sloth

I flew a resupply mission to minmus. The idea was to deliver a new and improved lander to a science station in orbit around minmus and bring back the old one. I wanted to do this using an SSTO because I don't know whats good for me. The first thing that went wrong was that when I got there I did not have enough dV to return to kerbin. So I had to ferry fuel between the station and the spacetruck (which does not have a docking port .. doh) using the small fuel tank in the landers. This took a few trips and was very annoying. Then, back kerbin orbit it turned out that my SSTO minus most of its fuel was no longer aerodynamically stable enough to do that whole landing thing that people are always so fond of. So I had to fly up a second ship into the very weird orbit that the SSTO was in and pump some fuel into it to make it balanced. Upon touchdown low ground clearance also meant I lost some bits. All in all it went wrong in the design phase but I didnt know it till the end Went to space though, so thats something I guess. https://www.flickr.com/photos/87741443@N06/sets/72157646290276101/

The most complicated thing ive ever done unaided by mechjeb is a simple mun landing and return. Everything else was with smart ass and the man node planner. (though, to be fair, I'm pretty sure real life spaceship pilots have some kind of smart ass like system and sciencey people that plan burns ahead of time). But i get the impression that mechjeb is sinfull the way it is often portrayed on the forums fortunately, im not losing any sleep over it

Indeed. Aren't cargobays more of a spaceplane/shuttle thing anyway? I always thought rockets mostly shot stuff up in the air with the payload sitting at the top shrouded in a payload fairing.

I dont think its possible to fix with fuel lines alone without adding/moving parts. Another reason why I would like interconnected tanks to drain in order of staging but thats a whole other debate

If you stick something that doesnt feed fuel between the aerospikes and the 400s and then place a fuel line from the 400s to the 3200s and then from the 3200s to the aerospikes, then I think the 400s should drain first, followed by the 3200s until such a time as you ditch the aeros. Does that fix your problem or am I misunderstanding it?

Set updated with second mission (start here http://tinyurl.com/9x59e6a). SETO Mk2 differs from Mk1 in that it replaces parachutes and a decoupler for landing gear. Because meh, screw safety (Achievement: "Screw safety"? ). It all went reasonably well until at the very end old Bill stepped on the brakes too hard and the craft flipped over on the runway at KSP during landing. But, he is on the ground, the craft didn't break and Bill is still alive so mission control is calling it a landing, kerbal style.

Mission complete with SETO Mk1 (Single Engine To Orbit). The brave Kerbal wanted to see the whole planet so he went for a 'roughly' polar orbit. If the staging is to be likened to a vegetable I would say it most resembles corn. The idea is to orbit and expend corn grains as it goes along. After the deorbit burn the leaves at the base of the corncob detach and flutter back down to orbit. The gliding ability of the descent stage allows a minor degree of control over landing after the deorbit burn. After speed has decreased enough by the glider stage the nose is pitched up and the pod detaches to float down on parachutes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/87741443@N06/sets/72157631723767289/ Perhaps a later mission will go equatorial and attempt a landing at KPS.

PeriKee refers to the lowest point of an orbit around Kerbin and exclusively Kerbin.

Completed. http://tinyurl.com/8rkvjws (Flickr) But it doesn't really feel like an accomplishment really. I also think it should be cranked up a notch.

Ive never messed with that mod, perhaps its time I do

Ok so, its far from an exact lookalike but it does sort of look like the defiant right? Cmon, you gotta give me that http://tinyurl.com/9h9v24t (for multiple angles) Sadly it more or less ends here for me. The whole thing is made of fuel and engines so Im fairly certain it could do 2 planet hops (vacuum: something like 17-18 minutes of full throttle burn, delta V slightly over 10k according to engineer mod). However my computer is way too slow to handle a model with this many parts when any kind of propper piloting is required.

If this many people misinterpret what you wrote, maybe the problem is that it wasn't written very clearly Anyway, I see its made clear now in the OP so all is well!! Might have a stab at it later though not entirely sure how to make something saucer-like.

Incompetent? I dunno man, those are some serious highbeams you created http://www.flickr.com/photos/87741443@N06/8056387565/in/photostream I don't know exactly what the lumen on those suckers is, but to have that effect at that altitude .. yeah, alot

Isn't what a starship looks like incredibly subjective? "A certain similarity" isn't exactly a brilliant rule and should imho be omited. I think the reality is that if/when we start building large ships in orbit that never need to enter atmospheres they will probably be big bulky box things. So in my opinion Martonauts design is probably fairly realistic. Saying something isnt a starship because it doesn't look like some fictional starship is rather odd. If anything disqualifies it (and any other vehicle that will be in this thread while 0.17 is the thing) it is that KSP does not currently have other starsystems to visit and as such it is impossible to prove an interstellar capable flight.

