BagelRabbit

Here's what's happening. (I see that this is labelled "Answered!" but I haven't seen the [likely] correct answer yet.) A plane is unstable when the CoM is in front of the CoL. It's as simple as that. Imagine trying to throw a paper plane, the wrong end first. As the plane is thrown, it wants to fly nose-first, which causes it to pitch up or down until the plane is pointed correctly, at which point it will fly fine. Effectively, placing the CoL in front of the CoM causes a plane to want to fly backwards, like throwing a paper plane with the wrong end forwards. When you're coming in for a landing, you're likely pitching up to lessen your vertical velocity. The plane wants to flip upwards... but it doesn't, yet. This is because of a combination of the capsule torque, control surfaces in the back, and the RAPIER engines' gimballing. Once the airspeed over those control surfaces drops and you throttle down the engines, though, you're in deep trouble. The plane decides to try to fly backwards, and so it pitches up. If you were to do nothing at this point, the nose would eventually come to rest by the retrograde marker. The plane is now stable, but sadly, aerodynamics in KSP make the wings lose lift at this point. You would crash. However, you try to get the nose down. As the plane continues trying to fly with such a high angle-of-attack, the speed drops, the wings lose lift, the plane begins heading down and... bang. You don't need more control surfaces (especially canards near the front, as that would just make the plane more unstable), you don't need more gimbal (or less gimbal, for that matter), you just need the CoL behind the CoM at all phases of the flight. If this is so, the plane will do fine. By the way, I'm going to recommend what I always do for new SSTO designers: Create an action group that toggles all of those intakes. It will reduce your drag tremendously in the upper atmosphere and stop any asymmetric flameouts from occurring.

Wh-Wh-why would you make a pod racer so big? (Especially with Tweakscale and Procedural Wings!) When I was a young lad, I had to walk to school, uphill both ways! I had a cell phone that didn't even text! ...and when I built Pod Racers, I had to build them very small, only using stock parts! ...you have it easy, sonny. ... You know I'm just busting your chops, m1sz. Very nice design, once again. Thanks for sharing.

Updated at last! Sorry for the long delay... I have so much going on right now IRL. Just turned in a massive assignment for Calculus. I don't think so. The hex color is this... it's a little too light and yellow. By the way, what's the difference between people whose name is Dark Blue and people whose name is Green? It seems as if they're both moderators... does one group have privileges that the other doesn't? [EDIT: Never mind, it's in a post right above me. Sorry.]

Second-to-last video! In this one, I attempt to light the Island Runway hangars orange. It's a rather shoddy job... but at the very least, it was fun to do. So, that's nice. (Also, Pumpkin-LAPES!)

Why would you do this?! You really shouldn't get peoples' hopes up about an "Easter egg" that you lied about. Come on, man! ...sigh...

Coordinates, please. I want to go there and live there, but I fear that this may be placed by some mod... (Hi Blizzy!)

So, I'm done with the video for my Creation of a Telescope-Pumpkin. Basically, I flew the eyes there with help from Hacked Gravity (aka Halloween Magic), then lit up the telescope with a Pumpkin-Train! (Yes, I did include the Mini-Pumpkin in this endeavor. How could I not? It was his idea, after all.) The initial lighting was way overexposed, so I turned off all of the lights except for two (and adjusted the Pixel Light Count)... and the result was nice. I've already posted a picture of this, but I'll do it again, because I'm proud of it: Even more Halloween glory coming soon...

Let me just say, first of all, that while this thread is going in a direction that I didn't originally intend, I'm happy with the commentary that's going on. As long as people continue to offer appropriate commentary, I wish to keep this thread open. (Thanks, Moderators!) Aw, don't be modest KSK. You're certainly one of the best writers in Fan Works. Also, I never thought of the spoof lyrics as writing... but I think that they're often just as enjoyable as a comparable-length video, if not more I would love to see a written fanwork on the Dailies once a month or so. I think that there's certainly enough writing on the Forum for SQUAD to choose something good. Hey! With all due seriousness, I think that videos do deserve a Wednesday: There's many of them, and some are relatively high-quality. However, the last three days of the week often showcase nearly the same content: There's a video (Twitch replay) on Thursday, and there's often a video on Friday. (There was, for example, a video on both Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week.) I'm not going to discuss Twitch Thursdays, but this does seem like a video overload. Perhaps, if there was only one day a week for YouTube videos instead of two, SQUAD would have a better chance to select videos that were "actually well-made, narrated or edited." Again, I would love to see this happen once a month or so. That would be nice. Not bad, not bad. Again, though, it needs more lens flares. Also, is this a preview for a video that's yet to come? I can't properly tell.

