Brevillance

So i wanted to explore the North and South Pole, so i build a craft to do it. Unfortunately on the descent my wing decided that it would give itself to the mighty kraken, leaving my ship spiraling out of control. Luckily for me i always prepare for these kind of events with chutes, which worked but left my kerbals stranded and cold on the North Pole. I believe in rescuing all my kerbals, so long as its actually possible, so i built a recovery craft to do the task of bringing the 3 kerbals home. Im sure some of you may have seen this plane around, but i never offered a DL for it, now i am. A quick set of pics for you, Stats for you: 3 seater cockpit, 4 additional slots for kerbals 3,060 fuel 80 mono - I use this to help brake on the runway to slow myself down faster 1 Drogue chute 1 Parachute 4 Lights - Two on each wing 4 Engines 58-ish m/s take off, usually off the ground before 60 stable and gains speed at a 40 degree ascent 10k cruise altitude at a around 350 m/s (generally 348) 4 Intakes just above 17k m flameout with all engines running at max power - Flameout occurred at 460 m/s Stable flight, holds position pretty well, holds level flight - Front does point up at first, move fuel as you burn it to add weight to bring the nose down Part count is 177, although im sure some of you KSP guru's could find ways to reduce part count. Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/070cd9jrt899wgo/Rescue%20Polar%20Expidion.craft Refueler built to fuel the plane, useful if your playing using a re-usable space program. Its not exactly the pretiest ever, but it works Stats: 1 Seat 3.6k Fuel 600 Mono 3 Lights Moves pretty well, stable and solid - Just dont jump it off anything lol Nice first person view, good for docking easily Part count of 123 I would suggest moving down the runway a bit before getting off, it can be a bit tricky at the back of the runway, If you can build a small ramp thats what i would suggest. I built a ramp with less then 10 parts thats used to get rovers and such items off the runway ASAP, it really helps out a lot Download Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/23au896xs4eyjch/Rescue%20Polar%20Expidion%20Refueler.craft Hope you guys enjoy these fine machines, The SSTK (Single Stage To Kerbin) aircraft can be converted to a SSTO by changing the tanks on the side to rocket mixture tanks. The Plane is more then capable with a few modifications to make it to orbit, however, it is really only good for ferrying kerbals to and from kerbin as its not built to carry a payload. Anyways guys, Enjoy the crafts (P.S i know i spelled Expedition wrong..im not sure where the D came in at, but whatever Just rename it haha)

as you said, they are kinda iconic as they are now... while it would be nice to kinda...spice it up. I kinda like them being the iconic little guys they are, and would be fine to see them stay that way for ages hence.

The best rescue mission ive had to date is the rescuing of a stranded inter-kerbin plane that got stranded on the north pole because a wing was ripped off (still not sure how it happened). Luckily as will all my designs i install chutes for inter-kerbin safety in-case of malfunction so i was able to use some thrust, chute cutting and some RCS to keep it mostly upright when it touched down. Having no way to get them home i built this: After getting it over to the pole i EVA'd one of the pilots and filled one of the empty pods above the plane, then boarded the 3 stranded kerbals. (i eva'd the center pilot, just to be sure there was no weight issues, i tried to keep it balanced. Im not sure if they have any added weight inside vehicles so, to be on the safe side ) Of course im sure they were happy to be in a warm capsule after about 3 weeks on the pole lol. And, they even got a pretty view on the ride home, as each of the pods is right side up, and are facing forward/backward so each kerbal can see the land pass under them haha. But yeah, thats about the best "rescue" ive ever performed thus far in KSP. (i dont fly interplanetary yet, after almost 110 hours of play time i finally decided to try a mun landing lol).

When aerodynamics didnt matter

23 ms is actually pretty fast as most tend to lose control going much faster. Your better off adding engines to the rover. or using time accel. I have looked for the param myself though (i wanted to see if i could make a rover go super fast ) but never found it. My guess is youd have to look for a specific wheel though, and not all at once.

using a drogue shoot can slow it down pretty well, alternatively you can use a few RCS ports and fire them in reverse to slow you down (its slow but it can help...not really recommended on kerbin though). You could have some radial engines mounted and tied to an action group (turn off main engines, activate radial engines) and fire them on low power so slow you down as well. There arnt many options without mods for actual air brakes though.

