Raptor9

Rune, very nice. I also watch that show and used Agent Garrett's transport (from the first season) as a template for making a fast transport plane for ferrying around those KSC executives from the Admin building, and recovering Kerbalnauts. I've also made a cargo bay version carrying science equipment, a military troop-carrier, and even a gunship version (AC-130 style) using BD's Armory mod. Whenever they come out with a redesigned Mk3 system, I'm gonna make "The Bus".

Besides fun? In all seriousness, in career mode spaceplanes (if designed and flown right) have the advantage of reducing overhead costs. For example, to launch a satellite in orbit, you would have to buy and throw away a launch vehicle. But with a spaceplane, you can take off from the runway, fly to the orbit you want the satellite in, simply decouple it from the cargo bay using a small docking port, and then return and land at the runway. The only thing you end up paying for is the fuel the spaceplane expended, you get reimbursed for the rest. Plus, the satellite itself is cheaper since you didn't have to put a small orbital maneuvering rocket and fuel tank on it to get that perfect orbit; and the satellite is usually is worth more than a second fuel load for the spaceplane, so if you take the time to recover it when its mission is complete, you get money back for the satellite. I recently inserted a small Scansat that consisted of nothing more than a probecore, a battery, a couple small solar panels, and a scanner in 250km polar orbit using a spaceplane. Designing other aircraft that test flying wing, lifting body, canard-delta vs wing-tail layouts, etc. can show you various techniques for optimizing your aircraft/spaceplanes for specific missions. EDIT: SNIPED! While I was typing a tangent, these other fine individuals already answered.

When building rovers you want the rover to have a wide stable base in length as well. Your's looks pretty short from nose to tail. I've experienced similar issues when driving rovers in low gravity. Be careful which wheels you have driving, braking and even steering when building a rover, especially one on a low-grav place like the Mun. It does help to have a small reaction wheel or minimum RCS systems. If you roll over, or if you drive like me and catch air time, you'll need those to right yourself. The one downside to a reaction wheel is the attitude control forces of it will conflict with the rover controls. But you can toggle it with an action key so while you're airborne you can switch it on and stick the landing Sometimes driving slow isn't and option...

I'm working on a solution to this as well.

If you're running stock aero, like me, I would recommend investing in designs utilizing the RAPIER engines. I know a lot of people don't care for them due to their weight and low thrust compared to the turbojets, but I was sold when I realized how much less air they require before flaming out. I currently have a spaceplane powered by two RAPIER engines, with one shock cone and two structural air intakes per engine, and I can usually get going to around 1500m/s around 30,000m before they autoswitch over to oxidizer. It has all the mission-equipment installed: large cargo bay, docking port, full RCS systems, solar panels, and spare batteries. The one downside of the RAPIER engines is they don't have alternators so you'll need to bring enough battery power to run your SAS and/or reaction-wheels until you get to orbit and deploy solar panels. A couple things to remember, when you do switch to rocket power (conventional rockets or RAPIER closed-cycle mode) make sure you have a hotkey programmed to toggle your intakes closed; this will take away drag, especially if you have a bunch of them. Also, look at tailoring your fuel balance for your spaceplane trajectory. You have two ends of the spectrum: a steep ascent requiring a longer gravity burn at your apoapsis, or a flat trajectory gaining high speed across the ground while in the upper atmosphere requiring a short gravity burn at the end. 1) Steep climb: requires more raw thrust-to-weight ratio and oxidizer for the rocket engines since those will be burning much longer than air-breathing engines. Not very ideal for RAPIERs due to lower thrust. 2) Flat high-speed atmo trajectory: requires a more precise balance between weight and lift, but requires less oxidizer (which is heavier) for the rockets. RAPIERs take advantage of this method. Manual switching the RAPIERs can squeeze out a little more altitude if you manage your throttle, but you'll be fighting the asymmetric thrust tendency of the stock aero as the engines start getting air-starved. These are just my techniques, so take them as suggestions, not what's right or wrong. EDIT: some guy did a youtube video testing various engine configs using turbojets, rockets, aerospikes and RAPIERs. I'll see if I can find it, it shows how much higher the RAPIERs push you in the end before switching to rocket power.

KerrMu, awesome thread. I've been struggling to find a solution to Eve using just stock parts. I never considered building two vehicles, one optimized for ascent and one for descent; don't know why, it's such a simple idea. I'm going to see if I can get a Mk1-2 Command Pod off the surface in the ascent vehicle so I don't have one lonely Kerbal exploring the purple surface. If I do, I'll post the screenshots here. Kudos PS: do you have anymore screenshots or another thread showing those Duna landers in your signature. They kinda look like DC-X/Delta Clipper rockets.

