capi3101

I assume you're using NEAR or FAR? If you are, I'm of no help. If not, I can tell you right off the bat that you're definitely well short of what you need pretty much in every department... What's the payload and how massive is that plane as is?

Difficult to say. If it has to be one or the other, I'd go with which launch platform it uses - call it a plane if it takes off from the runway and a rocket if it takes off from the launch pad. And even then, Red Iron Crown's "hybrid VTOL" suggestion is probably better.

Tweaked my Small Fries 7 spaceplane design to deliver a Class A-B tater catcher to orbit. Actually made it and was able to deorbit the plane, but she didn't have enough juice to make it back to KSC from its point of deorbiting. Wound up landing it in grasslands - damn thing bounced twice and then tailstruck on the final landing. Fortunately I've got Recovery Transponder Fitting turned up to the highest commitment level and was able to salvage 100% of the remaining parts, which amounted to about 85% of the launch funds recovered, so that bit wasn't a total disaster. No, the mission scrubbing bit was the fact that I launched the stupid thing on the wrong trajectory. I had forgotten that when I attempted (key word: attempted) to launch a similar payload the night before, I'd waited three hours for Kerbin to turn into the right position before launch... My program's flush with cash at the moment, so it's not a complete catastrophe...still, that's √30,000 I won't get a return on...

Naw, I believe him when he says there's a third hitchhiker under there. The size is right and so is the mass...a Mainsail, 4 LT-2s, an S3-7200, 3 Hitchhikers, a Cupola and 72 Radial chutes comes out to 67.5 tonnes on the pad with 2390 m/s of delta-V. I am trying to figure out the discrepancies that the KER display is showing, though...a mass of 65.595 tonnes with a 31.5 tonne deadmass comes out to 2300.29 m/s of delta-V. Conversely, if you've got 2044 m/s of delta-V with a 31.5 tonne dead mass and an engine with a 320 s Isp, the current mass comes out to 60.447 tonnes. I suppose there may be more parts there that I haven't spotted. Either way, challenge fulfilled. 70 parts to the Mun with no evidence...that could be interesting. Especially since no fewer than eleven of those MUST be sci parts if I'm counting correctly...

Designed a transporter spaceplane to put a seven tonne payload into orbit. Failed, despite all the numbers saying it should've worked; RAPIERs switched over only going 1400 m/s, hit a stable apoapsis but had no fuel left for circularization. Wondering if I could use the Moneymaker 7 in its current configuration to launch ~that~ payload into orbit... Ultimately got frustrated with the plane decided to launch the payload via traditional rocket, costs be damned. Launched the damn thing going the wrong direction. Overall, a pretty irritating evening.

Taking a guess I'd say it's those big solar panels imparting forces on the craft when they rotate to keep focused on Kerbol. Other that the only thing I can think of is that it isn't 100% balanced - I had a space station that had a tendency to rotate due to a mass imbalance while it was under construction. On the other hand, you said it was balanced, so I'll take your word for it. Come to think of it, that station did have a tendency to rotate even after construction was complete, and it too used several of the big solar panels...

How exactly is it spinning? Is it a rapid spin, or just kind of a lazy drift where your ship doesn't hold a straight course unless you're turned normal/anti-normal to your orbit? If it's the former, there's an issue. If it's the latter, what you're seeing is your craft's orientation changing relative to the planet below, a simple side effect of being in an orbital path; your craft isn't actually changing its orientation at all, it just looks that way. Like I said, if it's the former, there's an issue. Let us know - post some screenies if possible - and we can try to diagnose the problem.

Found in a search for the term "satellite constellation" for posts one year old and newer - it's a link to a Scott Manley youtube video on the topic. 0.20.2 would've been the version at the time of the video, so this may be older than what you're looking for, but I imagine the principles are still the same.

VAB = Vehicle Assembly Building, the one you click on when you want to build a new rocket design.

Flew four Kerbals to Kerbin's South Pole. I need to investigate whether I can stick an FL-T100 and a pair of 48-77s on the back without screwing up the balance too much. Plane's got more thrust than it needs - picked up orbital velocity and sufficient altitude on the jets during testing...

Dammit. Beat me out...here was my run at the pole. Space using sepratrons, eh? Okay... EDIT: WAIT A MINUTE....SHENANIGANS!!!!! I see no flag in Zipmafia's entry as of this post...so what's the call, Mrbobmcwilly? Does his run count, or mine? If mine - next challenge is to land a craft hauling no fewer than ten Kerbals to the top of the VAB. Brownie points for more Kerbals. Even more brownie points if - after you've landed the craft on top of the VAB, you land it on top of the Admin building and Launch Pad as well.

Getting pretty late here this evening and I need to go to bed, but before I depart I wanted to thank y'all for your advice - which was pretty much universally "don't climb so damn fast and kick the throttle down a bit". Did that, also tweaked the design with an extra pair of wing connectors and two additional AV-R8s for rudders, and bumped up the fuel to assume a slow kickover speed. Made it into orbit with fuel for the deorbit. I do want to ask a few more questions of y'all but I figured I'd at least mention a qualified victory before I headed out for the night.

