Hodo

My biggest SSTO, SP-416VB uses 4 nukes to do orbital maneuvering and I don't think I have ever had a 4 minute burn to circularize orbit, 20seconds maybe 40. Sounds like you have way more vertical speed then horizontal speed. You can cut down on your burn times by gaining more speed in atmosphere before you switch over to rockets. My average altitude is 28km before the switch, speed is around 1750-1800m/s, I maintain a 10deg climb after the switch to rockets and accelerate to 2200-2400m/s. And I make sure that my rate of climb or vertical speed doesn't go above 250m/s.

Well I am at it again... SVO-22 Thrush Crew-2 VTOL Kethane mining and refueling

For me, the basic jet engine. I don't have one application that uses it.

FAR works with .23, there is a patch already out for it. B9 works except for the SABREs, and I put up the changes to the SABRE engines cfg to get them to work in .23.

I have one small request. Can we get a settings option for the flight data display when in game. I would love to cut down the amount of information it displays to just what I absolutely need.

Possibly, I don't know. It still works for me, granted it spams some error messages in the debug menu. But it works.

This is Bac9's baby, I am sure he will update it give him time.

It was hauling 3 orange tanks to a 100km orbit to refuel my low orbit space station. That is an older picture, I have since updated the craft it now has VTOL abilities, and a longer cargo bay. I may attempt this challenge later but right now I am currently working on fixing everything that .23 broke.

The turbojet is about right. If you use FAR+DRE, you will find out HOW limited that thing really is. Around mach 3.5 it becomes weaker, and by mach 5 you might as well get out and push. The RAPIER and SABRE are great for those applications that need to go MUCH faster.

My thoughts on the RAPIER. I bit over powered, but a bit underwhelming at the same time. I like it because it finally is a SABRE engine that is stock. I don't like it because it feels to small, area wise not mass. I have been building working SSTOs for a while now, of my nearly 1000hours in KSP 90% of that has been building SSTO space planes, with SABREs or without SABREs. The RAPIER is the stock version of the SABRE for those who don't know. I often felt the SABRE engine was a bit overpowered for getting things to orbit, but underpowered once in space. It burns WAY to much fuel to be useful for much outside of the Kerbin SOI. On the positive side, the RAPIER is much lower profile so I can build more VTOL space planes but now with out using the B9 VS-1 and VA-1 VTOL engines.

Wasn't just me so I can't take any credit for that.

It is possible, but with the rotation points I am using from infernal robotics, they tend to flex quite a lot, so no good for wings yet... but I am still testing things. The mods I use are all in my sig, but the ones in that picture that are doing the swiveling is the Infernal Robotics rotation points. I am currently going through a tweaking all the designs that were offset by the added weight of .23 mono to the cockpits. Some of the larger designs it had little to no affect on, some of the smaller craft it through them off quite a lot.

Outstanding design, I love it. You sir a far better than I, I could never build anything that imaginative.

Can we use mods like B9, FAR, DRE, or RT2? If so I have several craft that can do this like this one.

The term reusable in the sense that NASA and most space programs in the real world use it, is any craft or object that can be recovered and reused with minimal expense and effort. So in the world of KSP, anything that lands back on Kerbin in one piece or intact is reusable.

Use this...

Ok... Lets do some math. Aerospike = 1.5 tons 2 x Turbojet= 2.4 tons total 3.9 tons 2 x RAPIER= 3.5 tons Total 3.5 tons So it already has a .4ton advantage in weight savings, not to mention it is one less part to tack on to a craft and balance. And if you need more than one RAPIER to get to space then your craft is to heavy. I personally cant stand the aerospike, it is to heavy and has no thrust vectoring so is nearly useless for most of my applications. Sure the RAPIER doesn't have the ISP of the Aerospike but it is simpler to use, and is far more forgiving. I have built a LOT of SSTOs, some with turbojets, aerospikes, LV-45T, SABREs, and RAPIERs. If it is in the B9, KSPX, or KSP engines I have probably tried to build a SSTO with it. I use SABREs most of the time due to parts count and looks it looks better. I will probably use the RAPIER the same way, mainly because it looks better, and parts count. But it is to me far better than any single combo in game for small SSTOs. Case and point.

The spam is caused by the tab bar that used to show up, it is no longer there or vanishes. I have no clue how to fix this and add it to the new icon bar that is in game.