Its actually as low as i can possibly make it without losing all ground clearance, and its also quite wide. I always make my rovers as wide as possible to prevent roll overs. Mass wise im not sure, its pretty light as 95% of it is struts/girders and solar panels. I use standard controls, whatever controls are in play when my kerbal boards it. I dont do anything special. I use RCS to help it on those larger hills to keep up speed but i found the only acceptable way to move around on the Mun was to use RCS all the time..and it runs out pretty fast as youd expect. I mean i figured its lower gravity so i anticipated slower movement..but as it stands i cant make it up even small hills, and moving on flat ground its painfully slow..i mean 2 km/h is standard. I just felt that was a bit strange but its probably just how it is. I suppose ill keep to Kerbin for my insane jumping pleasures.

So after over 100 hours of crashing kerbals into kerbin (sometimes on accident...poor jeb needs a stunt double) I finally sent a rover to the moon, HOORAY! Problem. I cant go much faster then 6 km/h, downhill. It seems like i floating on ice or something, i cant even drive up a small hill without dropping below 1 or 2 km/h. It is not a power problem, i checked all facats, wheel engines were on, power was fine (full charge) and after extensive testing on kerbin i know its a working design. Is it common to move at next to no speed at all on the Mun? I mean i expected to go slower then on kerbin, but barely making it above 3 km/h on flat ground...if im lucky? Seems a lot slower then it should be. Are they this slow or could there be a problem with my game? as i said i expected to go slower...but not even being able to make it up slight inclines? That seems a bit odd to me. heres a pic, and no the scoop serves no purpose but looks (its supposed to be a race car rover..) But dont mind that, the pic is just for a reference to size/shape. It has more then enough power between batteries and generators + solar panels. It doesnt even dent the power driving full out with the lights on even at night. And it carries a bunch of extra junk on (like the scoop) so its probably heavier then it should be. So... Problem? Or just normal Mun driving speeds? (i sent it to the Mun to do some sweet 0G jumps...turns out i do 0 km/h jumps ) (quick edit: It is capable of 20+ on flat land on kerbin, so its not like its over burdened or anything)

Features a comically large air intake! But no, really while it seems over sized, its KSP and the kerbals arnt known for proportional craft. What it does feature: 2 lights - Front and Back 6 Generators Tons of Solar panels 6 Fold-able Panels (not really meant to be used..just nice to make a flat surface) RCS + Ports (Press H when going forward for a speed boost, good to about 25km/h on kerbin) Wide wheel base with low center of gravity, able to turn reliably at 21 km/h (sharp turns above this tend to make it flip, although you can still turn and not flip in excess of 31km/h. Just dont take a sharp turn ) Race inspired wing and air intake, with a bit of exterior body work, all cosmetic Seat for one Kerbal (snug fit) Struts - Looks like a roll cage, also keeps it all help together snugly 2 antennas for cosmetic reasons, pics don't show them extended stable at speeds up to 31.8 km/h (fastest i could get to safely, without launching it down a mountain which wouldn't end well either way) The rover started as a laughable 6 wheeled ugly 2 seat rover, since it was top heavy i dropped it. After loading kerbals on it, it noticed it looked weird with them sitting so high. Thus i dropped them, but realized two seats wouldn't cut it. So i cut out a seat and made it one seat. I thought it looks a bit bland, so i used some struts and the 1x6 solar panels to make a "wall" or whatever you wish to call it. I thought it looked good, but there needed to be something on top, so i dropped a girder and called it good. Shortly after for the luls of it i put a air intake on, and actually liked it. I decided the back was dull so i put a wing onto it, just to spice it up. At that point it reminded me of a square Formula 1 car, so i decided to put some panels and make the car shapely, added girders and struts to the sides and it ended up with a shape i liked. I dropped the ride height a bit more and added a light. At this point i decided to test drive it, needless to say it was a bit wobbly. I threw some space tape around and went out again; All clear and sturdy! After a bit more of tweaking i started to like the design more, which took the car from a project for the luls of it to a project i wanted to complete and make look good. Soon after I worked on the front, fixed the back some and added a few more struts and girders, a bit more space tape and a couple other items (barometer because it looks like a fire extinguisher for example) and kept going and testing. After about 2 and a half hours i finally arrived at the final product...a Race inspired single seat rover. While its stable and works, it can literally self destruct if you hit the ground too hard, as there are a few parts that stick through the bottom including the probe it was built on. I took it for a drive and ended up driving about 10 km to the north of KSS and had absolutely no problems with bottoming out or self destructs. It turned well even at 25+ going down hill, but only in smooth turns, as you would expect. It turns reliably at 21 and below with almost 2.5 G's of force (poor jeb did a lot of doughnuts ) If enough people request it, ill post a download link

