700NitroXpress

Here is my final version. I have parachutes for emergencies that managed to save me from a plunge to the surface without ripping the plane apart. Landing gear has been adjusted, plane goes straight down the runway, but has to go all the way to the drop off before it leaves the ground. Here is max speed achieved without afterburners: 1716.0 m/s

You can also check the overall weight of your craft by going to the tracking center while the craft is deployed and clicking the info box.

It depends on what your craft can handle, what mission it's outfitted for, and how quickly it can escape Kerban. If it doesn't require refueling to get to the destination then just go for it.

One thing I'm looking into is having the afterburners on the sides, have rockets that can fire in the reverse direction so that way you can stop very quickly on the ground once you touch down. I'm also trying to use parachutes to help because you can always repack those. Finding a good LZ is a bit hard, but there are some good flat areas.

Perfect explanation, thank you.

Nah, it's fun.

If you're headed to the inner planets, Moho, Eve, you want to eject from Kerban going retrograde in relation to Kerban's orbital path around the sun. To get to the outer planets, you want to eject going in prograde in relation to Kerban's solar orbit. Think of Kerban's orbit as your orbit and Kerban itself as your periapsis. Burning prograde grows the orbit out and retrograde makes it go in. Also a lightweight craft like this one can eject from the solar system and go to any planet and land, but it's a one way ticket if you decide to land on anything with atmosphere, and maybe Moho would be hard to get away from. Here is the vessel doing an orbital burn around Jool. Here is an orbit of Jool.

Yes, your ship is far too overcomplicated. As long as your goal is to reach the Jool system as a one way ticket and not return, possibly land on one of the moons. Here is a ship that has enough power to eject from the entire solar system, enough power to reach any planet in one shot. Provided you launch under the right conditions.

Everyone who's interested in this challenge, rules have been updated. Additional bonus challenges may be added over time. If you complete additional bonus challenges that I will add later, you win a medal (acronym of the challenge next to you name). Example medal (LDL*).

If it can land in water without exploding and all the kerbals survive, then that's a bonus, but it doesn't have to travel through water.

I posted up a better example next to the demo image. It's the launch stage for the Duna Command Center. All of the jet engines are fueled through the large fuel tank so they don't use separate fuel. When you eject the jet engines, all of them shut down because they don't have their own fuel supply so no fuel is wasted. Then you burn powerful rockets to achieve orbital height. The next stage has the 215 power rockets to finish the orbit with fuel to spare to achieve perfect orbit and adjust inclination. You then decouple the engines and refit them with the nuclear engines and it goes all the way to Duna. Then the nuclear engines are ejected upon de-orbit burn. Landing engines and parachutes take over, and the entire base lands in one piece.

Try combining the two methods then. Use this and the jet engines.

This challenge is to see who can build the best ATV. This is all about performance. ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) is taken in it's literal definition here, it must be able to travel across "All Terrain" (Except water). You are not limited by size here, but keep in mind that smaller sized vehicles will handle better than large vehicles. You are allowed to have an attachment that ejects like a parachute for air drops, or sky crane. No cheats, debug menu or mods. Your ATV Must: 1. Seat at least 4 Kerbals. 2. Have Vertical take off engines. 3. Must not use jet engines. 4. Have lights. 5. Be able to recharge it's power supply. 6. Be capable of landing in one piece. 7. Be capable of navigating all types of terrain. 8. Be capable of landing on all types of celestial bodies (atmosphere and moons) 9. Must be built using Stock parts only. 10. Must be capable of completing one bonus challenge. 11. Have at least 4 wheels minimum, 6 wheels maximum. 12. Be manned with all 4 kerbals when submitting screenshots or video for entries. Bonus Challenges: 1. Land and drive your ATV on Mun. 2. Land and drive your ATV on any other celestial body. 3. Climb a mountain on Kerban. 4. Climb out of a deep crater on Mun. 5. Use the vertical take off engines to achieve an orbit around Mun. 6. Dock your ATV in orbit. 7. Refuel your ATV. 8. Conduct a mission to another celestial body other than Mun, land, get back into orbit by any means possible, return to Kerban, land at the space center. 9. Perform a wheelie and a stoppie in your ATV. 10. Base jump off of the VAB in your ATV, use parachutes to land. Entries must include either video or screenshots of their ATV and the ATV preforming any of the bonus challenges. Don't use someone else ATV, build your own from scratch. It's also a good idea to post your part count, weight, and max land speed on Kerban with your submissions. Those who complete all of the bonus challenges get recognized on the first place list. Everyone else who doesn't complete all of the challenges gets on the second place list. The best preforming ATV out of the first place list will get recognized as the current champion of this challenge. Good luck and have fun! Here is an Example: The Nitro Express (You cannot copy this ATV) Nitro Express: 9.25t - 150 Parts - Max land speed 24.1 mps 1st Place Second Place AKA the A 5 bonus challenges completed

