Tilting Ship?

[Oerlikon]

Is there a way to tilt my ship so the nose is pointed at a 45 degree when staged before lift off? I know how to rotate, but I want it to aim at a 45... The cruise missile mod looks like it does it. Thanks for your help.

Edited August 2, 2013 by Oerlikon

[Enigma179]

When you press shift and one of the WASD keys or E and Q to rotate the ship, it will rotate by 5 degrees instead of 90. So shift+D nine times and you'll be at 45 degrees.

[sojourner]

Just to clarify, do the above while in the VAB, then attach launch stabilizers before going to the pad.

[Oerlikon]

Thanks! My rocket is still a failure, but I'll keep working on it.

[Epic DaVinci]

My rocket is still a failure

No such thing as failure in KSP, Just Success sprinkled with Pain.

[KerbMav]

Thanks! My rocket is still a failure, but I'll keep working on it.

Why do you want to start at an angle?

Also although I do not know the size of your craft, but a big and heavy rocket would need enormous thrust to gain vertical velocity and not pitch down into the ground I think.

[capi3101]

Enigma179's method works; I did that very thing for the Kerbal Rocket Artillery challenge (the idea being, of course, that something on a ballistic trajectory travels the furthest when aimed at 45 degrees elevation). I could see where that would be useful for a challenge like that, or perhaps as a means of searching for anomalies on Kerbin's surface. If you're trying to get something into space, though, you want to cut through that first ten kilometers of troposphere before you do any turning and burning - fastest, most fuel efficient way to do that is straight up to 10k, then turn.

[Anton P. Nym]

I used Enigma's technique to RATO (rocket-assisted take-off) some early spaceplane designs to jump start them back when I couldn't figure out how to get them off the runway *cough* so it does come in handy. (Real-world engineers used the same technique back in the '50s, before supersonic wind tunnels became available.)

-- Steve

[arq]

45deg is optimal for a ballistic trajectory in the absence of drag, but with drag (especially altitude-dependent drag) in the equation, the optimum moves slightly. I would expect slightly more than 45deg to be more efficient, as then you can spend more time in thinner atmo.