Changes to aero/SSTOs from .90 have left me broke in career mode

[KerikBalm]

Well, I'm broke in career mode, and I know why...

Its this new aero and these SSTOs... All these people saying they weren't viable anymore, and I set out to prove them wrong...

Now I'm broke and have very little funds left.

SSTOs are too....

Convenient!

It used to take ages to get them too orbit, but once you pass mach 1, the thrust curve send your craft into overdrive, and I get my payloads to orbit much quicker now.

So I had 1 SSTO coming back from minmus (7 day journey - was a crew transfer plus tanker to top up the fuel depot I sent earlier by conventional rocket), another 3 on the way to minmus (one delivering a lander, 1 delivering an ISRU setup, 1 delivering a surface base for a contract), 2 on the way to Mun (ISRU + tanker after I got the LF:O ratio wrong on the first one, and the fuel depot was emptied from multiple lander refuels earlier in the game), 1 on the way back from Mun (rescue contract for a kerbal around the Mun). One I just launched to deploy a station in LKO (contract to do so + I figure its time to get a fuel depot in LKO).

I wanted to launch another... but no funds.

In addition to havng recently upgraded the R&D facility (to get ISRU), SSTOs are too convenient as the real-life launch time is much faster now, and I can control my trajectory on reentry much better for runway landings...

But each SSTO is expensive... I start to ignore the cost... because... 100% recovery (minus fuel+ payload)... only to realize I have about 1 million funds tied up in SSTOs at various mission stages.

Previously, I didn't take my SSTOs to the mun or minmus... or beyond LKO at all (exception, 1 way trips to laythe) but all these post 1.0 whiners have made me set out to prove SSTOs can do all sorts of things...

Only now am I remebering that I should be be creating an STS-esque system like I did in previous version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System

I just launched my first orbital tug... one orbital tug is much cheaper than a SSTO, so if I have to tie up an asset for several days, its better if its an orbital tug, and not an SSTO. Its also more mass efficient.

I can also deorbit my SSTOs after 1 orbit... instead of trying to time the departure from Mun or even worse Minmus, so that I can do a direct reentry and glide to KSC... or instead doing time consuming aerobraking passes until I can reenter and land at KSC.

Anyone else feel my pain?

Has anyone else re-created the STS vision that was neve realized in KSP?

[cybersol]

I love nuclear tugs. An SSTO is a great round-trip ride, but a nuclear tug is forever. They serve from launch forwards. They don't need parachutes. They just wait to push/pull the next thing anywhere and everywhere in space.

[ajburges]

I love nuclear tugs. An SSTO is a great round-trip ride, but a nuclear tug is forever. They serve from launch forwards. They don't need parachutes. They just wait to push/pull the next thing anywhere and everywhere in space.

Here, here!

SSTO space planes are to transfer personnel and goods between Kerbin/Lathy and their respective orbits. Anything else is the realm of tugs.

Nuclear SSTO planes are just too finicky. Though I do want to try and make a minning MK3 SSTO to anywhere.

[KerikBalm]

Yea, nuclear tugs are where its at...

I've always simply designed my SSTOs for maximum payload to LKO, nothing more...

It was a mistake to start sending them to Minmus.

They are plenty capable of it... but that ties up a lof of funds for at least 14 game-days.

And I'm the type to have multiple missions going at once. I suppose if you simply start and finish one mission before starting another, then its not a problem.

Also, I've started to simply do missions I want to do, rather than chasing contracts... because... 100% recovery - fuel and payload cost... but... yea...

On the plus side... once that ISRU is all going, and the orbiting fuel depots are filled, I won't have so many SSTOs to launch.

I went broke trying to do so many missions at once using SSTOs.

I spent lots of time yesterday just recovering SSTOs for funds

[cybersol]

I can see your temptation to use them; because you do make some awesome SSTO's, judging from the ones you have posted so far!

[Falkenherz]

Well, I would be broke in the normal sense. Several tries to build a fuel tanker spaceplane *without rapier engines* failed so far.

My plane, which worked all right inn beta 0.9, has 57 tons, four ram jets with ram intake and two inline intakes (my best available aeroplane tech so far) and two LV -T30 "Reliant" engines (LF TWR is 0.84). Total LFO is 990 for usage, 1440 LFO as payload. It can carry 6 Kerbals.

