bsalis

Each to their own. Just be mindful that... a) I highly doubt that using excessive intakes will work so well after the aerodynamic rewrite. It's just not needed. Case in point, Duna return, no refueling, no clipping...

Remember for an SSTO, the only way to increase the dV once in space is a higher wet:dry ratio or better Isp on the engine(s). Looking at your pic, I think it's a big ask to go from LKO on full rocket fuel to Mun surface then orbit again. It's small and you have a lot of dead weight in 2 cockpits, and some heavy-ish girders. My suggestions would be... * Add more rocket tanks, as much as the jets can carry * Possibly switch to a single LT-N, using Rockomax 24-77s to augment TWR on ascent as needed. * Get rid of the intakes on the girders. Fit them to the backs of the tank there that I see has nothing on it, but facing forward. * You may want to ditch a cockpit, but i think with persistence you can keep it a 2 seater Hmm, no. You might want to check the math on that. Yes that helps. But not everyone is down with that. EDIT.... Just thought i'd add this, it's an example of mixing Rockomax 24-77s with higher efficiency engines. This is a Stock+MJ VTOL SSTO i built not long ago. For balance reasons it uses 2 LV-909s, but I added 4 24-77s to give it the TWR needed.

The Kraken is dead. I don't know why people are attributing ship breakups and other oddities to it. Even when the bug was in the game it did not destroy craft. It just irritates me a little since The Kraken is part of KSP Lore that seems to be mangled by new players that were not there to experience the problem.

I used an SSTO Spaceplane. Under it's own power. No LT-N. But how?

Ermahgerd, what have you done.

Yes it is pretty good. Nothing great nor original though.

Same applies to KSP. A plane will lift off the runway when the CoL is in front of the CoM. The control surfaces move the CoL. So you need to increase the proportion of control surfaces to lifting surfaces, and/or move the control surfaces further from the CoM.

March last year... http://www.kerbalcomics.com/2012/03/26/episode-five-arboreal-invaders/

Low Laythe Orbit - getting crowded

The game really needs a comprehensive manual. Something that is useful for beginners, but also has material for intermediate and advanced players. It needs to cover game features, but also more generic orbital mechanics (and more) that apply IRL. It should be accessible to regular gamer folk, but also have the heavy math side of things in the appendix for those that would like to drill down into that. IMO the place for this is the Wiki. Done by a Squad employee with material (crowd) sourced from the community. Problem is, the game is not finished. So it is probably not worth doing yet. For example, any SSTO Spaceplane guide/tutorial written before .18 is mostly useless now. I wouldn't mind writing one now for .19, but it too would be useless after the aerodynamic rewrite.

First up, if you have not done so already, i would put the outer two jets and the inner two jets on separate Action group keys. You will want to shut down the outer two first, and let all intakes feed the inner two before shutting them down. Next up, do one or more test flights. Open up the Resources Tab. Then fly up to high altitudes, and purposefully cause an engine flameout while watching the IntakeAir on the Resources Tab. that will tell you the threshold that you need to be mindful of. Repeat this running on the inner jets only. So armed with those numbers you should be able to do a better ascent. I would say run all 4 jets as high and fast as you can until you are not gaining much speed. Then engage the rocket and shut the outer engines down. Climb, then shut down the inner two jets when they are near flameout. Also close off all the air intakes to reduce drag.

Chernobyl was an epic disaster. Like a major war, there are still many Vets suffering illness from the cleanup. In the exclusion zone, it's mostly safe, apart from pockets. Around the base of reactor 4, it's reasonably clean... Red forest, it's pretty bad. This is just on the outskirts... Note that the sarcophagus containment structure was built to last 30 years. That time is up. As for Fukushima, that is a disaster still in progress IMO. I don't trust any information from the authorities there too. Only time will tell how bad that incident is.

I miss Star Wars: TIE Fighter One of the floppy disks became corrupted. the 4th or 5th i think. So i was unable to play it in one of my nostalgic moments. I don't even have a computer with a disk drive anymore. All history now.. so sad.

Boring, I know. But it's a flag, not a picture.

Duna - i have arrived

You can also fit air intakes onto the back of the tanks, facing forward, as well. Assuming there is no engine there, obviously.

Today I explored an interesting part of the least visited planet

Autosave is just writing the current in-memory game world to persistence.sfs

42 seconds from launch to menu screen. Loading a game world is only a few seconds. Never knew it was so slow for so many.

One thing to be mindful of when using asparagus-style staging is that if all the stacks are the same, the payload becomes proportionally heavier as you drop stages. So the TWR will go down. That is not what you want at, say, around 10Km where you clear the thickest of the atmo and want to start hammering it east. This can be fixed if you make the stacks smaller (less fuel, same engine, more TWR) as you progress the staging sequence. Or... just don't use asparagus-style staging. I do not. Sure it's more efficient, but more complicated and harder to build robust large craft.

Good work ThePsuedoMonkey, another entry, finally. Also, Plur303... can I get an honorary listing or some such. I did complete this challenge, but just did not comply with all the pics requirements since I actually did my mission for the K-prize before this thread. If anyone is interested, my intake:engine ratio was 12:5

Hope that this thread does not derail. But just wanted to point out that there is a rewrite of the aerodynamics coming up. I doubt Squad will tweak how intakes work, only for it all to be thrown out in the rewrite.

I did a pseudo-GT in an SSTO Spaceplane which only had 3300 m/s dV when fully refueled. Even visited and landed on Eelloo with the help of a docket fuel tank. It didn't even have an LT-N. You probably want to look over the dV map and find the single largest burn you need, and where you can be bothered sending fuel tankers to.

Ok, here it is. Pic heavy - sorry... i linked a few to cut down. Ready to go http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8417/8714200462_9cdcc054dc_c.jpg Ascent Orbit (shows resources tab) http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8133/8713115759_029afc7cb4_c.jpg To the Mun Heck - lets go the south pole for a change http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8267/8713082791_68c978293c_c.jpg Descent Landed To orbit again In Mun orbit again Return navigation... messy http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8266/8714210928_0c019615d0_c.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8554/8714211498_a203ca64ed_c.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8547/8714212528_9fa8dc6644_c.jpg Re-entry Final http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8272/8713092165_df1d4f7715_c.jpg Landed