Longsword. Big Reds to orbit at 25% payload fraction.

[Rune]

... And I think that description really says it all. Big Reds! To orbit! And it ain't even that big itself.

However, it is a finely tuned craft right on the edge of what stock KSP can do if you don't cheat with it a lot. And the margin is very tight! It has, therefore, quite the piloting requirements. Don't worry! There is a piloting guide in the description and everything. I guess that's what happens when you go tight on TWR on order to maximize payload ratio...

And what a ratio. It might make orbit on fumes, but almost half the weight in orbit is LFO, inside a spacious cargo bay where there is room for pretty much whatever you want if you don't want the fuel. I also think it's pretty elegant the way that it uses Vernors to achieve RCS translation and rotation, and a pretty powerful system at that, using the leftover fuel. Aerodynamic handling is quite fine, both with the full payload and empty it will stay balanced at all fuel levels. That's right, you can glide it to the ground with a full bay.

But best of all? It is very friendly to take close to your stations! 108 parts means that you can afford quite the big spectacular station without serious lag, even with a couple of these docked to it. I think by now you can see why I finally gave one of my SSTOs the most obvious game in my naming scheme. This one is here to stay, and be used for a long time, and I think it is worthy of the name. I'll shut up and leave you to it!

Gorgeous SketchFab render courtesy of ShiftER2O:

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http://www./download/a8i5k3abchnfvci/SSTO+Mk+LIV+-+Longsword.craft

Rune. And now the trilogy is complete. Good night everyone!

Edited June 5, 2015 by Rune

[GusTurbo]

Amazingly elegant AND capable. Very nice.

[Woopert]

You really are the master of SSTO's, Rune. Brilliant job.

I have a question. I saw you post this a while ago and it's really cool; the design really appeals to me. Will this one be released soon? Cheers!

[Roflcopterkklol]

Really well done rune, always does my head in how small you manage to keep craft like this

[Mesklin]

Design of engines assemblies is simply brilliant, very cute and cool

[Rune]

Amazingly elegant AND capable. Very nice.

You really are the master of SSTO's, Rune. Brilliant job.

I have a question. I saw you post this a while ago and it's really cool; the design really appeals to me. Will this one be released soon? Cheers!

Design of engines assemblies is simply brilliant, very cute and cool

Thanks guys! Let's try to answer everything. First, yeah, I'm very happy with how the engine assemblies turned out. Mind you, they are quite cheaty, I abused the translation and rotation gizmos to do some heavy clipping, and in the process I discovered that intakes behave in weird ways with respect of how much air they receive: if preecoolers are behind an intakes, they will get less air, but apparently they don't mind being attached to the back end of a RAPIER engine. Who knew?

Also, the question about the K-34 (the big chemical SSTO). I'm really sad, but apparently I've hit some short of development wall. See all those aerodynamic fuselages on the front? They must be doing something weird to the aerodynamics, because for the life of me, I can't get her to behave stably when empty, and I've used every trick in the book. Either that, or sideways Mk3 tanks are a really bad idea, I wouldn't know since in the SPH indicator everything looks fine with the CoL pretty far behind the CoM. After some very frustrating reentries (either too lawn-darty, or total loss of control on hitting dense atmo, with no room in between), I have relegated it to the back-burner for now. I might revisit, but in the meantime the Longsword will have to serve the reusable heavy lifting requirement.

Rune. Which was another development surprise, but of the good kind: the longsword was built to be able to lift half the payload it ended up with.

[eddiew]

I really like the way you mounted the engines. May have to reverse engineer that and see how you did the fancy clippery

(Also another one that I reckon would be a beast under nuFAR. In fact I reckon you could take it down to 6 engines, since its pretty sleek, and I can basically lift a brick with a red tank inside with 8 rapiers )

[soulreaver1981]

The master back at work I see.

I can't get a ssto to work for the live of me

[ryan234abc]

Longsword is a nice alternative to the general hubbub of SSTO's in KSP. The new wings are hard to work with, because you can't get a finely tuned shape, but this does surprisingly well in terms of looks. And what can I say about practicality? Well, I think its just amazing. I launched this with a separate fuel tank/boosters and, using the fuel in the big red, got this on an encounter with Laythe. Not quite Laythe rated on its own but almost, almost.

Rune. And now the trilogy is complete. Good night everyone!

The trilogy meaning Spatha, longsword and white dart? And good night! Where u going! PANIC!!! Just kidding. Take a break. You earned it.

Oh and how did you get air in the intakes in space? I want to guess its got something to do with closing the intakes?

