How cheap are low-tech(panther) spaceplanes?

[Reusables]

Hi,

I recently started hard career with every parts reused except for heatshields, separators and fairing.

I want to do it as cheap as I can, so I want to know if Panther-based spaceplane is cheaper than reusable TSTO.

Basically these are what I want to know:

1. Cost per crew

2. Cost per ton of payload (does it beat 400/t easily?)

Edited April 6, 2017 by Reusables

[AeroGav]

Does the default "hard" mode actually reward re-use, or is it just more grind?

Most of the costs in career mode are for upgrading buildings, not spacecraft.   If you want to encourage re-use, go into Custom difficulty settings and reduce "funds reward" ie. the money you get from contracts - and also "funds penalties" which actually means building upgrade cost.    That way space vessel components are the major cost of your program and it is worth re-using stuff.

As regards to your question, surely fuel isn't a big cost.   If a vessel is able to SSTO the mission, then costs should be very low.   The hard bit is getting it to SSTO.    Panther engines hit max thrust at about 750 m/s and loose power rapidly when you exceed this, so the rocket stage needs 1400 dV to complete orbit.   On a RAPIER, with 1500 m/s+ air breathing, you only need half as much dV to reach orbital velocity.

So , Panther SSTO have much worse payload fraction than RAPIER.  Maybe 10-15% to low orbit    You need a big ship to launch a small probe, the question being can you make something large enough to do the job without lagging your computer out, exceeding the limits of the SPH or Runway, or sufferring the wet noodle effect.

Incidentally I did get into Panther NERV SSTO recently (all liquid fuel designs), worked out a lot better than i expected because the NERV is better able to cope with the high dV requirement to get to orbit. Yes that's not really low tech but a lot of people develop rocket techs first and have the NERV before getting any aviation parts.

Anyway,  Panther / Chemical  SSTO  in the mould of those mk3 RAPIER cargo planes could be problematic.   You won't have access to mk3 cargo bays yet so you'd be limited to small mk1 size probes that can fit in a mk2 cargo bay, but honestly if you manage to get a mk2 cargo bay to orbit at all it's going to be with some monstrosity.

Other approaches -

• Tail shedding.   Rather than use a cargo bay (drag),  the upper stage is the rear fuselage of the airplane, it separates from the rest via a decoupler or clamp o tron.   Rear fuselage would be a terrier, lander can and fuel tank.    Hang twin tailbooms off the wing trailing edge so the upper stage isn't burdened with the dry mass of your airplane's tail surface, and so that the airplane keeps it's tail fins when the upper stage comes off.
• Once Around Orbit - Rather than boost the spaceplane all the way to orbit, you can finish a little short of orbital velocity.  Keep nose 5 degrees above prograde for best glide performance on re-entry and you can stretch the hypersonic glide to get you all the way back to KSC again.
• Flyback Lobbing.      This is a form of two stage to orbit air launch.   The problem in the stock game, is that after separation, the lower stage gets deleted if it falls below 35km when out of physics range.  Also, once you separate and fly out of physics range of the airplane stage, you can't use "switch vessels" to control it again until you're above 70km.     I guess this would probably have two panthers and two terriers on underwing pods and one terrier on the rear fuselage as the "upper Stage".   If you can get the airplane into a zoom climb that peaks at 50km, the upper stage will have crazy TWR on a single terrier and will be able to get above 70km before the airplane falls below 35km.    

[Reusables]

17 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Does the default "hard" mode actually reward re-use, or is it just more grind?

It gets more challenging this way. For instance, in early game before getting spark and aerodynamics, the reusable system is hard to make and it's challenging to do so within 14t and 30 parts. Also the first orbiter should be SSTO because of the reason below.

It could be a bit more grindy on the early game, since it is needed to upgrade the tracking station for reusable TSTO. But it costs only 3~4 SSTO launches with tourists to earn the enough money for the tracking station in my case.

29 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Most of the costs in career mode are for upgrading buildings, not spacecraft.   If you want to encourage re-use, go into Custom difficulty settings and reduce "funds reward" ie. the money you get from contracts - and also "funds penalties" which actually means building upgrade cost.    That way space vessel components are the major cost of your program and it is worth re-using stuff.

