Exothermos

Porkjet, I'm enjoying your mods immensely! Your Models and Textures are beautiful, and I love how you try to keep to to a stock-alike aesthetic. I've been wanting to do a space plane parts pack for a while but my modeling is crap, and frankly I'm totally overwhelmed by it all. Here is some crappy MS Paint sketches I just did to show you some of the ideas I had in mind. These are parts I would like to build with, and if they spark your imagination, i would love to see your attempt at them or something similar! We really need a 2.5 meter cockpit section! A 2 kerbal capacity would be reasonable. I know the Mk3 is supposed to fill this niche, but with the mk3 fuselage being so underdeveloped, and TonouTorpedo seemingly unlikely to re-upload his efforts, I think this would be very appreciated. This part would also marry nicely with some of the fuselage sections in the KAX pack. This one steps down to a 1.25 meter nose section. A nice pointy nose cone with a hypersonic-look would be fantastic. The structural nosecone in the game doesn't really give an impression (accurate or not) of the hypersonic speeds that an air-breathing SSTO spaceplane would need to reach in order to achieve orbit. I've been rotating the game's tail section around to point forward with mixed results. I think a line of Conformal Fuel Tanks would be useful and make for some really pretty space planes and Rockets. With a surface attachment point in the deepest part of the curve, a 1.25 meter section would wrap nicely around 1.25 meter round tanks, and would clip slightly into 2.5 meter parts and flat sections to achieve a seamless appearance. Something similar could be done with a Blended Wing section. My thinking was a part that had big lift in trade for big drag and weight. This would help larger designs avoid the ridiculous wing spamming that is necessary to make them perform. With a large internal volume it would also be a place to clip Monopropellant, batteries, small fuel tanks, etc without feeling like you are completely cheating. Heck, it would be a good place to clip in a bunch of winglets for even more lift if it doesn't bother you! To those with more mod knowledge than me, I apologize if these ideas have been done before. I'm not very familiar with B9, for instance, because I'm not a big fan of the aesthetic.

I've really been enjoying the Space Planes + mod. Most of the parts should be stock. Here's a little shuttle And a bigger cargo ship.

Haha, this made me laugh! Mesklin's solutions are pretty great, actually. They avoid too much clipping / intersecting. Also take a look at what I did with the Tiny Taxi, you can cram a lot kerbal-carrying capacity with the little lander cans. The cans are very light, but the method I used is completely "clippy" and seems "cheaty" if you are clipping through fuel cans (It never really bothered me as anyone can see!). on a simple little SSTO it would look like this, I guess Thanks! glad you like it. Yeah that ugly little bonus plane came about after crashing the early iterations of the Aurochs over and over. I just wanted to get to space! . The point of the pods was I was trying to cram as much engine power and intakes into as small of a space as possible. I wanted to avoid the huge ballooning of dimensions and parts that happens when you are designing a heavy lift SSTO. Being able to tweak the fuel ratios in the tanks also helps tremendously. THANKS SQUAD! When you concentrate all the important bits (by clipping the *#%$ out of everything) you can then just add wing surfaces until the plane performs. A nice bonus is that it looks pretty darned cool too! BTW I am on a little break from SSTO design, as I am delving deep into all these beautiful environemental mods that have been released lately. They are encouraging me to actually play the game and revisit a lot of the bodies. The SPH will soon beckon, i'm sure.

Those landers are beautiful!

Yeah, it has a big wing so it lands nice and slow, and can carry much more ordinance and fuel than the B needs. They'll get the arrestor hook stuff figured out. It's just a structural engineering issue. Very surmountable.

Dayum, you are the master of replicas! Super nice.

I've released a few of my lifter SSTOs in my build thread. I finished the big Orange tank Lifter, and have a couple other smaller lifters. Now maybe a break... Yeah right

Check out my new "Do You Even Lift?" Pack Here is the Older "Pretty, Pointy, and Pretty Pointless Pack" Post: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pretty, Pointy, and Pretty Pointless Party Pack 3/9/2014 I have a tendency to design lots of SSTOs that look pretty darned cool, but don't really DO enough to deserve their own release. I have decided to put them all together in one download for those who wish to mess around with them. All these SSTOs are straight forward 'get to orbit' style crafts whose sole purpose is to do so looking great. There are 8 total planes, four of which are new designs, and 4 are older designs rebuilt to take advantage of RAPIER technology. First on deck is the largest ship in the pack,The Arete. It is designed to look like an amalgam of the proposals for the x-30 SSTO competition. Because of it's odd under-surface shape, I was not able to put landing gear near the Center of Mass without things looking ridiculous. This results in a take-off run that uses the whole runway. It's no biggie, just throttle up to 75% or so and apply gentle back pressure, and she will lift-off gently once the runway ends. Otherwise, all flight dynamics are predictable and straight-forward. Next is The Adder, another ship designed with cues from real-world counterparts. This basic wedge design echoes the design of the x-34 hypersonic wave rider prototype. It is very responsive and performs well in all regimes. The Atlantis is a small Space Shuttle lookalike in SSTO form. Those who want less exotic looking designs should find something to like in this ship. Performance is very good in all regimes, and is capable of 250km rendezvous. The final New design is The Agama. It is a simple, smaller SSTO designed around RAPIER engines. It is a little less "airhoggy" than the other designs, but still has plenty of fuel in orbit. The remaining 4 designs should be familiar to those who follow this thread. The Arrow received RAPIERs instead of aerospikes for a pleasing jump in performance. This is an early design for me and I left many of the quirks in for nostalgia's sake. The Accipiter also received a RAPIER, and it has completely transformed the aircraft. I always thought it looked cool, but now it performs too. The Agilus had an engine swap. It now sports 2 Turbojets and 1 Nuke, instead of 2 nukes and one Jet. This has also greatly improved the craft. The Accel has had some wing re-arrangement to reduce its weird ultra-stability in the roll axis. It is somewhat improved. There is also a bonus SSTO that followers of the SSTO Showcase Thread may recognize. Have fun! DOWNLOAD

