Hodo

The lag is what is bad... I did a rough parts count. There is over 1000parts in a 5km grid. Even without any mods other than the basic stuff this would be a slide show.

It is because of over-control. Try reducing the max pitch angle of the canards.

If you cut down the number of parts on those SAM launchers it would help a great deal. I haven't even looked at the tank yet. Right now it has to be several hundred parts in the same area.

I used to when I launched rockets with capsules. But now I only send out recovery craft when one of my SSTOs crash and has a crew pod ejection and rescue operation.

Are you using FAR? If so FAR nerfs air breathing engines to a little better than half of stock power output.

Do you mean that nose up and down oscillation that happens? If so that is from over control generated from the SAS module. FAR does not play well with it lately, Regex had a plugin called the PID which let you set the control authority in it to about half or one third of stock and it eliminates that issue. The other way to help lessen this problem is to set your control surfaces to a much lower sweep angle. I think they are default 20deg, you should set them to about 3-5 and that will help with the problem.

If I could make my own model I would, unfortunately time and lack of skill prevented me. And I realized I named it the wrong thing... it should be AA-11/R-73. Because that is the missile I modeled it after. Doh!

Sorry, that is the D30 Turbojet from B9 Aerospace. It has a bit more power than the Turbojet in stock but is a fair bit more expensive.

I understand just stock parts, but I was just showing you the CoL and CoM relation. As long as they are REAL close you can get a really maneuverable craft. Like this craft, it was from a few versions ago but it wasn't that maneuverable at speed because of its large distance from the CoM with its CoL. It handled about like a truck. But this one was quite agile for what it was. Notice the CoM and the CoL relations.

The only problem with that craft is your CoL is ahead of your CoM. This is the cause of your issues as you figured out. And in KSP the speed doesn't have the same affect on the control surfaces as they would in real life. They maintain the same amount of force no matter the speed. Unless you have FAR or NEAR installed then things change drastically from stock and more towards reality.

Here is my science plane, the X-2. It is also a fighter type aircraft designed with FAR and DRE in mind. I fly it to any of the points on Kerbin and perform the mission then fly back and land it. Pretty easy plane to fly and even easier to land, even on its narrow landing gear.

OK I think it is because my rover uses TT modular wheels not the basic rover wheels. I like having a vehicle that uses fuel not electricity to get around on Kerbin.... that and it will do over a 120mph on the surface.

I modified the Sidewinders cfg from BDArmoury for the AA-12 a while ago, and I am using an old texture from another mod for the missile itself because it just wasn't right for a AIM-9. If you would like I can send you a copy of that file in a PM. Here is a few pics of it next to an AIM-120 and the AIM-9 from BDArmoury.

I would love to see this applied to procedural wings. Or at least have someone walk me through applying this to p-wings.

I built a specific craft just for fly over missions. I always have one atmospheric jet aircraft that I use for a test bed on all of my installs.

It is possible. The trick is placing the CoL as close as you can to the CoM, without the CoM moving to much and still having adequate control authority to do high AoA aspect turns. I made a delta wing design a while ago in my RSS install that could pull some pretty amazing G's in turns and really tight turn radius.

Ok, so basically I just drive around the three points on the map till it completes? Or do I just drive to the center of the points and wait?

Absolutely love it, I built an SSTO knock-off of the C-17 a while ago, and may rebuild it because it was just useful.

I was actually surprised at how well the Sukhoi and Mig designs actually work. Expecially the Mig-21 style delta and the Su-17. I watched a documentary on the evolution of Soviet Fighters during the Cold War, they explained a lot of the design philosophy and thought process on some of the prototypes and produced fighters. I went as far as to test some of the designs myself in my RSS install of KSP with FAR. It is amazing how well these things translated over.

I would add a simple 1.25 heat shield at the bottom of the lander can and dump the finale fuel and booster stage and just return with the science and lander. This will help protect the lander can from re-entry heat and some of the other effects, and give you a fair amount of drag to slow it down before you get to low. I also can't agree more with Taki, on the realchutes mod. I use pretty much the same settings for my pods chutes, and I also use it for drag chutes for planes on landing.

So having issues with the rover contracts. I have driven all over the way points for a few of them and have yet to see anything other than a few trees here and there and some clumps of grass. Is there something bigger I should be looking for or am I supposed go and stop at each way point?

I would drop those structure cubes in favor of something that looks more like a pylon rack. I use the actual pylons from KSP to attach my weapons. As seen here on my RSS install A-5 Guinea Fowl attack plane. Or in the F-12 Flapjack multirole fighter. In one configuration I think I could mount 25 bombs under the wings. Those are old pics of those craft, bit you get the idea.

I use aerospikes for a number of things. When I need a higher thrust VTOL rocket engine for some of my SSTO space planes that have VTOL abilities. I also use them for some of my landers because of their higher ISP and decent thrust rating. I use them quite a bit in my RSS install, and even have the linier aerospike in that install for some of my space plane attempts. I love aerospikes for their dozen or so uses with anything. I think they are used almost as much as my LV-1Ns and SABRE engines.

The crashing while still on the ground is definatly a landing gear alignment issue. I noticed the wings on the first craft are at a slight upward angle, this means the landing gear mounted on the engines are out of alignment, the camber on them are most likely canted outward. But with that said, the last aircraft will not fly well at all, due to the CoL being so far to the rear of the craft. I would see about getting some of the mass to move towards the rear of the craft, if you want to maintain that design shape, otherwise you would have to move the wings forward to a more "traditional" design. As for the landing gear being to close to the back of the plane on the first one, its a tail dragger people. As long as the main gear are longer than the tail gear it will have a positive AoA for take off. And it isnt such a big deal as long as it can get its tail off the ground before it reaches take off speed.

You will want the CoL right behind the CoM, not that far back though... ideally a few feet. I like to place mine right at the back of the CoM marker.