Sauron

Eloo actually requires less DV to reach than Dres (usually). The skill being tested is transferring to a very inclined and eccentric orbit. Also patience

Precisely. I can launch directly to rendezvous by eye (it's not particularly difficult--Kerbin has convenient landmarks to place oneself, and everyone figures it out eventually). I'm talking about doing exactly that but with another celestial body. I need to know the math for this (can I apply the equations used for rendezvous directly?) and how to apply said math in practice (this is a technique question).

In real life, launching directly into your ejection burn is significantly more efficient than circularizing and then ejecting. So, two questions: 1: Is this also true in KSP? 2: What kind of equations do I need to run to make this happen (for starters let's assume the target is the Mun since it's the easiest thing to get to)?

If you're staging your Tylo lander you could just make the core Pol/Bop/Vall capable (and depending on the configuration of the core also Laythe-capable). This would save a fair amount of mass (though you will still need to carry extra fuel for each mission) because you only need to bring one shrinking lander

What Lazro said. If your ship is strong enough to survive the braking thrusters it's probably also strong enough to turn around with a few extra reaction wheels--this will be much more efficient.

So, I installed FAR today, and now I'm putting things in orbit with massively excessive amounts of fuel. I can now officially do single-stage-to-duna without using jets. So, yeah. Yay FAR. But with all this extra DV, I want to actually do stuff. Since I've already combined a launcher and a transfer stage, I'm feeling the need to go full-on rocketpunk and build a rocket that can launch from kerbin, transfer to any planet (probably including moho) and do a fully powered landing/take off from the surface of every body except Tylo and Eve (and can land on Tylo) with one refueling in LKO or at the destination. However, I'm really running up against the limits of stock landing legs. The rocket is quite tall, and also rather heavy without many good places to mount/strut landing legs. Basically, I need a bit of inspiration to make this little dream of mine work. (For those who are curious, the mods used were procedural fairings, FAR, Stretchy Tanks, and MechJeb for the info panel) Also, the fairings cost ~200 m/s of (LV-T30) DV. Such is the price of beauty. Though there may be some savings due to reduced drag.

Yeah, easy. The hatch and window are unobstructed. The only things that are clipped are the two side fuel tanks and the LV-909. You could easily make a comparable lander without using clipping. It'd just be much uglier. (Everything else could be done withou debug)

With 2.5 km/s of delta V and a respectable takeoff weight, the Orange Hexagon (I name my lifters by the NATO phonetic alphabet and lander and planes by [shape]) lander can land and return on every airless body in the Kerbol system in style (plus Duna) except for Tylo with at least 350 m/s of delta v for brute-forcing a rendezvous once you're up there, and at only 11 tons, it's a piece of cake to move around. (Cake not included. See supplier for details and special offers. Exercise caution when landing on Moho.)

Egg on my face for replying to quotes without any context Oopsie!

Uhh... A 1:1 intake ratio will get you to 20 km (a very little bit lower, strictly speaking) without any babying of the throttle.

I've never had a problem launching to rendezvous by eye on smaller bodies. If your instincts aren't up to this, you can aim to get it roughly right and put yourself in a slightly lower phasing orbit and make any corrections there. Eyeballing gets easier as the moon or planet gets smaller. Alternatively, you could use math...

One VERY helpful tip I picked up recently that has helped me go from 20 ton SSTOs to ~50 tons is wheel placement. Make certain your wheels are all perpendicular to the ground and that you only have 1 front wheel. This dramatically reduces swerving on the runway and makes takeoffs a lot easier. This incidentally means that there's less need to over-engineer your planes which leads to better performance.

