WafflesToo

You guys make me feel absolutely, positively frugal... My Mun launchers are about 35k /F each (three launches to date) I've got three probes operating in Kerbin SOI that cost around 9k /F each I put five more interplanetary probes up that cost around 11k /F each (their cost was lowered by the developement of a spaceplane at about the time I started launching them) And there's my space station that costed me a running total of 180k /F to build (plus another ~15k /F for supply runs) A lander probe sitting on Minmus that was a test-launch for the deep-space probe program at 15k /F (I got lazy and used a rocket instead of my spaceplanes) A ground base on Minmus that was part of a contract (55k /F) And a heliocentric space station (also part of a contract) that was launched for 65k /F 74k /F from two spaceplanes that were lost (one during developement and one due to pilot error) So the cost of the program has been about 600k /F to date. ...no wonder I'm sitting on more than 30M /F worth of liquid assets so far. But you know, these private luxury yachts won't pay for themselves XD

Docking ports seem to be baffling to the game code as well. Here's the setup: I have a probe in orbit already with a docking port on it's tail. I send up a small SRB to send it to Jool with (why? Because they're cheap, that's why). Dock the Probe onto the SRB, decouple the SRB from the delivery vehicle and conduct an RTB maneuver with the spaceplane. With me so far? Here's where it gets weird. Now, with that setup if you select the Probe / SRB combination from the Tracking Station Kerbin dissapears, the probe is gone, and the SRB sits there slowly spinning with smoke trailing from the engine nozzle (no thrust and no SFX) and no physics are loaded. Weirdness! EDIT: Woah, broken as hell. Flew another ship within physics range of the probe and the game broke. Still didn't properly load the model in and the game started chugging like crazy. Strange. I checked the save-game file though and all of the craft information is intact so I think I can work around this bug by flying something else within physics range of the probe and letting it load in that way and then switch control over using the '[' and ']' keys. Has anyone else encountered this?

I could do that. I'm only using IR for the hinge block in the cargo bay. I'll update the craft file tonight. EDIT: Done, removed the IR bit from the plane

That's gonna be a rough landing

(part deux) ... All seemed lost, the RAV-1 was spinning wildly out of control. She was holding together, but I knew as soon as she hit the denser air at Mach 3 that would change rapidly. BUT, I wasn't quite ready to give up yet. Closing the air intakes and popping the airbrakes put the center of drag behind the center of mass and she straightened herself out giving the wings and surfaces a chance to bite the air again. Opening the cargo bay and dumping the cargo (look out below!) I toggled the RAPIER into closed-cycle mode and started running it to dump out all of the rocket fuel she was carrying. Once she was dry I reactivated the turbojets and proceded to fly the aircraft completely around Kerbin and landed safely back at the KSC runway. How often do YOUR biggest disasters have happy endings?

Oh, that would've been last night... Got a contract to perform a test on an experimental RAPIER engine. I thinks, "cool, I'm using a spaceplane as my primary launch vehicle anyway so I'll just swap out the LV45 I've been using and scab on the experiemental. What could possibly go wrong?" Loading the cargo bay up with some experiement modules (from the Station Science mod) because why waste the flight to 'just' test out this R&D doohicky anyway, right? Fire up the turbojets, rip down the runway, and we're off. She flies normally until I hit the test window for the RAPIER and I stage to activate it, contract's fulfilled, 150k roots in the bank, now to just finish this insertion... and that's when I see it happen; the RAPIER is operating in open-cycle mode, sucking up all my intake air just as the turbojets are hitting their peak power. One turbojet starves out, stalls, and before I can reach the 'x' key the ship is in a hypersonic pancake stall. This is the point that my PR team is thanking Korbol that it's just an unmanned aerial drone so all we'll lose is money and our rep won't take the hit.

Yay! Interstellar is back! I like the idea of making most of the parts size-tweakable (really makes it easier to find stuff in the VAB/ SPH). I will definately have to grab this and take it for a spin later on. ...now if I can only get StarSystems to work for me

Youbetcha! I am looking forward to it with giddy anticipation :squee:

I... yeah, this. If I'm playing the game its because I'm trying to implement something I dreamed up earlier. If I'm not playing the game I'm thinking about what hijinks to get into the next time I am.