Yep, the Telescope is now officially a Jack-o'-lantern. Because of the way that I put his eyes relative to the 'scope itself, he seems to look awfully smug. While this doesn't look like too much, it was a heck of a lot of work to even get this far... even with gravity hacked. Sorry for the double-post, by the way. A video on How I Did It is coming soon.

The GoPro was flying in its (heavy but protective) case, which has an anchor point on the bottom. I attached a corresponding anchor to a bulkhead within the nose of the rocket, so that the camera was half-inside the craft and mounted securely. I would hate for it to fall out and hit someone. As for the Center of Mass, I have a special counterweight for the GoPro. He weighs about three ounces, has a magnet on his back that anchors him securely, and is always so happy whenever I get the rocket out. Here's what he looks like. You didn't think that I would make this video without flying some facsimile of Jeb, right?! (By the way, the reason that he isn't the Shapeways model is that it's breakable and expensive. Jeb has enough epoxy on him to withstand launches without breaking, and he also weighs almost exactly the right amount. So, that's nice. )

You must embed it with a site such as imgur. Go there and select the photo you want to upload. Once you've done that, grab the link on the right that ends in a ".jpg." Once you've done that, come back to the Forums, click on the little icon that looks like a picture of a tree, and paste the link there. It will appear like <your link here>[/img*]... and once you've posted, your picture will be there. It's not the simplest process, but it can definitely be done. *I had to add an asterisk, so that the Forum didn't think that the link was real. I think I lost Kookoo_gr's drawing. I've been looking for it, to no avail. I may just do it again at some point this weekend. Sorry.

I'm continuing my quest to take the Mini Pumpkin around the Kerbal Space Center! In this episode, I start planning for Halloween decorations around KSC, by doing some aerial surveys with a jetpack! I've got a really good decorating idea... stay tuned! My head is full of seeds! Sshhhh. We know, Mini-Pumpkin, we know.

Thanks, Red Iron Crown. Coming from you, that means a lot. I agree completely. The Daily Kerbal should include writing as well as everything else... video seems to be way overemphasized. (When a YouTuber is saying this, it means that this problem is pretty serious. ) I'm so obscenely happy, but equally baffled. I though that this wasn't supposed to happen, especially after many complained about people like Nassault saturating the KSP News Feeds and Daily Kerbal. I'm a long way from making videos as good as Nassault's, too. I honestly don't know why my videos were featured, as opposed to others'. Not really, but thanks for trying

[spoiler!] To anyone who doesn't want to zoom in a heck of a lot, there's a story arc when zooming into the turtles, there's a pixel in which Randall says "So excited about my book launch!" If you continue zooming into the book he's holding, he gets rocket parts labeled from a bin labeled KSP Rocket Parts. He builds the rocket, whereupon his wife comes up and says "Needs more struts." He adds them, and the rocket whooshes off into the wild blue yonder, and then his wife comes up again and says, "I think that was the only copy." You're welcome, people with slow computers.

Oh, c'mon SQUAD... So, the day before yesterday, I sent a PM to Rowsdower, stating that I would love to have my GoPro rocket video featured in a Video Wednesday. Sure enough, he PM'd me back and said that the video was really cool, and that I had gotten the coveted spot. Or, in SQUAD's words: "UpsilonAerospace combined the usual goodness of a KSP cinematic with real life GoPro footage to make a unique, well crafted video that makes the best of both worlds." and then, less than twenty-four hours later, KSP's social media feed says: "UpsilonAerospace demos a cute little jack-o-lantern and a big "terrifying claw thing" in the opening episode of his new Grand Pumpkin Voyage series. What do you think he will do with the pumpkin in his next episode?" ...and shows off this video. Yep, two shoutouts in less than a day. I just wanted to say to SQUAD: 1) Thank you so very much. 2) Wait, was there some sort of mixup? I've never seen this happen before. 3) If any of you guys have videos/pictures/other things that you made in the last couple of days, post them here! I feel guilty about the multiple shoutouts from SQUAD, somehow. I just want to share the love. 4) Where should I take that pumpkin next? Thanks!

...oh, you mean in KSP. Sorry.

