1.0.5, harder to make spaceplanes?

[KerikBalm]

Well, I tried out my good old "workhorse" SSTO that I've been using with minor changes since 1.02 (and by minor, I mean adding tailcones to rapiers, switching ram intakes for shock cones, and adding and removing RCS thruster blocks).

I got a little overconfident, and loaded it up heavier than I've ever tried before... ~476 tons on the runway. I had trouble getting above 1250 m/s on airbreathers, and my apoapsis was lower than normal (not even 28km when my velocity started to decrease in airbreathing mode), my climb rate begain to approach zero, and I found myself unable to climb very well, and ended up basically accelerating to orbital velocity between 35-38km.. untill one of my rear wings (the large airliner ones with the lower heat tolerance) catastrophically overheated.

I had been using 10 rapiers and 8 turboramjets.

I switched the turboramjets for rapiers, and climbed shallower initially, but accelerated better later in the climb, and got over 1,350 m/s with an apoapsis of about 34km before I started to lose velocity in airbreathing mode.

Switching to closed cycle had 80% more thrust than before, on top of an already higher climb rate and higher vertical velocity... put my apopasis over 105km, and got to space with no overheating problems (well, my payload had some of the small thermal control systems exposed/not shielded by a fairing, and I lost 2 of those... need to redesign the payload).

So... just swapping a turboramjet-rapier spaceplane to a pure rapier spaceplane solved the spaceplane issues... and actually allowed me to get the highest payload mass that I've yet managed with a variant of that craft: 177 tons to orbit (previously, the most I managed with 157)... so since I set my personal SSTO spaceplane payload record in 1.05, I can't say that 1.05 is too hard on spaceplanes...

37% payload fraction isn't bad considering the payload sizes my craft can accomodate:

Works in 1.05... at least if the turbos are switched for rapiers... note that the left most section of the craft (3.75m LFO tanks and the KR-2L) was lifted in another SSTO, and docked to the SSTO payload

[Tourist]

http://i.imgur.com/EZ6XwJt.png

You mean that thing makes it to orbit?!? I'm surprised it even gets off the ground! Its beautiful monstrosities like this which lead me feel like I'm thinking WAY too small with my space planes!

Long story, short. Cool ship bro.

[panzer1b]

Anyway as to the plane, I’ll see how it works now. By the time that patch was applied, I had already given up on Mk1 fuselage-based stuff and was working with Mk2. There were a fair number of us in 1.0.4 working on high dV spaceplanes for long-range missions, and based on this thread none of them seem to be very happy. The thick atmosphere high up makes trying to circularize on the nuke engines quite a bit harder. Doing that is always a narrow-margin exercise, and that little bit of extra drag up there made it seem to me like I would have to increase TWR a fair bit, i.e. boost less fuel and/or ship more oxidizer. On top of that, while I could just get to 1500 m/s on air plus the nuke, I couldn’t sustain that speed to nearly the same altitudes as I could in 1.0.4, so I had to switch to bipropellant quite a bit earlier. It will be interesting to see later how getting the body lift back may mitigate all these problems. It also seems like they fixed the intake air situation with that patch, as I noticed I needed significantly more intakes to keep flying up high afterwards, but OTOH my range seemed higher once I had enough. If they’ve fixed it so that this thicker air now sustains combustion in proportion to its drag, then we might be in a different movie...

Im of the same opinion, right now i can barely pull 6000dV with a craft fully stripped of weapons, docking ports, RCS, and anything that isnt 100% essential to flight.

Im not one to instantly say the patch sucks, as i usually give it a few weeks before i go all out and say something is unbalanced or not fun or whatever, but from all my current experienced SSTOs are way less enjoyable then they were in 1.0.4. Back then, i went to insane levels to try and cut drag, i basically made a ship with a fuel tank on each end of a cargo bay, air intalke in front, cockpit+engine behind. That let me cram every other part including most of the fuel tanksj inside the cargo (or should i say bomb) bay, disabling drag on it all, and making breaking past the sound barrier with a single rapier pushing ~40t possible, barely but possible. Now, its another issue, sound barrier is nolonger much of a concern (i can even get past it with terrible designs that couldnt even dare before), but now im completely screwed when it comes to ejecting from the atmosphere. there is WAY more drag between 20 and 40km, the area most critical for spaceplanes, and well, a single nuke pushing over 35 tons just cannot cut it anymore, and oxy is EXTREMELY wasteful as not only does it burn itself, but it steals LF from the nuke too.