Oh again. How do you get docking ports to double couple. That was a bad question. Ok. How do you get the big red tank ports to connect to each end of the cargo bay? I can only ever connect at one end. If that made sense.

Edited May 21, 2015 by ryan234abc
Question

[Chris_2]

Looks great, but a bit too much clipping for my taste...

[Rune]

Looks great, but a bit too much clipping for my taste...

Yeah, I freely admit that this one is a bit cheaty. There's no hidden fuel or (many) wings, but if hadn't sunk anything anywhere, the engine pods would look much, MUCH worse, and be probably the size of the body. I did it for the looks, I'll say that in my defense.

Longsword is a nice alternative to the general hubbub of SSTO's in KSP. The new wings are hard to work with, because you can't get a finely tuned shape, but this does surprisingly well in terms of looks. And what can I say about practicality? Well, I think its just amazing. I launched this with a separate fuel tank/boosters and, using the fuel in the big red, got this on an encounter with Laythe. Not quite Laythe rated on its own but almost, almost.

The trilogy meaning Spatha, longsword and white dart? And good night! Where u going! PANIC!!! Just kidding. Take a break. You earned it.

Oh and how did you get air in the intakes in space? I want to guess its got something to do with closing the intakes?

Oh again. How do you get docking ports to double couple. That was a bad question. Ok. How do you get the big red tank ports to connect to each end of the cargo bay? I can only ever connect at one end. If that made sense.

Lots of questions! The kind of reply I enjoy answering. Let's begin:

Yup, the trilogy is the Dart as light hotrod, the Spatha a medium workhorse, and the Longsword as the heavy super-efficient lifter. And no, I'm not going anywhere. Just that at that point, it was 12:00pm, and I had been playing KSP while browsing the forums for six hours straight. There will be more stuff a I create them, after all R-SUV needs a lot of replacements.

Intakes, yup, you guessed right, it's the leftover air from when I closed them and switched to rocket power. I still do that, even though I'm not so clear on whether intakes decrease in drag when closed in 1.02 or not. Old habits!

As to the double dock, I just fiddle in the editor until the second one is so close it looks docked, but isn't. When the vessel loads, they dock before anything has a chance to move, and you get your firm connection. A handy trick. Also note that it is better to attach the ports to the rear surface of the tank immediately before the bay, since fiddling with translation for stuff attached to a payload bay is pretty bugged and will make it jump all over the place. Hope that helps, and glad you like it!

The master back at work I see.

I can't get a ssto to work for the live of me

Thanks! And yeah, it is a whole new game, especially for those that liked to hand-make their hulls like you did. Wing drag when they see angle of attack >5º is now a killer! But other than that, it's not that difficult once you relearn a few things: You need TWR>1 on the runway to break Mach, enough wing for AoA drag not to stop you doing so, >1.5km/s of rocket power on the tanks, and you will make orbit without issues. But the part about minimizing drag is critical to go over the transonic barrier, and for that you need to keep the number of parts that see the airflow, including wings, to the bare minimum.

Hope to see you get back into the saddle soon!

I really like the way you mounted the engines. May have to reverse engineer that and see how you did the fancy clippery

(Also another one that I reckon would be a beast under nuFAR. In fact I reckon you could take it down to 6 engines, since its pretty sleek, and I can basically lift a brick with a red tank inside with 8 rapiers )

You are, of course, welcome to take it apart and copy whatever parts you like. They could be done a bit better, only by the end of the build did I discover that I had a lot of room to put more intakes in: the rear node of the RAPIERS. You can put them attached there, turn them around and sink them into the airframe, and they will actually see more air than if they were in the front, at least the precoolers. Who knew.

Rune. I knew I had something special here when I built it. Glad you guys think so too!

[Zephyriel]

This looks amazing, I'm only starting with KSP but I hope some day I can make SSTOs like this! it's much more elegant than rockets that end up as debris.

[eddiew]

...the rear node of the RAPIERS. You can put them attached there, turn them around and sink them into the airframe, and they will actually see more air than if they were in the front, at least the precoolers. Who knew.

That is weird and bizarre and I feel like it might get fixed in a later patch xD But I guess that fix would also end up disabling the turborapiers, which would be a sad day :/

[Rune]

I am happy to report, this thing not only looks good when doing a useful job, it actually scores really high on the efficiency charts: It got into the seventh place on the stock payload ratio challenge!!! And that's not even specific to SSTO's, or things that can be recovered!

Rune. Should I make a tricked-out version for the purpose of establishing some records? Hummm...

[ryan234abc]

It got into the seventh place on the stock payload ratio challenge!!!