This challenge is to see who can build the best space plane for operations on Duna. Everything must be built stock, no mods. Primary objectives: 1. Plane must be built with stock parts only. 2. Plane must be capable of sustained flight on Duna. 3. Plane must be and SSTO for Duna atmospheric conditions (Doesn't have to work as an SSTO on Kerban). 4. Plane must be capable of landing on the Duna surface. 5. Plane must be capable of refueling both on the ground and in orbit. 6. Plane must seat 2 or more passengers. 7. Plane must be transported to Duna with a transport vessel, no cheats. 8. Plane must have cockpit, fuselage, wings, engines, and look like a plane. 9. Give you plane a cool name. All primary objectives must be accomplished in order for your plane to be a valid submission. All submissions must include screenshots of: the launch, transfer burn, orbit of both Kerban and Duna, Landing, achieving orbit of Duna from a ground takeoff, and refueling both on the ground and in orbit. If you can show orbital refueling and ground refueling on Kerban, that is also acceptable instead of needing to launch the required craft for this task out to Duna. Otherwise submit a video of you accomplishing all of these objectives. Bonus Objectives: 1. Build and transport a refueling pod out to Duna and show an "On Duna's Surface" refuel. 2. Build a fuel transport rover of any size capable of transporting fuel to your landed plane and refuel it. Bonus points for most fuel capacity and fewest trips. Bonus points for build a craft that can refuel the surface refueling craft. 3. Build and transport a fuel station capable of landing on Duna and refuel your craft at it. Bonus points for the largest and most efficient station with the fewest parts. Bonus Points for fastest recorded airspeed, furthest distance traveled in atmosphere, fewest parts, and coolest looking with fewest parts. Challenge Ends On: 11/30/2013 If you submit anything on the 30th it will still be valid until 11:59 pm US Pacific Time

Well no, because the craft in the picture isn't what I need. I'm looking for all rocket powered craft that can fly on Duna. The one that I tried landing there was just a test flight of a regular SSTO. I made what I want to accomplish into a challenge and posted it in the challenges forum. For full details go there.

Does the rover still have power? landing legs like everything else require power to deploy and retract. Also, are the legs on an action group? If so, is it set to toggle instead of just deploy?

OK, so adding a full tail fin caused horrible yaw on the runway followed by explosions. However, adding a top tail fin and two additional airfoils to the afterburners is working really well. It's still not going down the runway 100% straight tho, I suspect that the landing gear is to blame. I'm conducting flight testing with the plane shown here:

Ok, so with the center tail fin, it decides to turn either left or right off the runway.

Ok, here is my new design with tail fins and an additional SAS system on the rear. I've also added 4 parachutes with action group cut control and I'm testing it now.

Good stuff, I'll try this next.

The spin out seems to happen whenever I push the craft over 1400 meters per second at high altitude.

Already have action groups for both engines and I was trying to shut the down and then reactivate, but to no avail.

Yeah, my main problem was that when I went back into the thick atmosphere, it was still spinning out of control so getting it to prograde or retrograde was impossible because the spinning was causing loss of air intake, resulting in engine misfires.

Ok, so this helped me identify the problem. It looks like the forward MK2 adapter with the liquid fuel was throwing off the center of mass. So pumping from the rear to the front fixes this for a short period and I can recover it from a flame-out. However, this is when I haven't fired the afterburners and just kept it within the atmosphere, so they're still at full fuel. I'm going to test some parachute configurations.

Alright... any ideas on how to counter a chaotic roll and spin once this has happened to regain control of the craft?