Jarin

As I understand it, extendible radiators can pull from up to... I think it's 3 parts away? Surface-attached passive cooling radiators only pull from the part they're attached to.

I don't see a fuel bar by the engine. Looks like the staging is borked. Right-click engine and see if you can activate it.

Agreed. I'd love to be able to have a direct correlation between listed stats in the VAB and functionality in space. Some idea of how to wring proper efficiency out of these systems without having to consult a wiki.

I want screenshots

If you don't care about cheesing the physics a bit, I'd suggest just put a longer fuselage behind your engine arms, so there's more space between the exhaust and the asteroid. The "thrust obscured" problem doesn't actually check backwards very far, so a longer ship with puller engines can work just fine, even without any angle.

There's some good designs in the Heavy SSTO Efficiency Challenge that can handle two orange tanks. Could look there for ideas. For general SSTO Spaceplane advice, I got some good pointers when asking a similar question not too long ago. More specific to your question, what part of the design are you having trouble with? A rocket-style SSTO using a mammoth stack is your easiest answer. Just be careful about re-entry. Parachutes + water splashdown would be your best bet there. If you want horizontal landing and takeoff, what part of return is giving you trouble? There's a lot of potential points where things can go wrong, so generalized advice is difficult. Edit: Getting my threads mixed up. Some fuel-tanker-specific design tweaking for one I built recently is covered here.

Longer posts equal more story, right?

My spaceplanes tend to have two of the smallest extendible radiator, mounted dorsally, one right behind the cockpit and one back near the engines (left off if I'm not running nukes). A high AoA on re-entry keeps them out of the airstream, and you can keep them extended down almost to 35km altitude. I typically keep the nose at 45 degrees and re-enter with a relatively shallow angle. If coming in from outsystem or minmus, you probably want to make a pass or two to bleed speed off first, but this works great from 3-500km AP. Edit: This also lets you push your flight profile a bit on the way up; getting a bit more heat on ascent, without risking nukes trying to explode you when circularizing. Just activate the radiators as you rise past 40km.

The Mk2 has some issues too. I tend to overcome it with a dorsal radiator right behind the cockpit.

So is nobody else seeing this problem? Is this a conflict or something?

Is "career overhaul" option 2 or 3?

I swear, if he was ignoring the pertinent information any harder, I'd think it was intentional.

If you're not using rapiers, you really have to build your craft as much like a rocket as like an airplane. Conservatively, your jets are only going to knock 1000 dV requirement off of reaching orbit, so build with that in mind (you can get more, certainly, but build with margin when learning). So you still need 2000+ dV in your rocket engines to reach orbit.

I still want confirmation that he understands the difference between the Mk1 capsule and the lander can. If he's using the capsule, nothing but the heat shield should ever get a temperature gauge.

"Mass driver" in KSP terms has often referred to something light being thrown by the exhaust of a large stationary engine.

64 bit has changed some peoples' definition of "reasonable" if they have beefier computers. <.< (I'm assuming 12 hundred, not thousand)

Here, I simulated an interplanetary return to kerbin; 3300m/s when I hit the atmosphere. This is an incredibly aggressive return, no airbraking pass, 18km PE. Jeb landed safely with 150/200 ablator left on the shield. Nothing but a Mk1 pod, a shield and a parachute.

The Mk 1 command pod and 1.25m heat shield absolutely will work. The lander can will not, because it is not a part designed with re-entry in mind. It is designed for landing on airless worlds, not dealing with heat. With enough ablator, the Mk1 pod + shield should be able to handle return from just about wherever you want. Just keep that PE set at 30-35km.

To use them as "flaps" they need to be somewhat close to the center of gravity (or rather, the axis of pitch rotation). Set them so they deploy towards the ground. This increases drag, but also lift, which allows for takeoff and landing at lower velocities.

Maybe it was a previous encounter with a crashed saucer on Kerbin that warped his un-jarred brain at the start

I dunno, wasn't Thompberry pretty hateful before he was a brain in a jar? I mean, he was completely organic kerbal when the initial kidnappings and attempted-conquering-of-ksc happened.

Those are my roll control, and they seem to work okay for that. I'm sure it's unnecessary, but I tend to restrict control surfaces to a primary axis, so those elevators next to the engines are just for pitch. So the canards out there serve three purposes, of roll, a touch of extra lift, and appearance.

