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This is my first post on the forums. Sorry if it's a little long, I recently built a craft that I just had to share and I didn't think a few sentences would do it justice. I set out to build a high capacity cargo SSTO spaceplane. Originally my design goals included 3 full length Mk3 cargo bays, with one being ramp loading. I encountered some design issues along the way (some technical, some aesthetic). I was forced to revise my previous plan. I decided to go with 4 full length Mk3 cargo bays. I give you the Czar Galactica Mk 3. 705 parts (including the mining module in the cargo bay) Built in 1.2 pre-release (which I am thoroughly enjoying btw). Fully stock. https://kerbalx.com/NoobTool/Czar-Galactica-Mk-3 900 tons is the crafts approximate maximum gross vehicle weight for getting off the runway and into orbit (this became a design goal as the craft neared that figure). Fuel must be balanced with payload. With the configuration in the craft file, I was able to make a circular 100km orbit with >33000 units of liquid fuel and ~5000 units of oxidizer left in the tanks. 34 Rapiers, 14 Turbo Ramjets, 14 NERV's. I tried to avoid spamming engine pods all over the fuselage. The bicoupler pods connecting the wingtip pods feel a little contrived for my liking, but I think they'll stay. They resolve a number of design issues from previous variants. The above image is of a previous variant. Note the absence of the bicoupler engine pods connecting the wingtips. In orbit, dorsal bay open, solar panels deployed. The solar panels are housed in what I call "blister bays" (Mk2 cargo bays clipped into the flat surfaces of a Mk3 fuel tank, leaving just enough room for the Gigantor solar panels). These protect the solar panels during atmospheric ascent and re-entry. I guess that brings us to ascent and re-entry. Ascent is straight-forward enough, in fact it's pretty much all straight forward. pull back off the runway until you get level flight and maintain that heading, maybe hitting the "F" key now and again to drop the nose, until you hit the requisite 400m/s for the rapiers to become effective. From there, don't touch anything. The craft will accelerate and climb on its own. If you try to pull up at this point, the canards will shear off. Toggle the NERV's at around 19-20km (you should be going around 1240m/s at this point). Switch modes on the Rapiers around 21-22km. Still maintain the craft's natural heading until around 26km, then pitch up to 35-40 degrees. Continue to burn the Rapiers until you have an apoapsis around 3 to 3 1/2 minutes out and 100km (you may need to pitch back down during this burn). Circularize on NERV's alone. Obviously not a very efficient ascent profile, but a craft this heavy faces some unique challenges. I welcome you to play around with it and post any revisions/improvements here. It would be greatly appreciated. The craft survives re-entry from reasonable orbits well enough (as long as you baby it), but don't plan any aggressive aerobraking or aerocapture maneuvers. Atmospheric flight with empty or nearly empty tanks is surprisingly good for a craft weighing over 310 tons completely empty. Landing without parachutes requires a little finesse, but is totally doable. The CoM is slightly forward of the CoL when the craft is completely empty (very slightly). So don't forget to move any remaining fuel forward before re-entry. I included a module I call "Mandible" in the dorsal bay of the craft file. It's meant to dock to the front of the craft to allow it to refuel in flight via asteroid. I guess that's about it, I invite you to play around with it, post revisions and or improvements here, along with any missions you fly with it. I would very much appreciate it. A few more pictures for the road: Landed at Minmus. Landed on my first attempt! Scuffed one of the drop fins on the ice, but it stayed on. WooHoo! This view shows the cargo ramp deployed. A couple of Ascent images: (sorry they're at night)