Sean Mirrsen

734m/s. Should\'ve packed a rocket fuel tank.

There, that\'s better. Now let\'s see if it can still do what its predecessor did. Then we\'ll see about landing on the Mun... the 8 extra RCS tanks and a fairly large amount of linear RCS thrusters on the underside should help with that, right?

Ever saw the physical manifestation of the concept of a 'bad idea'? I\'m calling it the 'Pteroducktil'. Twelve turbojets. 110 mass. The problem with taking off in it is that engines try to oversteer it, and it flies like a rocket. The problem with it in general is that the current setup for rocket fuel tanks is glitched, I\'ll need to revamp it to fix it.

Large SSTO craft are usually quite heavy on the hind end, and quite heavy in general, requiring a decent angle of attack to lift off. Unless the rear landing gear are very close to the center of mass and are raised sufficiently to allow the engines to safely clear the ground on takeoff or landing, canards are absolutely required to lift the craft\'s nose up. The only alternative is a long reinforced swallowtail behind the craft, to apply a similar amount of leverage. My Albatruss is heavy enough to warrant using both. I could actually attempt to get rid of them, putting some extra control surfaces on the tail. Though I expect it won\'t do any wonders for maneuverability. And I might try and complete a run of the Albatruss MkIV with the pod attached. It\'s dead weight anyway, the fuel in it is never used, and the craft actually handles a lot better when it\'s still present.

It needs the turbojets to make an accelerating vertical ascent up to their operational ceiling. It also absolutely needs them to take off. Even if it didn\'t need them for takeoff, being able to fly vertically upwards on kerosene is a reward in itself. Instead of burning rocket fuel all the way up, you only start burning it at 10km in the air, and already doing 200m/s. That\'s why I could get away with just sixteen rocket fuel tanks, instead of twenty-six as on Albatruss MkII, which has to burn it from takeoff. Even if it\'s just a minute of extra burn time, six LFEs will use up five full tanks of fuel during that minute, that\'s five tanks extra you\'ll have to pack along, and then lug around with you.If I remember right offhand, the takeoff mass of my craft is something around 110 tons. Nine turbojets give a total theoretical thrust of 1350, so if I remove two engines I won\'t be able to efficiently ascend. If I use two LFEs to compensate, that\'s almost two tanks of fuel for ascent. So all in all, having the extra engines is better, even if you don\'t need them all the time.

Even though my own design will always look prettier to me, that is still a very nice-looking craft. I like the diamond-shape in the center, and the whole thing looks sufficiently futuristic. Very nice. Mine is positively Russian in comparison - a standard cargo plane airframe with extra engines and tanks strapped to it. But I still like it more. Because it\'s mine.

No, you do need canards. What you must absolutely not have is fixed wings toward the nose of the craft. Especially fixed wings not aligned with the center of mass. When you fly empty, the craft\'s nose is ridiculously light. If you have fixed wings near the nose, then whenever you deviate from the craft\'s flight path in atmosphere, those wings will start pulling you further off course. Canards will become useless once your angle of deviation exceeds their maximum tilt angle. What you need to do, perhaps, is remove a few of the flat panels up front, and change your canards to actual canards - those wing panels you have now are rather useless. Also be advised that inverted delta wings, like those you have on your tail, may actually provide negative lift. You also very, very definitely need more control surfaces on the back. More ailerons, more canard-like wings mounted sideways. Because nose canards become near useless if you\'re tumbling, you\'ll need as much drag and control power in the back as you can.

If it were just canards, ASAS could have handled it. Something else is up. On my Albatruss MkIV-KS, I fixed the issue by removing a pair of swept wings from the nose of the craft and adding two pairs of such wings to the tail. You might also simply be lacking sufficient control surfaces, especially in the back.By the way, does the concept of a cargo-delivering craft disqualify it from this challenge? The latest successful mission of the Albatruss MkIV-KS was putting a 4.5t cargo/fuel pod up into Kerbosynchronous orbit. Repost of the mission log: Skipping the whole egress/orbital insertion thing, because it\'s boring and I forgot to take screenshots for this mission. >_> Payload released at something resembling KSO (I really should look into MechJeb) Burn home complete: Bit of a curiosity: (not entirely close, but very nearby, in astronomical terms) Returning to atmosphere: Leaving atmosphere... (gundamn reentry miscalculations) Returning to atmosphere again: Hopefully staying in the atmosphere this time: (if reentry heat were simulated, I\'d be one big fireball right now) Burning off rocket fuel for easier landing: Final moments before touchdown: Braking chutes out: And we have landing! Too bad the KSC is on the other side of the planet. It\'s also recently managed to put the pod onto a Mun orbit, and very nearly hurtled out of Kerbin SOI by accident, but I\'ve yet to land that mission, and don\'t really have a lot of screenshots for it.