I generally point spaceplane newbs to two places - Keptin's Basic Aircraft Design Explained - Simply with Pictures post (a great place to begin) and to DocMoriarty's KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation Guide (a great place for specifics and ideas on what exactly you can do with planes). DocMoriarty's guide focuses on use of the RAPIER engine. It's slightly out of date (by slightly I mean it was designed for 0.24.2 and he hasn't yet updated it for the changes in 0.25/0.90), but so far the only thing I've seen that's major is that the new Wing Connectors are functionally equivalent to Delta Wings. Shock Cone Intakes are equivalent to 1.2 Ram Intakes and 4 of the new Structural Intakes are roughly equivalent to a single Shock Cone Intake. As far as specific numbers go - - your maximum take-off weight per engine is 10 tonnes if you use Basic Jet Engines, 13 if you go with RAPIERs and 15 with Turbojets. - your total lift rating (i.e. the sum of the lift ratings of all horizontal lift-generating parts) should be roughly equal to your mass. 1.15 tonnes:1 lift is an acceptable ratio, 1:1 is easier to remember. - the total intake area of all intakes should be no less than .035 per engine if you want to make space. A greater amount of intake area should allow you to achieve a higher atmospheric flight ceiling. - Total liquid fuel should be roughly 40 times the plane's mass in total fuel units, total oxidizer should be about 25 times the plane's mass in total number of units. Count any fuel to be used for interlunar/interplanetary flight among the craft's payload. - Assume a low-end payload fraction of 25% if using the plane as a payload booster. That should hopefully get you started. Flight profile is equally important. Folks will tell you to get to 10k as quickly as you can if you're using stock aerodynamics (like me). After you're at 10k, you can start flattening out; pitch down to about 20 degrees above the horizon and just let 'er fly. Speed benchmarks as follows - 350@11k, 450@14k, 650@16k, 850@19k, and 1300@23k. In general, you want your ascent past 10k to be no greater than 100 m/s (as per the rate of ascent indicator right besides the altimeter). Past 20k, you want that even lower - say, no more than 20 m/s or so. If you're flying a multiple-engine craft and it starts pulling to one side after 25k, throttle back a bit. You want to keep accelerating on just your jets for as long as you can (if you use RAPIERs, be sure to set an action group that will allow you to toggle them between modes, and be willing to switch back to air-breathing mode if they switch over before you've picked up enough speed). When you have to throttle back and no longer accelerate, that's the time to light your rockets. You then shut off your jets, close your intakes, pitch up to about 40-45 degrees and fly like hell until your apoapsis is where you want it. Kill the burn - at that point your plane is a rocket, and should be treated as such. Hopefully that'll get you started. Folks have given you some good advice on this thread already; be willing to experiment a bit to see whose advice best fits your style of play.

Flew planes. Had another go with the Moneybroker 7 - actually managed to get the damn thing into orbit thanks to some advice I'd received on the forums. The deorbit...still not sure what happened there. KER said I had the delta-V for the deorbit maneuver, and yet the burn put me just within the atmosphere (as opposed to 44K over KSC, where it should've put me). Delta-V required increased as the burn progressed, so I'm thinking something wasn't properly set as the control part. Annoying no matter how you slice it. Flew a couple of aerial survey missions. First one I had a botched landing; Jeb had to eject and I lost most of the plane in the process. Designed a new surveyor plane. Managed to land that one on the runway intact.

Alrighty. Specifics then - what do you want to do with your plane? I generally point spaceplane newbs to two places - Keptin's Basic Aircraft Design Explained - Simply with Pictures post (a great place to begin) and to DocMoriarty's KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation Guide (a great place for specifics and ideas on what exactly you can do with planes). DocMoriarty's guide focuses on use of the RAPIER engine. It's slightly out of date (by slightly I mean it was designed for 0.24.2 and he hasn't yet updated it for the changes in 0.25), but so far the only thing I've seen that's major is that the new Wing Connectors are functionally equivalent to Delta Wings. Shock Cone Intakes are equivalent to 1.2 Ram Intakes and 4 of the new Structural Intakes are roughly equivalent to a single Shock Cone Intake. Best set of advice I can give without knowing more about what you want to do exactly.

