okay, first of all, thanks for all the help so far, it was far beyond what i thought to see in such a short period of time, and it has led to a second round of iterations now that i know what to look out for, and has helped, but it still refuses to lift off the runway. these pictures are from the most stable iteration, but please take my word i have tested out numerous positions of moving the CoL as far forward as i can, any farther forward than is shown in the picture and my control surfaces can't seem to keep the craft from back-flipping out of control on a side note SAS seems to not be working at all, I'd like ideas on why? i thought it might be not piloted from cockpit or maybe something involving the mini-probe i have inside, but none of these things seem to be the case. as for people wondering why i have 300+ part 250 ton SSTO, the goal is to have it reach near any planet in the system and refuel off of a station at that point, or to launch a probe at a 90* orbit and hold while it scans the planet whilst waiting for a station to come and be assembled, more or less an advanced recon SSTO for places with virtually no infrastructure. if anyone would care to download the design and tweak it i'd love to hand it off, I've just about done everything i can think of, though the parts count might mess with some peoples rigs. and now for pics in flight, probably the best and worst part of this whole thing, it launches just fine and no longer clips the tail end...just not off the runway. i swear, if this keeps up i might rename this thing Caliburn from how firmly grounded it seems to be.