New aero spaceplanes

[noobsrtoast]

Is it still possible to

Make ridiculously powerful and efficient sstos capable of making out to place like laythe, because that was a

Really fun part of the game was doing things like that, but Ive had multiple people say it's nearly impossible to get beyond the mun now which would suck, in FAR I would imagine it's still possible, but then everything has to be aerodynamically correct

[Starhawk]

Ive had multiple people say it's nearly impossible to get beyond the mun now

They are quite incorrect. Check out the SSTO to Laythe and Beyond thread.

Happy landings!

[selfish_meme]

Its extremely difficult to make ridiculously overpowered ones. The ones going to Laythe are on the bleeding edge of efficiency and quite small

[Val]

Its extremely difficult to make ridiculously overpowered ones. The ones going to Laythe are on the bleeding edge of efficiency and quite small

They're not all small. Unless you think a 100 t Mk3 based spaceplane is small? Or were you referring to cargo capacity?

[GoSlash27]

noobs,

I don't know why so many people define "spaceplanes" as vehicles capable of making the trip all the way to Laythe and back. Interplanetary trips are still feasible in 1.04 using spaceplanes, they're just not a practical application for them. No engineer worth his/ her salt would ever design an interplanetary spaceship made from a mostly empty airplane.

The fact that this was rampant is why it needed to be fixed. Spaceplanes were so ridiculously overpowered that they made better rockets than actual rockets. Personally, I think they're still OP.

Best,

-Slashy

[juanml82]

By refueling in orbit, it can be done

I took it to LKO with some 1,400 dv left, so it may still be possible to take it to Laythe by doing gravity assists at Eve (and Kerbin, I think). There is a thread or reddit post somewhere about some dude who managed to make it to Jool with some 1,200 dv or something.

Of course, if you still manage a Laythe intercept, you'll be reaching it on fumes.

[noobsrtoast]

That's not what this game is all about, ksp is a game first, a simulation second, if

I want to build a spaceplane capable of making interplanetary trips why should I not be able to,

That's

The whole point of

This game, if you can think it up,

You can put it in space, so what if it's

Not practical it was fun

[Red Iron Crown]

So build one. It's still possible, just a bigger challenge than before.

[Grumman]

noobs,

I don't know why so many people define "spaceplanes" as vehicles capable of making the trip all the way to Laythe and back. Interplanetary trips are still feasible in 1.04 using spaceplanes, they're just not a practical application for them. No engineer worth his/ her salt would ever design an interplanetary spaceship made from a mostly empty airplane.

If both the origin and the destination are places where an aeroplane is useful, then that provides a good reason to either make an aeroplane capable of making the trip itself, or an aeroplane capable of docking with a mothership which is capable of making the trip.

[GoSlash27]

That's not what this game is all about, ksp is a game first, a simulation second, if

I want to build a spaceplane capable of making interplanetary trips why should I not be able to,

That's

The whole point of

This game, if you can think it up,

You can put it in space, so what if it's

Not practical it was fun

noobs,

That would certainly be the point of a sandbox toy (and a perfectly valid way to play), but as a *game* it must have balance. If it's not challenging enough it's not very much fun. Having the ability to make spaceplanes that do interplanetary round trips is a pretty good indication that it's not sufficiently challenging. But that's not my point exactly.

We should not have access to jet engines that make better rockets than actual rockets. Having that defeats the purpose of using rockets. I'd like to see them nerfed just enough that you can't use them as vertical lifters with enough payload to be worth the trouble.

Best,

-Slashy

- - - Updated - - -

If both the origin and the destination are places where an aeroplane is useful, then that provides a good reason to either make an aeroplane capable of making the trip itself, or an aeroplane capable of docking with a mothership which is capable of making the trip.

Grumman,

I would agree with the second option. Just because an option would be useful doesn't necessarily mean we should have it. It should be difficult to move an empty airframe to another planet and back, not easy.

Best,

-Slashy

[Red Iron Crown]

Jets being so good is more about Kerbin's small size than anything else. When you can get two thirds of orbital velocity from them they're going to be good. On an Earthlike planet they would only be good for about one fifth of orbital velocity at best, hardly worth carrying them when going to orbit.

[GoSlash27]

Jets being so good is more about Kerbin's small size than anything else. When you can get two thirds of orbital velocity from them they're going to be good. On an Earthlike planet they would only be good for about one fifth of orbital velocity at best, hardly worth carrying them when going to orbit.