Currently, the absolute maximum ive managed to pull off before switching to rockets and before i get fried in my burning cockpit is just under 1500m/s. Before, i could pull 1650 if i was patient enough, now, anything near that speed = instant death.

It may just be my style of design, so if anyone manages to pull off a super high speed (without exploding) craft then id love to see what you did and how it works. Until then, ill be suffering anywhere from 500 to 1000 less dV with my SSTOs

Also, i dont know why squad did this? Is it for more realism, cause too much realism ruins fun, yeah, you cant make a SSTO that gets to jupiter IRL without any refueling, and actually SSTOs are already borderline impossible atm, but why souldnt we be able to make efficient sleek SSTOs in KSP without going into excessive weight. All this new change does is screw over too many of what id call fun and challenging designs. Sure your normal rockets still work as intended, but why step over the SSTO camp?

Also, looks like squad really loves the souposphere.

1.0.5: THE RETURN OF SOUP-O-SPHERE_{(just at higher altitudes so the low altitude airplane builders dont rage all over the forums)}^TM

Edited November 12, 2015 by panzer1b

[Borsek]

Love the new semi-souposphere. To me it's the best stock atmo so far, that is it took the great features of the 0.9 soup which allow fighter jets with insane maneuvers, as well as easy spaceplane design - that is 3 400 tanks, a mk1 lf tank and 3 rapiers, which can make a 500km orbit with ease.

I think it's the best of both worlds, and it gave me a reason to restart career. Also with the new heat mechanics aerocapture won't feel so much like cheating anymore (for me).

I wonder what eve is like now!

[Pthigrivi]

Panzer it may just be the way you're going about it. I started moving to all-rapier designs even before the switch because that was producing the best payload fractions even then. It's okay if you top out at 1400 m/s, you still end up saving vs crating up those heavy arse nukes.

[herbal space program]

Panzer it may just be the way you're going about it. I started moving to all-rapier designs even before the switch because that was producing the best payload fractions even then. It's okay if you top out at 1400 m/s, you still end up saving vs crating up those heavy arse nukes.

We're not talking about payload fraction, we're talking about dV. It’s not like we don’t know how to build a ship that can get to orbit. The question is how far can you go after that? The answer for all-RAPIER designs is not very far. When you are talking about a ship with 30 tons of fuel, here is no way you are going to overcome that 315 ISP by not lugging a 3 ton nuke into orbit.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

I feel very mixed about the return of the soup-o-sphere. Great for all who likes it, but I had bad experiences with it.

To be honest, the only time I made successful SSTOs were in 1.0/1.0.2/1.0.4 and our 1.0.5

[Alshain]

People who call this a soup-o-sphere must never have played in the real soup-o-sphere or they forget very easily.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Still don't trust this atmo. Still seems a bit "thick" no?

[StainX]

Oh man, career and spaceplanes are an almost impossible combination now, at least until you unlock the whiplash and RAPIER in the "lategame". Or am i just to stupid to handle the new engines and intakes?

Can't squeeze more out of the Panther than ~800m/s at about 20km up... :-/

[Warzouz]

Oh man, career and spaceplanes are an almost impossible combination now, at least until you unlock the whiplash and RAPIER in the "lategame". Or am i just to stupid to handle the new engines and intakes?

Can't squeeze more out of the Panther than ~800m/s at about 20km up... :-/

In career, we are suppose to "progress". If SSTO (place or rockets) are easy to get early on, why bothering with the other stuff ? I find that quite well balanced.

Further more, unlocking the whole tech tree is not "late-game", it's more mid-game. Except if things changed a lot in the tech tree between 1.0.4 and 1.0.5, you can fully unlock it only visiting Kerbin, Mun and Minmus, before the first Duna window which pops out around 30 kerbal days, if my memory doesn't fail me...

Finally, we all lack stuff in the early tech tree. I'm very fond of large docking rings and large probe core which are also "late tech tree".

[KerikBalm]

Still don't trust this atmo. Still seems a bit "thick" no?

Seems thinner than 1.02... when our jet engines produced twice as much thrust and got similar speeds...

Back in the days of the real soup o sphere, you could come in perpendicular to the surface of Kerbin at over 5 km/second, and slow down to less than 100 m/s before deploying parachutes...

You can't compare that to this.

As far as dV in orbit with a SSTO like Herbal is talking about.... I don't mind at all... I think Regex would agree (even more vehemently so). Single stage designs should be severely limited.

Staging is a fact of life for spacetravel... and this is a game about space travel.

Stagng doesn't mean discarding parts, but it does mean not taking everything with you.

That spaceplane I posted a picture of above gets 3 kerbals to the surface of moho and back, fully reusable.