This is a video I made to portray my impression of Lindsey Stirling's "Take Flight" musical track. Lindsey Stirling's tune captures the magic of flight to this cinematic of an SSTO test flight using Porkjet's new spaceplane parts, and of course a bunch of existing parts made by Squad

LMAO! Mitch Kerman: "Well, I was stranded, but now I live here. I've greatly improved my situation." In Sandbox Mode, I went nuts with stations. But in the latest career mode, I've had to justify expenditures. Like some previous posts in this thread, I've put a small science outpost around Minmus to keep to/from costs down. I was able to completely explore Minmus in three expeditions: 1) Assemble the outpost, 2) Bring a mono-powered lander and explore 4 of the 8 biomes, 3) Explore the remaining 4 after bringing back some more monopropellant for the lander. Other uses in Kerbin orbit to keep costs down would be a transfer station with a fuel depot. SSTO arrives from the planet surface for crew transfer to an interplanetary/moon ship; you get the reusability advantages of not just your SSTO, but you don't have to keep launching orbital capsules if you can just refuel them for the next expedition. The biggest costs in this case would be getting regular trips of fuel lifters to the station. That's a thread on it's own, and there are several.

I think the Contract system will get sorted out in the next couple updates. The same thing happened when Career mode kicked off; people complained (including myself) about the repetitive science tests, the transmission percentages, the science tree, you name it. Squad then spent the next update or two tweaking and molding the Career mode. Since the contracts are procedurally generated, yeah, some stuff is going to be a little catawampus until the algorithms get sorted out. Add to that this is the first version in 64-bit, so Squad will undoubtedly be tweaking and refining the Contract system, among other things, for several updates (they've had to release two hotfixes already). Be patient, I'm sure it'll get better. Personally, I hated Career mode in its first iteration. But now I'm having a blast, despite the quirks. Give it time and I'm sure Squad will make it better, with more parts, biomes, etc.

Haven't tried it yet, but my plan to get out of Eve's atmosphere lies in Hooligan Labs Airship parts mod. For those of you who run strictly stock, I hear you, I try to keep my craft files as mod-free as possible. But a few select mod parts are nice. Anyway, make a lander with a deployable airship envelope mounted on top that can be jettisoned. When you want to leave Eve, deploy the envelope to it's max, let the high density atmosphere shoot your lander up as high as it will go. As soon as your vertical velocity starts to slow to a trickle, jettison the air envelope and light the rocket engines. With any luck, you should be "launching" from a more favorable atmo density when you activate the engines for ascent. Again, haven't tried it yet, but this is the only way I can think of besides somehow building a lander with an ungodly amount of fuel.

FacialJack, what visual effect mod are you using for your engine exhausts? Those turbojets look sweet.

That first expression is: "This is so COOL!" The last expression however: "Uh, guys, I'm out of fuel and drifting away...guys?"

I don't say this about many mods, but I hope this one makes it into the stock game. Kudos.

So I was trying to decide which design to stick with. I like both of them, but I don't like having a ton of similar designs cluttering my VAB list. So I figured I'd let the jury decide. Which design seems more aesthetically pleasing to you? The A-model or the B-model. The concept is a streamlined vehicle for launch (I know the KSP drag model isn't quite accurate yet), and then deploys into mission profile for moving larger D- and E-class asteroids. The UV-4A uses four fairing doors to shroud the nuclear engine nacelles, which are mounted on extendable pistons from Magic Smoke Industries Infernal Robotics, as are the door hinges. The UV-4B doesn't use separate fairing doors, but mounts the fairing shroud segments directly to the nacelles themselves. The hull sort of splits apart into four pieces, the large solar arrays also extend outward away from the nacelles to allow full rotation, and the aft nozzle shields swing back to shield the rear fuselage from the nuclear engine exhaust. Both have similar part counts and masses. Let me know what you think.

HA HA , I'm not that ambitious.

(Didn't want to spam the auto-quote) Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Like I said, I know there are many people out there with better ideas than mine. I agree with the portion about the individual upgrades you listed and the problems with each. Especially with adjusting wing chord or thickness without an outward appearance to the wing. It's just a balance between ultra-realism and functionality on a programmer's level (which I am not, lol, so take that with a grain of salt ). Just an alternative to make R&D and science point expenditures still necessary and challenging, without limiting the player to unlocking 95% of the KSP parts. But good counter-points.