Agreed, it's just my rule for this career. I think current building cost is fitting well. (Especially since I want to involve some serious amount of tourism)

37 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

So , Panther SSTO have much worse payload fraction than RAPIER.  Maybe 10-15% to low orbit    You need a big ship to launch a small probe, the question being can you make something large enough to do the job without lagging your computer out, exceeding the limits of the SPH or Runway, or sufferring the wet noodle effect.

I don't think it'll lag with 140 part limit. But wet noodle effect? That's great reason to aboid Panther SSTO.

37 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

honestly if you manage to get a mk2 cargo bay to orbit at all it's going to be with some monstrosity.

Oh well... Definitely not going for SSTO.

43 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Tail shedding.   Rather than use a cargo bay (drag),  the upper stage is the rear fuselage of the airplane, it separates from the rest via a decoupler or clamp o tron.   Rear fuselage would be a terrier, lander can and fuel tank.    Hang twin tailbooms off the wing trailing edge so the upper stage isn't burdened with the dry mass of your airplane's tail surface, and so that the airplane keeps it's tail fins when the upper stage comes off.

This will definitely be what I'm going for. Though SSTO will still be challenging with it, right?

43 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Once Around Orbit - Rather than boost the spaceplane all the way to orbit, you can finish a little short of orbital velocity.  Keep nose 5 degrees above prograde for best glide performance on re-entry and you can stretch the hypersonic glide to get you all the way back to KSC again.

Now this is a way! ..But it will spend much more time IRL, so I want to avoid this one.

20 minutes ago, AeroGav said:

Flyback Lobbing.      This is a form of two stage to orbit air launch.   The problem in the stock game, is that after separation, the lower stage gets deleted if it falls below 35km when out of physics range.

That's below 25km, I know this because I've played a lot with reusable TSTO lifters. I'd say this one looks promising!

 

Besides, how much cost did you spent with the Panther-Nuke SSTO? Did it haul some payload, or a crew? If it's not under 300/t or 250/crew, I'll be going for rockets till Whiplash.

[Blaarkies]

3 hours ago, Abastro said:

Besides, how much cost did you spent with the Panther-Nuke SSTO? Did it haul some payload, or a crew? If it's not under 300/t or 250/crew, I'll be going for rockets till Whiplash.

unlock the klaw, unlock the ISRU. Build a small mining outpost near KSC. Free fuel = free launches, trust me it really is that easy 

[Reusables]

12 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

unlock the klaw, unlock the ISRU. Build a small mining outpost near KSC. Free fuel = free launches, trust me it really is that easy 

Great!

...

..Sorry, but this one doesn't look low-tech.

[Aegolius13]

Agree with @AeroGav.  Any true single-stage spaceplane is going to be cheap if you can land back at KSC, so that theoretically you're only paying for fuel.  But trying to haul meaningful amounts of cargo in a Panther spaceplane is going to be a huge hassle. 

One other idea that might work is a SSTO (and back) rocket booster.   I.e., a rocket + big fuel tank + probe core + braking system lifts your payload to LKO, then deborits and lands safely.  I just started playing around with these myself, probably inspired by SpaceX. I was mostly working with Mammoths and Vectors, but I imagine a Skipper would work decently with a fairly small payload (6-ish tons maybe?).   They're certainly harder to land precisely than planes, so you might not get 100% recovery on the hardware, but even landing it close looks to be cheaper on net than a traditional disposable rocket.  

[Reusables]

36 minutes ago, Aegolius13 said:

Agree with @AeroGav.  Any true single-stage spaceplane is going to be cheap if you can land back at KSC, so that theoretically you're only paying for fuel.  But trying to haul meaningful amounts of cargo in a Panther spaceplane is going to be a huge hassle. 

One other idea that might work is a SSTO (and back) rocket booster.   I.e., a rocket + big fuel tank + probe core + braking system lifts your payload to LKO, then deborits and lands safely.  I just started playing around with these myself, probably inspired by SpaceX. I was mostly working with Mammoths and Vectors, but I imagine a Skipper would work decently with a fairly small payload (6-ish tons maybe?).   They're certainly harder to land precisely than planes, so you might not get 100% recovery on the hardware, but even landing it close looks to be cheaper on net than a traditional disposable rocket.  

