Levelord

My Duna Station Laythe Station LKO Ring Station

Greetings, from my floating Laythe base.

If you can get the stock Aeris up into orbit, I'd consider you fairly well skilled. I head up at 45 degrees up to 20,000m then I flatten out my pitch to gain horizontal speed. At around 30,000m you would gain about 1800m/s in velocity. (I goofed mine) Turn off the jet engines, close off the intakes, pitch the nose up to 45 degrees and turn on the LV-909 engines. Keep this profile until you reach your desired apoapsis. Circularize, and you should have about 500-600 units of fuel to play with in orbit. Hope this helps!

My SSTO lifter that can lift a Rockomax tanker into orbit and return safely at KSC to be re-used.

I have an early prototype here. I've encountered some balancing problems for vacuum VTOL at 1/4 tanks, but only at full thrust (which you probably won't need to do if you descend gradually). Other than that, the VTOL performs well in atmosphere and the plane can SSTO. It's also quite fun toggling the VTOL engines and surfing the munar landscape to enjoy the sights. Even better if you have MechJeb's translatron to maintain altitude and sit back as the plane 'glides' in space. .craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/Amphibious%20VTOLSSTO%20Kethane%20Vac1.rar I'll come up with more revisions, or even a complete redesign from scratch if I really want to remove the balance issues completely. The problem is that you can only choose one or the other, vacuum VTOL, or atmospheric VTOL, as they require different placements of the engines. I could be wrong though and I might come up with a plane capable of both in future. Free free to make changes to the prototype and see if you can help improve on it.

My current Kethane plane is designed for atmospheric flights because it just barely makes orbit because of it's weight. If you want a design for vacuum landings, I'll do a re-design. It might take a while Most likely I will remove the command pods and make it a single seater craft to save on weight.

Yes, that is indeed the turbojet in the middle, it doesn't damage anything even at full thrust I have a version that uses aerospikes for vacuum VTOL. I tested it for it's SSTO capabilities because of the increased weight, and it ends up in orbit with a fair bit of fuel left. Around 560 units of fuel. Using the VTOL engines in a vacuum is indeed viable. The original placing of the jet VTOL engines run directly through the center of mass. Therefore any changes, like changing engines or adding pods on these attachment points makes it easy because it doesn't shift the center of mass. For testing purposes, I've enabled infinite fuel to get into a Munar orbit. You can use either the LV-909 engines, or the aerospike engines. Either one runs through the center of mass, the only difference is where you choose the control to be from. The docking port on the top is directly in line with the VTOL aerospikes. Because there is no air in space to affect the lift and balance of the wings, the ship can be controlled from the docking port and the plane controlled exactly like a standard lunar lander. It balances perfectly for a descent and lands comfortably. My conclusion is that gimballing engines are not important for this ship because of it's small size and the torque that enables it to change pitch and yaw quickly in a vacuum. You can make these simple changes yourself, or if you would like, I'll upload my version by request.

My SSTO that carries 5 Kerbals. I use it to ferry 5 Kerbals at a time to Laythe and stuff, with the hyperspace ring of course. I also have a SSTO re-usable lander that carries 4 Kerbals. It uses parachutes to save on fuel so that it can take off again. It ferries 4 Kerbals back and fourth from my Laythe space station, refueling each time on the station. It also constantly ferries Kerbals from Kerbin to the space station.

My aerobraking in the atmosphere of Jool didn't look as spectacular as the OP's, even though it was a massive Jool space station

My SSTO plane called the X3, having maintenance runs to the ring station.

That is one sexy rover

Oh nothing much. I did a successful rescue mission to save 2 Kerbals on Duna, aerobraked and parked a space station around Jool, and launched an all out invasion of Laythe.

Wow I got approved now. Speedy moderators here

Minor point to make on MechJeb in terms of the units of measurements. When traveling vertically or horizontally, the units are in meters, which is correct, but when traveling slower than 1m/s the units of measurements go down to mm, which stands for milimeters. Wouldn't it be centimeters instead of millimeters?

I can pretend I know you HI!

Yeah my account got deleted too. Unfortunately I have to go through the entire approval process again, so my posts will come out slow

This is now updated for 0.23 As per request, I've made an updated version for 0.23. I've fixed the fuel lines being broken in the transfer between versions and I've also rebalanced the VTOL engines a bit to account for the change in SAS weights in the new version. It also balances better horizontally when thrusting in space with the LV-909's. The ascent profile is still the same. The plane should also still be compatible with the hyperspace ring. Although I do have to say that since the 0.23 update, one-sided engine flameouts (in other planes) are not as severe as it was before, so having the inline jet engines in the VTOLSSTO might not be necessary anymore. Hotkeys: 1: Activate LV-909 2: Activate horizontal ramjet engines 3: Nothing 4: Activate VTOL engines 5: Extend Antennas Amphibious VTOLSSTO for 0.23 Pre-0.23 versions: Seems my account disappeared with all of it's threads following the recent server move. Here's the return of the VTOLSSTO for those of you who still want to download it. Water landing and takeoff VTOLSSTO .craft file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/Amphibious%20VTOLSSTO%20%28Stock%29.rar Here is the Hyperspace ring for interplanetary transport. Once you've launched it, it's 100% re-usable. I've been re-using the same ring for transporting 5 different craft sent to Duna and Laythe. Hyperspace Ring .craft: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/Hyperspace%20Ring%202%20%28Stock%29.rar Upcoming prototypes at the Kerbal Testing Labs: 3-man Bus version (you can edit the current craft for this simple change): The design was made as a response for a Duna rescue of 2 stranded crew. It was a complete success! 5-man heavy Bus version: craft: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/Amphibious%20VTOLSSTO%20BUS%202.rar Kethane bus. (Currently on permanent refuel ferry duty on Laythe.) (Probes not included) craft: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/AVTOLSSTO%20BUS%20Kethane%20%5Brelease%5D.rar Detachable Rover+probe Version: Protip: After the rover is detached, press 0 to activate the third VTOL engine to lift off at a balanced pitch. craft: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16683090/KSP/AVTOLSSTO%20Rover%202_2%20%5Bstock%5D.rar