Well, one I use Infernal Robotics so I can point things up out of the bay before deployment. But yes, you will need decouplers or docking ports if you want to remove something from the cargo bay. The best way to put something in there (if you want to use the nodes) is to take either the front or the back of the plane off and pick a view where you can see the node without it intersecting any part of the structure.

I'm kind of in the same boat, I'm not really sure what is wanted but heck, here goes. The RAV-1 should win, not because it does so much but because what little it does do it does so well. It is a simple day-in-day-out workhorse. It's simple, it's reliable, it requires very little skill to use. Just point it at the 30 and it pretty much flies itself into orbit. It's cheap ($37k) and low-tech (tier-4 with one or two tier-5 nodes), perfect for a carreer game. It has proven to be rugged and very forgiving of rough handling (I've had the AoA as high as 80-degrees before and all I had to do to recover is let go of the controls) and I've never witnessed one of them go out of control. ...and at the end of the day, even if the worst happens and the craft is lost, its an unmanned drone which will save your PR team a ton of headaches

@Hodo I both eagerly anticipate and dreadfully fear what you have to say @Sirine I don't suppose you could mark the FAR entries as such could you? Planes that fly well in stock rarely fly at all in FAR and vice-versa. It would make sorting them out easier for us, thanks.

Alright, I got the craft file uploaded. RAV-1 X2 There's an info-drive mounted inside of it with the keybindings in it. Just press 'i' to bring it up. Requires: B9 Aerospace, Spaceplanes Plus, and Infernal Robotics (removed IR bit). It was designed to fly in Ferram Aerospace Research and I doubt it would even be able to get off the runway with stock aerodynamics; you have been warned. Key '0' Master start (turns jet engines on, turns rocket engine off. Be certain to check the condition of the intakes before flight) Key '1' Toggle engine mode (air breathing / rocket engine) Key '2' Toggle air brake on / off Key '3' Deploy wing flaps Key '4' Retract wing flaps Key '9' Open / close cargo bay and docking port Ascent is easy; run it down the runway until your speed is over mach 0.32 and kick the nose up to about 30-degrees. Level off at about 17km (let the nose rise again on its own), and toggle engine mode to rocket powered at 27km or above (depending on how the jet engines are holding up). Watch your AoA once the rocket is active; it can oversteer the aircraft so you should let the nose drop at some point. I've never had it go out of control before (it seems to have good stall characteristics) but all the same, don't be the first. Remember to transfer any remaining fuel back to the front tank before reentry or the craft may become unstable. The jet engines have their own fuel tanks on them (the FL-T100s that each is mounted to). I've never run them out of fuel but it may be worth checking on them before reentry if you're expecting a long-cross-range trek. It may also be worth transferring any excess fuel out of them if you need a little more ballast in the nose. The air brakes will slow you down quickly and may drop your descent path too steeply to survive if you have DRE installed. Use with caution. Drop wing flaps to '3' before landing to reduce landing speed to manageable rate (even deployed, keep airspeed above Mach 0.23) I've reliably gotten up to 3 tons into 150 km orbit with this gal, but I think it should be good for up to about 4 tons (on paper).

Thank you, I'm glad you at least liked it I wasn't so happy with the video editing myself, first time with MM8 and I feel I cut too quickly on a lot of the scenes (not to mention the rendevous and docking maneuvers taking place at night didn't make for the best video :$) But thank you all the same. As you can no doubt guess, my little RAV-1 is a no-frills trash-hauler. It's job is to haul material into LKO as quickly (and cheaply) as possible. I LOVE your little V/STOL aircraft. The idea of using VTOL to explore Laythe is a stroke of genius; it sure beats looking for level-ish ground to land on Also... I FORGOT MY CRAFT FILE! Crud! I'll have to get that uploaded as soon as I get home