Right! 

...

..Sorry, but spaceplane is not always SSTO, and vice versa.

P.S. I played with reusable TSTO rocket concept, which was promising. If you made a good lifter and made proper instructions, it's trivial and rewarding to fly.

[Wanderfound]

6 hours ago, Abastro said:

Hi,

I recently started hard career with every parts reused except for heatshields, separators and fairing.

I want to do it as cheap as I can, so I want to know if Panther-based spaceplane is cheaper than reusable TSTO.

Basically these are what I want to know:

1. Cost per crew

2. Cost per ton of payload (does it beat 400/t easily?)

Demonstration:

That's an old FAR design, but it should be possible to make something similar work in stock.

They're never going to be as efficient or sleek as a Whiplash or RAPIER ship, but they can be made usable. I'll see if I can throw together a Mk2 demonstrator this evening.

[AeroGav]

Looking through my KerbalX collection,  here's a couple of examples -

Panther/Terrier SSTO.

41Tons, 68 Parts, Cost 33,788

Small mk2 cargo bay. Admittedly, it got to 150km with quite a bit of spare fuel when empty. 

 

Panther NERV  ssto with the same size cargo bay.  This could actually fly to Minmus

32.9 Tons, 50 Parts, Cost 51,934 (try not to crash it !)

 

Solo version - https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Auto-Ray

 

If you're not trying to lug cargo internally,   towing it behind the plane is much easier if you streamline it and put wings on .   For my fully reusable  career game,  I was stuck with this lifter for most of the game.     Here it is putting a science lab in orbit - 

 

It has two panthers and two terriers on the launcher bird, which are clipped inside each other .  The payload has its own terrier and a little bit of fuel.  This was probably the heaviest thing it put in space but was able to make stable orbit before separating the lab, which was then able to dock with the station due to having its own engine , probe core and reaction wheel. 39 Tons and 101 parts, but that includes the payload.

 

 

 

I used the above launcher to place a re-usable Kerbin SOI vehicle in orbit.     Crew pod, terrier, some fuel and a docking port.  Flew missions to Mun, Minmus, dock with another airplane, exchange Kerbals, transfer science, refuel and re-use.

 

 

[AeroGav]

,

Quote

Once Around Orbit 

is is a way! ..But it will spend much more time IRL, so I want to avoid this one.

 

 

Actually the hypersonic glide is only about a minute or two longer than a normal re-entry.  The margin between this , a full orbit, and a landing in a field on the other side of the world with zip all recovery value is pretty small.    It's something I achieved accidentally when overloading my SSTO, the payload had its own propulsion and was able to circularize.  If the airplane drops out of hypersonic far short of KSC the jet powered flight back , even if you have the fuel for it, can take a very long time.

Re: Suborbital airlaunch/lobbing - I don't have much experience of this in the current version of KSP, haven't done it in about a year.   At the moment i am playing  a career game with FAR, realfuels, Advanced Jet Engines and have built such a vehicle.  I should upload the video footage some time.      With Advanced Jet Engines, TWR is lower and there is no crazy ramjet effect.   Takeoff power at zero altitude and speed is all you ever get,  it's downhill from there.   Mach 1.7 is as fast as a spaceplane can get in level flight.   On the other hand, thanks to Realfuels, the launcher plane's rocket engines can be hydrolox, which gives a nice ISP.    FAR also gives more lift at supersonic speed,  so i am able to get into a climb that peaks at 50km/mach 5 on separation more easily, then make the turn back to KSC more easily than i would be able to in stock.   OTOH, there is more drag in the upper atmosphere so SSTO is harder.  The upper stage needs to use less efficient hypergolics so it doesn't boil off,  and has a limited number of engine ignitions.   Fun times.

[Blaarkies]

2 hours ago, Abastro said:

Great!

...

..Sorry, but this one doesn't look low-tech.

Hehe yeah you are right. All jokes aside, here is my hopeful useful opinion:

How do you measure cost? In funds right?...I measure "cost" in the amount of progress I can make per 2hours of real life time. We have to consider effort, warp time periods, design time, etc... In the end, maybe you can do a lot more launches(with less efficient rockets) which each does a tiny contract. This may lead to more funds and reputation in a 2hour real life time period.

