Exothermos

Yeah, this is fantastic. Love that bay, and that leggy ramp!

The game just needs a little documentation to flatten the ridiculous learning curve for beginners. A few more tutorials or a basic "flight school" with some of the little tricks we all take for granted would help newbies tremendously. When I introduce this game to friends they all have the same questions. At first, in sandbox mode, there is tons of questions about what parts to use and how to use them. I usually shrug that off and say "I don't know. Slap it together and see what happens." Great fun is always had at this point and that attitude is great for exploring the parts. Some of the parts are not described well, so are a little mystifying to the uninitiated. Then the inevitable questions about orbital mechanics crop up and these are far more difficult discover in game without rote explanation. Some of the concepts are just too obscure or counter-intuitive to find out with trial and error. The basic concept of an orbit is hard to grasp the first time you ever really think about it. "so if i want to go lower I have to slow down? Then why are things going faster down there?" Little tricks like burning until a good apoapsis is achieved and then doing a circularization burn are hard to discover in game. And good luck figuring out Rendezvous and Docking without help. Three quarters of the difficulty of this game happens before you ever make it to the Mun. And Science is very poorly documented right now ( I know that is changing). It took me a few flights before I could figure out the basic rules behind collecting science. And I really didn't "get it" until reading the Wiki. I know everyone should just look at the wiki, but there should be some in-game documentation too. Edit: I think little one time statements in the mission summaries in career mode would be useful if they hint strongly at things. "Hmm.. looks like we are using electrical power during our flights. Don't want to keep Jeb in the dark!" "The Scientists sure would appreciate some more data on this flight. Better write stuff down!" Stuff like that. Then tutorials would be less important.

I've been busy fooling around in career mode and spending most of my other free time on GTA V. This has, unfortunately, resulted in low SSTO output for me. This little Shuttle-inspired thing is an exception: It's performance is good, but it is a little twitchy with such a short wingspan. I really want to get that clipped / embedded docking port to work right. It works fine, but on loading the model it tends to "bounce" out of the fuselage section. Toggling the animation puts it back into place, but I cant release it in that condition! I'm also re-working a few of my older designs to optimize them for 0.22, but it goes slowly in between collecting science and rampaging with Trevor. drewscriver, HECK yes! I've always wanted to do something similar but was put off by the complexity. Awesome!

Totally awesome. That monorail is amazing, and the sports car is impossibly detailed. Wow!

Heck yes! It's like the Ardent's bigger, tougher, ex-marine brother. And, of course, I love it. That is one ugly duckling, but WOW, that is some seriously impressive performance. Can't argue with that!

Ryan, you need to post these pictures to the internet before you can share them. Set up an imgur account and deposit them there. You can then share them with the forum by sharing the link. Www.imgur.com

See?! Contentious. hahah wow.

HAHA! the gas station totally got me. Awesome job!

That's a nice small SSTO. But "smallest" is a contentious claim. If you come to the dark side and embrace clipping you can get designs like this: Tiny Tot SSTO It's right on the boundry of what is physically possible for smallest FOOTPRINT for an SSTO and still be fully functional. Manned, 1 jet, 1 rocket, 1 can of jet fuel, 1 rocket fuel tank, clipped wings and intakes, full size docking port and ballanced RCS. I could make it even lighter (if not physically smaller) if I redesigned it with some of the new parts that were released in 0.21 like the little FL-t100 fuel tank with a Rockomax 48-7s stuck to it. It's so ridiculously small because it is meant to be shoved into a cargo bay and taken to Laythe My unmanned designs ended up looking similar to yours as well: If we constrain ourselves to not clipping fuel tanks and engines, and not airhogging then yes your design is as small as it gets... well except for astropapi1 who put two 48-7s on a Rocket Fuel tank and went to orbit

I have a lot of pending projects in my hangar that have all achieved SSTO flight. Some of them need tons more work, but I just want to share because it's fun. First up is a small SSTO meant to go to the Mun and back in one trip (landing horizontally on the moon, like a proper VTOL plane). It needs more fuel, and probably a minor redesign to reduce weight, but it looks like this: Next is a LKO md/lg hauler that I intend to use to help build a new, low part count Space Station. I'm trying to figure out a way to do a reliable set of doors for this thing. I may do a removable / replaceable Hatch, as I have been very unimpressed with the landing leg door, or any sliding hangar door systems I have tried to construct. I'm also doing a big Drop ship. It's meant to deliver Moon Base parts. Horizontal landing on the moon (and Kerbin, but that's really inefficient with rockets). It has quite a lot of work to be done with regards to fuel flow and balance in vacuum. It flies beautifully, however. I'm developing a series of standardized Sky Cranes as well (also to deliver moonbase parts). I only mention this in the SSTO thread because structurally they are based on the innards of my SSTO Dropship. They will be adaptable for all sorts of payloads with weird CoM problems because of lessons learned in SSTO cargo bay construction. Not exactly sexy, but they are pretty useful. I also have some finished designs that I haven't released due to them not offering much beyond cool aesthetics and basic functionality. Any Interest? Waverider 1 Waverider 2