RIC,

I agree, but my beef is specifically with their t/w ratio and unrealistically high Isp. They really shouldn't be suitable for vertical lifters, but I'm a big fan of using them for spaceplanes.

Best,

-Slashy

[Mister Dilsby]

Jets being so good is more about Kerbin's small size than anything else. When you can get two thirds of orbital velocity from them they're going to be good. On an Earthlike planet they would only be good for about one fifth of orbital velocity at best, hardly worth carrying them when going to orbit.

Great point. The world record on turbojets is 980m/s, (3539 km/h), set by the SR-71 Blackbird. That plane also has a ceiling of about 26km. Take out the radar and photography equipment, some of the fuel, and throw a Merlin 1D back there and you'd be able to reach orbit if Earth were Kerbin-sized. Actually we Earthlings would have a significant advantage here over Kerbals, since we can operate two ships in atmosphere at the same time without one of them disappearing--enabling things like in-flight refueling in "stock".

[Starhawk]

The nerf to the turbojets made the process of putting a spaceplane in orbit much more challenging and interesting to me. While the performance of air-breathers now is still unrealistically good, I'm concerned that making them more realistic would remove too much of the usefulness and fun of spaceplanes in the game.

It seems to me that the devs have hit a pretty sweet spot where spaceplanes are still fun and useful while being complex and challenging both to build and fly and not as OP as in pre 1.0.

Without RO style changes to the game, it's a matter of balance. I believe that the current game environment is much better balanced for spaceplanes than pre 1.0.

Happy landings!

[Pecan]

It seems to me that the devs have hit a pretty sweet spot where spaceplanes are still fun and useful while being complex and challenging both to build and fly and not as OP as in pre 1.0.

(Second time quoting Starhawk, in two posts. I must be a fan ^^).

Regretfully, I must concur. (Space)planes came into the game because so many people were more keen on Kerbal Flight Simulator than Kerbal Space Program. For them launch vehicles just don't rock et (sorry, I'm in a funny mood) enough - which is fine, we all want Squad to make a game that appeals to as many people as possible, without spoiling 'our' fun. So now I see the game as being several separate things; rockets and spaceplanes are as different as sandbox and career modes and are attractive to different people for different reasons. Looking for compatibility or sense between them is as pointless for looking for sanity in the tech tree. As it stands there is obviously some balancing to be done, but it seems 'about' right for both preferences.

The regret comes in because i) so many updates have been entirely, or mostly, about spaceplanes. ii) so many people only do planes, even where they make no sense at all. iii) As someone said recently "SSTO, by which I like so many people mean spaceplane ..." ("SSTO" means Single Stage To Orbit - if you mean spaceplane, why not say spaceplane? If you mean to Minmus/Laythe/wherever, why not say that?)

[Sharpy]

I must disagree in the "different people" department.

For me, spaceplanes are useless. I suck at landing taking at least 3 reloads to get the plane on the ground with more than 70% parts still in place (frequently less than 80% though). I can't make one with decent payload, looking enviously at people who carry orange tanks to the orbit effortlessly. I get semi-decent milleage, reaching the orbit with, say, 1500m/s left. The savings are nonexistent considering I'm using Warzou's Cygnus family of SSTO rockets, of which I usually recover more than from my planes after a rough landing (most landings are rough.) I'm running an intense space program, the Duna mission awaiting a transfer window sits in a 70m long monstrosity, a class E asteroid is being brought into orbit, and several probes are scattered over other planets. A train of 6 varied, large cars rolls across the Mun.

And yet I keep making and flying SSTO planes. Usually outside my career game, in a separate sandbox save. Because they are fun to build and challenging. Because they present a new set of problems, and interesting solutions. Because it's easier to come up with something nobody thought about and make the forum go "whoa" with a novel spaceplane design than it is with rockets. Because they are prettier.

Maybe I'm switching between two games that way. Still, I think the game is more than the sum of two different simulator games. Especially when I start putting strictly rockety parts in the planets (SRB, Poodle) or strictly plane parts in space stuff (munar rover built on air intakes frame; before radiators became available, wing strakes as radiators for nukes).

[KerikBalm]

I got a SSTO to orbit yesterday with ~4,700 dV left... (rough estimate) that might be able to make it.... but I never bother, because my obsession is getting large payloads to LKO.