initially looking at it, it looks like it shoulf fly fine, even with FAR on. Make sure the fuel is draining backwards, if not it may cause your nose to become to heavy preventing lift (you may not have enough nose lift to bring it up, courtesy of FAR), so make sure any fuel lines are draining properly and in the correct order so that the weight is more towards the back (making the front lighter for easier pitch). Also, take into account that FAR likes to change aerodynamics, you may need slightly more lift to have influence in the thin atmoshere. If you can, attach one or two more control surfaces to the wings or another Canard to the front, to provide more lift of course. Generally speaking though, its probably fuel, if all is draining well, consider making slightly longer wings so you get more lift, or adding a few control surfaces (the small stock KSP flaps would work) to the wings (make them flush with the surface, when you pitch up they will activate and give more lift). my .02, hope it works out

No problems for me yet. Generally i built a space plane (normally only with B9 installed, though i do have some stock planes) to help capture debris and bring them home (since when you finish with a plane you end the flight, the debris go with it) Or I build little probes that i use RCS on to go into encounters (usually a rocket with a handful of them attached, some fuel to get out of orbit and a parachute to not destroy the part (i like to save my stuff)) and then i will allign them against a flat surface and kill velocity until i run out of RCS, at which point they usually have a decaying orbit so they fall to Kerbin.

assuming most people skimmed the OP and didnt read that he loaded stock rockets/planes and old (duna rocket, that had to work at some point) and they all fell apart, im going to assume that your crafts are fine and its instead a game glitch/bug. As one other said though, a clean install should have fixed it. My advice would be to go copy all your craft files, place them on your desktop and take every folder in the KSP folder and delete them. (computer -> C: -> prog. files (x86) -> steam -> Steamapps -> common -> KSP -> saves -> Brevillance -> Ships -> VAB (my set up to access ships, back up to the main KSP folder to delete the files)) Then, if your using steam verify the integrety of the game cache and let it re-download. Otherwise, download a new .exe and try again. If nothing else works, post screenshots of ATLEAST the flight report, as it may atleast point us into the right direction. Best of luck

You may want to consider adding a bit more surface for lift, although at that altitude and speed you should have more then enough with the rockets to punch out into space. My Kerbal rescue plane which is only 4 jet engines can maintain altitude at 20k quite easily, make sure the fuel is distributing equally and that your center of lift compensates for a changing center of mass. Generally at 20k you should be able to pitch up quite a lot and keep going, although you'll probably want the turbo jet engines after about 14k and 600m/s. My rescue plane is only jet engines as its inter-kerbin (not an SSTO) so i go for ISP since it doesnt need to cruse at 1k m/s or 20k+ altitude, but if your building a SSTO you should ditch the normal jet engines for turbos, they output better power and can give you more kick at higher altitudes and faster speeds. Try adding a wider wing span, and more lift (you can lay down flaps flat onto your wings/under your wings to give bonus lift, if your having problems, slap a few extra flaps near the back to give some extra lift). Heres a pic of my Inter-kerbin design.

Making Excel spreadsheet formulas is pretty easy. For instance, All you would need to do, is take the formula and put it in the top box. (i.e "=D.V formula") and there you go. To get more complex its obviously more work but no less hard. Usually tedious at best. Play around in excel, once you learn basic things you can end up doing a lot for yourself, and it can be a lot of fun

Most of the time on the runway when my SSTO's (or just inter-kerbin) planes start to veer, i generally leave and go to the SPH. Once there, you can adjust the landing gear. Make sure all the gear is flat, this can be tricky when you put them on the side of a tank or such, so make sure to look at it, if it feel right launch it and see if they are all flat. I also find that if you have long wings, adding a pair out on the side (i usually have the main body, then tanks right on the side, so i put them on the side tanks) can increase stability as well. Try to widen your rear wheelbase, make sure they are flat, turn on SAS, and see if it rolls straight. If you do all that's suggested here, and still fail to make it roll straight. You can do 1 of two things. 1. Provide a craft file for us to look at 2. Alt-F12 and hack gravity to get it off the ground. Best of luck