I like those photos of the ship launching the missiles. My B-14A 'Shadow' stealth bomber. TouhouTorpedo's Mk3 Bomb Bay RLA Stockalike fuel tanks and nose cones for the bombs

Yep! That was quick!

I wonder if anybody recognizes this silhouette...

This my CV-13 used by the Kerbin military for transport, and by KSP for Kerbalnaut recovery. Thanks to TouhouTorpedo for the Pitch Vector 3 and Mk3 Crew Cabin mods; and Nazari for the Mk3 Refit Project nose cone. Now if only I could find a tail ramp for the Mk3 fuselage system...

No hostility, sorry if it came across that way. Should have inserted a emoticon or something I guess. EDIT: Here, lol

Actually, that is exactly what I said, use science in R&D to unlock upgrades so they are available, and use money in the VAB/SPH to "install" them. I never said anything about spending "science points" in the VAB. But I might not have been clear on the process. Just because an upgrade is available, doesn't mean you have to spend more money to use it in the VAB. But if you want to use it, it still costs money since your modifying a part that has already been manufactured by an aerospace company. Again, I addressed this as well by saying that unlocked upgrades could be used on similar parts (ie LV-T30 and LV-T45) to keep the tech tree from being too large and complicated. And upgrades would be selectable similarly to the tweakable menu. So you're not gonna have several "Mainsails" to choose from in the parts list. You might want to read the first part of my post again.

Wow, Fylas. You thought of the same thing I did, just five months earlier. I didn't want to list all of what I had written down, so I started a discussion thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81956-Career-Mode-Research-Unlocking-Parts-vs-Unlocking-Upgrades Kudos for beating me to it though, lol.

