SuperBigD60

Well that sucks

Infernal Robotics, I believe. And once you get over the learning curve it rules

I think ideally you want to point prograde or as close to it as possible, so the trick is to somehow be pointing prograde the whole way until you've made orbit. Turning sideways very early is a decent way to accomplish this because burning radially while you're not moving as fast means it takes less dV to change direction (similar to why you want to do inclination burns at high altitudes). burning in any direction other than prograde incurs steering losses, but that obviously has to be balanced against gravity losses from burning vertically in a gravity well as well as actually having to turn after taking off. As for optimization, I usually just turn early and hope for the best. But you are definitely correct to say that higher thrust will reduces losses to gravity.

I feel like less bugs is a good thing

Alright, sounds good. I guess I'll just have to settle for personal brownie points or something, cuz the best I'll be able to do is land on more than one body. Hats off to anyone who can round trip without refueling, though.

I do think that Kerbin Rally ought to be worth a little more, if you ask me. Maybe just double, I guess cuz gravity assists could make it easier, but even so, it seems like a tall order to me for an SSTO to do a grand tour without refueling. Hard enough that it should be worth more points, anyway. And the points for landing and returning, is that per world? And the fuel remaining, is that only once you make orbit or is that once you're done with your trip? Sorry for the 20 questions.

I'm completely ok with that, considering this is just a craft I had lying around

This is not my entry, yet, as the ship still has 5.6 km/s dV to play with, but I will show off how my challenge is going so far. (3570 LF + 4140 O)/(4320 LF + 5280 O) * 100=80.31 Not bad, but I think I'll take a trip out to jool and perhaps land on Laythe and the smaller moons before I'm done. Also, I'm using MechJeb, FAR, KSP Interstellar for the intake precoolers, and I've clipped 4 ram intakes together at the front of each of those engine cylinder things. And for scoring's sake, if I tweaked oxidizer out of some tanks, should that whole capacity count against me, or should it just be liftoff capacity?

I came up with a design for a refueler for either Kerbin or Laythe: It can make LKO without touching that Orange tank's fuel, and barely touching the white tank on top of that. Also, it can bring 12 passengers and 3 pilots. Once in orbit, its got 5.6 km/s dV left, if not used for refueling.

Wow, perfect timing. I've just built a plane with this exact concept in mind. Once I come up with a ridiculous mission that I can do with a spaceplane that has 5 ish km/s dV, I'll post my entry. Any ideas of where I should go?

I've difinitely had the same problem, only whenever I managed to get out of the VAB, the game crashed. shutting it down and restarting it fixed the problem, although it would occasionally happen again. I think it had something to do with some of the mods I was using at the time, namely remote tech, but that was a while ago and the subsequent updates for it have gotten rid of that problem.

I came up with a pretty solid SSTO that uses FAR and KSP Interstellar's precoolers. I can get the jets working a little bit faster with those precoolers, and once its up to 1900 or so m/s they finally give up and I use two nervas to get the rest of the way. Its backbone is an orange tank which it can take to orbit completely without using any of the fuel. I'll be sure to show off pics once I've tweaked it so it can take off without going all the way to the water.

I don't know how well represented in the math it is, but for the stock game, usually the most efficient ascents for SSTO spaceplanes involves using enough intakes such that you can be in airbreathing mode as high as 32-35 or so km and reach orbital velocity up there. I know there was a thread on it at some point, and I vaguely remember testing out designs like that myself. I wonder if this principle is still true, if it can help your point, and also if the Rapier would make this ridiculous sort of altitude easier to achieve. You know, food for thought

I think I'll run a parallel test to ComradeGoat's with FAR installed once I get home tonight. I'm thinking FAR might be where the Rapier takes off (I make no apologies for puns)

I think that FAR's aerodynamics are how it works in real life. The atmosphere thins out pretty quickly above sea level. I think anything above 10,000 ft and you need a pressure suit (or pressurized cabin like commercial jets cruising at 30,000-40,000 ft). 10,000 ft is maybe 2 of the 60 or so miles until you are in space and even so the atmosphere is quite sparse. That said, this makes the atmosphere feel a little non-existant when it is only 70 km deep. I agree that it would definitely feel a little better if the stmosphere went up to around 130 km or something. I should point out (in order to dispell thoughts that FAR makes it easier) that the fact you have to make a reasonably aerodynamic rocket/payload to get anywhere definitely adds more challenge than it takes away by requiring less dV.

I'm finding it hard to argue with Goat's logic, but I do think there's got to be some way to use a Rapier (however out of the box it may be) that no other rocket/jet is as efficient at. I wonder if maybe some of the SSTO issues get resolved with FAR where your speed on air-breathing mode is effectively limited to about 1700 m/s or so. Anybody have any other ideas?

I believe that was .19 Mostly seriously, I've kind of made it my life mission to prove this comic wrong.

Right, I was trying to help the fellow date himself.

Nukes dont work terribly well in a vacuum, IIRC. Or at least not how they do in our atmosphere. Anyways, what I want to have happen is, in conjunction with Kethane or something, you mine the kethane off the asteroid and it gets lighter. Maybe use extraplanetary launchpads to mine materials for your ships and further reduce the mass. You could get rid of the asteroid with materials that used to be the asteroid. Or you Whack-os could just build a few million-ton behemoths and get rid of the asteroid altogether.

reentry effects?

If you want to dabble with the other end of the spectrum of SSTOs, and particular large cargo SSTOs, might I suggest FAR and B9? I definitely went at least 4 months where all I could think about was making a bigger cargo SSTO. I wasn't very good, but, whatevs

I never realized how awesome docking was because I started up in .18 and it took me another year to figure out that it was new to that update.

This may just be the anthem for this game, I think

How about a tricoupler?

That may be the smallest I've seen, but I know you can make simpler ones with fewer parts I think a mainsail, two orange tanks, and the black crew cabin makes it to orbit with 4 So perhaps a distinction is in order. But, yeah, small stuff rocks