Jarin

I suspect the problem isn't thrust, but an aerodynamics issue where pulling up while traveling down the runway doesn't pitch the nose up. Put your rear wheels just behind the center of gravity, so your rear control surfaces have some lever arm length to work with. Alternately, use canards as control surfaces. Allow me to again sing the praises of Atmosphere Autopilot. Build a sturdy plane, set a course, kick up to 4x warp and walk away.

Part of the problem is that there's just legitimate physics issues on takeoff, but there's some design tricks to help deal with them. Pending pics and .craft file there. Past that though, I can tell you right now that you're building too much "plane" and not enough "rocket". Even the best high-tech jet SSTO is going to be getting a large portion of its orbital velocity from LFO mode. With Panthers, you're topping out your air-breathing speed around 1000m/s at 20km so you still need 1500+ dV of rocket thrust to get to orbit. Remember, speed is life, altitude gets you jack without speed.

I can confirm I got two techs from Minmus greenliths.

I'd gotten the impression that @RoverDude was one of their primary modelers these days.

Blind-shot hit Duna with a vertical launch on SRBs. (plus 50dV or so on LF, but still)

That's not what that means. It means you get more fuel weight and less tank weight.

Much appreciated.

If I get MM errors reported on game loading, but everything otherwise loads fine, where would I go about finding details on those errors, since there's no crash log?

That... is a really good idea. <.< (just take it as a complement that you're a visibly knowledgeable authority on the topic of MM scripts, so I missed the obvious action here)

@Alshain any idea what to look at here? Google searches are failing me.

So I, uh, borked something (and I didn't even add that new script yet), and now I'm getting over a hundred MM errors on load; looks like a lot of it is in tweakscale, but all I get from the loading screen is error totals. Is there a log to get details of MM load errors somewhere?

You'd have to redesign it so that the crane is a single unit with its own framework, then have the rover attached by a decoupler or docking port in the middle, which you would unlink before lowering it on winches.

If it's just part count, you could take most of that stock Avalon and chuck it into UbioZur Welding to combine into a single part.

Okay, so let me try my hand at this... Would that do the trick? Edit: Okay, I see. Thanks!

Can you add @TechRequired to module tweaks? I.e. adding "collect science" feature to all command pods, but only once you unlock the tech with the science container.

Could get that on the descent end a upper-atmo hop, maybe. @HelmutK around to weigh in?

What record is this? Highest sustained I was able to find at any altitude band was 1751.6

Mine tended to melt when adding another 100 m/s on top of that. Wouldn't last the full trip.Granted, I was also using Mk1 parts so I had to be better about dispersing internal heat.

It helps if you think of batteries as good capacitors.

Am I blind, or does that spreadsheet not have 1.25m or 2.5m fuel tanks at all? Wonderfully useful otherwise though. Looks like structural fuselages might be the way to go for a proper pontoon. Wouldn't have called that one, with the open ends, but it seems like it's a rough model anyway.

Empty fuel tanks, I'm pretty sure. But honestly, your typical problem is not floating, but sinking. Just about everything floats, to the point where negative buoyancy is rather difficult to achieve.

Oh yeah, absolutely. But if you're not trying to push the theoretical RAPIER maximum velocity, the faring-nose trick really isn't necessary.

Okay, firstly, the Mk2 has a significantly higher heat threshold than the Mk1. And from the album linked in the above post: 1450+ on ascent. Secondly: are you sure you aren't running 150% heat or something? Those are both at roughly the same altitude, a bit under 20km.

Like so many others, I'm still holding out for a good career mode overhaul. Not holding my breath for a fully stock solution, but hopefully the new tools with the expansion will include letting modders play with some lower-level game mechanics.

They're a lifting surface in stock, too. They're just way draggier than they should be compared to any other lifting surface. Posted on this a few days ago: I really don't know what people are doing to have such heat troubles. Unless you're trying to hit 1600m/s+ on air-breathing thrust, anyway.