DISCLAIMER 1: Fylas already came up with an idea that I've been thinking about. Interesting really, he thought of pretty much the same thing, just five months earlier, lol. I don't want to double post, but I didn't want to spam his thread either with everything I had written down. Here's Fylas's thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65371-researching-optional-upgrades-for-older-technology-at-higher-tier-levels-possible DISCLAIMER 2: I understand that for most of what I listed below, "there's a mod for that" already. Please don't turn this into a list of responses that points people to this mod or that mod. That's not the point of this thread. And I also understand that even discussing funds in career mode prior to 0.24 being released is putting the wagon before the horse. This is just brainstorming folks... ---------------------------------------------- So to begin, (this is going to sound really narcissistic) my main problem with career mode in it's current form is the scheme of unlocking parts. The parts you start out with reminds me of v0.13 type launches. Which is fine from a tutorial aspect, which Squad has stated was the purpose behind how they had the tech tree set up, easing new players into the KSP world. And yes, I know there are mods out there that change the layout of the techtree nodes, just bear with me. What if you had access to much more of the parts on career start, but you still had a lot of research to do? I'm talking about "Upgradeables", the flipside to "Tweakables". Let's say that you wanted to create an efficient spacecraft design, but when you finished putting together a ship that did what you needed to do, it was just to darn heavy. What if you could "upgrade" certain parts by notionally having it constructed using a different metal alloy. This would certainly make the ship lighter, requiring you to use a smaller launcher, less fuel, and from what the "talk" about 0.24 has indicated, less money to launch it to orbit. But there's a catch. As with most engineering designs in KSP, you can't improve one aspect of a design without sacrificing another. That lighter alloy means the ship will have to land softer, withstand less G-forces, and might be less heat-resistent. So, once again, it all comes down to balance and cost vs benefit. To start, all upgrades would need to be researched, and each individual part upgrade would happen in the VAB/SPH, and would cost money. Just like customizing your car; if you want something better than what that car comes with out of the manufacturer, you have to spend money to swap out components. My suggestion for practical application of an "Upgradeables" UI in the VAB/SPH would involve adding a blue toggle button to the part tweakables menu that would swap the menu back and forth between tweakables and upgradeables. Reasoning is to keep the list of options from possibly running off the screen. Example: You put a "Poodle" engine on the back of your spacecraft, now you want to upgrade it? Right-click on it to bring up the tweakables menu, toggle the blue button to swap over to upgradeables, but you only have one option? That's because you've only researched one upgrade for that part. It just happens to be an upgrade to the gimbal mechanism. You see that the gimbal range of the Poodle will increase from 2.5 to 3.5, the larger gimbal mechanism only increases the engine mass from 2.5 to 2.6, and you can afford it, so you install it. Oh wait, you changed your mind, you uninstall it. Like tweakables, it's not final until you hit launch. The different gimbal mechanism wouldn't change the appearance of the part, it would just adjust performance stats. Now, I didn't want to make a gameplay suggestion without having it thought out and serious consideration to how it could affect the gameplay. Below is a list I've spent time collecting, revising, or deleting ideas I had on how each part type could be upgraded. I believe the tech tree would be too large and complicated to research each upgrade for each individual part, so I would propose each upgrade would apply to similar parts. Researching an upgrade that could be fitted to an LV-T30, would also allow you to use it on LV-T45, but not necessarily on the "Mainsail", and definitely not the LV-N. Also, I do think that some parts themselves should still be researched: RAPIERs, nuclear engines, ion propulsion tech, the big solar panels, the mobile science lab, those ginormous NASA parts, etc. But having to research a thermometer? No. CAVEAT FOR ANY MEMBERS OF THE KSP DEVELOPMENT TEAM - I am no programmer, so forgive me if any of these ideas aren't even feasible in the KSP engine. This isn't meant as a demand for certain features, just something that I was thinking could add another dimension to the career side of KSP. I DO plan on trying career mode again with 0.24, and very much looking forward to it. CAVEAT FOR ANYBODY ELSE THAT READS THIS - I don't claim to have the best ideas, that's why I made this a [Discussion] These opinions are just that, my opinions. But if anybody has ideas for anything else to improve on this concept, or thoughts on upgrades I didn't think of, by all means, list them. ---PROPOSED UPGRADE LIST--- Not all inclusive, just some ideas that could probably be replaced with better ones. Also, I was thinking installing certain upgrades could prevent certain other upgrades from being installed, until research was conducted to discover how to install both, but with slightly less benefit of either. COMMAND PODS Upgrade battery - More Electric Charge at the cost of increased weight and/or recharge time Upgrade hull alloy - Stronger hull at the cost of increased weight but more resistant to heat or impact OR Lighter hull (less mass) at the cost of reduced impact tolerance and/or heat resistance when/if reentry heat damage is implemented Upgrade SAS systems - More stability or torque, but requires more electric charge to maneuver using reaction wheels; OR maybe a constant slight electric charge to keep gyros aligned. PROPULSION - ENGINES Upgrade engine alloy - Light engine nozzle/combustion chamber means lower weight, but could increase overheat tendency. OR Heat-resistant engine nozzle/combustion chamber could reduce overheat tendency at the cost of increased weight. Upgrade/install alternator - Increase electric charge generated, or for engines that don't have an alternator at all (ie RAPIERs). Again, more weight. Upgrade/install gimbals - Increase gimbal range at the cost of weight for larger control mechanisms, or add gimbals to engine that doesn't have them. Upgrade jet engine with afterburner mechanism - He he, this one is self-explanatory. Higher thrust with MUCH higher fuel consumption and overheat tendency. PROPULSION - FUEL TANKS Light Hull/Increase Fuel Capacity - Lighter/thinner casing alloy at the cost of decreased impact, g-force tolerance, heat resistance. Internal