I think my tweaks get more fuel to orbit than your redesign, but it's still a bit of a bear to rendezvous. The flat wing edit helps with the stability though. I'll definitely try the double-forward-up-tilted-canards to see if that makes the climb easier. Honestly, what I really need to do is rejigger the whole thing to have a few nukes somewhere onboard for orbital operations. Built a new utility SSTO that's one-stop-to-anywhere. ISRU onboard and just needs a bit of fuel from my orbital dock to reach Minmus. If I ditch the ISRU for more onboard, it's nonstop minmus-and-back for 6 kerbals. Four rapiers and three nukes. In long-run-config below. The front long mk2 gets switched for an inverted bay with fuel equipment. It also needs a second set of small gear, with the long gear retracting so the drills can touch the ground. Used your recommended shock-cone-on-long-adapter here too, and it works great. Obviously, if it can carry ISRU gear, that front tank can be a cargo bay with whatever is wanted for basic orbital operations. Craft here

I looked at it, but I wasn't sure what to make of it. I didn't see any obvious big red flags on the tailplanes, but I don't know how occlusion is indicated. Anyway, since fighting for lift seemed to be one of my problems, I added a topwing, along with the previous suggestions. A poodle lacked the necessary thrust, but the quad-aerospike handles like a dream. I separated the x-tailplane to clear the thrust path. I don't notice much difference, but hey, I'm not burning my tail off anymore. The topwing and new intakes seem to have helped greatly. Now, aside from still being a bit of a pig getting moving, the flight profile after 500m/s is just point the nose 10 degrees up and let the plane fly itself to whiplash flameout. Only major problem I'm noticing with these edits is that the off-centeredness of the main thrust is more obvious now that my primary engines don't vector. There's a serious (though not uncorrectable) tendency to nose up for orbital burns. Edit: Also, I think I may have bodged up the tail a bit. Getting some weirdness I'll have to fiddle with. Included a shot of the aero overlay to see if someone can spot an obvious problem. Not sure if it had much effect on drag, but it gives me more fuel, and looks a lot nicer, so net win regardless. Edit: Further discovery on testing... does NOT re-enter well still loaded with fuel.

So I've built my first successful SSTO tanker! Two flights under its belt now (first did not return so well, but some adjustments to CoL fixed that nicely for the second), and I'm pretty proud of it! Thanks to @bewing @AeroGav and @mk1980 for the general spaceplane advice. As a first design, it's obviously going to be less than optimized, so now I'm hoping for some advice in refining it. craft file here Current outstanding issues, aside from just general efficency... it wobbles like hell, especially when low on fuel. I suspect this is due to the wing design? Also, I think I'm getting extra drag, with each wing segment adding its own drag rather than being obscured. I had them separately attached to the center for stability, but maybe I should have the wing components attached front to back to eachother? Fuel percentage to orbit varies widely on how well the ascent went. Flight profile (also open to suggestions): run out the end of the runway and probably end up drifting down towards the water as you accelerate. Build speed at sea level 'till 500m/s or greater, then start to climb. Make certain your TWR and thrust are going up, otherwise level out and accelerate more before climbing. Shallow climb, aim for 1200/1300m/s before the engines start to drop off. Kick in the Skipper before flameout. Once the Whiplashes die, hit 5 to close the intakes and let the rapiers autoswitch. Push your trajectory up to 40-50km then hit 2 to kill the rapiers and follow orbital prograde to desired AP with the skipper. When delivering fuel, keep the very front nosecone full (minus a bit of ox if you want) and empty the rest. Re-entry: PE to 30km over KSC (if using trajectories mod, just put the X on KSC). Standard 15-20 degree inclination to slow. Main thing to watch is overheating the RCS, but it's not too troublesome. Feel free to invert and pull "up" towards the ground to avoid overshooting KSC. I've was screaming over the mountains at 1700m/s and still had no trouble bringing it down with inversion and airbrakes. Final approach at around 100m/s, then pop the brakes and settle lightly to the runway at 50 or less. I think the wings are my biggest issue here, but I don't think I can reduce them in size, as I'm already pushing my limit on getting into the air when fully-loaded. Other designs attempted: all whiplashes and all rapiers. The first couldn't push the AP out of the atmosphere on the skipper alone, and the second gently nosedived into the ocean for lack of thrust.