Figured as much. Those who beleive Squad is faultless and Harvestr walks on water. They're a little bit like Appelites, the Brethren of Linux, or followers of "The Word of Nintendo". Irritating, but mostly harmless

If SAS is turned on then I'll bet it's flitting them ever-so-slightly to keep that nose-up heading. With the number of surfaces on it it's probably enough all by itself. (careful with the critisisms of the aero model, "The Cult of Squad" seem to be especially touchy on that subject )

I've got a robotic spaceplane I might give this a shot with. It's got pretty high wingloading so it can get up and move, even at lower altitudes. I haven't tried an especially agressive approach yet but I'm willing to bet it has the chops to do it... Well, when it isn't hauling a 3-ton payload anyway

Here's my entry RAV-1 "Swallow" FAR B-9 Aerospace Spaceplane Plus Infernal Robotics Technical data: Cost: ~37k Part Count: 56 Weight loaded: 16.78t (w/ 3t payload) Dry weight: 7.96t Crew Capacity: 0 (Drone) (Warning to Remotech users, you will need to install an antenna somewhere on the craft before use) Key '0' Master start (turns jet engines on, turns rocket engine off. Be certain to check the condition of the intakes before flight) Key '1' Toggle engine mode (air breathing / rocket engine) Key '2' Toggle air brake on / off Key '3' Deploy wing flaps Key '4' Retract wing flaps Key '9' Open / close cargo bay and docking port

Crashing through the gates to this party with "Swallow" (Sorry Booly, just can't do stock aerodynamics anymore )

I have this sure-fire method for dealing with part-testing contracts that I don't really want to do... I don't accept them.

My favorite light-payload lifter is a fin-stabilized BACC first stage and a LV909/FL-T200 second stage. Reliably gets 1.5t into orbit for very little cost. Bigger stuff I use a mix of LFO and Solid booster rockets. I've almost advanced the tech tree enough to allow some stock reusable 2STO designs I've been wanting to try that are full LFO powered and should be good for around 20t to orbit. And of course SSTO spaceplanes are right around the corner to take over the light-duty ferrying. Though I have to laugh at myself; I'm literally making money faster than I can spend it so it seems silly to be such a scrooge with the funds (FAR and DRE are both installed on this playthrough)

@ferram4 - I am honestly really impressed that you never seem to lose your temper XD Never going back to stock, not since discovering exactly how ludicrous it's behavior is with my sideways-flying badmitton bird experiment I'm baffled when people say they have trouble launching rockets with FAR; just follow the prograde marker. I think a lot of trouble comes from everyone learning the wrong way to do things first then trying to do it the right way (I'm looking at you, "fly to 10km, kick it over 45-dg all at once" flight profile.)

I think this is an old(ish) bug. Did you test-fly the plane? From what I remember it was the CoL indicator that gets misplaced while the real Col is positioned correctly.

I agree with what you're saying Wave... but I also agree with what Northstar is saying; the cost should be in the power-plant, not in the thruster. It's the package cost that I think you should focus on instead of the individual components. A thermal rocket/"KIWI" fission combination probably should only cost a little more than the vanilla LV-1N, but the price tag of a thermal rocket/"OMEGA" fusion combination ought to be high enough to make a defense contractor blush. You can both have it your way, just make the reactors the expensive part of the system. BTW, Wave, I really appreciate you taking the helm on this in Fractal's absence. It's really brave of you and you have my support. Oh, any thoughts on how to incorporate a cost into the upgrade mechanics? I notice a lot of the upgraded reactors have wildly better stats than the baseline reactors do.

Where are you getting your information from? A great deal of this "crap" exists now; the plasma thruster is a real thing, the arc thruster is a real thing, the thermal turbojet is from the 50s, microwave beaming is a real thing. A lot of this doesn't exist either because of a lack of funding or will to do so... and some of it doesn't exist because of politics (and face it, do you know anybody you'd trust with a 400GW microwave emitter antenna? I sure don't). Personally I think Northstar brings up a good point; most of the cost of a thermal engine is not in the engine; it's in the power source... though I really think he overstated his case just a smidge.