I run 3:1 intake to jet ratio on intakes and before this .23 patch I could run up to 27-30km altitude easy. Now with the newer lower flame out levels I can run them higher, not much higher but higher. One of my most successful designs actually uses SABRE-Ms to provide bulk of its jet powered thrust, but only uses the rocket mode for the final 10-20s burn to achieve an AP of 100km. Otherwise it uses the nuke to do most of the bulk work in space.

It is anything BUT underpowered. If you think it is underpowered then you are using it wrong..

yes.. I will make one quick change as per NathanKell's wise suggestion.

Thats good to know, I will do that... because right now they heat up faster than a Lamborghini Gallardo in Arizona.

It did for a while but it was fixed around version 6.14 or abouts. It still has problems calculating the delta V correctly, it assumes the ISP for the air breathing mode is the default mode and won't calculate for rocket mode. But it gives you the correct air breathing TWR and d/V.

This is what I came up with for the SABREs and they work, I have sound, and smoke. On a side note I have an unusually high heating issue and anything mounted on a rotation device from infernal robotics isn't working right... oh and my balance points have changed on almost ALL my craft. SABRE S-R: PART { // --- general parameters --- name = B9_Engine_SABRE_S module = Part author = bac9-flcl (textures), Taverius (model) // --- asset parameters --- mesh = model.mu scale = 1.0 rescaleFactor = 1 // --- node definitions --- node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.25, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 node_attach = 0.0, 0.625, 0.625, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0 CoMOffset = 0.0, -0.625, 0.0 // --- FX definitions --- fx_exhaustFlame_blue = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, power fx_exhaustLight_blue = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, power fx_smokeTrail_light = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, power fx_exhaustSparks_flameout = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, flameout // --- Sound FX definition --- sound_vent_medium = engage sound_rocket_hard = power sound_vent_soft = disengage sound_explosion_low = flameout // --- editor parameters --- TechRequired = aerospaceTech entryCost = 57000 cost = 6500 category = Propulsion subcategory = 0 title = SABRE S Engine manufacturer = Tetragon Projects description = Combined-cycle rocket engine. Mode #1 is a turbocompressed air-breathing rocket/ramjet engine. Mode #2 is a high efficiency rocket engine. More convenient and easier to pull off than relying on using multiple engine types, but marginally less efficient than some specialized combinations. // attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0 // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 1.5 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 7 breakingForce = 750 breakingTorque = 750 maxTemp = 3600 EFFECTS { running_closed { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_rocket_spurts volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_aeroSpike transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = Squad/FX/shockExhaust_blue_small transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } power_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_rocket_spurts volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = Squad/FX/shockExhaust_red_small transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } running_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_jet_deep volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_aeroSpike transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } } engage { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_soft volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } flameout { PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_exhaustSparks_flameout_2 transformName = nozzle_transform oneShot = true } AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_explosion_low volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } } MODULE { name = MultiModeEngine primaryEngineID = AirBreathing secondaryEngineID = ClosedCycle } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = AirBreathing directThrottleEffectName = power_open runningEffectName = running_open thrustVectorTransformName = thrust_transform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 215 heatProduction = 225 useEngineResponseTime = True engineAccelerationSpeed = 0.4 engineDecelerationSpeed = 0.7 useVelocityCurve = True fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.0 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 1 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = IntakeAir ratio = 9 } atmosphereCurve { // Atm.P. Isp iTan oTan key = 0 2351 0 3.26E+07 key = 7.5E-06 2564 0 0 key = 0.0006 2159 0 0 key = 0.11 2413 0 0 key = 1 2084 -660 0 } velocityCurve { // m/s %F iTan oTan key = 0 0.85 0 -0.0007 key = 300 0.75 0 0 key = 1500 1 0 0 key = 1650 0.88 -0.003 -0.003 key = 1800 0 0 0 } } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = ClosedCycle runningEffectName = running_closed thrustVectorTransformName = thrust_transform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 185 heatProduction = 275 fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.0 useEngineResponseTime = False PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 