My SSTO. Aesthetically pleasing. Fuel efficient.

[xpiation]

Here are some screens of my SSTO. All stock, I use mechjeb for more HUD information which I use to manually pilot all of my vehicles. I keep all of my fuel usage displayed, for any skeptics.

1. The Grunt Mk.5 on the runway before take off (Yes Mk.5, this was my first SSTO which I spent alot of time testing and refining until I was 100% pleased with it).

2. Gaining some altitude, poor old Bill is under some G's and is staring at the sun.

3. Re-entry effects on accent.

4. A split-second before I turn off the jet engines and switch to my singular rocket engine that takes me to orbit, (2023.4m/s) I can take it higher, but the acceleration drops off and it just isn't worth the fuel usage.

5. A moment later as the rocket engine is ignited.

6. Brought up mechjeb orbit info to show the orbit altitudes. Plenty of fuel left.

7. Burning retro-grade.

8. Re-entry.

9. Lights on, ready for the landing. (Have to be careful, shes a bit heavy).

10. Bill safe and sound on the ground, planting a flag in front of the Grunt Mk.5

11. The other object in picture 6 was my other Grunt Mk.5 which was docked at my orbital station.

Hope you all enjoy the screenshots.

[joedemo42]

Wow! This looks amazing! Would you be so kind and post the craft file? (Preferably hosted on something like dropbox, since I somehow lack the permission to do

[IcarusBen]

Oh. My. Jeb.

[Sliinty]

*police sirens* do you know how many air intakes you're flying with sir?

[Giggleplex777]

*police sirens* do you know how many air intakes you're flying with sir?

He has 12.

[xpiation]

*police sirens* do you know how many air intakes you're flying with sir?

It needs that many intakes to get to the altitude, because the jet engines stall shortly after my air intake drops to 0.11. Using rocket engines for too long makes for a heavier and less efficient SSTO.

Also Joedemo42, I won't post the file, but feel free to take ideas from my design =)

[Lazurkri]

Could you arm it with anything, even a single missile and have it reach orbit or is it only able to lift just itself to orbit?

[xpiation]

I haven't thought of adding anything that doesn't serve a real purpose as of yet. It does have a reasonable about of fuel left after landing on Kerbal... 55.89 liquid fuel, so I guess so long as said missile didn't weigh too much.

It doesn't use up all of the one 150 unit straight liquid fuel tank that is on it before switching to the rocket engine, the reason for the imbalance is that the jet engines are used on the decent too. So if the missiles were used on the accent, or in space, also granted they didn't weigh a lot, I don't see how it could carry a few without any modifications. This was my first post, and I have only had the game for two weeks... I just wanted to show off something that I was proud of =)

[Sliinty]

it was a joke... using that many intakes is somewhat game-breaking, especially when they're all clipped into one another, some consider it cheaty.

[Flixxbeatz]

You're now considered as a KSP pro (by my definitions anyways). Well done

[Lazurkri]

Hmmn. Well, even if you couldn't carry actual missiles, could you carry fuel tanks to be used as "Bombs" or drop tanks or would that completely screw its aerodynamics and stuff?

[Wait- Was That Important?]

You're now considered as a KSP pro (by my definitions anyways). Well done

Pro? Making a SSTO makes you a "pro"? I would argue that there are other things which classify one as "pro".

Regardless, that's a pretty cool SSTO, but what did you mean by "she's a bit heavy"? It looks like a fairly lightweight plane to me.

[xpiation]

@Lazurkri - I'm sure that the design could be altered to include and carry improvised weapons that don't serve any true purpose, I haven't tried.

@Wait, Was That Important? I don't think I am pro, like I mentioned in the original post, this was my first SSTO and I have only had the game for a short while... On the runway, it gets to 120m/s before getting lift (as opposed to the 50m/s it had before the alterations began for space flight... It is light, all things considered, but I designed it to have slight natural downforce so that it is easier to control at high speeds. On re-entry this natural downforce means that pulling the nose up is a bit of a task, so throttling up to 2/3 is needed to pull the nose above the horizon, which makes it feel heavy.