SSTO gets it to LKO, the KR-2L and 2x nukes eject it from the kerbin system and power the PE to about Moho's orbit (then the KR-2L and 2x LV-N stage detach, and retroburn to stay in kerbin's SOI aerobrake to LKO, and be refueled - ready to eject another payload from Kerbin's SOI).

Then the remaining craft captures into Moho orbit, using the lander with provisions for 2x refills (3 total landings), then the lab and large liquid fuel tank are left in Moho orbit as a station- and the return craft with a hitchiker can and command pod returns to kerbin, where the pod detaches and renters.

The other part is ready to be loaded with a new pod and a new fuel tank (it would have enough dV to capture into moho and depart if it wasn't also carrying the lab and lander fuel)

Another unkerballed craft without the lab and hitchhiker can refuel the station (or you can use ISRU).

Being able to do everything in one stage seems to take the fun out of it for me...

Of course its a game, and other people focus on other aspects.

I tried to optimize my SSTOs for getting maximum payload(both in size and mass) to LKO, while others such as you tried to maximize SSTOs for dV in orbit.

Of course, if you have the patience for low TWR stuff, you can still perapsis kick and do a lot with ion engines...

[H2O.]

I am not a big SSTO builder/player but I really don't understand this strange obsesion. How a SSTO that have 6000 delta/V in LKO could possibly be a good thing for the stock game? It is already borderline exploit to be able to SSTO at all!

Now if you like SSTO and want to make sci-fi spacecrafts, no problem : use mods.

But the difficulty is what makes this game interesting. The fact that it is almost impossible to ascent from Eve, that Jool is deadly, etc. If it was possible to easily SSTO to Eeloo, why would I bother with any other design in the game?

My 2 cents of course but I think a lot of people feel the same way as I do.

edit: ninja'd by KerikBalm

Edited November 12, 2015 by H2O.

[Streetwind]

Oh man, career and spaceplanes are an almost impossible combination now, at least until you unlock the whiplash and RAPIER in the "lategame". Or am i just to stupid to handle the new engines and intakes?

Can't squeeze more out of the Panther than ~800m/s at about 20km up... :-/

How is that different from before though? You couldn't make a spaceplane without a Whiplash in 1.0.4 either. Or in 0.90. Or in .23...

Also, GoSlash did successfully make a Panther-based spaceplane on the first day of 1.0.5, and that was even with the bugged/missing body lift in build 1024 It rides to orbit on Terriers after the Panther caps out.

[jwbrase]

Still don't trust this atmo. Still seems a bit "thick" no?

Actually not. When I sent up my 1.0.4 workhorse spaceplane for the first time in 1.0.5, my first impression was that I was accelerating a bit slower on takeoff, but I wasn't sure. My first *clear* impression was that I was about 50 m/s faster than in 1.0.4 when I began leveling off after my post-takeoff climb, and I leveled off about 5000 meters higher than I'm used to. At that point the big issue became heating, not drag.

I amended my launch procedure to use a shallower initial climb to level off at about the same altitude, and higher airspeed, than before. I then continue in an acceleration phase at about 10-15km, as before, but instead of using speed as my criterion for beginning my climb to orbit, I now pitch up and light my nukes at about 70% temperature for my critical part (as measured in Kerbal Engineer). The pitchup is shallower than I used to do, but I end up going faster from 26km up, and for my spaceplane, which is about 25 tons light load, 30 tons heavy, I end up with in the range of 100 fuel or so more than I used to.

[Pthigrivi]

We're not talking about payload fraction, we're talking about dV. It’s not like we don’t know how to build a ship that can get to orbit. The question is how far can you go after that? The answer for all-RAPIER designs is not very far. When you are talking about a ship with 30 tons of fuel, here is no way you are going to overcome that 315 ISP by not lugging a 3 ton nuke into orbit.

Sorry man i didn't mean to condescend. This is probably a playstyle thing, but I tend not to take spaceplanes much father than LKO. It seems crazy to lug anything that's designed for the atmosphere to Minmus and back, so I've tended to rendezvous with more efficient tugs and busses just above Kerbin. It may be that more ambitious SSTM's and SSTL's are much harder now. I could still see a combination of rapiers and an LV-N working well, using the rapiers to get up to 50k or so and then switching over to save on fuel after that. I dont know if this has changed but in the 1.0.4 rapiers out-performed turbos in air-breathing mode higher up.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[StainX]

The problem is that the Panther replaced the Whiplash in the techtree... the Whiplash got pushed back to where you need 500 science (also the expensive R&D Tier 3), R&D Tier 3 for me... is in my terms "lategame".