Thanks! OK, I'm going to start a little series of posts in that thread. Here is the first one. iDan122, that little skylon is cool!

I construct SSTO spaceplanes. Lots of them. And I must admit that well over 3/4 of the build time of each design is spent just fiddling with the aesthetics. I want to share some of the little techniques I've discovered (or stolen) over the last year or so. This post is focused on playing with cockpits.

Since we're showing off LKO Orange tank lifters (Rune and Overfloater your builds are awesome as usual), I'll share mine. I've been low-effort tinkering with it for a long time, and it is still a total basket-case that needs more lift, but it should end up looking roughly the same after a long refinement period. Cargo delivery is "pooper" style (technical term). I still haven't decided how I want to wrap things up at the rear end. Tail strikes are a problem. I could fix it with more prominent gear, but I've really taken a liking to burying them in the "skin" for a more aerodynamic appearance. v0v Still very much a work in progress.

I really like the stock-alike appearance of the spaceplane parts (and your hab stuff for that matter). Definitely going to play with those.

The recently completed "Create a better Aeris 4a" thread in the Challenge subforum got my creative juices flowing and I've been hunting for designs that meet the needs of a new player, or at least those new to the whole SSTO spaceplane thing. The craft should help teach the player all the little tricks of SSTOs without making things too easy with workarounds and assembly exploits. In that Same vein, it should be easy to reverse-engineer to glean all its secrets. In the spirit of that challenge I've been pumping out small designs that are: 1) easy to fly in all regimes (maneuverable, and no nasty habits) 2) neutral / stable (or mostly so) without SAS on. 3) Are fully dockable with Docking ports and balanced RCS. 4) Have no "intake abuse" (debatable subject, my definition) 5) Have no "Construction-Foo" tricks with cubic struts and excessive clipping (minor wing surface clipping for aesthetics only). 6) Are in the 40-part ballpark. This craft that I posted previously was the fist of the group. It is the only rapier in the batch, and will likely stay that way. The radial Intakes have since been removed on this design. They are superfluous. Not sleak, but very effective. A kind-of strange low wing design. ...and so far, the standout of the group for meeting all my criteria I am also working on a 3-man plane in the same vein to introduce more advanced flight dynamics like juggling Jets/rapiers and asymmetric flame-outs. I don't know if there is really any point to designing these craft, but it is a fun goal to keep in mind. It forces you to keep things simple, which is something I need to work on anyway. On the complete opposite end of that spectrum is a clippy, vertical landing Profile shuttle I've been playing with. It is a handful, but lots of fun to land.

This is really nice! It's like a sky crane is built into the base. Lets have a closer look at those rovers, if you don't mind.

I was going to say the same thing, so I'll piggyback on your comment. Awesome Job, Overfloater! Your Craft's tiny size (and i would assume lower part count) is the most impressive aspect. TeeGee, if you accomplish all those goals, I think that would be just as impressive as payload to Duna. That's a tough nut to crack.

What's the mod that I keep seeing here that replaces the effects on Jets? I gotta get me some blue flame!

Wow, what a cool mod. Fantastic builds too!

These are sweet! I really like that A-4 replica.

LOL! Pretty much My latest lifter design uses exactly the same engine arrangement and is huge in comparison. I just thought it would be fun to throw my first working design in the ring because it is the one that I learned everything on. It definitely is not as refined as most.

Space Planes! Especially SSTOs. Also, designing tons of missions and then rarely completing them before the next version of KSP makes them obsolete or untenable.

You... You monster!

I use Docking mode. I use a Joystick for most flights, so I don't really get the brain conflicts that some do with the WASD / docking mode control changes. In fact, I always have to hunt around for the right key when I do want to use the translation buttons in normal "staging" mode. I also love the fact that i cant screw things up by hitting space and staging things

I've been thinking small again. Here is a Delta-wing design with RAPIER power. This design has no intake abuse. Just the two that are visible. It still has plenty of maneuvering DV in orbit. Then my 'tiny' OCD kicked in and things took a turn towards the absurd. "Just another day at work." 1 million meter orbit.

Yeah, there isn't really an argument regarding the usefulness of SSTOs. With no monetary system in the game reusable vehicles are not really worth designing. From a pure efficiency standpoint, as well as ease of piloting, rockets win. In fact, even if money WERE taken into account, I am sure that rockets would still be more cost-effective (as long as engines could be recovered). That said, there is something about a plane that can lob it's self to orbit that just sparks my imagination. And so the designs will continue to flow

Oooh. I've been wanting to do a similar design for ages, but my design backlog is nuts. Fantastic Job! ...so simple.