Hodo

Honestly landing on Minimus is harder for me than on the Mun. But the easiest way is to put a few lights on the bottom of your lander, and watch for the lights to show up on the surface then you know you are close, REAL close to contact. I think range on the lights is around 100-200m. The other option is, go IVA, and watch the radar alt gauge. That will tell you exactly how far above the ground you really are.

And back to spaceplanes... I find the non-space plane designs to be less efficient than the space plane design. You use so much fuel getting to orbit, but you can do it faster. But it could be I suck with them. But I found a hidden gem in my previous work. The "Trident" space plane. 32 ton cargo to orbit of 73km, could have gone higher, but needed to stay lower than my station at 75km to catch it. Finally building a refueling station in orbit... so ferrying parts up to it. another shot without the UI up. It actually flies like a dream when empty. But I found one minor flaw in the design... with that much weight in the cargo bay, it shifts the center of weight further forward of the center of lift, making flight a bit of a balancing act until you get up to supersonic speeds. Good news is that only takes about 2 min after take off.

AletzN1, here you go... my first working SSTO non-space plane design. SVO-2. Still working on landing it on Kerbin... but in launch to landing without breaking atmo, climbing to 500m then moving and landing near the runway, it works. It has 2 cargo bays, and can ferry 12 Kerbalnaughts to space... possibly to Mun if I manage to perfect the launch.

Here you go.

KissSh0t, I still need to get to Duna... lol.

AletzN1 You sir, have given me a new challenge in KSP. lol Thank you.

AletzN1, I have tried to make non-spaceplane SSTOs, but I can't wrap my head around them. I may work on a few later this week. I only recently managed to get the concept of the spaceplane down solid. Next goal is to build a reliable SSTO cargo hauler, and then work on getting to Duna then Eve.

My Spaceplane speed demon. Fastest of any of my Spaceplane SSTOs into orbit, 4min 33 seconds. I could have done it faster but was being cautious. These shots were taken after landing. Take off weight is just over 30 tons. But lift off runway at 70m/s and will climb 90deg nose up and accelerate to 1.25 mach before reaching 15km needing to level for intake speed. Jet engines will run till 21-23km alt, then switches to the "poodle" engine.

The only issue I have been running into is the offset COL bug. And I found that if anything that has aerodynamic qualities to it is not straight it will throw that off. This means intakes, control surfaces, and even the engines. It can be fixed just by spending an extra 5-10 minutes going over your craft with a fine toothed comb and making sure everything is perfect. I have found I love the FAR mod and can't build SSTOs and planes without it now. Matter a fact every plane I seem to build now is an SSTO. Even if I don't take them in orbit they are the fastest way around Kerbin.

SABREs are good, but burn to much fuel in rocket mode. Honestly I have had better success with the B9 hyper cruise engines, and a pair of LV-Ns. I use the SABRE M intakes though, they are great. But if I dont I use the variable geometry intakes, lowest drag and best flow rate ratio.

My profile on almost all of my Space planes (SSTO) is the same. -Climb at 30-45deg to 12km. -level off at 12km accelerate to 1300m/s -climb to 28-30km at 10-15deg (which ever the engines will maintain power without flameout) then level again -accelerate till she will go no faster generally around 2000m/s for most of my designs. -turn on rockets 100% throttle nose up 20-25deg, shut down jets. -watch Apolapse, when it reaches desired altitude cut engines. -Set orbital pattern Done. It works for every one of my space planes, even my monster 250ton Bison.

bgrif59, can you post a pic of it. If it lifts and flips over and crashes, it is the Center Of Lift (COL), being to far forward of the Center of Mass (COM).

The Right Stuff.

Stochasty, said it best 1) Make certain your landing gear are vertical. Or as I like to say... make sure they go straight up and down. If they have to much camber they will induce high speed direction changes. It will pull one direction or the other. Also make sure they are straight.

Tex_NL what picture?

