Entelin

btw I would give the part files, but while it got the job done, it could have been better. There were some stability issues, the planetary stage was over powered, it was short on RCS (mostly because of the instability), and took forever to refuel in orbit because of all the little tanks. So I think I would rework it with a heavier launch vehicle from kerbal to limit the refueling, remove some nuclear engines, and strengthen the linkage between the two halves. If anyone wants what I have though let me know and I'll post it.

A refueling base I built at laythe's north pole (perfectly flat, great place for a base, and easy to aim for from space). Pretty utilitarian, I had a huge rover with KAS to pick up the modules and move them around, you can see part of it on the right. The home admin module was powered mostly by the large solar array in the center, which was attached to it using KAS. There were two identical aircraft to use to fly around laythe with, one of which can be seen in behind the solar array.

Here is the ship I built to land on Eve and return to Kerbal. It's all stock, and was launched in two parts, then refueled in Kerbal orbit before heading to Eve. On my way back to kerbal with the lander the time accel kraken killed my landing legs, but it didn't matter as you can see from the last screenshot Mission success!

This isn't finished yet, but it's officially an SSTO now after making LKO and landing again on the airstrip It did this with the orange tank in the middle as a test payload. The idea is to suspend payload in the middle with KAS. Unlike most other ssto's I've seen this would allow it to haul up things that were not specifically designed to be hauled by anything in particular. Once I finish it I might make a video of it or something, or at least post another screenshot here. Oh and yes, this lands just fine, it's actually quite stable overall.

Yeah I played for a good amount of time before I tried any of the mods. Once I had successfully landed on the moon and eve I started looking into them. The good ones add a lot I think. That said, the tutorial section of the video doesn't rely on any mods, its the same if you had none.

Going straight up can be more efficient than going into orbit first if your destination is another planet and you are mostly aligned to your ejection angle from the surface. There's no reason to waste dv burning in a direction other than what you need to set your prograde on your ejection angle.

KSP inspired me to post my first youtube video It's a demonstration & tutorial of a complete interception and docking flight as I complete my refueling space station. I also demonstrate refueling using the Kerbal Attachment System mod. Overall I think it came out well. I intentionally left in some piloting mistakes as I think it makes a better tutorial/demonstration when your watching something that's not perfect, and are able to see how they are corrected. Full 1080p, let me know what you think.