If you are referring to the Aeon, I was stating that as a goal I was trying (but failed) to meet. Actual part count is 555 on the craft file I believe. Add to that the part count of whatever tug design you go with. It's not what I wanted, but it is a compromise I had to make.

Yeah, that queen bee looks great! How well do you find your basic drop ship design to be scaling? Could you conceivably make some 10 engined behemoth, or are you approaching diminishing returns yet?

Well, in real life it would have more drag. KSP makes no frontal area calculations currently, and does not take into account weather parts are exposed to the airstream or not. Each part has a flat drag value assigned, so there would literally be no difference in performance between the clipped version and a theoretical "unclipped" version.

Great, glad you like it! Thanks for your feedback! I've modified the .craft file with many more of the intakes selected on the [5] action group. This should help your insertion maneuver. During testing I found I never really needed to close so many, but that's why I like feedback: turns out it is definitely a little better with more intakes closed. Remember, you have that aerospike at your disposal too, which isn't the most efficient, of course, but is enough thrust to get you a good apoapsis quickly. You can leave the circularization to the nukes. As far as the fuel balancing is concerned, I never really needed to balance the shuttle during ascent. I only needed to balance for docking maneuvers. For this, moving fuel between the three x200 "pancake" tanks [green] seems adequate. You can access the clipped tanks my clicking on either side of the red higlighted tank. Are you struggling with the ascent phase? I just ran a couple of test flights to create ascent profile instructions for the Argo: 1) Hit action groups [1,2,5] and throttle up. The craft will lift off at 90kph. 2) Climb at 50 degrees to 16k. Hit action group [5] again to reopen intakes. Begin slow leveling maneuver from 50 degrees to 15 degrees at 28k. 3) Accelerate at 15 degrees pitch between 28k and 34k. You will need to juggle the jet engines and throttle. Keep your ascent rate above 10m/s. Hit [2] at 0.18 intake air (4 engines active). At 0.12 air, Hit [1] to shut 4 engines down, and hit [2] again to fire up the other 2 again. In other words your Number active engines goes 6-4-2. 4) As your ascent rate and Airspeed gains start slowing, turn on the nukes [4] and rotate to 25 degrees. 5) As your ascent rate and Airspeed gains start slowing again, the jets should be out of juice (around 34k and well over 2000 is attainable), and you will be at a low throttle setting. Turn them off [2], Hit [4] to fire up the aerospike, [5] to close the intakes and rotate to 50 degrees. 6) Power to at least 74 apoapsis and shut everything down when that number is achieved. 7) Coast to apoapsis and use NERVAs to circularize. The Argo was my first large SSTO and as such, it is a little less than optimal, building finesse-wise. If I were to rebuild this craft (which I might) I would definitely fix the inherent fuel balancing problem. How it is How it should be. It's amazing how well it works, considering.

Thanks! Yeah. The aesthetic component comes easily to me, it's the technical stuff i feel I still have much room to improve on. Really, it's the technical capability of a design that gives it its staying power. When something looks really awesome I download it, fly it to see if it works, then tear it apart to hunt for good ideas. Usually that's it. But if it does something useful, then it actually gets used to play the game, and that's super cool. That's where the designs of people like pa1983 and Cupcake really shine. Most of my designs in the pipeline are very 'performance' oriented, so they take a while to iron the kinks out. Most future designs will have to actually DO something. Besides be really, really, ridiculously good looking! But that said I just don't have it in my heart to play with something ugly, so my future releases will be pretty good looking too! ( I hope)

Oh, if I were building this I would chuck a couple of those hitchhiker units too, using plate to cover a beam skeleton closer to the central hub. Higher part count, way less weight to Ballance.

Cool! This is looking pretty accurate, you are a good modeler. That part count problem is always a bummer. If you want to fly it, maybe sacrifice that cool dish a little. That's gotta be near 500 parts for the top and bottom. That might be a good compromise. I remember playing x-wing back in the day and I loved looking at the falcon in that game. It was probably under 200 polygons! XD. I'm sure people would forgive a little accuracy-for-playability trade off.