Two things. Around 1200-1300m/s will force your nose down, forcing SAS/ASAS to go higher on the nose pitch. The easiest way to overcome this, is to pitch down slowly and maintain a higher speed. Once your projected flight indicator shows you are nearly flying level, you can then slowly increase your nose angle back up and you will begin to climb again. The other thing is, you may not be getting enough airflow to the engines at this point because of altitude. I am not sure what mods you are running, but the FAR mod is by far the most useful for building a SSTO.

Radam, I built a crane to test if a couple of my cargo hauler SSTOs or Space planes as I have come to call them now, can make multiple trips with one fuel load. I have also been messing around with the crane for other things. Like hurling random parts into the ocean.

Segaprophet, Truth is with my SSTO designs, the most efficient of them the "Cargo-Hammer" as I dubbed it, can take a 15 ton load into a 100km X 100KM orbit return to KSC, and load a second cargo and take a second 15 ton load into a 90KM X 90Km orbit and return to KSC, with about 150 liquid fuel left. That is without refueling. I think any company would consider that to be a successful design as far as SSTOs go. My least cost effective design is the massive SH-419 150 ton monster. It can carry a 50 ton cargo split between its two cargo bays, but only to a 80km X 80km orbit and return to KSC. But that thing is WAY over engineered and designed to do TOO much at once.

Not if you set up your sat correctly. The steps are simple. ((I leaving out the obvious parts, like launching the craft.)) 1- Get to orbit altitude you want. 2- circularize orbit. 3- Deploy first satellite *If you have more than one to deploy in one trip continue to steps 4+ 4- raise orbit to higher orbit, wait till distance you want between satellites 5- Return to lower orbit matching the previous orbit, deploy second satellite once orbit is circularized. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed till all satellites are deployed. I think on one of my SSTOs I can pack 12 small satellites on one trip to 75km orbit. But thats my MASSIVE 150 ton empty SSTO with two cargo bays. If you put it on a massive rockomax decoupler you will probably blow the satellite into deep space. But if you use the smaller decouplers with less than 250.00 decoupling. For weaker decouplers check the KSPX mod.

SSTO with a decent cargo bay works best for deploying comm-sats. Not kidding but using a shuttle is great for that task.

The only issue I have found with the game glitch on the COL and COM, is sometimes the COL and COM will not be correct until you reload the craft. I often launch then revert to assembly just to get the correct COL and COM.

Ran out of fuel on a trip to the Mun. I am in a 1.2m KM orbit around Kerbin.

In FAR, you dont need a great deal of wing surface area to achieve as much lift. I find you will need to strut them, I usually strut from front to back on top and bottom, then from the center of the wing to the main body of the aircraft. Rarely now to my wings get larger than 3 panels out from the aircraft. But I also find that if you use "fine" controls you can reduce your G force loads on your wings when taking off and turning. The best place to have the COL is just behind the COM, or right through the rear of the COM ball, with the COL arrow pointing straight up. You can also have the COL just to the front with the arrow pointing through the back of the COM. Also use flaps they are helpful on take off and landing if you have wings that are designed for high speeds, in otherwords the center of lift arrow points towards the rear of the aircraft at a 45deg angle. Hope that helps.

Crack, Meth, & Bacon. The three most addictive things I can think of that are like KSP.

The easiest way with the B9 pack is when the cargo bay is open in the construction screen take a small bit of structure, the square one is my favorite and attach a small decoupler, I prefer the ones from the KSPX pack, they have one that only has a 15 decouple force so it wont blow your cargo through the back of the ship. And next you build your cargo, if it is a station piece I suggest building it in the rocket plant building. Use a remote guidance unit as the control unit at the top, and leave it clear at the very top. Build the station under it, then save the entire part using Subassembly Manager. Or you can build it IN the cargo bay of your ship. Which is the longer harder way of doing it but it will work just the same. I also like putting a docking collar in the bottom of the cargo bay so I can retrieve cargo if need be. Good luck and have fun.