TeeGee

That habitation module is spectacular!

If you go that fast in thicker air druring ascent you're gonna burn up. That's why I try to hit space as fast as possible to minimize the time I spend creating heat at high velocity, high drag altitudes. Even with my ascent profile now I'm avg. 1000 degrees, and my craft can only take 1400 degrees (some parts).

I used to have that mod installed, but decided to keep the game parts as close to stock as possible. Besides, the stock lamps have color now so I don't really see why I'd want to reinstall that mod again other than to add blinkers. Oh well. I'd recommend that those RCS ports on the nose cone be removed. They are non functional and detract from the look of the craft a little.

I am really looking forward to V5, that star looks amazing and I can't wait to see the new auroras!

Yeah I already have that.

120 degrees AFTER the landing strip... wow that's early! Does 55km periaps produce enough drag to slow the craft enough to reach the ground? I usually burn 180 degrees to target and try for a periaps of 40km, gets me sort of in the region I want.

Part clip the LV-N into the tank it feeds off of. Now you will have the room to place landing legs and the clearance for the engine bell.

What's KER? Well I keep it at 100m/s because I am a little impatient and the longer I spend in atmo, the less liquid fuel I have in space. I find that my spaceplanes reach 100km apoaps + with that ascent profile on airbreathers alone, so my goal is to not only reach orbital speed, but to minimize my time spent in drag producing atmo.

Ok so then I should start my reentry at a more shallow angle then. Just out of curiosity, to get the gentle effect, when should I start my retrograde burn? 1 full orbit away from my landing target or more?

Whoa dude... I was just asking how the shuttle managed to reenter so smoothly and why this mod didn't show the same effect in IVA.

So we can't do EVA's with these parts yet then.

So why can't spaceplanes in KSP do the same thing as the shuttles? They have wings and generate lift but when they reenter they shake the cockpit a lot.

A few more.

I don't like using part mods because I think they change the core game too much BUT I think this mod is pretty balanced with the stock game and I only use stock engine parts anyways (even though I'm probably gonna uninstall it).

No. What I do is takeoff and go into a steep vertical climb until I reach 12km then level out until I decrease my vertical speed to 100m/s and keep ascending with that vertical speed. The point of that is to maximize horizontal speed and keep ascending just enough to allow your engines time to push the craft to her top speed. If you go higher FASTER, you are going to flame out/drop your thrust because of less air available before your engines can spend time at their max thrust altitude.

Great looking parts! I hope squad uses something like this in the future!

Fantastic MOD! One thing though, according to astronauts there is no reentry shaking.. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4789542 Is there anyway to remove that effect during reentry?

I have a feeling it is your ascent profile. After you reach 12km, pitch the nose down so that your vertical speed indicator is exaclty 100m/s. Keep it there all the way up until you have a apoapsis of 85km ish. Cut thrust engines to lower thrust and ride your craft up without losing the apoapsis. After MECO, shut down your engines, close your intakes, and turn on your LV-N. Don't thrust your engine up yet, coast until apoapsis and circularize. If you are spinning out of control due to flame out, try putting your jet engines CLOSER to the LV-N, or try thrusting down once you reach specific altitudes when you'd normally flame out. You're also carrying WAAAY too much oxidizer and liquid fuel. Remember, your crafts job is to make orbit, not fly from LEO to Duna! You can always refuel her in orbit if you need that extra fuel to interplanetary travel, but 1st you need to get into orbit. Make her as LIGHT as possible

EDIT: I HATE the poor lift these swept wing craft have when flying unpowered, it makes gliding landings very difficult. I corrected this issue in my latest design using bigger wings. Now she glides in for landings UNPOWERED all the way. Beautiful. In case anyone was wondering why I have the docking port in that position behind the front most cockpit:

It's already at 100. - - - Updated - - - It's already at 100. What about the stars?

Hunh? Then how do I recover them? I have DR AND a OKTD probe pod on them, as well as reaction control wheels for reentry management in DR. It works. In stock, it DEFINITELY works, because I've done it dozens of times. Go into map mode, select debris, fly debris and follow it to the ground. The chutes arm during staging and deploy when they hit thick enough air.