Technically, I've got plenty of SSTOs that will make it to laythe and back. They get to orbit in a single stage, and they just don't make it to their destination in a single stage, a lot of empty tank, useless wings and atmospheric engines stay in LKO to deorbit and recover.

My career mode has been exclusively SSTO since unlocking turboramjets.

Its also easy to SSTO to laythe with some ISRU... single stage to Minmus (relatively easy)... top off your tanks, time your departure from minmus right, so that you can do a small-ish burn to get to laythe, and you probably won't need to do any ISRU at laythe.

ISRU has made SSTOing really easy if you build one big enough to use ISRU.

Otherwise, just refuel your SSTOs in LKO from fuel depots (which may be supplied by ISRU if you want)

Gotta love those new engine effects:

It looks much more awesome than before... but also much less "ecological" than before... no more pretending this is some super efficient, environmentally friendly/not wasteful thing...

Yea it gets the tonnage to orbit, but it burns a lot of fuel doing it

(even if it still has a lot of fuel left over in orbit, its sheer mass means moving it take a lot of energy(

[Nich]

Slashy,

I think you forget this is a kids game. Think back for the very first times you made an SSTO imagine if you had to have the perfect amount of thrust, lift, fuel and find the perfect flight path otherwise you wouldn't make it to orbit. The problem is in order to make this possible to a non-engineer without a PhD in aerospace engineering you need plenty or margin. Rockets are easy just point them up with enough TWR and you will probably make it and thus need a lot less margin. Once you get closer to an optimal design/flight path you quickly realize planes can perform a lot better. That being said show me an SSTO that can lift a 100t ring station to orbit and I will agree Space planes are OP

[percyPrune]

Slashy

I'd like to see them nerfed just enough that you can't use them as vertical lifters

So the Harrier Jump Jet is impossible IRL? Thanks to 1.0.4 nerfing I am now condemned to use 4 Weasleys wheras Hawkers managed with just 1 Pegasus!

Next you will be agreeing with Dr. Heinkel that the bumble bee is so unaerodynamic that it can't fly.

/jokemode

[ajburges]

Slashy

So the Harrier Jump Jet is impossible IRL? Thanks to 1.0.4 nerfing I am now condemned to use 4 Weasleys wheras Hawkers managed with just 1 Pegasus!

Next you will be agreeing with Dr. Heinkel that the bumble bee is so unaerodynamic that it can't fly.

/jokemode

Not that I'm against a Weasley buff, but most VTOL craft in real life use thrust vectoring. What we really need is either a "thrust vectoring" engine that steals thrust from other jets or specialized radial mount VTOL jets that have huge TWR but flame out before Mach 1.

While several jets have greater than unity TWR, few exceed a ratio of 1.15 for the range of a continent and very little payload. Contrast that to the thrust monsters you can make in game.

[GoSlash27]

Slashy

So the Harrier Jump Jet is impossible IRL?

/jokemode

The harrier jump jet is perfectly feasible. A harrier jump jet as the booster stage of an orbital rocket not so much

And a single weasley is perfectly adequate for lifting a Harrier- sized airplane. If you're using 4 of them, your plane is much bigger than a Harrier.

Nich,

My beef with the engines doesn't extend to spaceplanes. I think spaceplanes are just fine the way they are. It's the engines I have a problem with.

IRL jet engines have half the game's t/w in military power and terrible Isp in afterburner. If the game reflected this, nobody would bother using air breathing engines as a first stage. I wouldn't even necessarily want the game to reflect that. I'd just like them nerfed enough that rockets make better rockets than jets do.

Check out the leaderboard for the payload fraction challenge. Air breathers are pulling down nearly twice the payload fraction of rockets. This should not be.

Best,

-Slashy

Edited August 4, 2015 by GoSlash27

[KerikBalm]

That being said show me an SSTO that can lift a 100t ring station to orbit and I will agree Space planes are OP

100tons is easily doable for me... what is the diameter of that station?

FWIW, I don't think it need to be Space planes *or* rockets.

What is wrong with spaceplanes *and* rockets?