This is silly: Tried to shoot for the Mun. Got there, left package in orbit, fudged up return trajectory, nearly left Kerbin SOI, barely managed to return back. Two weeks in flight. Landing pending. Note: the empty craft needs better balancing still, ASAS can compensate only minimal thrust.

And, there we have it. Skipping the whole egress/orbital insertion thing, because it\'s boring and I forgot to take screenshots for this mission. >_> Payload released at something resembling KSO (I really should look into MechJeb) Burn home complete: Bit of a curiosity: (not entirely close, but very nearby, in astronomical terms) Returning to atmosphere: Leaving atmosphere... (gundamn reentry miscalculations) Returning to atmosphere again: Hopefully staying in the atmosphere this time: (if reentry heat were simulated, I\'d be one big fireball right now) Burning off rocket fuel for easier landing: Final moments before touchdown: Braking chutes out: And we have landing! Too bad the KSC is on the other side of the planet. Complete mission, delivery of one 600FU pod to KSO and safe return. The 2x4 module is heavier, so KSO might be problematic with it, but all in all I\'d say this is pretty good. Craft file attached, only requirement is the ExPI set for the docking port, everything else stock. Be careful with the landing, and don\'t trust the swallowtail wheels too much. And in the name of all that is kerbal, don\'t use the brakes! At least until you\'re going slow enough for them not to rip your wheels off.

Here\'s one for the mythology books: Landed the thing WHOLE. Well, not entirely whole, lost the fuel pod\'s nose cone, two landing gear, and the left lower swept wing due to uneven terrain (and lack of braking chutes!), but still. The thing-that-flies-like-a-brick actually landed with all tanks full. Stand by for its first complete KSO delivery mission!

Managed to run out of fuel during maneuvering... figures. Well, the periapsis is skirting the atmosphere, so here\'s to a long and fruitful aerobraking. I\'m already down to a 45/170k orbit. After seven mission hours... edit: Huh, a more fundamental issue. It seems that with all the wings up front, the empty craft flies like... well, even bricks fly better. Minimal deviation from course immediately causes it to spin out, and it I couldn\'t ever regain control of it with just keyboard input. Some redesign is in order, but at least I do know this base design can do a proper KSO run. Now all I need is some aerodynamics tuning. edit2: After careful thought, the cabin\'s glide capability has been removed (not that it would be of any real use anyway), and the tail was extended with two sets of extra wings, plus control surfaces. The resulting design is much more visually consistent, and seems to handle a lot better. Since testing a full-scale craft for landing capability proved problematic, a variation was created with no payload attached, and with rocket fuel tanks replaced by an empty fuselage tube of weight similar (even slightly greater) to empty tanks. And as shown above, this variant, the MkIV-X10-L, was able to successfully land, albeit losing some turbojet engines in the process. It was subsequently still able to easily lift off and land elsewhere. In addition, a test was performed on the craft\'s survivability, and in the course of it, the pilot managed to successfully recover from an uncontrollable spinout (and land again), a feat deemed impossible with previous iterations of the design. So all in all, I think with a few more minor improvements, like propping up the rear landing gear a bit, the Albatruss MkIV-KS (KerboStationary) SSTO tanker design will be completely fit to fulfill this challenge pretty soon.