You mentioned playing Hard. If that's the default Hard(60% ?) then i can vouch that you don't need to absolutely use spaceplanes. But if you like spaceplanes, then keep doing that...if we don't play the game for fun, then why are we even playing it? 

On low tech solutions, I found that a Twin-Boar rocket SSTO worked great for me, since i could cheaply have good RCS control with it and re-entry/landing was pretty quick too. My savings on that vs disposable rockets were marginal though, to the point where I could maybe do half-a-contract in the time it takes to deorbit/land the thing. At least it sped up the design process significantly, i just started designing a satellite to fit/overlap approximately in a 18t fueltank then clipped the booster on it...didn't even remove fuel

[Razorforce7]

I did something for similar career rules in a savegame of mine not to long ago.
I made several Wheesley and Panther designs both TSTO and SSTO.
One had a center space to lift 2.5m parts. But that one is lost I'm afraid.
The 2 I could find are within the exact weight limit of the level 2 VAB. I purposely scaled it up to nearly 140tons.
They're both exactly identical other then one has Wheesleys at its mount and the other Panthers.
The Wheesleys make it a TSTO allowing about 8 Ton to LKO. Positive about that is you need only 90 science nodes and upgraded the VAB and SPH once. The 2nd stage can get to orbit before the 1st stage falls through the deletion range as I call it. The 1st stage can then glide 200+ km back to the ksc on remaining fuel. It somewhat like Flyback Lobbing as Aerogav calls it but here you actually turn around.

The Panther design could lift upwards of 20 Ton to LKO. Which allows me to make a terrier design with five crew including all science experiments and I could go all the way to Duna and back if I like.
I can't remember the cost figures, but it whas very low. Not lowering your mission funding under such reusability rules kind of defeats the purpose of doing it. Otherwise you just end up with a lot of money.

[Reusables]

7 hours ago, Wanderfound said:

Demonstration:

That's an old FAR design, but it should be possible to make something similar work in stock.

They're never going to be as efficient or sleek as a Whiplash or RAPIER ship, but they can be made usable. I'll see if I can throw together a Mk2 demonstrator this evening.

This looks great!

..Though, my calculation gives 425 per crew. This figure is worse than my TSTO crew lifter, which can do 250 per crew.

IDK how FAR affects here, but I don't think it doubles the cost.

7 hours ago, AeroGav said:

Looking through my KerbalX collection,  here's a couple of examples -

Panther/Terrier SSTO.

41Tons, 68 Parts, Cost 33,788

Small mk2 cargo bay. Admittedly, it got to 150km with quite a bit of spare fuel when empty. 

 

Panther NERV  ssto with the same size cargo bay.  This could actually fly to Minmus32.9 Tons, 50 Parts, Cost 51,934 (try not to crash it !)

 

Solo version - https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Auto-Ray

 

If you're not trying to lug cargo internally,   towing it behind the plane is much easier if you streamline it and put wings on .   For my fully reusable  career game,  I was stuck with this lifter for most of the game.     Here it is putting a science lab in orbit - 

 

It has two panthers and two terriers on the launcher bird, which are clipped inside each other .  The payload has its own terrier and a little bit of fuel.  This was probably the heaviest thing it put in space but was able to make stable orbit before separating the lab, which was then able to dock with the station due to having its own engine , probe core and reaction wheel. 39 Tons and 101 parts, but that includes the payload.

 

 

I used the above launcher to place a re-usable Kerbin SOI vehicle in orbit.     Crew pod, terrier, some fuel and a docking port.  Flew missions to Mun, Minmus, dock with another airplane, exchange Kerbals, transfer science, refuel and re-use.

 

 

I wanted actual figure with payload mass and fuel cost.. Though I could calculate it with the resource tab.

If the first one can lift 5~6t of payload(considering crew), its cost is under 350/t. Though it will be challenging to put some useful payload in the small space.

The second one with Nerv costs 1663.2. As it can haul 1 additional crew, it only has to lift 4t for 350/t. This is a bit easier, till challenging.

Towing payload should be easier and cheaper, but I think it gives certain restriction on payload. Not so reliable lifter, which is what I wanted.

