Pecan

Have you actually tried the designs here? Getting them to orbit and back will make sure you've got the technique right, so you know it's your 'planes and not your flying that causes the problems. Apart from that, make sure the CoL is just behind the CoM in the SPH before you put landing-gear on it (they are massless in flight but the SPH lies about it). You also need to think about the CoD (Centre of Drag, not that there is such a thing really) - most importantly air-intakes are high-drag parts; if you put them ahead of the CoM the whole plane will want to fly pointing backwards. More precisely; it'll flip, spin and crash - I found this especially true on re-entry as you hit thicker air at near-orbital speeds.

Noooooooooo! Please, please, no.

Regex - could you change the title of the thread to "Which other one"? (I'm kidding!)

It was the ladder thing that convinced me the tech-tree was not flawed, but insane ^^. Hmmm, in-game the star is just called 'Sun'. Well, yes, it's A sun just as Luna is A moon. The sun in KSP does not appear to have any name though, and it definitely shouldn't be called Sol. As it happens - neither should our sun! (http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-suns-name) So we're all back to square one.

It seems unlikely that a stock cockpit would include RPM support. On the other hand, since Porkjet made the effort to make the internal view compatible with RPM in the first place, I would expect an RPM patch pretty much as soon as the 'stock' variant is released.

Oooh Kasuha, you're being called-out. A link to your Return Eve Lander Twice in a single launch ship please, I can't find it and it's an amazing piece of work :-) Corw - you picked the wrong person to doubt ^^.

Not sure I understand the problem you're having. Docking ports fit well on the sides of fuel tanks if you wish to dock them that way, otherwise just use fuel lines. Docked ships count as one and to transfer fuel manually between any tanks on a single ship just right-click one then alt-right-click the other. Failing that you might want to try something like: Tractor Medium Without Engine Modules Which gives you inline docking around a command/payload "core" and can be much easier to handle in terms of alignment and in-flight wobbling. Similar designs were also discussed in http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83368-A-reusable-transfer-stage-a-good-idea and you might just like to read chapters 7 and 8 of the tutorial linked in my signature, which deal with building a reusable infrastructure based on space-stations and transfer vehicles. Note that I don't usually lift more than 40t in a single go, assembling anything bigger by dokcing in orbit. My 110t 'heavy' lifter, mentioned in but not posted to the thread Wanderfound linked, is a larger and more efficient SSTO rocket if you really feel the need to lift a whole S3-14400. However you do things I'd recommend not taking the large RCS tank, you just never need that much monopropellant in practice.

Why should there be a big difference between Mun and Duna? There are other planets if you want it harder - try going to Moho or a return Eve lander ;-0 If those are too easy for you then, yes, you've probably 'won' KSP and can only resign yourself to mods like FAR, KIDS, DRE, one of the LS versions, RT2, etc. etc. etc.

Welcome and congratulations. Most people find spaceplanes much harder to design, build and fly than rockets but those that like them have, indeed, flown them to Mun, landed them and returned. Rovers are slow going - they're slow, accident-prone and more or less pointless, I'd recommend concentrating on something you find more fun. The trick to building them is to make sure you have a long and wide wheelbase but even if it doesn't crash there won't be much you can do with it anyway. Try my tutorial (link in signature) for a long explanation of rocket design, from orbital satellites to a reusable, space-station based interplanetary infrastructure. There are also some spaceplane designs in there but it sounds like you won't need them :-)

I prefer to build space-stations with dedicated landers in each system, although not usually each moon. SSTOs for launch to Kerbin station, stations and transfer vehicles that never land, dedicated landers. Once the infrastructure is in place you can go anywhere as many times as you like just for the cost of fuel.

I've just put the effort into flying the Crew Shuttle SP (Chapter 7) properly. Instead of switching to rockets once I had a 75km apoapsis and 2,200m/s horizontal speed I just kept on climbing and throttling-back. Most of the time was spent at around 0.1KN thrust (!) and it flew all the way to space on jets, just needing a 40m/s push from the rocket to circularise. I really did overdo the intake spamming, didn't I ^^.

In the MechJeb docking autopilot I believe there is a 'Force Roll' option. Enabling this will align the docking-ports to the angle (in degrees) you specify.

You have to follow what it says in the contract. If it says 'activate by staging' you have to (spacebar) to stage to the part or whatever. If it says 'run test' you have to right-click the part and click the run test button.

Yes, physics warp works too.

I know it's contrary to what you had intended but if, for other reasons, you would like to use KSC West and the island runway or maybe add others, have a look at Kerbin-Side, which makes other bases around Kerbin.

;-) As I said, I'm in a very crotchety mood from reading too much bad text by good mathematicians. Yet more apologies for expressing it here.