fuel bladder storage capacity is increased due to thinner hull of the fuel tank. Heavy Hull/Decrease Fuel Capacity - Reduces inner bladder storage capacities but the outer casing is a heavier/thicker alloy to improve impact, g-force, and heat tolerance. PROPULSION - FUEL & ENGINES These two upgrades aren't dependent on each other, but when used together... Upgrade to modular fuel controller - Slight increase in weight of engine, but you can swap out one fuel controller for another (lets assume only three choices to choose from to keep it simple), but each controller needs to be researched as well. Each fuel controller could run a different ratio of liquid fuel and oxidizer, which could affect total thrust, Isp, flameout threshold, and overheat tendency. Upgrade to modular fuel tank bladders - Slight increase in weight of overall fuel tank assembly, but depending on what fuel controller you're using, you'll need different sized liquid fuel and oxidizer bladders depending on the consumption ratios. Of course, you don't have to, but then you'll run out of one fuel before the other. You could use the tweakable menu to reduce the amount of the extra fuel so you're not carrying dead weight, but this upgrade would provide you with a properly paired engine/tank combo with just the right amount of each fuel type. Additionally, depending on where future development leads, you could upgrade tanks to carry different types of liquid fuels such as kerosene or hydrogen to burn with oxidizer, or swap all those and use nitrogen tetroxide with hydrazine. Different performance stats for those selections. No, I'm not a chemist, I was looking at different liquid fuels on Wikipedia. BIG CAVEAT: in the config file of the LV-N nuclear engine Squad plugged in the following statement: "Yes, I know this is wrong. NTRs don't actually burn fuel and oxidizer, but we don't want to jump into making separate tanks for the two yet." CONTROL *SAS components would probably have similar upgrades as the Command Pods Upgrade RCS valves - Increase/decrease monopropellant consumption to customize thruster power vs Isp. (This is probably better suited to a tweakable option instead of terming it an "upgrade") Upgrade RCS controller - Ability to assign (or rather un-assign) rotation axes and translation directions per RCS block (Again, more of an idea for a tweakable than an upgrade) STRUCTURAL Upgrade structural alloy (structural parts in general) - Use a lighter alloy to decrease weight at the cost of less sturdiness. Better suited for smaller craft with less mass. OR Use a heavier alloy to increase sturdiness at the cost of more mass. A good example of why this would be useful is if you had bunch of girder segments on a space station's long main truss and you had a lot of mass mounted along it or on each end. When you tried to rotate the station or change velocity, the long truss would be less likely to bend and/or break if it was upgraded to a stronger alloy. Upgrade with crossfeed - give it internal fuel lines and electrical wiring Decouplers - Squad already has given us several decouplers of various sizes and ejection forces to use. Don't see any room for upgrades or improvements here. AERODYNAMICS - THIS ONE IS TRICKY SINCE I DON'T KNOW WHAT AERODYNAMICS ARE ACCOUNTED FOR, OR HOW, IN THE KSP ENGINE. I'LL JUST THROW THESE IN JUST IN CASE. Upgrade lift ratio - Increase lift rating at the cost of slightly increased drag (induced drag) Upgrade alloy - Lighter alloy decreases weight, but at the cost of lower g-force loading, and very importantly for SSTO's: heat resistance! Stronger allow will increase g-force loading capability and heat-resistance, but also increases mass. Upgrade intake characteristics - Notionally changes how the intake is shaped internally (not sure how realistic this is). Increase intake air at the cost of increased drag. Upgrade control surface deflection - increase how much a control surface can deflect in each direction, but increases drag and slight increase in weight for larger control mechanism. Upgrade with crossfeed - same as with the structural parts, give it fuel and electrical crossfeed. UTILITIES - THIS IS A BIG ONE SINCE THERE'S SO MANY DIFFERNT TYPES OF PARTS Upgrade battery cells - Increase battery capacity at the increase of longer recharge times and weight Upgrade solar cell efficiency - Again, slight increase in weight, and the upgrade itself would have to be very expensive for gameplay balance. Upgrade solar cell density - Increase solar cell density on a panel at the cost of increased weight, and maybe even make it more prone to break off during aggressive maneuvers with the panel extended. Upgrade docking port strength - Increase/decrease magnetic attraction. Probably more of a tweakable. Upgrade docking port coupler - Add the ability to mechanically recouple the docking port to another so the two docked pieces don't flex as much, or at all (fusing). Upgrade landing strut alloy - Lighter mass but less impact tolerance or heavier mass with greater impact tolerance. Upgrade landing gear mechanism - Lighter mass but landing too hard on the runway will cause the gear to fold up on itself and/or malfunction. (Imagine one main landing gear brake suddenly engaging on one side or not being able to steer anymore) Upgrade parachutes - There's so many ways you could upgrade these. Lighter parachute assembly mass at the cost of one-time usage. You could change cord strength, opening speed, chute diameter, etc. Upgrade rover wheels - Again, lot of options. Mainly take away functions you don't need to save weight. (Example: you built a six-wheeled rover, but you only need two wheels to drive it, and you only need four wheels to steer it. If you have the money, you can modify the middle wheels to take away the steering mechanism, and modify the front and back wheels to take away their drive motors. Of course you could just disable the functions in the tweakables or on the fly, but the you've trimmed mass off of all six wheels by taking away what you don't need. And you could do the same with the brakes. Do you need it to stop on a dime or not? Save some weight if you have the budget). Ion engines and Xenon tanks - Not sure what you could do with these except make them lighter at the cost of durability. If anyone else has ideas, throw in your two cents. SCIENCE - ANY UPGRADES TO EXPERIMENTS THEMSELVES TO GENERATE MORE SCIENCE PER EXPERIMENT WOULD HAVE TO BE VERY, VERY EXPENSIVE TO PRECLUDE MAKING THE SCIENCE LAB USELESS. Having said that... Upgrade Science Lab - Spend lots of money to increase the "recalibration" ability to generate a slightly better science outcome on repeat experiments with science parts you reset. However, I think it's too early in the Career mode development to get into upgrading any science category parts I think.

Very nice! Ohh, don't hit the buildings don't hit the buildings...