I'd better wait till Whiplash comes out. (which costs 550 sci points)

6 hours ago, AeroGav said:

Actually the hypersonic glide is only about a minute or two longer than a normal re-entry.  The margin between this , a full orbit, and a landing in a field on the other side of the world with zip all recovery value is pretty small.    It's something I achieved accidentally when overloading my SSTO, the payload had its own propulsion and was able to circularize.  If the airplane drops out of hypersonic far short of KSC the jet powered flight back , even if you have the fuel for it, can take a very long time.

Re: Suborbital airlaunch/lobbing - I don't have much experience of this in the current version of KSP, haven't done it in about a year.   At the moment i am playing  a career game with FAR, realfuels, Advanced Jet Engines and have built such a vehicle.  I should upload the video footage some time.      With Advanced Jet Engines, TWR is lower and there is no crazy ramjet effect.   Takeoff power at zero altitude and speed is all you ever get,  it's downhill from there.   Mach 1.7 is as fast as a spaceplane can get in level flight.   On the other hand, thanks to Realfuels, the launcher plane's rocket engines can be hydrolox, which gives a nice ISP.    FAR also gives more lift at supersonic speed,  so i am able to get into a climb that peaks at 50km/mach 5 on separation more easily, then make the turn back to KSC more easily than i would be able to in stock.   OTOH, there is more drag in the upper atmosphere so SSTO is harder.  The upper stage needs to use less efficient hypergolics so it doesn't boil off,  and has a limited number of engine ignitions.   Fun times.

Got it. I forgot that it takes nearly an entire orbit for climbing & reentry. Now I think I shouldn't bother with spaceplanes, especially with tech limit.

6 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

Hehe yeah you are right. All jokes aside, here is my hopeful useful opinion:

How do you measure cost? In funds right?...I measure "cost" in the amount of progress I can make per 2hours of real life time. We have to consider effort, warp time periods, design time, etc... In the end, maybe you can do a lot more launches(with less efficient rockets) which each does a tiny contract. This may lead to more funds and reputation in a 2hour real life time period.

You mentioned playing Hard. If that's the default Hard(60% ?) then i can vouch that you don't need to absolutely use spaceplanes. But if you like spaceplanes, then keep doing that...if we don't play the game for fun, then why are we even playing it? 

On low tech solutions, I found that a Twin-Boar rocket SSTO worked great for me, since i could cheaply have good RCS control with it and re-entry/landing was pretty quick too. My savings on that vs disposable rockets were marginal though, to the point where I could maybe do half-a-contract in the time it takes to deorbit/land the thing. At least it sped up the design process significantly, i just started designing a satellite to fit/overlap approximately in a 18t fueltank then clipped the booster on it...didn't even remove fuel

Yeah, Twin-Boar SSTO is one of the best!   Why did I bother spaceplanes?

5 hours ago, Razorforce7 said:

I did something for similar career rules in a savegame of mine not to long ago.
I made several Wheesley and Panther designs both TSTO and SSTO.
One had a center space to lift 2.5m parts. But that one is lost I'm afraid.
The 2 I could find are within the exact weight limit of the level 2 VAB. I purposely scaled it up to nearly 140tons.
They're both exactly identical other then one has Wheesleys at its mount and the other Panthers.
The Wheesleys make it a TSTO allowing about 8 Ton to LKO. Positive about that is you need only 90 science nodes and upgraded the VAB and SPH once. The 2nd stage can get to orbit before the 1st stage falls through the deletion range as I call it. The 1st stage can then glide 200+ km back to the ksc on remaining fuel. It somewhat like Flyback Lobbing as Aerogav calls it but here you actually turn around.

The Panther design could lift upwards of 20 Ton to LKO. Which allows me to make a terrier design with five crew including all science experiments and I could go all the way to Duna and back if I like.
I can't remember the cost figures, but it whas very low. Not lowering your mission funding under such reusability rules kind of defeats the purpose of doing it. Otherwise you just end up with a lot of money.

So how much does it cost? (Vertical-launched) Rocket with heavy cargo tends to be relatively cheap. With Twin-Boar&Poodle, it's easy to lift 20t to LKO in 7000.