Well, I'm dealing specifically with larger planes. I say inadequate because (by area--we really need some way to see the lift and mass P-wings add!) planes made with regular stock wings that easily take off at 75 m/s don't get off/barely get off the ground at 120 m/s with similarly-sized wings. (We're talking things in the 40-60 ton range). But the question stands. I want to be able to alter the lift and mass ratios to enable planes with smaller wings and higher lifts to get my spaceplanes to look more like RL designs but I want them to be balanced to P-Wing defaults and stock (in large part because the fuselages of larger planes provide a fair amount of their lift--something you can't really do in KSP without tweaking things)

The mission has been delayed due to my irritation with .21/the reset, but the mission profile I was going for was fairly complex. I'm running several non SSTO jets and helicopters for exploration/crew recovery/base assembly etc. So my fuel demands are pretty heavy, especially considering that I'm leaving fuel dumps at various useful points. So I'd have to bring new ones each time I run out. Also, I'm sustaining a manned presence on Vall and Pol, and around Jool as well as cutting the required DV for my resupply missions in half. All this said, there has been some progress. My largest SSTO now weighs in at a shade over 55 tons. It's a touch lighter than I'd have liked, but it'll do. I just need to be sure it flies very safely empty. If I can get a decent transfer stage together, I may use this as my workhorse rather than my smaller crew shuttles. It'll reduce the number of ships at least. Easier? Yes. Way less efficient though. Pol is really the best choice IMO. Less rugged than Bop without the inclined orbit but still small enough to be trivial to take off and land from.

Isn't it a touch small to benefit from the DV savings you get from an LV-N? If not, it looks like a very borderline case. (Remember that for light ships, the 909 is more efficient DV-wise than the nukes)

I JUST WON AT EVERYTHING! But seriously, after a rather stop-and-start effort at a VTHL Klipper-style spaceplane, I managed something incredible. Using a parachute, said space plane, deployed landing gear, and an LV-909, I managed to land on and drive up the side of the VAB. I'm going to see if I can replicate this for the screenshot potential. Also science.

My record for SSTOs stands at about 55 tons or so. Away from my PC at the moment, so no word on lift or wings, but 3 jets and 12 intakes is adequate to take off and fly at over 30km/1.5 km/s, and 2 LV-T45s are enough to finish the orbit. Avoid excessive engines. You need less than you think.

First question is simple enough. What kind of numbers do you need to get an arbitrarily large plane off the runway at 80 meters per second. Secondly, I'm really struggling to make decent looking wings. Any tips (lift from procedural wings is inadequate, and in any case I'm aiming for stock-only) Thanks!

A question: I'm finding the lift on these to be woefully inadequate (especially with constraints like fuselage size relative to the root). What should I change in the CFG to get more lift from these wings? Ideally I'd like to keep the proportional balance in terms of weight per unit lift but do it in a much smaller volume. Thanks!

I bow down to your numbers and shiny graphs. Thanks!

My brand new light launch vehicle for my .21 playthrough, the India 4b LLV (I name all my rockets using the NATO phonetic alphabet starting from echo and my SSTOs [shape]). There are some fuel-routing quirks, but they might be a feature rather than a bug (the LV-T30 in the center of the stack will cut out before the 909s do, so TWR will briefly drop below 2. I actually managed to get 4 SRBs under it without destroying the engines on decoupling, but I never managed to repeat it, so I'm chalking it up to dumb luck.

Bear in mind that your window as displayed by something like protractor is fairly narrow. In practice, missing your launch window by an orbit or two (or even a day or two) doesn't really impact your delta-V requirements that much--it's a question of a few tens of M/S to ~100 depending. Unless you're flying an incredibly lean mission and are an awesome pilot, it doesn't really matter too much as long as your ejection angle is correct. For what it's worth, I personally consider a TWR of .25 to be my lower limit, and I've not had any problems yet.

Today I had a go at landing Firespitter helicopters on top of the VAB after a few (read: several) shots of whiskey. Surprisingly, I actually managed my first working helicopter. It flew beautifully. But landing a helo? Really, really hard. I managed to land on the SPH, the ocean, and the island runway...I was aiming for the VAB helipads. OUI is very bad news kids EDIT: I lied. Apparently I can get a helicopter onto the VAB landing pad drunk. Possibly because the drink suppresses my undying hatred of .21's SAS. Also because I added a Kerbal Engineer chip to the thing which makes judging your descent far easier.

B9, Touhou Torpedo's mk3 expansion pack, Firespitter, and a few other mod packs all have cargo bays.

The Kerbal X isn't set up very well for a Mun landing. Also it's not really new-player-friendly--it's a badly designed and difficult to control thing. Which is the OP's main problem as far as I can tell.