Pecan

Well, we can narrow it down a bit ... It's not Chatterer, DRE, RPM, KER, IR, MM, NasaMission (that's stock!), PreciseNode, RT, SCANSat, ShipManifest (Seriously, with CrewManifest as well?), Squad (duh!) or KAC (if that's what's inside TriggerTech - it would be so nice if this was a list of MODS, not a list of files/folders ^^). There are a few more I would think are almost certainly innocent but don't know well enough to judge. There are a few I've never even heard of there too. PS: Is KSP Lua working now? I'll have to check-up on that.

The tutorial in my signature doesn't give much detail about how to fly, but it has a lot on mission and vehicle design ... The best place to look for tutorials is The Drawing Board, or just browse the tutorials section of this forum.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/24898-Challenge-Submission-Guide As far as I can see: There is exactly one part we have that looks anything like that - the Mk2 cockpit - so that's the "glider". Sub-orbital = any old launch-vehicle (no sub-orbital weapons either). Glider = so nothing needs to be added to the cockpit. Stock = it's a cockpit. Controllable and be able to be steered ... = SAS will take care of that as it plummets out of the sky. Destroy the VAB = by crashing into it, which is neither useful nor interesting. So - Mk2 cockpit, decoupler, some low-powered rocket, done.

The 'Utilities' window contains options for both 'Limit acceleration to xxxx m/s' and 'Limit throttle to xxxx %'

Signature updated accordingly :-)

*Sob* so much to do, so little time *Sob* Confirmed - it's not hard to re-build that to fly but I still don't have the time to post it. The entry's only still there in case someone wants the .craft files. - Sorry Wanderfound. I hope I'll make it up to you a bit tomorrow with a rather expanded tutorial :-(

SSTO = Single Stage To Orbit Orbit = periapsis >69km around Kerbin, other altitudes if you're launching from other bodies Single Stage = without throwing things away on the way up Stayputnik, FL-T200, 48-7S Like any vertical-launch vehicle you need a launch-TWR >1. It will take at least 4,500m/s deltaV to achieve orbit. These are the only principles you need, although ascent-path through an atmosphere is important. Specific questions?

Starting small is always a good move. There certainly is a point where you start to have fuel issues; 5,000 Xenon masses quite a bit so it'll be that much harder to take-off in the first place, let alone land with it. Perhaps you'd like to try it with your first design - to prove it's possible (which it very much is) - and then issue a challenge to see what other people can come up with.

:-) May I formulate the "cantab principle" as: 'Flags orientate themselves to prevent screenshots" ?

Need a core if you want to control it - Okto 2. Need a ... actually, you don't need anything else. So, the lightest controllable vehicle is an Okto 2 on its own. If you don't need to control it the lightest 'craft' is a single massless part.

I don't use Steam so I can't give you a definitive answer but as far as I know the default is 32-bit and you won't have to do anything. x64 is known as unstable at the moment and (AFAIK) you have to force that if you want to run the risk, rather than the other way around.

Yep, that's the one I was thinking of. Well done.

You got it. OX-STATS are massless (landing gear isn't any more) and ions are even more fuel-efficient than jets so you won't need a huge mass of Xenon fuel. For a one-jet SSTO stage 2 ions should be plenty, but again, you can even get away with one if your patience can stand the really low TWR. Depends what aerodynamic model you're using, but in stock KSP wings are simply a waste of mass on the way up; you're better-off just using a VTVL jet ascent-path without them (that is, straight up for the first 1-2km then pitch down, instead of horizontal (runway) and pitch up). Since you want the wings for coming back down and landing though you then have to think of tail-landers versus horizontal and all that. I can't really help you there since I wouldn't want to make an interplanetary single-stage. Space is space though, whatever sort of vehicle you do it with; the basic figure for Laythe is 4,360m/s each way, including orbital insertion but aerobraking can reduce that a lot and the good news is there are plenty of options for aerobraking in the Jool system as well as around Kerbin. I tend to design for worst-case and would probably go for a (space) requirement of at least 8km/s but wouldn't be surprised if those that go to Laythe more often suggested a figure half that.

Your points are good, but generally the second one (got to circularise the payload before the sub-orbital LV falls too far back into atmosphere) is the critical one. It's a lot easier to fly if everything gets into orbit then you de-orbit what needs to be recovered. Secondly; a sub-orbital launch will leave whatever is recovered a long way from KSC, reducing its recovered value and the point of the whole exercise. If you want to land the recoverable launch-vehicle back at KSC (preferably on the pad/runway) it has to complete at least a single orbit anyway (almost) so there's no great extra expense/fuel required to place it in a stable orbit rather than 'not quite'. A bit more arcane is where that circularisation fuel comes from - and by definition where the partly-empty tank ends up. If the LV carries a bit more fuel than neccessary just to make full orbit then so what? All it has to do later is a de-orbit/landing burn and its job is over. If the payload has to carry circularisation fuel instead then the excess tank mass has to be carried throughout its mission, which might be a long time and incur significant additional deltaV penalties. So only circularising the (lighter) payload would be more efficient if it weren't for the fact that you often want to get the LV into orbit as well, for a better landing, and you want the payload 'full' for its mission. *Grin* In practice it'll be sufficiently marginal that there's lots of room for personal preference and play-style.