I'm starting a lovely little series in which I take a small pumpkin around KSC! In this first episode, I'm showing off a Pumpkin-Grabber which can transfer the small jack-o-lantern friend onto the back of a truck, plane, or VTOL. More videos to come... let me know what you think

Hey Jatwaa! This isn't a bad idea, but I would recommend taking another look at the Challenge Submission Guidelines... because: 1) There's no scoring method. Do you win if you have fewest parts, or the fewest parts destroyed, or the highest drop? Or is this just a completion challenge? Please make this a little clearer. 2) If you test enough, especially with the right settings, you can get Kerbals to survive with no protection whatsoever. (Kerbals' helmets are widely considered to be indestructable). Must you replicate your results? 3) Are control surfaces allowed to slow your fall? You could just build a plane and complete this challenge, no problem. 4) How about retro-rockets? (I'm assuming that when you say "Structural Hardpoints," you mean "Structural Hardpoints ONLY," but it's unclear.) 5) Are mods that introduce different structural parts allowed? Please think through challenges a little more before posting. This is a great idea... I still remember the good ol' days when I did this sort of stuff in real life. But the challenge needs a bit of revision to be as much fun as it could be. Sorry if I came across as harsh in any way; it was absolutely not my intention. Your laugh is wonderful, by the way. -Upsilon

Oh why... Why couldn't the devs think like this and do it... Why?.. I don't know whether they're trying to be overly ambitious, or whether they want it to play like a Tycoon-style game, or whether they simply haven't thought of this. I hope that a system like this one is implemented at some point or another, probably by some wonderful modder but maybe, maybe in the stock game. I'd put the odds at less than a tenth of 1% though.

Hey Wooks! Probably going to do this challenge... wish me luck! (It reminds me of the Three Bridges Cup, a bit ) But: Are you allowed to use your own craft for this, or do you have to use "The Needle"? Thanks, and I'm looking forward to blowing up some pylons!

I'm firmly in the "No" bin... I had a very different thing in mind when XP was first suggested. I was thinking that it might be nice to give the Kerbals more "privileges" as the game progresses, depending on their success in previous missions... for example: First level: Kerbals are allowed to sit in the cockpit, but nothing more... for a launch or two. Second Level: Kerbals can do "tethered" EVAs, in which they can float about in space, but never more than 25 meters from the spacecraft. (This is mostly so that they can gather planetary science data.) This phase lasts another launch or two. Third Level: Kerbals can do free EVAs, and walk upon planets' and moons' surfaces. They should also be able to get more Science than their earlier counterparts. Fourth Level: In addition to everything else, Kerbals can relocate parts on a spacecraft via EVA, and get even more science! You would go through levels faster by doing more ambitious missions: A Kerbal could even be promoted midflight for a particularly daring mission. This would be relatively nonintrusive, it would conform to the laws of physics and the unofficial rules of real-world space agencies, and it would give you reason to fly Kerbals multiple times. It's honestly the best thing I can think of, off the top of my head.

I would very strongly recommend Rocksim for teaching about in-atmosphere rocket design. It's not quite as fun as KSP (and is obviously not a "game"), but it's still really very understandable and you can play around quite a bit. In Rocksim, you can model very complex model rockets and determine precisely what they would do in real life. It has aerodynamics better than KSP's FAR, it's got a lovely two-dimensional flight screen, and it gives you all the data that you will ever need, from the drag coefficient and CG/CP relationships to advanced concepts such as longitudinal moment of inertia and Reynolds number. At the end of the day, you can even build your rocket and fly it in real life! Here's a link if you want to learn more. That being said, KSP is a great way to inspire the little ones about spaceflight. It may never be as realistic as it could (especially with this new Kerbal XP system ) but it gets general concepts across in a very engaging way. Once you're in space, the program is pretty good about depicting spaceflight. There are some notable inaccuracies, but KSP informs much more than it misinforms, especially when compared to movies, TV shows, and the like.

1) Video must be on YouTube (in general). 2) Click on the "Insert Video" option. It looks like two frames of blue-green film. 3) Paste your YouTube link into the popup that comes up and click OK. 4) After you've posted or when you're previewing your post, your video should appear. OR, you can just write in the VIDEO tags yourself: <your video here> [/video*] *I need to use an asterisk here, so that the Forum doesn't view the above thing as a video yields videos that are embedded like this: Welcome to the Forums, by the way!

Thank you very much! I worked hard on getting the rocket's altitude in KSP to sync up properly with the real rocket's altitude, so that everything looked relatively realistic. As for the music, I made it myself. It's one of the In-Game Plugin Songs, only slowed down a bit (I'm still not sure why I did that, but it seems to work fine, anyway.) The original song can be found here. I tried to do literally every aspect of this video myself. Thus, I only have to credit GoPro (for the camera), and KSP (for some of the video and the inspiration). Thanks. I'll do more of these in the future.

Very nice job! I'll update your best time. Again, sorry for being all finicky, and thanks for participating.