 

Now I got curious: Whiplash SSTOs are considerably cheaper, right?

[AeroGav]

By turning to rocket ssto i think you're already realising that unless you tweak custom difficulty options, your biggest expense is upgrading the buildings not launch vehicles.  So you want rocket SSTO to save time.   After that the next step is to go with disposable rockets, because you can make more profit per minute of play time on an expendable launcher that can lift far more.    After that, you will realise you can grind the cost of a tier 3 science building by not accepting any contract other than the satellite launch one, since that means not having to fly any re-entries or landings nor does it involve docking !

As for my Panther mk2's, both reached orbit with about 1200 units of fuel, which is about 6 tons.  So in theory that's their payload capacity to LKO.   In practice, i doubt you'd get that much in the small bay.  At most (very tight squeeze),  a lander can, terrier, and ft400 tank.  Maybe you could squeeze some oscar B's down the side but you also need room for solar panels etc.  So realistically 3-3.5 tons.

In terms of the Panther NERV ships, the best payload would in fact be a mk1 bucket and spade.   The one with the cargo bay could also carry a science jr and some goo,  fly them to minmus, drive over the surface.   There is almost no friction, so you'd hit most of the biomes in one mission.    This would unlock enough science to have RAPIERs and WHIPLASHEs on your next SSTO, unfortunately you'll still need to grind the cash to upgrade R&D before you can actually spend that science.

You  can download any of those pictured ships from my KerbalX page - just follow the link in my forum signature.

[AeroGav]

14 hours ago, Wanderfound said:

That's an old FAR design, but it should be possible to make something similar work in stock.

They're never going to be as efficient or sleek as a Whiplash or RAPIER ship, but they can be made usable. I'll see if I can throw together a Mk2 demonstrator this evening.

I've got a career game with Advanced Jet engine , FAR and Realfuels.      

I think I have different aims from the OP.   He is building SSTO to so contracts more cheaply for hard career mode, i am trying to explore the solar system with spaceplanes at the lowest possible tech level.    Advanced Jet engine gets rid of the crazy ramjet effect that makes Kerbal Jet engines so OP - static thrust is  all you get,  going faster mostly just causes them to get weaker and lose ISP.    OTOH, it's nice being able to put cryogenic propellants in (blue exhaust plume) giving over 400 ISP for hte launch process.    Later burns have to be done with hypergolics via the RCS thrusters due to boiloff.

Here is a video of my FAR TSTO.    This mission put our first Kerbal in the SOI of another celestial body (Munar flyby).  Didn't realise Bandicam would also record the music i was listening to  while flying the mission,  but it kind of fits TBH.

 

[Reactordrone]

18 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

unlock the klaw, unlock the ISRU. Build a small mining outpost near KSC. Free fuel = free launches, trust me it really is that easy 

In hard mode you won't be able to transfer fuel using the klaw because it's not cross feed capable.

[Reusables]

8 hours ago, AeroGav said:

By turning to rocket ssto i think you're already realising that unless you tweak custom difficulty options, your biggest expense is upgrading the buildings not launch vehicles.  So you want rocket SSTO to save time.   After that the next step is to go with disposable rockets, because you can make more profit per minute of play time on an expendable launcher that can lift far more.    After that, you will realise you can grind the cost of a tier 3 science building by not accepting any contract other than the satellite launch one, since that means not having to fly any re-entries or landings nor does it involve docking !

Right, except that expendable lifter wouldn't lift much more. It's difference of 16t and 18t in my experience. (I'm using reusable TSTO lifters)

My playstyle is focused on stationkeeping and space tourism, this is why I want cheap lifters. To construct the infrastructure in reasonable price.

9 hours ago, AeroGav said:

As for my Panther mk2's, both reached orbit with about 1200 units of fuel, which is about 6 tons.  So in theory that's their payload capacity to LKO.   In practice, i doubt you'd get that much in the small bay.  At most (very tight squeeze),  a lander can, terrier, and ft400 tank.  Maybe you could squeeze some oscar B's down the side but you also need room for solar panels etc.  So realistically 3-3.5 tons.

So even in theory, each need 2715 and 2671 for an additional crew and 6.2t of payload. So over 390/t per payload. I won't make panther-based spaceplanes, then.

