What do you spend more time on, airplanes or rockets?

[qromodynmc]

Im a plane nut when it comes to it, i built over hundred almost near 200 planes so far, half of it being imitation attempts other half is my crazy ideas. Though there's one thing i must admit, I enjoy when i create rocket and go to the mun or further. Then again im not very good at rocketry so, often i just go back to making planes.

 

[panzer1b]

I spend way way way more time on space stuff then planes, and the few planes i do make are either designed to go to another planet (namely robotics rotor based stuff for duna, eve, laythe), or are basically SSTOs and its sorta hard to say if thats more rocket or plane since it does both.  That and most of the tweaking i do in KSP tends to be armor design, since its insanely difficult to make a capital ship that doesnt instantly die to SRMs (ibeam+2-4 sepatron missile), and getting a combination of viable protection AND most of all making said ship not look like crap while keeping the part count under the 2FPS level is not easy at all.  Starfighters are easier, but even then i tend to care alot about how they look, and even if i dont really bother with armor layouts most of the time (if a starfighter can survive a 1.2m torp consistently then whats the point of capital ships?), it is still hard to balance payload, range, TWR, and make the whole thing look cool.

Thats one of my best capital ships atm, Dimension-IV class, took a while to get it to its current state which im very happy with (its a bit high on parts, but actually has a hangar thats not just for show (i can fit like 8 of my smallest starfighters in there)

Yeah, i really go nuts with interiors of many of my stations/ships, its not even that many parts, but adds alot of immersion and makes the game feel like its more then just launch a vessel and blow it up in orbit (or run out of fuel, crash by accident, screw up the orbits, ect that KSP is sorta known for).

That said, i do still mess with some airplanes (even if they do end up going into space eventually or get convented to starfighters), but it really doesnt take all that much engineering on my part to make a good SSTO, just add rapier+nuke (optionally turbojet if its something that has major trouble breaking mach1) in whatever minimum amount will get said thing into orbit, and make sure to use a large stack of fuel tanks to minimize drag, add wings at the end to make it actually fly, just enough to get airborne (dont want too much dry mass, use fuel containing wings if you want to be even more efficient).  Maybee its because i got into KSP making SSTOs is why its so simple for me to make them, and the only ones i genuinely struggle with are VTOL dropships (working on 1 now, gets into orbit, not enuff fuel to do squat with it though).  It is NOT easy to make a double MK-3 bay sized transport that can VTOL on duna or lower grav, flies on kerbin, and managed to get a 20t tank/mech to duna without refueling and still return itself to orbit for refueling from the fuel depo i keep in LDO.

Thats the most recent thing im working on, its supposed to be able to drag 20t to duna, be as efficient as possible (i abused offset tool to make a single stack appear as 2, and magic of cargo bay contents being dragless to allow stuff to be carried inside there (including some very complex tank/mech builds i have). 

[KerikBalm]

I spend most of my time on figuring out how to get things to and from orbit of various bodies, and the bodies I spend the most time on tend to have atmospheres, so I do planes a lot.

Rockets are simple matters of fuel fractions and TWR once in space. I'm excluding winged rockets from the rocket category, and placing them in the plane category, fyi

[Stamp20]

Rockets, because I can't figure out plane SSTOs and atmospheric planes aren't useful.

The only planes I build are space shuttle style spaceplanes.

[MashAndBangers]

I'm a rocket man burning out my fuse up there alone.

[Sidestrafe2462]

Ships are just planes that fly on the water, right?

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

On 1/8/2020 at 12:04 PM, Sidestrafe2462 said:

Ships are just planes that fly on the water, right?

Hmm

Interesting. Ekranoplans? True, yes?... I guess

[Zeiss Ikon]

Ekranoplans don't work correctly in either stock KSP or with FAR mod.  There's no ground effect.

I hear there's a mod that does provide ground effect, however, but the one WIG craft I've seen here on the boards was entirely capable of flying out of ground effect.  I might have to install that mod in my RO and see if I can design ekranoplans that actually require ground effect...

[Jeb-head-mug kerman]

On 12/8/2019 at 1:15 AM, Curveball Anders said:

I only do aero in X-Plane

You fly in X-Plane? I do to, in fact I got it for Christmas.

[Bubbadevlin]

I suppose i have put more time into planes than rockets.. but its a pretty close call
Alot of my game time is just static tests and mechanics stuff on the runway, so I wouldnt count that. 

I will say i spend nearly ALL my time in the SPH as opposed to the VAB. the SPH camera controls are just far far superior than the VAB for any sort of detailed or clipped together craft

[Curveball Anders]

On 1/14/2020 at 4:38 AM, Jeb-head-mug kerman said:

You fly in X-Plane? I do to, in fact I got it for Christmas.

I've had it (and updated) for over 15 years

[aagun123]

boats, boats

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by aagun123

[Pds314]

Aircraft both by amount per plane and by amount of planes. Rockets are a lot easier to make good than planes. Especially if you're using FAR and such.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Pds314

[Pipcard]

Definitely rockets.

[Warmachine]

If we normalize down to "time spent per craft," planes win far and away. As someone on another forum put it, "Rockets are for doing work. Planes are for tweaking."

If I want to flush a day down the drain, I load up a spaceplane. I build more rockets, but I spend more time on planes.

[TheFlyingKerman]

Both rockets and space planes are just vehicles to send stuff into LKO. It is the payload that I spend the most time on, both designing and flying.

[Nezclaw]

i said planes, but rockets is probably more accurate as they're less frustrating. i will make a working spaceplane one of these days, though. just you watch.

[Rocket Witch]

On 1/13/2020 at 3:14 PM, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

Hmm

Interesting. Ekranoplans? True, yes?... I guess

Aircraft are more similar to watercraft than ground effect vehicles are, I think it can be argued. GEVs are more like hovercraft, sort of like a "ground-plane" equivalent to the hovercraft being a "ground-helicopter" insofar as the entire vehicle has to travel to generate lift.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Rocket Witch