arq

I agree. I think, especially with the advent of the Toolbar plugin, that it is time for part-less KER. In the meantime, you can add the following code in a .cfg file if module manager is installed (many mods use it, so it was already installed for me) @PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleCommand]] { MODULE { name = BuildEngineer } MODULE { name = FlightEngineer } }

If you are willing to mod, Procedural Wings lets you make stock-balanced wings of any size. I use them on most all of my SSTOs, since the stock ones are so darn tiny and tough to build with.

Scott Manley mentioned something about this the other day. I think it's something to do with the Interstellar mod or a different one, if you have those installed.

Launching in an atmosphere you want a TWR in the range 1.7-2.2 (localized for the body's gravity). Landing in an atmosphere depends on the thickness of the atmo and the surface gravity, but anywhere above 1.3 should do fine, unless you have parachutes which mean you need very little or no thrust. Really, doing engines-only is feasible because the atmosphere will do most of your braking (ie on Kerbin you only need to burn off the last 100m/s). Launching or landing in a vacuum you want as much thrust as possible to get into/out of orbit as fast as possible, though technically anything over 1 will work (and for descent you could even start lower, since it should increase). Something like 5 or greater will make it significantly easier and more efficient. For moving around in space, a lower TWR implies less engine mass, which increases fuel fraction and thus dV. However, if you have less than 0.5m/s^2 (Kerbin TWR=0.05), you will likely regret it. Not to mention lose efficiency because of long maneuvers.

I've had issues in certain locations (IE this one particular crater on Mun) where flags would explode on load/unload, 4 times in different spots (though all within 200m of my lander). Some spots are just buggy. Other places I could drop the flag 10m away and have no problem.

I think Squad wanted a proof-of-concept for multiple nozzles and saw the RAPIER as a chance to play with that. There can always be mods to tweak looks or provide alternative parts. I'm glad they took the opportunity to create the code to allow for a different aesthetic, even if the rest of the engine is uninteresting. The way I see it, Squad is focusing on the core capabilities of the game engine. Modders can focus on the interesting parts and variations until the game itself is complete.

I've gotten up to 131 experiments and haven't had a problem, so whatever limit exists it's pretty darn high.

This is actually untrue. What actually happens is turbojets have 50% thrust and 0m/s, 100% at 1km/s, 50% at 2km/2, and then drops off to 0% at 2.4km/s. RAPIERS are the same except that they fall to 0% at 2.2km/s. So what you are actually seeing is thrust decreasing with increasing velocity rather than decreasing air intake.

I put one of these in orbit around Mun with extra fuel and a lander. I hit all the biomes on Mun (15 or so) with my lander loaded with science experiments. I'd bring them up and unload them into the mothership, reset the experiments, refuel, and go back down for more. I got over 7000 science when I returned it (and maybe another 1000 I transmitted back earlier in the mission). It was just enough to finish the tech tree when I returned.

dV is not the metric for spaceplanes, everything is interdependent. It's all a careful tuning act that you will perform over half a dozen (or more ascents). Got into space with a bit of extra jetfuel? Bring less next time. By bringing less, you will get up faster and use less (sometimes much less), so this may need to be repeated. You may also realize you need fewer or more engines and that changes stuff even more dramatically.

Kerbals can retrieve science from intact science modules (or from crew capsules) by walking up to them and right-clicking. But if it is destroyed then you'd better queue up a new mission.

Yup, the mass stays with the radially decoupled piece. The 'remains' on the parent stack should vanish after you reload, IIRC, though they are purely graphical. On a related note, broken struts stick to the end that was attached first. This is why it is good to start struts on the end that will be decoupled first, so that the nub will go away and not count as a part (though a broken strut's effect on physics simulation load is unknown).

You bring up a good point. It's early here so I lack creativity and will mostly steal yours, but a few things that come to mind to cut from FAR to be more casual-friendly would be: -stalls (ofc lift drops off at high AoA, it does in stock too, but don't keep the 'state' requiring such a dramatic recovery) -possibly body lift? (to keep designs understandable, otherwise you can get all sorts of weird behavior. but you'd also be giving up stuff like reentry control with pods, etc. perhaps just make it weaker than normal) -mach effects -wing interactions (what do you mean 'these wings are different?' they look the same to me?) -CoL changes with speed (or at least tone them down - otherwise we'll need FAR-like tools to analyze stability) Of course, it's likely one would need to sort through many contradictions in trying to design an aero model simpler than FAR, and that could create strange or nonsensical edge cases (it's much simpler to design an accurate model, since it already exists, than a simplified one). Mostly I think that the less obvious effects should be trimmed down to keep the system understandable and mostly-intuitive to those that don't have engineering degrees or extensive experience, and to limit the need for complex design tools. A beginning player thrown into FAR's system would be much more likely to become frustrated and stop playing.

