Space Planes and Thrusts have they changed?

[rollo1002]

So I watched this Scott Manley video

and copied his design for a space plane. The only thing is my space plane does not accelerate like his in the video and at a 30 deg incline my plane is lucky to get over 160 m/s and will actually stall out well before I get up to 10k meters in altitude. I'm lucky to get 5k meters. Has there been a change that is causing this? I'm just baffled on what's wrong.

Any suggestions or insight?

Edited June 26, 2015 by rollo1002

[DeMatt]

I'm not certain, but I do agree that there's been tweaks to the jet engines. Nevertheless, I was quite capable of getting the design from that video into orbit, if not precisely on that flight path.

A couple pointers:

• Make sure you're using the Whiplash turbojets and not the Wheesleys.
  
• My quickie copy made it with a 10 degree ascent instead of the 30 degrees he made. Fine-tuning might've let me pull up harder, but the slower ascent was fine for a quick test.
  
• Watch your balance - that bit where he disables fuel flow in the front-most tank is not something you can ignore.

[Claw]

Also, I didn't see what version Scott is using, but jet engines were adjusted again in v1.0.3 (reduced thrust) to offset some of the changes with drag. So it's possible that you aren't maintaining a high enough speed on the climb to keep the engines spooled up. If you maintain a slow speed while climbing (such as 160m/s), the engines will provide less and less thrust as you climb. So eventually you will reach a point where the engines can't provide enough thrust to even maintain altitude.

As DeMatt suggests, climb out a little shallower to keep your speed up. Higher speeds will translate to more thrust, which is essential as you start climbing up (where the low thrust and high AoA makes it even harder to speed up).

Cheers,

~Claw

[rollo1002]

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to assume that he was on 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 because the video was released in early June which would fit that timeline.