9 hours ago, AeroGav said:

In terms of the Panther NERV ships, the best payload would in fact be a mk1 bucket and spade.   The one with the cargo bay could also carry a science jr and some goo,  fly them to minmus, drive over the surface.   There is almost no friction, so you'd hit most of the biomes in one mission.    This would unlock enough science to have RAPIERs and WHIPLASHEs on your next SSTO, unfortunately you'll still need to grind the cash to upgrade R&D before you can actually spend that science.

I forgot that they could work as a rover. That's great point!

9 hours ago, AeroGav said:

You can download any of those pictured ships from my KerbalX page - just follow the link in my forum signature.

Thanks! I'll try them.

[Benjamin Kerman]

I feel like I should add a link to the cheapest to orbit challenge  

Another thing to check out is Mark Thrimm on YouTube. He is currently doing an SSTO space program, and has some interesting designs.

[OHara]

On 4/5/2017 at 4:24 PM, Abastro said:

Panther-based spaceplane [...]

1. Cost per crew

2. Cost per ton of payload (does it beat 400/t easily?)

1. 260per crew, in a plane with an early-tech docking port

2. about 325 425/t, replacing the crew cabin and docking port a long mk2 cargo by, if you can fit a useful 5t  4 tonnes in there, but it's not much fun to fly.

Edited April 7, 2017 by OHara
actually tried it. LFO to accelerate from 800m/s to orbit costs a lot

[Reusables]

47 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

I feel like I should add a link to the cheapest to orbit challenge  

Another thing to check out is Mark Thrimm on YouTube. He is currently doing an SSTO space program, and has some interesting designs.

Well, I'm running relevant one: 

I don't think Mark Thrimm's SSTOs are efficient, it has many drag issues such as naked nodes.

23 minutes ago, OHara said:

1. 260per crew, in a plane with an early-tech docking port

2. about 325/t, replacing the crew cabin and docking port a long mk2 cargo by, if you can fit a useful 5t in there, but it's not much fun to fly.

Thanks for actually giving me the figures! 

1. So it's just a bit more expensive than my crew lifter (250/t)

2. That's so cheap! Though, I wanted figure under 300/t, as it tends to take time.

 

+ I wanted to use SSTOs for satellite deployment, which is often far from 'dense'. So it's not good for sats.

  Besides, my aim was on minimizing both game/IRL time spent. This is why reusable TSTO lifters was good compromise for me.

[OHara]

23 minutes ago, Abastro said:

2. That's so cheap! 

Sadly, no.
I think I was correcting myself in an edit (more like 425/t) while you were typing.  Keep using rockets to move cargo until you have better than panthers.

Edited April 7, 2017 by OHara

[Blaarkies]

9 hours ago, Reactordrone said:

In hard mode you won't be able to transfer fuel using the klaw because it's not cross feed capable.

I cannot confirm or deny that...jk, i believe you.
What are the limits of fuel transfer with those 1.2 settings? I remember Jr Docking port saying it cannot transfer kerbals, yet it does. Now i am wondering how constraining the fuel flow rules actually are.

But before fuel transfer is even an option, we need to upgrade the R&D building, right?

[Reactordrone]

10 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

I cannot confirm or deny that...jk, i believe you.
What are the limits of fuel transfer with those 1.2 settings? I remember Jr Docking port saying it cannot transfer kerbals, yet it does. Now i am wondering how constraining the fuel flow rules actually are.

But before fuel transfer is even an option, we need to upgrade the R&D building, right?

The default set up of hard mode has fuel transfer following cross feed rules so you can't transfer across heat shields, klaws and anything else that has "no crossfeed' in the part description.

[Blaarkies]

9 hours ago, Reactordrone said:

The default set up of hard mode has fuel transfer following cross feed rules so you can't transfer across heat shields, klaws and anything else that has "no crossfeed' in the part description.

Tested and true, not gonna get away with a claw for transferring fuel. Looking at the settings, this feature actually starts at "Moderate" difficulty...but who plays ksp just moderately? 

[Wanderfound]

Demonstrating possibilities:

 

Panthers are much better suited to this sort of thing than trying to lift cargo, though.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Wanderfound