Hello and Bonjour !

[Kerbolitto]

Good day here !

I'm just new to this forum but I got a bit over 1000h played on KSP since 5/6 months.

 

This game is to me a real joy since I used to spend HOURS playing Legos many, many moons ago, and space exploration always had a place in my heart :p 

 

I currently got 1 career going on, with a missions around almost every celestial bodies, and I'm starting a new sandbox focusing on improving my best SSTO's  designs from the career mode.

My goal here is to bring large payload to Duna & Laythe, and everything in between using horizontal SSTO's only,  as I already experienced a lot with vertical, fully reusable heavy lifters.

 

Thanks for reading me :D

 

[Geonovast]

Welcome!  Seems you've got pretty much everything down.   Heavy cargo SSTO planes are something I doubt I'll ever grasp.  The people that build SSTOs to Jool are magicians to me.

 

[Kerbinchaser]

Welcome to the forums! As @Geonovast said, it seems like you're mastered KSP. 

 

I have 1000h in the game and I still don't know how to rendezvous.  

If you have any questions about KSP or the forums don't hesitate to ask.

 

Enjoy your time here!  

 

 

[Kerbolitto]

Well thank you

 

I spent a LOOOOOOT of time in the kerbin system with dozens of orbital stations and land bases, docking tons of stuff around, but I never went past Duna or tried an Eve return despite having design some multi-staging heavy lifters so .. I should give it a try one day, once I'm away from the SPH xD

 

The only thing which really troubles me -a lot- is gravity assist, I don't use mods and the stock game does not help at all in this regard ...

 

This thing is my first long range shuttle, with +/- 7000 dV on nukes, seeing it's now 2 months old I could improve it a lot ..  :

 

Now I'm more into this kind of stuff, this -should- get a fraction of a bit more than 10% payload and -should- be Duna capable

Edited May 23, 2018 by Vanamonde
Mind the language, please.

[Ultimate Steve]

9 hours ago, Kerbolitto said:

 

The only thing which really troubles me -a lot- is gravity assist, I don't use mods and the stock game does not help at all in this regard ...

After an uncountable number of hours, I've never successfully done an interplanetary gravity assist. I can gravity-capture at Jool, but that's about it... After 100,000+ words of mission report, building a Mun base using just SRB's, ascending from Eve using just SRB's, designing a propeller plane with stock bearings, 90% designing a Jool Ascent Vehicle, visiting every planet and moon with Kerbals, launching 916 Kerbals to Minmus in a single launch, building massive space stations, and the multitude of things I've forgotten I've done... still can't do interplanetary gravity assists. So, you're not alone!

EDIT: Very nice cargo SSTO. Cargo SSTO's are definitely not my forte, it takes a lot of tweaking to get them good, great job!

Edited May 23, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[Kerbolitto]

Lol nice ! SRB's ships seems to be really hard to master, and are utterly useless, so it's fair to say that we should all spend dozens of hours trying to fly one xD

 

Looks like it's far more easier with some addons, but I feel like it's too soon for me to use them. The stock game is quite massive and there's so much things that you need to get a good grasp on before rivalizing with Brad Whistance or Stratzenblitz :p (if you read me I love you)

 

Thank you for this ship, it's currently under testing but will most certainly be a succesfull design !

 

This one (Test 118-4) is a 70t. to LKO with Rapiers only, weighting 203t. fully loaded

 

The Tally-Ho mk4 is far more efficient with 45% payload (23t.) but I cheated because it uses the new Skiff engine which is so damn powerfull for its weight. <3

This thing is a real bullet with a sleek fairing

 

Finally this one (Test 117-4-3) is a 14t. to LKO for a total mass of 50t., handles like a dream with or without payload !

 

 

[Kerbolitto]

Hello there,

 

I did not play much those days but I've just landed my first cargo SSTO on Duna after something like 30-40 attempts

This contraption is the brand new Cheval 5 Duna mk2, which carry a payload of 20t. in a MK3 cargobay.

Hopefully it may return to Kerbin -who knows-

 

Some numbers :

210t. on the runway, 137t. landed at Duna (with 20t. payload), I got 6825Lf + 413Ox left to get back in orbit, and to Kerbin which should be enough.

It has 8 Nukes, 8 Rapiers + 1 Whiplash. Most of the SSTO's I saw have something like 4-6 Nukes and more Rapiers, I planned to use just a tiny burst with the rocket engines on Duna to pitch the craft and glide with the Nukes.. This is a scale-up version of my first ssto and it worked nicely.

What do you guys think ? Am I using too many Nervs ?

Next SSTO has a 30t. payload but more importantly, a twin boom fuselage with 3.75m. fairing. Again, all scale-up accordingly to my first success.

[Kerbolitto]

This afternoon I finally landed my Cheval 7 on Duna which is for now my biggest success with SSTO's

It has 30-32t. payload capacity inside a 2.5m. fairing wheighting 3-4t.

 

 

As you may guess the design took me a lot of efforts, but it still need some ameliorations, namely the nuke pods and the fairing, which are quite fragile on rough landing.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Kerbolitto

[Vanamonde]

I am lucky if my SSTOs reach O, let alone anywhere else. Good job.  

[Kerbolitto]

Thanks a lot I'm quite proud of this line of spaceplanes !

 

My method was to build a very simple SSTO, adding lots and lots of fuel until it could barely take-off, and see where it can go. It had something like 5000dV from LKO.

Then I took note of every step and measured how much payload I could carry, this proved to be quite accurate because the Cheval7 mk2 is currently coming back to Kerbin with 300m/s left, after landing 32t. of dead weight on Duna.

[poliq]

Welcome