This is not a spaceplane:

https://scontent-fra3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/10402683_10103689531750623_6757391564407422849_n.jpg?oh=90e4184af6b5c3a00a22c8184e829e37&oe=56451033

I got it to orbit with spaceplanes (2 trips)

Nothing here is a spaceplane:

https://scontent-fra3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/s720x720/11845156_10103784177439903_8345922888044707207_o.jpg

But everything from the left to the first extendable solar panels from the right was launched via SSTO spaceplane.

This Duna lander is a spaceplane of sorts... Vertical takeoff from Duna, vertical landing, does a gravity turn, all like a rocket, but has wings so its easier to land closer to my duna surface base.

It was the only thing I've launched since unlocking turbojet that wasn't carried to orbit in a single stage, and was launched vertically.

https://scontent-fra3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/11168022_10103709475802583_3907133693305039078_n.jpg?oh=a6996d075877bee52b27f5d104f43acf&oe=56389AE3

https://scontent-fra3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/11219454_10103669579435223_4404198240254229192_n.jpg?oh=4edc6dae7e86f19976f9d0c49352e5f4&oe=564C61CE

it was 100% recovery of the launch vehicles though....

https://scontent-fra3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/11057974_10103669579530033_499678238987866084_n.jpg?oh=4cb8f66d92ef693bc969afc33396ac1e&oe=563DA757

I make use of orbital tugs, small ion probes launched from a mk2 bay, dedicated landers, fuel depots, etc.

Spaceplanes are only one part of my gameplay, which is essentially a model of the proposed Space Transportation System.

Despit all the playing around with spaceplanes that I have done, I have only landed them on two other bodies:

The Mun once, and Laythe (and the laythe one didn't come back to Kerbin).

The only time I take my SSTO spaceplanes out of Kerbin's Sphere of influence, is to pop just outside it to get some kerbals to lvl 3, or to go to laythe, and serve as a shuttle to and from orbit there.

I never did the Single-Stage to *insert other planet or moon of another planet* and back before the nerf to jet engines, I certainly won't start now.

I'd like to see them nerfed just enough that you can't use them as vertical lifters with enough payload to be worth the trouble.

my beef is specifically with their t/w ratio and unrealistically high Isp. They really shouldn't be suitable for vertical lifters, but I'm a big fan of using them for spaceplanes

Well, they did just *halve* the thrust of these things....

That non-SSTO I posted above already couldn't lift vertically on rapier thrust in 1.02, and it certainly can't in 1.04... thankfull the SRBs I was using got buffed.

I'm thinking this thing:

https://scontent-fra3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/11406970_10103666692715233_797871287752292423_n.jpg?oh=8baad2acbc1eede9d44c379bcae1f247&oe=564C7129

Would not work anymore, and it already had to use its rocket engine on liftoff... and I was flying it basically in a gravity turn with no aero lift (so... sort of like the shuttle, vertical launch into a gravity turn... act as a glider after re-entry)

Maybe sticking a mammoth engine on it would work now, certainly will have reduced payload, and the jets will really only allow me to throttle the main engine back/shut it off after I'm well into the gravity turn...

So... I think 1.04 has actually addressed everything you're talking about

[Pecan]

...That being said show me an SSTO that can lift a 100t ring station to orbit and I will agree Space planes are OP

SSTO rated for 105t. If your station is aerodynamic enough to lift with anything, that'll do it -> http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130438-SSTO-Cargo-to-Minimus?p=2115922&viewfull=1#post2115922

I must disagree in the "different people" department...

Quite correct. I should have simply said that rockets and spaceplanes are two completely different aspects of KSP that have little in common but have a lot of appeal for different reasons.

...My career mode has been exclusively SSTO since unlocking turboramjets...(

Sort of 'yes' to everything you said, except why didn't you start using SSTOs before you got airbreathing engines?

[Starhawk]

Check out the leaderboard for the payload fraction challenge. Air breathers are pulling down nearly twice the payload fraction of rockets. This should not be.

I hear you there, Slashy. The point is very well made, and I have to say you have me convinced.

If they do end up nerfing them further, the storm of emotional outbursts across the forum could be difficult to weather.

Happy landings!

[Mister Dilsby]

Check out the leaderboard for the payload fraction challenge. Air breathers are pulling down nearly twice the payload fraction of rockets. This should not be.

Curious if there is such a challenge in RSS or another mod that models Kerbin at Earth scale. Do airbreathers still outperform rockets in getting to space when they are no longer launching from a "fun sized" planet?