Scarecrow88

Most of my SSTOs manage around 1200 - 1300 m/s at 22k altitude before running out of steam and I have to change to rocket power. Never tried using a nuke on a SSTO due to the weight and lack of thrust, so that may be part of your problem.

This is my basic and reasonably simple rocket for the Mun. 1st stage and boosters are enough to get to Kerbin orbit. 2nd stage has plenty of fuel for Mun injection, Mun orbit and should have some left over for the initial de-orbit burn at Mun. Lander has enough to de-orbit, land, return to Mun orbit and then return to Kerbin. Don't know how much science you need to unlock the required parts if you are playing in Career mode, as I only play in Sandbox mode. The image has been Photoshopped to remove the engine shroud above each decoupler so you can see which engine I have used.

Agree with BlueCanary. VTOLs prior to 1.0.3 were pretty easy as the basic jet engine is relatively light and had plenty of thrust to lift a simple craft. Since they nerfed it, it no longer has enough thrust to lift any but the very lightest of craft which renders it, to all practical purposes, next to useless. Be interesting to see how the new engines in the next patch perform and whether it will ease the problems of building a decent VTOL.

Yeah, apart from a modded lander capsule, I play stock parts which kind of limits you with regard to motive power. I would have loved to have made this prop driven, but ended up with a shock cone intake at the front that sort of looks like a spinner, and is therefore suggestive of a propeller being up front.

It's not based on anything from the early 1900's, but it is a biplane, so hope it's ok to include here. Been in my hangar for a while now as it's quite easy and fun to fly.

Still too many bugs in it to be considered anywhere near finished, regardless of content or future platforms.

All keyboard for me.

Actually you will need to be slightly west of directly opposite as by the time you have coasted up to apo, the planet will have revolved below you.

Use sepratrons on the boosters to force them away from your craft, set to fire in the same stage as your decoupler.

I guess 'simple' means only using what is absolutely necessary to get the job done, whatever the job happens to be. No need to build a 150 parts, 200 ton monster if all you need is a rocket to reach 10,000m altitude, when a 3 part 2 ton craft will suffice.

Right, I actually downloaded it and had a go, but failed miserably to get it into orbit. It suffers from a lot of drag, as has already been pointed out, so in an effort to improve it I removed all the radial intakes, the underwing engines and the parachutes. With only the 2 fuselage mounted rapiers remaining, I also ditched two of the rocket fuel tanks, which considerably shortened the craft, giving slightly less worries about a tail strike. I used 2 shock cone intakes as a replacement for all the radial intakes I removed, and straightened the main undercarriage. In this configuration I managed a 275k x 275k orbit, but it did run out of oxidizer in the process, which meant I couldn't quite dock with my station, though I did get within 750m using RCS. I'm sure with a few more tweaks you'll be able to achieve your goals, so stick with it.

How the hell do you get that off the runway without knocking it's arse off?

Parachutes take longer to fully deploy now and the default opening height is now 1000m. Seems like they haven't updated the craft parachute in the tutorial to account for that.

Thanks Majorjim. Looking at my station now, I realise I should have put the comms tower on the habitation end, and made sure that the fuelling rig had sepratrons fitted for jettison in case of emergency. If the fuelling tanks get ruptured, just have to keep my fingers crossed the crew can make it to the lifeboats in time.

Rendezvous and docking for me. Once I figured out why my target kept zooming by at closest approach, it became a whole lot easier.

I have a Canon 5D III camera. Don't know anything about a Canon Kerbal.

I find percussion landings to be pretty explosive. Precision landing on the other hand tends to concentrate the mind.

I remember that game, which contained a genuine easter egg.

There are advantages to starting first in either career or sandbox. Career is slightly more structured in that you only have access to limited parts, with other parts being unlocked as you progress. However, this can be frustrating as it will limit the designs you are able to create and, until you acquire some experience to help you, building a craft capable of completing some of the contracts can almost seem impossible. Sandbox on the other hand gives you access to all the parts straight away, which means you can build anything you want. The downside here is that all those parts can be daunting, and without knowing which is the best part to use in any given situation your creations may not be the most efficient as a result.

It's a single player game. How the feck can you cheat yourself?

Landing on Eve is easy. Not knowing what part 2 might entail rather makes this part of the challenge null and void. Are we going to need a rover, do we have to return to orbit, will it need to be manned? Without knowing any of that kind of makes it difficult to decide what to send to complete part 1.

Just completed. Design, launch, orbit Mun, land, return to Mun orbit and return to Kerbin all in one, no saves, reverts etc. Over engineered slightly as I had way more fuel left than I needed. Also chose to do it Apollo style, though my lander was single stage rather than 2-stage, but it was fun. This is the basics of my design, minus the lifting stage, shortly after Munar Excursion Module extraction during the transition to Mun.

Have a look in the Pro SSTO builder/pilot Challenge thread in the Challenges forum. Quite a few designs in there that can be downloaded and tried.

Chariot SSTO is a simple to fly SSTO designed for use as a crew exchange vehicle for rotating crew in stations in LKO. It has enough fuel to reach orbits as high as 300x300 km, but if going above 200km I would suggest that it will probably need a fuel top up for the de-orbit burn. It certainly does from a 300km orbit, but I haven't tested the limit of how high it can go and return without topping up. Action keys: 1 : Toggle engine mode and toggle air intakes 2 : Extend airbrakes Pilot notes: Take off speed is between 70 - 80 m/s Initial climb out is 30 degrees nose up, but when you get to the point where speed starts to decrease, keep the nose on the top of the prograde marker. At 10,000m nose up attitude should be 10 degrees, and just fly to build up speed You should be able to reach 1300 - 1400 m/s by the time you get to 19,000m by which time the acceleration will start to tail off. When you sense that it is, press action key 1 to change engine mode and close the air intakes. Keep the nose at 10 degrees and shut off the engines once you achieve your apoapsis. Coast to apoapsis and burn to circularise. Don't forget to use the airbrakes, action key 2, on re-entry to help slow down, or you will burn up in the atmosphere. Chariot SSTO is fitted with a Junior Docking Port. If your station isn't equipped with one of these, you will need to change it in the SPH before flight. On the runway ready to go Take off at 70-80 m/s Initial climb out at 30 degrees until the speed starts to bleed off Reduce to 10 degrees at 10,000 Orbit at 301,000m Docked with a station at 275,000m for a fuel top up Don't forget to use the airbrakes on re-entry Back safe and sound Chariot SSTO craft file

Designed this in the last day just to provide something that was easy to fly, with a straightforward flight profile, and capable of performing single crew exchange to stations orbiting Kerbin. 1400 m/s at 19000m in air breathing mode means this craft is capable of reaching 300k x 300k orbits with some fuel to spare. Chariot SSTO