Levelord

I've noticed something rather odd with the company descriptions in that they will show the strengths and weaknesses of each company for funds, science and reputation. However these actually mean nothing and doesn't affect anything. I have almost identical contracts pop up from 2 companies to do temperature scans of the Mun. One from Reaction Systems Ltd (who are strong at science but have low rep) and one from Zaltonic Electronics (who are strong at cash rewards but weak in rep and science). The contracts still have identical rewards.

RAPIERs aren't OP either. Once they get you into orbit, they pretty much can't get you anywhere else without re-fueling. If you think RAPIERs are OP for simply getting you into orbit, then I don't think you quite understand the point of having RAPIERs (or SABRE engines) in the first place. They are designed to be used in SSTOs, the same applies in real life with the Skylon.

Your designs don't have to be big....

If that's the case SQUAD needs to update the part description and remove the context menu asking for the option to retract the panels when you aren't supposed to. Most people will think it's a bug.

I think that might be a bug because when I took my Kerbals out on EVA and select the panels, the box comes up asking if I would like to retract them. Of course, the button doesn't work but the panels are supposed to retract wither way.

So basically you're saying "there's nothing wrong with the RAPIERs as long as you install a mod that makes them useful again". Which has nothing to do with gpisic's ascent profile or piloting.

We have a community that is obsessed with making the game more difficult under the guise of realism rather than what makes the game actually realistic or intuitive. I'm beyond the point of caring anymore and find this poll completely pointless. Just learn to play the game and adapt to the engines instead of whining and complaining all the time.

I don't know about Laythe but from how much I play KSP I ask if I have a life....

If you stage while getting to orbit, then your ship is not an SSTO. BUT If you already reached orbit and then later staged, you are still technically a SSTO because you reached orbit in one stage.

Not with this drag model, no. The less time you spend in it the less fuel and time you need to spend to get to orbit. The current drag model doesnt recognize aerodynamic shapes or aerodynamically occluding objects (like placing a nosecone in front of a tank using the offset tools. It has to instead be placed using the attachment points in order for the aero to recognize it). This means a lot of crafts acquire unnecessary drag regardless of how aerodynamically sound the craft is. Currently drag is stil based on part count regardless of clipping (except for cargo bays) so the ships with the least part count gets to orbit easier and that is solved by simply adding one additional RAPIER. Unfortunately this is how I am seeing the majority of SSTOs being built in the space craft exchange because the excessive drag model encourages engine spam as the most fuel efficient way of getting to orbit (and I'm a minimalist by comparison with 3 engines).

The spaceplanes I've flown so far never needed to dip down in order to gain speed. That wastes a lot of fuel and uneccesarily prolongs the flight to orbit... and also increases fuel requirements. OP assuming you are working with Mk2 parts just slap on 3 RAPIERs with 4 supersonic intakes. Take off at a 30 degree inclination and level off to a 20 degree inclination at 10,000m. The plane will make it to 22,000m @ 1400m/s before the engines start to die off, then switch to rocket mode.

Pretty much this. The hydrogen is stored cryogenically (at least according to current tech and research) and running it through the engine where it picks up the heat from the reactor and gets propelled out. In essence the reactor is losing heat by transferring that heat to the cold hydrogen, expanding it and expelling it out the back.

As of yet we don't have dedicated radiator parts in the game and it's unreasonable to have to stick ~5+ fins and whatnot on the NERVAs because it significantly adds to the part count (~5 fins per engine... especially so on larger ships that require 2 or more engines for burns). This already slows down the game framerate and bloats interplanetary ships with unnecessary wing parts. OP, this is not considered a 'fix' when you have to sacrifice game performance to give the NERVA reasonable burn times within the game.

I'm pretty sure the Skylon is using a grand total of 2 SABRE engines and not 20 odd engines clipped into each other.

When you R.A.P.I.E.R. clip/spam you can get pretty much anything into orbit regardless of design. I suppose I can say that I'm impressed with the aesthetic style, but it's got the engineering prowess of a hog.

This is the biggest ship I've aerobraked around Jool. But it was a long time ago...

Except OP's car is powered by 2 jet engines. If you want to argue realism at least try to be accurate.

I just use the really cheap tier 1 fins and angle them slightly outwards, so that when my boosters separate, the fins carry them away from the core stack. It's far cheaper and doesn't hinder the aerodynamic shape. Half a second after decoupling the boosters are already separating on their own. The ones on the right are moving away as well, but it was because I accidentally tilted the rocket to the right last minute, they still barely touch each other. The separation was a success anyway.

Pretty much this.

Snacks! is a good life support mod where if you run out of snacks, your Kerbals will start to lose XP. I suppose this is what you are looking for in terms of a life support that doesn't kill Kerbals thus allowing for rescue missions. It's still for version 0.9 though. I don't know when it'll be updated for 1.0+

I suppose that works, but I don't spend a lot of time in the atmosphere because it's a little too draggy in 1.0.2 where it becomes a TWR issue. Also because of the small size of my crafts, they don't carry a lot of fuel for cruising at altitude. I simply punch it through at max thrust to around 1400m/s at 20km before going rocket mode.

A little trick which I don't think a lot of people do is that when I'm leveling out my pitch to 15 degrees at 10km up my speed is around 300-340m/s, it's almost at the sound barrier, so I fire up the LV-909 for a few seconds for that bit of thrust to push it to around to 360m/s where the RAPIERs start to pick up massive amounts of thrust on their own. Then I disengage the LV-909s. When I see the RAPIERs thrust start to go down (usually around 25Km+ up) I fire up the LV-909s again, close the intakes and switch to rocket mode.

Valentina looks like she's enjoying herself

Did another round of testing, same basic design but with 3 RAPIERs. Managed to clock almost 500m/s which is a 100m/s improvement over the previous design. The LV-909s? Well they weigh only 0.5 tonnes, which makes the overall craft 1.5 tonnes lighter. They also have +40s ISP greater than the SABREs in space. Because there's no drag in space, high ISP and low thrust engines can get you quite far.

I run a 4-man shuttle with 2 RAPIERs and a LV-909. I consider this medium sized, with a 1-person short shuttle (not shown here) as a small sized shuttle. Update: I've recently also had better success with running 3 RAPIERs in my latest shuttle, but I'll need to do more testing on it. Will post an update on that one soonâ„¢.