Hodo

I know a real life NASA Fuel System Engineer who works on the Delta line of rockets. I once explained to her how a rocket works in the simplest terms. She found it funny and said in the simplest terms that is how it happens. Take a HIGHLY volitile fuel source, mix it with another slightly less volitile fuel source then leak the mix out of the bottom inside of a shaped cone and light a match. It will go up. All a rocket is, is a controlled explosion directed in a direction to force an otherwise simple lawn dart straight up. This is why rockets came before planes.

I don't understand why people find all that difficult. If you don't understand it, dont use those tools, you can still build an affective aircraft without using them. There is not a HUGE difference between FAR and NEAR.

Honestly if any landing gears were to become stock I would HIGHLY suggest BDs Adjustable landing gear. One of the best mods of 2014.

Veeltch, I was just showing that heavy SSTO VTOLs are not impossible or even that difficult. The last picture uses stock engines for its VTOL system. Two Mainsail rockets and two LV909s. The first one uses aerospikes. To achieve its VTOL landing and take off ability. But to say building a VTOL of that size is hard, it isn't that hard once you understand the dynamics behind them. All you need is to keep you TWR greater than 1:1. And keep your COT directly below your CoM. All is easy after that.

They are from the Real Chutes mod, which is a must for anyone who wants a bit more realism in their KSP, that doesn't make life easier or harder. All the mod does is make parachutes, drouges and drag chutes opperate like real parachutes. They take time to deploy, they can be overloaded and tear or fail, and they don't cut when you hit the ground unless they are programmed to do that. I have my drag chutes or landing chutes as I call them, set to stage manually. This is because I don't always need them depending on the runway.

Yep and I hope he has a wonderful vacation and holiday. I always hate when companies push out a new update before the holidays.... it never seems to go well.

You can put a school bus into orbit if you put enough power behind it. Does that mean it is right? No... I can tell you you can send MUCH larger craft into orbit with monowing designs if they are built correctly, and on top of this, how many supersonic biplanes do you see?

This was one of the most fun challenges I had had in a while, I do hope he comes back and makes another in the coming months.

I actually built a small unmanned rover to haul around and do those contracts for me. I will fly it out, land the craft and then send the rover out complete the contract, drive it back pick it up and fly to the next place.

I honestly think this and BDarmory are the only two mods that have not updated to .90 yet. I am sure I can figure out what is holding BDarmory back and hotfix it myself that isn't to hard but the Pwings, that is MAJOR for me. Anyway working on something in .25 that I want to finish first.

I haven't updated to .90 yet but it isn't to heavy for VTOL SSTOs. I have made a few. Or this... And then this monster. Those were all well over 200 tons and all capable of getting to orbit and taking a cargo with them.

'Tis the season of giving. Here you go. The F/A-106 Thundergod. And the F/A-106 Thundergod in the challenge "Return To Sender" It is .25 built and I haven't updated to .90 yet so it wont work there, but the list of mods and download for the craft is in my sig. Oh and did I mention it is an SSTO.

Well the best thing to do is just wait and continue to play in .25 like the rest of us who are patiently waiting for our favorite mods to get updated. Trust me it isn't a big deal to play with the new .90. So stay low, fast and stay safe during the holidays!

How many G's are you pulling? This is for cargo planes not for fighters. I rarely break 6Gs on any of my cargo SSTOs, and that is if I am messing around.

I think Pwings uses the same extention as Procedural parts that KSPAPIExtensions plugin. It was updated in the procedural parts thread, I haven't updated my KSP install from .25 yet, so I couldnt tell you if it is or isnt working.

Yeah I had the same problem with drag on one of my newer designs the SP-317 Stork which uses the MkIV parts and is a VTOL. It has a huge amount of drag, but it is designed like a brick with wings. I think it has a cD of around .28 at low alt, below 10km. And its L/D number is a low 3.1:1. But it brute forces its way to orbit.

It would take a rewrite of the sidewinder code, and figure out heat tracking system, this could be thrown off if someone uses DRE or not.

Odds are you have something mounted under the science lab that is clipping through the bottom or into the bottom of the cargobay. And judging by the debris shot it looks like it maybe near the front of the cargo bay.

No but its stock atmosphere does... LOL!

It isnt that bad. I run steam, I have two installs of the game, one for my RO and one for stock sized. I just disable autoupdating in Steam so I don't have to worry about a surpise version change killing a save. I also like to leave my most used version in Steam so I can revert back a version if need be. Steam install is no different then using the straight install method for installing mods or plugins. You just have to find the folder for KSP which should be in you Steam install folder under >common>KSP

To mirror what Wanderfound said, and to add to it. It really depends on the type of challenge. If it is something like Fly around Kerbin with a single turbojet engine then NEAR will have a huge advantage over both FAR and Stock users. But If it is something like drive to the north pole only using a Rover, it wont matter what you use. I personally dont use KIDS anymore I used to, and I loved it, but after the Jet engine nerf in FAR I just didnt see the point for me. I don't use rockets much if at all, and launch almost all of my satellites and interplanetary missions with space plane SSTOs.

On all of my SSTOs I tend to use one of three engines for space. SABRE-S/M Or Rapier (same engine different sizes to me), but those craft very rarely leave Kerbins orbit. LV-1N or its larger brother from the KSPX mod that is 2.5m and weighs in at 6tons and creates 150kn of thrust, those are for all of my interplanetary SSTOs. And then the Aerospike for anything that is interplanetary but within the 3km/s d/V.

I run 32bit with a probably a few to many mods. I think in my current .25 install I am running somewhere around 20-30 mods in OpenGL with ATM-Basic and topping out at 2.4GB of ram use on my computer. Which is plenty low enough I could probably squeeze in one or two more mods, but dont want them.

Is that from .90 or still in .25 like me? Because I didn't know Pwings was fixed yet.

If you can't get the SSTO into space with the current FAR, you have a design problem. What does the craft look like? How much power does it have, how much fuel does it have, what are the FAR diagnostic tools telling you about the craft, is everything green? Is your L/D line above your C/D line? Notice how all of the numbers are in the green at 10km going mach 1. Same craft, earlier version with a different command cockpit but same numbers. Notice how the CD is .023 at mach .5 at that AoA. This is a low drag aircraft for its size. It is my most efficient SSTO.