I spent a little while messing with these yesterday and I was unimpressed, initially. As it stands, it takes a lot of these to get a plane off the ground and through the first part of ascent. I still need to spend awhile longer working with RAPIERS before I can make a meaningful recommendation, but one initial solution would be to increase the 0m/s thrust coefficient from 0.5 to 0.6 or 0.7 to help with its poor low-altitude performance. As a sidenote, I find the LV-T30 much better than the aerospike for SSTOs. At 25km, the atmosphere is only 0.7% that of sea level, meaning that ISP is ~370 for the T30. At this point, I find the TWR advantage of T30s to outweigh the slight ISP advantage of the aerospike. This becomes increasingly important if you are trying to go beyond LKO - hauling those heavy aerospikes is a burden.

I agree. I would like to see improved aerodynamics in KSP. However, the current placeholder system is fine for the time being. An aerodynamics overhaul should wait until after career, resources, etc. I think it should be one of the last changes before 1.0 (or even come after 1.0). I really like FAR, but it is too elaborate for the scope of KSP and the beginning (or even intermediate) player. Something between stock and FAR aerodynamics is what Squad should ultimately settle on, IMO. FAR will always be there for people that want to kick it up a notch.

The landing gears are massless because in their current form they are very heavy (a set of 3 weighs more than a jet engine) and there is no good way to counterbalance them. If they had mass, they would be very tricky to use outside of atmospheres because of the CoM issues they would cause. They will likely be given mass (though perhaps less than they currently have) in some future update, when part balancing and tweaking is performed.

I put up a mothership around Mun and have been jumping down to hit different biomes with all my equipment and coming back up. I have my kerbal move them to the mothership's pod. I currently have 40+ experiments stashed in the mothership and have not yet encountered a problem.

Version 6.2 just became available, which claims to handle multi-mode engines like the RAPIER.

People always seem to neglect transfer efficiency. There is a point where TWR is so low that adding another engine will give greater 'range', even though there is less 'delta-V'. If your payload is 50t and you have 450t of fuel tanks (400t of fuel), using two LV-Ns instead of one will drop your delta-V from 12491m/s to 12297m/s, while essentially doubling your TWR. Those lost 194m/s will be made up for in improved maneuver efficiency (and even with those two engines those burns will be agonizingly long).

I have thought similar thoughts before, and like the general idea. My main concern is that ships would no longer be 'what you see is what you get'. Right now, assuming one hasn't manually modified .cfg's, you can look at a rocket and replicate it and know it's performance exactly. With such changes, you could be stuck wondering 'now which level fuel tank is that?' The changes would likely be small, but there could still be cases where that could push something past a threshold.

Usually disabling angle-snap will make this work for me.

Try making planes with bigger wings to learn. You are complaining that your plane stalls before you can get it slow enough, which would be alleviated by bigger wings. It's easiest to land below 50m/s and very difficult above 80m/s, in my experience.

Very useful for safely removing radial stages. I flip them near the top of the stack with the rockets facing upwards and they help to spin and push them away until my rocket can clear them (they often hit each other a ways behind me, but that doesn't bother me).

What is most important for satellite constellations is orbital period, not so much indicated altitude or speed. Get a mod like Engineer, Mechjeb, or any other that will give you orbital period info. Using this, it is easy to set up satellites with orbits of 6hrs within around 0.1s/orbit. At this rate, your satellites should remain in a pretty good constellation, drifting by maybe 3mins/yr relative to each other. This should be suitable for 20+yrs without modification.

I find that conventional planes (with the main wings in front) are more stable than canards (with the main wings at the back). It can help to get your controls far from the CoM to increase their leverage, and a conventional tail can help to accomplish this. Having control surfaces far back can also help to increase the stability of the plane (think of it as being fletched like an arrow). Most planes with a centered CoT will glide alright, in my experience. Most of my SSTOs go through all of reentry and landing without engines. It is important to stay pointed very near prograde, especially at high speeds, to prevent flipping. Stay high to fly further, or fly low to slow down (thanks, drag) and land sooner.