Uselessness of Most Stock Space Shuttles

[QvestionAnswerNeeded]

There I was, trying to launch an orbital refueling tanker (a Slim Shuttle with two Mk.1 rocket fuel tanks inside its cargo bay and a Klaw) to refuel my Mun rover transport. The launch went fine, the boosters detached without event, then the main booster detached, with me in orbit... I turned my shuttle engines on, and WHOOSH... The next second, I was flipping over and over and over with no RCS, whacking out my orbital trajectory. I went into a nosedive at a few thousand meters, somehow recovered, and then ditched at 250ms/s. I have no idea. Future reference: Make an SSTO with a big cargo bay.

[4x4cheesecake]

Are you referring to pre-build stock shuttles (is there more then one?) wich are shipped with the game itself or to shuttles build with stock parts only? If it is the latter case, there a several people here in the forum and even myself who will tell you that it is not true Otherwise, there would not be any sense in this challenge:

Indeed, it can be very tricky to build a shuttle and without any mods, you have to eyeball a lot of stuff like 'how the CoM will shift during flight and after decoupling the payload' or 'how to rotate the Vector engines so they will point to the CoM' or 'Do I need an OMS (orbital maneuvering system) and where to place it'...by the way, the latter one will help a lot to prevent your orbiter from spinning around in space

Edited July 26, 2018 by 4x4cheesecake

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Sounds like your shuttle has com/col issues.

Possibly due to fuel shifting.

Make sure you check your dry com vs. your wet com. Engines with lots of gimbal are always good on a shuttle as well.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Truth be told, space shuttles are less practical than SSTOs in terms of economy and ease-of-use in the stock game. A mod like stage-recovery that allows funds to be recovered from spent boosters and tanks can change this though. Also they are fun, hence why I've built a massive one capable of lifting 50 tons to orbit.

 

But it sounds like you're having more of a "the-default-craft-are-kind-of-bad" problem than anything inherent with space shuttles themselves.  

I highly recommend designing your own craft instead of using the stock rockets/shuttles. If you really need to look at something to get an idea of how to build a shuttle, try looking for one on KerbalX.com. In general the craft there are better than the ones you get with the game.

[Gargamel]

12 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

In general the craft there are better than the ones you get with the game.

The majority of those were built way back in the alpha/betas and have only received minor updates.  They're a good place to look at how to build something that does kinda work, but inspires you to do do better. 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

5 hours ago, Gargamel said:

The majority of those were built way back in the alpha/betas and have only received minor updates.  They're a good place to look at how to build something that does kinda work, but inspires you to do do better. 

True. I did test them back when they came out (been playing since 0.13), and I have noticed few of them received improvements. I do acknowledge that they're mostly there mostly as demonstrations to inspire you to build something better, but I still feel like some of them could be a little bit better. I shouldn't feel like some of them are trying to kill my kerbals.

To each his own as they say.  

Edited July 27, 2018 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Zhetaan]

@QvestionAnswerNeeded:

One thing to remember about the stock craft is that they all have problems.  Some are more subtle than others; for example, the stock Kerbal X isn't a bad craft per se, but it can definitely be better.  The same is true of the Aeris 4A:  I may be waxing nostalgic, but it was the basis for my first successful SSTO spaceplane.  On the other hand, the Rover + Skycrane has some serious deficiencies, and the Super Heavy Lander is a terrible waste of mass and engine power.  The stock craft are not intended to give you an easy way to reach orbit:  part of the point of this game is the building and design, so the stock craft serve better as a way to explore the issues you encounter in trying to refine your own designs.  I believe the quote is that the stock craft are 'almost good'--I have every reason to believe that the same philosophy was applied to the shuttle fleet.

[MR L A]

You might need to rephrase the title... for a start I thought you meant stock game shuttles, not the stock craft files.

I agree that stock craft file shuttles are fairly bad, but there are arguments for stock game shuttles - especially in a mid career mode game

[Cheif Operations Director]

Space shuttles drive me crazy but they are useful when you use KIS mod along with docking to space stations and bring large modules but that is it. The Saturn V is much more capable. 

[KerikBalm]

Without first stage recovery mods, space shuttles are quite useless.

The way part balances are now, you should just go for a full SSTO, and skip a staged shuttle

[MR L A]

On 7/31/2018 at 6:39 AM, KerikBalm said:

The way part balances are now, you should just go for a full SSTO, and skip a staged shuttle

Unless you're playing career mode or have a slow PC that can't handle a huge SSTO with a huge payload. 

Besides, if we all used that logic, no one would ever build traditional rockets.

Edited August 1, 2018 by MR L A

[KerikBalm]

6 hours ago, MR L A said:

Unless you're playing career mode or have a slow PC that can't handle a huge SSTO with a huge payload. 

Besides, if we all used that logic, no one would ever build traditional rockets.

Well, I don't think a shuttle really helps to reduce part count... so I think your first point doesn't stand.

Secondly, in game time is valuable, and traditional rockets are much faster in terms of getting to orbit than SSTOs. They also require no recovery (and if you're not good at landing them, or play hardcore with no quicksaves/quickloads - then SSTOs become quite a gamble). Also, they are simply easier to make and tailor to the size of the payload. These benefits don't really apply to shuttles (although real time to orbit is faster). I've tried to make a practical shuttle design for my 3x career, and they keep losing (in terms of payload fraction, cost, and ease of recovery if applicable) to all of the following:

disposable rockets

flyback boosters (space-X /falcon style)

SSTO airbreathing spaceplanes

[MR L A]

16 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Secondly, in game time is valuable

Is it??? Honestly, I don't think I've ever felt I need to get to orbit especially quickly. Obviously I have some designs that do so rapidly but... they don't really have any practical use other than role play.

[KerikBalm]

I mean to the user, if the user only has 45 minutes to play, something that takes 3 minutes to get to orbit has an advantage over something that takes 15.

It also makes it easier to time direct launches to orbital rendezvous