As of 1.0, I manage to get to a maximum of about 800m/s at 22km (Mach´ing up from 12km onwards and loosing again speed >18km). I then fire the LV-T30s, but while my best try indeed got me into suborbital @~1400m/s, it had only a dV of 200m/s left, so no orbit for me tonight. Most planes broke apart when I tried to go faster from <18km.

Any try to take up more speed than 800 m/s at around 17km (at higher level it just drops off, even when nosing down) just destroys my plane by the friction and heat. Should I use more air intakes in order to get more out of my engines >17km? Or did I just hit the limits of my current tech built?

So, do I still have to learn or is a spaceplane only viable now when I have unlocked the Rapiers?

Edited May 18, 2015 by Falkenherz

[cybersol]

My guess it that you'll need way more LFO to get about 1.8-2.0k dV from your rocket stage. Then you'll need more engines to push it all.

My other advice is that you won't be able to linger and milk the air stage the way you are likely used to. Get what you can by tweaking your ascent profile, but don't linger. You want to be going 15-20* upslope when you switch to rockets, and do so as soon as your stop gaining speed as your thrust nosedives. Note that peak turbojet thrust is down at 13km and about mach 3 (~1020 m/s).

Edited May 18, 2015 by cybersol

[Pecan]

I don't understand what your point is. As far as I can see you're complaining that you've wasted a lot of money in inefficient vehicles because you made them expensive spaceplanes instead of cheaper Single Stage rockets and then blew a fuse by not bothering with separate spaceborne payloads after you had got To Orbit. Are you just joking that someone at KSC should have fired you before you bankrupted the place?

[Randazzo]

I sure wish I could get an SSTO to work.

[gom jabbarwocky]

I sure wish I could get an SSTO to work.

I don't blame the new aero for my failure to successfully build spaceplanes. I couldn't successfully build spaceplanes in old aero, either. Every update to the game just has me feeling like that turtle trying to climb out of a well.

[Pecan]

I sure wish I could get an SSTO to work.

Try the one in the OP here - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119393-I-ll-tell-you-what-rockets-do-fly-well-now

[Falkenherz]

I don't understand what your point is. As far as I can see you're complaining that you've wasted a lot of money in inefficient vehicles because you made them expensive spaceplanes instead of cheaper Single Stage rockets and then blew a fuse by not bothering with separate spaceborne payloads after you had got To Orbit. Are you just joking that someone at KSC should have fired you before you bankrupted the place?

Let me iterate:

Essentially, I think that the OP is just boasting about his achievements with spaceplanes, because doing spaceplanes is not so easy as he makes it look like. In order to back up my opinion, I am complaining that, if it was so easy, I am apparently too stupid to build a proper spaceplane in 1.02 and am asking for tips why my build fails.

[Randazzo]

Try the one in the OP here - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119393-I-ll-tell-you-what-rockets-do-fly-well-now

I should have specified a spaceplane ssto, but thank you anyway.

[micr0wave]

Wait ... you spent all your money on something and now you're surprised you have no money left ?

[KerikBalm]

Basically, its a counterpoint to all the whiners about the 1.0 aero.

Knowing the economics pay off because of 100% recovery, I've blown all my funds on infrastructure and science harvesting.

It'll pay off in the long run, but I had a lot of SSTOs to recover (and still have some) before

[moronwrocket]

@Falkenherz,

Duuuuudddee, I just finished designing a spaceplane that sounds very much like yours. 4 TRJs and 2 Reliants. For me I am able to get ~550m/s dV at 75km orbit, with a cargo of 7 kerbals for training crew swaps. I don't plan on leaving much fuel in LKO, a couple hundred at max. Need about 150 dV to get down and fly to the ground, anything left is given to the incoming Mun/Minmus/Sol cycler.

What is your ascent profile? How fast are you before you start slowing down? At least 1120 m/s? I pitch 45* to 10km at 66-75% throttle, at 10km lower to 15* @ 100% throttle, then hold there until I hit peak speed. Once I start seeing my speed peak and slow down, I switch to rockets and hold just a little up from prograde until orbit. I aim for the top of the prograde circle, where the line sticks out. It does get a little toasty, but things usually don't blow off.

Here are some pics of "El Pollo" - looking at the rear on the runway had me thinking of a chicken getting ready to race, hence the name. I'm sure it can be refined a million ways, but it does more or less what I need - get 7 kerbals + a smidge of fuel to LKO.

http://kerbalx.com/moronwrocket/Y-3

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Falkenherz]

Well thanks, that chicken for sure looks roasty at those 19km altitude... I have about the ascent profile as you describe, but more than 800m/s are not doable. Might be because mine is 57tons heavy (yours is 41 tons?) because I need it indeed to put ~1440 units of fuel up there, so it is stuffed with, well, a lot of fuel on top of its 6 crew capacity. Looks like I need MOAR ENGINEZZZZ.