In-progress mission report: Alrighty, got orbit transfer to KSO set up with four and a half fuel tanks left total. Assuming, generously, two full tanks each for both the burn to KSO velocity and the retro burn to return, I still have a little wiggle room left. Whee!!! Manual orbital insertion is hard as... hooves. If I were using MechJeb, I\'d be in Mun orbit by now. I guess a ±50km KSO will have to do. Releasing payload (I do love these kind of shots for some reason): Burn for home complete: ..and with two-something tanks of fuel left for maneuvering! Huzzah! I kept snapshots of every major stage here, so that no accident will foil my plans this time. I\'ll try to line up a good landing and report then. I did forget to add those braking chutes, too...

The thing that I like best about KSP is that, unlike games like Spore or any 4X strategy with ship design options, it actually rewards good design. The design process is as much about visual design as it is about choosing the best components for the ship, the parts matter not only because what parts you choose, but also how you choose to place them.If/when Squad is ever 'done' with KSP, I believe their next project should be a procedurally-generated open-universe sandbox game, a-la Elite or the X series. But with exactly the same ship design principles as in KSP. And as far as modifying existing SSTO craft, I think the biggest challenge is making the craft behave well enough with and without the payload. Unless you mount the payload directly in front or behind the craft (not entirely feasible for spaceplanes, though not impossible), you will have issues with mass distribution. My craft sort of skips the issue by placing the payload close the thrust vector of the rockets, but most spaceplanes not purpose-built for this are going to have trouble. While I am here, I\'m sort of wondering. There\'s quite enough extra fuel on this craft after all the orbital shenanigans, and I don\'t really need the rockets in atmosphere... what are the parameters for KSO? With some luck, I might be able to reach that.

Welp, Albatruss MkIV-Experimental 6 successfully completed its mission, at least up to putting the fuel pod in orbit. Accelerating off the runway: Achieving egress angle: Rocket engines ignited: 200k apoapsis orbit achieved with six full tanks to spare (plus 100kg fuel in mostly empty tanks): 200k periapsis orbit achieved shortly afterward: Payload detached: Return to atmosphere: However, a monumental f*ckup with piloting resulted in complete loss of the craft. The main body exploded seconds after the capsule detached, and the already-deployed parachutes were destroyed, making the capsule splash down hard and disintegrate. I\'ll report later when I actually have a successful mission and return. edit: I suppose I can attach the craft too. Mods used: ExPI pack for the docking module, Multiversal Mechatronics Fixed Camera (by accident, left mostly in places I can\'t reach at design time. Will try to rid the craft file of them manually, but for now they\'ll be prerequisite. Be advised, about four cameras are somewhere on the landing gear.) Piloting notes: To take off, turn on ASAS and accelerate at full thrust until the end of the runway. At the very end of the runway, momentarily turn ASAS off and pull up hard. The trickiest part is not to let the tail hit the ground, catch the angle with ASAS again. Once you\'re sure the craft is rising, pull up landing gear and resume flight. Rise vertically, beginning to level off at about 30-35k. You may encounter a few points where ASAS alone won\'t be enough to maintain course, use RCS to boost control at those times. Once you have a 200km apoapsis, cut throttle and coast until there, then burn prograde till you have a 200km periapsis. Release payload, burn retro till your orbit touches atmosphere (there should be enough fuel to aim wherever). Can\'t quite tell you what to do on return or landing, but try to keep ASAS on until you\'re low enough to maneuver for landing. Watch the LFE\'s, they hang fairly low. The wheels on the swallowtail should help prevent smashing them up, but it\'s a hair\'s breadth thing. There aren\'t any landing chutes either. So be extra careful. edit2: updated design to MkIV-X7, with removed extra cameras (still requires the plugin though) and fixed oversight with fuel lines for turbojets.

No, it\'s purely misaligned thrust. Right now the biggest problem I\'m facing is one single problem that Harv and co don\'t seem particularly inclined to fix. It\'s the physics lagspike freakout at launch. It\'s currently a gamble every time I make a small change to the design. It may keep working just as well, start working better, or fall apart immediately upon appearing on the runway. It remains consistent until I change something in a way that somehow makes the whole thing work again. Usually it involves adding landing gear. The most ludicrous case being just recently, where the change was simply moving two engine pods about half a meter forward and rotating the tricoupler with engines attached to them. This was the difference between a craft that easily took off with zero glitches and just failed to establish orbit due to a minimal thrust misalignment, and a craft that snapped in half immediately upon appearing.