It's definitely a baby only a mothership could love. Tubby, bug eyed, and six Legged!

My SSTOs that I share get some sort of "A" name, just for differentiation and a recognizable theme. But Before they are shared, they usually have some sort of goofy or descriptive name on my save. "Clippy McCheater", the "Hopeless" series, "Speedy Box", and "The Exploderator" come to mind.

Cool! Let me know if you have any questions on how to fly them.

My current save (since .19) consists of the following serious attempts. I'm not counting all the insane tongue-in-cheek stuff, or things abandoned as hopeless before attempting. In Service (Flight ongoing, used regularly) Active: (Flight still ongoing, but not used regularly) Success (Flight ended, mission parameters achieved) Failure (Flight ended, mission parameters not achieved) Decommissioned (All flights ended successfully. No longer used much.) In Development (actively being assembled in the VAB/SPH or in testing phase) Kerbal Orbit: LKO Station (5 launches, 7 crew) De-orbiter Claw I: Failure (need more claws) De-orbiter Claw II: Active (2 crew) Orbital Gas Stations: 3 in service E.K.R.O.: Active (Extra-Kerbal Radio Observatory. 1million meter orbit for timewarp purposes) MTWC In service (Mechjeb Transfer Window Calculator. My only use of mechjeb outside of the SPH/VAB. 1 million meter orbit) Mun Pomo: Active (Polar orbit Munar Observer. Ajax payload) Landing 1: Failure. (2 Crew lost. Comand pod returned with 1 crew. Rover active) Landing 2: Success, (3 crew returned. Rover active) Landing 3: Success, (3 crew returned. Rover active) Moldular Base: In Development Minmus Minimus Pathfinder: Active (Ajax Payload) Duna: Stock Rover: Failure ( Duna Impact, poor piloting) Stock Rover: Active (Orbiter and Rover) Duna Explorer: In Service (MPV landed [4 crew], Station in orbit [2 crew]) Duna Gas Station: In service (delivered by Aeon) Aeon 1 (Failure: Duna Impact due to poor design and landing choice) Aeon 2: (Failure: Duna Impact; Had the parking brake on.) Aeon 3: Failure (solar orbit: Insufficient Dv for return. Aborted) Aeon 4: Success (Payload delivered, returned Home. Payload rolled over and lost) Aeon 5: Success (Payload delivered, returned home. Payload In service) Aeon 6: In Service (Duna Orbit) Jool: Joolian Impactor :success Maverick: Partial success (Flybys of joolian moons planned. Laythe flyby only.) Space Planes Speedy Box SSTO. (decommissioned, First successful SSTO) Arrow SSTO (successful, decommissioned) Master Blaster (Successful Parasite Plane. Decommissioned) Accipiter SSTO (demonstrator, decommissioned) Antilles SSTO Drone (demonstrator, decommissioned) Ajax SSTO: In service Ardent SSTO: In service Ardent II SSTO: In service Agilus A,B SSTO: (successful, decomissioned) Argo SSTO: In service Accel SSTO (demonstrator, decommissioned) Aurora (classified. ) Tiny SSTO Program (Under Trials for Laythe runabouts.) Aeon SSTO: In service LKO Heavy Lifter SSTO (Prototype in development) Small Mun / Minmus lander SSTO (Prototype in development) Near Future plans: Laythe missions including a simple lander, then an orbital Logistics station and surface Base. Eve probes. Spelling it all out like this makes me see that I really need to put more landers on planets!

Yeah, this is a really clean, simple design. Cool! Also the chair lander is so "kerbal" it hurts.

I love how the design of this perfectly illustrates your user name. MOAR EVERYTHING! Pretty darned impressive performance though. I would except I kept tinkering with it and I broke the craft file; now it explodes on the runway. I'll rebuild a worthwhile version soon. This one was a hack job anyway. Totally inefficient with that big 'Skipper' engine on there. EDIT: Here is the craft file, almost unchanged from the pictures. *disclaimer, not even close to a final design! I plan on building a worthwhile NERVA version. There is probably enough fuel here to go to laythe.

Challenge accepted and completed! 40 mins of madcap slapping parts together results in this: It's a total basket case, but it worked! Look how big my engine is... Totally don't see any problems with this arrangement. X)

Ah, this should be because you have a kerbal aboard. This defaults the controls to the rover's cupola, which is facing backwards. That messes everything up. Click the forward docking port and control from there!