Yeah, see my mod list (signature), that's the reason I wanted SP+. RPM + SCANSat, MJ, Probe Control Room and VV; what's not to love (oh yeah, the rest of the instruments; like NavUtils - need those for the whole orchestra ^^).

MODS! Tell me off for this if you need to but, yes, I was deliberately teasing and that could be called trolling. Sorry Slashy but that's almost exactly what I expected you to say; to which my response is, "I said mathematicians write cryptically and ambiguously." You and I know "IspG" means the same as "ISP.G", "Isp * G" or "Engine specific impulse multiplied by local gravity" and obviously there are good and international reasons why the shorthand of mathematical notation is as it is. Nevertheless, as a programmer, conventions such as implied multiplication and operator precedence are anything but unambiguous. Unfortunately you've caught me getting irate with "Artificial Intelligence; A Modern Approach", the most benighted tome through whose obscurantist verbiage it has been my woe to have to work. (Apologies again, I'm trying to translate it so programmers can understand it). When you are trying to explain something like the rocket equation there simply is no excuse for using single-letter terms rather than, as programmers are taught, meaningful variable names or using implied, rather than explicit, operator precedence.

Practice with Fat Sally (Chapter 5), she's very forgiving of slopes:

I think there are two different aspects here that can conveniently be tackled separately; landing itself and reentry-to-flight. With any particular design you'll need, if not want, to test-fly it with circuits and bumps - just seeing how it takes off, handles in the air and will (or won't) land. In general you need to be descending at less than 10m/s and want to be going as slowly as possible horizontally. Ideally you land just above stall-speed so the first thing to find out is how slowly the plane will fly without falling out of the sky! You now have the approach speed... Knowing the approach speed you'll also have found out what the descent rate is at that speed. "Normal" landings call for a 'flare' just before you touch down - pitch-up to reduce descent and stall onto the runway - so the plane stops flying. If you can't flare to a comfortable landing you'll want to come in 'hot' - that is, use a bit more throttle for a shallower approach so you land a bit faster but don't have to pitch-up so much to slow down your descent. (Too hot and pitching-up will just make you climb again). This can all be practiced from takeoff and flying around and around KSC. Separately you'll have to find out how the plane handles de-orbit and transition to normal flight. The only thing I can suggest there is picking an initial impact point about 10-20km before your target and then pitching-up in flight to avoid the impact and fly to the intended destination. DREC will force a more shallow re-entry trajectory but in any case don't attempt to control the plane in atmosphere but anywhere near orbital speed - the drag will either flip and spin it or destroy it outright. Wait until you're 10km or lower altitude and 200m/s or less velocity. NavUtils is a HSI/ILS system mod that might make this easier for you. It certainly makes it more interesting (I like instruments, what can I say ^^).

Absolutely point 3. Squad doesn't want us to know about point 1, ssshhh! Therefore point 2 is moot. *wink* But, yeah; decide your mission, no extra mass, calculate your rocket. See my tutorial if this isn't clear. The rocket equation is nice but any programmer who wrote as cryptically and ambiguously as a mathematician would probably get fired after their first week. In maths: dV = VeLN(m1/mo) In computerese: Exhaust_Velocity = Isp * GRAVITY; Mass_Ratio = Total_Mass / (Total_Mass - Fuel_Mass); deltaV = Exhaust_Velocity * ln(Mass_Ratio); In English: You can do more stuff if you use more economical engines or have more fuel. The trouble is the more fuel you add the more weight you have to lift in the first place so as you add more and more you get less and less extra from it, until you hit the limit for the engines. Pfft; that's it - if I don't have visitors this weekend I'm doing "Basic Rocket Design - Explained Simply, With Pictures" (to complement the classic Aircraft one, of course) ^^

Would you like to sing to my cat?

/me nods. That's all it is; certainly no complaints here about Spaceplane+ or any of the other developments. Coincidentally, before the announcement I was just wondering if I should install some parts mods so I could make decent-looking planes and had decided SP+; then decided not to burden my aged PC with the parts after all. Now I can live in trepidation of whether it'll be able to run 0.25 ^^. Whatever - KSP keeps getting better and better and even if it didn't it's still more than earned it's keep.

Ermmm, have you read anything in the last day or so? The answer is no longer out there, it's in here.

I think you're over-thinking my comment. It seems like a lot of people are banking on Spaceplane+ (stock-variant) to be the solution to all their design questions. I'm just saying; calm down. I think it would be a pity if we all built almost exactly the same ship for every mission. Spaceplane+ is beautiful and the parts are useful and important, I welcome their (or something similar) incorporation into stock, especially a payload bay. It would be terrible though if, as the hype seems to have it, they were the one true way.