I also built a spaceplane with the Panther, but its not actually that useful (deltaV loss due to longer burntime on the liquid fuel engines), hard to transport small cargo to LKO. More realistic, less SPH fun, in my opinion.

[iospace]

The problem is that the Panther replaced the Whiplash in the techtree... the Whiplash got pushed back to where you need 500 science (also the expensive R&D Tier 3), R&D Tier 3 for me... is in my terms "lategame".

I also built a spaceplane with the Panther, but its not actually that useful (deltaV loss due to longer burntime on the liquid fuel engines), hard to transport small cargo to LKO. More realistic, less SPH fun, in my opinion.

Put the Panthers on wet mode in the SPH and forget about it until you're back in the atmosphere making your way home. The Isp is the same as the Whiplash. Got an sandbox SSTO into orbit with four Panthers and two LV-T30s (would also work in Science mode. Career mode is "Your results may vary"). Have yet to de-orbit it, so no word on how it performs in that case.

On that note, I'm still having !!!FUN!!! trying to figure out proper descents without blowing the nose off if it's not tipped by a shielded clamp-o-tron (one of my planes is like this). I am using FAR, so I didn't have the whole atmosphere change like most of you did, but it seems to want to pitch down suddenly from a high AoA (could possibly be due to loss of reaction wheel control due to loss of EC, will test more).

[herbal space program]

Sorry man i didn't mean to condescend. This is probably a playstyle thing, but I tend not to take spaceplanes much father than LKO. It seems crazy to lug anything that's designed for the atmosphere to Minmus and back, so I've tended to rendezvous with more efficient tugs and busses just above Kerbin. It may be that more ambitious SSTM's and SSTL's are much harder now. I could still see a combination of rapiers and an LV-N working well, using the rapiers to get up to 50k or so and then switching over to save on fuel after that. I dont know if this has changed but in the 1.0.4 rapiers out-performed turbos in air-breathing mode higher up.

Well I’m sorry to have gotten snippy about it. As a more or less dedicated SSTO builder, I’m just frustrated with the air changing every 5 minutes. I spent months working on a very specific problem – how to design the longest-range, useful (i.e. not purely ion-powered) crewed SSTO possible. Now, just as I was about to do this huge triumphant mission to visit Laythe, Duna, Minmus, and back to Kerbin on one tank of gas, Oops! fugeddaboudit! That ship won’t even make orbit anymore. Since the silent patch it’s not nearly as appallingly bad as it was initially, but still I’m looking at a good 0.8-1km/s haircut on how far I can go with an SSTO. Some may say such ranges are “not realisticâ€Â, but c’mon. The whole game is not realistic. If it were, it wouldn’t be any fun. For a very experienced player like me to be just able to wring that sort of performance out of an SSTO design, after months of tinkering and learning from others, was really quite gratifying. Now the possibilities are quite a bit more limited again, and “realism†notwithstanding, that is a drag for players like me, for whom these sorts of challenges are the only thing that still really holds any appeal. I dunno, maybe one of the threadmeisters who was proclaiming earlier how much better this air is for SSTO’s will come back and show us how to do it so that you can get the same or even better performance, but this time I rather doubt it. I don’t see how you overcome all that new air resistance at the top end. Anyway, I guess I’ll just have to set the whole SSTO thing aside until they finally make up their bleepin’ minds about the air. Maybe I’ll try the caveman challenge or something…

- - - Updated - - -

I am not a big SSTO builder/player but I really don't understand this strange obsesion. How a SSTO that have 6000 delta/V in LKO could possibly be a good thing for the stock game? It is already borderline exploit to be able to SSTO at all!

Now if you like SSTO and want to make sci-fi spacecrafts, no problem : use mods.

But the difficulty is what makes this game interesting. The fact that it is almost impossible to ascent from Eve, that Jool is deadly, etc. If it was possible to easily SSTO to Eeloo, why would I bother with any other design in the game?

edit: ninja'd by KerikBalm

Say what you will about realism, but there was nothing *easy* about making an SSTO that had 6km/s dV on orbit in 1.0.4. Throwing that word out there trivializes a lot of effort. That was the limit of what was achievable after several very experienced players put a fair bit of work into coming up with the best designs they could. And when you decide to spend that much effort on something like that, it’s kind of irritating when the goalposts get moved right before you can finish what you were trying to do with it. I think that’s understandable, regardless about what anybody else’s philosophy is about whether or not it should be possible to do certain things.