0.9 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = Oxidizer ratio = 1.1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 385 key = 1 370 } } MODULE { name = ModuleAnimateHeat ThermalAnim = sabre_125_heat_nozzle } MODULE { name = ModuleGimbal gimbalTransformName = thrust_transform gimbalRange = 3 //useGimbalResponseSpeed = true } MODULE { name = ModuleAlternator RESOURCE { name = ElectricCharge rate = 5.0 } } RESOURCE { name = ElectricCharge amount = 0 maxAmount = 0 } } SABRE M-R: PART { // --- general parameters --- name = B9_Engine_SABRE_M module = Part author = bac9-flcl (textures), Taverius (model) // --- asset parameters --- mesh = model.mu scale = 1.0 rescaleFactor = 1 // --- node definitions --- node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.25, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 2 node_attach = 0.0, 0.625, 1.25, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0 CoMOffset = 0.0, -0.625, 0.0 // --- FX definitions --- fx_exhaustFlame_blue = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, power fx_exhaustLight_blue = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, power fx_smokeTrail_light = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, power fx_exhaustSparks_flameout = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, flameout // --- Sound FX definition --- sound_vent_medium = engage sound_rocket_hard = power sound_vent_soft = disengage sound_explosion_low = flameout // --- editor parameters --- TechRequired = aerospaceTech entryCost = 85500 cost = 19500 category = Propulsion subcategory = 0 title = SABRE M Engine manufacturer = Tetragon Projects description = Combined-cycle rocket engine. Mode #1 is a turbocompressed air-breathing rocket/ramjet engine. Mode #2 is a high efficiency rocket engine. More convenient and easier to pull off than relying on using multiple engine types, but marginally less efficient than some specialized combinations. // attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0 // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 6 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 7 breakingForce = 3000 breakingTorque = 3000 maxTemp = 3600 EFFECTS { running_closed { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_rocket_hard volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_aeroSpike transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = Squad/FX/shockExhaust_blue_small transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } power_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_rocket_hard volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } MODEL_MULTI_PARTICLE { modelName = Squad/FX/shockExhaust_red_small transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.5 speed = 1.0 1.2 } } running_open { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_jet_deep volume = 0.0 0.0 volume = 1.0 1.0 pitch = 0.0 0.2 pitch = 1.0 1.0 loop = true } PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_smokeTrail_aeroSpike transformName = nozzle_transform emission = 0.0 0.0 emission = 0.05 0.0 emission = 0.075 0.25 emission = 1.0 1.25 speed = 0.0 0.25 speed = 1.0 1.0 localOffset = 0, 0, 1 } } engage { AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_vent_soft volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } flameout { PREFAB_PARTICLE { prefabName = fx_exhaustSparks_flameout_2 transformName = nozzle_transform oneShot = true } AUDIO { channel = Ship clip = sound_explosion_low volume = 1.0 pitch = 2.0 loop = false } } } MODULE { name = MultiModeEngine primaryEngineID = AirBreathing secondaryEngineID = ClosedCycle } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = AirBreathing directThrottleEffectName = power_open runningEffectName = running_open thrustVectorTransformName = nozzle_transform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 860 heatProduction = 375 useEngineResponseTime = True engineAccelerationSpeed = 0.2 engineDecelerationSpeed = 0.35 useVelocityCurve = True fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.0 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 1 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = IntakeAir ratio = 9 } atmosphereCurve { // Atm.P. Isp iTan oTan key = 0 2351 0 3.26E+07 key = 7.5E-06 2564 0 0 key = 0.0006 2159 0 0 key = 0.11 2413 0 0 key = 1 2084 -660 0 } velocityCurve { // m/s %F iTan oTan key = 0 0.85 0 -0.0007 key = 300 0.75 0 0 key = 1500 1 0 0 key = 1650 0.88 -0.003 -0.003 key = 1800 0 0 0 } } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = ClosedCycle runningEffectName = running_closed thrustVectorTransformName = nozzle_transform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 740 heatProduction = 450 fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.0 useEngineResponseTime = False PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 0.9 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = Oxidizer ratio = 1.1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 385 key = 1 370 } } MODULE { name = ModuleAnimateHeat ThermalAnim = sabre_250_heat_nozzle } MODULE { name = ModuleGimbal gimbalTransformName = thrust_transform gimbalRange = 3 //useGimbalResponseSpeed = true } MODULE { name = ModuleAlternator RESOURCE { name = ElectricCharge rate = 10.0 } } RESOURCE { name = ElectricCharge amount = 0 maxAmount = 0 } }

Yes there was. B9- SABRE engine, which is what the RAPIER is based on.