What’s your favourite rocket type?

[Whackjob]

[blakemw]

I tend to favor Rocket SSTOs which cheat.

Basically a big LF/Ox engine with a pile of fuel on top, then some quick-burning SRBs (Hammers or Thumpers) to get it off the pad. The core makes it into orbit and can be recovered.

When you add small SRBs to a SSTO you get substantial increases in payload to orbit, for example a Twin-Boar can SSTO about 26t easily, with SRBs helping it off the pad it can do about 40t. The interesting thing is, that because SRBs are such a cheap way to reduce gravity losses, the cost per ton is about the same in both configurations, that is without the SRBs you have to burn a great deal of fuel getting moving with most that fuel being wasted fighting gravity, when you add SRBs, the SRBs are a bit more expensive than a recovered LF/Ox rocket, but because you can cheaply obtain a higher TWR much less fuel is being wasted fighting gravity.

[RealKerbal3x]

Space shuttles. Dangerous, incredibly hard to fly, little to no advantages over regular rockets and with the aerodynamics of a brick.

Awesome.

Edited May 7, 2018 by RealKerbal3x

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

Everyone seems to like rockets, like me. They are easy to fly, easy to build, and you don’t need to haul around extra useless weight like in SSTOs.

[katateochi]

I like SSTOs for crew and light to medium payloads.   50+ ton, or oddly shaped payloads then it's rockets.  But I've got 3-4 standard rocket LV's so it's just a case of pick the right one, attach, launch, job done. Where as SSTOs still really tax my noggin in the ol' design department, I'm still not that good at them, so the challenge is appealing.  I find SSTO space planes more fun  during reentry, and more useful; just a bit of pitch control and you can really adjust your landing site, and then landing is much more fun (where's returning command pods, stages, etc,  it's a lot of waiting, deploy chutes, more waiting....) and then there's the whole reusable aspect.

[ARS]

For me:

Rockets: I'm not really into rocket design. Mostly, whenever I used VAB, it's mainly to put things in orbit regardless of the design as long as it works. As such, I don't have any personal launch vehicles, since my rockets usually just a mishmash of fuel tanks and engines slapped together with generous amount of strap on booster for good measure to put things in orbit ASAP

Shuttles: not really into shuttles since it's rather difficult for me. No shuttle that I ever made is successful

SSTO: Very interested since I'm also interested in designing atmospheric aircraft as well as some cool looking design. I mainly focused on aesthetic of the craft while still retaining functionality

Random things: Interested, since any random things that I ever made is mostly utility in nature and a great change of pace from aeronautics/ rocketry design

[SiriusRocketry]

I mostly use actual rockets- my current save is a RP/Real Life based save, with three rocket families. The Vega series is my 1.25 m launcher family, from the 1.5t to LKO Vega I to the Munar-rated launcher Vega IV Heavy.

The Titus series are my main workhorses, with Titus I through V being launched five times an RL week on average.

The Sirius rockets are my best attempts at 3.75m, mega-payload rockets. My biggest launcher, the Sirius II Heavy, lifts just shy of 80 tons to LKO.

As well as the lifters, I have an LKO shuttle. (think Slim Shuttle stock craft, but with inline cockpit, LF/OX engines and docking/RCS.) I have several spacecraft, based on everything from Soyuz to Shenzhou to Orion. Orbital construction of a second reusable mothership for interplanetary travel is underway. 

Mostly, I use rockets.

[suicidejunkie]

On 6/18/2018 at 11:20 AM, Hummingbird Aerospace said:

Everyone seems to like rockets, like me. They are easy to fly, easy to build, and you don’t need to haul around extra useless weight like in SSTOs.

Your rockets probably have far too much useless extra weight themselves.

An SSTO needs only three parts; Capsule, Rockomax-64 tank, Skipper engine.

It is the safety features that drive up the cost and mass, like the parachutes, and the snack bins and the solar panels and even the frivolous stuff like the autopilot comprised of an angled launch clamp and three basic fins which make it gravity turn automagically.  (One press operation!  Space bar to space!  Three more clicks to circularize.)

You may be thinking "spaceplane", but that's completely independent from SSTO-ness.  A number of people make spaceplanes that do not SSTO.  Many also make non-spaceplanes that do SSTO.

Wings and wheels are for the truly decadent that want to SSTOAB (ToOrbit...AndBack) with an assurance of 100% recovery value.

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

2 hours ago, suicidejunkie said:

Your rockets probably have far too much useless extra weight themselves.

An SSTO needs only three parts; Capsule, Rockomax-64 tank, Skipper engine.

It is the safety features that drive up the cost and mass, like the parachutes, and the snack bins and the solar panels and even the frivolous stuff like the autopilot comprised of an angled launch clamp and three basic fins which make it gravity turn automagically.  (One press operation!  Space bar to space!  Three more clicks to circularize.)

