How do Centers of Mass, Lift, and Thrust affect planes relative to eachother?

[Bluechance]

To be more specific, say my center of thrust is above or below my center of mass. How would this affect my craft? Say my center of lift is above but behind my center of mass? What changes would these bring about in the plane's maneuverability? I've been working on a relatively large cargo spaceplane for quite some time now, but I can't get it into orbit because when I activate my rocket thrusters high up, I can't bring the nose up long enough for significant change to come about. It just keeps forcing itself back down, but it doesn't go below the horizon on my navball. I can point it down to any degree, but not up.

[Gauss H2K]

Yeah that's the problem with SSTOs, you want the center of thrust exactly in line with the center of mass. If the CoT is below the CoM the vessel will pitch up in high atmo, conversely if the CoT is above the CoM the vessel will pitch down. You can build your vessel like an airplane, but airplanes are only built for atmosphere, so problems arise when you try to leave the atmosphere. Some solutions to try to combat this problem are below:

Let O represent the central fuselage of your space plane, here are three basic ways to attach wings to your craft;

-O- the common way, but sometimes this doesn't generate as much lift as the next two,

>O< the xwing design gives you more lift, but you run the risk of wing strikes on takeoff

<O> I prefer this method as you gain the advantages of both

Then there's the ultimate method where you combine the above 3 designs where Lift is necessary at all costs

These are some tips, but if you want help building large space planes the one to ask is pa1983