[GoSlash27]

The problem is that the Panther replaced the Whiplash in the techtree... the Whiplash got pushed back to where you need 500 science (also the expensive R&D Tier 3), R&D Tier 3 for me... is in my terms "lategame".

I also built a spaceplane with the Panther, but its not actually that useful (deltaV loss due to longer burntime on the liquid fuel engines), hard to transport small cargo to LKO. More realistic, less SPH fun, in my opinion.

StainX,

The Whiplash was always tech level 7. The Panther hasn't replaced the Whiplash by any stretch, it just allowed a viable spaceplane to happen 1 generation earlier.

Best,

-Slashy

[StainX]

StainX,

The Whiplash was always tech level 7. The Panther hasn't replaced the Whiplash by any stretch, it just allowed a viable spaceplane to happen 1 generation earlier.

Best,

-Slashy

I thought it was Tech 6 and got moved from "High Altitude Flight" to "Hypersonic Flight"? So Whiplash is now only available after upgrading to R&D Tier 3....

Panther is in Tech 5 "Supersonic Flight" and with that thing Spaceplanes are a pain to build. "Supersonic Flight" says it all....

Im just sayin that it may be not the best decision for career and the SPH, maybe a Tier 6 will come with 1.1? who knows...?

Meanwhile i mod it back to the Techlvl where it was

Edit: Sry, maybe it has always been in "Hypersonic Flight"... (too much mods installed xD )

Edited November 12, 2015 by StainX

[H2O.]

Say what you will about realism, but there was nothing *easy* about making an SSTO that had 6km/s dV on orbit in 1.0.4. Throwing that word out there trivializes a lot of effort. That was the limit of what was achievable after several very experienced players put a fair bit of work into coming up with the best designs they could. And when you decide to spend that much effort on something like that, it’s kind of irritating when the goalposts get moved right before you can finish what you were trying to do with it. I think that’s understandable, regardless about what anybody else’s philosophy is about whether or not it should be possible to do certain things.

I am not denying anything you are saying. I actually agree that making a 6000 SSTO was hard in 1.04. And I understand frustration as the rule of the game change. I have of course my opinions about what should be or should not be possible in the game but that is irrelevant.

What I was trying to say is that achieving a 6000 SSTO is a game breaker. It makes any other design choice a mistake. Which I think is the opposite of what the game is about at his very core: problem solving. If you agree on this, you see that a 6000 SSTO solve all the problems the game throw at you. So it is game over, end of the game. And a game like KSP should not have a end. Of course all of that is my opinion and once again I agree with everything you said: frustration, etc.

[iospace]

I thought it was Tech 6 and got moved from "High Altitude Flight" to "Hypersonic Flight"? So Whiplash is now only available after upgrading to R&D Tier 3....

Panther is in Tech 5 "Supersonic Flight" and with that thing Spaceplanes are a pain to build. "Supersonic Flight" says it all....

Im just sayin that it may be not the best decision for career and the SPH, maybe a Tier 6 will come with 1.1? who knows...?

Meanwhile i mod it back to the Techlvl where it was

Edit: Sry, maybe it has always been in "Hypersonic Flight"... (too much mods installed xD )

From what I can tell, if they change the tech tree, your prior saves will keep their unlocked parts in their prior tier. They moved the Big-S parts from Aerospace Tech to Experimental Aerodynamics, and on a pre-1.0.5 save, it's still in the old spot as well as the new.

[Streetwind]

I thought it was Tech 6 and got moved from "High Altitude Flight" to "Hypersonic Flight"? So Whiplash is now only available after upgrading to R&D Tier 3....

Panther is in Tech 5 "Supersonic Flight" and with that thing Spaceplanes are a pain to build. "Supersonic Flight" says it all....

Im just sayin that it may be not the best decision for career and the SPH, maybe a Tier 6 will come with 1.1? who knows...?

Meanwhile i mod it back to the Techlvl where it was

Edit: Sry, maybe it has always been in "Hypersonic Flight"... (too much mods installed xD )

Not quite, no... you're partly right and partly wrong

In 1.0.4, the Whiplash is in the tier 7 node "high altitude flight".

In 1.0.5, the Whiplash is in the tier 8 node "hypersonic flight", meaning yes, it was indeed moved up one tier.

But at the same time, you get the Panther in the tier 6 node "Supersonic Flight", which is one tier earlier and allows very basic spaceplanes, as GoSlash mentions.

[GoSlash27]

Streetwind,

According to my tech tree .cfg for 1.05, hypersonic flight is a tech level 7 node, which means that the Whiplash hasn't moved. Did that change with the silent update?

Best,

-Slashy