Raptor9

Spaceplane development never stopped with the SVR-10 'Thunderbird' and SVR-16 'Ranger'... ...more mission-focused designs are in development

This thread is genius.

Don't pitch up aggressively. SSTO spaceplanes can eat away at your kinetic energy and fuel reserves if you don't fly them carefully. If you use a joystick, apply gentle backpressure on the stick to pitch up gently. If you don't use a joystick, use the trim function (ALT-W,A,S,D,Q,E, and ALT-X to reset to zero) or tap the pitch back, experiment with Precision Mode (CAPSLOCK). Not only do full control surface deflections increase drag (just like airbrakes), you have an aircraft that is flying very fast with momentum; so if you change the attitude, the craft won't shift it's momentum instantaneously. If you pitch up abruptly, now you're changing the airflow from impacting the nose head-on, to now impacting the belly of the plane, changing the entire underside into one massive draggy airbrake. - If you're not accelerating fast enough, your TWR is too low and you're expending too much fuel while you try to speed up. Add more thrust. - If your velocity vector (little airplane symbol on your navball) hangs out below your nose watermark (center of the navball), you don't have enough lift for how much weight your spaceplane has. You keep your nose high to maintain a constant flight path, meaning a portion of your engine thrust is being used for lift. The underside is now producing excess drag, and your engines aren't thrusting in-line with your flight path. Not efficient at all, add more lift-producing surfaces. - If you need to constantly have "pitch up" input to prevent the nose from sinking, your Center-of-Lift (CoL) is too far behind your Center-of-Mass (CoM). Your tail control surfaces (or forward canards) are now deflecting into the airstream just to keep your nose up, producing excess drag. Readjust your design so the CoL is just slightly behind CoM. - Drain your fuel tanks in the SPH while you have the CoL and CoM markers enabled. Watch how far the CoM drifts forward or back. This is important. Just because your craft flies good with full tanks, doesn't mean it'll fly right at the end of the mission when you're trying to land. Mount the majority of your expendables (fuel, monopropellant, cargo/payload) as close or as evenly-placed in front and behind the CoM as possible. This will keep the Center-of-Mass from drifting throughout the flight. - Main landing gear placement is one of the most overlooked design features on spaceplanes/aircraft. It should be just aft of the CoM so that the craft can rotate during takeoff. Too far back and the plane won't be able to takeoff until it shoots off the end of the runway; too far forward and the craft will tip back on it's tail. (This is another reason why you don't want the CoM to drift during flight as fuel is spent)

That HL-20, simple but cool-looking. Going to give it a try. Thanks Rune.

Quite. The requirement for such high delta-V for that large a ship would bring the ship to hundreds of parts...might be possible in 1.1 with 64-bit support for more RAM, but not in current KSP. Maybe some over-powered mods could do it.

Well, I am working on a pair of Mk2-fuselage based spaceplanes that are definitely more economical than my SVR-16 Shuttle-analogue. One is another vertically-launched spaceplane like my SVR-10 or -16, and the other is a runway-departure SSTO spaceplane. Both fill the gap between the -10 and the -16; big enough to bring a satellite or 6 Kerbals to orbit, but not nearly as big as the Space Shuttle. My personal build skills can't get any smaller than that I'm afraid. The most "economical" craft I have are my EV-1B 'Skiff' single-Kerbal orbital capsule, LV-2 'Grasshopper' mono-powered Minmus lander, and SVR-10 'Thunderbird' Mk1-fuselage vertically-launched spaceplane. EDIT: @TheWanderer Here's a preview photo of one of them. Not sure if this is something you'd be interested in. The design is finished, I just need to put it through my usual series of tests to make sure it doesn't need tweaked.

I don't understand how all those scientists and interns are supposed to get any work done in the R&D complex with that thing screaming around the building...

.....witchcraft!

I'm afraid what you see on my release thread is all that's currently available. What specifically are you looking at? More single-Kerbal spacecraft and/or landers. Craft that are cheaper in price? I'm just curious because if you have some ideas for more economical spacecraft that I could incorporate, I make no promises, but always looking at designs to fill a "niche" role.

@Cupcake... Congratulations on your "Moho on the Cheap" video making the news. I like the jazz and extra sound effects. Your cinematic camera skills are way better than mine.

@TheWanderer Obviously this is shameless self-advertisement, but I have an assortment of craft for various uses in my "Raptor Aerospace" link in my signature below, all with download links. Plenty of designs to handle in-Kerbin-atmo, low- to medium- Kerbin orbit, Mun, Minmus, and even some Duna/Eve designs. Here's a sample: LKO/MKO-capable: Mun-capable: Duna-capable: Modular and multiple destinaton-capable:

So after much testing, more than I care to talk about, my shuttle analogue is updated to 1.0.5. The SVR-16 is now available for download.

Another consideration is rocket tumble. If you wait too long before you light the next engine, you may lose attitude control, especially in the transonic range (300-400 m/s roughly). As a general rule of thumb, I always design my rocket so the first stage can get me at least past the 450m/s mark.

I've actually been going through final testing this weekend. The design is done, I just have to do some payload and performance tests, and generate a brochure print (aka, pretty picture for the KerbalX link). I'm trying to finish it tonight, but it may be tomorrow.

Sorry to hear that. Yeah, it still seems to be hit or miss. I think the forum software still needs some tweaking. I wish we could have a button on the editor bar for pictures and video embeds like there is for Imgur links. Anyways, excuse the digression.

I personally use Camera Tools and OBS for recording, and use Nero Video Editor for assembling, trimming, and editing the footage. They all work well for me. If anyone wants to see examples, I have a handful of vid links in my signature.

@Cupcake... and anyone else having trouble posting content: posting photos and videos isn't nearly as straightforward as the old forums for sure, however... To post a singular photo, like from photobucket, there is a small gray button in the bottom right corner called "Insert other media". This is only for photos, not videos. To post a video, copy the url, paste it into the post editor, push ENTER, and then *wait*. It's wonky, and sometimes it takes a few secs, sometimes it takes a few minutes, but the editor should automatically change it over to an embedded vid window after you push ENTER. Hope this helps, I struggled with these things initially repairing my own showcase thread this past week.

@He_162 These designs look really good. A lot of cool variants.

I like the concept of having a ship "split" in two like the Cypher and it's long-range NERVA piece. I've played with it a little, have the manned component disengage and do it's thing, then return to orbit, pick up the other half, and continue on it's way.

If anything, the thread title and associated tag warrant a funny mention, lol. BTW, love the original KSP music line-up on youtube. Had no idea Bagel Rabbit was you.

The latest line-up of extreme performance aircraft. These craft are so much fun to fly. Available for download via KerbalX links on the first page. And don't forget to check them out in action in the Raptor Aerospace 2.0 video.

@Tang_Titan Awesome post, truly.

Just tried it again on another thread, and it worked after I waited for about 3 minutes. I then did it on the original place I was posting...worked almost immediately. Thanks...but that is some weird behavior.

Raptor Aerospace v2.0 video is now online.

Thanks for the tips @*Aqua*. Believe it or not, that "Shift-Enter" one went a long way in cleaning up my posts. However the embedding video technique didn't work for me. I tried pasting the url from my address bar and the youtube embed code (and then pressed enter). Both times it only displayed the raw text after I finished. Am I missing something?