Nah, they are perfectly perpendicular at design time, it\'s just that the craft itself spawns with them already sunk into the runway. I\'ve mostly fixed that right now, but I broke the balancing of the space-mode flight. This tanker can do anything! It can take off, it can land, its decoupled capsule has (surprisingly impressive) glide capability and thruster sets for orbital maneuvering! But it can\'t actually make orbit, because it keeps trying to make like a centrifuge once it leaves the atmosphere. *sigh* I need me some kind of way to pre-rotate stock vectored engines.

There doesn\'t seem to be any RCS fuel though, unless you stuck some onto the tricoupler there. Also, the reason it gets torn in half is because you\'ve overdone it with part overlap. Make a less authentic replica with more sensible part placement, and then we\'ll see if it can be taken on a trip somewhere.

If you value aesthetics more than simplicity and are willing to do some uncanny manipulations, you can just pass a fuel line straight through the decoupler. First, radial-mount something long to the side of the fuel tank you want to use, like a pair of structural fuselages. Radial-mount the other fuel tank you want to connect to (or from) onto said something, so that it is directly under the first fuel tank. Now run a fuel line between the two, dead center. Now, detach the lower tank and set it aside. Detach the structural fuselages (or whatever you used as a bridge) and discard them. Attach the stack decoupler under the first tank. If it appears red, make sure the other tank is positioned directly below, so that the 'imaginary fuel line' between the tanks runs straight through the empty space inside the decoupler. Now attach the other tank to the decoupler. Voila, you\'re set. If you need to use the setup more than once, begin the ship\'s design by setting it up and then setting the completed junction aside for later use. Stock stack decouplers can be used to hide a variety of things, my favorite being RCS thrusters. Now, if only they could conceal parachutes...

What annoys me the most is that most of my designs end up being so heavy that they are undone by the most annoying bug ever. I can\'t even test and tune it properly like this!

Something called 'NP.radialparachute'.

It might help to note which, if any, mods your craft uses. Because I can\'t load it. Just take a screenshot of it in the VAB, it should be enough for us to see how it\'s made.

You can do that with just RCS, if you\'re crafty enough. Our krew rises on a single solid booster. They seem nervous, because someone put an avionics package on their capsule instead of a parachute. But have no fear! The krew are actually testing the newest in parachuteless capsule landing technology - an emergency cold thruster landing array! The thrusters fire close the to the ground, quickly arresting the capsule\'s otherwise uncontrolled fall. The krew is pleased with the experiment\'s success. However, they don\'t build RCS tanks like they used to nowadays, and the expensive landing system is completely destroyed when the pilot landed the capsule a little too hard. The krew is appalled, but safe. Yes, I didn\'t use an LFE with a half-tank, but with terminal velocity being what it is, an SRB works just as well. edit: wait, 'Cosmos VA Capsule'? Is it much different? *goes off to check*

No, I haven\'t used any fuel from the cargo pod, what would be the point? The plane is made up in such a weird manner that the slanted form of the fuselage creates downward force that counteracts the balance shift from having the engines below CoM. All engines also have vectored thrust, and set up so that they barely have enough control to pitch the plane down with the pod attached, and just enough to pitch it up without the pod. It\'s mostly based off my normal Albatruss design, which is already proven to work as an SSTO craft, though here there are extensive modifications to the drive system. I\'m currently fighting the wonky physics engine of KSP to make my revised design not fall apart on the runway. And there\'s still the lagg. I\'m trying to see if there\'s any underlying cause to it other than the sheer number of parts. And if you think that\'s a crazy looking plane, just look at my first SSTO design attempt: I kinda like it though. Probably could redesign it so it can actually reach orbit this time.

Where would one get a docking port and how much does it weigh? I\'ve got a design that can haul the described fuel pod into a 200km orbit, sans docking port. (assuming you meant Mk2 hulls, not Mk3 ones) I have some lag issues with the design though (as evidenced by the altimeter bugging out in the last shot), so I couldn\'t try to land it. It still has some two and half tons of fuel left to deorbit, and an appreciable amount of kerosene for a powered glide home, so it should be able to return safely. I\'ll try to simplify the construction a little in hopes of removing whatever causes the horrible lag, so I can try a proper mission with it.