Evening, all. So, a few weeks before 0.25 came out I discovered DocMoriarty's KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation Guide and starting putting its principles into practice. Overnight I went from struggling with spaceplane design (a dozen or more flights into the drink or off to the side of the runway) to consistently successful designs. So, I finally decided to go ahead and use the principles discussed in the guide to lift a payload. I had a probe design already - the Moneymaker 7 - which I was launching conventionally to fulfill FinePrint contracts; the probe is 12.21 tonnes. I've learned that 25% is a good low-end payload fraction for a transporter spaceplane, so I set about designing one using DocMoriarty's principles for a plane that weighed 48.84 tonnes (i.e. four times the mass of the payload. The result was the Moneybroker 7: Craft File (150 kB) This is the "Mk-II" because I managed to corrupt the original craft file and had to redesign the plane from scratch. I've tried to follow the design guidelines as best I can. 48 tonnes, so four RAPIERs. There are a total of twenty Delta Wing/Wing Connector As plus a Cargo Bay - looking at that just now the design apparently is a little light on lift (the numbers say 22). 6 ailerons, 6 elevons, 6 elevators, 5 rudders and a pair of canards. Five Reaction Stabilizers in the cargo bay. Fuel requirements in the side tanks are as close as I can get them. The plane was reasonably balanced (.06 meters difference upwards) prior to the addition of the forward tri-couplers and the last six Ram Intakes - with those additions the CoM moves forward .1 meter. From the screenshots you can see the final design is actually slightly less than 48 tonnes, so it manages a better than 25% payload fraction. The problem I've got - and this has been consistent for a couple of flights now - is that the plane doesn't get much above 27k and 1500 m/s before it switches over. Further, once switchover occurs, the RAPIERs have a tendency to overheat to the point of exploding. The Guide says this design should work, so at this point I'm open for suggestions. Anybody have any ideas why I'm getting such lousy performance from the plane? For reference, I'm flying stock with aerodynamics. Any help would be appreciated.

Tried a redesign of the Moneybroker spaceplane this evening. No substantial improvements; going to ask the community for help at this point.

I'm definitely out to maximize performance, so I'll give your advice a try. Hell...that looks like what my problem's been with the transport spaceplane I've been working on lately. By my calculations I'm about a half-dozen Ram Intakes shy.

...so, I feel kinda stupid at the moment. I'd had forgotten about the existence of the Advanced Grabbing Unit and it didn't register that it was the "grappler" you were talking about. I still stick to my advice about the docking ports; they're probably going to be your best bet for what you want to do in stock. As far the overall design of the plane itself is concerned, I might suggest you take a look at DocMoriarty's KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation Guide; it's a discussion of transporter spaceplanes and VTOLs in the stock game with stock aero. It's definitely helped me out with my own spaceplane-as-launch-vehicle exploits. Definitely some principles there that could be applied to what you're wanting to do.

By the same token, you can take an engine, turn its thrust limiter down to zero, activate it at the right time and still get credit. Which is sometimes handy for when they want you to test those big rocket engines... The key thing is that the part must be activated via the staging controls. Try to make it work via an action group and you won't get credit for it. Further, you can't shut off a part and try to reactivate it via staging - the game won't let you (at least, that's the way it was in 0.24; if that's changed for 0.25, I'd sure like to know...).

To know for sure, I need to re-ask the question: what kind of setup do you have for your stock grappler?

Hmm......this is a tough one. May I ask what kind of setup you have for your stock grappler? I might suggest a series of docking ports for the plane - one forward, one on each side, and one on the ramp - with corresponding ports on the vehicles. You'd have to drive the vehicle in such a way that all four ports connected simultaneously, and it'd have to be set up so that the vehicle's mass doesn't shift the plane's CoM too far aft (or you'll wind up with an uncontrollable plane). Best I can come up with for a stock option. To make this idea as realistic as possible, I might suggest you install KAS, if you're not adverse to mods.

Managed to corrupt the Moneybroker 7 craft file somehow. So, I took the opportunity to re-design the craft. Tried a different flight profile that failed miserably - I was only going 1300 m/s when the RAPIERs kicked over and it only through the use of TAC and cannibalizing the payload that the flight made orbit. The Moneymaker probe still had enough juice for its mission, but I burned 60% of its fuel just getting it into orbit. Other than that, I didn't get much of anything done last night.

The old rule for stock aero was three Ram Air Intakes per engine - that'd get your atmo flight ceiling up in the 25-30k range going somewhere between 1700-1800 m/s or so. Not sure what the new rules for stock are...and I'm not sold on the notion of the Shock Cone Intake being a better intake just yet. BTW, I fly stock aero my own self. If you're only getting to 20k before you're throttling back, I have to ask a few questions about the characteristics of your planes - General rules for engines are maximum take-off weight of 10 tonnes for Basic Jets, 13 tonnes for RAPIERs and 15 tonnes per Turbojet, and the total lift of your craft should be close to one lift rating per tonne (1.15 tonnes:1 unit lift is the actual ratio but 1:1 is easier to remember). I've mentioned the 3:1 intake-to-engine ratio. I personally would not recommend Mechjeb for a plane flight, though that's based on stories I've heard about how well Mechjeb handles it and not from first-hand experience, so take that particular piece of advice with a grain of salt.

Spent most of the evening farting around with a challenge to fire one of the big SRBs on/into the VAB's helipads. Got close - I made the VAB roof, but not the helipad proper. Started making adjustments to the Moneybroker 7 spaceplane. RAPIERs on the thing still switched over early, around 27k/1550 m/s. Not sure what's going on there; by the numbers that plane oughta be able to make orbit with a 12 tonne payload. Might be how I'm flying it, I guess. The game locked up on me before I could make a second series of adjustments to its design.