15 degrees - throttle up to 2 divisions below maximum thrust - fire engines - record speed at 10,000 meters - rinse and repeat. Now for a little theory, if lift is proportional to the wings attack angle relative to it\'s velocity vector (which i believe to be the case currently) and the vertical and horizontal components of force in the form of thrust from the engines are also the same (which they are, as pitch and thrust setting were kept constant), then one would expect to find that the two identical aircraft climb through the same altitude at the same velocity, regardless of differences in mass. however this does not appear to be the case as seen below: the single mk1 craft: (average 473m/s at 10,000 metres) 5 repeats the single fl-t500 craft: (average 407m/s at 10,000 metres) 5 repeats as you can see, there is a very noticeable difference between the two crafts speeds at 10,000 meters, the surface info panel was also included as there may be something that i missed there. either way, this would seem to imply that the drag force on an aircraft is proportional to it\'s mass in some way, which is not terribly realistic to say the least :S, if i am missing something obvious, or there is something horribly wrong with my method (entirely possible), then please do point it out. Else i am afraid that this may be something for the developers to explain

By far my most successful mun landing, using mech-jeb only for it\'s orbital info panel. Took several tries as well, those landing legs fall off with the slightest bit of lateral movement on landing, that\'s what you get for attaching them with blutac and sticky-tape i guess ^^

[588] when you put your masterpiece of engineering on the runway, only to realise that you have not attached any engines. [589] when the craft you are attempting to build has so many parts, that hitting cntrl-z freezes up the editor. [590] the split second before you hit the ground.

for goodness sake put them on the body of the plane as well xD there is no way that the weight of all that fuel can be supported by the wings, you may have to add some spacing to the gear under the wings also. good luck, you are going to need it to get that thing to fly xD

I know that this doesn\'t solve your current problems, but try using the rocket type liquid fuel tanks. They carry much more fuel, granted they are much heavier for the fuel that they carry, but this is compensated for as you don\'t need as many of them to match your fuel requirements, and hence you don\'t have to deal with as much drag

have been flying my plane for 2 hours 20 minutes so far, still plenty of fuel, it did cruise up a few hundred or so meters over 15000 whilst I wasn\'t paying attention though :-[ should I bother posting results when it lands? EDIT* never mind that, posted anyway! I used all stock parts aside from mech-jeb for managing the long flight, so i understand that it may not be within the rules given the 10000m mod rule, just thought I would share anyway, and let you decide whether or not this is still valid At the beginning of the flight, the craft has 8500kg of fuel on board, and is actually very easy, if sluggish, to manoeuvre. but towards the end of the flight, when the tanks are drying up, it becomes rather unstable, and course corrections have to be done very carefully to prevent the craft from rolling uncontrollably from side to side. Mech-jeb almost always thoroughly screws this up, sending the plane into a spiralling descent and eventual crash, so all landing corrections had to be done manually. cruising towards the end, very low thrust setting on the engines, zero degrees pitch, extremely easy to overshoot on altitude ( which i did do a couple of times! :-[ ) despite everything, still managed to land the craft intact! had there been kerbals on board they would undoubtedly have survived. the final flight stats, not too shabby if you ask me 8) 4,425,606 meters! All the way around kerbin, and about 2/3ds the way to the north pole after that! I did overshoot 15k altitude by some 290m as the craft was built with higher altitudes in mind, but i got that under control within a minute or so. again, i will understand completely if this is not accepted as a valid entry .craft file included, make sure you have mech-jeb installed if you want to try it out!

I believe I have seen that, however it does not appear to give a value for the remaining fuel on the whole craft, just on individual tanks

I don\'t think that The runway is perfectly lined up with 90 degrees, try headings a degree or two to the side of 90, or better still, perform your take-off manually

just downloaded and installed this! i have only used a few of the basic functions as of yet, but it is really boosting the playability of the game for me! props to all involved one very small quibble for me is that there is no readout for remaining fuel, perhaps another parameter for the surface/orbit information panels?