So you're ok with your spaceplane design and, of course, Laythe is an ideal destination for a spaceplance since you can use jets there. 8 intakes per engine is, apparently, the optimum but presumably you know that. For space-travel efficiency you want as low a TWR in space as your patience can cope with. Ions are best there, but LV-Ns the usual choice, one LV-N should be enough for anything but the heaviest spaceplane, you might prefer two ions. Coat the whole thing in OX-STAT panels if you're using ions and just use KER/MJ/VOID to tell you how much fuel you need. Naturally, for anywhere except Laythe there's no point in optimising a single-stage much, as it's far, far, more efficient to undock the space part from the SSTO stage once in Kerbin orbit. Just re-dock before landing when you come back.

There was a thread about flag orientation some time ago but I can't remember when or even if it was here in 'gameplay questions' or in 'tutorials'. *Sigh* the only useful thing I can offer is that it's not just you!

The point being, that if you've already got LV-Ns for the transfer, there's no point in adding extra engines just for landing. Travert's mass-optimal engine thread is my bible, as always.

Check the competition - Have you seen how many YouTube videos and series there already are where people "flub up" various flights? Who is your audience - Is it experienced, beginner or sonsidering players "entertainment and amusement" you are aiming for? Why should they watch - Several gigabytes and hours of attention for what? Will you be funny, instructive, insightful? Mod list - It's huge and complex, so presumably you aren't aiming to inspire people to do better at the same things. How many of them will be material to your purpose (eg; will your craft design REQUIRE TAC fuel-balancer and will you explain that?) As with anything, being able to do it is only the first and easiest requirement. More importantly you need to have a clear story-line and demonstrate progress - or reasons for obstacles - in that in each programme of your series. Even if it's just yet another "look at what I can get wrong, duh!" series you have to think about competing with people who do huge, spectacular or really 'complicated' explosions. Content, scripting, presentation and editing. Do them, practice them, re-do them.

1. Several mods provide a lot of information that is not available or only poorly-presented in the stock game. The three best-known information mods are KER (Kerbal Engineer Redux), MJ (MechJeb) and VOID (name too long to type). Amongst other things these will give you detailed figures for vertical and horizontal velocity separately, which is particularly useful for landing. They will also give you altitude above ground, rather than above (arbitrary) 'sea level' which is all the stock altimeter displays. You may prefer TinyGuages or another mod which provides 'instruments' rather than a its own display-window/area. 2. I don't know of any mods which replace the Mystery Goo and other science objects but there are several which add others. The PB-NUK doesn't seem too hard to place except on very small probes but I will offer the construction tip most of us adopt sooner or later - Cubic Octagonal Struts. They attach almost anywhere and provide a new attachment node for anything you are having trouble fitting. In the end, if it was easy it wouldn't be fun. 3. Struts again. Fit anything, anywhere. The Hubmax is not used as often as you'd think and the micronode is a pretty rare part. 4. Struts, and especially girders. To be honest, there are mods like http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99660-0-25-Adjustable-Landing-Gear-v1-0-1-Nov-9 but landing better is usually the solution, not just creating indestructible gear. Girders have a very high impact-tolerance and can be added if you wish but are also generally more useful for stability than impact.

Sorry, but I have to ask: HOW are you trying to 'pitch up'? The default key is 'S'.

The wiki will possibly help you most: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_bindings. The best place to find tutorials on the forums is The Drawing Board. If you want a logically-structured set of ships and missions instead of the insane tech-tree, or just some designs to (re)practice with try the tutorial in my signature.

The thrust is really low (2.4KN) - is that deliberate or have you still got jets active there and MJ 'preventing flameout'? If so, it'll be reducing throttle/thrust on ALL engines in the stage, which may be causing the problem. Since the status says 'nominal' I can't think of anything else. If it's stock and you want to post the .craft file on dropbox or somewhere I'll download it and have a look for you.

I am! We showed similar designs for a similar question before and I agree that's the way to do it for very early tech. @Engineer - for a more logical mission progression (not tech tree) have a look at the tutorial in my signature. If you just want to go straight to Mun (or Minmus, which is easier) have a look at chapter 5 of the tutorial - yes, there are several chapters of vehicles before I even go there manned.

Humpty-dumpty words ("When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to meanâ€â€neither more nor less." Through The Looking Glass) When I use a word: Radial = side-mounted stages used and jettisoned before the next-stage engine(s) are ignited Parallel = side-mounted stages used at the same time as the next-stage engine(s) but jettisoned before Onion = as parallel but using fuel lines to keep the inner/core fuel tanks full until all earlier stages have been jettisoned Asparagus = special-case of Onion using symmetry-2 It would seem by my definitions that side-mounting is a necessary part of the definition of 'asparagus' (as The Rocketeer is arguing), whereas there are other crossfeed configurations that I use and still consider such. The conclusion is that I can't even come-up with a consistent definition in my own terms. Ho hum :-(

Please re-read my original post, to which you objected: It specifically says landing is an advantage of planes. No ifs, buts or additions; landing is an advantage of planes, coming from their wings. Even if you can't, MJ can happily land a VTVL at KSC, if not on the runway, for 98% recovery. Taking the 'coming back down' out of consideration, since I've already conceeded that, a VTVL will always, in all cases, be more mass-efficient because they do not have to overcome the mass and drag of wings, etc. A plane will only be more cost-efficient if the 2% extra recovery value from a runway landing pays for all that extra stuff, which I don't believe it does. I await your counter-example.