I like strapping space planes to a big rocket and launching it at something. Sometimes, landing gear is a nuissance in this case. 1) Is there a way to make a copy of the current landing gear and cfg edit it to start retracted? 2) Is there a way to separate landing gear hotkey from landing legs hotkey? On crafts that have both I would very much like individual control. (3) Are there already mods that do this that I just didnt find?)

Ive been practising water landings with space planes and can not seem to manage it. The pilot usually survives but the plane pretty much disintegrates down to the cockpit and maybe one or two extra parts still attached. How slow do you need to go for a safe water landing? (As an average guideline, I understand sturdiness in the individual plane design is a factor).

Presenting my first stock SSTO, the Daedalus K (Clever boffins at the hangar derived it from the not so very stock Daedalus for participation in the K-Prize). For the flight it contained a few non stock but K-prize legal parts (Mechjeb, Flood lights). All wings, tanks and thrusters are stock. (Attached craft file is without the lights and mechjeb for ease of loading) I had to give the landing a second go as I botched the approach on the first attempt. Thats why the fuel tanks are wrongly displayed as full in the staging. Theyre empty though, as you can see in the weight vessel information from mechjeb. Otherwise, fairly uneventful flight. Pictures: http://tinyurl.com/8h6kjs3 (flickr) Improvements can definitely be made (both to the craft and the pilot) as for the moment I can't do much more than get up there and go down again. Fitting in a trip round the mun would be nice Zero mathematics were performed during the creation of this vehicle (because maths .. ugh!) so I'm sure the delta-V or whatever the crazy engineering boffins like to talk about is way the heck off. (Version 0.17)

Success! At 260/70km it was far from circular but at least it was an orbit. Time to start practising getting it perfect, I need to start going vertical sooner I guess. I had literally half a second of aerospike burn left to deorbit, had to do most of it with RCS. And my landing was nowhere near KSC (A continent away). But not a crash so good enough for now. Thanks for all the advice. Now to reproduce it with stock parts... (My kerbal for this mission was Jeb himself, I'm sure that helped)

Thanks for the advise. I'll definitely check it out at some point to optimize my design and try a fully K-Prize compliant one (I use a few other parts as well). But for now I prefer to try muddling along on my own (design-wise that is, piloting wise I need all the help I can get. Jeb I ain't).

So aerospikes are just completely imbalanced rocket engines?

Thanks for the advise. I hadnt heard of the K-Prize yet but it looks like I wont qualify since I use non-stock parts (need landing lights!). Maybe I'll have a go at a stock plane after I get it done with my first design. @EndlessWaves and Fuzzy Dunlop: I'm sure you're right and all, but can you explain why less angle is better? In my lamen opinion that just means itll take longer to get there and thus more fuel. Though I must admit I do not really understand how aerospikes work and what effect lift/glide has on fuel consumption when climbing. Is the idea to always burn full throttle or can you dial it back in higher atmo? (Also, more of a side question, but does half throttle mean half thrust and half consumption or is it not that simple?)

So I've been trying to create a plane that can take off from the runway, get into a stable orbit around kerbin, get out of it and land on kerbin. (I know, a whole universe of planets out there now and Im playing around with Kerbin) Up to now the best I've managed is getting up there but I dont have (even close to) enough fuel to circularise my orbit. Now I'm sure the design can still use some work but thats not what I'm currently looking for advise on. I'm assuming my piloting can be made more efficient as well since ive been more or less having a gutt feeling go at it. So basically, whats the most efficient way of flying a space plane up? My current plan is get into a 45 degree angle off the runway, hitting SAS and waiting for 13.5-14 km where I switch from the 2 jet engines to the aerospike and increase my climbing angle to about 70-80 and wait for the projected apo to hit 70k at which point I throttle down until Im near the apo (65km ish) and then start burning again level with the horizon to circularise. Then I run out of fuel shortly after. Surely there are a myriad of improvements to be made.

Ill have to shuffle some stuff around then thx

Is there any way to determine the order in which RCS tanks are drained? I have RCS tanks in 2 seperate stages of a vehicle and would obviously like the first RCS fuel drained to be in the stage that is discarded first.

As there are quite alot of tanks this would be somewhat annoying Ive also had issues with disabled tanks not re-enabling properly. But thats another matter entirely. Anyhow, my main concern/question/puzzlement is that the design works for 2 of the 4 tanks, eventhough theyre all hooked up the same. Is there some kind of game engine limitation on fuel lines on 1 tank/vehicle?