Cruzan

I'm not sure about this one. I don't know what KSP's drag model is actually like, but from practice, my planes go their fastest when I've parked them up as high as I possibly can without burning out. This usually involves throttling back down to the last or second to last tick. Often increasing from something like 1800m/s to 2150+m/s (surface v, I believe my fastest is 2380m/s orbital v) with the latter velocity being when I'm under 1/3rd throttle. I'm sure it varies with each plane's design, but I wouldn't say that throttling back and loss of drag from gaining altitude are directly offsetting. Often the extra altitude offsets the slight loss of thrust. I've heard that KSP's drag model is very harsh which might be accentuating this. Maybe using mods like FAR things would be more like you're describing? This has just been my experience with designing quite a few SSTO's in KSP. You can test it out for yourself and find the butter zone for your own designs, but I would venture a guess to say that you'll go faster if you park at a higher altitude and throttle back accordingly

It'll probably go faster if you raise its ceiling and push it higher by throttling back You'd definitely need a little boost from rockets/RCS to get orbital since, as far as I know, you can raise your periapsis above 70km without an extra boost. The Blackstar could probably make it with a single toroidal tank and a 48-7S engine!

Nice! Did you try flying it with this setup yet? I just took it for a ride and didn't notice any issues. At low speeds and low altitudes it does weird things because the wings flex/wobble, but at a steady heading, going 2100m/s+ it does just fine as far as I can tell. I flamed out a couple of times and those were the only times it seemed to want to yaw/spin.

Here's a wiki article about Sharing .craft files Can be a little difficult to find the folder the first time, but after the first time it's a breeze. I've got a shortcut leading to my saves folder since I do so much craft sharing As for the bubbles, with how long your plane is, I'd say if your blue CoL bubble isn't at least completely outside of the yellow one then you'll have issues later on. There isn't anything wrong with having it a little further back than that either. Looking at the side view of your plane, do you see that 2nd vertical line from the back on the body (the wingconnector thing you're using)? I'd center the CoL in-line with that for starters

I would still move that CoL much further back. As your fuel drains, unless you've wired it up to drain fuel back to front, your CoM will move backwards while your CoL stays in place. It might be tough to add more lift towards the back to keep your design aesthetic, but maybe some swept wings angled down from the top of edge of the body that meet up with the main wings would look okay while also adding more lift towards the back? Idk, just spitballing If you want to toss out a .craft file we could probably help you even more

Hey there, based on the images you posted it looks like your CoL is way too close to your CoM. Try and shift the CoL back a hair so that the majority of the CoL bubble is at least sticking out of the CoM bubble. The way you have it set up at the moment your plane will be more than happy to fly forwards or backwards which is what causes it's flippiness. As for the spinout issues it could be Flameout which is caused by lack of air at certain altitudes. One jet shuts down causing the others to send you in to a spin. (Seems obvious maybe, but needs to be mentioned ) Asymmetry. I can't tell from your pics, but everything seems to be symmetrical so this probably isn't it Imbalanced fuel drain. Again I can't see fromthe pics, but If there are fuel tanks on the sides of your plane that aren't draining at the same rate, then your CoM will shift to that side and become misaligned with your thrust. This will cause a more gradual tendency to spin. That's all I can think of without flying the plane for myself Good luck! Cool design though btw! I like the way you did you wings. EDIT: Also if it's just a very minor pull to one side or the other, you can try slapping on more SAS modules (reaction wheels) as they will help counteract this a lot!

Hey thanks for the compliments! I'm glad I converted someone to the dark side..err....the wings side?

Not only is it compact, but it looks great too! Great job on the video as well I laughed harder than I should have when my Kerbal failed at loading back up

I'm probably most proud of my Battlestar Galactica Viper that I designed Check out the video as well if you're interested as I go blow some stuff up BSG Viper Cinematic

lol! That ssto looks really cool though. I like the way the intakes are set up on it and it's very compact. 2 trips to LKO is nothing to sneeze at either I bet inigma would be interested in having that in SSI's catalogue of shuttles as well.

Ya that settings fix is pretty useful!

Is it possible to refuel the rocket fuel tanks on your design? I can't see the tanks sticking out anywhere to click on em

Thanks for adding me If you don't mind, could you edit the description for my channel? It says KSP Guick Guides instead of Quick hehe

UPDATE Adding a video that shows me building several different VTOL designs. This is a lead in to the actual tutorial video. A link has also been added to the Table of Contents!

Sneak in some reaction wheels and it might help with any weird flight characteristics. I think my Viper topped out at 4-5 SAS modules

Wow I didn't know this thread existed! I've been trying to find other small channels to watch to support them. I'll make sure to give these all a look through. If you could add my channel to the list as well that would be awesome! https://www.youtube.com/user/cruzanak Channel name is Cruzanak and I'm doing a tutorial series called KSP Quick Guides which is focused on planes and SSTOs at the moment . I'm planning to do a military type cinematic series featuring ships like my BSG Viper, but I'm waiting a bit to get rolling on that. Cinematics seem to take 10x more work than tutorials or LPs it seems like +1 rep to you good sir for helping the community of KSP youtubers!

Ya it'd be cool to see what you're working with first with some pics. I would have to say though, most cars irl can't make sharp turns at their top speed, even with braking, without having some sort of problems. I wish our designs drifted like the little cars you see hauling ass around the VAB and SPH though As others have said I don't think angling the tires, at least in terms of toeing in/out (different from camber btw), would help. Camber is typically what a race car would look to use, but I don't think KSP's rover wheels' suspensions are set up to utilize the principle.

Wow great job! Think you'll try to make a Mk VII? I've made a Mk II using stock parts, but the MkVII is pretty tough to do stock

Ya your control surfaces become less helpful as the atmosphere becomes thinner. If there is any offset between your thrust vector and your CoM ( there usually is since people place landing gears and stuff on the bottom of their planes) then your plane will tend to nose down as your control surfaces can't fight this any more. You can check to see how much your plane is fighting this by looking at your pitch gauge. If the gauge is slowly maxing out as you gain altitude then you might look to bring your CoM in line with your thrust!

All these things need is a Brawndo logo slapped on to em!

Sweet mother of struts....it's glorious! Maybe Several Struts to Orbit would be more appropriate?

I think the the keywords in Bloodbunny's post were: As in, his skills aren't quite up to snuff just yet for SSTO designs Don't worry Bloodbunny! Keep at it and you'll get there. Find a design that works, then refine, refine, refine!

Looks like it's attached to the Mk3 Fuselage which is an aircraft body, but you can see the fuel lines are going in and out from that fuselage, meaning that the aerospike can drain oxidizer from the side pods as needed

I haven't personally used it, but from what I can tell it takes any number of parts you want, and makes them only count as one part. This drastically reduces the amount of physics calculations your comp needs to do. You could probably find better/more info from the people who use it in that thread that I linked There's a video on there of a guy whose design went from 1000+ parts down to under 50. Pretty crazy! Useful for stations and stuff I would imagine.

You could also try the WeldIt mod which significantly reduces your part counts. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/38577-0-22-UbioZur-Welding-Ltd-2-0-Playtest-3-Now-In-Game-Tool