Heres a craft file for my own Jool satalite. Sadly i dont have any pics of it, but i figure its easy to slap in game and check out. 8 RTG's 4 extra large solar panels, some radio dishes and antennas as well as 4 1k cap. batteries, suitable for kethane detectors, GPS or whatever else you may want. There isnt an sort of fuel source (i just use a rocket and decouple it after its in the orbit i want, then use the spare fuel to de-orbit the rocket, although there is space to add RCS or fuel if you desire.contains 8 lights for some pretty light effects, and It also has 2 Jr clamp-o-trons (one for rocket attachment), and is fairly small. let me know if you like it, if not im probably going to build a new probe for an eve launch, and can gladly send you the craft file for it too Jool Space Probe

assuming you used mods to get super sized plates, it probably wont be possible on this engine. The build would just need to be way to large (to many parts) to hold it in tact, as well as the issues of actually getting the sections into space without colliding with other sections. Theoretically, you could build a ring, but it seems most people can only handle anywhere between 700-1k parts, if that, before it starts to choke. its not really how big, as how many parts. After optimization and engine buffs, maybe, but it would still be strenuous and would probably require specific mod parts to be able to do it as doing it vanilla would take just to many parts. I dont think stopping it from spinning would do much, assuming you get it about 70km up and in a safe and stable orbit, stopping the spinning would only do that, stop the spin. Pushing it to one side to bring one side closer to kerbin would probably crash that section, while the other half would probably be alright, if not broken its self.

Thanks for that guys, that should make things a bit more interesting Ill keep this open a while longer to see any other suggestions, ill try that next time im on though

Noted. Ill download it and check it out, thanks Anyone else got any suggestions??

Im specifically looking for a parts pack that adds more functional or pure-aesthetics utility and scientific parts to be used to the game. Parts similar to the gravotron, thermometer and the like so that i can have more things on my rover/shuttles etc. Im not even sure myself what, but just stuff to add like smaller radio dishes or fire extinguishers (i don't know why but things blow up in space and create fire so it seems like the kerbals could use one, if anything for any inside fires ). Primarily to just add some more zest to my rovers and ships. Anyone know of any packs like this?

i used RCS for that, as you notice, or may have trouble noticing, the only RCS i have on it are on the bottom. Pressing H gives it a boost for those large hill, or N to slow it down if it gets a bit to wobbly. Adding ion engines would certainly be useful, but very slow given their almost insubstantial thrust output, i think it would be better to just use RCS ports. (note, my Rover has Xenon cans on it, but they are for looks because the RCS ones look strange on the rover) If anyone wants to i can post a DL link for my rover, the final version of it anyway (the pic i posted is out of date) for testing or actual use.

Heres a picture of my own rover It may be a fair bit larger then your looking for, but its able to fit 4 kerbals comfortably too, and has a lot of extra stuff, mostly for looks, some for function. No vertical thrusters but it doesn't suffer to badly as its relatively heavy and pretty wide.

I personally see very little benefit, as there is no costs and the aerodynamic models are a bit quirky. I really just enjoy them for the challenge. Once you boost a 70 ton object into space you can do it to any other 70 ton object, and anything lighter. Most rocket designs can be quickly adapted for lighter or heavier loads, a SSTO would need a lot of work in order to properly hold larger loads. Im sure that space planes will have their own benefit when costs are associated with things, the aero models are better and the physics interact better, but atm it seems they are better for a challenge, having some fun and trying a different way to get a satellite to orbit..plus i think its really fun to land them

Heres a picture of my own rover It may be a fair bit larger then your looking for, but its able to fit 4 kerbals comfortably too, and has a lot of extra stuff, mostly for looks, some for function.

im not sure if itll work, but could you not use a tank of RCS, a RCS port and use the counter thrust to bring the plane down for a landing? Given that the size may be small, the thrust/weight will be good and wont need a lot of counter thrust so the RCS may last a while. It could be used to bleed the speed and bring it in for a landing, without needing to touch the controls. Oh, and also couldn't you use a action group to shut off wing controls (using the torque from the command portion, wether pod or probe) to twist it around, as well as RCS. At max on a small plane 2 RCS ports with some RCS fuel can give you every direction in thrust, and turning off the ability to use the canards would counter the infini-glide bug. wouldn't it?