You may be thinking "spaceplane", but that's completely independent from SSTO-ness.  A number of people make spaceplanes that do not SSTO.  Many also make non-spaceplanes that do SSTO.

Wings and wheels are for the truly decadent that want to SSTOAB (ToOrbit...AndBack) with an assurance of 100% recovery value.

You do have a valid point, but:

1: Safety features are crucial if you do not want to crash’ n’ burn

2: SSTO is a general term for a spaceplane that does not detach any stages. Sure, you can make vertically-launched SSTOs (SSTO rockets), but those are more rare.

3: With SSTOs you have to pull around all the extra useless crap like empty fuel tanks. It is just easier to jettison them.

[n.b.z.]

19 hours ago, Hummingbird Aerospace said:

2: SSTO is a general term for a spaceplane that does not detach any stages. Sure, you can make vertically-launched SSTOs (SSTO rockets), but those are more rare.

It's the other way around.

SSTO is the general term for any vehicle that gets to orbit using a single stage, be it a spaceplane or not.

The constant confusion around this is caused by conflating the term SSTO with "airplane".

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

I know that but generally when someone would think of an SSTO i think of spaceplanes.

Fine, I fudged up, I guess this is a battle I cannot win.

[Fraston]

5: suicide missions

[suicidejunkie]

On 6/20/2018 at 3:33 PM, Hummingbird Aerospace said:

I know that but generally when someone would think of an SSTO i think of spaceplanes.

Fine, I fudged up, I guess this is a battle I cannot win.

To be fair, it is a battle that can't really be won.  We can only hope to enlighten people faster than they die of old age.

The forum adding a tooltip to spell out the acronym when you mouse over it does help a fair bit.

[flantomas]

Rockets, but with spaceplane-shaped payload (without reentry capabilities).  Since I got a refueling station on Minmus, I just dump stuff that can get to minmus to refuel.

If anyone ever needs to return to Kerbin, I have a space station in KLO preapared to produce and launch small re-entry capable capsules. (for tourists mostly, and sometimes pilots needed for a new craft)

[JoeNapalm]

 

It's a toolbox.

 

-Jn-

[Athen]

If "ones that work" was an option I would..... not pick it because it's funnier to watch my rockets fail.

[justmeman117]

right now I'm trying to work on a career save filled with hyper specialized designs. So SSTOs designed to go to KEO only, where cargo and crew disembark to board interplanetary ships that only operate between planets, each of which have their own SSTO designs. The idea is to make a really efficient interplanetary transportation network that's fully reusable.

[NSEP]

Normal expendable rockets are sort of bland to me. Launching normal rockets all the time has sort of become a chore. SSTO's and Shuttles are alot harder to make, but that also means that you learn alot along the way.

[FinalFan]

On 7/28/2018 at 12:13 AM, justmeman117 said:

SSTOs designed to go to KEO only

KEO?

[DeltaDizzy]

Kerbin Equatorial Orbit(?)

[RealKerbal3x]

On 7/30/2018 at 3:59 PM, NSEP said:

Normal expendable rockets are sort of bland to me. Launching normal rockets all the time has sort of become a chore. SSTO's and Shuttles are alot harder to make, but that also means that you learn alot along the way.

TBH I prefer SSTOs and shuttles as they give more of a challenge.

(by the way, isn’t it ‘a lot’ rather than ‘alot’? Sorry, I always have to correct spelling )

[JERONIMO]

It’s KSP >:( of cause random staffs))))000)

 

[HansonKerman]

21 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

(by the way, isn’t it ‘a lot’ rather than ‘alot’? Sorry, I always have to correct spelling )

What? Me too!

[Epicdreamer]

That will typically be a 3 staged rocket. 2 Lfo boosters/stage 1 (and if needed a couple/few/lots of solid fuel boosters), a central core with heavy engine/stage 2 to get the payload to orbit and to circularise and a more efficient lfo engine with enough fuel/stage 3 to get the payload where I want it to be.

I tend to use asparagus staging a bit here and there, but I find its not very needed most of the time. I usually overengineer them a bit. And this typical setup is quite regularly mixed with a 4 lfo booster configurations (which I nearly allways link into asparagus staging).

Never got to build a SSTO. And possibly never will. It's not my play style.

[FinalFan]

3 hours ago, Epicdreamer said:

Never got to build a SSTO. And possibly never will. It's not my play style.

I like to use SSTOs for ferrying kerbals around.  I did it with rockets before I unlocked the nicer spaceplane stuff.  

But on the few occasions I do mess with spaceplanes I tend to get bitten hard by Obsessive Redesign Disorder.  Not that the design I settle on is necessarily some kind of masterpiece but it sure as hell has had a lot of previous versions.