Hell yea! Good for you Rune! I'd love to see an SSTO that could take up some heavy duty record making. Give it a go, I say!

[SHiftER2O]

Here's Longsword!! Again

[Rune]

Here's Longsword!! Again

Well, it didn't render the quadcouplers, but it looks gorgeous. Thanks!

Rune. Linking it to OP now.

[n0xiety]

Looks great, but a bit too much clipping for my taste...

I honestly don't get why some people are so against clipping... It makes the plane look 100 times better and boosts creativity with different design choices... Only time i find clipping exessive is something like the mk2 cargo bay exploit which you can achive 2000m/s in atmosphere by negating the drag of everything inside... Just want you to know that clipping into the hull doesn't actually work as a cheat... Parts still get drag even inside the hull if they are not connected to a node behind another part and as long as they are not inside a cargo bay.

Well with all that said Rune that is some hot stuff you got there man really nice design and great payload fraction. Hoping to see more of your work.

[Rune]

I honestly don't get why some people are so against clipping... It makes the plane look 100 times better and boosts creativity with different design choices... Only time i find clipping exessive is something like the mk2 cargo bay exploit which you can achive 2000m/s in atmosphere by negating the drag of everything inside... Just want you to know that clipping into the hull doesn't actually work as a cheat... Parts still get drag even inside the hull if they are not connected to a node behind another part and as long as they are not inside a cargo bay.

Well with all that said Rune that is some hot stuff you got there man really nice design and great payload fraction. Hoping to see more of your work.

Thanks! Don't worry, I have a lot of other stuff already, and more on the way as always. I plan to stay here a long time! I just need to get back into a posting rythm, now that I am settled into a new flat and the holyday trips are getting rarer and such.

Oh, and this is a single player mostly-sandbox game, so whatever floats any particular person's boat. I do use some "cheaty" tricks with aerodynamics here, but less than I might have. The important thing for me is that the finished product both looks and works good.

Rune. Which is a wide enough definition to contain anything awesome.

[Malazuerte]

Hi

First of I have to say, its a beautiful SSTO, it looks amazing.

I have been playing with it and I cant reach a circular orbit, I dont know why, I can get 80 km high, but when I get to de Apoapsis I run out of fuel, so I cant circularizate.

What I am doing wrong? or How I have to fly it, to get a nice orbit?

Thanks you @Rune

[Rune]

Hi

First of I have to say, its a beautiful SSTO, it looks amazing.

I have been playing with it and I cant reach a circular orbit, I dont know why, I can get 80 km high, but when I get to de Apoapsis I run out of fuel, so I cant circularizate.

What I am doing wrong? or How I have to fly it, to get a nice orbit?

Thanks you @Rune

Thanks for the compliments! Well, first of all, don't beat yourself, the test payload is also the maximum weight it'll lift to a ~75x75 orbit with any margin, so it's only reasonable you can't get her up unless you do things pretty much perfectly. I assume you are following the flight profile in the craft's description? If so, the only thing I can add is that maybe you want to switch the RAPIERs manually to closed cycle mode when they go under ~75kN thrust in order to keep a high vertical velocity that minimizes drag while keeping a low-ish angle of attack to also minimizes drag. It is easy to chase a higher cutoff velocity at the expense of going flat right at the moment you are experiencing the highest drag losses, and that can consume your delta-v pushing against air when you try to build vertical velocity back up later.

If that still fails, just empty the test payload a bit, or better yet, draw fuel from it by un-forbidding the tank, you will still get tons of it into orbit and it serves as RCS so you can also "waste" it there (I wouldn't call it waste if it gets the mission done!). When you get more comfortable with it, I'm sure you will be able to push the payload fraction to its limit and bring the full load to the station.

Rune. Though it flies easy, at full payload, it requires some skill, just not of the strict piloting kind... more of a navigation/engineering sort.

[Rune]

Update! Fix for 1.04: fill the outboard tanks with liquid fuel. Enjoy the extra delta-V, now you can comfortably overload it and still make a higher orbit with more margin. 40mT payloads supported, and it shatters the 25% payload fraction barrier!

Rune. I am so happy that worked out so well.

[inigma]

Glad to hear!. Can it lift the STS Fuel Pod?

[Rune]

Glad to hear!. Can it lift the STS Fuel Pod?

Theoretically, yes (with spare performance), but the bay is not sized for it, so you have to make some room. Basically, offset the first SAS into the tank until only the other SAS shows. Also, take out the docking port and work out another docking solution (surface-mount a shielded docking port, for example, or better, yet, move the tail forwards a bit and use the rear node).

Rune. Still, minor changes.