RoboRay

You may not need them, but they would probably be the simplest solution. It might be enough to just have more of a delta-wing shape, with wider wing-roots and the leading edge sweeping back at a greater angle.

The solution is to address your CoL/CoM relationship, not attempt to work around the problem with oversized and overextended control surfaces. Can you post some VAB shots showing the markers, with both full tanks and empty? Maybe we can offer some specific suggestions.

Thanks! It's using the Spaceplanes+ Mk2 parts. Here's the rest of the album:

FAR doesn't make things harder... it makes them more realistic. If you build a craft with good aerodynamics and fly it well, FAR makes things easier. And because FAR relies on real-world physics instead of fantasy-land mass=drag, you can apply real-world principles to your designs without having to just figure out nonsense as you go along. FAR only makes things harder if you build things that simply should not fly well (or at all), in which case the stock KSP system may allow them to work anyway. An aerodynamic design in FAR needs less fuel to get into orbit than it would in stock KSP, from the reduced drag. On the other hand, a non-aerodynamic design might need more fuel in FAR than in stock KSP (if it worked at all).

The Dove reaches orbit with about 300 m/sec of rocket delta V remaining, and there's close to another 300 m/sec of RCS. So, reaching any destination in LKO and then returning to the surface is doable. Even if you burn all the fuel that the oxidizer can use, there's still enough left to fly at least a quarter of the way around the planet on jet-power, so getting back to the runway should be no problem. I use FAR, though... I'm not sure how it would perform in the stock soup. I hope to fix the last showstopper issues with the design tonight, then I'll share it with anyone that's interested.

I think you can get the kerbal out if you don't put a wing where the hatch is.

Ah, got it. Thanks. I hadn't heard about that before.

I think I'm getting close to a ground-to-LKO crew transporter that I'm happy with. I call the latest design the Dove. Mass is down to 15 tons wet and it handles pretty well. It can get into orbit and back without any visible thermal effects (going up or down), if flown to the limits of its capabilities. Switchover from airbreathing to closed-cycle rocket mode happens at about 32km and 1600 m/sec. I could probably get higher and faster first, but I lack the patience to play throttle-games.

Saying "the stickied thread" doesn't really offer anything useful, since there seems to be no relevant stickied thread in this forum. Can you say which stickied thread, in what forum?

LOL, I opened the thread and thought "That looks familiar." My own design was somewhat inspired by SpaceShip One.

I don't think automatically selecting the nearest docking port and opening the UI would be a desirable feature, unless the target only has one docking port. And not always then, really. I don't always approach a large ship or space station and just dock at the closest port... I'm usually intending to go to a specific port, which may be on the far side of the vessel.

My little six-seater SSTO keeps evolving... This iteration is smaller, uglier, flies much better, but on-orbit delta-v has dropped do a marginal state. It needs a little more work, still.

Right. His response to that content being lost was to ensure his own content stayed lost. Oh, well. That's his choice to make.

Yeah, that is a possibility, but... I've been dabbling with the Spaceplanes+ Mk2 expansion set lately and I like the stock-alike look better than the B9 look. I still have TT's Mk3 parts, but I like sharing the craft I build which pretty much excludes using parts that are no longer available. I really want to mix some Mk3 parts back into my designs.

So, these are the only Mk3 mod parts I've used for quite some time. Now that TT has taken his ball and ran home, can anyone make suggestions on alternatives? (And not B9, please... way too much bloat and cruft there. I'm looking for actual Mk3-compatible parts, not equivalent items with different shapes/sizes.)

Honestly, it doesn't fly that well. Very twitchy (I crashed on the runway several times trying to land). Let me see if I can make some improvements to it first.

And now for something smaller... a six-seat ground-to-orbit taxi.

I landed on the Mun with my descent stage having just 0.2 units of fuel remaining.

Exactly. It's as if your chair is in the center of the ball and you're looking out. Those are the readings you would be seeing.

Oh, you like my Docking/Payload Control Station? Thanks!

I'm loving these parts! Just built an 8-seat, light-cargo SSTO spaceplane with them... Well, the fuselage with these parts, anyway. I had originally used your wings, but they kept shredding in FAR as soon as I got the nose to start lifting off the runway. It wasn't an extreme angle, either... just a few degrees. They seem much more fragile than the stock wing parts.

So, the solution is to add more resource-demand from mods. Brilliant! In any case, we already have mod(s) that have more intensive crew-management features. What we did not have (until now) is a lightweight mod that just does this one, simple, really important function. Using one of the more comprehensive mods if you have more comprehensive needs would be a much better solution than weighing this mod down with redundant baggage that's already available elsewhere (and, as a side effect, eliminating the only mod that just does this one, simple, really important function).

He said it was about 72 days to impact. It should be just about to arrive now.

Did we just find the one person in the entire world of people who play KSP that finds the "revert" button and VAB/SPH menu to be too challenging and needs a separate, dedicated and redundant UI just for that one simple function?