Kromey

Wait, what? You can repack chutes? Is this a mod, or part of stock? If the latter, this changes everything!!!

I guess I'm the odd man out, but no Kerbal pilots a rocket until I've mastered the necessary skills using probes first. I also intend to use probes to plan out the landing zones for all future manned landers, which for interplanetary voyages means the probe lander will go along with a manned one (because I'm impatient)! I forgot this rule the first time I took a plane up, and lost a good Kerbal. A legendary Kerbal, really; Jeb, you are missed! (The irony is that he survived a flameout and flat spin, fully recovered, only to then explode from hitting the runway a smidge too fast!) A subsequent manned rocket failed spectacularly the moment the physics loaded on the launchpad, too fast for me to hit the carefully-constructed abort even (although a subsequent test, while fatality-free, proved that the as-of-then untested LES didn't really even work anyway)! Those 4 Kerbal souls are the only fatalities in my own space program, which I view the purpose of to be sending Kerbals, not just probes, into space. The Kerbals, they do fly, I just fly probes first to make sure I know what the heck I'm doing before endangering anyone!

One thing I've seen work effectively is to put your parachutes near the bottom of the boosters, which seems to nicely "peel" them away from your rocket as it keeps going up (no sepetrons in this scenario, or a pair thrusting the booster out away from your rocket, not "down"/retrograde). I've never done this myself as, with reusable/recoverable boosters not yet being implemented anyway, I've not seen the point. But it does look pretty neat in the videos I've seen doing it. As for a launch escape/abort sequence, just have your chutes in the next stage -- you hit abort, the capsule bails (with whatever escape mechanism you've designed for it), and once you're clear/your escape boosters have exhausted themselves you hit space to release your chutes. I mean, you've got control, why not use it?

Currently? Nothing. Eventually? Well, we can speculate (probably affects how well they fly/their flight style once Kerbals can be given actual tasks), but I don't think we have any official word on that just yet...

So, bottom line is that they're cool, fun, and challenging (which is more than enough to guarantee I will play with them), but until Career Mode and/or costs are implemented nothing tangible/concrete. Would be fun to play with them and see if I could build a heavy lifter space plane though... I'm sure it's been done, but I like seeing what I can design myself, y'know?

Space planes look cool. Really cool. Really really cool. On that point alone I will eventually build and fly them myself. What I'm more interested in here is the practical benefits of space planes over rockets. I know that real-life space programs are moving more toward them, and it seems that KSP players have a similar inclination towards them; the latter could just be because they're cool, but I'm pretty sure the former wouldn't be moving that way if there weren't something there. Surely there's more to space planes than just looking cool, right? Also, in a similar vein, any tips for how to fly them in KSP? So far my only flight ended in the tragic death of that unforgettable, brave Kerbal, ...uh... What's-His-Face. (Ironically, despite my ignorance of jet engines cutting out at very high altitudes due to no air and that resulting in an asymmetric flame out and flat spin, I managed to regain control only to crash horrifically when attempting my landing.) I'm sure there's some practice to be done, but are there tips or tricks in the controls or basic flight practices that a newb Kerbal pilot such as myself should know?

Howdy-ho, everyone! I first came upon KSP almost exactly 2 years ago. Back then there was Kerbin, and there was Mun, and if you wanted to land on Mun you laid your rocket down really gently and, if you were really really really good, not only did you not blow up, but you could actually start up again and go back home! I wasn't that good. Anyway, I've just come back to it, and as you can probably tell by my ribbons I've already made a few accomplishments in Kerbin's local system. That Kerbol ribbon I'm not really sure I've properly earned, as that was a satellite intended for Kerbin orbit that I somehow way overshot, but I guess it counts anyway. I've got lots of plans for Kerbin's local system before I go gallivanting about the rest of the solar system, though: I want a functional space station, a Mun base, and dammit I will get a lander safely to touch down on Minmus if it's the last thing I do! (Ironically I think it's the really low gravity that makes it so hard for me, I end up drastically over-correcting on almost every maneuver.) So far my proudest moment was the (mostly) successful V'ger mission, a relatively simple craft that visited both Mun and Minmus and dropped off a probe at each moon before returning on a sub-orbital trajectory to Kerbin (although I stupidly forgot the parachutes so can't claim the return chevron on my ribbons just yet). Each probe was itself a two-part probe, leaving behind a small comm satellite in orbit while sending a lander down to the surface. I touch down on Mun safely, then spotted an anomalous rock formation not far away and decided I had ample fuel to hop over there; screwed that up, toppled, and blew up. My lander on Minmus had a really great approach until it caught a really bad bounce on touchdown and in my panic to save it I over-corrected and it crashed down head first; ironically the only part that actually exploded was the probe body itself, the rest is now debris scattered across the ice. When I do it again though I'll have to solve the issue of V'ger's center of gravity being way screwed up after dropping the first probe -- that burn to get from Mun to Minmus was almost impossible with all that mass hanging unbalanced on just one side!! What I'd most like to know about is two things: 1) Any tips for someone who's managed a fair number of successful missions, but might have missed along the way? Especially any controls I might not know about, like maybe a way for finer-grained control over engine acceleration (that was perhaps my biggest issue when trying to set down on Minmus, the slightest tap on Shift sent me careening upwards again!) or things like that. 2) Space planes! They certainly look cool, and on that aspect alone I'll definitely eventually build and use them. But do they have any actual practical benefits over rockets?