[moronwrocket]

Yeah, I'd love to have more fuel in el Pollo as well, but I'm not sure where I would stick it.

[Falkenherz]

Heyja, I solved all design problems and have now a spaceplane which carries 6 Kerbonauts and a payload of 720 units of fuel into a 75km LKO. Details in my latest blog story (see sig)!

This took me about a dozen failed attempts, so if I hadn´t made liberal use of the "revert flight" option, this would have cost me about 80k per plane and 160k per lost test pilot (i.e. total almost 3 million credits). Talk about becoming broke by developing spacceplanes...

- "White Goose"-class spaceplane

Edited May 22, 2015 by Falkenherz

[KerikBalm]

Yea... Either revert flight, or build them in sandbox with only parts you have in career, and them move the save file.

I would also be broke (for real) without revert flight.

[Wanderfound]

I should have specified a spaceplane ssto, but thank you anyway.

Try this one:

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Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/re2mmiimpcy5d55/Kerbodyne%20Triskenne.craft?dl=0

[John FX]

People seem too hung up on spaceplanes IMHO.

When you can make a multistage rocket where you recover the spent stages (with stagerecovery) and the payload is itself a self contained reusable orbital/interplanetary vessel/shuttle/tug then there is no real reason to use spaceplanes except you like to (NTTAWWT). There is no financial reason and in early career you can build a rocket that costs around 30K capable of going anywhere in the system that carries all the sensors for science. It can do pretty much any contract leading to massive profit.

Sure spaceplanes look cool but it is simpler and quicker and cheaper to use a well built rocket, maybe with a jet first stage. It feels right to me that a space program based purely around SSTO planes would run out of money.

In my mind, people who only use spaceplanes are like hipsters who insist on using technology that has been shown to be out of date in the modern world. There are many options that make more sense but they like to do things a particular way for style reasons.

There isn't anything wrong with that but limits should be put on just how much they are catered for relative to actual spaceflight and putting time into developing that gamewise. The name of the game is Kerbal SPACE program, not Kerbal Spaceplane Program after all...

[goldenpsp]

@Kerikbalm

Your OP needs pictures.

[rtxoff]

Here is one of the most simple rocket SSTOs you could build.

I reached orbit on my first try and it was a very sloppy inefficient ascend. I am sure you could spare plenty dV with a proper ascend.

[KerikBalm]

@Kerikbalm

Your OP needs pictures.

Well, I haven't taken any of my larger SSTO that is at the size and mass limit of a lvl 2 runway, but here's a taste:

It carried way too much oxidizer for a trip to the Mun,

I sent a modified version (carying more LF, with more Oxidizer removed, and a surface base payload) to Minmus.

This is not the best view of my tanker, but it made it to the Mun, and deposited roughly 1 orange tank's worht of oxidizer, and half an orange tank's worth of LF.

here it is on return... cut the LF fuel load a bit tight:

These will have to wait until I get a lvl3 VAB (have the lvl3 runway for now) and real action groups:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/11110187_10103556943613313_4928631009340909867_n.jpg?oh=e1ceddaf233240c38bc7ad618ca3f82f&oe=55C44F3C&__gda__=1443255946_eef6133fbfebe21fc2168f67fffeab43

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/11169977_10103556941876793_5047754620428730733_n.jpg?oh=e3e9c168448b23cfeb27fe7e036e0b03&oe=55FCE8BA&__gda__=1443132161_e2747edbc62d92bebdb15ba47c8e301a

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/10419418_10103550674142383_5163611685085914391_n.jpg?oh=e86d812b768ef0ef4aeb282806499da0&oe=55F83AA0&__gda__=1443355225_5f1bfd87a10b063f3d3fc699acab4e10

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/11162346_10103554253743833_3626059503456663543_n.jpg?oh=2d4820f63566de482533f29b3f544ec1&oe=55C704AB&__gda__=1443126717_acbef7be4663e1d191b592fa5fa41497

But yea... as I said, I've now moved on to just lifting payload to LKO, and using LV-N tugs (with mk3 LF fuel tanks, no deadweight oxidizer) for going other places.

Edited May 22, 2015 by KerikBalm